November 7, 2009
"& the hunter is home from the hill"
As you can all well imagine, lots more to come on this particular topic over the next few days
November 6, 2009
November 5, 2009
November 4, 2009
November 3, 2009
November 2, 2009
November 1, 2009
October 30, 2009
Firearms Friday: Firearms Ownership II
These are the results of yesterdays polling & apologies to those of you that had difficulty voting. As I type this, the techies responsible are being tied across the muzzles of 18-pounder cannons. But to get back to the actual question, I see that a third of you don’t own a firearm ... kindly see me after class.
Now this morning & by way of comparison, I would like to ask the same question as yesterday, how many firearms do you own, but this time direct that question to everyone outside the UK
Firearms Friday: A little pinch of black powder
Reader Cricket asks: A question about the revolvers, are they antiques or of modern make, and are they fairly accurate?
My revolvers are both modern (black powder) repros of classic designs & yes they are accurate enough at 10 – 15 yards, & yes it is still pistol shooting but boy is it a fag to load them & worse still, cleaning them afterwards ... & I like cleaning guns. This is possibly why they don’t get shot a great deal
Firearms Friday: This morning's caption competition
Many is the evening when your humble correspondent has tottered unsteadily home after a long night carousing with The Englishman, only to be greeted by a sight similar to this...
I say “similar to this” because FM Towers has slightly different wall art – generally of the dire regimental variety – and Mrs FM recently ungraded her section weapon using Nectar points to the venerable Bren’s belt fed successor. Whilst she finds it slightly less convenient, apparently a 200 round belt of 1-in-4 is much better for lighting up anti-hunt scumbags
October 29, 2009
Firearms Ownership
Following on from comments on that little piece on UK gun crime, I would be interested in how many firearms readers actually own. For our first poll, could I ask for stout bulldogs only, but fear not, a wider global survey will go up tonight.
The question is quite simple, how many gats do you have? For simplicity, all I’d like is a combined number of rifles, shotguns & black powder etc etc. If you don’t own any, please tick the ‘0’ box ... then email me & we will get you sorted out & on the path to firearms righteousness as soon as possible (see below)
Over the years it has been a pleasure to assist quite a few stout bulldogs get their shotgun and/or firearms certificates – actually I see it as a damn duty to ensure that as many of Her Majesty’s loyal subjects are as well armed as the law will allow. If there are any readers that would love to ... don’t know where to start ... could you please help because ... please drop me an email & I will be of whatever assistance I can be
October 28, 2009
& now the weather
As I mentioned the other day, next week it’s off to Scotland for a wee spot of stalking & as you would expect in such circumstances, a chaps thoughts are starting to turn to the high hill. Last night I was checking the long range forecast last night & whilst I tend not to place any store in their accuracy I doesn’t look too bad at the moment
Of course the actual forecast is for the nearest town of any size & the bottom of the glen is a good half hour drive uphill so it will be considerably colder, especially in the wind but given that the weather up there has been dreadful over the last few weeks – torrential rain – a 60% chance of what are euphemistically referred to as ‘showers’ (yeah right!) could be a lot lot worse
I will be packing both my excellent Deerhunter jacket which I wear with a pair of Hoggs tweed breeks & gaiters for days when there might be the occasional dry spell but if as is so often the case, I have a set of full on Artkis heavyweight waterproofs for those days when nice Mr Noah starts to break out the Admiralty charts. In any case, having two sets of kit is definitely no bad thing as there are those evenings when for whatever reason, you don’t have the chance to get your kit fully dried out & there is nothing worse than putting on cold damp clothing the next morning – that sort of behaviour is just about acceptable if you are on Her Majesty’s nickel, but only just
My plates will be lovingly nestled into my Irish Setters which are by now well & truly run in. Thus far they have proved to be an excellent purchase although this will be their first serious outing but I have little doubt that they will be up to the task.
All that remains to be done now is to go & get a few little bits plus the odd case of excisable liquor & I should be just about set: although time permitting, I may just slip down to the gunshop for that last minute little something that you just have to have ... well you never know
October 27, 2009
Missing the boat
As he nears 90, the inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle has one big regret. The almost unstoppable Kalashnikov, designed in 1947, has become the weapon of choice for militants and rebels from Liberia to Afghanistan as well as gangsters and drug traffickers.
'It is painful for me to see when criminal elements of all kinds fire from my weapon,' Mikhail Kalashnikov said in a videotaped address to a conference of Russian arms traders and designers at a top-secret Soviet-era arms testing facility outside Moscow
Pardon me if I point out that its a little late to worry now
October 25, 2009
Sunday morning trigger time
Today, in between torrential rain squalls, YHC, Chuckmeister & Fai Chai (pictured below shooting a Sauer .243) got a final bit of practice before ... well I haven’t mentioned this but –
Next Sunday, the three of us & Mr Bambi Basher will be heading north, a long way north, for a weeks deer stalking in Scotland. So today we took the opportunity to give the rifles a final rousting in between getting soaked - good training for Scotland at this time of year
October 23, 2009
Blaser double rifles
Originally this morning I wanted to write a short piece about big game hunting which was going to lead into a consideration of double rifles, but perhaps it is for the best, but I ran out of time last night. However, having considered various Blasers that are available I thought that in a change to our schedule, we would have a quick look a the Blaser double rifle instead
Now I freely admit that whilst I have never hankered after an elephant stopper, as configurations & the hunter go, possibly above all others the double is steeped in the mystique of the dark Continent. So set aside your Realtree for a moment & pop on your pith helmet instead.
That still doesn’t mean that your humble correspondent has ever wanted one - working on the basis that as a big girls blouse when it comes to recoil, there is little point in buying something chambered for the 3/4" Wrath of Thor cartridge which will knock you into next week - certainly not one for me
However about nine months ago, I had occasion to handle this rifle (which incidentally is still available). Quite why the dealer got it out of the rack I am not sure – I was there to look at a left handed .243 – but he handed it over & to be honest, my jaw dropped on the spot. I would never ever purport to have shot a huge number of rifles, but I can say that I have never handled anything like it. Ever.
That way that it sits in your hands or comes up to your shoulder is staggering. It swings beautifully, just like .... well just like a well balanced shotgun. It was simply one of those Road to Damascus moments & I became a believer on the spot
Now to deal with this weapon in particular, aside from a few small marks on the woodwork, it is in beautiful condition & is chambered for the .30 Blaser round which is slightly more powerful than .30-06 – so perfect for the wild boar that are becoming increasingly common in our countryside
That aside, its a round that isn’t widely available so you are going to have to get it built to order which isn’t cheap but a rifle like this has absolutely no place on the range – once you have set it up, you are only going to use it on game, so in the big scheme of things, it wouldn’t cost too much to keep well fed
Apparently it will group to 2” at 100 but that is almost irrelevant , we aren’t talking about taking long shots over the moors with a rifle like this, it’s for close quarters, thick cover & moving targets. In fact forget boar for just a moment, if your man were to download some cartridges, I suspect that you could come up with something that would be ideal for woodland deer
& should I win the lottery this evening, first thing on Saturday, I’d phone the dealer with my credit card at the ready, without a shadow of doubt
October 22, 2009
Being a good neighbour is about more than not having loud parties
... it’s about being respectful of the values & opinions of those next door
When Bambi attacks
In my admittedly very limited experience, it’s much easier just to shoot them...
A fat capitalist cigar for Watercresspete for finding this
October 20, 2009
A Lee Enfield No.4 Request
From reader Edward
Knowing your love of firearms, if I could pose a question. Have just acquired a very clean SMLE, British 1942 production code with matching numbers on the receiver and ammunition box.
Most of the original bluing is there except for the fore barrel near the point where same is exposed from the wood covers. I presume this either from rubbing of the wood or maybe point where it was often held.
Before I disassemble it for inspection and cleaning, are there any pointers on what to look out for in the areas of wear or weak points that should be inspected?
Now I in no way hold myself up to be any form of firearms expert, I just happen to shoot a small number of rifles & shotguns reasonably regularly. There are readers out there that are many many times more knowledgeable than me so Edward, I hope you won’t consider me rude if I leave you in their more that capable hands
October 19, 2009
October 17, 2009
October 16, 2009
Todays range report
Remember that batch of Norma 120-grain BTs that I bought last Saturday? I think the Blaser quite likes them
Fridays are gundays 3
So I get back to FM Towers at about ten o’clock last night to find Mrs FM with a mashed up leg, chipped elbow & fifteen stitches in her arm. Apparently she fell off her horse/mountain bike or some such nonsense & is now bedridden ,doing more tablets than a Grateful Dead audience. As she is hors de combat & being the dutiful husband I could do the morning school run but instead, have decided to go to the range
This is going to really really cost!
October 15, 2009
October 14, 2009
Firearms Certificate conditions
As promised, set out below are the conditions on my new Firearms Certificate
So for example, should I be out foxing with my .243 & a long range rabbit presented itself, that could land me in a spot of hot water however in comparison to many many long suffering shooters, my ticket is just about as open as it can be.
However, I did notice that Condition 8c which relates to my authority to acquire & hold expanding ammunition is new & allows me to shoot animals for the protection of other animals or humans. Define ‘animals’...
October 13, 2009
Ammunition Issues – Part 2
Picking up from my Saturday post on ammo purchases, Kim commented...
Hmmmm... spendy stuff, but excellent performers. Once you've sighted it in, of course, you'll only need a half-dozen per year, so cost isn't really that much of a factor. I never understood hunters who'll happily drop a couple of grand on a rifle/scope combination, and then try to save pennies on hunting (as opposed to practice) ammo. Makes no sense.
& I am pleased to report that the pain from where they removed the kidney to pay for that Norma has receded a lot this morning
However to pick up on the whole cost of hunting ammo thing, since I purchased my Remington 700 (about this time four years ago), it has been feed a strict diet of Federal 150-grain Power Shoks; mot the most expensive of ammunition in the big scheme of things but certainly well up there. Looking a cost-in-use over that period, after the initial testing that is so vital to find what your new pride & joy shoots best, I went out & purchased 200 rounds at not inconsiderable cost at the time. A quick stock check over the weekend reveals that I am down to the last 16 rounds of that original batch.
Even though I probably get to shoot a bit more game & vermin than some, I still reckon that over half of those 200-rounds were shot as periodic test groups. Extrapolate that & it would appear that on average I have shot 25 rounds in anger per annum. If fact, expressed like that it sounds a little generous – off the top of my head I would have put the number at between 10 to 15 rounds a year through that particular rifle. Even taking into account check groups, a total ammunition burn of approx. 50 rounds a year is nothing in the big scheme of things to know that on those few opportunities that you get to really shoot, everything is going to work.
Practice ammo on the other hand is completely different however: go to the range, blow through whatever cheapo brands you have in your bag, go buy more...
October 12, 2009
Ammunition Issues - Part 1
Larry in Rochester asks
Forgive this question, but are you limited in the amount of ammo you can purchase at any one time in Britain? Seems to me I heard that somewhere
Larry you are correct, we bulldogs are limited (no surprise) by both the amount of ammunition we can hold & the amount we can purchase at any one time. Below is an extract from my firearms certificate...
In the UK, all expanding ammunition, including hollow point bullets, fall under Section 5 (prohibited weapons) of the Firearms Act 1968 & so is illegal to possess or transfer without the written permission of the Home Secretary. But because the law is an ass, Sec. 5 is in direct conflict with 'Schedule 2' of 'The Deer Act 1991', that prohibits the use of any ammunition other than soft-nosed or hollow-point bullets for the killing of deer. Because of this Section 5A(4) of the '68 Act allows the police licensing authority to add a condition to a firearm certificate for possession of expanding ammunition.
The Firearms Act 1968 (as amended) prohibits the possession of expanding ammunition but there are some exceptions to the rule. Section 5A(4) allows a condition to be added to a firearm certificate for possession of expanding ammunition for:
• the lawful shooting of deer
• the shooting of vermin or, in the case of carrying on activities in connection with the management of any estate, other wildlife
• the humane killing of animals
• the shooting of animals for the protection of other animals or humans
Larry, I hope that answers the question & if all of that isn’t bad enough, later on in the week, we’ll have a look at some of the restrictions that they put on Firearms Certificates
October 11, 2009
Saturday evening out in the fields
Yesterday evening was over at the Englishman's giving the 6.5mm a bit of a work out
Sadly there were no foxes about, but there are a lot worse things to be doing than being out in the bundu on a sunny autumnal evening
October 10, 2009
October 9, 2009
More Blaser temptation
Regular readers might recall the pictures of the Blaser R93 Luxus I posted the other day & if I can let you into a little secret here & please promise not to tell, in all reality, I wasn’t at all tempted by it. Firstly it was in .30-06 which for UK sporting purposes is more cartridge than you need – there is no UK game that requires a 200-grain bullet. Yes, I fully accept that wild boar are likely to be more widely shot in the near future but some .308 Partitions through my current Remington 700 should suffice for that that job. I completely accept that you can use lighter loads but there is no point in telling me that you can push an 85-gain soft nose to marginally sub light speed through one – prudence dictates that a man who has difficulty in remembering what day of the week it is should keep well away from trying to handload his own ammunition. It really is for the best.
Secondly, whilst this year I have become an ardent fan of the Blaser platform, the Luxus version of the R93 simply doesn’t appeal to my admittedly untutored eye. The metal section around the action looks too much like a shotgun. In exactly the same way that in my overly simplified world, blokes should be blokes & not metrosexual pooftahs, rifles should look like rifles & not their smoothbore brethren. So it was just never going to happen.
However, just as I put away the calculator & stop working out if there is an chance of raising the credit limit on my maxed out credit cards along comes another one...
This time it’s in .308, an altogether better option for UK use & because I already have a rifle in that caliber but not an empty slot on my Firearms Certificate, I could always so a ‘one for one’ swap, sell the Remy & replace it with the Blaser
Checking the spec, it’s a left hander with isn’t that necessary because the left handed bolt on my .243 would fit straight in & can be used. In fact I would almost rather have a right hooker as that would mean that right handers could use either of my other R93s
It is topped off with the almost obligatory Schmitt & Bender 8x56 scope on the truly excellent saddleback mounts & a Jay-Z moderator. Apparently it has only fired 20 rounds (yeah right!) & is being sold for reasons of ill health – interesting !
Now I know that cost should simply not be a consideration when it comes to purchasing rifles but even your humble correspondent is having little twinges of guilt which I why I bought a ticket for the mid week lottery – well you never know !
October 8, 2009
Comments
I know that it’s a little early in the week to be considering Comment of the Week, but this offering from one John Hammond must surely be a contender?
Usually when men talk about their pride and joy its in referance to their dicks. I guess yours is so small you had to find a high powered killing machine to take its place. How much more life needs to be taken to make up for your shriveled little noodle dick?
Thank you John, the judges will notify of their decision in due course. In the meantime...
I guess that qualifies me as a paid up member of the Morecombe Bay Potted Shrimp Society
October 7, 2009
Double tap dilemmas
Because of the UK’s pernicious firearms legislation, these days your humble correspondent is reduced to only being able to shoot double taps with one of his two Ruger 1022s. However last night I had occasion to take ale (well several in fact) with an old chum who shall we just say, has occasion to shoot double taps quite regularly for a living
I certainly seem to recall through the mists of this morning’s hangover that in happier times when I still owned a Browning Hi-Power there was a certain snobbery attached to this particular drill – the aim being to get off two rounds as quickly as humanly possible while ensuring that the point of impact for the shots was as close together as you could get them
Apparently , the latest received wisdom from those who sadly have good reason to employ such a techniques is that whilst two very quick shots is good, putting two rounds into the same place on your target gives a single wound channel which reduces the amount of vital organ damage/shock effect/general snot , gore & claret
Now I have no doubt that there are those of you that would argue that this serves HM Forces right for using iddy biddy smallbore 9mm ammunition – a situation that could easily be alleviated by buying the latest piece of hand artillery courtesy of the Bubba Armsco & feeding it a straight diet on oakie cokey charging rhino on speed ammunition ... forget falling plates, it’s a round so terminally potent that it leaves holes in tectonic plants. But that isn’t going to happen (rightly or wrongly)
This is why said gentlemen have now changed their drills so that it is now two, still rapid shots but punctuated with a conscious movement of the point of aim in between. This gives two distinct wound channels hence maximising the impact of the arrival of the Good News & an altogether more expeditious martyrdom ... & that is always a good thing
October 6, 2009
October 3, 2009
Blaser R93 Luxus .30-06 - For sale
23" barrel screw cut 17x1 with end cap. Blaser saddle mount with 30mm rings
Standard side panels with luxus grade 4 wood & fitted with kickstop system
Shot approx 40 rounds, remaining Federal 125g to go with it. The rifle is only 2 months old, still mint condition
Yours, for £2,000 & available here
Am I tempted ... ? No. I am not. No no no no no! I am not tempted in any way shape or form. Definately not.
October 2, 2009
Whisky 2: This weeks best death threat
As I have mentioned before, your humble correspondent receives a fair few ‘death threats’ – this week 7 so far, but there is still time for a few more to come in. Any that are brave enough to leave an email address that works get an invitation to attend a little (cough cough) meeting which is why I dropped a note to Nikoz ( nikoz_makaveli@hotmail.com ) who clearly has issues with some of my opinions...
I'ma kill you f*ckin around with those helpless animals cut ya throat wish I 'd meet ya
Nikoz, we should get together, really we should...
September 29, 2009
Animal Day 3: Deer targets
Thank you to everyone that emailed me yesterday asking about the deer targets your humble correspondent was using on Sunday
The targets themselves show a full sized deer with an x-ray portion over the 'vitals'. The background is a one inch grid with several zeroing aiming points. To my mind they are excellent & better still, they are available on eBay so you dont even have to leave the sofa of sloth to order them!
September 27, 2009
Sunday Zeroing - 2
100 yards, on a deer target
Right hand group: Chuckmeister, Blaser R93 6.5x55, 3 rounds deliberate from a sand bag rest
Left hand group: YHC, Blaser R93 6.5x55, 3 rounds rapid from a bipod
September 24, 2009
Field Sports TV
One of the many pleasures of visiting our former North American colonies is watching the Outdoor Life 4x4 hunting & shooting channel or as Mrs FM & your humble correspondent refer to it, Killing Things TV. I can think of no better way of ameliorating the ravages of jet lag than by kicking back with a cold one & watching Bubba’s Gargantuan Catfish Special.
Like so much these days we lag a little behind the United States but now Blighty has its own Field Sports Channel. OK, so it might be a bit of a poor relation Monster Bucks Television but at least it’s a start & it is presented by that aaawwwwfully nice Charlie Jacoby
September 21, 2009
CFPD - Part 2
OK, so you all knew that this was going to happen, but just for the record, it is another Blaser R93
but please don’t be fooled by the pictures, that isn’t one of those fiendishly beautiful Grade 7 walnut stocks, it’s synthetic complete with a few knocks
& fitted with a lightened .222 barrel
all topped off with a Swarovski 8x56 scope
Now according to the vendor, it has only fired 150 rounds (hmmmmmmmmmm), well if that is indeed the case, it has never been cleaned – so that consumed a fair old part of Sunday afternoon, just getting things nearly up to standard
Aside from all of the scrubbing, polishing & miscellaneous titivation as I type this, she has had a few changes already ... oh I love these modular rifles. The first step was to fit a Harris bipod, followed by changing the barrel for a 6.5 x 55 which I got from Francis Lovel where aside from picking up various bits & pieces, I got into a slightly bizarre conversation about the merits or otherwise of brothels in Baton Rouge (don’t ask)
As the more perceptive of you will no doubt have noticed, the bolt has changed as well – of course that’s not exactly true. Fitted with the 6.5mm barrel, it comes within what Blaser term as their standard group of calibres, so the left handed bolt from my .243 slots straight in. I still have the .222 barrel which I will get to work on later in the year, but for the next few weekends, I still have a bit of work fine tuning the Pro Camo for the autumn & getting the 6.5mm properly set up
The only problem I have at the moment is that I am starting to run out of space in my 3 gun safes. It's true what they say about the expense of addictions!
September 20, 2009
September 19, 2009
CFPD *
In this morning’s post, aside from yet demands for money were...
my new firearms licence, shotgun & explosives certificates. I now have open slots for the following:
.222 rifle & moderator for the same
.243 moderator
6.5mm x 55 barrel
.17HMR rifle
I feel a bout of CFPD coming on
* CFPD: Compulsive Firearms Purchasing Disorder
September 18, 2009
Foxes, Shooting Ethics & Shot Placement
One of the thing that I most enjoy about this blogging lark isn’t the desperate midnight incantations to the heavenly muse for the inspiration to come up with the next day’s content – it is in fact the comments that so many of you ladies & gentlemen have had cause to leave over what is now just short of five years. At the last count, there have been a total of 12,501 as I type this. They range from the amusing, through the knowledgeable, to at the other end of the spectrum, quite a few death threats ... which if left with an email address that works, receive a very personalised response. The best comments of all are the ones that develop into a short form of debate between people that actually know what they are talking about - & that is why I tend to stay out of such exchanges because in any battle of wits, I am the unarmed man. Yesterday’s post about fox shooting & shot placement is an excellent example of this & in the vainglorious attempt to fill the page this morning, I thought that we would pick up on a couple of issues that it raised.
First off, why do I do the whole dead fox thing? Well that dates back to the urbanite Nu Labours Hunting Ban & the original point that I sought to make was that that particular piece of pernicious legislation wouldn’t save a single fox which incidentally it hasn’t. In fact the immediate effect of the bill was that landowners asked us shooters to eradicate fox populations that had previously been tolerated. Happy days but not if you are a fox. Anyway it started there & as a topic has been running on a stop/start basis ever since. My only sadness is that these days work commitments mean that I simply don’t that the time to get out after the red dogs as often as I would like. Oh yes, I forgot to mention I also post pictures of dead foxes because it reduces the anti hunting brigade to a state of electronic incandescence – hence the source of a lot of the death threats that I receive
That aside, when I am after live quarry, there are only three sorts that I will shoot. Firstly & most importantly I will shot an animal that is in distress to alleviate further suffering. Earlier this year I shot a roe deer with only three legs. She was in a really bad way probably as a result of being hit by a car. Although we were out looking for a half decent buck, that was immediately forgotten & our imperative was to prevent the poor animal having to suffer further. In the real countryside there is no Rolf’s Animal Hospital.
Secondly, I shoot vermin to protect crops (i.e. a farmers livelihood) or in the case of say rats, for hygiene reasons. In this instance the ‘sporting bar’ is considerably lowered – you are there to do a job of work as quickly & efficiently as possible. When it comes to clearing vermin there are no bag limits. That doesn’t however mean that you are cavalier about what you are doing. It pains me to have to report that Boy is currently under a shooting suspension. The other weekend he wounded a rabbit in the top paddock & made no attempt to go after it to finish it off. As a result, his air rifle has been locked away & it will be some time before he sees it again. It doesn’t matter what you are shooting at, you wound an animal, you use your best endeavours to finish it off. No exceptions to that rule are tolerated at FM Towers.
Lastly, I shoot for the pot. It doesn’t have to be my pot, but whatever (game) is killed if it doesn’t go home with me has to go to the game dealer. Now I will qualify that a little further with this distressing tale that I was told this week. Three chaps that I know quite well went duck shooting recently. They were in fact shooting reared duck. Of the approximately 750 that had been reared on the lake, they shot several hundred over the course of the evening. As anyone who has shot reared duck knows, they often don’t present the most challenging shooting & accordingly, when I am shooting them, I might take, at most, maybe 3 or 4: enough for my table. If I want to blaze through hundreds of cartridges I go to the clay range. I have no desire to waste ammunition on unsporting fowl.
OK, so having rabbited on (forgive the pun) let us turn our attention to cunning old Charlie that classified a vermin or if you hark from the left hand side of the pond, a varmint. If a farmer has asked me to clear some land I usually lamp them at night. It is a job of work & it is by far the most efficient way to getting the task done. However, I much prefer what I believe to be a far more sporting bet.
Normally you will only see foxes in those last few fleeting moments of daylight. So the bet that I like to make is using my knowledge of where foxy loxy will be in say the last 15 minutes of shootable light & try to take it from a fixed position. If that means many fruitless outings, so be it – my fieldcraft needs to be better. However if my judgement turns out to be right, then I have a high velocity edge over the animal in question
The other advantage to taking foxes like this is because I have taken my time to set up my position, gauge ranges & get settled down, my chances of getting a fast clean kill are much better than an unprepared snatched shot & that brings me on to the final point that I would like to touch upon this morning & that is point of aim/shot placement & for this point we will stick with foxes.
Until this year, I have used my Remington 700 chambered in .308 for fox control. The only expanding ammunition that I use in it is Federal 150 grain Power Shoks. I use those for everything because not only does that rifle shoot sub-MOA with them, but having used them for 5 years or so, I am reasonable good at judging any hold over corrections that I need to make.
When it comes to point of aim on Charlie, I put the cross hairs right in the middle of the largest part of the animal that I can see – that sort of bullet weight hitting a fox sized animal has devastating effects. When it comes to shot placement I am minded to recall the old pilots’ adage which goes along the lines of a superior pilot uses his superior knowledge & judgement to avoid situations that might require use of his superior skill. I am actually probably a slightly better shot than I give myself credit for but I try to maximise my chances of getting a happy ending by always taking the easiest shot available. I am not a fan of head shots but only because they reduce my margin for error. What other do is entirely their own business & as long as it doesn’t result in a wounded animal frankly, I don’t care. It is my limitations as a rifleman that I am concerned about, not others superior skill.
Right, enough of all of that – if only the police would send me back my new firearms certificate, I am currently gripped with the urge to go & visit one of the many dealers I frequent & indulge my Compulsive Firearms Purchasing Disorder.
September 17, 2009
Wednesday night dog fox
Reader John has been out with his Remington again...
I understand from certain publications in the MSM that it has become quite fashionable in some urban neighbourhoods to decapitate foxes that have been chased down by "packs of snarling savage dogs". Not wishing to be unfashionable I attempted to recreate this using only my trusty .223, as you can see from the attached picture
However I'm not to despondent, for as they say practice makes perfect
September 15, 2009
More Saturday night foxes
From reader John... .223 Remington 700 VSSF & a 50 grain ballistic tipped handload
Nice exit wound John !
September 14, 2009
The intriguing case of Gaston Glock
Found by Walt here
It's the largest supplier of handguns to law enforcement in the U.S. But behind its success lies a troubling tale of business intrigue. Gaston Glock, an Austrian manufacturer of shovels and knives, had an improbable dream: He would make a fortune selling handguns in America. In the early 1980s,Glock, a self-taught firearm designer, produced an innovative pistol for the Austrian military. He then devised a plan for promoting his invention in the U.S., the world's richest gun market. First, he'd persuade American police they needed a lightweight weapon with more ammunition than traditional revolvers. Then he'd use his law enforcement bona fides to win over private gun buyers.
The strategy succeeded spectacularly. By the late 1980s, major police departments across the U.S. wanted more firepower to combat crack-cocaine violence. Glock had the answer. No less impressed, street gangsters adopted the squared-off Austrian handgun as an emblem of thuggish prestige. Hip-hoppers rapped about Glocks; Hollywood put the pistol in the hands of action heroes. Gaston Glock shouldered past the storied American brand Smith & Wesson (SWHC) to make his creation the best-known police handgun in the U.S., and probably the world. When American soldiers hauled Saddam Hussein from his underground hideout in 2003, the deposed Iraqi ruler surfaced with a Glock.
Today the company claims 65% of the American law-enforcement market, an amazing accomplishment for a privately held manufacturer based in tiny Ferlach in southern Austria. U.S. fans celebrate "Glockmas," the 80-year-old founder's July 19 birthday. U.S. sales soared 71% in the first quarter of its 2010 fiscal year, largely due to what gun executives call the "Obama stimulus": fear among gun owners that the liberal President plans to curb the marketing of handguns. Gaston Glock played on that anxiety in an open letter to customers in January. "As shooters and gun owners, we must band together with even greater zeal than in the past," he wrote. "We are not going to roll over and have our guns taken away because of some of our misguided neighbours, no matter who they are."
Behind the Glock phenomenon, however, is another story, one rife with intrigue and allegations of wrongdoing. The company's hidden history raises questions about its taxpayer-financed law-and-order franchise. Is this a company that deserves the patronage of America's police? Does Glock merit the lucrative loyalty of private American gun buyers? The Glock tale also underscores the difficulty U.S. regulators have overseeing complex international businesses.
Allegations of corruption permeate Gaston Glock's empire. His former business associate, Charles Marie Joseph Ewert, now resides in a prison in Luxembourg, having been convicted in 2003 of contracting to have Glock killed. The murder plot -- thwarted when the victim, then 70, fought off a hammer-wielding hit man - - led to a trial that revealed a network of shell companies linked to Gaston Glock. That corporate web is now under scrutiny by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, according to lawyers familiar with the probe. Attorneys for Glock have acknowledged the misuse of company funds. But they blame most of the wrongdoing on Ewert, a money man known in the European press as "Panama Charly."
Among the Glock-related material the IRS allegedly is examining: boxes of invoices and memos provided by the company's former senior executive in the U.S., Paul F. Jannuzzo. Once one of the most prominent gun industry executives in America, Jannuzzo said in a federal complaint he filed last year that Gaston Glock used his companies' complicated structure to conceal profits from American tax authorities. "[Glock] has organized an elaborate scheme to both skim money from gross sales and to launder those funds through various foreign entities," Jannuzzo alleged in the sealed May 12, 2008, IRS filing, which BusinessWeek has reviewed. "The skim is approximately $20.00 per firearm sold," according to the complaint. Glock's U.S. unit, which generates the bulk of the company's sales, has sold about 5 million pistols since the late 1980s, Jannuzzo estimates in an interview.
A burly man with a staccato delivery, Jannuzzo has several potential motives for airing these allegations. As a whistleblower, he is seeking a percentage of any federal tax recovery. He is also fighting embezzlement charges by his former employer. Since 2007, the company has been providing information about Jannuzzo to authorities in Cobb County, Ga., where Glock's American subsidiary is based. The Cobb County District Attorney's Office is prosecuting Jannuzzo -- who once represented the company at a White House Rose Garden ceremony and on CBS' (CBS) 60 Minutes -- for siphoning corporate money into a Cayman Islands account. Jannuzzo, who left the company in 2003, claims he's the victim of a vendetta.
Speaking on behalf of the company and Gaston Glock, Carlos Guevara, the general counsel of Glock Inc. in the U.S., said in a written statement: "Glock has acted lawfully and properly throughout its history. Unfortunately, Glock was victimized by several former employees and fiduciaries," including Ewert and Jannuzzo. "The Glock companies are exceptionally well-run and managed. Glock's tax filings and reporting are accurate."
Still, eyebrow-raising goings-on appear to have been standard at Glock. After the attempt on Gaston Glock's life, an internal investigation conducted at his instruction turned up documents apparently showing that a Glock affiliate in Panama helped in 1995 to start a bank called Unibank Offshore in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Unibank's co-founder was an alleged money launderer named Hakki Yaman Namli.
In the U.S., Jannuzzo and another former Glock executive, Peter S. Manown, have claimed that for years they distributed company funds to their wives and Glock employees with the understanding that the money would be donated to congressional candidates -- an apparent violation of U.S. election law. The ex-executives, who say they acted with Gaston Glock's approval, have estimated the total amount in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Buttressing this allegation are ledger entries and cancelled checks. Guevara, the company lawyer, said: "Glock has never authorized, and would never authorize, any act that would violate U.S. campaign finance laws."
Glock's political and public relations activities in the U.S. sometimes have tended toward strangeness. Internal records show payments of thousands of dollars a month over several years to a gun industry lobbyist named Richard Feldman. In interviews, Feldman says that at Gaston Glock's request he spent some of the money in 1999 and 2000 to arrange U.S. appearances by Jörg Haider, then the leader of Austria's anti-immigrant, far-right Freedom Party. Glock has been described in Austria as a political supporter of Haider, although the arms maker has sued both an Austrian newspaper and a politician there for making that claim.
The arrangements Feldman says he worked on included Haider's attendance at a January 2000 banquet in New York honouring the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The King dinner, sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality, received media coverage because Hillary Clinton criticized her then-rival for a New York Senate seat, Rudolph Giuliani, for attending the celebration Haider present.
Before he died in a car accident last year, Haider stirred controversy, according to media reports, for praising the "character" of elite Nazi SS troops and the "employment policy" of Adolph Hitler. "Glock urged me to help Haider overcome some of the [image] problems," says Feldman. The lobbyist says he thoroughly researched the situation to satisfy himself that neither Glock nor Haider ever supported the Nazi cause. "There were loose statements [by Haider] that were blown out of proportion," he says. Glock's Guevara did not respond to questions about the company's or Gaston Glock's relationship with Haider.
Gaston Glock has recounted that he first learned about firearms during a short stint as a teenager in a German military training camp near the end of World War II. "I saw rifle, pistol, hand grenade," he recalled in a deposition taken during a product-liability lawsuit in Knoxville, Tenn., in November 1993. "I was getting acquainted when you pull a trigger, that it makes boom." He said he spent "just a few days in camps of the German Army" in 1944 or 1945, when he was 15 or 16 years old. Asked about his wartime experience in subsequent U.S. court proceedings, he has characterized his contact with the German military as extremely limited.
After the war, Glock, a civilian engineer, held a series of manufacturing jobs and eventually came to run his own company. He learned in 1980 that the Austrian army was in the market for a new sidearm. Despite a lack of experience designing guns, he sought the pistol contract. Intense research and consultation with weapon experts prepared him to make a breakthrough. The Austrian Defense Ministry awarded him the contract in 1982, bypassing five other manufacturers. Simpler than most pistols, the Glock costs relatively little to make. In a 1994 patent lawsuit in the U.S., Glock estimated its profit margin per pistol at 68%.
The guns typically sell for $450 to $600 in U.S. retail gun stores. The Glock's polymer frame is formed from a mold, not from the more conventional tooled steel. The Glock ammunition magazine, which snaps into the handle, can hold as many as 19 rounds. Revolvers typically hold only six bullets, which are fired from a revolving cylinder.
When early Glock models began surfacing in the U.S. in the 1980s, they caused a sensation, recalls Massad Ayoob, a personal defence instructor who runs the Lethal Force Institute in Concord, N.H., and has done promotional writing about Glock. "They looked like something out of Star Trek," he says.
To sell his gun to U.S. police departments, Glock employed a combination of German-speaking executives and retired American cops. Many police chiefs were receptive to the pitch that they should trade in six-shot revolvers for more potent Glocks. "The bad guys were starting to carry high-capacity weapons, unlike what they had carried in the past," recalls Sheriff John H. Rutherford of Jacksonville, Fla. As a lieutenant, he led a study in 1987 that resulted in the department buying Glocks. The 1,700-member force still uses the brand.
"It was a conscious decision to go after the law enforcement market first," Gaston Glock told Advertising Age in June 1995, when the trade magazine honoured him as one of its "Marketing 100" stars. "We assumed that, by pursuing the law enforcement market, we would then receive the benefit of 'after sales' in the commercial market." Police departments from New York to Miami to St. Paul, Minn., signed on. The strategy closely resembles that of firearm pioneer Samuel Colt, who popularized his six-shooter in the mid-19th century by seeking endorsements from soldiers and lawmen.
Syndicated columnist Jack Anderson raised the Glock profile when he wrote in January 1986 that Libya, a notorious terrorist threat, was trying to acquire Austrian-made "plastic" guns that could evade metal detectors. Glock pistols are actually made mostly of metal and are easily identified by alert airport screeners. The company denied it was marketing to Libya. Rather than tarnish the gunmaker, the Anderson column helped spread the idea that serious bad guys preferred Glocks, says Robert Ricker, a longtime lobbyist for the firearm industry. "It was an incredible lucky break," Ricker adds. "It raised public awareness, got people interested in it." Sales grew rapidly.
At nearly every turn, Gaston Glock and his executives displayed impressive marketing and legal savvy. When arch-rival Smith & Wesson in 1994 came out with a Glock-like pistol called the Sigma, Jannuzzo led a successful patent-infringement lawsuit. S&W agreed to pay an undisclosed settlement and modify its gun. An S&W spokesman declined to comment on the confidential resolution, other than to say the company had neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.
Glock now offers about 40 models in various calibers. "They're simple, they work, and you don't have to mess with them," says Herman Gunter III, an investment adviser in Live Oak, Fla.
He owns two Glocks for personal defence and target shooting. The company has boosted its profits with innovative pricing strategies. It has offered discounts to police on new pistols if cities turn over used service weapons and guns confiscated from criminals. Glock has arranged to have the second-hand firearms sold on the used-gun market, where former police weapons command a premium.
With Jannuzzo as its U.S. front man, Glock deftly ducked repeated legal assaults on the gun industry. Jannuzzo, a former state prosecutor in New Jersey who joined the company in 1991, displayed a knack for talking compromise while rarely giving much ground. In one notable episode in 2000, he made encouraging noises about a master settlement with the Clinton Administration and more than 20 cities that would have shielded gunmakers from future liability in exchange for restrictions on gun marketing. But at the last minute, Jannuzzo pulled back from the deal, leaving rival Smith & Wesson as the only industry signatory. A boycott led by the National Rifle Assn. temporarily crippled S&W, while Glock and other manufacturers enjoyed a sales surge. The settlement later collapsed, and the issue faded when Congress passed a statute in 2005 to protect gunmakers in court.
Even as the Glock company faced courtroom challenges in the U.S., a more personal and dangerous conflict was playing out for Gaston Glock in Europe. Beginning in 1987, the Austrian industrialist had employed Charles Ewert as his financial architect. "I was not a salesman. I am a technician...so I had to find a partner that helps me to sell the pistol," Glock explained in a U.S. court deposition in September 1995.
Ewert, a mustachioed Luxembourg resident now in his late 50s, wasn't exactly a salesman either. Nicknamed "the Duke" by Glock employees because of his imperious manner, he was a purveyor of shell companies: paper corporations that can be used to shield income from taxation -- sometimes legitimately and sometimes in questionable ways. Ewert designed a network of shells to lessen the gun empire's exposure to product liability and potential taxation, according to documents filed with the Luxembourg court. These firms absorbed millions of dollars, the records show.
Over time, Ewert transferred ownership of some of the Glock-affiliated shells to himself, according to Luxembourg court judgments. Suspicious of Ewert, Gaston Glock sought an explanation in July 1999. On the afternoon of a meeting scheduled at Ewert's office near the tony Rue Royale in central Luxembourg, Glock was attacked in an underground garage. The hit man, a former professional wrestler and French Legionnaire named Jacques Pecheur, bashed the businessman on the head with a rubber mallet, a technique apparently aimed at making it look like the victim had fallen down and fatally injured himself. Glock, physically fit from daily swimming -- often in the frigid lake abutting his home near Klagenfurt, Austria -- fought back. When police arrived, they found Glock bleeding from gashes to his skull. Pecheur, 67, was unconscious.
Luxembourg investigators found Ewert's business card in Pecheur's car and determined that the two had met at a gun range in Paris in 1998. Both were convicted of participating in a conspiracy to kill Glock. Pecheur received a sentence of 17 years, Ewert 20.
Ewert denies any involvement in the attack, which he blames on unnamed Glock associates who he alleges wanted to gain control of the manufacturer. "They needed me out of the way so they could grab everything," he says in an interview at a maximum-security prison in rural Luxembourg. His lawyers are appealing his conviction to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, arguing that police improperly seized records from Ewert's office that were protected by attorney-client privilege. Pecheur was released early from prison in 2007 for good behaviour, his attorney, Fränk Rollinger, says. Pecheur couldn't be located for comment.
Although Gaston Glock saw his antagonists punished and regained control of his corporate holdings, the investigation of the attempted killing and related financial fraud opened a window on the gun company's finances. Most striking are their sheer complexity. With Ewert's help, Gaston Glock purchased a Panamanian shell company called Reofin International in 1987. Reofin then bought Unipatent Holding, a Luxembourg shell. Unipatent received a 50% stake in Glock's unit in the U.S., where the company generated the vast majority of its revenue. "The purpose of this holding company [Unipatent] was to appear externally as a partner of Glock and hold approximately 50% of the shares of its subsidiaries," according to an Apr. 3, 2000, document entitled "Establishment of the Glock Group," which Gaston Glock's attorneys filed with the Luxembourg court. Three other shell companies in Ireland, Liberia, and Curaçao were created to issue bills for various "services" to Glock headquarters in Austria and operating units in Latin America and Hong Kong. But these service firms "had no economic substance and were motivated by tax reasons," according to a confidential 92-page analysis of the Glock companies in 2002 by auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
PwC had been retained by the provisional administrator of Unipatent appointed by the Luxembourg court. The PwC auditors found that the service companies' role appeared to be the shielding of profits from potential taxation in Austria, Latin America, and Hong Kong. The Latin American and Hong Kong units, in turn, appeared to be used to extract profits from the U.S. subsidiary, PwC alleged -- an assertion reiterated by the 2008 IRS complaint filed by Jannuzzo. American tax liability allegedly was artificially lowered by having pistols manufactured in Austria sold first to the Latin American and Hong Kong units and then resold for higher prices to Glock Inc. in the U.S. By inflating costs to the American subsidiary, this arrangement decreased the profits the subsidiary reported to the IRS, according to Jannuzzo.
A spokeswoman for the IRS, Patricia Bergstrom, declined to confirm or deny that the agency is investigating Gaston Glock or his companies. The IRS, says Jannuzzo, has interviewed him about Glock three times since June 2008. Glock's Guevara said that the company has undergone "a series of comprehensive governmental audits going back to 1988" in the U.S. and Austria. "No audit has ever resulted in findings of tax fraud in any jurisdiction," he added.
For nearly three years after the attempt on his life, Gaston Glock employed a team of investigators to probe the workings of his own company. This group, referred to in internal correspondence as "the A-Team," was headed by James R. Harper III, an ex-U.S. Justice Dept. prosecutor. Harper discovered that Reofin, the Glock affiliate in Panama, had taken part in starting Unibank Offshore in Northern Cyprus in 1995. Unibank's co-founder, according to documents BusinessWeek has reviewed, was Hakki Yaman Namli. Law enforcement officials in the U.S. and Europe have alleged that Namli, who is of Turkish descent, launders funds for crime syndicates. In 2003, a federal grand jury in Manhattan indicted him for fraud carried out through another outfit in Northern Cyprus, First Merchant Bank, which Namli controlled. A year later, the U.S. Treasury designated First Merchant as a "primary money-laundering concern." Turkey closed the bank in 2006. Namli is listed as a fugitive in the New York case.
Harper told Gaston Glock and Jannuzzo he believed that Ewert was the one who involved the Glock companies with Namli. But Harper wrote in a memo to Jannuzzo dated Nov. 1, 2000, that Gaston Glock "is in danger of being flagged as an international money launderer because by all appearances...Ewert was working at [Gaston] Glock's direction up until the time of the assault [on Glock]." Harper added: "Mr. Glock doesn't understand the breadth of the problems or the potential disaster that could befall him."
Glock's Guevara said that neither the company nor Gaston Glock has ever had any relationship with "a banking institution in Turkey or [the] Turkish Republic [of] Northern Cyprus." In recent years, the gun company's U.S. operation has been rattled by scandal. Local authorities in Georgia have prosecuted Jannuzzo and fellow former executive Peter Manown at the behest of their former employer. On Oct. 18, 2007, Manown, an attorney who handled many of Gaston Glock's personal matters in the U.S., testified that he and Jannuzzo had embezzled company funds and funnelled the money to accounts in the Cayman Islands. He said the pair also skimmed money from Glock real estate transactions. And Manown said he and Jannuzzo had withdrawn more than $500,000 from Glock accounts for political campaign contributions from 1993 to at least 2003. The executives put some of that cash in their own pockets, he testified. "There was so much money flying around in this company," Manown said.
"It was like Monopoly money." He recounted confessing his transgressions privately to Gaston Glock back in 2003 and repaying some of the stolen money. The former Glock executive pled guilty in 2008 to theft and received a suspended 10-year sentence.
In connection with the campaign contributions, Manown testified that Gaston Glock knew what his underlings were doing: "This was all done with Mr. Glock's blessing." Manown said he and Jannuzzo would withdraw cash for political contributions from a Glock account at the since-closed Summit Bank (SBGA) in Atlanta. Sometimes the Glock executives withdrew "$9,000 so it would stay under
the reporting radar of the bank," Manown said. He was referring to the federal anti-money laundering rule that requires banks to report to the Treasury Dept. any cash withdrawal of $10,000 or more. Purposely evading the requirement is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
Manown went on to explain that he and Jannuzzo at times wrote checks on the Glock account to themselves and to their wives. Jannuzzo later "spread [some of the money] around [to] other people at Glock," with the understanding that they would use the funds to make political contributions, Manown added. He kept a handwritten ledger of many of the withdrawals. A Nov. 1, 2000, entry shows $60,000 designated for "Bush election campaign per GG and PJ 4 RF." GG apparently is Gaston Glock; PJ, Paul Jannuzzo; and RF, Richard Feldman, the lobbyist and consultant. The Cobb County District Attorney's Office declined to comment on any "matters related to open cases."
A review of federal campaign donations by Glock employees between 1991 and 2004, conducted for BusinessWeek by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, shows more than 100 individual donations worth a total of at least $80,000. Jannuzzo says many more contributions were made by Glock employees and associates for less than $200 apiece to avoid election-law reporting requirements. Among the recipients of Glock-affiliated campaign contributions were former Atlanta-area Republican congressman Bob Barr, and two current Republican members of Congress from Georgia, Representative Phil Gingrey and Senator Saxby Chambliss.
Barr said in a written statement that all donations he received from people affiliated with Glock were "fully and appropriately reported to the [Federal Election Commission], and so far as we knew, were legitimate." A spokeswoman for Gingrey said in a separate statement: "We have never knowingly received any unlawful contributions." A Chambliss spokeswoman said that to be on the safe side, the senator planned to return contributions from Glock-affiliated donors.
Glock had a number of reasons to try to make an impression on Capitol Hill. Gun control proposals that could affect its business were being debated. The gun industry also lobbied for federal protection from liability lawsuits, culminating in the enactment of such a law in 2005.
In his written response, Glock's Guevara said: "Manown and Jannuzzo stole over $500,000 of Glock money for themselves and then labelled it political contributions to hide their crimes. In any event, we conducted our own due diligence, which revealed that Manown's statement that Glock money was spread to employees to make political contributions is entirely false (except as to Manown and Jannuzzo). With respect to the allegation that Glock contributed $60,000 to the 2000 Presidential political campaign, the evidence shows that Manown stole this money from Glock and transferred it to Cayman Island accounts controlled by Manown and Jannuzzo."
Manown's confession in Cobb County had serious consequences for Jannuzzo. On Jan. 14, 2008, the onetime U.S. chief of Glock's U.S. operation was arrested and charged by local authorities with theft and racketeering. The indictment alleges Jannuzzo stole a semi-automatic pistol from his former place of employment and conspired with Manown to embezzle $177,000 from Gaston Glock.
Jannuzzo denies the charges. He says he never stole any money. The dealings described in the indictment related to his effort to help his former colleague Manown resolve his mismanagement of Glock funds, Jannuzzo says. As for the disputed handgun, Jannuzzo maintains he volunteered to return it but no one at Glock ever took him up on the offer.
In contrast to these denials, Jannuzzo admits he reimbursed fellow Glock employees and others for making political contributions, which was illegal. He says he first discussed the practice with Gaston Glock in 1993 during a meeting in Austria. The reimbursements, Jannuzzo adds, continued for at least 10 years.
Glock indicated strong interest in the donations. "He would say, 'How are we doing? What do the candidates look like? Do we need to make some contributions?'" Jannuzzo adds: "[Gaston Glock] knew 100%. I talked to him personally about it on the phone."
No one has been charged in connection with the alleged reimbursements. Some may now be beyond prosecution because the statute of limitations has expired.
The "Obama stimulus" that caused a surge in gun sales has created another bull market -- for bullets. The Los Angeles Times (SUNW) reported on Aug. 30 that ammunition prices have jumped as gun enthusiasts, worried about new restrictions, stock up on firearms and ammo. "Bullet factories are running around the clock to meet demand," the Times noted. The Obama Administration has not, however, made a move to toughen gun control, let alone ammunition control.
September 13, 2009
Saturday evening
I had planned to go over to The Englishmans to shoot some rabbits but as is so often the case, I became somewhat overtaken by events but with an hour or so of daylight left, I found myself in what is fast becoming my usual weekend spot with the Blaser
This weekend, the weather has been glorious – warm & sunny during the day, but the nights marked with that feint autumnal chill - & so it was that I sat there watching the sun set & the roe deer, nervously emerge for their evening feed. At one point, there were eight roe in the field to my left – this picture really doesn’t do them any sort of justice as unlike occasional reader George T, long distance pictures are well beyond the capabilities of my little Sony camera & unsteady hand
In any case, what I was really after was a fox that I’ve seen a couple of times in the field where the deer were & although he stuck his nose out again, at approx 450 yards, I didn’t want to risk a shot & scaring him off. I have an alternative plan for that red dog that I hope to put into motion next weekend. So I just sat there in silence, listening to the Vale settle down for the night & when the light finally went, packed up, lit a cigarette & walked the mile or so home at peace with the world
September 10, 2009
Ammo Supply 101: Supply & Demand
By M.L. McPherson
In 1973, a US Navy procurement officer asked the Navy’s toilet paper provider what would happen if the Navy needed to simultaneously re-supply all ships. The person he asked made some calls to find out how long it would take industry to supply that much EXTRA demand.
Someone involved told some friends the Navy was actually planning to buy a huge supply of toilet paper, warned that this would lead to a temporary shortage, and suggested that everyone should buy a few EXTRA rolls to avoid running out. Each of those persons told several acquaintances that story, each of those told several others, etc. Within days, that story was a nationwide rumor, and everyone knew a shortage was immanent — the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.
Within days, a panic run on toilet paper occurred. For months, it was impossible to routinely buy toilet paper. Retailers imposed strict purchase limits. Throughout the country, millions stood in line for hours awaiting delivery just to buy any toilet paper.
Similarly, in the early nineties, some government thug wondered if it would be possible to manufacture ammunition with a limited shelf life. They asked someone in the industry to consider that possibility. Even though doing so was impossible, a rumor spread that shelf-life-limited primers were coming. Shooters and handloaders wanting to stockpile EXTRA supplies created a shortage.
The rest is here
September 9, 2009
August 29, 2009
August 28, 2009
Flamethrower Friday Part 2: How to deal with the Ramblers Association
Now the reason for the title of this post is that I thought we would celebrate that we should celebrate the flamethrower in its many & glorious forms. Over the last few weeks we have been pondering the best way to dispose of thieving pikies & rooms full of auditors. Tonight dear readers we turn our attention to the other countryside pest & take for our inspiration this story about a typical whinging rambler who is complaining about a what a farmer is planting on his own land. In the past, such problems were easily dealt with as crosshairs show up beautifully on an orange Kagool . However, two things have happened to change this
Firstly, the Laws of Natural Selection kicked in like a Sunday morning hangover – those ramblers that wore orange Kagool’s showed up beautifully in our scopes & before you could say pass me the quicklime, you would be entering another one in the game book - so they became slightly less obvious over time. Secondly, farmers started planted crops like miscanthus & it’s not easy to see the little blighters or their sandals in 12 foot high elephant grass
So our little teaser to take us towards the weekend is this:
You suddenly realise that the local chapter of the Ramblers are in the aforementioned crop & you need to dispose of them quickly. The only issue about this vermin control is that it will be done at point blank range. Beyond that, there are no other rules
Now to my mind, dispatching them in a single blinding sheet of flame could well be a quite efficient way of also getting rid of most of the local morris dancers at the same time – rambling & morris dancing being pretty much interchangeable hobbies
Admittedly there might not be much left of your crop by the time the flames dry down but effective vermin control always comes at a price. Anyway, I have no doubt that you lot might be able to come up with a better & possibly even more permanent solution...
August 25, 2009
Expanding Ammunition: Ballistic tips v Soft nose
Last week I touched upon ammunition & over the weekend I was having a chat with Mr Reload about some possible recipes to try. In .308, he is an advocate of 135-grain BTs which should be running out at close on 3,000 fps. More important than velocity for its own sake, at the ranges which I use my Remington – the furthest that I have ever shot a fox was 325 yards but most are taken between 100 to 175 yrds – it should shoot much flatter than the Federal 150-grain soft noses that I usually use
In .243, he goes on to advocate 80-grain BTs which I am not going to go for because that bullet weight isn’t red deer legal in Scotland. The law requires a bullet weight of 100-grain as well as velocity/muzzle energy thresholds & it’s a bit like a comment I read the other day on this very topic
There are no recorded instances of the police ever checking a bullet weight. However, rather like still using lead shot in shotgun cartridges for wildfowling – one day someone is going to get caught
However my question tonight is more ‘generic’. I have only ever used soft nosed expanding ammunition on deer (with very satisfactory terminal effect) but I would be very interested to learn about any experiences you might have had with ballistic tipped bullets on deer sized game
August 24, 2009
Monday morning firearms bling
I tend to prefer my scroll work & general finishing to be a little more understated – you are of course entirely entitled to your own opinion. This from Gweilicus
Speaking as someone who has laid eyes on some very finely decorated ironmongery in my time, this is just in a league of its own
The attached collection was, I believe, confiscated from some Mexican gentlemen with extensive interests in the pharmaceutical industry
They are probably sitting at home wondering why they don't get an invitation to shoot grouse on the Glorious Twelfth
More road sign issues
...when you could be doing something useful with your ammunition like shooting speed cameras, endangered species, posturing advocates, duplicitous politicians or the Hun
August 22, 2009
More trigger time
I am not going to write some long boring report about Friday’s Bisley trip – the main job was to get the Mauser properly zeroed
& lets just say, job done
The only thing that spoilt the day was...
... some of my fellow club members who insist upon completely obscuring the firing point with their bondooks
I am never quite sure if they never hit the target because of all of the smoke or
maybe because they never hit the target they want to ensure that none of the rest of us can either!
August 21, 2009
August 20, 2009
Sterling Sub Machine Gun
The famous Sterling submachine gun was born in around 1942 as the "Patchett machine carbine" - a prototype submachine gun, developed by George W. Patchett and originally produced by Sterling Engineering Co.
Several prototypes were built before the end of the war, and the Sterling-Patchett submachine gun participated in extensive trials, held in UK between 1945 and 1953, when it was finally announced as a winner of trials, and adopted as the "9mm Sterling submachine gun L2A1" (factory designation, "Patchett Mk.1")
Sterling submachine guns were produced for British armed forces by Sterling company and Royal Ordnance Arsenal in Fazakerly, England; the Long Branch Arsenal in Canada made a slightly modified Sterling under license for Canadian army as the C1
In a slightly modified form, known in British service as L2A3 submachine gun or as "Sterling submachine gun, Mark 4" or Sterling Mk.4 in short, it served with British army until early 1990s, when it was finally replaced by the troublesome L85A1 assault rifle
Nearly 400,000 of Sterling submachine guns were produced until late 1980s
More here
Reloading Ammunition
Aside from the compelling economic argument & fully accept that if you don’t reload your own ammunition, you are almost certainly not getting the best from your rifle – post binge hangover shake aside. I however have never got into reloading for two very good reasons.
Firstly there is the question of the time it takes. Sadly my life is busy enough as it is – what little time is left over after slaving at the altar of mammon I’d like to spend either at the range or out in the field with my family. Secondly, having read a lot about this particular subject it would appear that it isn’t something that you can do one handed ...with a cigarette in your mouth (your other hand being filled with a large glass of single malt).
However yesterday I had a long chat with a very stout bulldog who for admittedly not insubstantial remuneration, will work up bespoke recipes & produce the finest ‘hand rolled’ ammunition to order. Please assume that there will be more on this topic in the coming weeks.
August 18, 2009
Bear Hunting
Taken from Wild Man & Wild Beasts; Scenes in Camp and Jungle, by Lt. Col. Gordon Cumming & a time when men really were men & the large parts of the world map were red: happier times indeed
We moved northward and encamped at a spot indicated by Himta as being a favorite resort of bears. He had preceded us with several Bheels of the district, and was absent when we reached the ground. Late in the day he sent a man into camp with intelligence of two bears marked down at a spot about three miles from the tents.
We were soon on the road, and were led by our guide to a hill-face, sloping down towards a small river. Here we found Himta and his men seated in trees commanding a view of some long dry grass on the banks of a small water- course running down the hill-side. Among the grass grew trees and bushes. The markers were unable to point out the precise spot where the bears had lain up, and it was therefore settled that Hunt should take up a position on the face of the hill above them, while I with three men advanced into the grass. We were to proceed quietly, and, if possible, get a shot at them before they moved. If we startled them by our approach, we calculated on my driving them up to Hunt, who went off to his post, accompanied by his two gun-bearers. Having allowed sufficient time to elapse, I advanced into the grass with great caution, closely followed by Bappoo, Buggoo Sing, jemadar of police, and Himta, the two former carrying my spare rifles.
As I was carefully endeavoring to avoid treading on the dry sticks, I came on a covey of the small bustard quail. These birds are generally found in the tree jungles, and sit in the grass closely packed together, rising simultaneously, with much noise, when disturbed. I had almost stepped on them before they rose; and as they flew up into my face I was a good deal startled. I had hardly settled my nerves when I saw the male bear about thirty paces in front of me, making off at speed towards the right. I fired at once, but the smoke came back on me; and, as it cleared away, I saw the other bear, not ten yards off, going away after the first. I let drive with the second barrel, on which she wheeled round and came straight at me, grunting viciously.
I had no time to turn to get a second rifle before she was on me. Rising on her hind legs, she attempted to seize me by the throat in her teeth; and, as I fended her off with my left arm, she got it in her mouth, and crunched it up like a cucumber. Meanwhile, she was not idle with her formidable claws, with which she tore open my clothes, and gave me an ugly score across the ribs. At that moment Bappoo rushed in and shot her through the body. She dropped on all fours, but retained her hold on my hand with her teeth, tugging furiously to get me down. As we struggled, a young bear which she carried on her back, and which had been struck by my shot, fell dead at our feet ; and the old lady's temper evidently not improved by the bereavement.
Bappoo behaved admirably. He again rushed to the front, and, raising his rifle. watched his opportunity for another shot I called to him not to blow my hand off; and at that instant he fired, and the bear relaxed her grip, and fell back with a ragged hole through her head. All this was the work of a few seconds.
I had now time to examine my hurts. My left wrist was nearly bitten through, both bones were smashed, and the hand twisted round. I was, moreover, cut across the ribs by the bear's claws. Holding up the wounded limb in a hanging position, I turned the hand round into its place, and supported it on the other arm, till Hunt, who had now come up, had cut some slips of bamboo, and bound the whole up with a turban. I was astonished at the utter absence of pain, for the wound was gruesome to behold.
The rage of the bear had evidently been kindled by her offspring being wounded. They generally bring out their young in some cave, or mass of rocks; and, as soon as they can run about, the young bears travel over the country on the backs of their mothers, burying themselves in the long hair, to which they cling with great tenacity, holding their position at any speed, and over the roughest ground. While feeding or undisturbed they descend and run about, scrambling up again with great celerity on the least alarm.
Had I pounded the bear on the head with my rifle as she came on, I might have turned her ; but the rifle was a new Sam Smith, and I suppose I was afraid of smashing it. I had reason to be thankful to Bappoo for his cool and plucky conduct, as, with her murdered offspring lying between us, the bear would not have been easily driven off, and would probably have killed me.
Mounting the elephant, which had been brought out with us, we went back to the tent, and I remarked to the jemadar that I feared I should not require his assistance in bear-shooting for some time to come. was I had in my camp a native dresser from the dispensary at Matinpore, and by him my wound was artistically bound tip. Both bones of the arm were smashed ; the ulna was broken about one inch from the joint, and the ends protruded. The radius was also broken. I had, on the third finger of my left hand, a ring which had not been off for many years, and could not be removed. Knowing that my hand would probably swell up, I lost no time in filing this off.
Meanwhile, food had been got ready; and, after partaking of refreshment, I mounted on a litter, borne on men's shoulders, and set off for Mundlaisir, distant thirty miles, hoping there to obtain good surgical treatment. A horseman was sent off before me, with a note to Colonel Keatinge, the political agent, explaining matters.
The Bheels turned out at various places along the road, and carried me to Mheysur by daylight next morning. Thence, Colonel Keatinge's riding cart took me the remaining four miles into Mundlaisir. I had with me a leathern water-bag, or "chagul," having a tin spout, and with it I kept the wound constantly wet. By this the inflammation was completely kept under. Soon after my arrival, my clothes were cut off; and I was sent to bed by Colonel Keatinge, who attended to my wants with much kindness. Charley Hunt, too, was in need of rest, having ridden beside me all night. That evening, Dr. Watson, of the Bengal Army, arrived after a thirty miles ride from Mhow, and considerably relieved my mind by intimating his intention of endeavoring to save the hand. He pleasantly remarked that any man could cut off a limb, but that it required a surgeon to save one.
I received much attention from all my friends at Mundlaisir, and in about ten days was so far recovered as to be able to be moved in a palanquin to Mhow, where I remained under the surgical care and hospitable roof of Dr. Watson. I have no joint in that wrist, and can only partially close my band, but the limb is serviceable in most ways; and, as Watson used to remark, "It is better than a hook." My misadventure occurred about the 16th of April, and I was not able to take the field again before the 20th of June.
Found by reader MS & more here
August 17, 2009
August 16, 2009
This should bring joy to your heart on so many levels
So you think that you can get through some ammo?
Found by Gweilicus
August 15, 2009
Saturday evening down in these yerrrr paaaarrrrrrts
It got to that difficult time this afternoon at about four o’clock when the post pub at lunchtime grumpiness set in. This lamentable state of affairs was possibly brought on by the prospect of having to do some gardening & if there is one thing that your humble correspondent hates more than liberals, its gardening. So sod that for a game of soldiers, it was definitely time for an armed stroll across the fields to put the world to rights with some of Mr Norma’s most excellent 100 grain soft nosed ammunition
Across the fields I set up shop - fields of fire are improving on a daily basis at the moment as the harvest continues - & proceeded to pop some rabbits that were out at about 200 yrds just to check the Blaser’s zero & that there was still a modicum of function in my bloodshot eyes
The left of arc was the hedge in the picture below. At the bottom of the slight slope about 125 yrds away are in fact three gateways which would be a natural place for a fox to come through –however as they (very sensibly) move through such places quickly
When this little fellow poked his nose out, he very quickly got on the receiving end of a .243 ‘persuader’ as that might cause any passing red dog to pause & thus present a better killing shot
& the late afternoon passed into early evening. At about seven-ish a mummy Roe deer stepped out of the still standing corn followed five minutes later by its Bambi & I spent a very happy forty five minutes watching them graze on the fresh grass. But time was now getting on & despite my earlier confident prediction of seeing foxy loxy, there were none in evidence. So I thought that I would have a go a ‘sweaking’ one in if indeed there was one about
Now I know that at times & especially after a few little dinkie-poos I have a tendency to blow my own trumpet, but one thing that I cannot do & that is to make a noise that might sound like an animal in distress – thereby attracting a passing Reynard. Imagine my surprise therefore when after a couple of completely pathetic attempts I heard a noise to my right & as I turned I was greeted by the sight of a young fox, about 25 yards away running towards me at full tilt
As I brought the rifle the rifle round, it turned & ran, but for some reason at certainly no more than 40 yrds, it suddenly stopped, turned broadside on & looked at me once again
That was the last thing it ever did
So now some wabbits & another fox are dead & d'you know what the best thing about this is?
Aside from the fact that I will no doubt be getting hate mail/death threats from the anthropomorphists (again) - I can now spend tomorrow morning cleaning the Blaser because the only thing that comes close to shooting 'em, is the quiet satisfaction as you attend to you pride & joy once the hunt is over
August 14, 2009
More from Will
If you recall this post from earlier this week, Will (not that Will, the other Will) & your humble correspondent have been corresponding further...
Dear Mr FM
In response to your invitation to reply
There is the problem of human dignity. Who was the person in your photo? Was he a policeman (he is wearing a stab vest or similar).
Then there is the problem of extra-judicial killings. This is done by criminals (who are sometimes caught, and punished) but often not. Are you in favour of bypassing justice?
Taken to a logical conclusion, your resultant society would consist of barbaric, self-centred and paranoid brutes.
Your love of death pictures (shootings and hangings) makes you appear to be a necrophile. As you are also a parent, this is somewhat unnerving. Think of the effect that your mind will have on the upcoming generation.
Yours respectfully
Will
Dear Will
Thank you for you for your further response & dealing with your points in turn:
1. The picture ‘under the fold’ of my original post is from Iraq. The target in question was a terrorist that was shot by a Coalition Forces sniper. Judging from the massive head trauma, the shot was taking using either a .338 or .50 calibre sniper rifle. My only regret about the picture is that I will never have the opportunity to the soldier that took the shot his age in pints of beer
2. With regard to the question of extra-judicial killings, if they result in a few less scumbags in this World, so much the better. Sadly we will not run short of pondlife anytime soon but if it results in a few less politicians on this Earth, better still
3. As for the impact of my views & opinions have on my two children & their upbringing: my twelve year old son can handle a firearm safely & accurately; my seven year old daughter’s firearms training will commence as soon as I locate her the pink shotgun that she wants
I remain Sir, you humble correspondent
Mr FM
I rather like this picture
I have no idea where I found this or indeed, whether or not someone sent it to me. I like it anyway. However I can’t but help thinking that for those of you that have & can use Photoshop, it could be enhanced a little by the addition of the politician/lawyer/liberal journo etc of your choosing.
Just an idea you understand
August 13, 2009
More grousing
Following up from yesterday, I thought it interesting how two different broadsheets report the same story. First up we have the Daily Telegraph
The 'Glorious Twelfth' is under threat from a plague of heather beetles which have stripped bare tens of thousands of acres of grouse moor.
A mild winter followed by a warm and wet early summer has provided ideal conditions for heather beetle larvae to thrive, which kill the plants by eating the surface of their fleshy stems.
Consequently grouse chicks have been forced to go further for food, weakening them and leaving gamekeepers facing the prospect of cancelling shoots. Dozens of outbreaks have been reported on grouse moors across Scotland and northern England
Next, we have The Guardian's view on our sporting prospects
Grouse moors in Scotland and northern England report a surge in bird numbers this year after several very poor seasons due to outbreaks of disease-carrying parasites and unsuitable weather.
The moors of Scotland and northern England will resound to the sharp crack of shotguns, the growl of Range Rover engines and the yelp of gun dogs again this week. Grouse shooting begins officially with the Glorious Twelfth and the industry is expecting a bumper year.
After several very poor seasons due to outbreaks of disease-carrying parasites and unsuitable weather, grouse moors are reporting a surge in bird numbers this season. Moor owners believe it may be the best for a decade: numbers are up by 25% to roughly 900,000 red grouse in Scotland
I wonder which report will prove right?
Para Ordnance .45 Warthog
This morning for your general enjoyment we have reader TR’s carry piece...
Here's a few photos of the pistol I carry: a 3" barrel .45 Para Ordnance Nighthawg (I know the slide says Warthog, but the Warthog is actually a bit different, without the matte black hammer and night sights).
She's a 10+1 and can easily conceal under a t-shirt and shorts.
The night sights are the best I've ever seen, and the accuracy is quite good for the size.
My favorite carry pistol by far.
The holster is a Galco paddle holster, built for a 3.5" Para barrel so it looks a little off. Galco doesn't make a model for the 3" but the 3.5" suits me just fine.
All I really have to say is that I'd love to have a favourite carry piece, so if you will excuse me I'm going to sob on karzhi for a while
August 12, 2009
One from the mailbag
Dear Mr Free Market
You appear to be very fond of weapons. Attached is a photo of what a shotgun can do to a person.
He was involved in a free market activity, selling drugs, and collecting debts. I hope that this lessens your enthusiasm for:
1) Guns of all types
2) The so-called ´free market´.
Have a Nice Day
Will
Dear Will
Thank you for your email & the attached picture. As someone who has spent many many years shooting a wide variety of weapons, both civil & military, I have a clear understanding of their terminal effect & please forgive the pun. However when presented with a picture of a drug dealer with a close range shotgun wound to the head, the only issue I have is why not use both barrels - just to be really sure.
Shotguns of whatever guage are a reasonably efficent, if somewhat inaccurate, manner for socierty to rid itself of vermin of whatever size. If however your tastes run towards the larger end of the spectrum & you perfer a little more finesse & precision, may I commend a high velocity centrefire rifles for your consideration...
They also can deliver a certain finality to any pressing scumbag issues. If you have any immediate problems that require resolution, please do not hesitiate to drop me a quick note outlining the problem & I am sure that between me & my much more knowledgable readers, we can come up with some recommendations for you.
I remain Sir, your humble correspondent
Mr FM
The Glorious Twelfth
As we touched upon yesterday, today is the day but sadly for your humble correspondent, no last minute invitations materialised – consequently I shall be in the office instead of on a moor somewhere. Next year ... next year.
This is the view out of Mrs FM's bedroom window
Looks like Boy needs to get busy when he gets back from holiday
August 11, 2009
Let fly the corks & 1 1/16 oz of No. 6 shot
The waiting is nearly over & tomorrow the season opens once again with the Glorious 12th. Parties of lucky guns will make their way onto the high moors of Scotland & northern England in pursuit of grouse
yet for some inexplicable reason, all my smart chums (at least those that own grouse moors) have for no good reason, neglected to invite me along for the opening day. However remiss this might be, I am not too proud to accept a last minute invitation & have nothing in my schedule that can't be cancelled today - so my BlackBerry remains on, in the vainglorious hope of getting a last minute 'golden phone call'
Aside from the lamentable lack of near term grouse in my life, the rest of the season is now starting to take shape quite nicely thank you - a little more woodland stalking in a couple of weeks time, to be followed by a week in Scotland on the hinds at the end of October.
Whereas last year, I managed only two driven (pheasant) days – they were very expensive corporate days & consequently I almost certainly shot more birds in two days than I would normally manage all year
This year, aside from the stalking, so far I have a couple of pheasant days booked - including one on a rather well known West Country shoot, noted for the stratospheric pheasants it shows
In January, a little woodcock trip to the Principality has also recently slipped into in the book
so if I can now just blag for a few more days, the season should be in very very good shape espcially as there is also just the whisp of a chance of a trip to Spain for some partridges
All of this means that your humble corrspondent needs to get his finger well & truly out for a change, get down to the clay range a few more times & get some bl**dy practice in, if he is ever going to connect with anything! Summer, forget it ... roll on autumn
August 8, 2009
August 7, 2009
& because we haven't had any automatic weapons for the left hand side of the pond this week
& of course, this...
Now if you will excuse me, I have had a shed load of very very decent Calvados this evening, so am off to bed
August 6, 2009
August 5, 2009
July 31, 2009
British Day 4: The Lewis Machine Gun
Just because it was good enough to deal with the Hun
Designed in the United States in 1911 by U.S. Army Colonel Isaac Newton Lewis (and based upon an earlier overly-complex design by Samuel McLean), the Lewis gun comprised an early light machine gun widely adopted by British and Empire forces from 1915 onwards.
Frustrated in his aim of persuading the U.S. Army to adopt his new design Colonel Lewis retired from the army and set sail for Belgium, arriving in January 1913. The Belgian Army was quick to see the merits of the gun and ordered that it be manufactured at Liege using common British 0.303 inch calibre ammunition. Shortly afterwards the Birmingham Small Arms Company also bought a license to manufacture Lewis' weapon.
Weighing 24 lbs the air-cooled 1914 model Lewis Gun featured a 47 (later 97 for aircraft) cartridge circular magazine. By means of an adjustable clock-type recoil spring the gun's firing rate could be regulated, ranging from 500-600 rounds per minute, although shorter bursts were more usual. With its adjustable sights and bipod support the Lewis Gun proved effective to some 600 metres.
Nicknamed 'the Belgian rattlesnake' by German forces who came up against the weapon in 1914, the Lewis was formally adopted as the standard issue British Army machine gun from the close of 1915. By 1916 approximately 50,000 had been produced. Although in 1915 each British battalion on the Western Front had just four Lewis Guns, by 1917 each infantry section boasted its own Lewis gunner and backup, with battalions by now deploying 46 Lewis Guns.
As a light machine gun it was considered the best and most reliable available at the time and was soon adapted for use both at sea by the Royal Navy, and for use in the air by aircraft observers (with the Vickers Gun used for forward firing through the aircraft's propeller blades). When used in the air the Lewis' air cooling jacket and fins could be dispensed with: it then weighed just 18 lbs.
The Lewis Gun was belatedly adopted by the U.S. Army in 1917, manufactured in New York using 0.30 inch calibre ammunition. Although a popular choice the gun was nonetheless expensive to manufacture - six could be produced in the time it took to manufacture a single Vickers Medium Machine Gun.
July 30, 2009
Nocturnal Intruders
The Englishman has been having a few night time issues with his drills...
At two in the morning you are awoken by a disturbance outside your window...How long does it take you to get from under the eiderdown to having your gun and ammo in hand? In the dark as the power has been cut. Are you sure, have you done the test run?
July 29, 2009
The Audit Trail (of Blood)
The other week we had The Tony Martin Challenge – what would you use the clear out that pikeys who were in turn in the process of trying to clean out your tack room. Yesterday we touched upon the Uzi sub-machine guns & auditors, but in my most humble estimation, didn’t really do this topic justice. Therefore tonight I would like to pose you this little conundrum
Against all your instincts & better judgement you have been hauled kicking & screaming in front of your auditors. You go into the board room you a greeted by this scene...
Rather than face several hours of questioning about both the sheer quantum of your personal expenses as well as some of your ‘corporate entertainment’ items, you have the clear the room & clear it quickly before one of the accountants launches into a 90 minute soliloquy about changes to GAAP regulations.
What are you going to use?
The DS solution is under the fold - however before you go there, see what you come up with
The correct answer is of course “Carry on Sarn’t” & retire to the nearest gentleman’s hostelry with alacrity. After all, if a jobs worth doing well, its worth getting somebody else to do it for you
July 28, 2009
Uzi 9mm Sub-Machine Gun
This morning you find me on my way to a meeting with our Audit Committee & I have just spent the last 45 minutes fantasising about walking into the boardroom & brassing up every bean counter in the room with one of these...
July 27, 2009
Sundays are clays days
Having rather enjoyed my trip to Barbury Shooting last weekend I thought that I’d pop down there again but this time, I took Family FM
& although Youngest is a tad small for a shotgun, she greatly amused herself firing the clays off for us
As you can see from the picture at the top of the post, we had three Berettas in the rack, our 12 & 20-bores, supplemented by a Silver Pigeon 28-bore, borrowed from the school for Boy’s No. 7 shot frivolity
Mrs FM in the meantime was also busy getting lead in the air. Because I have shrunk the size of the photo below, you can’t see the clay, hence the insert
But all I have to say is that both Nipper & the Meme Sahib are getting way way too proficient for my liking – next weekend I might well slip back up to the range on my own for extended private practice. Goodness knows I need it
July 24, 2009
July 20, 2009
God, Guns, Guts, and American Pick-Up Trucks
A Missouri car dealer has taken a novel approach to combating the fall in US vehicle sales by offering a free Kalashnikov assault rifle with every truck, whether new or used.
Wonderful ... he'd get my custom which begs the question with Mr Land Rover can't offer something similar. OK we are banned from owning AKs (& mores the shame) but a nice boxlock would be fine
Customer feedback & 5 bullet points (if you will forgive the pun)
Firstly, I would like to thank all that have seen fit to email me over the weekend with thoughts on Friday's competition, The Tony Martin Challenge. I would just like to add...
1. I am well aware of the UK’s laws, particularly how they relate to self defence & defence of property
2. Not only an I fully conversant with the UK’s firearms legislation, no matter how stupid & ineffectual I think it is, I am scrupulous in its observance
3. I get out quiet enough thank you
4. Also, I can differentiate real life & the internet unlike some of you that have emailed me over the last couple of days
5. & on one hand, whilst everyone that has shot with me knows, I am anally retentive when it comes to weapons safety, on the other, I also have a habit of hitting what I aim at, so....
July 19, 2009
Perfect Sundays
This morning I have been over at Babury Shooting. This afternoon, I have the house to myself, so I have lingered over cleaning the Beretta, television tuned to the golf with the sound turned down so that I can listen to the TMS cricket commentary on the wireless
It doesn't get a lot better than this
July 17, 2009
Bloodletting Friday Part 1: Gunning down the political class
With regard to comments I made yesterday over helicoptergate, I have spent some considerable time this evening pondering the best weapon for gunning down socialist MPs. Now I know that many of will have your own personal preferences & that’s fair enough – each to his or her own. However after a few gentleman’s measures of something dark & peaty, I have come to the conclusion we could do a lot worse than lining every last one of the sponging lying cheating duplicitous b*astards against the wall & if this was the last thing they ever saw while being given the full nine yards, the job would be well done
More Vickers MMG frivolity here here & here
July 13, 2009
How to spend my £604 tax rebate
The only real consideration is that it that I want to spend it on something that will really upset GFW Westminster types/guardianistas/urban living liberals etc...
Current options under detailed consideration include:
1. One of these rather spiffy Savage .17HMRs
which are now availble in the UK as left hookers
2. A second hand 6.5 x 55 barrel for my Blaser
3. A new sound moderator for the Blaser
4. A shotgun certificate for Boy who has now turned 12
& a little 28-guage for him
On sober reflection Option 4 will probably upset people the most if you recall this dear readers
July 9, 2009
Some more SLRs for y'all
We have covered the SLR before (& here & here) but I am feeling a little idle this morning (in a 6 am on my way to work sorta way) so I thought that you wouldn't mind if we started the working day with just a few more, especially some slightly older ones...
As starts to the day go, it doesn't get a lot better than this
July 3, 2009
Doorstep dilemmas
This week we take our inspiration for our Friday firearms feature from the situation faced by both Frank Corti or Lady Griffin – on your own doorstep you are confronted by a violent criminal whom you need to dispose of with alacrity because your gentlemans gentleman is just about to pour pre-dinner drinkiepoos. Of course the simple solution is to get your gamekeeper to shoot said assailant, but unfortunately he is busy resetting the mantraps in the Lower Covert & the underkeeper has taken the wolfhounds to assist with the eviction of estate tenants who are late with their rent. Then to make matter worse & because your humble correspondent is an utter swine, I will add the following complications:
Firstly, one is a stout bulldog (either actual or honorary for the purpose of this post) therefore ones choice of sidearm must be British or Empire
Next, as the Webley Service Revolver has been covered in previous posts, you can’t have one of those – let’s assume that inadvertently it has been loaned to the vicar who is off remonstrating with the Methodists
Thirdly & finally, it is important to cut a dash as you dispatche your adversary. So aside from No.1 above, the bulge created by a Colt & Wesson Model 3000 turbo with 8 inch barrel fluted & ribbed for extra stimulation might undo all of one’s tailors hard work. Therefore think Basil Rathbone, not Dirty Harry
So for starters, we have a true bulldog style revolver
6 into the chest cavity at point blank range would almost certainly draw any doorstep unpleasantness to a swift conclusion & it is small enough not to ruin the cut of ones coat if slipped into a pocket
For friends of semi-autos, what about a .32 Webley & Scott?
I know that .32 is not the most robust of cartridges, but then again, a full mag at point blank probably settles the argument
& although the vicar has your trusty service revolver, even in those days Webley made smaller 'carry' versions - so perhaps you could reach for your back up weapon
Sadly a lot were chambered for the lo-fat .38 cartridge
However, older versions were chambered in the more manly .455 & I think that something like this
would fit the criteria at the top of the page. Of course I have no doubt that that those of you that are knowledgable in such matters might be able to suggest something even more appropriate...
July 2, 2009
Thursday morning caption competition
& to get you going how about... you are never caught short with the new short action xyz
June 25, 2009
Eight six shooters: Your Thursday morning Smith & Wesson medley
For your express firearms dedication, this morning we start with an assiette of shortarms & for no particular reason I can think of, I chose the most excellent products of Mr. Horace Smith, Mr. Daniel B. Wesson & their successors
So without further ado, lets kick off with Model 10 Victory revolver so named for the "V" prefix which was placed before the serial number & represented "Victory" against the Axis powers in World War II
In 1957, Smith and Wesson began a convention of using numeric designations to distinguish their various models of handguns. The M&P was renamed the Model 10. The M&P/Model 10 has been available in both blued steel finish and nickel finish for most of its production run. The model has also been offered throughout the years with both the round butt and square butt. Beginning with the Model 10-5 series shown below
in the late 1960s, the tapered barrel and its trademark 'half moon' front sight were replaced by a straight bull barrel and a sloped milled ramp front sight
For those whose tastes demand something a little more meaty, beaty, big & bouncy there is the .357 Magnum Highway Patrolman
In the late 1940s & the first part of the 1950s Smith & Wesson was the only American gun company manufacturing a .357 magnum revolver. Since this was the only revolver available for this cartridge at the time, police departments & individuals could not "shop" around for better prices. Many police departments, as well as individual officers & private shooters, requested from Smith & Wesson a more strictly utilitarian "budget" .357 magnum revolver. S&W responded with the Highway Patrolman (later changed to the Model 28 in 1957). The manufacturing changes made for a more affordable revolver. Mechanically the Highway Patrolman is the same as the more lavishly produced Model 27.The Model 28 was in production from 1954 until 1986. For most of its production run it was a very steady seller with both police officers & civilian shooters
357 Mag a little too much gun? Well then there are always the little snub nose Airweights in .38 Special
Simply perfect for say popping into your pocket when you are off to discuss expenses claims with your local Member of Parliament - also the Airweight Model 37 available in stainless steel which doesn't stain from blood splatter once you have had to explain to your MP exactly how displeased you are with what he (or she) has been claiming on expenses
If you would prefer something a little larger that comes with a cast iron manufacturers guarantee that it
will cause sphincters to dilate if it is produced at exactly the right moment during a drunken post dinner climate change conversation ... or if there are only five faux-environmentalists around the table then the 5 shot .38 Chiefs Special might be just the ticket
Now I know that this post is called "eight six shooters" & the Chiefs Special only holds 5, but its late/early & besides being short one round of .38 S&W is not as bad as this little gold plated number
I thought that we would finish up with it in the true spirit of inclusiveness that has long been the hallmark of this blog but let’s be absolutely crystal clear about this, golden guns are fine if your name is Scaramanga but other than that NO. No excuses or exceptions, even if you hark from da hood !
June 24, 2009
Pheasant & Leek Pie
First shoot your phessies etc etc etc then ...
2 pheasant breasts
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Knob of butter
1lb sliced white leeks
A good slug of double cream
3/4 lb puff pastry
1 egg, beaten
Lightly brown your pheasant breast in a little olive oil and salt
Meanwhile roll your rough puff pastry to size and cut out a circle for your pie base
Press the base gently into the bottom of a suitably sized bowl
After a few minutes on each side remove your pheasant breasts and let them rest
Make the leek filling for the pie with sliced leeks softened in a little butter and mixed with double cream
Cut your pheasant breast into thin slices and arrange on top of the leeks
An egg wash along the edge of the pie helps to seal the lid. Press the edges together to secure and decorate with the prongs of the fork
Turn out the pie onto a baking tray. Working round it with floured hands, turns up the edges and helps to keep it in shape
Prick to allow steam to escape and bake in a hot oven. After 40 minutes brush with egg and return to the oven for a minute or two to glaze
Stolen from Gill at River Cottage
June 19, 2009
Mauser 'Broomhandle' 1896
I promised the other day that we would 'do' as it were, the Broomhandle Mauser - so man of my word that I am, here we are....
Contrary to common belief, the C96 was not invented by Paul Mauser, but by the Feederle brothers (Fidel, Friedrich, and Josef). Fidel Feederle was the Superintendent of the Experimental Work Shop, and it is reported that the C96 (then referred to as P-7.63 or the Feederle Pistol) was designed and prototyped without the knowledge and against the wishes of Paul Mauser. Be that as it may, production began in 1896, and ended about 1939 with over one million C96 pistols produced.
Paul Mauser named the C96 the "Mauser Military Pistol" in the hope that it would achieve large sales through its adoption by the Germany army or the army of one of the other major powers, but his hopes were never realized.
While limited numbers of the C96 pistol were purchased for issue to members of the armed forces and/or police of Germany, China, Indonesia, Persia, Turkey, Italy, and possibly Norway (and unofficially used by the troops of a large number of other countries), it was never officially adopted by any country as their primary sidearm.
More from C96 & the Mauser 1896 Unofficial HomePage
June 18, 2009
Trigger control
Tonight I don’t propose for one moment of delve into the intricacies of perfect trigger control – there are those out there far far more qualified than I will ever be to opine on that particular topic. Rather I would like to very briefly (for a change) make an observation & comment of my own particular experience.
When I am on the range I always know the exact point in time at which the rifle will release the shot: that final exhale & as the cross hairs come up onto the target, I make a conscious decision to squeeze the trigger. However in the field when I am shooting something preferable cute & cuddly – shooting to kill if you like - it’s quite different.
The process all starts in the same way, the exhale & the recognition that the cross hairs now reside upon the point of aim. But after that nothing. When Bambi, Foxy Loxy, or Peter Rabbit get given the good news, I never seem to make a conscious decision to take the shot – the rifle just seems to go off in my hands, without thought if you like
Post shot, I’d say that my recovery & reload drills are very similar on the range or in the field– it’s simply that marked differential in the actual release process. One registers, the other doesnt. I’d be interested to hear if any readers experience anything similar
June 15, 2009
The Lancaster Pistol
I was sitting in the smoking room of Claridges enjoying a very nice port wine when I was aware of an older gentleman of millitary bearing being introduced to me by the porter. "Ah, young Doctor Sprague, over from the colonies I hear!" I smiled and replied, "No taxation without representation!!" which seemed to serve as a good icebreaker.
And so I met Colonel James Fellows, late of the 13th Bengal Lancers and veteran of campaigns in Sudan and Afganistan, a remarkable old soldier. The conversation turned to firearms and current trends in service sidearms when he told me of an unusual pistol that many officers purchased as personal weapons for campaigns in the late 19th and early 20th century. Reluctant to startle senior members of the club, he invited me round to his town house to view this fasinating pistol...
So I thought, given that we had quite a few VCs from the Mutiny last week we should start today with something a little different such as the Lancaster Pistol
A lot of the old boys had been through the Indian Mutiny and the talk of the officers mess was always how those little beggers would take a few pistol rounds and still keep on coming, so when I got posted to the Sudan I wanted somethng that was stop one of those Fuzzy-Wuzzies in their tracks. Off I go to the Army and Navy Stores 'cause in those days an officer had a lot of leeway in their choice of personal weapons and fell in love with this beauty as soon as I saw her. Fellow behind the counter said they were selling like hot cakes, popular with tiger hunters out in India by all accounts. The level of workmanship is quite evident in the checkering of the butt and the blueing as would be expected from the firm of Lancaster, who by appointment to His Majesty the Prince Consort supplied shotguns to the royal family. The locking mechanism is also shotgun-like as you can see, and operates a self-extractor. Feel the weight, hmm? 2 ¼ lbs so you run out of bullets, HIT THE B*GGERS!
Sometimes classified as a Howdah pistol, the Lancaster pistol enjoyed popularity with British officers in India and Africa owing to its faster rate of fire and increased reliability over contemporary revolvers.
Its ammunition had greater stopping-power than the contemporary Beaumont-Adams and Colt Navy revolvers, making it ideal for colonial warfare. The Lancasters most popular calibres were .380", .450 Adams, .455 Webley, and .577
When facing charging tribesmen like the Zulus or Dervishes more modern ammunition tended to go straight through the enemy who would keep going. What was needed was a heavy lead bullet that would lodge in their body and bring them down
It was eventually displaced by the various Webley revolvers in the late 19th century, as revolvers became more reliable and faster to reload, thus removing many of the advantages of the multi-barrel design. A few were still in use as late as World War I, and they were well known to be solidly built and easy to maintain.
June 14, 2009
Ways to spend a summers day: vermin control
Get yourself a Larsen Trap & pop in the Judas bird, sit back & wait
Be sure to have your rimfire to hand, or alternatively (as I tend to do), simply throttle the magpies
Now the main problem with trapping vermin is that whilst perfectly legal, if the bunny huggers come across them, they either steal or wreck them - but not if they are labelled RSPB Census complete with logos.
June 11, 2009
Gun Post Thursday: Get a grip
In many ways, the really big question before us this morning is academic: I have shot my trusty Beretta 686 in all weathers: occasionally in the sun, sometimes in the snow but more often than not in the pouring winter rain. The older I get the more I feel the cold & consequently my puds are normally snug in their Barbour neoprene gloves
Apologises for not sporting a pair of custom made kid skin gloves but at about 20 quid Barbour’s finest have served me well for years & even when the water is running down the back of the neck they afford your humble correspondent one thing above all else, a firm grip on his trusty Beretta - this is in marked contrast to his somewhat tenuous grasp of reality. But this morning, over our breakfast kippers, the matter for consideration is
Do shotguns need to have checkering on their stocks?
Aside from trying to grapple with the grip issue, I am of the opinion that well executed checkering sets off a good piece of wood - however it needs to be well executed & some of the machine cutting that you see on cheaper weapons should frankly be left off – they’d look a lot better without it. Take for example this Laurona – the epitome of a simple honest side by side
Cheap checkering would ruin its plain stock. However to move up the scale & if I win the £50 million jackpot in this Friday’s Euromillions lottery draw, among much else I’ll be buying one of these, the Beretta Silverhawk Tartarugato ...
To my alcohol ravaged mind, the quality of that checkering sets off that piece of wood perfectly.
Now let’s set aside the matter of the engraving on the action for another day, come shine or more likely rain, gloved or nor, you will have sufficient purchase to swing through those high birds. So it might well be that checkering is more a question of aesthetics & tradition, rather than say function & I for one am very comfortable with that – however I am not sure about you guys...
Beretta & Laurona pics c/o Collectors Firearms
Gun Post Thursday: Dr. FM’s Proprietary Ounce of Lead Athletes Foot Remedy
Picking up from where we left off last night, now this from TDB
If you rest the barrels of your shotgun on your foot, it is probably wise to check that it is ‘broken’ & unloaded. If you decide not to do this it is generally considered sensible not to pull the trigger...
As our correspondent goes on to point out, in addition to drunks, it now appears God protects mindless Shotgunners
Gun Post Thursday: Scout update
Friend & former colleague Chuckmeister for tis he of spiffy new Blaser fame has also finally got round to getting his Styer Scout scoped up
All he has to do now is:
a) Buy that Schmitt & Bender 8 x 56 scope for the R93 & get it mounted
b) Book some range time, so that we can got & get some serious trigger time, get the toys sighted in
c) & shoot his Blaser 6.5 x 55 against my .243 in our back to back Box’ead Straight Pull Challenge
No pressure you understand
Gun Post Thursday: My sorta home loads
Toad, this ones for you... spotted along Bond Street yesterday
& if you think that ammo is big, you should have seen the size of the reloading press out back!
Gun Post Thursday: Firearms collections
As both a starting point & a point of reference, here is stout bulldog E-S's collection
& I would just like to point out the No. 4s ... in the rack, with bayonets fitted really for the call to arms. But thats just an aside to get us warmed up because today is Gun Post Day
When it comes to my own little collection I think that I am doing reasonably well at the moment (in GFWland terms) with 3 bolt action rifles, 2 semi auto 22s, 5 shotguns & 2 blackpowder pistols - well at least I thought that I was until that man from Texas pointed out this Kiwi's collection
Perhaps you all could point me in the right direction on things. I have a mild interest in the Czech firearms and I’m always looking for different models and information on them. I have a couple in a small collection...
Follow the link & weep
June 9, 2009
Dienstag-Morgen pistoleabbildungen
In honour of Gröfaz Griffin (see posts passim), our gun porn this morning continues the Germanic theme, with the Walther P38...
the venerable Luger 08...
& last but not least, the Walther PP
No doubt, our ersatz Reichsmarschall would think that any one of these would be perfect (perfekt?) for his Völkisch movement
June 5, 2009
Browning 1919 Light Machine Gun
This morning dear readers I thought that we might as well start our day with another one of JMB’s classic designs, namely the M1919 light machine gun. Inspired by Mr Maxim’s rather natty design, J. Browning Esq. set out to produce something that could do the same but was lighter & in doing so, he came up with this...
... used by the just about everyone & bolted either on to or into just about everything including the Supermarine Spitfire since its date of introduction.
Developed to supersede the Browning M1917, the standard U.S. machine gun of World War I, the M1919 originally fired the .30-06 M1 or M2 rifle cartridge from woven cloth or metallic link belts. Since then it has been chambered for just about any military round you care to mention
As an infantry weapon but at 31 lbs, it was usually crew operated by 2 soldiers: the gunner, who carried the tripod and ammunition; and the assistant gunner, who carried the weapon, spare parts, and sometimes more ammunition and when in action, fed the ammunition belts into the gun to ensure smooth entry of each round in the belt, decreasing the chance of the weapon jamming.
The original idea was to allow the gun to be more easily packed for transport, and featured a light barrel and bipod when first introduced as the M1919A1. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that the gun was too heavy to be easily moved, while at the same time too light for sustained fire. This led to the M1919A2, which included a heavier barrel and tripod, and could be continuously fired for longer durations.
Another version of the M1919A4, the M1919A6, was an attempt to make the weapon easier to carry by reducing its weight and to make use of a bipod, but it turned out to be heavier at 32 lbs
But as anyone who has ever had an army number knows, in life it is possible to make most things lighter : however to set out to make something lighter but achieve quiet the reverse takes the military
June 4, 2009
Seeing as how we haven't done any gun porn so far this week...
This morning we have the AK 47 which are now available as Connie du Toit described it to me, in family packs
May 29, 2009
May 28, 2009
Sometimes corporate life just isn’t so bad
The boss walks into my office (post lunch), plonks himself down, puts his feet on the desk & announces that he has an important task for me. What’s that I enquire : tin our few remaining asset backed securities traders? Bale out of remnants of my forward Yen positions? No. None of that. I am now tasked with buying six days shooting next season, including a day on the grouse. Stuff the shareholders & sod the accountants, there are a few fleeting moments when corporate life seems all so worthwhile
May 26, 2009
Fifty cal frivolity
Yesterday was a Bank Holiday here in Blighty, hence the sketchy posting, but now the working week is about to start, it’s time to get back down to it. Now Fridays gun porn prompted a bit of debate which is all for the good, however can I take that this meets with unanimous approval?
May 22, 2009
Your Friday morning pistol porn: Walther P22
I had the chance to shoot one of these twice last year while in Texas
I will leave it to others to cover the tech stuff
All I have to say is that its a Walther (so it works), its a 22 (so you can shoot it all day long for very little)
& if I had the chance, I'd definately have one.
May 20, 2009
Calibre Conundrum Concluded
At the end of March, quite a few of you leant a hand to solve a slight calibre conundrum that a pal of mine was having but it gives me not inconsiderable pleasure to report that yesterday, he picked up his Blaser R93
& to conclude the original discussion, it’s in 6.5x55
So that completes his line up (at least for the time being) & looking at it;
Ruger 10/22 (with lots of go faster goodies)
Styer Scout in .223
& now the Blaser
with all of the calibre permutations that that has, that’s not a bad little collection, at least for starters. However I suspect that it isn’t just me that thinks that there is maybe room for say a classic military piece: maybe something in .303, or perhaps 7mm? Just a thought you understand....
May 18, 2009
Morning morning gun porn
Whilst as Joe Stummer sang Mondays coming like a jail on wheels, I thought that we could ease ourselves into the forthcoming week with this little brace of lovelies...
Now be honest, have had a butchers at those beauties & now tell that Monday morning just does feel quite so bad
May 15, 2009
Neat Blaser stuff
(Chuckmeister, this one's for you)
Scoop up the stuff & bits that go into a rifle...
Pop on a bipod...
Attach the barrel, via two captive bolts...
Slide the bolt in & put the scope on...
& you are good to go & head off to the clocktower of your choice.
Reverse this process as required & repeat as necessary - the rifle will hold damn near perfect zero. How neat is that?
However for your humble correspondent, the neatest thing is that all you have to do to convert said rifle from how the good Lord intended it, is to slide out the bolt...
& slide in a right cack handed one...
As much we the loath & detest the Hun, when it comes to engineering, his cunning knows no bounds
May 13, 2009
May 11, 2009
Boots concluded
You might recall that a few days ago, I was pondering boot issues. Anyway, over the weekend I feel that my problems resolved themselves with the purchase of a pair of Irish Setters
Now time to get them well & truly christened ... a days stalking is in order I think
May 7, 2009
Firearms safety & the selection of a proper backdrop
We all know that when taking any shot, you must ensure at all times that there is a safe backdrop. Furthermore, even if your FAC permits you to use your .243 for vermin control, you should never ever ever use it to shoot pigeons off the roof. No excuses, not ever....
& no officer, that wasn't me
May 5, 2009
& to bring you all up to date
But over the weekend, Youngest at the age of six years & 10 months joined the ranks of the shooting fraternity
Yes, she did hit the target & yes she is keen as mustard to have another go. Now some of you, especially those of you whose daughters burn through ammunition, will remember the sinking feeling as yet another cost line goes on to the family balance sheet. I’m currently in that place.
Tuesday Machine Guns Part 1: MG34
After the weekends news that leaves me bikeless, thank you to those you have emailed condolences & those that have made suggestions for a replacement. Already a theme is starting to emerge: this from Toad
& this from Ex-Stab
There seems to be a bit of a theme already ... however the concept of Mrs FM givin' it an 'andful while your humble corrspendent pumps rounds into speed cameras has a lot going for it !
Tuesday Machine Guns Part 2: Maxim Gun
A pal of reader JDS, while undertaking super secret research, came upon the following ditty pencilled in the margin of a document:
Now this here is the Maxim gun,
Whose works are a terrible puzzle;
It cocks itself with its own recoil,
And bullets come out of the muzzle.
May 2, 2009
Top Reloading Tips
Tip 1.
To check that a homeload is not touching the lands of the rifling, colour the bullet with a permanent marker, chamber the round, extract carefully and check for marks in the ink at regular intervals.
Tip 2.
Never use a round that has been neck sized only after being fired in your mates rifle, you may find that it gets stuck!
Tip 3.
When bouncing around your garage using your rifle like a pogo stick with a live round in the chamber and your foot on the bolt, ensure that wife and kids are not in the bedroom above and you keep your head well away from the muzzle!!
Tip 4.
Keep clean underwear near your reloading bench for occasions like this.
Tip 5.
Always do the test in #1 with a non charged round.
Found on The Stalking Forum
May 1, 2009
April 28, 2009
April 27, 2009
What fates impose, that men must needs abide; It boots not to resist both wind and tide - William Shakespeare
Back in July 2007, your humble correspondent was bemoaning the general state of his outdoor footwear...
Thinking about it, when we returned from Asia (10 years ago), I must have gone out & bought myself new pairs of wellies & Karrimor KSBs. Over the last decade both have seen sterling service but a bit like their owner, they are now pretty much shagged out. In fact the wellies now have so many leaks that on Saturday night I walked into the grain store, only to find them holding their own ‘confidential press briefing’ & as for my beloved KSBs, the soles are pretty much shot & the stitching is coming apart faster than Nu-Liebour’s immigration policy
Well, with my usual Swiss like efficiency, nearly two years on, I have done absolutely naff all about it & my footwear issues continue to compound to the extent that while stalking last weekend, in nothing more than heavy morning dew, me plates ended up wetter than George Osborne. So a lot of yesterday was taken up researching some alternatives & having trawled numerous websites & forums it has become clear to me that basically nobody likes anything. Notwithstanding both that & their simply eyewatering cost, I think that I might well be ordering myself a pair of these....
... unless of course Mr Danner-Boot is a reader & would like to send me a free pair for product review purposes? No? Somehow, I didn’t think that that was very likely.
April 23, 2009
Cidered Pigeons
The breasts & legs of 4 pigeons
1 small onion & 6 cloves
1 lb dessert apples
1/2 pint cider
1 tsp ground coriander
Salt & pepper
3 tbsp single cream
Place the pigeon breasts & legs with the onion in a flamesproof casserole. Pour over the cider & marinate for 24 hours.
Peel & core the apples & add to the casserole, with the coriander, salt & pepper. Simmer gently for 2 hours.
Lift the meat from the casserole & allow to cool. Meanwhile, rub the apples through a sieve. Return the puree to the casserole, stir in the cream & season to taste.
Remove the meat from the breastbone & slice each wedge into three. Return the meat to the casserole & reheat gently for fifteen minutes.
Serve straight from the pan with creamed new potatos & minted peas.
April 21, 2009
Pesky wabbits
More pathetic nonsense...
The composer who wrote the famous theme music for Watership Down has ordered a cull of rabbits on his Surrey estate. Mike Batt's land near Farnham was inundated by hundreds of rabbits which nibbled wires and piping. Mr Batt, who hired a marksman, took advice on the most humane method of control. "It seems that dead rabbits are the story of my life," he said.
An RSPCA spokeswoman said that shooting could be a humane method of killing, depending on the skill of the marksman.
& here is what a humane 156 yard rabbit shot looks like
Shot, sir!
April 19, 2009
Trigger Time 4
This morning I was up a 4 am – now that is an unholy time of day & should never be seen unless you have the very best of reasons...such as being out before first light to look for some cull roebucks, like here...
It took us about an hour to stalk round to roughly half way down the fence line in the picture above when we saw our first animal. Binos out we saw a Roe, couldn't make out the sex but it was moving up & down the fence with what appeared to be a limp. Stalking to about 250 yards we could see it was a doe, clearly in some distress, trying to get over a 4 foot fence that a healthy animal would clear in a single bound.
Over the next half an hour we worked our way to within about 175 yards of the animal, taking extra care not to spook it, as we wanted to get a really good look at how badly injured to was, even though it was difficult to see its leg which was mostly obscured by long grass. The animal continued to limp up & down the fence line & we continued to wait for what seemed an age but was in fact no more 15 minutes until at about 120 yards, I was presented with a broadside shot, which I took.
I didn’t see the bullet strike but the doe ran 20 yards, stopped & keeled over into the corn. Though the scope I could see the steam from the animals short breaths – one, two, three, four & then no more.
Now the knowledgeable among you will know the closed season for roe does runs from 1 April until 31 October however once we got to the carcass, the decision to take the animal was vindicated – the lower part of its rear left leg was completely missing. Further inspection revealed wounds on flanks, the poor thing had probably been hit by a car which is where it lost half of its leg.
This was the Blaser’s first ‘real’ outing & despite Fridays grouping issues, it performed magnificently. It is zeroed ‘an inch high at a hundred’. The bullet strike was pretty much perfect – although in the wound picture below...
... it looks a little high, but that’s more a result of the angle that the picture was taken from. That 100 grain Norma did the job nicely which I should jolly well hope so given their cost (see posts passim). Beyond that, there isn’t a lot more to say save that my new toy is now properly blooded, the summer & some more bambis beckon
April 18, 2009
Trigger Time 3
Norma .243 100-grain soft noses - £32.95 for 20
Federal .243 70-grain ballistic tips - £28.50 for 20
Do you need gun bans when ammunition costs this much?
April 17, 2009
Trigger Time 2
Apologises for today’s lack of posting however your humble correspondent has been busy down at the range
& what with it being Bisley, there is no way that you can ever shoot there without at least one person turning up with a Lee Enfield.
In fact one of the things that I like about this particular club is the range of (firearms) interests that its respective members have ... from at one end of the spectum for this Blaser LRS2
through weapons like this rather spiffy Holland & Holland sporter
to at the other end of the scale, the black powder brigade who seem to take singular pleasure in completely obscuring the firing point
As for me, I shot like an utter numpty all day. This was the best group that I could manage at 100 yrds
or any distance come to that. Now many of you may well have been in a similar position & we know that when you are having one of ‘those days’ the best thing to do is to pack up, pour out another mug of tea from your flask & spend the rest of the afternoon offering helpful advice to other club members. Despite know that that is the sensible course of action, it didn’t stop me for one moment blowing through the thick end of £80 worth or ammo trying to get consistent groups. Now normally it wouldn’t matter, however tomorrow I need to be on top form ... but more on that tomorrow night
April 16, 2009
Trigger Time 1
Having been away for the last 3 weekends on business, I figure that the company owes me a couple of days (& the boss is away) - so today its been down to the clay range with Boy for a lesson
followed by a couple of hours on the air rifle range
Sure as hell beats being in the office
April 15, 2009
A brace of doubles
There is something utterly charming about this story pointed out by Martin
Mfuwe Lodge in Zambia happens to have been built next to a mango tree that one family of pachyderms have always visited when the fruit ripens. When they returned one year and found the luxury accommodation in the way, they simply walked through reception.
... so you can sit in the hotel bar a double G&T in your hand, a double .416 Rigby across your lap & the sport comes to you. That certainly would beat every hide I have ever sat in
April 14, 2009
Lanchester sub machine gun
We start our week with one of our lesser known sub machine guns – the Lanchester – so named because it was “designed” by Mr. George. H. Lanchester
In fact it wasn’t so much designed as a copied from the German Bergmann MP28, manufactured by the Sterling Engineering Company between 1941 & 1945.
The Lanchester was made in two versions, Mk.1 and Mk.1*. The latter was a simplified version of the original Mark 1, with omitted fire mode selector, and thus firing in full automatic mode only.
Chambered for the 9mm cartridge & with a rate of fire of approx. 600 rpm the Lanchester was a heavy weapon, weighing in at nearly 10lbs. Most were issued to the Royal Navy where it served until 1970 & to the Royal Air Force for airfield defence.
... oh yes, apparently they also had a nasty habit: it could accidentally discharge if the gun was dropped or knocked on a hard object while cocked and loaded. This is generally not consideredc to be a very good feature in a fully automatic weapon
April 9, 2009
Woodcock
Your humble correspondent is lucky enough to have done a little bit of woodcock shooting over the years, so this morning rather than the usual woodcock on toast, we have a slightly different take on how to serve up your left & right
Having done the necessaries & remembered when plucking to retain the pin feathers for your shooting cap, place the woodcock in a casserole dish on a bed of carrots & leeks
Add half a pint of red wine & you can then slurp the rest of the bottle. Add half a pint of water & one tablespoon of dark soy sauce
Season only with pepper as the soy will give it all the saltiness it needs
Place the lid on & cook in a medium oven for thirty minutes
Remove and add one shallot halved & half a pound of white seedless grapes
Back into the oven for a further twenty minutes
Remove & strain the juices into a small pan which you need to reduce
While this is going on, strip the meat from the carcase
Serve the meat with the carrots, leeks & grapes and new potatoes with the reduced 'gravy' over the top
April 8, 2009
Readers Rifles 1
As we haven't done any Mauser Madness for a while I thought that we would have a quick shufti at Reader AJDS's Swedish M38
Trust me, there are a lot worse ways to start your day !
April 6, 2009
The Webley Service Revolver
What with having been in the (former) colonies last week I have to confess that after a 12 hour flight back to London you find your humble correspondent with a tummy full of single malt & a head full of dreams of Imperial revival. Consequently, I thought that we could take for our Monday morning gun porn, the iconic Webley revolver – perfectly suited for knocking big chunks out of fuzzy-wuzzies...
... Huns, the Jap, or better still, damned Frenchies.
Webley used to use the advertising slogan, The Sun Never Sets on a Webley – a nice play on Lord Salisbury’s complaint that the £1.5 million spent on colonial defence by Great Britain in 1861 merely enabled the nation to furnish an agreeable variety of stations to our soldiers, and to indulge in the sentiment that the sun never sets on our Empire.
Whilst Colvin de Silva is credited with the repost, That's because God does not trust the British in the dark, consider this – how many of perfidious members of the burgeoning Westminster Village would continue to lie about their expenses or claim absurd amounts of housing allowances if they knew that down the darkened corridors of the Palace of Westminster were stout bulldogs so armed...
... coming to call them to account. Indeed, to my mind, the Webley Mark VI, chambered for the still very respectable .455 round, is the very epitome of a proper Englishman – robust & uncompromising! Known also as the Webley Break-Top Revolver or the Webley Self-Extracting Revolver, it is to this day one of the most powerful top-break revolvers ever produced
& through its numerous variants, served the Empire from 1887 until 1963.
However consider this; the trusty Webley is perhaps a metaphor for our decline & fall. In happier times & say, its Mark VI incarnation, it was a very capable weapon...
... however in the end, it got smaller & ended up becoming emasculated & chambered for the woeful .380/200 round which was never going to get the job done. Much the same can be said for once Great Britain.
March 28, 2009
Today I have been mainly buying ammunition
Now all I have to do is to find some time to get back down on the range to see which sort the Blaser likes best
March 27, 2009
The only question in Westminster that really counts
Prompted by Lurch’s comments on this week’s Light Machine Gun post, I thought that I would pose you this little POETS day conundrum...
You have had a tummy full of finest foaming ale, followed by an arse rattling curry. It’s now getting on for midnight which is H-Hour because The Glorious Day is about to start & you are off to storm the Westminster Village. Specifically you will be (ahem) ‘clearing’ the Palace of Westminster which is sitting in late session & so full of perfidious MPs.
You are allowed one personal weapon – anything you want – however not only do you have to carry enough ammunition but you also have to be mindful of collateral damage because once the executions have finished, the PoW will be converted to the London residence of Generalissimo Supreme, King of the Wild Frontier, Lordy Lordy his Majestyness, doesn’t he look great in jodhpurs and a greatcoat, give him a gun someone, he’s so get down funky & sexy & Emperor of Everything & golly I bet he has a whopper, Chief Lord High Priest & Benevolent Dictator in Perpetuity Free Market. Therefore no flame throwers. Sorry.
So what’s it going to be?
March 25, 2009
L4A3 Light Machine Gun
We last touched upon the LMG in a post about the verenable Bren Gun back in 2006, but this morning dear readers I can think of no better way of starting the working day that with the Bren's offspring, the 7.62mm L4A3 Light Machine Gun
I am happy to report (once again) that your humble correspondent is old enough to have carried one of these for many many miles & if I had to go to war tomorrow, I wouldn't be the slightest bit dismayed to be issued with another one.
To repeat Ian Hogg's comments
The Bren Gun [& by association, the L4 LMG] is spoken of with affection by every British soldier who ever used one, & with good reason. Beyond any doubt it was . . . the finest light machine gun ever adopted in quantity by any army. It was reliable, robust, simple & accurate, and beyond that no one has a right to ask
If you look at those pictues & don't get a warm feeling at the thought of storming the Palace of Westminster with one in your hands, you have no heart whatsoever.
March 24, 2009
Friday's range report
Note to self – try & remember that when your take a new rifle to the range for the first time, ensure that it is not a day when your fellow club members have decided to bring along their black powder bondooks…
… in fact there was that much discussion going on about whether respective Enfields were a 3 groove or a 5 groove iteration that I have to confess to thinking that I might well be in a nightclub. It is also worth pointing out that clouds of smoke render even German optics all but usless. Still there I was, new rifle on the bench for the first time & as regulars will know, that is a moment to be savoured & relished, even if you can’t quite make out the targets & you are being showered with burning powder from the pan of next doors flintlock.
I started off from the bench at 100 yards, with 85 grain Remington ballistic tips & soon got some reasonable groups, an“inch high at 100”, the classic stalkers zero. Time to move back to the 200 yard point & immediately run out of the aforementioned Remies so a quick switch to RWS & Norma soft noses was required. After a little bit more faffing about - Norma 243 will go into a 243 chamber but identically packaged .308 wont, doh! That aside, the Blaser was starting to produce some quite reasonable groups. The best of the day (prone, off a bipod) at 200 was this one …
& to put it into scale, that’s a 3” target spot
It is also worth noting that if you sight in at 100 yards using 85 grain bullets & then switch to 100 grain rounds at 200 yards, you really do get some bullet drop – double duh! However, early results are encouraging & with a little more testing & I reckon that the Blaser will get only better & better, your humble correspondent's lack of skill allowing
Careless Jane
Jane, who shot her Uncle Bill,
Said his death did not affect her,
But, which makes it sadder still,
Broke my 'Hammerless Ejector.'
Harry Graham
March 22, 2009
Proof of the theorem that consumption of lentils destroys brain cells
...or was this columnist just being ironic? A wave of the fat capitalist cigar to Rhys for finding it
March 20, 2009
Posting will be a little thin today
The wheels of industry, the legions of creditors & aggrieved shareholders can wait until Monday. Today your humble correspondent is off to the range
March 18, 2009
of rifles
The rifle is a noble weapon. It brings pleasure that no scatter-gun ever can. A shotgun takes us into cultivated fields, or those narrow wastes within sight & sound of civilisation. But the rifle entices its bearer into primeval forests, into mountains & deserts untenanted by man. To those in whom the primitive virtues of courage, energy & love of nature have not been sapped, there is scarce a joy comparable to roaming at will through wild regions, viewing the glories of unspoiled earth, & feeling the inexpressible thrill of the hunter, sore tested by privation & hazard, but armed & undismayed.
Horace Kephart – Gunsite
March 17, 2009
Run rabbit - run rabbit - Run! Run! Run!
Run rabbit - run rabbit - Run! Run! Run!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Goes the farmer's gun
March 16, 2009
The new arrival
So this is my new acquisition – a left handed Blaser R93 chambered for .243 Winchester - simply packed full of natural goodness German engineering yumminess
sporting a heavy fluted match barrel, ready cut to accept a moderator which will come later once I have finished setting up the rifle & scope
& yes, detachable saddleback mounts, all topped off with a Zeiss 7x50 illuminated reticule scope - I have to confess that taking scopes on & off goes completely against the grain but all of the reports say that it works & works well
as for the scope, everything that is written about them is bang on - the optics are simply glorious. End of story.
Having worked out to take it apart & put it back together again, its on with a Harris bi-pod (just for EX-STAB because I know just how much he rates their design)
& its good to go. Save for the aforementioned moderator & some flip up scope covers its now down to sorting out some decent loads (one for vermin & one for deer)
Thus this afternoon was spent over at The Englishman’s going through the breaking in the barrel/cleaning routine. Now I have to confess that I am in two minds about this whole running in the barrel debate – indeed both sides seem to hold rather entrenched views – but I figured that at very worst, it can’t hurt.
The only downside is that when you are going to run a load of ammo straight into the bank, you tend to buy el-cheapo, in my case PMC. This is the first time I have shot it, but its only £12 for a box of 20. Whilst the price is OKish, its a bit like shooting black powder cartridges. Lets just say that I will be buying some more cleaning patches next weekend.
Anyway, next comes the zeroing
March 14, 2009
Today is...
Forget all the nonsense & Nu Labour phuquwhittery
Cast aside credit crunch concerns
Today is happy day
Today is one of those days when all of those red eye flights back to London seem worthwhile
The daily 0530 alarm is forgotten, as is the office
Today is my day of jubilee
Today is new rifle day
More pictures tomorrow & no its not a Sako - that's just an old case that the dealer gave me to keep the new toy safe on the trip home
March 11, 2009
Wednesday Morning Guns, Part 2: The Tampon Blowgun
& this from Reader Gweilicus
Inspired by marshmallow shooters, this air-powered tampon gun turns your feminine hygiene products into high-flying projectiles. Have a shootout between rival tampon brands, or use it as a fun alternative to paintball. The tampon shooter has a range of 10 to 20 feet depending on your ammo and lung capacity
The matching bandolier lets you carry a full “clip” (i.e., box) of 20 tampons, so you’ll never be caught short in the heat of battle.
Wednesday Morning Guns, Part 1: Winchester SX 3
Our first gun post this morning is Reader PK’s semi-auto shotgun
As he says
Your photos of camo rifles reminded me of why I recently bought the fastest firing shotgun in the world, the Winchester SX3 or as I call it, my 'Gypsy scatterer!'
Can’t say fairer than that
March 10, 2009
One to watch
The full facts about this havent emerged yet…
Two people have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a hunt supporter died when he was hit by a gyrocopter at an airfield. The man, thought to be in his 40s, was pronounced dead at the scene of the incident at Long Marston airfield near Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire. Sam Butler, from the Warwickshire Hunt, said a gyrocopter had recently been following hunts in the area.
but I cant all but guarantee that it will be worth following. No doubt the save the little fuffy wuffy foxys brigade will be foaming at the mouth already. Indeed as topics go, killing foxes red dogs always attracts the digital equivalent of thick green crayon – last weeks comment of the week on a long forgotten post on the topic was
F*ck you al stupid fox killers look at that beautiful animal and you shot it i hate you go and f*ck your mother
The only answer to such erudite censure is to humbly point out that the lads on the Guntrader Forum have been discussing their favourite fox rifle which has led to gun porn like this
& this
being posted. Kit like this only serves to remind me to make some time to go & knock some chunks out of Charlie in the near future
March 6, 2009
Roasted Grouse
1lb new potatoes
4 sticks celery
1 leek
2 small courgettes
12 baby asparagus tips
8 baby onions
3 tbsp olive oil
2 oz butter
4 whole grouse (oven ready)
4 oz shallots
2 stalks of fresh thyme , chopped
1 fl oz Madeira
Half a pint of game gravy
4 slices black pudding
salt & pepper to taste
Place the new potatoes in a pan, cover with salted water & three-quarter cook (10-12 minutes). Drain & refresh under cold water until cool. While the potatoes are cooking, wash trim and cut the celery, leek, & courgette crossways in to 1 inch rounds at an angle. Leave the asparagus and onions whole. Lightly season the vegetables & brush with olive oil.
Preheat a griddle pan. Slice the new potatoes lengthways into quarters & fry them with the vegetables on the griddle to create a criss-cross effect. Remove & place on oven tray to reheat later.
Preheat oven to 200C. Heat the remaining olive oil & 1oz of the butter in a heavy based frying pan. Season the grouse & seal on all sides of the pan. Place in a roasting tray & cook in the oven for about 20 minutes. Leave to rest for approximately 5 minutes.
To make the sauce, peel & finely shred the shallots. Melt the remaining butter in a saucepan; add the shallots & thyme & cover. Cook for about 2 minutes, until just transparent. Add the Madeira & the game gravy & bring to the boil. Strain & set aside.
Grill the black pudding on both sides until cooked & crispy. Place on kitchen paper to drain for a few seconds. While the black pudding is cooking, place the vegetables back into the oven for 2 - 3 minutes to reheat.
To assemble the dish, place a slice of black pudding in the centre of each plate & arrange some vegetables & potatoes around it. Place the grouse next to the black pudding. Season the sauce & spoon over.
March 5, 2009
Short Magazine Lee Enfield
The Lee-Enfield the principal military firearm of the British Empire during the first half of the 20th century. Chambered for the very capable .303 cartridge, it was the British Army's standard rifle from its official adoption in 1895 until 1957. A redesign of the Lee-Metford, which had been adopted by the British Army in 1888, the Lee-Enfield remained in widespread British service until well into the early 1960s.
The iconic Lee-Enfield rifle, the SMLE Mk III, was introduced on 26 January 1907, along with a Pattern 1907 (P'07) Sword Bayonet and featured a simplified rear sight arrangement and a fixed, rather than a bolt-head-mounted sliding, charger guide. The design of the handguards and the magazine were also improved, and the chamber was adapted to fire the new Mk VII High Velocity spitzer .303 ammunition.
During the First World War, the standard SMLE Mk III was found to be too complicated to manufacture (an SMLE Mk III rifle cost the British Government £3/15/-), and demand was outstripping supply, so in late 1915 the Mk III* was introduced, which incorporated several changes
The inability of the principal manufacturers (RSAF Enfield, Birmingham Small Arms, and London Small Arms) to meet military production demands led to the development of the "peddled scheme", which contracted out the production of whole rifles and rifle components to several shell companies.
The SMLE Mk III* (redesignated Rifle No.1 Mk III* in 1926) saw extensive service throughout the Second World War as well, especially in the North African, Italian, Pacific and Burmese theatres in the hands of British and Commonwealth forces.
Australia and India retained and manufactured the SMLE Mk III* as their standard-issue rifle during the war, and the rifle remained in Australian military service through the Korean War, until it was replaced by the L1A1 SLR in the late 1950s. The Lithgow Small Arms Factory finally ceased production of the SMLE Mk III* in 1953.
It continues to see official service in a number of British Commonwealth nations to the present day, notably with the Indian Police, and is the longest-serving military bolt-action rifle still in service.
Total production of all Lee-Enfields is estimated at over 17 million rifles.
March 3, 2009
& you wait hours for a bus to come along & then two come at once - Part 2
Sorry but I forgot to mention that aside from yesterday's assorted yumminess, dealerman also had one of Mr Anshutz's deadly accurate 17HMRs, also a left hooker
complete with shortened barrel, cut & ready to accept a moderator ... maybe just like the one that is currently like the one in my gun cabinet
March 2, 2009
& you wait hours for a bus to come along & then two come at once - Part 1
Regular readers will know that I do devote not an insubstantial amount of time to tracking down interesting left-handed rifles that (cough cough) errrrrr shall we say, interest me. Anyway, to cut a long story short, on Saturday, I slipped down to a dealer I have not used before & what a mistake that was because when it comes to left hookers, this is what greeted me…
First up was the Heym that I was talking about to the other day – a thing of grace, elegance & beautiful German engineering, topped off in .243 & the actual rifle that I had gone to look at
Next, a fully cam’ed Sauer in .308. Now I am not looking for another 308 (at the moment) as I am more than happy with my Remington 700 VS & even I have to confess that this is a little bit much even for my shabby tastes
& then, a very interesting High Precision HS Pro Series 2000, in .223
It has apparently fired 2,000 rounds & is showing a some wear around the bolt handle etc. However when all is said done, it is heavy fluted barrel cute!
Now for those of you with slightly more traditional tastes, there is a bit of wood under the fold…
For starters, there was a 243 Sako M591.
Although the rifle is over 20 years old, on inspection it was quite clear that it has hardly ever been fired. If you prefer something slightly more avant-garde, a Sauer 202 (also in 243) which by just about any measure, is a cult rifle in deer stalking circles.
Last up was a very tidy Tikka M595 as if, there weren't enough choices on the gunroom table already.
Now I know that you want to know what I bought & the honest answer is nothing .... yet! No, I didn't choke it; I just want a few days to mull over a few options (i.e. how many of these can I sneak by Mrs FM) & lets see what the second half of the week or more specifically, next weekend brings.
February 4, 2009
Rabbit control
There is something ever so Python-esque about this…
A brick of .22 rimfire to Theo for pointing it out but could I just comment that if Farmer Palmer has a problem with rabbits, instead of an air rifle, he might try one of these...
Forget Flopsy, Mopsy, & Cotton-tail ... take out the entire warren & half the county to boot!
February 3, 2009
Time now for a Tuesday firearms conundrum…
All other things being equal, which would you go for: the Blaser that I mentioned the other day, or this left hooker Heym SR21
Both are in .243, the main difference is that the Heym is half the price of the Blaser. What d’you reckon?
February 1, 2009
An open ended question
A second hand Blaser R93, synthetic Realtree stock & retro fitted with a left handed bolt kit
.243 fluted match barrel, cut
& reproofed to accept a Wildcat moderator
Maybe topped off with a Zeiss Diatal 8 x 56
Can anyone think of reason why not?
More on the deer issue
From Simon Heffer's weekend column
There are more deer now than at any time since the Middle Ages. The failure to cull them is causing severe environmental problems, affecting the balance of the countryside, and leading to the destruction of woodland. The problem is that many people, having watched Bambi once too often, think of such animals as superior to humans and requiring the sort of consideration normally applied to maiden aunts. Of course there should be a cull: and it should not stop there.
Wild boar now cause havoc in some parts of the country — the celebrated vegetarian Sir Paul McCartney refused a few weeks ago to cull some on his estate that were running wild. Foxes are everywhere and need to be slaughtered in huge quantities, just when hunting is banned; and even badgers are spreading bovine TB. This is not Beatrix Potter, it’s real life. Take aim, and fire.
January 31, 2009
Such sadness
Today is the last day of the season
Even though I am not shooting today I am still imbued with a sense of melancholy.
January 27, 2009
More gun trolley goodness
Just following up on Sunday's Cabelas product feature, we have this...
Not so much a picture, as a work of art.
January 25, 2009
Sunday afternoon round at FM Towers: Birdwatch time
Bird lovers across Britain have joined in the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Big Garden Birdwatch
Hush, hush, whisper who dares
Little boy stands at the top of the stairs
Wearing a hoddie and armed with a rifle
…errrrrrr as usual, any vermin in the paddock is going to get shot
Ah, chalk up another rook
Now before anyone starts whinging, rooks (Corvus frugilegus) are covered by what is knows as a “General Licence”
General licences are issued by government agencies to provide a legal basis for people to carry out a range of activities relating to wildlife. The general licences relevant to pest birds are issued on the basis of one or more purposes (prevent damage to crops, conservation of wild birds, preserve public health etc.) and include a list of bird species for which that purpose is a valid reason for control measures to be taken.
Besides, our village is absolutely overrun with the damn things & it’s a shame that more people round here don’t shoot them.
Every family needs one of these
You know those 3 wheeled pushchairs, they have knobbly tyres & come in bright purple? Well we used to have one. It lived in the back of Mrs FM’s Landrover & saw us through two nippers. It went everywhere with us & finally feel apart after probably six years of solid abuse. I think that it is now rusting somewhere at the back of the barn, still covered in mud.
Fast forward a little, in November, we were in Cabelas & saw this…
& if you can’t get to Cabelas, they are available online here. For the life of me I can't think of a reason as to why you wouldn't want one. Just think of the look on the yummy mummies faces when you turn up at the creche with one of these "fully loaded"!
January 22, 2009
"no real interest in firearms" ...what?
Last night, I read the following comment on the Shooting UK website
The US stalking ethos is very different to that in Britain. Many hunters often have no real interest in firearms and are happy to borrow or purchase a cheap rifle that is shot once a year and then locked up after the hunting season.
I am not sure if author, Lewis Potter, means that US hunters or UK stalkers have no real interest in firearms...but I shall duck out of this one, citing jet lag & leave it to you lot to decide
January 14, 2009
January 13, 2009
Luggage I wish I had
Well maybe not. The colour isn’t great & then there is the small matter of every time that you got to the airport & tried to check in, the term full body cavity search springs to mind. However if you fancy one, they are available here & if you fancy a full body cavity search, they are probably available at just about any airport you care to mention
The Gamekeeper
A good gamekeeper is a great asset to an estate & he should be paid more than the minimum agricultural wage. A house, fuel & a suit of clothes are generally provided in addition to wages, & also a dog allowance. He must be a man of character, hard working, always striving for greater perfection, entirely honest & trustworthy, & a good vermin killer. He must be an efficient organiser, good at handling beaters & tactful with tenants.
Throughout the year the owner or agent should follow with interest the keeper’s work, & before a shooting day should consult him on all matters & plan every detail with him personally.
from Rural Estate Management (4th Edition), edited by R. Charles Walmsley FRICS
January 12, 2009
Your Start the Week Free Gun Porn: Kimber Crimson Carry 1911 .45 ACP
I had the pleasure of shoot one of the aforementioned Kimbers on our visit to Texas. We had all been down to an evil gunshow in Dallas & Doc Russia had just bought one. So as you can imagine, its was straight down to the range
Now what can I say, other than it’s a Kimber (tick) it comes fitted with Crimson trace grips (tick)
& I want one, very very badly!
January 9, 2009
Your Friday Morning Gun Porn - M1A1 Carbine
During our little trip to Texas in November, I had the opportunity to shoot the M1 Carbine for the first time – what a neat little piece of kit, demonstrated here by our gracious host while we were down at the DFW Range
Anyway I thought that we would start to round the week with a few piccies & a little narrative shameless right clicked from here
The original request for a compact and lightweight shoulder arm to replace service handguns for second-line (non-fighting) troops was first issued by US Army in 1938. The idea behind this request was that a shoulder arm, such as carbine, firing ammunition of moderate power, will have more effective range and will be much simpler to train the users to fire it accurately, than the standard .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol or revolver.
Between 1942 – 1945, a total of more than 6 millions of carbines were manufactured. After the end of the WW2 production continued for some time, and M1 carbine and its variations saw some serious action as a first-line weapon not only during the WW2, but also during Korean and early stages of Vietnam war. M1 carbines also were widely exported by US Government to numerous friendly nations, mostly in South-East Asia. M1 carbines saw limited use in the post-war West Germany and France. It should be also noted that M1 carbines are still manufactured by various small US companies for civilian sales
In general, M1 Carbine was a really compact and handy weapon. It was lightweight and short enough to be more suitable for jungle combat, than a full-size battle rifles such as M1 Garand. It also offered relatively high practical rate of fire due to large-capacity, detachable magazines and low recoil. The M2 modification, which had a select-fire capability and a magazines of larger capacity (30 rounds, interchangeable with the older 15-round ones), could be described as an "almost an assault rifle" ("almost" is added due to the lack of effective range)
Another modification was the even more compact "paratrooper" version, M1A1, with side-folding metallic buttstock and a pistol grip
Technically, the M1 Carbine is a gas operated, magazine fed, semi-automatic or select-fire (M2) short rifle. Carbines were issued with sling and sometimes with additional pouch that was mounted on the buttstock and allowed to carry two spare magazines on the gun itself. Early M1 carbines had no provisions to mount a bayonet, however, some older models had bayonet lugs on the barrel.
January 5, 2009
January 4, 2009
Today, I have mainly been ...
... cleaning my Remington.
Friday was spent rootling around in the woods, sadly unsuccessfully. We fleetingly saw both roe & muntjac deer, but none were shootable – in fact none of us managed to get a shot off & after six hours, we retired for meat in buns with fried potato salad.
However a day spent out in the woods, in the company of three other stout bulldogs, is a lot lot better than just about anything else I can think of.
January 2, 2009
Friday morning
I am sorry about the rather thin posting this morning, but your humble correspondent is off with Bambi Basher in search of a few Monties…
Hopeful there might be one or two death pics later on
December 22, 2008
Start the week gun porn
Well not so much real gun porn as mini-gun porn. Take one nipper, add an air pistol & a tin of pellets. Garnish will a few targets & leave in the farmyard for an hour or two
Now tell why exactly shouldn't children have ready access to air weapons?
(Snapped round at The Englishman's)
December 19, 2008
Venison & Mushroom Pie
Cousin Bird dog is on the hunt for venison recipes – so here is my little offering.
Pie: 1 lb of well hung venison, ½ lb of field mushrooms, 6 tbsp corn flour, 3 tbsp butter 12 small shallots, 2 tbsp fresh thyme, finely chopped
Marinade: 1 pint of red wine, 1 onion, finely sliced, 1 garlic clove crushed, 1 carrot, peeled and sliced, 1 celery stick, sliced, 1 rosemary sprig, 2 bay leaves, 6 juniper berries
Method
First, go & shoot your deer. I am assuming that you know what to do from pulling the trigger to ending up with your pound of venison, cubed & ready for cooking.
Marinade: Mix all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl. Place the venison in the marinade and cover the bowl cling film and set aside for at least 4 hours to marinate. Much better to leave to marinate overnight
Once that is done, strain the venison from the marinade and reserve the wine. Toss the venison in the cornflour so that it is well coated.
Melt the butter in a large casserole pan over a moderate high heat. Add the meat to the pan and cook it for 2-3 minutes, browning it on all sides. Add the mushrooms, shallots and thyme to the pan and cook for a further 2 minutes, stirring regularly.
Reduce the heat slightly and stir in the reserved red wine and stock. Bring the liquid to a strong simmer, spoon off any scum that comes to the top. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and leave the meat to cook gently for 2-3 hours, stirring it at regular intervals so the ingredients cook evenly and the base doesn't burn (the longer and slower the cooking the more tender the meat will be).
The stew should have thickened but the liquid should still cover the meat and vegetables. Remove from the heat.
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Roll the pastry out. Place the venison into the pie dish. Place the pastry over the top of the pie dish, trim, seal and crimp around the edges.
Make 2 small wholes in the centre of the pie. Brush the pie with the egg and place it on the centre shelf of the preheated oven. Cook the pie for 15-20 minutes until the pastry has risen and is golden brown.
Remove from the oven and allow it to cool for a few minutes before serving.
December 14, 2008
Hunt ban not meant to save foxes' lives
I originally posted the following little piece in December 2006 after seeing a letter published in The Independent. It is with great pleasure that I repost it today, if for no other reason than the quality of the commenters that it still seems to attract....
Sir: James Barrington (letter, 29 November) is wrong when he says that the Hunting Act was passed to supposedly save animals' lives. As one of those who voted for the Act, I made it clear beforehand in many discussions with the pro-hunting lobby that I expected farmers to shoot more foxes (an acknowledged agricultural pest) after the Act was passed. By that time they would no longer need to keep the number of foxes up to ensure that there were enough to hunt.
It was not the number killed, but the method of killing, to which supporters of the Bill objected. Claims that the Act is failing are therefore wide of the mark. If we described every Act which was ever disobeyed a failure, no Act would ever be anything else. And the number of times that this Act is deliberately disobeyed will doubtless fall even further as more successful prosecutions take place.
Meanwhile more people than ever ride out with the hounds (good), many of them people who refused to go hunting while it still contained its cruel element. People can still enjoy the spectacle of the hunt (good). Because the hunts continue, job losses have been few if any (good), and point-to-point racing and therefore National Hunt racing have hardly been affected (good). There has been no mass extermination of hounds (good). In other words none of the dreadful consequences of the Act with which the hunting lobby threatened us has come about, but what seemed an unacceptably cruel method of controlling fox numbers has been reduced and can be expected to reduce still further in future. Excellent!
David Rendel
Bucklebury, Berkshire
(Rendel was MP for Newbury 1993-2005)
Photos stolen from Guntraders forum ... sorry guys
December 13, 2008
Saturday afternoon
This afternoon, your humble correspondent & Boy have been over at The Englishman's
December 10, 2008
December 8, 2008
December 6, 2008
Today your humble correspondent & a few chums are off to stalk some deer
A pint of finest foaming to Theo for finding this one
December 5, 2008
Partridge Pie
From Mrs Beetons original...
Ingredients:
3 partridges
pepper and salt to taste
1 teaspoonful of minced parsley (when obtainable, a few mushrooms)
3/4 lb. of veal cutlet
a slice of ham
1/2 pint of stock
puff paste (pastry)
Line a pie-dish with a veal cutlet; over that place a slice of ham and a seasoning of pepper and salt. Pluck, draw, and wipe the partridges; cut off the legs at the first joint, and season them inside with pepper, salt, minced parsley, and a small piece of butter; place them in the dish, and pour over the stock; line the edges of the dish with puff paste, cover with the same, brush it over with the yolk of an egg, and bake for 3/4 to 1 hour.
Time - 3/4 to 1 hour.
Average cost, 1s. 6d. to 2s. a brace.
Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons.
Seasonable from the 1st of September to the beginning of February.
Note; Should the partridges be very large, split them in half; they will then lie in the dish more compactly. When at hand, a few mushrooms should always be added
December 3, 2008
A day at the ranges (Part 1)
As some of you have already worked out, we spent last week as guests of the du Toits, enjoying their bounteous hospitality & good company in north Dallas. Now I could at this point spend the rest of this post waxing lyrical about how their dining room table groaned under the weight of a Thanksgiving Dinner of truly biblical proportions: however knowing my loyal readers as I do, I know that you would much rather hear about tables down at the range that were also groaning, but under the weight of firearms, ammunition & other sundry goodies
& so it was that we found ourselves as guests down at the Dallas Pistol Club…& if the very mention of that august institution doesn’t quicken the heart, it should. In fact, in one of his pre-retirement posts, Kim pretty much covered off what we, Family du T & Doc Russia got up to
However from my perspective it did prove a most amusing range day as Mrs FM had never fired a pistol before. So under our hosts supervision, she warmed up on a varity of .22s (Colt, Ruger, Walther, Browning & Kim’s Taurus pump action)
before graduating through 9mm & 357 Magnum (Browning and Smith & Wesson)
& from there, on to 45 Auto
& why did I think that it would be otherwise?? Sometimes I am so stupid, even by my own very shabby standards
November 29, 2008
Home home on the range (again)
Once again dear readers, sorry about the lack of posting but todays itinery was;
Get up
Have breakfast
Go to gunshow
Go to the range
Shoot gracious host's M1 carbine
Finish up with dinner ... boozing etc
November 28, 2008
Sorry about the lack of posting but...
most of today has been spent here
& as you can imagine, it involved quite a lot of this
Full range report to follow in due course
November 24, 2008
More start the week SLRs
Last week we kicked off with a few half decent piccies of some SLRs (or FN FAL if you like) & I thought that we should do the same today. So here you have 'em... complete a blank firing attachment (remember those?)…
but for those that have never seen the original post on this particular topic, its here
November 19, 2008
November 17, 2008
Your start the week free rifle porn
This morning dear readers, we start our week with one of Precision Rifle Services redoubtable products …
the Classic Precision Rifle, a snip at a credit crunch busting £9,995 (inclusive of VAT you will be delighted to know). For that sort of money, what do you get aside from ¼” – ½” group at 100 yards? Well the rest of the menu will have you slavering in your seat…
Action: Hand built waith a Grisel or Sunny Hill custom hinged floorplate & prigger guard
Trigger: Arnold Jewell stainless match-grade with top safety
Barrel: Shilen chrome-moly match-grade with hand polished, black finish; contour, length, weight & twist rate to customers specification
Chamber: What ever you want up to 338 Lapua
& if that isn’t enough to you, as an extra you can have an exhibition grade walnut stock
Ooooh nurse! Now many of you might quite correctly say that you can get just as much for a lot less money. But come on, fess up ... if you won the lottery you would wouldn't you? & before anyone asks, no I haven't just ordered one, but if I could, rest asured I would.
Last weeks comment of the week
Cue drum roll…..comes from Diana whose website is here. Anyway her winning entry that she left on what I thought was a long forgotten post on fox shooting is …
WTF is wrong with you hunt ass bitches??? Don't you f*cktards understand that animals have feelings, too? Well I guess you guys don't so go on being heartless and CRUEL, b*stards!
Do you know what? When I read stuff like that I am just seized by the urge to go & shoot something
Roll on the weekend!
November 10, 2008
Expensive birds ... & lots of them
I have to confess that the start of this years shooting season has gone really rather well – maybe not in terms of the number of days out, but certainly in terms of the number of birds. A month ago in Monmouthshire we had a total of 261 on the day (185 pheasants & 76 pheasants). On Friday, over in East Sussex we got 147 pheasants & 169 partridges. lets just say that currently the freezer is bulging with game.
Ah, a day in the countryside … rolling chalk downlands
& the scene behind your humble correspondents peg at the end of the first drive after lunch – on days like that, you simply can’t have enough shells in your cartridge bag
followed by the pickers up doing their stuff
The only downside to all of this that I am rapidly getting a taste for some very very expensive shooting. To put that into some sort of perspective, a smart driven day will cost circa £30 + VAT a bird shot. Given the current economic climate there are plenty of people trying to offload shooting that has already been paid for or is part paid – prices being quoted by some of the sporting agents are apparently as low as £15 per bird. However even had that sort of price, I still need to keep buying those lottery tickets
Start the week FAL fun
Abbiamo ricevuto un lotto di un centinaio di FAL L1A1 inglesi. Si tratta di armi ricondizionate in arsenale, in eccellenti condizioni, con rigatura dal 95% al 100%. Gli otturatori, usati ma in ottime condizioni, sono stati rimatricolati. La calciatura è in plastica e nella maggior parte degli esemplari è nuova. Su alcuni impugnature a pistola e su alcune maniglie ci sono tracce di usura da movimentazione.
As PG who sent me this link comments, no translation is really necessary
November 7, 2008
October 31, 2008
Hip flask etiquette
Earlier this week, our favourite African American posted a comment that I made the other day
Time for one of my favourite pastimes: weapons cleaning. Now that is one of the advantages of a semi-automatic…lots of lovely little bits to clean. Yes I know, some actually regard this part of the post-shooting ritual as a bit of an anathema, but I take a simple pleasure in sitting down with either a mug of tea (or a large glass of whiskey) & taking the time to clean a firearm really well. Well it sure beats having to talk to the children
which got this reply from 1776 Rebel
I get nervous when folks talk about whiskey and guns. Even unloaded guns. Lots of time for the whiskey when everything is back in its cabinet or safe or wherever. Then the mind does the final safety check and the bottle opens up. I’m a gin and toxic guy.
Firstly lets get this straight, when I am down at the clay ground or on a rifle range I never touch a drop. Afterwards..oh yes & indeed there have been times when I have needed a couple of come back bracers to keep a hangover & the shakes at bay before picking up a rifle first thing in the morning. OK, but that being said, when your humble correspondent is out game shooting matters are slightly different. On a typical days pheasant shooting, my basket will contain at least the following:
Frankly, in between drives how are you going to properly enjoy the company of your fellow guns without a little social lubricant being passed around. However recently I have decided to stop messing about with all of those little metrosexual girlyman sized hip flasks & bought one of these wee fellows…
& yes that is a full sized shotgun next to it & those are 12 bore cartridges! Trust me when I say that a few snorts from that bad boy & you don’t have to worry about whether you should be shooting ‘maintained lead’ or ‘swinging through’ the birds …if you get my drift
Of course, this sort thing causes our cousins on the left hand side of the pond for blanche somewhat. A couple of weeks ago when I was smart shooting – we had 75 partridges & 165 pheasants on the day – one of the guns hailed from Chicago. Although he was an experienced shot, he had never shot driven game before. When after the first drive, we all tucked into the slogasms (sloe gin cut with champagne), his face was an utter picture & he wouldn't touch a drop all day. Of course we respected his views & got stuck in
October 29, 2008
Your Tuesday morning battle rifle conundrum
It would appear that on the left hand side of the pond there is an election of some note due very shortly. This seems to be preoccupying pundits & pollsters alike. Therefore out of respect for our cousins over the water I thought that we would conduct a little polling of our own but on an altogether much more interesting topic & here is the scenario…
Sanity has returned to our foreign policy in the finest traditions of Crecy, Agincourt & Waterloo, we are off to fight the French. When to get to armoury, there are only 2 rifles left in the rack; a Lee Enfield No.4
& a Mauser K98
Which one would you take.
On the face of it, there is little to choose between the two as both a proven designs, capable of surviving both the rigours of the campaign & still cut a dash on your shoulder as you march under the Eiffel Tower as part of the victory celebrations.
To all intents & purposes, there is no particular advantage in using either 7.92mm or .303. Either will leave suitably sized exit wounds in Jean-Claude’s chest.
In combat conditions & in the firefight, again there is nothing to separate either weapon in terms of accuracy.
The Lee Enfield’s 10 round capacity beats the Mauser’s 5. However, remember we are fighting the French here & there is a school of thought that says, with some justification I will add, that a couple of rounds is all your are going to need before the drapeau blanc is flying …
Assuming that plentiful ammunition will be available for both, which one would you sign out?
UPDATE - Sorry, but I have had to take the poll down as it had become corrupted. When I last checked it, after 150 votes, the No.4 was in the lead by a ratio of about 4:1
October 27, 2008
Of Franchis & log fires
The clocks went back on Saturday night, heralding the start of autumn. Maybe that is why it was raining so hard on Sunday morning or maybe it because simply because it was a Sunday. Still the rain was pouring down but reader Tricky & your humble correspondent had decided to head off to the clay range regardless – well it was either go & get wet or face the bedlam that is Free Market Towers on a Sunday, so no choice really.
Now instead of taking my Beretta, for some reason that I can’t quite fathom, I decided to break out the Franchi 20-guage. The reason that I try to kid myself that I bought in the first place was I thought that it would be an ideal little gun for Mrs FM to learn to shoot with – light & next to no recoil. However I must have been kidding myself because the moment she clapped eyes on it, out came a loud yuck & since that day about 5 years ago, I think that she has only shot it once.
It could be because it is a semi-automatic or maybe it is because of the Realtree paint job but Mrs FM, bless her little traditionalist little heart simply refuses to use it which is why I bought a Beretta Silver Pigeon & even that, an over & under, she secretly regards as a tad too modern.
So, in 5 years of ownership, I doubt that it has shot more than a thousand rounds. I have used it on quite a few bunny bashing expeditions where its synthetic finish comes into its own – bouncing around in a Landie at night - but the few times that I have tried to shoot clays, for whatever reason I have never been able to consistently connect with anything. But what the heck, there’s a first time for everything & its raining like billy-o
Of course, all of this missing is completely down to operator error. If I do have any criticisms of the gun, firstly the cocking handle, its way way too small. Maybe it has been designed for dainty designer Italian hands or maybe, after years of using military weapons I am used to something a little larger & more robust but to my way of thinking, that handle is far too small.
Secondly, when it comes to ammunition, its more sensitive than a Welshman with a grievance. I have shot it dry, wet, dirty, clean & every combination thereof, but try as I might, I just can’t get it to cycle on 24 gram shells. Now I know that the answer is to shoot 28’s (doh!) but a lot a clay grounds will only let you shoot their own ammo & invariably those will be low fat loads. However yesterday the range we were at allows to to use your own shells so I shot a combination of both. Predictably, the 24’s wouldn't cycle but the Franchi was flawless on the 28’s.
In fact, aside for the aforementioned ammunition issues, that little gun went really really well. I even managed to connect with between 50-60% of everything which I was absolutely delighted with, especially given that the conditions were slightly less than ideal.
But when it comes to getting home wet, lets just say that is why we have Aga – not because of all of that slow cooking blah blah blah nonsense but because designer kitchens might be all very well for Gordon or Jamie, but they don’t have anywhere where you can dry sopping shooting kit. That takes Mrs Aga
With all the clobber gently drying out, time for one of my favourite pastimes: weapons cleaning. Now that is one of the advantages of a semi-automatic…lots of lovely little bits to clean. Yes I know, some regard actually this part of the post shooting ritual as a bit of an anathema, but I take a simple pleasure in sitting down with either a mug of tea (or a large glass of whiskey) & taking the time to clean a firearm really well. Well it sure beats having to talk to the children
& with everything sorted out & stowed away, only then did your humble correspondent feel that he had earned the right to settle down on the sofa of sloth, as some of The Englishman’s logs crackled away cheerfully in the wood burner & get stuck into an immense stack of gun porn oh yes, & an equally large drinky-poos
How glad am I to be back from Asia?
October 9, 2008
Today I shall be mainly listening to...
Today I will be shirking – well not shirking exactly. After the school run I have to pop down to Salisbury. From there it will be cross country to Cirencester for a spot of luncheon
& then on to Monmouthshire where I shall be staying in this fine hostelry tomorrow night, with seven other stout bulldogs
Do you recall all of those 12-bore cartridges … well we fully intend to put them to good use on Friday. Given that I shall be driving through some of the most beautiful & quintessentially English countryside you could ever imagine, I think that it is entirely appropriate to spend the journey listening to this man’s music
Very very loudly.