Muntjac Man

For crows or magpies, a dead rabbit (with entrails hanging out), or a broken egg with the yolk in it usually attracts them. But beware - the criow family have awesome eyesight, so you will need to be very well camouflaged and out of sight - especially your face - if they see a big patch of white they will keep well out of range. Keep as stil as you can, as they are very good at spotting movement. If you want someone's land to shoot on, try to find a sheep farmer - most of them hate crows! Good Luck MM

Looks in very nice condition, nice coat on her. Roe are my favrourite deer - for both stalking and eating! I keep the fat from around the kidneys and chop up and freeze it, to mix with the mince when making bambi-burgers. Envious - shot my quota of does for this year, so waiting for the buck season to open! Well done, RH

When sitting in the hide, with a biting wind blowing (like Saturday this weekend!), getting cold (despite wearing thermals) in between periods of activity, to keep warm, I do the following: 1. Look around to check no woodies inbound, or watching from nearby sitty trees etc. 2. Load rucksack with as much weight as possible - spare ammo, flask, sandwiches etc; use rucksack rather like dumbell to do arm curls. Certainly warms up cold fingers! 3. Keeping head below top of hide at all times, do squats from as low down as you can get - also warms up cold toes! Also has the added benefit of

I have found that if possible, cultivating a good relationship with your firearms licensing dept is very helpful. However, that can vary from one Police force to the next. Perhaps I am just lucky that I have a good local Firearms Licensing dept! When I applied for my .243 variation to my FAC a couple of years ago, I provided as much supporting information as possible, to show that I am a responsible shooter, eg: 1 Confirmation of booking for DSC1 (I had already decided that i wanted to do the course, and I'm very glad I did - I learned a huge amount). 2. A report on a 'Deer Rifle E

I had a slightly different problem with Winnie subs in my CZ452. Seemed to start when I started the last pack of 50 out of a box of 500 that were manufactured in Australia I think. Occasionally, if I try to eject an unspent round, it will jam in the breech, but seems ok at ejecting fired rounds. Spoke to my local gunsmith and he said that winnies were very prone to slight size differences in the case, which had given some problems in CZ's in the past. My solution is obviously to just fire the round into the ground instead of trying to eject a live one until I start a new batch. Due

For pigeon breasts, all I do is remove the feathers from the breasts and immediately surrounding areas. Then with a very sharp knife, cut just one side of the breastbone with the point of the knife following along the length of the breastbone. Then follow down all around the bone to the bottom of the breast, with the knife point always against the bones, gently holding the meat away from the bones as the knife cuts and teases the meat away, until you have removed the entire breast complete with skin for that side. Repeat with other side. Remove skin if you feel so inclined or leave on as you (

I'm with SS, Matty and Richie on this one. Having grown up with air rifles and .22RF, range was important. A couple of times a week, when I'm out walking (either around my shoot, on a walk with my wife in the countryside or e.g. between the station and work), I pick some item ahead of me, estimate the distance, then pace it out, knowing that for me, normal walking (i.e. not striding out) is 6 paces equals 5 yards. Must be done normal paces - avoid the temptation to stride out. Whenever I've shot soemthing, again, I pace it out, to check my estimate of the range. If I do this often

When they came for mine for my FAC (admittedly for .22RF which is the most ricochet prone round around), they were asking gentle questions to see that I understood basic safety for that rifle, e.g. always having a backstop, what constituted a good backstop, what was the range of a .22 bullet etc. So if you haven't already done so, do your homework on safety! They also wnated to discuss a little bit more about my 'good reason' - why I wanted to move up from air rifle to rimfire, where I wanted to use it etc. Other than that, it was very friendly, and MY FAC turned up a few days later!

Just a few extra thoughts on carcass preparation: 1. Make sure that you remove the scent glands near the anus. These are small grey / green in colour, kidney sahped, and about 3mm in size, one either side of the anus. 2. I normally use pretty much the same procedure as gammegunner started at the bginning of this thread, except that when I have removed the main guts, I turn the rabbit over, so that it is its natural way up, and make a slit either side of the tail as far as the knife will go. I then break the tail bone using poultry cutters, then pull upwards on the tail (fur still usual

Hi Basil Thanks for that - will be watching this space with interest (when I get back from my holidays - going away for 2 weeks this weekend!) when you get the feedback. As you may have seen earlier in this thread, someone did have some of the livers sent for analysis, but never got any reply! At the moment, whenever I get one with the white spots, to err on the safe side, I trash the whole rabbit - would be interested in the vet's views on whether the rest of the carcass is suitable for either human or dog consumption. Regards & thanks for your help MM

For the 243, i`ve gone for a HOWA Sporter, it`s had some good write ups, one in particular, compaired them to the remingtons. The .22? I`m not sure yet. basil. Don't dismiss the humble CZ452 if you're going for a bolt action rimmy - provided you can fit the Brooks Trigger Kit (costs about £12 if I remember correctly), it's superb value for money, and as accurate as many rifles costing a whole lot more money. Trust me, my little 'Ceasar' has taken out an awesome number of rabbits since I got it! Good luck, let us know how you get on! MM

Well, the mystery continues..... I am now finding this white spots problem in almost every rabbit on all of my rabbit shooting permissions. I have permissions to shoot at 4 different places, spread out over more than 10 miles apart, with differing land uses: 2 locations mixed sheep / arable farm 1 location cattle farm 1 location with just 2 horses in 2 fields, no agro chemicals or weedkillers etc used at all. Absolutely no signs of myxi at all anywhere. Finding it in such heavy concentrations in such geographically spread, different useage loactions is becoming a bit of a worry!

It's certainly a great day when that happens. Presumably you will fairly rapidly thereafter be on your way to buy yourself something to put in the cabinet! What gun are you going to get? Bets wishes MM

Talking to a shooting colleague yesterday, reminded me of me learning something the hard way!. If you have a rifle with a stainless barrel, and you put a mild steel moderator on it, and leave it on permanently, you will very likely find that the barrel threading begins to rust very rapidly due to the dissimilar metals in contact with each other. Best to remove the moderator after each use, before putting the gun back in the cabinet. Some people also recommend puting vaseline on the threads. Learned through experience - a couple of months after buying my beloved Tikka T3 Lite stainl

When I put the Brooks trigger kit on my .22LR CZ452, the real problem I wanted to solve was the huge amount of creep in the trigger. I will admit that I did put a lighter spring in from the Brooks kit, but I now have a trigger that has a very nice crisp break. Tightened up my groups considerably! Best value bit of kit I have ever spent on my shooting over many years! MM