Jump to content

andyf

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    686

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by andyf

  1. andyf
    I am in South Devon to the East of Plymouth. We have an embedded population of totally Black wild Rabbits, these are random and live within the general 'Brown' versions most of us are used to. The typical is that all of them are Doe's (no Bucks at all), and they are totally black, no white belly fur, and for whatever reason they are almost always slightly smaller than the general population? They usually appear in clusters i.e. within a field or so around a particular bury, I understand this particular feature is 'Mellanistic' and is equally and opposite the White version or 'Albino', but d
  2. andyf
    I am in South Devon, Myxi has always been around over the last 40 years around here, it comes and goes, usually it appears when the Rabbits are most numerous in the late summer (i.e. June to September). However in the last three years the number of Rabbits on my ground has shrunk dramatically, but suprisingly the Myxi has also seen a decline? This year, fields which typically on a sunny afternoon would show 30+ Rabbits browsing around have only had 6 or 7 at the best. But I have only shot 1 Myxi infected Rabbit this year and that was way back just after Easter. In the last few weeks, the nu
  3. andyf
    A 1,000 is not very many you know! You will be collecting 1,000 not having them delivered, it will cost more than buying them 25 at a time otherwise. A 1,000 will fit in boot of a Ford Ka it's only 4 times a flat pack of 250. Try your nearest clay club, the only problem is that they will have mostly 28 Gram plasi wad stuff in 7 shot or smaller, if you need, as I do (32 gram Felt Wad 5's or 6's) you may have to travel a bit, a decent size gunshop should be able to help. Have you got a Farm supplies dealer near you? We have a couple here in the South West (Devon & Cornwall) they are good
  4. andyf
    OK get a 12G! Like all the other guys said, gun choice in the 12 is unlimited, all the main types/makes/grades come in 12G, probably only 20% will be available in 20G. Also unless you are exceptionally gifted as a shotgun shot, the extra pellets and pattern of the 12 will 'help' you a great deal. Why are you looking for a semi-auto? As a beginner I would advise you buy a 'reasonable' multichoke OU (A decent second hand sporter Berretta or Browning can be had for £750) , if you take to shooting I guarantee you will be trading back whatever you bought within the first twelve months for someth
  5. andyf
    Well it would be the .22 for me every time, I have one and until recently I had a 17HMR as well, the HMR is very much a 'niche' cartridge, it does everything it says on the tin, and I think it's done very well in the UK for several reasons, 1. It's easy to get on your fac, and for many people coming from airguns it as a major step up in power from 12 ft/lbs giving a false impression of actual lethality. 2. It's accurate in line with top grade pcp airguns, so you can now reliably hit something 130 yards away (not 30 yards like the pcp), also no ricochets as the tiny bullet vapourises on anythin
  6. andyf
    As 'woolyback' says, Predator 8 all the way for me, mines on a .270 Win, and that's plenty of rifle, without the mod it's hideous, burns your ears right off if you fire three in a row without earmuffs, and I can't stand wearing those! Seriously though I've either tried someone else's rifle, or at least been next to it when fired all of the main makes and calibres. The Ase utra is the best for sound reduction but it looks really cr*p, the T8 is the most common and the PES is the prettyist, but you cannot strip the T8 to de-coke the guts, the Predator 8 is fully strippable, and believe me it g
  7. andyf
    Easy Peasy: The 'Good Reason' for an un-restricted shotgun is for "Shooting Winged Vermin" you MUST use these words, (providing you are not any variety of 'Scroat' and if you are you wouldn't get an FAC anyway) this will fulfill the required criteria. Regarding the rifle(s), simply apply for 'with a sound moderator' after each/any of the rifle types/calibre you want to own. The real test of all the above is that YOU have the land and permissions for the use of such guns, and the land is passed off for this class of firearm, if it is no problem, however if you are a 'newbee' with no history
  8. andyf
    To start this thread lets put cards on the table, I have four rifles, three have moderators and one doesn't. It has occured to me that I have been 'sucked in' by the shooting press, and in reality I don't need to have these 'silencers' most of the time. The likes of Peter Moore (GunMart, Shooting Sports etc etc) have indoctrinated all of us to expect and without waiver have a sound moderator on our rifles, now I have been shooting for at least as long as Mr Moore (probably longer), but I missed out on the 'Army' bit, also the 'handgun' and 'practical' stuff. Now I'm not going to decry any of
  9. andyf
    Well yes a .22rf is OK, but no it isn't the Calibre you would by choice set out with. Where I live unless you just get lucky, you would never get closer than 100 yards from a fox, and that is just about twice as far as a Subsonic will do the business from. I use a Ruger No1 in 22.250 for foxes, and it's just perfect (as the .22 rf is for Rabbits), but I realise that not everyone is as fortunate as I am in that I have the land and permissions for that to be possible. Anyway, I used to shoot foxes with a .22rf because that's what I had (1970's), and I shot plenty, I would advise that you u
  10. andyf
    My guess is that your shotgun is fairly new and consequently probably built to shoot 28gr (small shot) clay loads, most new shotguns are, and primarily used for the clay shooting disciplines, therefore your gun patterns well with Plasi Wad 28gr cartridges, and as a result you will score better when using the 'proper' ammo. I shoot two different 1970's vintage fixed choke Winchesters, one is a 27 1/2" O/U Skeet gun and the other a 28" S/S Model 23, both of these shoot best with 32gr fibre Wad no 5's, and do not like the high velocity 28gr shells at all because they were designed to use fibre w
  11. andyf
    The Hatsan is a Winchester copy, and a good one at that, a friend of mine bought one last year and he has had good service from it, good value and a decent piece of kit as far as I can see. I have an old but very good 26" Berretta 303 multichoke, I paid £350 for it in Coventry about 7 years ago, it's never let me down, I've fired 1,000's of shells through it and I've never had a miss-fire or failed re-load, and that's everything from 3" Magnums down to 28gr 'girly' clay loads, so I would recommend the 303 or it's siblings as THE semi out there, they were very popular so there are hundreds of
  12. andyf
    I've had lots of CZ's, and they are hard to beat, the factory trigger is rubbish though, the Eric Brooks trigger spring and sear spacer kit sorts this out and for the £15 or so a must. I would advise you to leave Semi-autos well alone, I've had a few of them as well, the standard 10-22 Ruger and the Anshutz 525 are probably the best of the bunch, but at he end of the day they all miss-fire, jam and generally give you grief, when they are working the machine gun effect can make you feel good, but I didn't hit anything more, I just fired off loads more ammo, (try it if you must). These days
  13. andyf
    now the second part of my question are SG SHOT any good at twatting foxes Oh those Mega pellets, everyone wants to try them at sometime! SSG's are all very fine, but as there are so few of them in the cartridge the gun's 'pattern' will be anything but a pattern, i.e. all over the place. I trialled SSG (in my Berretta 303 Semi-Auto) to see what the score was: First suprise is that any choke in the barrel tends to throw them all over the place, but a cylinder boring will give the most consistant patterns. They ricochet really badly, especially over hard ground or even wet grass, so look
  14. andyf
    Yes, go for it. I started reloading about six months after I got my first Centrefire (about 15 years ago). The cost of ammo was a bit of a shock after previously only 'feeding' a .22 rimfire? I bet you've found the same? I bought a Lee Anniversary kit, and still use most of it today, I have replaced the press with another Lee but the cast Iron one, now I only use the Aluminium one for seating bullets, also I have bought a set of digital powder scales and a powder trickler as advised by another respondant, this is also a good plan, but the balance beam type in the kit is perfectly good, just
  15. andyf
    I have four Harris Bipods, 3x Benchrest swivels, and 1x 9>13" swivel, all very well made. The 9" one is only any good if you have monkey arms, when laying down it is just to long, the others are fine, sitting up say against a tree the long one is good. But I never use them for hunting only zeroing, I don't know where you other folks shoot, but around here if I lay on the ground in most places I can only see for about 30 feet!!! Whatever, don't bother with the fixed type, the swivel is a must, and on the 'bad' side also they unbalance the rifle and stick into you when carrying the rifle
  16. andyf
    Agree with you! 17hmr has it's slot no doubt, but not with me, I have had a .223 and a 22-250 before so I still have the reloading dies and the other bits needed for reloading either calibre, so that is were I started looking. Also the 17hmr shot rabbits to a mess and full of copper 'bits', all this 'head shot' stuff is fine, but out of my truck window, at night, with the engine running, raining, and blowing a hooley and 5 to 10 seconds to get a shot away, yeah right! fantasy stuff that. All Rabbits need is the good old .22 rimmy, no need for anything else. I have always liked the look and
  17. andyf
    The Hornet has cases like Eggshell, reloading is fiddly and needs .223 not .224 bullets, but apart from that it's an OK round, the .223 is much better though, still has small rifle primers but much more robust and easier to source cases (Lapua do .223) bullets etc. Also the hornet is hard to find in new rifles, I can only think of Anshutz at this time? I chose the 22.250 because I've had one before and I know how good it is, that said if a .223 Ruger No1 had come up I would have had that as an alternative because I'd be happy with either.
  18. andyf
    I have just traded my 17 hmr (I had it for nearly 2 years), as I have found it is not much use to me, the only thing it could do that my other rifles cannot is take out long range Crows and Magpies lured onto a dead rabbit. (Long range for me means between 100 and 150 yards). The ammo is expensive, and for obvoius reasons can't be reloaded, sure it kills Rabbits but leaves copper jacket shards all over the place inside the carcase. Its not powerful enough for Fox, I shot a couple with it and neither went down on impact, and both were still alive when I got to them and I had to shoot them agai
  19. andyf
    That is (or used to be) what was called a 'Rook Rifle', it's probably been 'turned' into a .410 shotgun in the distant past. There are also many similar looking .410 shotguns still about, the reason I know yours used to be a rifle is that it has Iron sights on the barrel, shotguns made as such don't have sights, usually nothing or a single brass bead at the end of the barrel. These guns were very common a 100/130+ years ago, and literally were intended for Rook/Crow i.e. vermin control, with a calibre of .300 + in several various sizes, relatively low powered and cheap to run, but the .22 ri
  20. andyf
    I've had a .270 for 7 years now, mine is excellent, to be honest I bought it in the first place because it was New and Left Hand bolt, not for the calibre. Mine's a Browning 'A' Bolt Medalion, it had the BOSS muzzle brake on it from new, that soaked out any bad recoil, but Oh dear SO LOUD, even for me behind it. I've tweaked things a bit, I fitted a Timney trigger spring, and then a Wildcat Predator 8 moderator, so now it's a bit 'lumpy' to carry about but easy on the ears and very accurate. I use 130gr Sierra Game King SP's for deer, and 110gr Hornady V-Max for foxes both on 59gr of R22, t
  21. andyf
    The 'Silenced' bit makes no difference at all, at the end of the day it's a .410 with next to no shot in it (compared to a 12G). These things have their uses, that's a fact. But if you think it's going to be 'silent' forget it, quieter yes but is that what you want? The .410 is not a 'Boomer' anyway, my experience is that a high velocity .22 crack is not that disturbing to the birds and bee's (only the people who live nearby). So if your 'silenced' .410 keeps the vegetarian lady with the horse and 1/2 an acre at the edge of your shoot happy, go with it!
  22. andyf
    I use a 'FoxPro' remote control unit, I bought it in Tennessee last year, you can get them here, but at nearly £400 it's not a feasible thing to have. (Mine was $350 when it was 2 Dollars = £1). Is it anygood? Yes it's actually the 'the dogs'. The best thing about it apart from being exceptionally realistic, is that unlike the mouth blown types, the noise it makes is not coming from where 'you' are, but from 'over there' a convenient spot where you can get a good shot, and see whats happening at the same time. It's so good that I had one Fox at night actually grab hold of it because I did
  23. andyf
    The .308 is not really a credible fox calibre, but unless you are hoping to shoot Red deer in the future, in my opinion it's not the optimum deer calibre either. The real option for you is the the good old .243 Win, as much as is said about it most folks (including the police) don't realise that even this is not deer legal until you get into the 90Gr + bullet weights (don't tell them though, it's bad enough already). My choice of the batch is the 25-06, fast without being overkill, I use a .270 Win for deer, but also use it for Vermin i.e. Fox, however I don't think you would get a grant fo
  24. andyf
    I recently bought some 17 Gr Hornady and Winchester, previously having only using Remington (about 2,000), no difference as far as I can tell, also got a box of Win 20 Gr 'Gamepoint' just to check them out, in my rifle the 20 Gr shoot about 1/2" low at 100 yards (no suprise there then). My only comment would be that the 17 Gr 'normal' rounds rip up the bunnies big time, bits of copper under the pelt 6" away from the entry wound, but the 'Gamepoint' don't do that, maybe if you shoot fox with yours the 20 Gr might be the best option, (personally I don't I use a centrefire), but if you don't hav
  25. andyf
    I bought 3 boxes at The Sportsman Gun Centre in Exeter four weeks ago, a box each of Hornady & Winchester in the 17gr and a box of Winchester 20gr hollow points just to try them, all at £12 a box (50), I have only bought Remington 17gr before and wanted to try the 'others', no difference suprise suprise, except the 20 gr shoot a fraction low at 100yds again suprise suprise! I normaly buy 400 at a time, Martin Elworthy charged me £8 a box for the last lot, but that was last November (08), so maybe a bit more now? Anyway you have a Welsh Highwayman on the loose at £15 a box. Andy F.
×
×
  • Create New...