stu64

I've been shooting clays only for 5 years but I've put in an awful lot of range time, shooting at least once a week, quite often 6 times a month. I've taken advice of guys much better shots than me and I'm fairly confident now to offer advice. I only ever use 1/4 choke in my o/u and semi auto-if the gun is in the right place the clay will break. I've had good kills at 40 yards and beyond. My scores are 80-85 (best score 92). The most common "mistake" I see is people shooting below the clay. This stems from the desire to put the front bead right down so you don't see any rib. I know a lot will now be screaming "gun fit!!" but if you own a gun already it can be a case of just altering your gun mount so the shot lands where you want it to. Shoot a pattern plate and see where the shot lands. I proved this to a shooting buddy who couldn't hit a mole hill at a straw bale shoot. His scores went from 19/20 to 32 instantly. My own shooting improved in the same way. It's a bit alien to change your mount/sight picture, but the pattern plate says it all. Its all very well to say get the gun altered to fit you, but it costs and personally I found changing my mount to suit worked extremely well. No one actually tells you what you should expect to see when you look down the barrel, and some people think you should see no rib. Sorry to ramble on, but give it a go- you might be surprised.

I didn't know that 👍 every day's a schoolday 😤

I suppose where I was going with the post was to show that the labels h+n and jsb put on the bottom of the tins is a load of twaddle. I'm not into measuring and weighing pellets normally- i test pellets to see what works down range and leave it at that. The pellets I measured were all off the same shelf and measured at the same time so no temp variation there. If I got into HFT I might take it more seriously. I guess a better title for the post would have been pellet size and not pellet sizing 😄

👍😄

Yes I totally agree with you but the size on the tin is head size isn't it.

I've just bought a lovely new air arms S410F carbine and its certainly an accurate gun. while I was buying it I picked up a tin of air arms diabolo pellets 4.52mm. I then got some webley accupell and some jsb exact 4.51mm. After some paper bashing I really couldn't say one pellet grouped better than the other, all were excellent and certainly the gun and pellets were better than me. I don't know why but it occured to me to measure pellet head, so with digital calipers in hand i set to work. accupell don't actually give a head size but mine were very consistent at 4.48/4.49mm. the exacts labelled as 4.51 were actually 4.49, and the aa diabolo labelled at 4.52 were actually 4.49/4.50. I then went on to measure some h&n field target trophy in .22 I've had for years that none of my guns like. labelled as 5.53mm they actually measured up at 5.55/5.56. I then measured some jsb exact in 5.50, 5.51 and 5.52 and they all measured the same at 5.48/5.49. Has anyone else measured pellets? what did you come up with? as far as I can see unless you are buying hand sorted match ammo, what it says on the label may wrong. I will add the all the pellets were very consistent in there measured size. In the end I suppose it doesn't matter whats on the tin, its whats on the target that matters. Weighing them is another story.....

very nice. but sheds are like gun cabinets, you think its big enough but before you know it its full!!

I bought one made by Suaoki . Used it quite a lot and its very good. about £60 on amazon or ebay. or direct on their own website. https://www.suaoki.com/collections/laser-range-finder/products/laser-range-finder

In a previous post I said I once owned an escort (3" supreme) and sold it because I was fed up with constant jamming. Recently I had an "itch" to get it back (easy as my son had it). Well after using once for 100 clays and jamming about 15 times I thought I'd made another mistake getting it back! Anyway, I was giving it a clean after and notice that compared to my Benelli premium plus, the extractor claw seemed a bit dull at the end-not as sharp as the benelli's extractor. So after a little filing and making it "sharper" at the end I hoped for an improvement. Well after 4 rounds of 50 clays over saturday and sunday the little beauty didn't jam once!! How happy am I?- like a dog with two tails!! ( and to make it even better my best round was 47/50). Its not the best gun out there or the newest or the "must have model" but I'm not parting with it again. It just feels right when I pick it up. sorry to ramble on but I do like them and think they are good value.

I've been welding on and off for 30 odd years with no bother. 18 months ago i had to go to A+E with very high blood pressure and chest pain.I had tests for heart attack etc but the tests were clean. Off work for 2 weeks while visiting the doctor and hospital for more tests. The symptoms eventually went and then some weeks later returned, which coincided with me welding again. I had welders fever, well documented but it was a new one on me. If you Google it the symptoms are wide ranging and damage to you can be very bad. If you don't use a filter mask or air fed mask, and haven't had it I think you've been very lucky.

Everyone will have a different opinion on this but it sounds like you've reached a point here where a decision is going to be made by you, one way or the other. Personally I would ask the bloke point blank if I was still welcome on the land, as his attitude and comments to me were not what I would expect from someone I was trying to help, by way of controlling vermin on his land. Sometimes people laugh it off and say things like "take no notice of me, its just my way" or he may front up and admit he has a problem with you. Either way its out in the open and he will know sly comments are not your thing. No one likes be talked down to or belittled. Hope it works out for you.

How true. And it hurts more when the gun costs more. I would also be wary buying well known brands second hand. sometimes the owner/dealer is glad to get rid of it. A guy at my local clay shoot bought a second hand caeser guerini-lovely gun and a fair bit of money even second hand. But it loved to double discharge which they couldn't sort so he got rid. Nothing is perfect hey.

Yes I did have a faulty one. Just posting my experience with a mount master.

I have a nikko mount master 4-12x50 AO IR, bought it new and from day one the point of impact moves as you turn the magnification ring. Use it for pinking in the garden now. Replaced it with a hawke panorama, but even a hawke vantage I feel would be better than a mount master.

Just to put my penny's worth in, I bought an ATA lightweight 12g brand new, loved the gun and its reliability was faultless. I did very little hunting with it so sold it back to the original dealer who gave me a very fair price for it. I would buy another but it would be steel action-a little heavier so more of an all rounder and suitable for clays.

Just seen this post (a bit late!) I've been an advocate of winter tyres for years, and the its all in the name. They are not just for snow, they offer superior traction to hard compound tyres when the temperature drops below 7 degrees centigrade-pretty common in the uk after September/october. Living on Exmoor we get our fair share of the white stuff, but far more common is white frost and good old ice-winter tyres are extremely common here on 4x4's and cars. Even on a wet winter road if its below 7 degrees you get better traction and shorter braking distances.

I know two people who genuinely think that front fog lamps are daytime running lights. Had quite an argument with one about it!

I think you misunderstood my remark about having my cheek against the stock or the gun isn't mounted properly, I was responding to ginger cats comment about face slap. Of course you mount the gun against your cheek. I agree that Gun fit is very important, but I have shot 3 guns with pretty much identical stock dimensions, drop at comb and drop at heel the same on 3 guns. Comb/cheek alignment and pressure all the same. The guns are mounted the same. 2 are fine and one isn't. The only difference is gun weight.

Perhaps slap is the wrong word, face is definitely nicely planted against the stock, exactly the same as my main clay gun. I also had a cheap bettinsoli for a couple years, generic stock measurements, never had face pain/slap/knock/bruising. I find it nearly impossible to shoot unless my face is against the stock- the gun just isn't mounted right.

My 12g ATA with 26" barrels and alloy action kicked hard with 28 gram clay loads, and hurt my face. the gun was something like 6.5lbs. i could shoot well with it- 46/50 at the clay ground. I thought gun fit was pretty good, length of pull, drop at comb and heel were pretty much the same as my main gun. I removed the butt pad to find a large void in the timber- the stock had been lightened. I know a heavier gun kicks less-I normally shoot a sporter weighing 8.5lbs- so i tried filling the stock void with nuts and bolts. It was a good sized void and i managed to get in enough scrap to take the gun up to 7.25lbs. this made a big difference to the felt recoil and lessened the slap in the face significantly.( it also upset the balance of the gun, no surprise.) So- same gun, same cartridge, same shooter but making the gun heavier lessened recoil, and in this debate-less face slap. If the gun could have been made up to 8lbs maybe I would have felt no face slap and negligable recoil?

I know that feeling! i had an ATA alloy receiver 12g with 26" barrels. lovely gun that balanced well and was easy to carry. great for a walkabout where I might get a dozen shots. I took it clay shooting and just managed to finish the 50 clays- bruised shoulder and cheek only using 28gram load. loved the gun but traded it in. I wonder if the dealer still has it........

I've just bought a brand new cometa 400s on a whim and because it was on clearance-£135. still getting used to a springer again. nice weight at under 7lbs, pretty good build quality too. steady at 10.5 ft lbs right now. accuracy is good enough for 25m hunting, probably more if it wasn't me pulling the trigger! gotta say its better than i expected it to be. Glad i bought a springer again, didn't know how much I missed it.

i bought the very same-£38 from ebay. works well, but when i stripped my gun to replace a seal there was a lot of moisture in the main reservoir. no corrosion though because the cylinder was coated with silicon oil. I charged the gun with a dive bottle after the rebuild built the seal still leaked, so after stripping again i found moisture in the gun again -very surprised after filling from a new dive bottle. A bit of googling revealed from scuba diving sites that condensation happens inside a diving bottle when its filled and apparently theres not a lot can be done about it-hence the inspections of diving bottles. Compressed air is, or gets warm. Warm air meets cold metal = condensation. this happens to the dive bottle when it is filled at your local shop, and to your gun when you fill it from the diving bottle. I now wait for the replies saying moisture traps, filtered air etc. but as far as i could find out its not something that can be completely avoided. (my pump has a moisture trap) Back to the original question- in my experience they are a good buy but the slower you pump the cooler the air stays so keeping condensation to a minimum. (look a the webley accupump-looks the same just with webley branded on it and its about £100 more!!) you pay your money and take your choice!

I saw a video from lane regulators on you tube, showing an overcharged rifle reservoir that had blown the seals out- the end of reservoir had kind of trumpeted out slightly. gun was useless but didnt explode. In One of Steve Shally's videos (AEAC channel on you tube) he tried overcharging a rifle a couple of times I think he said, again- it blew the seals out but no other damage. I would imagine precharged guns are designed to fail as safely as possible, but I expect there is someone out there who knows someone that had a gun explode.

Fausti make fixed choke guns, really nice too. I use a multi choked Fausti pro comp for clays- a 50th birthday present from my wife. needless to say I would never change it. Have a look at Fausti UK website. Tony Laughton I think- nice chap.