Poor Shot

My predictions for the tournament as follows: 1. Ireland (Despite Farrell being on sabbatical) 2. France 3. Italy 4. England 5. Scotland 6. Wales (I hope I am wrong) First place could be anyone of Ireland or France depending on how they get on in their clash. Italy to build on last years success and take the England scalp for (I believe?) the first time. England to take a beating from Ireland which will set the tone for their tournament and will see Borthwick out on his ***. I think Scotland's chance at a title has been and gone. If Scotland were to have done it then it would have been 19-23 and they now need to move on from Townsend and get a fresh start. Wales to push one or two teams close for the 1st 60 minutes but then fall over to a 15+ point loss in the last 20 minutes. As far as this weekend fixtures go, it'll be France, Italy and Ireland to take the wins.

They are a very front heavy gun. Mine required most, if not all of the stock weights to be installed just to put the balance point on the hinge pin and get the balance back between the hands. They have a lot of the overall weight in the front end of the gun which makes them quite taxing to use. I too experienced scores dropping off towards the end of the round whereas with my 694, which is probably around 9lbs with balance weights installed at both ends, I feel like I could shoot stands 1-12, then 12-1 and then back to 12 again and still feel fresh. A very nicely balanced gun, no recoil (relatively speaking) and a pleasure to use. On the flip side, my ProSport felt like it could have fired 250k cartridges and still look like it did the day it came out of the factory. I'm not sure the 694 could stand up to that abuse without regular servicing and overhauls.

Beretta 694 sporting with adjustable stock is advertised at 8lbs 3oz. I'm not sure a pound here or there is really going to make the difference between a gun being too heavy or not over a couple hundred clays. I'd say it was more where that weight is distributed throughout the gun. Guns with longer barrels (32"+) and long, stainless steel chokes right out at the end will put a lot of pressure on the left arm. Shorter barrels with smaller, titanium chokes will feel lighter and faster to swing but may well be within a few oz's of a longer barreled gun overall. Worth trying a few guns before committing to buy based on the listed weight alone. I shoot a 694 with 32" barrels and it seems to be in the goldilocks zone for me. It's not so light that its fidgety or so heavy that it becomes unwieldy and hard to control. The Browning ProSport I had prior to the 694 was exactly that. It was a shade under 10lbs with the stock weights installed and a lovely gun for big, slow targets and it was like shooting a 28 bore recoil wise but outside of that it carried too much momentum in the swing to be controllable and I found myself fatigued early on when shooting a 100 target course with a lot of smaller, faster technical targets.

I shot my first (and last) Shoveler this year. I used it to make some mexican style Enchiladas and even with a lot of garlic, chilly and other spices thrown in I could still taste the super strong muddy/ gamey taste. They are also quite a small bird and I had to pack out the meal with some mallard to make it worth eating so not really worth taking in this day and age. I'm quite happy that I can tick that one off the list but all future shovelers have a free pass from me to fly on.

Two huge breasts on a Canada Goose which go really well in a slow cooker curry. To the uneducated, you could almost mistake it for a beef curry. I've also roasted them in the past, stuffed with sausage stuffing and butter pushed under the skin made it an acceptable accompaniment with Turkey on a Christmas dinner. Only the issue I have with them is carrying multiples of them off the foreshore. They can be quite heavy and I'm surprised that some of them can even fly with all that weight. They have a lot of offal as well which the dogs quite like eating.

Seems reasonable.. The question is, is that level of cost required to sustain the current service levels (absolute **** and an embarrassment in most parts) or will an improved level of service and a return to 12 week grants and renewals be possible? I'm going with the former personally.

IMO if the guns are paying guns and this isn't a beat one/ shoot one or informal syndicate where your up to shoot the next drive or week then you keep schtum. You could start chatting on the gun bus and if the person is receptive to it then offer some training tips to overcome the dogs running in. You could have a private word with the beat captain or keeper and advise that it's probably a little unsafe and disruptive to other guns to have this unruly dog cutting about the place while the drive is in progress but its probably not your place to do so directly, as you have highlighted in your post. If I were a paying gun on a shoot and one of the pickers up had the hump because I was allowing my dog to pick up birds I (or my mates) had shot then I'd be having a word with the keeper about it. Ultimately, even on a volunteer basis, you are there as shoot staff to serve the paying customers. I wouldn't be happy with a checkout assistant who gave me passive aggressive grief because I started to pack my own shopping in the same way I wouldn't be happy with shoot staff being upset that their dog didn't get as many retrieves as it otherwise would have because I'd brought my own dog to stand on peg. I do a lot more beating than I do shooting so I don't want the above to sound as If I'm some privileged snob speaking down to the serf with the gun dogs but we do need to remember what we are there for and what we get out of it in return. I would just make an effort to ensure I positioned myself well away from that particular gun on the next drive.

Agreed. Steel is approx 1/3 lighter than lead so you get around 1/3 more shot per shot charge weight. Add that to the fact that steel shot does not deform as much as lead when fired leading to a naturally tighter patterns then steel cartridges actually do quite well. Problems start to arise at distance where the steel pellet would have lost a lot more of its energy to air resistance. That's where a step up in pellet size starts to matter. I have used the 29g steel 5's from Empire Cartridges before now and these are perfect for close range stuff, birds over decoys etc. I only stopped using them because of the plastic wad.

Where did the two animals come from? You don't just happen over two fully grown Lynx like you would a rescue horse or something.. They would have been smuggled in from abroad or released from a native private collection. Both are concerning as you would hope the authorities would notice two large wild cats being brought into the country and you would hope that any native private collections of big cats are closely monitored and licensed to help prevent this sort of thing. Having said that, if they can't detect a LGV filled with third world migrants then two large cats in a cage would probably also go unnoticed. Anyway, wildlife bombing isn't a rare thing unfortunately with plenty of recent examples of beavers turning up miles from authorised released sites. The excess animals from these authorised sites are often captured and then driven across the country by these eco lunatics and then released onto private land. I recall reading a news article a little while back which documented an example of this with beavers being caught up somewhere in the south east and then released under the cover of darkness onto private land in the south west. Not the article I read but similar.

Great stuff. I know so many people who are late 50's that are completely done having spent the last 30 years sat on their ***** in workingmen's clubs drinking ale and eating from the frying pan. Big pot bellies, knees that no longer work, constant back pain. I often drive past the local and see the same faces that I knew growing up. They'll be there, every day after work, either inside or outside swigging away on the gut rotter and chugging on cigs. That pub will effectively be their coffin. The key is to stay mobile and keep the brain ticking over. I recently worked with a bloke in his mid 80's who manned a desk in the office for a few hours a day 4 days a week to keep himself busy. For an 85 year old he was fairly fit and bright as the sun but he finally retired at 86 with some pressure from his family to enjoy his life. He didn't make it to 87. He always said that it was work that was keeping him alive. True. I work out in the gym 5 days a week and intend to do so until my body no longer allows me to. I am effectively T total and don't smoke. If I do get to 75 then I intend to be in good enough health to allow me to enjoy it. Good to hear that you are both out and getting on with it and long may it continue!

The chips are just the right side of brown but would have preffered a runny yolk to dip them in. Reminds me of the home cooked meals of my childhood. Everything from the frying pan and the fryer. All those processed seed oils and greasy food may have taken years from my life but the food was lovely I certainly enjoyed it at the time.😋 Who wants to live into their 90's anyway? It can't be much fun beyond 75, sat in a chair all day ****ting ones self involuntarily.. Anything from 6/3 to 5/8 on the above chart posted by Tightchoke will be fine..

Get yourself a Land Rover and do it properly. It may ruin your life and be the worst decision you've ever made but alternatively it may not be and be 10 years of trouble free, luxury, peak off roader motoring. You'd get a good Discovery 4 or Range Rover Sport of around 2012 to 2015 vintage with low miles for £13k. Silky smooth 3.0 V6 diesel, 35 MPG, 8 Speed auto, 7 seats or huge boot space on command and a sublime ride with the adjustable air suspension. For the same budget you'll even get a decent L322 Range Rover with the 4.4 V8 diesel a la Jeremy Clarkson or Harry Metcalf. Just keep on top of the servicing and don't let the small jobs build up and you'll be good for years of motoring to your rural barn conversion. The bonus being that a good Discovery 4 will fly under the radar of the nomadic Irish community unlike an Amarok, DMAX or Hilux of a similar age.

I knew it would be Lea Lea before I even scrolled down to the video.. 😅 She does put out some good content but she does need to learn to tone herself back a bit and step back and ask herself 'would anyone actually want to watch this' before uploading it. Makes a difference from 15 minutes of Hikvision thermal footage of some bloke shooting foxes and she's out there showing that women can and do have a place in fieldsports at least so hats off to her for that.

3" steel proofed to boot. The 725 pro sport was HP steel proofed but 2 3/4" chambers only. I'm not sure why as 2 3/4" HP steel cartridges must be quite rare.