Poor Shot

One annoyance from today is the normalisation of obesity. I think it is crazy that as a society we seem to have shifted from the opinion that carrying a few extra pounds is ok but not desirable to it's ok to be morbidly obese and your health completely out of control, so long as you are confident in yourself. It almost seems to be a repeat of the normalisation and glorification of the smoking of tobacco in olden times. Will we one day view it in the same light as we do smoking and we (I at least) see those stood outside the hospital doors sucking the last dregs of smoke into their cancer filled bodies while hooked up to a life supporting drug and O2 supply and feel little very empathy and pity? This is from one who was once a 'fatty' and fell into the trap of fast food, beers and idleness. It's very easy to do and very hard to get out of. N.B. Lizzo, while an ok musical act, should never be considered an aspiring figure for young people.

The camera will be on a headband mount so it will look strange from cameras POV. I would say that for a lot of those shots he's mounting into the space in which he thinks the bird is going to be and pulling the trigger. Some others he's using swing through with a quick flick of the gun to create to the lead required. Seems to be working for him but I'd say he definitely a dedicated game shot if not then certainly someone who has a very peculiar technique for shooting driven game.

Interesting, thanks. It will all come together for him with age no doubt.

Good video, I enjoyed that. Must be daunting for a young dog to swim out into miles of open water, especially as they don't have a great field of view from water level and probably can't see the 50M+ out to where that duck was. How would you normally build the dog up to this? Would you just gradually build up the distances until he was comfortable retrieving at any distance?

The comments on that Telegraph article are surprisingly promising.

If I paid X amount for a sky package and then had to sit through 15 minutes plus of adverts every hour I'd be super ****** off. As it goes I use streaming subscription services and YouTube only. As soon as one of them so much as shows a glimmer of an advert then they will be cancelled.

The 3's are technically HP due to the shot size being a 3 or larger, this is despite them only reaching roughly the same pressures as the same cartridge in a shot size 4 or larger. Something to do with the inability of the larger shot sizes to compress sufficiently through a choke without an increase in pressure. Steel shot is a minefield and we're still relatively early days in its use and development. I can imagine that the same sort of issues and discussions took place when switching from BP to nitro proofing way back when. I can also imagine that a lot more people just carried on with nitro cartridges in BP only guns regardless.

Take the fight to the only other party in Wales that is in with a shot of knocking Labor out next time round. If you could get into Plaid Cymru and show them just how much a vote winner actively going against the devastation of the rural economy would be then you could trigger a response similar to that which lead UKIP to force the conservatives into holding the brexit referendum. I'd say that Labor are already hemorrhaging popularity amongst their core voter group following the appalling M4 expansion and 20mph limit decisions made by Labor in the last few years. If the competition are seen to be hoovering up votes in the mid and north Wales areas by supporting the countryside then they'll soon reconsider. It's all about power and how long they can maintain it for these creeps.

This is never going to go away. We can only hope that Labor are booted from the Senedd in 2026 and replaced with a government that is willing to work with the countryside and not against it. If I could wish one thing from BASC, it would be to knock the lead ammunition lost cause on the head and concentrate all funds and efforts into this. Once Welsh Gov bans (regulates) the release of game birds then England, Scotland and Northern Ireland will follow suit. We can live with lead alternatives but if game bird release is banned then near everything else will go with it.

I will find some of the advertising from Hull when I have a chance. It was mentioned in a lot of youtube content at the time by Hull via Ed Solomons and TGS. I would disagree that BASC announced the ban. I think the only thing that BASC did was give a heads up on what was coming our way and set out a voluntary transition away from lead and S/U plastics. Whether BASC were involved or not HSE/UK GOV etc were going to be implementing a ban regardless. These multiple rounds of consultations are little but pantomime and process, lead is dead. It's a bit **** to bash BASC for making a decision to head off the ban and start a voluntary transition and sticking with it. I believe that BASC did not, in any way, ban or encourage the banning of lead use in ammunition. Just like many toxic substances before it, lead is slowly being phased out of all products in which it is used. Most solder is now lead free, water piping is copper or plastic, gasoline fuel supplied with alternative octane additives, lead free flashing systems etc.. It was only a matter of time. What the manufacturers should have done at the time of the announcement was set to work developing a product lineup for the UK market which catered for all from the antique 12 bore user to the 410 and 28 gauge users. Instead they set about doing almost nothing apart from lining their pockets on the back of increasing the cost of lead products and now we are stuck against a potentially incoming hard stop with very little product development having taken place. Having a very limited, expensive and 12/20 bore only lineup of alternative products is where we should have been 2 or more years ago. By now we should have cost effective alternatives to lead for all popular gauges and a workable and cost effective solution for rifle and air rifle ammunition. 22LR is one of the most popular calibres in the UK, Europe and USA but to date the only lead alternative is wildly inaccurate, scarce and very expensive. Hortonium is a step in the right direction but is still extremely expensive and as yet, not available for general purchase. The market for shotgun ammunition in the UK is about to be turned on its head. The first manufacturer to make widely available a cost comparable steel/non toxic and bio wad clay target cartridge will take the market practically overnight. Anyone who has ever played monopoly will know that isn't good and if the solutions comes from outside of the UK then it could spell the end of a lot of the UK cartridge (assemblers) manufacturers.

Seems like the blame lies mostly at the door of the manufacturers and not BASC. They have had the last few years to make the required changes to their product lineup and have done relatively nothing. While it appears that BASC aren't being entirely honest with their try sustainable ammunition project, they can only work with what the manufacturers can provide. If the likes of Hull and Lyalvale haven't bothered to develop their own bio friendly wad systems then BASC can't do anything about that. What we are seeing now is a panicked and rushed move to non toxic and biodegradable wad systems that only a few of the home manufacturers have bothered to put any effort into the development and manufacturing capability for. I'd like to know for certain what the latest Hull wad is made of as they did a small advertising campaign not long back to advertise their new water soluble wad (earthy green and fibrous material) and that they had moved away from their previous bio product (brown and smooth to the touch). They do advertise that their new wad is 100% plastic free which would be completely false if they were made from PLA which is a plastic material.

I should clarify that the pattern testing was carried out during what can only be described as a complete deluge. The wad was thoroughly soaked by the time I got to it. That particular cartridge had been in my fowling cartridge belt for most of last season and this one in which I experienced more than a few soakings. The barrel appeared to be clean after firing with no sign of the shot breaching the wad material. I'd say that it's had more than enough exposure to conditions in which a cartridge could get damp than I would reasonably expect a manufacturer would design for and was fine. I did drop one in the sea a few weeks back but I couldn't retrieve it which is a shame. It would have been useful to leave it to one side for a few weeks and inspect the wad and shot and see if the wad had degraded or the shot corroded at all.

As it turns out, the specific definition of biodegradable in reference to plastic materials is that the material will breakdown under its own devices when left to nature, no timescale mentioned. Compostable is defined roughly as a material breaking down when subjected to an industrial composting process (controlled heat, humidity, O2 and temperature plus the introduction of specific microorganisms). PLA is, in some cases, determined to be biodegradable as it breaks down completely (fully degraded into its component materials, lactic acid etc) naturally in span of up to 80 years. Its not ideal but up to 80 years compared to the hundreds, if not thousands of years that an HDPE wad would take to breakdown is a step in the right direction. As an aside, have Hull not changed the wad material to a water soluble material rather than a bio degradable or compostable material similar to the EcoWad used by Eley? I have noticed that the terminology on the cartridge box has changed from BioWad to HydroWad. I have a Gamebore wad collected from some very rain soaked pattern testing I did on the weekend. Within the time it took from firing to collection (2-3 mins) it had become quite malleable and sticky to the touch. I have thrown it into the hedge in the garden and I will check up on it in a few days.

What are specifications of the Biodegradable term? Are these simply expectations by the user that the WAD will completely disappear within a short timescale or are there specific guidance as to what qualifies as biodegradable? Lets not forget that felt wads and overpowder cards aren't exactly short term biodegradable in every scenario in which they are used. Take a walk around a fibre only clay ground and it's not uncommon to see fibre wads that have been in situ for a long time if they end up somewhere dry and out of direct sunlight (under trees, hedges, thick brush etc).

Are those not the HMRC claimable expense rates? Your company can pay you as much or as little as they like but you can claim the allowances stated by Ducksandwing above as tax minus the amount that the company pays. Don't quote me on it but I believe there is no statutory rate for mileage expenses hence the claimable allowance from HMRC. For example: Company pays £0.10 per mile of private use. You can then claim the remaining £0.35 per mile from HMRC. I would however be firm and demand that unless a satisfactory amount is paid to you in exchange for the use of your own private vehicle for the companies benefit then they had better arrange taxi travel instead.

Still for sale £285.

I had booked a half day to go clay shooting this afternoon. The shooting ground has read the forecast as wet and very windy for this afternoon and decided not to open as a result. Typically, its currently dry/ occasional showers with a light breeze. Unless the weather goes very south in the next few hours then it will have been very miscalculated forecast from the met office.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1481662302296366/?ref=share Try that.

I've used Pellpax in the past. Good price and the gun arrived at my door exactly when they said it would. It may take a few weeks to get your delivery as they batch postcodes and work through then in order.

Try the Just Chokes Facebook page. Sell/Buy/Swap page for only shotgun chokes and very active.

I think the issue that really sticks with people on this is the fact that not too long ago the government asked us all to practise restraint in not asking for pay rises to help stem the rising inflation. This request was aimed at all from those working cleaning toilets and having to chose between heating and eating and those top earners including bankers. It seems to a lot of people that yet again, those at the bottom are forced to suffer while those at the top take the lions share. Trickle down economics doesn't work when the little that does actually trickle down is taken back in taxes and inflation. Why can that not apply wholesale? Surely millions of people earning a medium percentage more and paying more income tax as a result is far better than very few earning a lot more (while also likely having access to mechanisms to offshore or otherwise avoid income tax). As I just mentioned, not long ago we were all asked to practise restraint and not demand pay rises to help stem inflation. Why are bankers then being given a free pass to up their earnings in addition to the increased base wages they will have been awarded during the cap?

One can only assume that they know that they're on the way out so are busy doing their mates some favours in exchange for a cushy job when they lose the next election.

I meet these sorts quite often as a lot of my training is done in the back end of a country park where most cannot be ***** to go as it's quite far from the visitor center. I quite often find myself wanting to place the best part of a sized 9 Le Chameau into the dogs ribcage but realise that it's not the dog but the moron owner that needs a good kicking. There are some that think this behavior is acceptable and treat the whole park as their own personal dog park in which their dog has the right to run where it pleases and 'play' with the other dogs. 95% of people there are respectable, have their dogs under control and use common sense. I quite often see an older bloke and his Thai bride who walk a grossly overweight beagle, the dog is always on the lead but it's obviously in control and they go where it pulls them. I do laugh when I hear her trying to reason and plead with the dog to stop when it's pulling them across a muddy bog or toward a river. It's like something out of 00's comedy sketch show with Matt Lucas as the Thai bride and David Walliams as the older Jimmy Saville looking bloke.

Gutted for you lads.. A real shame that Marler and Cole had near dominated the scrum only to see it slip away in the hands of others in what will probably be their last ever England game.

I'm rooting for England in this one. I'm Welsh and it pains me but anything is better than another 4 years of Boks fans being absolute ***** in every rugby discussion. SB to put a sock in Owen Farrels mouth? Not sure the ref will take another ear bashing from him.