tcrowe1

Aged 37 I have shot since i was about 8 years old. I am lucky in having a lot of good ground to shoot over - having grown up in a village on the leicestershire/Rutland border. I started off with an air rifle around my mates farm and then a shotgun - competitive clays, pigeons and then driven pheasant. Over the years i reckon that i must have shot over 50,000 cartridges! I have owned and used ferrets both for rats and rabbits, been a beater and currently pick up on a small local shoot where i grew up.

I have a close circle of good friends of all ages with whom i shoot and have recently become interested in rifle shooting with fox and Muntjac being my typical quarry. I still enjoy formal and informal shot gunning, but have pretty much seen and done it all and as a result it has lost some of it's excitement in recent times, so hence the move to rifle shooting/stalking which has re-kindled the joy of field craft in me.

Due to work commitments i now live in Essex in the Basildon area and this serves to remind me on a daily basis how much i miss the freedom to shoot whenever i want (i don't have any land in Essex over which to shoot), but when i do get the chance, i travel back to my "home" ground and enjoy every minute.

I am married with one young son and a dog and other hobbies include track days on my Triumph Daytona 675 motorbike (i raced for 8 years and find trackdays a less stressful and cheaper pastime nowadays!).

I currently have 2 rifles - a .223 Remington model 7 (for sale - see gun trader) and a Mannlicher pro hunter in 6.5 x 55 calibre which i now use for everything. I have a Miroku 6000 grade 3 clay gun and a miroku mk38 which is Teagued which i use for game (both 30"). Finally i have a Weirach (spelling?) HW77K springer air rifle, plus a little used FAC Theoben Rapid MK2 which i have tuned myself (i'm an engineer). For those interested in such things it is giving 34 ft/lbs - running on a modified regulator and with a low lock time it groups well at this power and uses air in an economical manner - giving well over 60 shots at 1005 fps (+/- < 1%) per 500 ml bottle fill @ 205 bar.

As a final point, i believe that all quarry should be treated with respect, with only that which can be used being shot.