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Gimlet

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Everything posted by Gimlet

  1. I have. That is, go through the rabbit and ricochet off the ground the other side. Lapua SK's used to do it for a pastime, Winchesters less so.
  2. Problem solved! Thanks to new member Peekay6 who provided the magic formula. There was no distortion, nothing trapped in the door. Brattonsound told me to insert a lever under the door and lift while applying extra pressure to the key as I turned it and to hammer the leading edge of the door where the bolts are with a rubber mallet. Didn't make the slightest difference except that it almost sheered the shaft of the key. Then Peekay6 came to the rescue. The lock had sprung back half a turn. The solution was to file down the wider throw of the key so it could be inserted the wrong way round. Turning back the lock half a turn with the key reversed brought the lock back into sync and the spare key could be inserted the correct way round and the lock operated as normal. Peekay6 has probably saved me £50 odd for a locksmith.Top man. Brattonsound will send me a new lock and keys free of charge which is fair enough. But this will be the third lock in four years. The next time I move my cabinet a Sentry combination safe will be going in.
  3. Gimlet

    Yew Tree

    If you want to sell the bole for timber don't put a saw through it until a timber expert has seen it. What might look to the novice eye the obvious place to make a cut to divide the trunk into manageable lengths can ruin the value of the timber. If possible its best to fell the tree whole, de-limb it and leave the trunk intact for a buyer to inspect.
  4. My mother kept saying she could hear a cricket chirping in her kitchen. Turned out to be a low battery in the smoke alarm.
  5. Just put on some gloves and pull it up. Its easy to get rid of. I've pulled up plenty of it in my garden without gloves and had no ill effects. My mother lets it grow, she likes the look of it. It does have a certain architectural quality. Just keep it away from livestock and don't add it to a salad by mistake. Under my apple trees I used to grow monkshood which is considerably more toxic than caper spurge but a very handsome plant.
  6. It does have a poisonous, unfriendly look about it.
  7. I wasn't thinking of the books of those who pay for and use public services or indeed those who staff them. I was thinking of those who control them: the Government. There is no audit of government spending.
  8. Its a wild Euphorbia or Spurge. I think that one with the pointed leaves is called Caper Spurge, in which case it has very poisonous seeds.
  9. Free at the point of delivery. Call it pre-paid. I suspect pre-payment public services, like pre-payment electricity meters, serving as they do a captive clientele who are unable to take their custom elsewhere, operate at deliberately inflated rates. We'll never know, of course, because we are not allowed to see the books.
  10. Old wooden boxes, especially if they have original lids and can be recycled for some other use can go for anything from £50 - £250 in antique and collectables shops. Like NickS says, any object is worth whatever someone is prepared to pay for it. Shabby-chic decorative objects like this which have no specific function, or clutter as it used to be called, seem to be very popular. I saw a pine box with rope handles in an antique warehouse recently which appeared to have been made yesterday out of old floor boards and "aged" with a bit of wood stain. They wanted £200 for it. I expect some mug bought it.
  11. Nothing trapped in the door unfortunately. The usual free-play is still there. The key goes into the lock fine and starts to turn then stops solid after an 1/8 of a turn. Interestingly it can also be turned anticlockwise by the same amount. I can't remember whether that is normal or not. If it isn't it would suggest something let go in the lock mechanism when I last locked it. And thanks for Evo, I think I might PM Parapilot and see what he thinks. Though I'll have to get on to Brattonsound to get a new lock at the very least. I've always had doubts about the design of this system. It seems to me that using the key alone to slide those five heavy bolts and move all the linkage is putting a lot of pressure on small components. Surely its better to have a handle to do the heavy lifting.
  12. Tell them your children were on strike in protest at standards and conditions.
  13. Sentinel Plus (RD7+) ie: 6/7 gun extra deep rifle safe without internal locker.
  14. Low velocity, non-frangible bullets like .22 subs have a greater chance of ricocheting than high velocity fragmentary bullets and the long slow whine and lack of muzzle noise make it more obvious. All bullets can ricochet and rapid, powerful CF rounds probably do so more often than people realise but it happens so quickly and is masked by the noise. I've certainly had HMR BT ricochets and on stony ground where you'd think they'd fragment. All it takes is the bullet to glance an object without the tip making contact directly and it will scream like a good un. It happens all too easily when shooting into the ground at a shallow angle, whatever the surface. The hollow points are much worse. The .22lr is as safe as houses with the right drill. Novices graduating from air rifles need to take particular care, especially when shooting over familiar ground. An air rifle, it ain't.
  15. The lock on my Brattonsound cabinet has refused to open. Perfectly ok when I last locked it. Tried to open it last night and the key will turn 1/8 turn and then rock solid. Nothing. Like I'd got the wrong key. Spent half the afternoon on shooting forums searching for tips. I've tried everything possible and absolutely will not budge. I reckon one or more of the wards has sheared and it cannot be unlocked without drilling. My searches showed this was a common problem with Brattonsounds a few years ago. I'm not best pleased to say the least. That means a locksmith and a new lock so unless Brattonsound supply at least one of those it will mean a new cabinet, and it won't be a Brattonsound. The lock was replaced once a couple of years ago when it became very difficult to open. They were very helpful then. Now the cabinet is out of warranty, I can't get at my guns and I can't get hold of Brattonsound till Monday. Not impressed at all. Unless they can do something very special the chances of me ever buying another Brattonsound cabinet are absolutely nil.
  16. Less suited to shooting than long distance running and lawn bowls. Cobblers. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes that do either. Of course this being the BBC I expect whatever answers you give the result will be less suited to shooting.
  17. If you can get them used to a variety of food, so much the better. Makes life easier. Mine won't touch venison, the meat trimmings or the red offal, and they won't look at pigeon which is annoying because there's no shortage of either. They've got used to rabbit and anything else is a poor substitute. Don't give them too many eggs. I feed one only occasionally if I've forgotten to defrost some meat and they have a few more in spring when they would form part of a natural diet.
  18. Nonsense. Unlike China here we have contracts and employment laws, tribunals and ombudsmen. "Workers rights" have never been so well protected. Tax-payers rights are yet to be conceived. I'd like to protest about my pay and conditions. I haven't had a pay rise in 7 years. But I'm an wicked self-employed free-marketeer, not a "key-worker" so there's no-one I can hold to ransom. I just have to get off my backside and get on with it.
  19. I sometimes feed mine the trimmings from salmon, especially the skin and fat layer. They love it. But I avoid the bones. Gave them some squid trimmings the other day and they cleaned that up as well. They always have access to dry food so maybe that keeps the whiff down a bit.
  20. An interesting account. It should always be remembered however we judge the bombing of Japan, that America used nuclear bombs to end a war, not to start one. that is unlikely to be the case if there is a next time. Also worth remembering their bombs were firecrackers compared with the power of modern atomic weapons. Anyone who hasn't done so should also read Hiroshima by John Hersey. Required reading.
  21. I can't get my triple to shoot really tight with either 40 or 50 grain bullets when pushed faster than about 3300 fps. Its sweet spot is between 3220 and 3300 with 40 grain Noslers and 3000 to 3150 with 50's . I've tried all sorts of loads. I could safely push 50 grain bullets at 3600 + but they weren't accurate. I'm no authority on the .222, I only had mine a couple of years, and I'm definitely not an authority on loading in general - someone else does mine - so don't shout me down people if you think I'm talking balls, but from what I've seen of it the .222 is perhaps not the cartridge for speed merchants. I tried to get a 3500 fps 50 grain round that would do me everything from rabbits to muntjac as flat as possible. I could certainly get the speed, but not the precision. So I've concluded if I want a one size fits all point and shoot round with that performance I'd be better off with a .22-250 or a .204 if it wasn't for the deer. Could be my rifle, of course, but feed it it's preferred velocities and it is clinical. Thumbnail groups at 200 yards time after time. And that means guaranteed rabbits to 300 yards, head shots at 200, and foxes floored at 300. For a cheap(ish) to run, easily moderated, lightly recoiling vermin rifle, that ain't bad at all.
  22. We don't pay peanuts. We taxpayers pay a great deal of money, more than our economy can generate, but we get a whole tribe of bureaucrat monkeys riding the national education bandwagon. Yet the villain is always the parsimonious taxpayer isn't it? Especially those taxpayers who have been so selfish as to get on in life. Its never the system that needs streamlining and reforming so that it is not catastrophically wasteful and actually works, and decentralising so that it is accountable to the people who pay for it and have to use it. No, its just nasty selfish taxpayers being tight as usual and failing to embrace the socialist principle. Perhaps we should go on strike.
  23. You're being ridiculous.
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