aister

i have the prologic bib and braces and the jacket with the fleece liner (which can be worn on its own) and find very breathable and warm, only used the fleece liner a couple of times when it was really cold and it was great. i will be getting the same again if anything happens to mine. its probably a bit over your budget but keep an eye on the bay, its where mine came from.

i have a mixture of sand and corn cob cleaning media, the sand adds a bit of weight to the bags and the media has a bit more give to it than sand

the same little sheep dog, teal, turned out to be a great gundog, never looked at sheep . she pointed rabbits brilliantly, she was very methodical working a park i never spoke to her i just let her get on with it and when she came on point she wouldnt move till the rabbit keeled over dead. when it came to fowling she would always find the birds on land but would refuse to touch them, but if i dropped anything in the water she always retrieved it, dropping it the second her feet touched the bottom. funny little dog but i very rarely lost a bird and she was great company.

my first right and left at geese. i was 16 and had been aware of a small #### of geese roosting in the voe just along the road. i waited for saturday night and got all my stuff on my back and headed off on my bike. on the way i was steering with one hand and i tried to change gear on the other side of the handle bars and lost it and face planted the road . when i got there with a fat lip and a bloody nose i picked my spot and sat in with my pet sheep dog as company and waited. just when i was about to leave after seeing nothing i heard a cackle and looked up just in time to see 5 greylags heading over 25 yards up, i just had time for a couple of snap shots quickly followed by splash splash, 2 geese down and i was over the moon. thinking i was going to have to wade in to the icy brine to collect them i was stunned to see my little sheep dog bounding in and retrieving one quickly followed by the other one, she had never retrived anything before other than sticks. i was so chuffed, i have a quite a few good memories but this one stands out by far.

i have a double nasty 2 for that i use for the feeding call and the quack and a haydels dr 85 for loud hail calls

practice, practice, practice

thanks for the compliment, the second last picture with max in it is the piece of cliff i look at a few hundred yards in front of our house. i try not to think about cost when i am shooting , and a body shot rabbit with a 223 or 22-250 is not really edible, infact the dog wont even pick it up

yes there is grouse but there numbers are very up and down from year to year depending on the winters and the weather at nesting time. the greylag numbers really took off when i started shooting with my uncle 15 years ago. it used to be that "a" flock would come to the south end of shetland in october time and everyone with a gun was after the same flock but now there is geese hear all year round throughout shetland.

finally we have had a nice day with some sun and a bit of warmth, this last while the weather has been horrible. went for a walk with the rifle and the hound, got 5 rabbits and found another 2 greylags nests and a curlews nest. had a nice walk along the cliffs before heading home for a quick cuppa. i then met up with 2 friends and headed out to a place overlooking a rabbit shooters dream. with the fine day the place was crawling with rabbits, its a great place to shoot because there is nothing behind it but sea. two of us had 223's and the other boy had a 22-250. we were there for about 2 1/2 hours and got 50-55 rabbits before we called it a day. most of the shots were 100-200 yards there was one rabbit that was sitting out pretty at 398 yards that i got using the range finder and the data from biggameinfo for the load i was using, i was well chuffed. great day all round, heres some photos from today, aister. curlews nest 1st goose nest 2nd goose nest a happy hound great place to shoot, heaving with rabbits

i had a 26" yeoman but found it hard to maintain swing on a high bird, i prefer a longer barrel like 29" or 30". the yeoman is great for night flighting ducks where its point and shoot or bolting rabbits.

very good gun imo. me and 4 friends shoot with sx3's and all love them. look after it and keep it clean and it should fire shot every time and that goes for the sx3 too

nah, al wait a few months i think and go for goose a l'orange

i own an a-bolt and my mate has just bought a howa. i love my a-bolt, very accurate, the only gripe i have with the a-bolt is the magazine which is attached to a floor plate, its a bit fiddly if you are not used to it but i suppose the risk of loosing a magazine is nil. i was very impressed with my mates howa. for the money i thought it was a very accurate gun, ok not as nicely finished as say a tikka or a sako but a nice rifle none the less, i am tempted to go for a howa when i buy my 6.5x55.

these past few mornings when heading up the road on my way to work, i have noticed a pair of greylags coming out of the hill heading for the green parks below our house. thinking there was probably a nest i went for a look tonight and found the nest with 5 eggs in it. thought i would share the photo with you lot .

you aint the only one, i get on great with them. they are good in old building with asbestos sheets where even an air rifle would do damage. keep the range real close and they work a treat.

when i was in NZ i got the impression that there hunting ethics are a little more relaxed than here in britain and some of the gun safety was shocking. whilst in NZ i went stalking red deer with a guy that the tourist info put me in touch with, he gave me a sako .308 and we headed up in to the hills where he thought the deer would be and sure enough there were a few hinds right where he thought. after following this guy up the hill at a fair speed (he worked for the forestry and was as fit as a fiddle) i was puffing and panting and shaking like a ******** dog and couldnt hold the rifle steady to save myself so i declind the shot he wanted me to take at a hind about 150 yards away, by the time i had caught my breath and was happy enough to take the shot the deer winded us and took off. when asked why i didnt take the shot streight away, i explained that i wasnt happy with taking the shot and didnt want to risk a missing or wounding the animal he just laughed and said that it wouldnt have mattered it would have died sometime :o. the other shooting i did was an informal clay shoot on a friend of a friends farm. one of the guys we borrowed a trap from came for a crack too. he arrived with a side by side, an over and under and a semi, the first thing he did was load all the guns and lean them up against the fence behind us and each time he had his turn he reloaded and leaned them back on the fence, i was stunned.

i have a lee set up and get great results with my .223. the cheapest .223 ammo i can get here in shetland is PPU at .60p a pop, i can reload bullets for 34/35p a pop. the most accurate factory ammo was the PPU with 5 shot groups at 3/4". if i weigh the powder out using the lee safety scales (which i hate) i get under 1/2", and using the lee perfect powder measure (which is faster) i get 1/2"-5/8" groups (which i am happy with for all i do). i didnt start reloading to save money but after 550 rounds my kit was paid for when compaired to PPU. hope this helps the OP

i have a leupold vx1 4-12x40 on my .223 for rabbit shooting out to 300 yards

well done doesnt take that little bullet long to reach its target

the seat i have is one that i made out of light ply with a foam and leather cloth seat with a seat belt carry strap. it looks big and bulky but it sits nice on your back and doesnt roll around and you can store stuff inside. you can see it in the back of this pic

the two things i never leave home without (apart from gun, shells and hound) is a headlamp/torch and something to sit on. i have never been able to kneel on my knees for getting pins an needles and i also find i shoot better sitting on my box as opposed to lying in the mud.

good stuff, keep us posted on your new toy :good:

30 last night . total 979

the rabbits on the croft here where i stay got very lamp shy so what i did was every night when i was out walking the dog, i took a lamp and shone it around the parks without shooting. i did this for a couple of weeks every night until the rabbits got used to it, then for one night took the rifle and nailed a few trying as hard as i could not to miss (not going to mention any figures ) then left it for a couple of weeks doing the same thing. it seemed to work for me. :thumbs:

i have never stored my rifle bolts separate, all my guns are locked up with bolts in and the ammo is on an open shelve in the top of the cabinet, never had any bother.