Mice!

It looked quite nice till I started adding metal, camera up next week, this patch has been quiet, but there's been no feeder up, so that will probably change pretty quickly.

1064 + 3 = ⬇️ 1067

I would never have left my Jill in with any other ferret when they were having young, separated the Male and females once they were mated and they were always in top condition. One year the kits all went very easily, another year nobody wanted them, and this was 20+ years ago when I could find rabbits, definitely think before you breed.

Think you've got a beaver!! I've just finished repairing a chewed uo feeder, it's easier to start again, combination of ply coming apart and the chewing meant I had to cut right back, but the beast holds 6kg now, going back up this week.

😅😅😅 standard IT solution

Brief recap of last week. Busy busy busy, I was out last Sunday after dark filling a feeder, and fixing the gap where the birds have been plundering the feed. Monday it tipped it down so out Tuesday night again, checked two feeders and put two cameras up to see what's what for Thursday, it was gone 11pm when I left the woods but what a beautiful clear night with the stars shining and Owls calling. In the wood this morning for 630am Wednesday and wow was it cold, no signs of any squirrels till 8am, then they weren't interested in the feeder, just each other or mooching about. One appeared about 3 metres above me and started making a proper racket but finally ran off when I slowly looked around. I had a few show up and look like they were going to the feeder to just vanish on me, then spotted one on a branch in almost plain view munching on something!! It looked huge in the thermal. The rain started at 930, I'd already gone for a walk about but wasn't seeing anything so left this wood meeting a nice couple on the way out, despite me having the gun out there was no issue, quick chat about what I was doing and I was on my way. I'd seen the forecast and thought I'll go and sit it out, check a camera and might get another couple, the camera showed a squirrel all morning, but the rain and cold just kept getting worse, despite there being a Buck and doe mooching around no squirrels showed up, and after 3hrs I was cold and wet enough to admit defeat, this was the first blank off of here this year, and it was still raining hrs later, will it ever stop!! Thursday ☆☆☆☆☆ What a difference today was, no rain and the sun shone 😁😁 I had 2 squirrels go past my feeder early on, both sniffed about and just moved on, my guess is they've were looking for a female, because I had three males after that, plus another that just went through the canopy. The third that showed up wasn't showing any interest in the feeder, normally I wait expecting them to hop up, but after the first two leaving I shot as soon as it stopped at about 30mtrs. Perfect shot placement side on, and even at 30mtrs the JSB heavy went through. The next two did what's expected going straight up onto the feeder, both were leaning forwards, the changes to the platform working a treat, both top of the head shots, both fell off leaving no mess. It looked a perfect morning for a walk, but I'd left my spare thermal battery in work 😱🙈 I've no doubt I may have gotten lucky just going for a walk, but it's hard terrain and without the thermal your almost walking around blind. So after yesterday's wash out I'd checked the camera and had a squirrel all morning so I went back for that one. It was on the feeder when I arrived and moved off, but came back after 15 mins, and all my wet gear I'd left out from the day before had dried 😁 Another male. I'd packed up after an hour, brolley, nets, chair, sticks and gun, stretched my back on a fallen tree when I saw another squirrel behind the feeder,, and we try to be so discreet. Gun back out, loaded and waited and got a bonus female a few minutes later, straight up on the feeder, flippedthe lid and lookedcmy way, very happy with that. Also saw a squirrel in the canopy on the Oak buds, it may have been the first I've seen because it wasn't raining sideways for a nice change. Not the best picture but always nice to see the blue bells coming out. Well brief ish 😅

And Thierry Henry.

Everyone these days has a mobile phone, take photos and a short video, they would probably look at the area your in and not even question it. This was last week, a few were jumping over the wall heading back to the woods, it's a narrow windy road that I know well, but they can spring out from anywhere.

6 this week on two very different days. 1061

There's a few on here done that 😅😅

Do your windows look like this? 🤭😅😅 Good binoculars make things look great, can't imagine a problem with Nikon.

Cheers mate, I read some good reviews online, but like you say you have to try for yourself, I read comments from some saying that the accuracy was unusable for squirrels or live quarry, I may have just got lucky??

Job done, I love private signs, they draw my eye 😁

I've just finished a Lynda Le Plante book, it was book 2, the Jack Warr series, for some reason I'm not normally a fan of female authors, I guess it's the style of writing but this was very good, good enough that I now want book 1 😁

I agree with everything you've said mate, and have already suggested it, most of my squirrels shot side on have the pellet pass through, but the bloke says lead is a no, and it's very close to home 😅 With the timber it's about there not being lead on the land, everything has gone non toxic, despite it having been used for how many years 🙄

If you do it that way, make it loose and start at the bottom, it's lots easier than trying to whip it around and catching it 😅😅 I'd just make sure not to put the signs up on anything nice that someone might want to use in 30 years time. That's hilarious 😂

You wouldn't expect that from a full powered rifle, it's the sort of thing I get with the PP700W at 10mtrs knowing it's not even 6ft/lb One place is to do with timber and out of their control, the other the land owner wants the shot squirrels for his BOP and so wants non lead using 🤷‍♂️

Just a lot lighter than I want to be using mate, plus the lighter lead pellets are often shorter as well, which the R10 mag doesn't like.

That's interesting, I thought being so light they'd be a lot quicker, but I guess the material sapps the speed not being as efficient through the barrel. Then with them being so light in .177 I wondered if they'd get blown around.

Cheers Stu, I've read that the .177 Exacts are good, but lads can't get hold of them now, I'm guessing with the lead ban not going ahead the companies don't see a need for the pellets? Any idea of the FPS the .177 were doing, I was concerned with the accuracy thinking the pellets would be going at silly speeds, and out of my Super Carbine I didn't expect them to be stable?

I'm using a Webley Axsor, something else I've read off a few lads is that it can take a while getting the accuracy back after shooting non lead, it's not something that I would choose to do unless there was a good reason, lead would be my first choice.

Cheers mate, I think you'd have to have a reason to use them, my guess is you'd have to be extra careful around buildings or roofs, because they won't splat like a lead pellet would, ferals on girders are probably out of bounds, and it's these things that make air rifles so useful.

Thanks, from reading others posts and articles I'd expect the .177 to be going too fast and be unstable, but some have had success with them. But I don't like really light weight pellets, the .22 weighing what a .20 weighs fits the bill.

I realise this won't be of interest to many, but as I've done some testing I thought I'll post it anyway. I did a lot of reading and followed topics on lead free pellets when there was a chance the lead ban may have come in. I've got one permission that now requires lead free, and a possible new place to shoot that would need to be lead free as well. Now I didn't read much positive about non lead pellets, but I hadn't tried any till last month, I'd been given samples in .177 but the pellets didn't look great, and I wasn't willing to mess with the accuracy of my .177 rifle. The .177 pellets are seriously light 4-6 grains, so I did some more reading and looked at what's available in .22 as I have a spare rifle, as you do. Looking at pellet weights and what was available I bought samples of H&N Barracuda (12.4g) and JSB Exacts (10.75). One article I read said the pellets can be very dry compared to lead and suggested adding some lube, so that's what I did. Both pellets looked brilliant, and I wanted the heavier pellet to be the more accurate. To start off I was only shooting at 16mtrs, not a lot of use I know, but my garden was wet through so this was the max safe range I could get without trampling up and the wet grass. It's fair to say I was very surprised, I zeroed with lead then started shooting the H&N, changed pellets and the target and shot some of the JSBs and the group was tighter, now lead free isn't supposed to group, I've seen posts from folk putting up far worse groups and saying how good a gun is grouping. Now zoom in on the pellets, a big factor with these pellets is they don't brake up, my normal backstop is a few sheets of lead over a thermalight block, and other than rifling marks the pellets look untouched!! They have cut the lead to bits and York chunks out of the block, lead does not do this. This is a few sheets of lead shot from a few metres setting the power on a .177 AA 410 All stopped dead, then bellow is the lead free shot at 20 & 25mtrs. They have cut clean through the lead, then been stopped by the block, my guess is shooting against a normal metal pellet catcher the pellets are going to be pinging everywhere!!!! After I'd done the test at 16mtrs, a few weeks afterwards I also shot some dead squirrels, I just positioned the squirrels in front of the above targets and took a single shot, each one punched straight through ( live squirrels won't sit nicely for you 😉) It was almost a month before I got around to doing further testing, and I'd also bought some bags to shoot off, wow what a difference they make, I normally get a small amount of movement with my heart beat but on the sand filled bags nothing. I set up, adjusted the scope then took the first shots, I'm using an old Webley Axsor, the head position is very fussy on this gun, and the trigger could do with being a bit lighter, but I've not really messed with it yet. Starting at 20mtrs, three pellets through practically the same hole 😳 that'll do, then back to 25mtrs. I set my squirrel feeders between 20- 25mtrs so that's the accuracy I'm needing. Red areas points to the direction cardboard was when shooting. I was hitting a bit low, wasn't quite settled on the first few shots, but again the pellets were grouping, settled in ( the mag doesn't load smoothly, takes a bit of force to close, this is with any pellets, it's the same with an empty mag) I finished off with the Red dot in the middle, two dots @25 metres, dot is 13mm The pellets shot so well I'm tempted to try them through the Rapid, but anytime I've tried a pellet it doesn't like its only ever been one shot, you can feel when this gun doesn't like a pellet. To say I'm pleased is an understatement and shocked, these at least are accurate and the H&N might well tighten up given chance. I shot two pellets over the chrono, being the weight of a .20 pellet I was expecting them to be going really fast, but they were going 640 ish, giving about 10.9 ft/lb ( I did write the figures down, 643 & 646 I think?) It's worth saying again if you got this far, be careful where you shoot non lead, it's a definite risk of ricochet, and I'd be surprised if ranges allow it. So now I need to order more pellets, then the final test, which is shooting squirrels off a feeder. Hopefully this is of interest to a few of you 👍

I measured the bore on my Axsor and BSA mods the other day, but I can't think if they were 7 or 8mm, BSA mod is off a .177, Axsor is a. 22