Cock Pheasant Required Pellet Energy

[wymberley]

1 minute ago, London Best said:

Lovely. All good stuff. 
So why so pedantic with the theory side?

edit to say, sorry to hear about your ongoing health issues.

If I didn't know what I was doing with what and why I was doing it, my father would never have let me out of the house so I got 'switched on' quite early. I recognised the advantages of this and hence the interest in the PAS. I have this reoccurring nightmare where I'm sitting on a beam in a classroom of the Norfolk College of agriculture looking down watching myself explain to the first ever PAS course that my team and I don't know everything, but if we can't answer your question immediately, then we'll get the answer in time for next week's lecture. Error. Big. Error. You can not possibly imagine what questions a classroom full of mainly younger shooters who want to be there and want to learn can possibly come up with. I learned more than any student did having to investigate their questions. Then, just to compound things NTS took off and I got to meet Dr Roger Giblin.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

I knew Roger and his son, thankfully I accepted what he told me and just got on with shooting stuff!

[wymberley]

2 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

I knew Roger and his son, thankfully I accepted what he told me and just got on with shooting stuff!

Pity he didn't mention the difference between barrel weight and proof pressure marks.

[wymberley]

On 09/01/2022 at 18:54, London Best said:

Lovely. All good stuff. 
So why so pedantic with the theory side?

edit to say, sorry to hear about your ongoing health issues.

Thank you. On the mend and within the passed few hours have been able to use my hand to type a bit after having a nasty RA flare up.

Having responded to your query about my shooting activity, perhaps you could reciprocate and give us an idea of your voluntary contribution to shooters and shooting if any.

[London Best]

19 hours ago, wymberley said:

 

Having responded to your query about my shooting activity, perhaps you could reciprocate and give us an idea of your voluntary contribution to shooters and shooting if any.

It all began aged 11 in 1960 when I saw a man using an air rifle. Put in a request for one to Father and one duly arrived. By the following Summer a .410 was acquired from a junk shop and Dad took me ratting. After a couple of weeks he decided to re-visit the sport himself, bought a single 12 bore and permission from a local farmer. Being a serving police officer made obtaining permissions easy. We shot pigeon at roosting time, rabbits and the odd pheasant. Within months I had my own single barrel 12, replaced by a double within about a year. Did a fair bit of beating locally as a lad. By 1965 I had got to know ‘Kenzie Thorpe and went pigeon shooting and ‘fowling with him. In 1967 I decided it was time I joined WAGBI and I am still a member. In 1969 I joined a local wildfowling club, and continued to shoot on the coast until the 1990’s, as well as duck/geese inland. During the 1970’s/early 80’s I did a lot of pigeon decoying. I ran a team of dogs and picked up on driven shoots for forty years. I was in a DIY, walk/stand syndicate from 1972 until 1984, another one from 1984 until 1989, when it folded, and another one from 1990 until 2002. From 1994 until 2009 I helped a friend manage the shooting on an estate which previously had been dormant for twenty years? It was over-run with everything. First year we shot 160 foxes, 80 Fallow and don’t even ask how many squirrels we trapped! All in between rearing 2500 pheasants , increasing your 8000 over the next couple of years. I didn’t shoot my first deer until 1988, but have shot many hundreds since. I did both the DSC1 and DSC2 three months apart in 2001. I still have an FC Deer Control Licence and also do management for a Wildlife Trust. I have done nine African safaris and shot driven boar in Croatia and Turkey. A friend was headkeeper on a seriously big shoot, nearly all double gun shooting and I was a regular loader for twelve seasons. Nowadays I mostly shoot about 8/10 driven let days/season, mostly with a group of old friends. My only real voluntary contributions to the shooting community have been as mentor on BASC “try driven shooting” days, but I have introduced and mentored lots of new people into the sport over the years.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

You forgot to mention you have an ability not an inquisitive mind!   

[wymberley]

38 minutes ago, London Best said:

It all began aged 11 in 1960 when I saw a man using an air rifle. Put in a request for one to Father and one duly arrived. By the following Summer a .410 was acquired from a junk shop and Dad took me ratting. After a couple of weeks he decided to re-visit the sport himself, bought a single 12 bore and permission from a local farmer. Being a serving police officer made obtaining permissions easy. We shot pigeon at roosting time, rabbits and the odd pheasant. Within months I had my own single barrel 12, replaced by a double within about a year. Did a fair bit of beating locally as a lad. By 1965 I had got to know ‘Kenzie Thorpe and went pigeon shooting and ‘fowling with him. In 1967 I decided it was time I joined WAGBI and I am still a member. In 1969 I joined a local wildfowling club, and continued to shoot on the coast until the 1990’s, as well as duck/geese inland. During the 1970’s/early 80’s I did a lot of pigeon decoying. I ran a team of dogs and picked up on driven shoots for forty years. I was in a DIY, walk/stand syndicate from 1972 until 1984, another one from 1984 until 1989, when it folded, and another one from 1990 until 2002. From 1994 until 2009 I helped a friend manage the shooting on an estate which previously had been dormant for twenty years? It was over-run with everything. First year we shot 160 foxes, 80 Fallow and don’t even ask how many squirrels we trapped! All in between rearing 2500 pheasants , increasing your 8000 over the next couple of years. I didn’t shoot my first deer until 1988, but have shot many hundreds since. I did both the DSC1 and DSC2 three months apart in 2001. I still have an FC Deer Control Licence and also do management for a Wildlife Trust. I have done nine African safaris and shot driven boar in Croatia and Turkey. A friend was headkeeper on a seriously big shoot, nearly all double gun shooting and I was a regular loader for twelve seasons. Nowadays I mostly shoot about 8/10 driven let days/season, mostly with a group of old friends. My only real voluntary contributions to the shooting community have been as mentor on BASC “try driven shooting” days, but I have introduced and mentored lots of new people into the sport over the years.

By gum, a truly 'sporting life'. I sometimes think that we don't know enough about what other members have done in their past. I have dropped the odd deer - roe only here - but I'm certainly not a stalker - and it's just been the odd one for the pot until I got to the point that I could put them down but wasn't able to pick them up. This coincided with a change in estate policy which meant that the venison was taken 'in house' so that was that.

What with one thing and another, One can't help but wonder for how much longer will we be able to read about, or, indeed, enjoy, such a lifelong experience. As have I myself at my age, I fear that it will have a limited time. So, perhaps we should keep things close to our chests so that the youngsters don't know what they're going to be missing. No matter, still got a few more pigeon to look after before then.

Tightchoke may even get to realise that any ability is often linked to, or results from an, inquisitve mind. 

[WalkedUp]

This thread has made interesting reading. I knew many of the headlines but good to see it in a chronology.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

An inquisitive mind is great if it backs up the ability, but just studying and analysing to the nth degree and then passing on the pointless minutiae really does you no credit.

I go out and shoot, I occasionally visit a pattern plate. Most often with other shooters to explain what they are seeing from their patterns, I even end up shooting their guns at the plate for some of them. 

Happy to discuss the good old "square" loads, Wads, payload performance, pattern density and range. All far better done in the field with a gun in your hand rather than at the keyboard.

Perhaps PW could start a sub section within Bullets, Cartridges and Reloading for the science of it all.

[Walker570]

1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

An inquisitive mind is great if it backs up the ability, but just studying and analysing to the nth degree and then passing on the pointless minutiae really does you no credit.

I go out and shoot, I occasionally visit a pattern plate. Most often with other shooters to explain what they are seeing from their patterns, I even end up shooting their guns at the plate for some of them. 

Happy to discuss the good old "square" loads, Wads, payload performance, pattern density and range. All far better done in the field with a gun in your hand rather than at the keyboard.

Perhaps PW could start a sub section within Bullets, Cartridges and Reloading for the science of it all.

I think that would be a good diea as we can all still learn something even after over 70 yrs of 'The Sport'.

Creeping up to 82yrs young now and was born on a large farm in those days 220acres, my uncle next door also farmed 190 acres and as soon as I was 'released' I had freedom to range over it all initially with a catapult or bow and arrow but always a few snares in my pocket, eventually and air rifle arrived, then a 410, then I was big enough to swing my grandfathers BSA 12 gauge, which i still have.  Cannot remember a minute when my life has not runnarround getting out with a gun or being in the countryside. Orgabnised syndicate shooting over vaste cares in South Wales then moved to a smaller shoot  600 cares and ran that syndicate for many years before deciding to let others do the organising and I now buy my game shooting individually. As most of you know a day rarely goes by that a squirrel doesn't meet it's maker.  Spent seven years taking clients to Texas USA for hunting on 48sq miles and also hunted Poland, Sweden, Denmark and Slovenia with a trip to New Zealand slipped in as well.    Still as keen as ever.  London Best is classed very much as one of my friends.

[London Best]

Thank you very much for your last remark, Neville. It really does mean a lot to me.

[wymberley]

3 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

An inquisitive mind is great if it backs up the ability, but just studying and analysing to the nth degree and then passing on the pointless minutiae really does you no credit.

I go out and shoot, I occasionally visit a pattern plate. Most often with other shooters to explain what they are seeing from their patterns, I even end up shooting their guns at the plate for some of them. 

Happy to discuss the good old "square" loads, Wads, payload performance, pattern density and range. All far better done in the field with a gun in your hand rather than at the keyboard.

Perhaps PW could start a sub section within Bullets, Cartridges and Reloading for the science of it all.

As you'd expect, I'm not quite so sure. For example, I think it fair to say that a working knowledge of proof marks  for a shotgun user would be  considered essential rather than pointless particularly when offering advice.