SxS

The article you linked to was submitted to a blog site of questionable reliability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge) by a company focused on selling you physical gold (who would clearly have an interest in encouraging people towards alternative wealth storage options). It also contains a lot of very selective quotation... I find it odd that, were such a proposal really in the works, it has not have received wider media coverage in the past couple of weeks? Maybe the document doesn't say that deposit protection schemes are unnecessary and might go?

I have a JBL Charge 3 that goes into the garden and on holiday. It's great. Fully waterproof and certainly not lacking in battery life or overall performance. Did think about getting a 2nd one (you can pair them via the JBL app) if it was lacking in output but, now I've got one, I think the neighbours would complain if I had two...

I tried Handelsbanken a few years ago... they let local branches have a lot of autonomy *but* you could only open an account with whichever branch was local to your home or work. Unfortunately mine seemed rather less good at opening accounts than others, and didn't do what they'd said they were going to do with respect to a quick mortgage decision, so never did get round to moving away from RBS. Personal banking is very much a commodity product so, unless you go for one of the very exclusive banks, I very much doubt there is much to choose between any of them these days especially if you do the majority online.

Whatever you do, make sure the solicitor is on the approved list from your mortgage lender (if your lender has one). Last place we bought damned near fell through at the 11th hour when it turned out that ours wasn't. Solicitor knew who the lender (a big one) was right from the outset and must have known his firm wasn't on the list but was prepared to take the job on anyway without saying anything about it to us. Caused a proper mess and a load of hassle that we really didn't need. Wasn't a question we'd thought of asking when we signed up with them so caught us completely unawares.

Watch the video http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-41901404/guns-supplied-to-gangs-by-disgraced-firearms-dealer-revealed ... according to Police he was importing antique guns and manufacturing obsolete calibre ammunition.

Looks like a rather bigger operation than first alluded to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-41984857

Install cost depends on the property and the level of complexity you want (there is a grading system which outlines how easy an alarm is to bypass) but assuming the cost is the same as for a small commercial property you will find yourself looking at £50/mth + VAT for the monitoring and maintenance elements alone! It is worth being aware that the Police will only turn out for a "confirmed activation" (two or more sensors inside a fixed period of time) and that AMCO system might not do that if it relies on the "challenge" to confirm that there's someone there. To many false calls and the Police stop coming until the system is stable again. We had a confirmed activation of an alarm at one of our offices recently and the local police were in the car park in a matter of minutes (they were there before we'd worked out whether one of our staff had had managed to trigger it or whether it was real!). Based on where the nearest station is, unless they were already in the area, they must have been out of the door PDQ to get there that quickly.

Sadly Hikvision have apparently just gone trade only (and insisted that their distributors don't put pricing online for joe public to see) in advance of releasing a "consumer" grade line. Shame as I was going to move over to IP and had specced it all out. The Samsung Wisenet kit looks like where my money will go.

If you're not in a hurry, some of Amazon's daily deals/Black Friday deals can be really good. I bought a 4k Sony 55" in Nov last year and it came in a good £100 cheaper than anywhere else. The difference between 4k and HD is really noticeable at that size and it's worth being aware that there are more 4k Blu Ray machines and discs coming to the market (not cheap yet, but then again DVD and Blu Ray weren't either when they came out).

Not free though for local businesses who have staff using the bridge daily... £72/month of taxed earnings isn't insignificant and I doubt every firm affected will be able (or want) to help their staff out with it.

Ahhh... but which 6s and 5s? Unfortunately with some "premium" loads being European shot sizes there's scope for some confusion: the 5s in Hull Three Crowns/Imperial Game are 2.8mm vs the 3mm "5" in High Pheasant Extreme. Taking these as an example, a 30g IG has 234 pellets, 36g HPE has 238. Ok, sometimes you need the extra energy but unless they're tough/high I think there's a case for the lighter load sometimes being preferable. For me it's always 28g 6s (Three Crowns or IG if I can't get the Three Crowns) on partridge or early/lower pheasant shoots, then 32g 6 HPE for the higher stuff moving to 32g 5 HPE later in the season. There does seem to be a school of thought that says that you need the heaviest loads/biggest shot available to mankind and I've seen folk pushing 36g through when much lighter loads are clearly getting the job done. The wingbeat of partridge always means that I manage to miss (at least) the first few in front!

Mine is a similar age and has been shooting a .410 for a couple of years now.... good little gun (Yildiz with cut down stock) but getting to the stage where we're considering a lightweight 28 (and more open chokes) as a step up to a 20 would, in my view, be too much for him.

TBH, residual value is one of the things that has put me off Tesla... I know they give a high "guaranteed future value" when you finance them, but concerns that the that true residual value (i.e. if you were to try to sell one privately/PX against another make) might be somewhat lower have dissuaded me as I can't help but think that the 2nd hand market is going to be very cautious. (a friend runs a model S and thinks it's great, he changes his cars every couple of years though, so the finance model works for him as he's worked on the basis that he'll just hand the keys back)

You know there's a new A8 due out very soon (you can't even spec one online at present)? Suspect you'll find that the deal basically applies to cars they have already built and just need to get shifted. The current one is undoubtedly a nice car, but being the "old" model isn't going to help its residual value in four years time (by which time there will already be "new model" 3 year old PCP'd cars and exec hires in the used car market).

Will be interesting to see how much it goes for... and indeed whether there are two up for sale (or whether DM simply used stock photos). This one has been for sale for a good while and is off to the same auction: http://www.johnbrown4x4.com/current-stock/land-rover-series-2-109-cuthbertson . If memory serves correctly, it was originally advertised at a much higher price than the figures being touted by the Mail. I understand that the turning circle on these is even worse than a regular LWB!

The nice thing about the JSR is that the stock is nicely proportioned for young (pre-teen) shooters and can apparently be swapped out for a larger one when they grow into a full size. Hopefully posting to other forums is OK, as there's an image about 1/2 the way down this page that shows the stock relative to standard: http://www.airgunforum.co.uk/forums/showthread.php/224271-BSA-Ultra-JSR/page2 We have one in the cabinet and the boys love it. Especially with exploding targets!

Worth trying a box of Hull Three Crowns - they're my preferred cartridge in light guns due to lack of recoil. And you get the varnished paper smell! Looking at the Hull website, they also rate them as being softer than the Imperial Game (which I've not shot).

I've had mixed experiences - some excellent, some not so good. The great ones, as others have said, have been like meeting old friends (and usually getting some invitations/introductions to other shoots). The less good ones have been down to poor shoots (fortunately happened when I've been trying out new ones and prevented me taking a group there!) or dubious company (most notably, greedy guns). Most memorably on a shoot I joined one of a couple of "spare" pegs on a syndicate day. One of the syndicate guns was mopping up anything in range, sporting or not, with the most of the syndicate seeming to think that it was OK as he was a bit of a character. Even when chastised by the keeper he kept it up... fortunately there was no overage charged that day as, had it been suggested, I think a couple of folk would have had words. Have also seen another single gun throw a bit of a tantrum about the mix of birds presented (he didn't like the number of duck shot on one drive and, not knowing the keeper is another one that throws in a good few over on most days, was very noisy about having been "cheated out of" pheasants) which rather soured the day. I guess really the message is that having single guns around cuts both ways. Sometimes, as a single gun, you can have a great day and meet new folks. Other times they risk spoiling the day whether it's your syndicate or someone else's!

Same here, but bought from Entwistle Guns (the Yildiz importer) who also kindly cut the stock down further for me too.

Just a heads up, I received an email claiming to be from Teague wanting me to click a link to teaguechokesltd.com and/or to download an invoice for a very meaty order (that I did not place). I'm going to be in touch with Teague about it but there are lots of things associated with this that make me believe that former customers of Teage/shooters may be getting targeted in a phishing/malware attack. My advice, if you've received these emails would be to NOT click the link!

I'd be tempted to take a small cable lock and also discretely lock the case to something immobile (the table leg or similar). I use a ski lock for this whenever I've had to take musical instruments on the train. Just stops them being casually lifted.

I've been going through similar looking for an ambi air rifle that my (leftie) brother can also use: the advice from pretty much all the shops/forums has pointed me towards a Weihracuh HW100KT. Engineering seems to be top notch, and the magazine system/double load prevention looks very well thought out. Comes with mod as standard too. If I'm honest, I don't find the thumbhole stock pleasing on the eye, but it seems to be the best tool for the job. I'm expecting one to be in my cabinet very soon.

I used one with an instructor for a couple of hours and didn't really see any benefit. In fact I'd go as far as to say that if I was offered another go then I'd probably turn it down. If you're constantly missing and don't know where then it might help but, given what they cost, I think there's massively more to be gained by spending (probably much less) money on lessons with a good instructor! $700 + shipping and duties etc buys a lot of instruction. I can see a place for these with instructors teaching new shooters or those who just can't be convinced of where they're missing but wouldn't spend my hard earned on one. If the price comes down then I might be tempted as the kids get older (to help them see where they're missing/re-live the hits) but clamping one to the .410 would affect the balance too much.

Is there any particular reason you want a single trigger? My first gun was s/t and both I and many of my friends had never shot d/t guns until I bought one. I liken it to moving from a manual to automatic gearbox. Takes a bit of getting used to at first (few hours) then after that it becomes pretty easy to switch between the two. My personal preference now is s/t for semi-pistol stocked guns and d/t for straight hand. I did think about getting a 486 straight hand (there are some lovely ones around) but have held off solely to avoid having a s/t s/h in the cabinet and confusing myself! I may give in at some point as the 486 is a really good gun. I've had a 28" semi-pistol for a couple of years now and it's the gun I use most. So far it's had around 20,000 rounds through it and, aside from a problem when new (quickly remedied by GMK) with it not giving the 2nd barrel, has been absolutely faultless. Gets a lot of positive feedback from other shooters too. The only things I don't like about it are that the: 1) Stocks are short (for me) and Beretta only make plastic extensions which do spoil the look of the gun. I don't know whether Beretta offer a custom stock option but it might be worth an ask. 2) Standard chokes are notched for keys/identification. Teagues are available that are friction keyed and make the front of the barrels look tidier. Nothing fundamentally wrong with the factory chokes but when I wanted some different constrictions I went Teague. Given the limited range of new s/t guns it doesn't surprise me that nobody's asked what you want it for yet so I'll point out that it's heavier than other SxS guns (at least mine is vs the s/h guns I have). I don't know if the s/h version is too, but worth checking as if it is it wouldn't be my first choice for walked up days. Of course the flip side is that it handles slightly heavier loads better than a very light gun would, which obviously makes it better if you're doing a lot of clays or the high stuff.

It looks (from the box description) that I have the new ones. Can't say I've noticed much, if any change, but I am going to try some CompX 28s again at some point to see what they're like. I usually use CompX 21s in my old guns but haven't shot them in 28 gram for ages as the Supers are always in stock locally at good prices. If they're significantly softer then that's be worth paying a bit extra for.