Uilleachan

A few years back I went out to search for a set of bins with £1500 cash and my debit card, tried many sets in several shops over a month or two, when I eventually settled on a set it was a set of Minox 8x 43 HG bins I came home with, paid £550 not to long after that model came out. Great bins that suited my eyes and whilst the more expensive bins, £1700 swarovski etc were marginally better, they weren't £1000 better. Sure you can buy cheaper bins, and I've looked through lots of those, but for me by direct comparison the minox HG's were a good step above most and close enough to far more expensive models for me.

Meindl are hard to beat, but they don't fit everyone.

Mainly trap in the north, DTL being most popular, lots of local shoots that are worth going to, here's a useful page: https://www.scotshoot.com Not all shoots are listed there, there are quite a few that aren't. Just head along to one as thats the best way top get the heads up on what else is on. Quite a few of these DTL shoots have a sporting or similar reentry side shoot run as a separate competition.

If you feel cold during winter ditch the cotton next to the skin and either go for merino wool or a synthetic (my preference). Still feeling cold? Add the long johns. If you're not in to heavy activities these and similar are hard to beat in terms of bang for buck: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Highlander-Thermal-Long-Sleeve-Baselayer/dp/B00BIBDTQW/ref=sr_1_103?crid=2Y68AA83VODFH&keywords=thermal%2Bunderwear%2Bmen&qid=1570104463&s=gateway&sprefix=thermal%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-103&th=1&psc=1 No need for self igniting human torch clobber, the body generates enough heat, it's just a case of holding onto it.

Aye figgy, that was basically my thinking. Not exact, but close enough for folk.

Yep, that indeed seems to be the case. Bought some 2nd hand Teague Invector + chokes off of here a while back and began to notice the difference of travel using the Teague choke key. So whilst not as scientific as the exampled quoted by figgy above, by simply noting how much of the key will go into the aperture of the browning chokes, that shipped with the gun, versus the Teague invector + equivalent it was quite obvious that one was tighter than the other, despite both being marked with the same degree of restriction.

If you knock Invector + Browning Factory chokes, those supplied with your 525, down a degree of that stated you arrive at a more accurate figure for the constriction of that specific choke. Browning's 525 3/4 (Steel Full) is actually half choke by conventional measurement.

My old boss on Skye brought in a famous terrier once to assist in the clearing of a difficult den site. Saw ears appearing and he shot the head off the fox with his trusty .243, turned out to be said famous terrier. Costly mistake in identity.

I'm Italian #7.5, which is English #7 at 2.4mm, for everything. Fiocchi FBlu 28g. As they pattern very well out of both my browning and miroku. I'm mainly shooting trap at the moment but I'd settled on Fblus whilst mainly shooting sporting. Fblu 24g for OT.

Plenty here in the cooler wetter drafty far flung north western edge of Britain. Unfortunately persecution is certainly part of the picture, we (metaphoric) stopped killing raptors here some thirty forty years back and the birds returned, eagles harriers et al....

England has several thousand square miles of suitable harrier habitat, so where are the English hen harriers? In England and to a lesser extent parts of Scotland, harriers are notable by their absence.

Yes, 2.4mm = #7 english

You just have to try a few. The shooting of the glasses in the picture above was in response to a comment by a contributor who didn't trust modern safety specs. The reason I like the set featured is that they can be had for £7 and, for me, work really well in low light or dull conditions and are optically correct right up to the top edge, which is where my eye is when I'm mounted. I had a look through an expensive set a few years ago, can't describe the colour very well as it was too long ago, except to say that if my memory is correct it was a reddish tint, made the orange clays glow like a lamp, which was impressive. Good for DTL but not for a black edge on sporting clay flying against dark background. I still prefer shooting without, but thats not tenable on many grounds that I like to shoot so I'm just sticking glasses on and getting on with it. .

There are kids, and there are kids. Nothing wrong with a .410 when starting a young kid off, shooting static targets moving to easy moving targets etc. Most important thing is that it should be fun and flinch free. They can move onto something more meaningful when they're good and ready having been introduced to the mechanics and basics. Older kids, 28 20 or 12 gauge, depending on size.

Thanks Buze. And I hear what you say regarding the steaming being partly due to the design and the optical advantage of the slightly more up market specs, polaroid filters et al. I'm not a fan of having to wear specs for shooting, although actual speckiness is creeping up on me and I wore safety glasses at work for years, so I know what they're about and can live with using them provided they suit me optically. All the shoots I attend have safety glasses signs up, but not tightly enforced. I was at a DTL shoot at a registered ground when the ref advised me the I'd forgotten to put my specs on, they were hanging off my shirt, so put them on and still shot well. Since then I've made a point of using them at every shoot regardless of status. If your specs have EN166:2001 F or FT, the norm for standard safety specs, marked on them they'll stop an 11+fpe projectile, and I reckon a good bit more, by contrast, a #7 shot projectile traveling at average velocities by 40 yards is delivering less than 1fpe. Point blank, or close, with #7 shot, blindness would be the least of your worries.