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Poor Shot

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About Poor Shot

  • Birthday 02/04/1993

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    South Wales

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  1. Agreed. If this is to be the case then we should be putting forward a case for every force to have an independent service review with any forces carrying out procedures outside of the statutory guidance being made to reduce their procedures to the minimum requirements. Project Titanium in Gwent police for example. Any forces that refuse are allowed only to charge what the cost of the minimum requirement would be. Forces should also have to abide by service level agreements with any failures resulting in partial refunds to the firearms holder should a force exceed their SLAs which increase with the severity of the failure. I wouldn't have such an issue paying £300 for a grant application if it was guaranteed that a grant would be processed within 12 weeks or a renewal inside of 4 weeks.
  2. Sounds like a case of confirmation bias in so far as the shooters who took part with a prior belief that the steel cartridges wouldn't be as good as the lead cartridges. It could also be the case that those particular steel cartridges used weren't very good, that does happen from time to time. I once had an extremely poor batch of Fiocchi TT1's which had degraded wadding which shot out like a party popper and deformed shot in sizes from 5 to 9. The patterns were horrendous and scores reflected the quality being on average 40% down. I have used steel 28g 7's in the past and couldn't really tell that much difference on everyday sporting targets out to 40-50 yards. I would still use them today had the price not shot up from £240's per thou to near £400 per thou for no apparent reason. Lately I have been using the 16g 7.5 super light biowad steels from Express on a local straw bailer shoot and I've had high gun in the 3 of the 4 shoots I've used them on and I'm not an exceedingly great shot. The only issues I can see that we are going to face surrounds supply of biodegradable wads and the resulting price gouging that will occur. It's already expensive enough and we all know how the manufacturers love a good crisis to use as an excuse to increase margins. Most CPSA registered shoots allow the use of plastic wads which makes a transition quite painless but it's not a great look for the sport to be flinging hundreds of pieces of plastic litter into the countryside each weekend. It's a fairly safe bet that the use of single use plastic wads with no easy reclamation methods will be next on the ban list. BASC, CPSA and whoever else can be considered a stakeholder need to work together with Hull, Gamebore, Eley, Express etc and ensure that they acknowledge that lead is dead and be prepared to immediately start adapting to a supply chain based around steel shot and biodegrable wads. If they don't and the manufacturers cling onto their existing lead based product lines right up until the transition deadline then we'll all be in for a world of pain with £600 per thou clay cartridges and the overnight death of the sport. Barrel damage is a concern. You're a lot more likely to come across a faulty wad which does not perform as designed and allows the shot to scuff the barrels when you're firing 100's in one weekend compared to an average seasons wildfowling where a single box of 25 may last the season or a season driven duck shooting where a slab 250 may last a few outings. Most manufacturers have a disclaimer on the cartridge box stating they will not be responsible for barrel damage resulting from the use of steel shot. I can't say I've experienced barrel damage from any of the 1000's of steel cartridges I've used in any of my guns to date but It only takes one failed wad to leave a nice long score line up the barrel and that gun is immediately devalued. Gun use and design may evolve to a point where barrels become a consumable part as with center fire rifles and periodic replacement is the expectation once a barrel has become too worn out from steel shot damage. Perhaps internal barrel coatings will evolve to cope with steel shot damage.
  3. I have a pair of recent Le Chems that I've had for about 2 and half years. I wear them every day for 6-7 months of the year and on the outside they are still as good as new, albeit dirty and in need of a clean. The inside has worn slightly but that's probably because I have size 9 boots for size 8 feet so my feet do slide around a little on the inside if I'm not wearing extra thick socks. I use them for everything from beating, shooting and wildfowling to working in the garden and walking the dogs. They've done some miles them boots and are very comfortable. A pair a Jack Pyke wellingtons lasted about 4 weeks in the same usage profile before splitting.
  4. The argument proposed by a few on the thread is equal to a motorist with a passing interest in shooting asking why one would ever bother to own anything other than a £50 70's era Spanish SxS given they all do the same thing and having anything more is just posturing. Some things are just nice to own and having a car with more of anything than you may otherwise need can be exactly that to some. Similarly owning an expensive, hand engraved pair of old english guns with a £100k price tag can also be a nice thing to own. Do I need a near 3 ton land rover with a big diesel engine? I don't have any kids and seldom use the spare front seat never mind the 6 others that are available but I get enjoyment from using it and it is useful when it's my turn to drive to shoots and we're 4 up with guns, kit and dogs. I could put that all into a 90's transit van and drive around with a huge chip on my shoulder at all those 'wasting' money on nice cars but I don't have to and don't want to. I could also trade in the diesel land rover for a 5 litre supercharged range rover and get similar enjoyment from its use but I won't because I like the land rover. It's a good balance between running costs and practicality. Folks would do well to enjoy what they have rather than having an opinion on what others have and enjoy.
  5. Near enough every car in the last 15 years will have electronics of some sort within the wing mirror housing. Some are simple like mechanisms to enable the mirror glass to be moved via a switch inside the car but some are a lot more complicated. The mirrors on mine for example have indicating lights, temperature sensors, glass mechs, heating elements, puddle lights, wading depth sensors, blind spot monitoring sensors and displays, auto folding mechanisms. All of these systems will communicate with the ECU to detect faults and relay information to the screen and onboard systems. Most main dealers will want a minimum of £180 just to get the car in the workshop before any actual work has taken place. It's not all greed either, they'll have some pretty horrendous manufacturer franchising fees, software and licensing costs, manufacturer training costs on top the usual overheads and costs. Your average back street garage or even specialists won't have these associated costs as they'll probably be ex-manufacturer trained, have lesser and more common fault finding hardware and software and not have to pay any costs to be associated with a particular brand or be limited in where they can source parts. Looking back at the service history for my Land Rover and a basic service (oil, filters and checks) from a Land Rover main dealer set the last owner back the best part of £800 for probably a half days work. The same service this year at an Independent Land Rover specialist was just over £450 using OEM parts and fluids with the online service history also updated. A non Land Rover affiliated specialist probably would have been even cheaper.
  6. The rules really are quite complicated. Have a quick read and give it a go. Super sporting can be considered as a FITASC lite and a good stepping stone into FITASC. Allow up to 6 hours for the shoot as they do like a break them FITASC boys. Typically 25 targets break, 25 targets lunch break, 25 targets another break and then the final 25 targets. Hybrid FITASC shoots can be 50, break, 50 but still a long day. Take a drink and something to eat. Take plenty of cartridges, 150 minimum for a 100 target shoot. Single targets can be shot with the second barrel if missed with the first. You can easily eat through 50 cartridges for a single 25 target parcours if you get some no birds thrown in. I usually shoot around 185-200 cartridges with a 25 bird pool shoot before hand.
  7. Do you think that shooting can stand the pressure that has been put onto fox hunting historically? We have enough problems as it is with a near shadow ban on game shooting taking place in Wales which was only narrowly avoided due to the amount of responses received and the inefficiency in which NRW is processing them and the huge effort put forward by BASC to get these responses. A labour government was previously elected largly on having a fox hunting ban in their manifesto. That's a huge amount of opposition which could very easily be manipulated into supporting a ban on game shooting. I can see it now, labour running for government in 2028 with the promise of banning game shooting in big bold letters. We all know just how easy parties will steal ideas from their opposition if they think it'll get them some support. If we're extra unlucky then we could see the conservatives also running on a game shooting ban. I'd love to share your optimism on this but if fox hunting goes in its entirely then we'll be right in the firing line.
  8. Agreed. There are bad apples in all aspects of life.
  9. Yes on both counts. Before I came back to shooting a few years ago I was quite into mountain biking and would cover 50+ miles a week on local trails. It wasn't uncommon to find nail boards on trails, broken glass, nails scattered on the ground, trees felled across paths. I've no idea why one would take offense to others using public trails for purposes other than walking but these people do live among us. Anti-fishing opinion is growing fast. Find an article in your local online rag about a swan found with a hook in it's throat or something and read the comments. It's not quite at anti shooting levels but there are people out there that find the act of hooking a fish by it's mouth just to look at it and then toss it back quite abhorrent.
  10. Only ones that have gone so far.. As said, fox hunting is the main focus at the moment but there are signs that this will spread should fox hunting go completely. Remember the disruption caused by antis on last years glorious 12th? That was only a small effort by a few individuals and could quite easily become a wholescale shoot sab movement. Outside of shooting we already have numerous cases of mountain biking trails being sabotaged with nail boards, ropes strung across the track at body height etc by some quite frankly deranged people who believe they have the right to do those things. Locally we have a park lake that was littered with no fishing signs by an individual which has since been backed up by the park based on the disruption caused. Just so happens that there is nothing but Canadian pond weed, duck **** and silt in there anyway but just goes to show how this sort of thing is growing. These lunatics always have and always will exist. Right now they are almost wholly focused on fox hunting. It needs to remain that way.
  11. I outlined that I could see it both ways but clearly stated my preference in the last line. Your questions are valid. If we cast out fox hunting, then who is next? Big bag commercial shoots? It can be argued that there is little outlet for hundreds of shot pheasants hence the value of the carcass being pennies. Small hobby and syndicate shoots? They don't support the local economy in the same way the commercial shoots do. Local people on a local shoot aren't booking rooms in a local hotel, having their lunch at a local pub (more likely home cooked out the back of a landrover). Can't they just take up golf or something? Wildfowling? All those red and amber listed species that are still on the quarry list. Or even pest control? A lot of (flawed) anti shooting arguments out there support just leaving nature to it with no predator or pest control and what will be will be.
  12. See part 2 of my last post. This does not stop but only evolves to keep step with the progress made.
  13. I can see this both ways. 1. Fox hunting is attracting a lot of attention to fieldsports and risks dragging the whole lot down with it. The remainder of the fieldsports population should completely disassociate itself from fox hunting and leave them out to dry in an attempt to modernise and set ourselves apart from barbaric practises. 2. Do we really think that the efforts of sabs, antis etc will end at the complete dissolution of fox hunting? Traditionally SABs, hardcore antis are people without a cause, people just looking for a club to be a part of. I'd go as far as saying that most couldn't give two ****s about foxes but they really do feel strongly about those upper class twerps galloping around on horses with little regard for anyone. There are a lot of people out there in the world who are loners. When they find a group willing to accept the loners and stangers, those that never really fit in anywhere then they'll cling onto it and fully buy in to the ideology. Much the same way that in the US the strangers and losers buy into the modern day klan or nazi or even the BLM movements. They don't have anywhere else to go and no one else who will welcome them in the same way. When questioned they often don't really mind black people or jews and they actually think that defunding the police is a terrible idea, they're just there because the movements are there for them. SAB groups have good following on social media but outside of the 2% that actually turn up to disrupt the hunts, most are middle aged house wives or house husbands who share the videos, statuses etc to show others that they feel strongly about something that can be perceived to be a popular opinion. Gerry on the next street over has shared a hunt sab status with a thumbs up, I've now got to do the same or I'll appear to be at odds with Gerry's opinion. Not in a million years would you find Sarah and David, mid 40's from the home counties with 3 children in private education turning up at a sab meet but they will share the social media post and maybe buy a sab group badge to stick on their car. Once the laws have been changed, the kennels and stables demolished, huntsmen made redundant and the left over horses and hounds culled then the Gloucester hunt sab group will simply become the Gloucester shoot sab group and so on. Can't have those other posh twerps cutting about the place in tweeds and range rovers, shooting at those poor little pheasants. We'll then have them standing in front of guns, running through the drives, burning down kennels that have gundogs in them etc. Only now we'll have them trying intimidate people who are holding firearms and not everyone has the cool to simply pack up and walk away. It'll only take one rise to their slimy behavior then they've got you on footage, edited only to show the gun reacting to being spat on, punched or attacked by a sab and then your looking at a potential offence and instant loss of certificates. Once hunting has had it, then will shooting and then fishing as will horse racing, greyhound racing, moto x, livestock farming, mountain biking and so on. It's an ideology and Ideologies evolve to stay relevant. I don't agree with fox hunting and would never participate but I do see them as the low hanging fruit that these near terrorist like groups can target and leave the rest of us to get on with it and because of that they would have my support to continue.
  14. Alarm for 5:15, feed the dogs, a quick coffee and then to the gym for 6:00. Taking a cold plunge first thing in the morning is reported to have many benefits like boosting circulation, reducing inflammation and can help with recovery. Rogan constantly bigs up the benefits of using a cold plunge and he is in pretty good shape for a guy in his late 50's. Seems like it would be a great idea in July following those heatwave nights of sweat reduced sleep but in December and you have break the ice from the surface before getting in? Nah, maybe not.
  15. If you cleaned your ejectors every time you shot, you wouldn't have any time to shoot in the first place. 😅 It's a bit like washing the car after every journey. Once every 500-1000 cartridges mine gets an 'involved' cleaning depending on the season. It's a 694 action so has the little magnetic discs to release the ejectors. I have other guns which need to be disassembled, screws removed etc to get the ejectors out. It's a twice a year job with them.
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