deaquire

i really really want to get a nv setup, partially for my .22, partially for my hmr, and partially for my air rifle (rats). I want it to be mobile as the majority of shooting I do is on foot. I'd love to be able to film my shots to, I tried my own homemade iphone setup which was ok with light but now want to try nv as the rabbits and rats need hitting hard and getting lamp shy. Im clueless where to start. I bought the torch recommended but reluctant to pay the guy off here cos after that i have no idea what comes next and ill end up with an ir lamp and nothing to do with it. now ive the lamp, what is the next step? getting it ir friendly?

my initial attempt viewing through the scope in the back garden are good, i need to shorten the silicone hose though as its a bit too long and thus a bit too flexile with the weight of the phone. ive taken the lenses out of the iphone scope i bought as they just werent playing ball and im really happy with the clarity. just waiting for a clear day that i can go shooting, night time didnt work as i knocked it and it was too dark to play around with

I'm using an iphone 4. they had them for samsung though this is the actual item i bought http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Very-Good-8x18mm-Compact-Monocular-Mini-Spy-Scope-F-iPhone4-4S-w-Back-Cover-SET-/181285088711?pt=UK_Photography_Binoculars_Monoculars&hash=item2a356eedc7 if you type in samsung galaxy scope it throws up a few different ones but im not familiar with the galaxys so dont know which one youd need/use. something like this i guess http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8X-Optical-Zoom-Camera-Lens-Portable-Scope-Telescope-for-Samsung-Galaxy-Note-3-/231116855595?pt=UK_Strap_Charms&hash=item35cfa3592b ive just ordered the silicone hose reducer, i had to order it a couple mm too large as they didnt have the exact size i needed, to begin with il just pad it out with tape

ok so I don't actually know how to include in a reply I have the photos resized but dont know how to add them. Anyway, now the lens is here im going to order some silicone hose for £4.84 and see if it needs any help, if so I'll order some heat shrink wrap to really bind it. I can't remember who gave me that advice but it was someone on this forum, so thank you for that. So anyway, there you have it, an iscope for £11.82. I imagine it's going to take some tinkering, and if the scope doesnt like the lens I can just take it out and use the housing to connect the two. Very happy chappy merry christmas all :D p.s. they offer various backings to work with the lens, mines an iphones so thats the one i got pps when i say rival, i mean the cost, ive no idea if the quality will be comparable, but the first couple of images ive taken sure do from what ive seen on youtube

Hi all, it was a few months ago when I first learned about the iscope, while it looks like such a lovely, simple piece of kit that makes recording your shots oh so simple, it isn't half expensive. I wondered if I could make my own. The most difficult part is being able to mount the iphone to the scope tidily so I had a look around on the bay to see what was available and came up with one of these... It cost me 99p + £4.99 P & P from China. Took a month to get here but it was worth the wait. The next post is a couple of pictures with and without the lens on.

My friend takes nearly 100 hacked falcons every year, she loves it!

Aren't .243 rounds much more expensive that 22-250? I ask out of genuine curiosty as I own neither That said, someone mentioned before that they could have had a .308 had they wanted, so why not a .22LR, 22-250 and a .308?

Had to remember to breathe half way through

I think (and this is a very novice opinion) that you should go for a .22LR (perfect for bunnies out to 80 yards reasonably comfortably), 22-250 which is ideal for foxes, and a .243 which will drop deer. The reasoning behind this is that on my application I only put .22LR, with the intention of eventually getting a .243. The police had told me I'd have to prove I could stalk before they'd put it on my licence to shoot deer. I then bought the .17HMR which is a lot of fun, but it doesn't really challenge you, as such. It seems to me to be a very much "point and shoot gun" No need for holdover that i've found upto 120 yards which is more than enough for rabbits(?) I kind of wish I'd gone for the 22-250 instead, it's a much more capable fox round, my friend has one and shoots a couple of foxes every week, it's also minimising chances of injuring the fox without the clean kills and i'd still have the .22LR for rabbits, and of course, .243 for deer if they'll let you have it. They can only say no So, I have no experience of shooting a .243, and do not own a 22-250, but that was/is the logical process for me who was in your position not very long ago and didn't take much advice before I applied/bought.

You stalked a fox to within 20 yards? You up for giving out some lessons? Awesome

In which case i apologise as it seemed you doubted it. I'm going to have a look at your page now. I have a friend who owns a Steppe eagle just ten minutes away, its for displays and sadly isn't hunted but if you're ever up this way...

ha i love the celebration with pepsi

You have every right to doubt me, as you clearly do. But one of my closest friends has one of the largest breeding facilities in Europe with just over 300 falcons. Quite often birds are taken out of the breeding programmes for recreational hunting. Many of the birds are also hand - reared. I have also been fortunate enough to visit UAE several times where all of their birds are sold and used to hunt. I've worked on several different landfill sites on gull control, having new falcons every week - they are hunting birds and were cycled as needed. As well as that I have worked in numerous BOP centres, Woburn Safari Park, hunting days with members of the public and have gained experience from 4 different large scale breeders of predominantly gyr/peres but also 2 smaller breeders whose expertise lay in Finish Goshawks - one chap managed to get an almost pure white Gos. It is quite a lot to have fitted into the 16 years that I have been flying birds of prey, the bulk of which is just the last 8 years, especially as the last 2 years I have been working for the family business, keeping birds of prey purely recreational as the public sucked the fun out of anything commercial. I've only flown 5 eagles though, 2 goldies, 2 steppe and a tawny. A big % of the birds I've flown haven't belonged to me, but some have, and a large proportion have been trained by myself. Up on catching hacked birds, they are semi-wild and need handling with precision. I have good experience of that also, as well as solo releasing which is far from fun. Do you use ferrets? Personally, I hunt with birds because it is what they were designed to. Harris' pack hunt in the sandy deserts of the southern US and to recreate that in a green field in rainy england is a fantastic thing to do. My aim is to hunt, catch and kill the quarry with the bird of my choosing and to reward the bird as fully as possible.

I only ask so that I could judge the sort of size your birds are, always nice to see big Harris' and your older female must be a beauty - 2lb 8oz is the biggest I have ever flown and I must have flown close to 100 hawks and literally countless falcons. Have you tried hunting the three together? We had a small male and two bigger females that used to compliment each other really nicely. You had the speed and agility of the smaller male and the power and strength of the females who would normally hit a split second after (being a bit bigger) the male and hold the rabbit to stop it bouncing the male off and escaping. If you like falcons, if you ever get chance to visit a hack site, bite their hand off. I work on one each year and it's easily the best thing you can do. Seeing and being a part of 50 gyr/peregrines with some pure whites and almost pure blacks flying free and playing in the air is a sight that'll stick with you for life

Whoa. I used to do a lot of hill walking in most conditions, deep snow, heavy rain etc and I found that gaitors were never up to the job. They always fall down or the water creeps in from the bottom. I had a group of friends, all who wore gaitors, must have been 15 of us in total all wearing different pairs - varying degrees of quality and price tags and everyone had the same problem. Not really sure what to suggest except that I'd avoid gaitors. Those biker boots sound good. I've had a pair of Berghaus walking boots for about 5 years - starting to go but they never let me down and cost about £70.

What were you using to squeak 'em in that quickly? Nicely shot

Ok, thanks Davyo I think I'm going to be buying the bits a little at a time, can't afford everything at once. I ordered the 501b torch last night. Who do I need to contact to modify this to make it my IR illuminator?

Just a quick one. If you have a bullet camera, how do you know you can change the lens for a 12 or 16mm? I'm looking at cameras without IR built in, so can all bullet cameras that have been designed for CCTV see infra red light? I read that digital cameras can't see IR so thought maybe certain bullet cams can't either?

Amazing. Sorry for the dumb question, I'm just starting (as of this morning) to look into a NV set up so figure I best understand some of the bits

This is gunna sound so stupid, but that video, unless you're looking through the camera is it completely dark? No one else can see all of that "light"? This boggles my head so much

Thanks telf

Hi all, managed to get out last night I only had an hour and the weather had been good through the day so chanced it. Typically, the rain started coming down and wind started howling but I continued. I'm wanting to make 3 pies for Christmas presents so only really wanted to shoot 3 or 4 rabbits but ended up with 8 for 10 shots. The two I missed were a little rushed. Two of the kills I got were on the move - really happy with that. The first one that was moving actually rotated at the last moment causing me to shoot it through the back legs, it was dragging itself to the hedge as I shot it through the chest - about 60 yards. The final kill was the second moving rabbit and it was in a slow run, I took a couple of seconds to feel confident and then killed it with a chest shot I included the close up just to demonstrate how unpredictable the HMR can be. It was at about 80 yards. Occasionally you shoot a rabbit and you can barely see an exit wound, and sometimes this happens - distance seems unimportant. Edit: Sorry. I hadn't intended to offend anyone. Genuinely didn't realise PW had a gore boundary The final pic is two full freezer bags of meat. I didn't spend ages picking the bones clean, only taking the biggest cuts from the back legs and along the spine. Even so the paunching, skinning and getting the meat off took about an hour and a half but I'm reasonably pleased with that. However, that's still only two n a half hours from being shot to in the freezer and enough meat for at least a week for my girlfriend, 18 month old son, and myself. Bonus B) I usually sell my rabbits to the butcher as I get quite a lot but going to focus on getting more meat yield and keepinm them for myself. Someone mentioned the other day about rabbits being bigger this time of year, there were some beauties among these 8. ATB, Dave P.s. one rabbit I didn't use, the bullet had traveled from the back-end of the rabbit and out of the shoulder destroying most of the meat and splitting the intestines throughout the stomach.

Feathers look spot on what weight do your Harris' fly at? Biggest we had was 2.4lb, she was the nastiest harris I've ever flown, gave Gos' a good run for their money but so rewarding to work with!

Can you point me in the right direction. I've tried a search for "make night vision" and "homemade night vision" but nothing seems to come up

Is she just out of moult? Do you hunt her?