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New Eley Maximum cartridge


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Have just seen an ad for the reincarnated Eley Maximum cartridge, a load of 38g of no3 lead shot.

On the face of it a useful inland goose load for inland Scotland, however this is being pushed as a high/extreme pheasant load.

The continued pushing of boundaries with excess range shooting with stupidly large loads will be our undoing by a selfish minority who indulge in this distasteful aspect of our sport.

High time we reverted to smaller bags of memorable but not extreme birds. 

At my current shoot 2 guns use 36g no4s for birds that can be killed with an ounce of 6s. All it achieves is spoiled birds.  

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3 minutes ago, Scully said:

What do you judge to be a ‘smaller bag’? I’ve asked this before and no one seems to be able ( or wants ) to answer. 
 

Personally a day of 100 is enough but the sport is overly commercialised and they apparently have to have big bags. 

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13 minutes ago, grahamch said:

Personally a day of 100 is enough but the sport is overly commercialised and they apparently have to have big bags. 

Ok. So in our small syndicate we have 12 guns and six drives. To achieve a total of 100 birds for the day, thats 8.3 birds per drive and 1.3 birds per gun per drive.
Would you be happy to shoot only one bird per drive, or six birds for the day? 

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The old Maximum was 1 3/16 ounces in a case for 2 1/2" chambered guns. So this is a horse of a very different colour. Not at all what the old Maximum was. 

36 minutes ago, grahamch said:

At my current shoot 2 guns use 36g no4s for birds that can be killed with an ounce of 6s. All it achieves is spoiled birds.  

Thank you for posting that. I saw a video the other day of someone using 36 grams of steel on pheasants. I assume therefore that these birds must (many of them) be unsaleable as the bruising will be horrendous. Black, blue and bloodshot.

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38 minutes ago, grahamch said:

Have just seen an ad for the reincarnated Eley Maximum cartridge, a load of 38g of no3 lead shot.

On the face of it a useful inland goose load for inland Scotland, however this is being pushed as a high/extreme pheasant load.

The continued pushing of boundaries with excess range shooting with stupidly large loads will be our undoing by a selfish minority who indulge in this distasteful aspect of our sport.

High time we reverted to smaller bags of memorable but not extreme birds. 

At my current shoot 2 guns use 36g no4s for birds that can be killed with an ounce of 6s. All it achieves is spoiled birds.  

Yes see that all the time, birds a .410 could kill blasted with 36g through full choke barrels .

 

Blackpowder

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I really understand what you're saying and I for one know my own shooting abilities,  but have been lucky enough to  be in a gun line and pick up for some exceptional shots,that on a very regular basis shot and cleanly kill birds, I wouldn't raise my gun to, so does this mean its not sporting because they have better abilities than myself. 

Bit like non leauge football team v premier league. 

So I see nothing wrong with the load its people using a too heavy load for the target or their capability. 

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Some interesting replies , I know our area is fairly flat and we can't put the same type of birds over the guns like they do in Wales and the hilly counties  , for around 15 years I drove the gun wagon and looked after the guns on a shoot day , on the pep talk before we set off for the day the guns were asked to pick up there empties and put all the rubbish in a bin we had in the back of the wagon , what I have noticed when emptying the bin is more and more people are now using smaller bore guns than the guns in the past , even with the smaller bore guns we still got several Partridges that were hit hard and unsaleable but that is down to the person pulling the trigger , what is a good bird for some ,you will then get others who won't raise the gun to the same bird , not really much you can do about that as it's down to the guns decision on weather he or she pull the trigger .

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In my experience, some 'guns' just HAVE to pull that trigger. I know, I have loaded for, shot with and picked up behind a lot of them. I once collected some 30 odd cartridges from behind one gun, he was intent on leaving them where they lay. When I mentioned to him that there was a bag for used cartridges on the gun bus, he replied "Your'e the picker up"  !   I said no more and walked away. I made a point of picking up all of his empties throughout the day, these were deposited in the footwell of his Range Rover whilst he was collecting his birds. Welcome to the 'Money Man's' world of game shooting  ?

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4 minutes ago, Westley said:

In my experience, some 'guns' just HAVE to pull that trigger. I know, I have loaded for, shot with and picked up behind a lot of them. I once collected some 30 odd cartridges from behind one gun, he was intent on leaving them where they lay. When I mentioned to him that there was a bag for used cartridges on the gun bus, he replied "Your'e the picker up"  !   I said no more and walked away. I made a point of picking up all of his empties throughout the day, these were deposited in the footwell of his Range Rover whilst he was collecting his birds. Welcome to the 'Money Man's' world of game shooting  ?

Hello, good show Westley 👍

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1 hour ago, enfieldspares said:

 

Thank you for posting that. I saw a video the other day of someone using 36 grams of steel on pheasants. I assume therefore that these birds must (many of them) be unsaleable as the bruising will be horrendous. Black, blue and bloodshot.

Would they be anymore of a mess being shot with steel than they would have been with lead? I know rabbits can be a bit messy, but we’re talking pretty close range with them. 
As for bruising, I once heard an old boy remonstrating with his grandson for dropping birds over a stile before climbing it, claiming he would bruise them! 
I stopped myself from telling him the things had just dropped out of the sky from who knows what height, some hitting trees on the way down! 

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32 minutes ago, Westley said:

In my experience, some 'guns' just HAVE to pull that trigger. I know, I have loaded for, shot with and picked up behind a lot of them. I once collected some 30 odd cartridges from behind one gun, he was intent on leaving them where they lay. When I mentioned to him that there was a bag for used cartridges on the gun bus, he replied "Your'e the picker up"  !   I said no more and walked away. I made a point of picking up all of his empties throughout the day, these were deposited in the footwell of his Range Rover whilst he was collecting his birds. Welcome to the 'Money Man's' world of game shooting  ?

Nice one Westley , to be fair I found the older generation were worse than the younger ones , when I first started to drive them about the ones that didn't show any intention of picking up the empty cases were the guvernor's team of guns , these were made up of sir this and Field Marshal so so and several with letters in front or behind there name , it was normal for the house keeper to go out the next day with a fertilizer bag and go to every peg and every drive , which in them days were normally eight and pick up every cartridge case , at least that is something that is now a thing of the past . 

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1 hour ago, Scully said:

Ok. So in our small syndicate we have 12 guns and six drives. To achieve a total of 100 birds for the day, thats 8.3 birds per drive and 1.3 birds per gun per drive.
Would you be happy to shoot only one bird per drive, or six birds for the day? 

Quite happy with that yes 

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56 minutes ago, Westley said:

In my experience, some 'guns' just HAVE to pull that trigger. I know, I have loaded for, shot with and picked up behind a lot of them. I once collected some 30 odd cartridges from behind one gun, he was intent on leaving them where they lay. When I mentioned to him that there was a bag for used cartridges on the gun bus, he replied "Your'e the picker up"  !   I said no more and walked away. I made a point of picking up all of his empties throughout the day, these were deposited in the footwell of his Range Rover whilst he was collecting his birds. Welcome to the 'Money Man's' world of game shooting  ?

Nothing to do with his money, just an RS hole.

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@ endfieldspares.

Where do you get the bruising thing from.

I shot flighting duck over stubbles twice in januaryall in excess of thirty yds and all fell on barley stubble and strawberry plants.

all were processed by me for the food chain.

No birds showed bruising from 35 grams number 3  steel shot nor from hitting the ground..

 

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I have seen people that think they need 36 gram 4’s to shoot partridge coming over hedges. I put it down to lack of experience/actually knowing what they are doing.

Back to the new Maximum: what happens when someone who used to use the old Maximum as an occasional heavy load in a 2 1/2 inch gun picks some up and doesn’t realise they are so different. Makers should not be allowed to make changes like that and use the same name.

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10 minutes ago, grahamch said:

Quite happy with that yes 

Fair enough; most wouldn’t be, including myself. Ignoring for the time being, the effect that number would have for most of the UK shooting industry, and bearing in mind in my little area of the UK alone, that’s still at least more than 1000 birds killed on each Saturdays shoot, for recreation. Do you seriously believe those who oppose us would find that any more acceptable? 

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1 minute ago, Scully said:

Fair enough; most wouldn’t be, including myself. Ignoring for the time being, the effect that number would have for most of the UK shooting industry, and bearing in mind in my little area of the UK alone, that’s still at least more than 1000 birds killed on each Saturdays shoot, for recreation. Do you seriously believe those who oppose us would find that any more acceptable? 

You have it in two words l think 'shooting industry', most of my life was rough shooting but that's hard to find. When a sport becomes an industry it starts on a slippery slope. 

Our opponents agreed don't care about  numbers shot but the morality/ethicality of large bags dont sit easy with me, may as well shoot clays3 

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19 minutes ago, grahamch said:

You have it in two words l think 'shooting industry', most of my life was rough shooting but that's hard to find. When a sport becomes an industry it starts on a slippery slope. 

Our opponents agreed don't care about  numbers shot but the morality/ethicality of large bags dont sit easy with me, may as well shoot clays3 

I can see where you’re coming from, but commercialism will find its way into anything with potential for that investment, driven by popularity and demand. 
Most sports have nowadays have been industrialised because of their popularity. It’s hard to think of one which hasn’t, now I think of it. Whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen, but without it those which depend on numbers participating ( which is crucial to shooting ) would dwindle and die. 
I know where you’re coming from re’ the rough shoot; I really enjoy our little days out over our 300 acres. To be honest I enjoy it more than the little syndicate I’m in, even though on our rough shoot I mostly sling my gun over my shoulder and play the part of beater, as there are those on it who don’t get the chance to shoot as much as I do.
If you ever find yourself in Cumbria during the season, you’d be more than welcome to join us. 

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