The Suburban Bushwacker: From Fat Boy to Elk Hunter

Capercaillie The Revenge Toppjakt 26

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 21:11:00 +0000

TLDR: if you’re hoping for victorious whooping as we roast a grouse the size of a turkey under a starry sky. Ya fresh out o' luck. As were we.

My welcome home

Mrs SBW: You went all that way and shot nothing haw-haw I’m on team Capoer-what’s-it. I’m glad.

But that all came later. First. Some housekeeping.

Last year’s report needs a tad more to complete it. Having heard two versions of events I've pieced this, third, perhaps more factual third version together.

When I arrived back at the house Mrs SBW ran down the stairs to greet me shouting "You're alive!"

Apparently she'd convinced herself I'd died in the Sub Arctic and had rung the ACL [Ambulance Chasing Lawyer or as he would have it Deerstalking's Robin Hood] for moral support.

Mrs SBW

“he’s not answering his phone, he went to meet his internet friends in the sub-arctic, I don't even know their names, and now his phone's been dead for days. do you think he’s dead ?”

The ACL

“He does stuff like that all the time, he did say I could have his black target rifle, it's scope, and his green binoculars if….."
Mrs SBW "Shut up!"

There is also a rumour that he offered her £50 for my reloading bench and all the 'junk' on it.

Another landscape where Capercaillie have been. Possibly recently. Defiantly not now.

This year the chaps are very excited about the weather,

Dan "we've already had more snow than we had the whole of last year!"

Before last year I'd never heard people complain that it wasn't cold enough. Where I'm from when it gets to zero people lose their minds. It gets cold [-10c] in the Cairngorms where we stalk Reds, but not for long, sub-zero is a twenty year event in the south east.

Fred Bear's 10th commandment.

"Next year’s hunt begins the minute this season’s hunt ends."

This is both fantastic advice, and the way you go from; Coat, Boots, Rifle, Binoculars, Knife aestheticism to posting pictures called 'My Gear Room' on Instagram.

The northern exposure lifestyle means you need different clothes, in the highlands it's always about keeping dry from the outside, and warm. In the sub Arctic it becomes keeping dry from the inside and cool.

I'm in love with the whole idea of pristine north so, inevitably, I've started a new collection of white snow camo and, you know how it is, what isn't a prompt for another rifle?

I commissioned a special 'snow rifle' a 6XC which I've built entirely out of traded parts. It's the antidote to my much loved Money Pit. A recession-ista special, vigorous trading means I've not spent any actual money on it. Although as is so often the way with 'bargains' I still don't actually have it.

I've been buying reduced, remaindered, and secondhand snow camo where ever I can. I've not had the best time with the post, shipping stuff from the US has become a real pain and the European mainland not much better. Some stuff never arrived. June is a good month to buy cold weather gear.

Following advice from Luke of The Outdoor Boys, I've bought the largest pair of boots I've ever seen.

Baffin boots are one of the few things in this life that are exactly as awesome as people say they are. Go half size up. Absolutely perfect for standing on the ice for prolonged periods. Even at full whack I'd say Baffin boots are a serious bargain. I'll do an in-depth review later as they have a couple of clever design tweaks that really set them apart. They also fit neatly into the category of comedy footwear - my bag is 100l, they probably amount to 40l so I had to wear them on the plane. Where they nearly fit under the seat.

I set off for the pristine north.
It's two flights that don’t match up, so once again I’m camping in Stockholm airport for an age, In between: mocking strangers, giving trite advice [you're an adult act like it - go to stand up school until you've forgotten how to be nervous - you don't need a car buy a Zero Compromise Optic], and having pointless arguments on Facebook I do a little people watching.

Swedish men have a comfort, a utility even, with the backwards trucker cap that's always eluded the English. They start about two years old, and do it right into their late 60's. While we're on trucker caps. In southern Sweden that whole pastel pink-short arms-sportswear-Paris-Hilton look from 20 years ago is either back, or has never gone away. It's not improved with age. The lady's team rock it into their 60's too.

It's late by the time I'm in northern Sweden. Jon picks me up and we drive the tree-lined roads to his house. A few drinks and what passes for an early night.

Kids in Northern Sweden get up a lot earlier than mine ever did. I'm a curiosity to them. Jon's children are convinced I'm Scottish, the complexity of explaining that I'm not to the under ten's eludes me. They are delighted with this year's hoard of chocolates. While Jon plays the game that all adventures seem to begin with, finding-my-shit. We play play-dough dinosaurs and eat thinly sliced cheese.

One more synapes rattling coffee and we're off. With Dan collected, we start scrying and looking for omens: temperature, the texture of snow, the proximity of trees, recent weather, wind direction, a black cat seen three weeks ago.

For a while almost every tree is a roost for Black Grouse. Capercaillie chow down on Spruce, and Moose loiter by the road side. The stars have aligned! Last year's pessimism is a thing of the past.

This is THE year!

Dan: I've bought 'some' bullets

This year we're living in Jon's village house, it's all very civilised. Dan has passed his exam, been granted his hunting and firearm licences and been on a spending spree.

His longed for Mauser disappeared down a waiting list and he'd been offered a Steel Action. a fairly new straight pull company from Cologne. I'd only seen one before. So I was intrigued to punt a few down range and see what they shoot like.

If straight pulls are a continuum; with Heym the simplest at one end, then Blaser, then Merkel the most complex. Steel Action are between Heym and Blaser. It's a true straight pull, unlike Merkel no gearing, or second plane of movement like Blaser. Cycling the bolt is not as quiet as the Heym, not as noisy as Blaser. Not as many moving parts as Merkel, but with a rotating bolt head. Very nicely made. Like the others, it has the German de-cocking safety which is obviously better than the blocked firing pin designs.

I’m very impressed action is smooth and less annoying than the slide and crank of a blaser. The trigger is a joy. Going to have to mark the design down on the stock design, if that adjustable cheek piece was 25mm further back you could take the bolt out without removing it. Given the Swedish rule about bolt out when in the car that’s an oversight.

Every target has something to teach you. Clearly the rifle shoots groups, but also clearly, the groups are in different places. Unlikely to be the action screws, [a mistake I have made more than once], moderator seems good and tight, and the dispersal is too uniform for that. On cursory inspection the cap of the windage turret could be a bit more vertical. At some point we really should name and shame the gun shop that set Dan's rifle up for him. Apparently they even had a jig, but still were lazy enough to say 'close enough' and hand the rifle over. After dinner we set to with a plumb-bob and the shameful realisation that none of us thought to bring a torque wrench - long term readers will know that I of all people should know better.

Dan: ski ramp cheese is a serious crime here.
Jon: We'll let this one pass, but if my wife was here. [sharp intake of breath]
SBW: I didn’t know you’d gotten married?
Jon: Not yet. I bought a new rifle. She bought a ring and gave it to me to give to her. I had terrible back ache so I was begging her to say yes when I was kneeling down.

Sako S20 unloved on both sides of the North Sea.
a cool looking rifle, if you like the thumbhole stock laser-blaster rifles. Where they get off asking a premium over the cost of a Tikka I don't know. It's not significantly better, in fact it's not better at all. I've seen the carbon version of this one in a posh London gunshop for five and a half large. Stock to metal fit wasn't all that. Considering that I built my carbon stocked Tikka for not much more than a grand and thought I'd over spent....

SBW: [a little surprised he sold his 6.5 Creed Tikka] Hey I've seen these, but never shot one, how have you found it?
Jon: I hate everything about it. It rusts, the bullets bird nest, I hate it.
SBW: I know a man who has a gun shop in Scotland who really sneers at them.
Jon: The man in my gun shop refused to take it in part ex.

One and Done, 200m Jon declares his rifle sighted in.

I''ve managed to convince that sage of the prairie, the blogger known as The Mallard of Discontent to put WhatsApp on his dog n bone. We've taken to sending each other updates.

SBW: Hey man doing some Arctic Warfare Cosplay
MOD: Dude! Where are you? And are there Scandinavian babes there?
SBW: About 200km south of the arctic circle, trying and failing to shoot capercaillie. And no, Wifey says the MILF hunting season has closed.

Fred Bear's 5th commandment .

Take only the gear to the field that allows you to hunt longer, harder, smarter.

From Dan's shopping spree, the Vorn rifle scabbard. The pack has side entry so the rifle can be carried butt down/barrel up. I've met a few people who have them over the years. There’s a 'sandwiches' size which we can discount, as a complete waste of time, this size has room for your jacket which feels minimum bid to me. The older I get the more I want zero weight on my shoulders, which Vorn haven't prioritised, but if its only a lightweight stalking rifle and a jacket I'd tolerate it. To me the butt-down orientation Vorn choose has to be loads better, I had a barrel-down rig at Midnight Sun Rifle Challenge and with most of the mass between your shoulders, and the chance of your silencer banging into things, it wasn't great.

The Vorn USP is this cunning quick release system which people tell me is 100% reliable. Of the scabbard systems it's certainly the most innovative. On my yet-to-arrive Ski-Rifle I'm experimenting with a biathlon sling I ordered from TAD. Jury's out.

“Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go." Anthony Bourdain

Where ever you go the food is a track left by environment, in the arid lands of Spain there's no shortage of stale bread. So they have lots of recipes with stale bread. In Jamaica there's plenty of slow burning Hardwoods, so like Ireland where Peat was the fuel, low & slow stews are the tradition. Sweden has Tjälknöl a lump of frozen moose sliced and cooked without thawing then brined. A more recent Swedish tradition is Brown Sauce, the key ingredient is Mrs Cheng's Mushroom Soy Sauce which is literally the most delicious thing you can shake out of a bottle.

Reduced cream, fried onions, mushrooms, mushroom soy and if you have it, a little whiskey.

Seriously you could eat cardboard with this stuff.

Jon refuses my attempts to cook dinner "My wife went to culinary school, no one could ever be good enough to cook in her kitchen, I'm not allowed." He casually knocks up a fantastic dinner, moose in mushroom sauce, with some of the smoothest mash potatoes.

Right, enough target shooting, we're getting up early a skiing until we find some birds!! Skhol!!

My XC skiing is going far, far better than expected. Jon is doing the hard bit cutting a trail, Dan and I are taking it in turns to shuffle along in his wake. I'm finally having that glorious moment where I've stopped 'skiing' and I'm just, "skiing".

Fred Bear's 9th commandment .

Hunt where the deer actually are, not where you’d imagine them to be.

We've stopped to glass the trees that line a frozen swamp. Not a sausage, lots of suspicious blobs, dark patches in the trees, but nothing with a pulse.

Dan; How many brown dots have you seen?

SBW: A few

Dan: I'm at 300.

Dan: and One

The portal to hell

Fred Bear's 1st commandment.

Don’t step on anything you can step over.

We set off across the swamp. Passing a little island there's a gully. Jon demonstrates how to turn sideways and go down and up the other side. I follow.

Suddenly I'm having that Wiley Coyote moment where there isn't any ground beneath my skis, More by luck than judgement I fall on to my side. I'm over my head in the deep soft stuff with my skis bird's nesting down a hole.

I cant get up. I can't move my feet to get a better purchase, or get my feet out of the gully. My crossed ski's are under an overhang of ice. Which very probably means I'm lying on the other overhang of ice.

We have an expression in the south of England "Fuck My Luck".

Obviously I'm at the edge on the known-world here, I don't know how to get out of this one, I can hear but not see Dan coming to my aid from behind. The look that Jon gives Dan clearly says 'don't come any closer the whole thing will collapse'.

I don't know if things are about to get worse before they get better.

If, problems occur, and they will, so its when problems occur. The most important thing is not to freak out, a close second is to come up with something to brighten the mood, to put both victim and rescuer at their ease. I've been both and it always helps. The best I can do, when Jon, using his concerned voice, asking if I'm alright, is to channel my father, a man only slightly less droll than Robert Smith of The Cure

SBW: It wouldn't have been my first choice, very cold water has entered my shoe.

Jon affects a rescue by bridging the collapsed snow bridge with his skis, kneeling on them, un-clipping me from mine. While I'm rolling about in the meter deep snow like a divorced walrus trying to get up, and praying to norse gods the ground doesn't give way. He tries to rescue my skis which are now at the bottom of the creek full of icy water. The water is too deep to reach to the bottom so he recovers my skis using ski poles, from what looks to be about a meter of icy water. Whole thing could easily have been a lot worse.

Jon is Mr Bring 'Em Back Alive.

Back on our skis with one boot full of warming water we make a good pace across the swamp. The frozen north is obviously not like the equator where the sun switches off like a light, its more gradual but the reflected light from the snow makes the end of the day seem longer than it is. Its starting to darken when Jon, to my and Dan's relief suggests that we stop at a shelter and ski's off into the gloaming to pick the snowmobile up.

We ski over to a really solid little hut with a barbecue pit and take a breather. The hut is equipped with an axe and some matches to save your life if you did have to spend an unexpected night in it.

In England the axe would have either, been banned on health and Safety grounds, or stolen, and Herberts would have used the matches to burn the cabin to the ground.

I still have a lot to learn. This is us trying to walk back to the snowmobile without our skis. Doh!

We snowmobile back to the house. Only falling off twice.

It's time to pack up and head for home. But first one more mythical Swedish beast must be encountered
Hawaiian Banana Pizza. Yes I did say that, Banana Pizza. In a word 'Odd'. Or perhaps "Troubling"? Apparently it's considered a delicacy and is very popular.

Banana on toast, with cheese, ham and a touch of curry sauce - tastes exactly as you're imagining

Donner Kebab pizza, so sleazy, and yet suddenly it seems so innocent I suppose it's just a flat bread served unfolded?

The clash of the mash
Despite his being a couple of decades younger than me, there are certain similarities between Jon and myself. For instance we both believe that mashed potato should be creamy and that we are pretty good at making it that way.

We also both have women in our lives who are horrified that potatoes should be served that way and are vociferous in their condemnation.

We've not been in the house long before Mrs Jon breezes in. We're just hanging out, talking about cheese when Jon casually mentions how well the previous nights meal had been received. Mrs Jon gives him a look which makes it clear he should have been supervised

You can see he's lost this one, behind his eyes part of his soul is waving a white flag, but his brain hasn't got the message. So he, probably foolishly, produces a Tupperware of his frankly delicious mash from the night before. With the glee of a forensic pathologist unmasking a serial killer, she prods dismissively at his mash, 'you’ve made wallpaper paste' She mimes spreading paste on the wall.

Jon: But But I ....

Mrs Jon: NO! It must be fluffy

She produces her own tub of mash from the fridge......

Rounds fired - gotta be a couple of hundred. Falls from skis zero! Falls from snow mobile 3 (as passenger). Capercaillie none. Amazing stews 1, Weird pizzas 2. Excellent mashed potato 2.

On the way home we run into Jon's FIL "Don't worry I got 5 in the 35 years I hunted them for, you've got plenty of time".

Maybe I should have quipped that I've been through them at a similar rate?

Next up adventures in 6XC

Your pal

SBW

Blood In The Snow.

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 19:23:00 +0000

Been a while since I've seen someone making films like this, the music is a vast improvement

Shotgun Shenanigans Pt.2 Buying and Restoring a 40 Year Old Browning Citori

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 13:52:00 +0000

My Browning Citron, or 525 as they are called in Europe, dates back to 1982 Ive had it for a few years, it was a farmers Goose gun in Scotland before I had it, and although things have worked out pretty well this is another example of 'Do as SBW says, to avoid having to do as SBW has done’.

I'll explain

There is only three things that matter when buying a shotgun: it's not fancy wood, high tech coatings, or mysterious voodoo forcing cones.

Does it fit? Does it fit? and Does it fit?

Length of pull, balance, and check weld are the whole deal. So only an idiot would buy one sight-unseen

off the internet.

I paid the farmer and he shipped it to my local gunshop, the owner was a bit sniffy about it as he had several gats for not much more, but I liked swing of its 28' tubes. Did some walked-up with it, shot a massive Hare. Took it to the clay ground and hit a few more than my usual dismal efforts and was well pleased. I kind of own a shot gun because you're supposed to, for the first few years I shot it not a lot and there was no decreeable improvement. Gamekeeping with the BambiBasher it amounted for a few squirrels.

Regular readers will know from an earlier edition of Shotgun Shenanigans I got Super Plumber started and he became very well versed and very enthusiastic very quickly. So the Citori saw a lot more daylight.

Having an adjustable cheek piece retro-fitted more than doubled the money I'd spent on the gun. A few minutes peering across the kitchen at Super Plumber revealed that I'd been looking down the right hand side of the barrels the whole time. A bit of Up and a lot of Cast later I was in a better place. A few more flying ashtrays met their demise. It gets better.

20 something years ago I went on a stag-do and at an outdoor centre we did some shotgun shooting. I was absolute murder on Rabbits [the clays that bounce along the ground] the tutor advised me to take up clay shooting and specialise in rabbits. For the next 20 years I'd been completely dismal at rabbits, I have probably hit less across the years than I did that day. Not any more!

"You're breaking them for fun" Super Plumber

Conventional wisdom has it that your gun-fit cannot and will not be calculated until your Mount is sorted.

I'm unconvinced. My mount became obvious only as soon as my head was in the right place, the two are so interrelated, its as though you need to choose your gun in a shop, with a helpful and experienced shotgun shot helping you to see what would be obvious, but won't be, until you've been shooting for a while.

Back in the mists of time, or 40 odd years ago there was a peculiar fashion for coating even nice pieces of wood in a thick layer of polyurethane varnish. It doesn't look good and when it scratches it leaves white disfiguring marks all over the gun. Fortunately even fairly stale Nitromors will dissolve it. The recoil pad wasn't original and had lost all of its give, so it was removed with extreme prejudice too.

Much sanding with wire wool later the Citori's true colours were showing through. I couldn't tell you which solvent finally cleared out the chequeing - I used several, a toothbrush and my thumbnail.

Eleven coats of x High Speed Oil later [I don't know what high-speed means either] at least I now know how I would do it differently next time, and it looks OK. Which is a metric shit-ton better than its looked in decades. One side borders on exhibition grade, the other is firewood adjacent.

How much money I've actually saved is open to debate, if both sides were WOW a lot, if both sides were firewood probably not that much. Having learned what I've leaned. I'd buy an older gun, with an adjustable cheek piece, from a specialist and pay whatever they asked for gun fitting.

In the year since I've made it fit I've shot exactly three thousand cartridges more than any year before. It's been a lot of fun. Super Plumber keeps extolling the virtues of a set of fancy chokes, I'll probably buy a thousand carts instead.

If only I could find those two screws that hold the trigger guard in place

Happy new year people

Your pal

SBW

Invasive Deer Sika A First Attempt.

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 08:09:00 +0000

You can see just how much use the Peli Air has had, it arrived about two weeks before the first lockdown.

40% lighter and easily swallows two guns, or a bow and a gun. Been collecting dust ever since.

Here's one I wrote a while back

Heading North of the Wall SBW?

Are you going to tell us about an enthusiastic stalker who wasn’t allowed out?
No. That would be too predictable
Did you manage to take on some Sisyphean task, in the name of so-called “bargain” transportation?
No. Nearly but it bounced off the bar.
Are you going to tell us about Scotland’s apex predator?

Did you have trouble leaving the house?

Will you blame ‘work, that curse of the stalking class’ ?

You know me so well.

SBW: We’re on our way!

Ahab: What are you talking about you cancelled!

SBW: No I told you one dropped out. We’re literally on our way, like in the van, almost in Scotland

Ahab: I'll ring my missus and call you back!

A quick primmer, Sika: where they are seen and how to say it.
Cervus Nippon aka Sika a medium sized deer, from Manchuria, and more famously Japan. Hence the name.
There are released populations as far afield as Ukraine and New Zealand, Eire, and the USofA’s Chesapeake Bay. Travel to Ukraine being somewhat curtailed, NZ being a multi week commitment, so I'm going with Scotland. I’ve never shot or eaten a Sika, so when I ran into Captain Ahab online and he told me he was guiding in the highlands I booked a slot in the un-pressured opening days of the stag season. Most people don’t want to shoot deer still in velvet, and will wait until September or October , I have a pressing reason to, but that we’ll come to later.

Its been said that Sean Connery [wife beater formerly of this parish] had a Scottish accent, but not one any other Scottish person ever had. it’s easily learned as whole chapters of Irvine Welsh’s social commentary Trainspotting are narrated in the inner dialogue of one of the characters Simon aka Sickboy, as an imaginary conversation between himself and Sean Connery - 'precisely Simon' becomes “Pershishley Shimon”. Circuitous route I know, but now we've gained a fair facsimile of the correct Japanese pronunciation 'Pershishly, it'sh pronounshed “Sheeka”'.

All I need now is that second most powerful hunting talisman, a newbie.

I've had great results with taking new people, they see deer but never get a round off, I see three and shoot two. The Sika trip also represents my first chance in a while to add a Red Stag to the menagerie of deer I’ve shot. That’s going to need some powerful ju-ju, an absolute beginner…..

Super Plumber seems like the perfect candidate

I've actually managed to take someone more angsty and superstitious than myself, a man who sees imminent downfall in every puddle, and fundamentally believes it always rains on him.

The first stalking clothes. Always a hard choice for the newbie stalker: your boots are too short, and your walking clothes are more park than hill. In Scotland there are all four seasons, if not every hour, then certainly every other hour, and to make matters worse the only shop still open in Inverness is a hardware store which only stocks the noisiest waterproofs yet devised.

Super Plumber is one of those friends you’ve had for years, talk with on the phone, but rarely actually hang out with. So the 8 hour drive represents a good chance to catch up and do some shopping for junk food, a car, ammunition and a rifle.

With our meet up now hastily arranged we drive though the charismatic Scottish countryside, staying in radio contact. After a while a heavily laden estate car hooves into view. Ahab pulls into a lay-by and enthusiastically jumps out, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. The car's hand [parking] brake isn't engaged, as he strides towards us the car rolls away, as it rolls over a bump it's now steering itself back into the road. A look of blind panic crosses his face, and he dives, somewhat heroically, through the door of the car and overts disaster. needless to say Super Plumber are in stitches

After my own bloody baptism, where the first time I fired a centre fire rifle it was at a living being, I hope to do a bit better for others.

I’m from the “buy an air rifle and shoot it” school of shooting advice, but there’s a strange anomaly to living on this island, I can own a sub 12flbs air rifle and lend it to anyone over eighteen. But I can’t take it to Scotland where it’s a licensable firearm. It would need a licence I don't have . Fortunately I’ve got a reasonable hoard of 22lr Super Plumber can practice on until he’s comfortable.

My posh 22lr doesn’t have any glass and it was either the trip or the glass so it stayed at home, the trick 10/22 will have to do. Who amongst us didn’t start out with a 10/22? I've received a bit of coaching and watched much much more. There’s one central piece of advice thats the only piece of the puzzle worth starting with. Natural Point of Aim, by the time I’d heard of it I’d already developed the bad habits that have marred my accuracy all these years.

Sphagnum moss, used as field dressing during WW1, twice as absorptive as cotton, can hold up to 22 times its own weight in liquid.

Which also means you're never more than a stride away from disappearing up to your knee, hip, or even neck in icy water. You may get your boot back.

Mistaking myself for a version of myself from 20 years ago I hop nimbly, or so I thought at the time, over a ditch. My landing foot plunges into the muck, my ankle bends, my calf stretches beyond its tearing point and I plummet backwards into the ditch, which has been generously appointed with sharp sticks and cold water. Can’t say it would have been my first choice of landing spot.

The pain and cold water that's gone down my neck provide a powerful incentive and I spring out of the ditch like a champ. gaining a sudden anatomical understanding, I could tell exactly what I'd torn. To my great surprise the money pit’s barrel wasn’t knotted like a pretzal and the whole rifle was bone dry.

It's a long, slow, and indeed agonising walk back across the clear-fell. `fortunately as im within shouting distance of the road I see Ahab's car crawling down the logging road. he and Super plumber hear me and I'm rescued.

I confine myself the high seats for the rest of the trip. Sika are heard, but not seen or shot

Super Plumber nails a Red and sanguine we make our way home.

More sonn

your pal SBW

Review: Oceania Defence - The 3D Printed Suppressor

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 10:07:00 +0000

The only item that makes the amount of noise it does, that you can legally; sell, or use, without a silencer. is a gun.

In 1884 Hiram Maxim invents the machine gun, very quickly losing his hearing. Around 1902 his son Hiram Percy Maxim invents and starts selling the first commercially successful firearm silencer, receiving a patent on March 30, 1909. A hundred and something years later they still work in the same way. A series of baffles slow the flow of the rapidly expanding gasses. Despite many different advances in baffle design. Volume is still the name of the game, the bigger the space available to contain the gases, the greater the effect.

If you ever wondered about the intelligence and foresight of your elected representatives, the silencer is the perfect proof of what you should have suspected all along. Even the most dazzling intellects amongst them are quite happy to spend your money, acting against your interest, based on what they saw on TV or at the movies. Let's take where I live as an example. 20 years ago Police forces, ever fond of inventing powers they haven't been given by government, were extremely resistant to issuing licences for sound moderators. Until the Forestry Commission's legal department realised gunshots in the workplace were endangering the hearing of their deer managers and asked who was accepting liability. In Northern Europe they're a safety feature, with demands to legislate their use as protection for your dog's hearing. In Southern Europe the tool of an assassin, with no legitimate use.

Over the last ten years moderators/silencers/suppressors have followed the exact opposite trajectory to your pal SBW, getting lighter, and quieter. I've owned a few. So far the choice has been: very heavy and durable, or pretty light and basically disposable. Sealed, or strippable, out front, or both out front and behind the muzzle. Steel, titanium, or aluminium baffles in a tube of the same materials or even carbon fibre. All have their fans. The heavy ones are great for the range. the stalking designs get lighter.Just like bipods, something that was once quite crude and inexpensive can now be the cost of a new rifle. Yep both have crossed the $/£/E 1,000 price point. Yikes.

“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” William Gibson

A few years ago there appeared a new technology, but at three to four times the price its adoption hasn't been that widespread. I was keen to find out more. Bert Wilson, owner of Oceania Defence in NZ patented a process for 3D printing moderators and partnered with Ram3D. At 190g they are much lighter than anything we've seen before. His UK sales team sold a few to the NRA(uk) who unfortunately for them, and fortunately for me, blew one up. When the rest hit the auction, James at Jagersporting was quick off the mark snapping them up. He sold them off to his customers at a massive discount on the list price.

I spoke to the NRA armourer who told me he knew two people who were using Oceania Defence moderators for deerstalking and I should be totally unconcerned. The current advice is clean in an ultrasonic every 500 rounds.

My totally subjective and unscientific opinion. They are amazing! 190g feels like nothing! Those big steel mods of a few years ago are like banging rocks together while OD have rocked up in a space shuttle.

Last time I looked list was £680 + another £100 for the titanium adapter. pretty chronic if you have to have more than one, almost bearable if you're swapping it between several rifles. [Word to the wise never ever use a mod that's been on a rimfire even for one shot on a centre fire, unburned powder init]

The one thing I'd do differently is the 'out front' designs can't overcome the fact that the over barrel designs have more volume and anything that moves the balance of a stalking rifle to the mag well is a good thing . There's already another 3D printed over-barrel design by Roedale in Germany but it's 1100+ euro and almost double the weight. Double yikes! For readers in the USofA the comparison seems to be the Banish 30 Gold-V2 which Silencer Central have for $1300. also about double the weight

Considering the weight penalty and price hike I'd still go for the Oceania Defence.

More soon

your pal

SBW

Special Farces. Shooting To One Mile At Orion UK

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 08:39:00 +0000

"it’s gonna happen, happen, it’s happens all the time" The Undertones.

I've never been in the Special Forces, but I have been in a few Special Farces. How I have laughed at others, now not so much.

Orion Shooting Ground I’ve made this trip before, I’d come back from Madrid just before the first lockdown, but the trip had been booked and I wanted the opportunity to test my Tiktac at longer ranges. We’d driven from the south coast, it took hours

The british army have their Infantry Battle School at Brecon on the border between England and Wales on any given lane or hillside you’ll see squaddies being beasted along by their PT instructors. There’s a saying in the Brecon beacons, “if it ain’t raining it ain’t training” After sighting in at 200m we’d taken a few pops at the 840m gong, the weather closed in and the 840 target disappeared, it rained and rained, other targets disappeared, eventually the 200m disappeared.

The blogger known as The Bambi Basher gained a leg up in his military career one night in the brecon beacons, too tired to unpack, he lay panting on the ground, at that exact moment the inspector arrived and as he was the only one with his kit neatly stowed, was bumped up a rank.

Preparation, it’s all about preparation. it's drummed into us as school boys.

Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Errr yes about that.

I’ve seen people make it half a mile to the highseat without their rifle's bolt, I’ve seen people make it 80 miles to the stalking permission no ammo. 60 miles to Bisley without their bolt. How I’ve laughed.

Now I've joined their ranks.

My bolt is decocked. Can I cock it? Do I have a cocking tool? Do I have a set of grips?

That would be no, no, and er no

Fortunately I’ve bought my Lee Enfield with me. I kind of own an Enfield because I've got an English passport. I take one to a couple of events a year. It quite nice. On a whim one afternoon I'd swapped its predecessor, a No.4 two groove Lend/Lease Savage for it. In the mid 1940's it had been hand picked then 'regulated' by Alex Martin of Glasgow as a target rifle. Sadly, along the way, some goon has coated it in polyurethane varnish, but with all matching numbers, [for the time being], it’s quietened the OCD that the last enfield with its mismatched numbers aggravated. Might get one by Fultons to keep it company.

Orion is a great facility, the firing point is undercover in shipping containers and the first berm is covered in clays and gongs of all sizes. beyond that there's a one ended valley so wind calls can be challenging, its Wales so the only predictable thing about the weather is its unpredictability. The other 'its Wales so' element is sheep wandering about in the field of fire. Plenty of them. After the pissing rain of the last visit this time its blazing sunshine.

Subject of which. Terry our instructor teaches long range in a way I'd not seen before. He no longer uses D.O.P.E Data on previous engagements, but instead once Dope is established moves on to D.A.T.T. Data At This Time.

As for once it hadn't rained in weeks there was dust where we'd usually only see mud. Much like, or exactly like tracking, everything you can see is a record of something that went before it. The glacier made the landscape, the wind polishes the landscape, the landscape swages the wind. The air cools the ground, the ground slows, speeds up, or negates the thermals. One mile is a bastard long way.

The Target on a hillside, not far from the intersection of two valleys, one blocking the other, causing the wind to double back on itself. A cloud rocks up, and hovers, shading the ground, dust clouds that were rising now don't have the thermal lift so move along at ankle height.

Since you're wondering. First one hit the big plate fair and square, the spotter said the second one hit the small plate, but I couldn't be sure.

Epic day out, would recommend contact details here

more soon

Your pal

SBW

Capercaillie Toppjakt In Sami Land [Northern Sweden] '25

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 21:00:00 +0000

The kitchen, London. southern England

The Witch [AKA Mrs SBW]: I've known her for 35 years. She’s my oldest friend, but I’m not sure if I trust her. Why does the diary say you're away third week in January?

SBW: I’m going hunting in the boreal forrest with some dude I met on Facebook.

A frozen lake. Sami land, very very northern Sweden

The fizzing crack of a moderated 6.5 Creedmoor echos in the distance

There are a few conventions in travel storytelling, and in particular travel TV. The women are intrepid, they will be challenged, but having bonded with a local woman over some validation ritual, will rise to the challenge, and by the end the half hour she will be joyful at the edge of her comfort zone.

If the man is under 50 he's a sort of guide, strangely sage, often quite earnest, he maybe a former marine, but is the least blokeish former squaddie available. He'll have packed his anglophone liberal values along with his Swiss Army knife. Asking a goat herder about the gender pay gap in her village. If he's over 60 he's a reluctant to very reluctant. His most profound complement is to complain that such and such cannot be purchased at home. There will be some griping, mainly about missing the comfort of his own bed. Sometimes to mix things up it's a father and son. Bit of both. Anthony Bourdain made a fortune and some excellent TV by the simple expedient of having the camera follow him as he met the people for the first time, being curious, and not moaning.

The trip really begins about 16 years ago I spent the afternoon with James Marchington, and Charlie Jacoby from the Fieldsports Channel. Their friend Ian Spicer had invited us to some range time at the West London Shooting School. This was to be the start of my long fascination with the 6.5mm bullet. Ian had a 6.5 swede and mentioned in passing that the Scandinavians shoot capercaillie from treetops with 6.5 solids. Big day for me, formative even, I’d never heard of capercaillie either. I've shot a couple of thousand 6.5's since then, but capercaillie have eluded me.

The first flight is completely full, and at Swedish customs it turns out the missus isn't the only person perturbed by my laissez faire travel arrangements.

Customs guy: Why are you visiting Sweden?

SBW: I'm going for a long walk in the snow [ turns out to be slightly prophetic ]

Customs guy: [slightly incredulous] it can be very cold

SBW: I have a very big coat

Customs guy: they say it can be dangerous to get too hot

SBW: I'm more worried about the skiing to be fair

Customs guy: On your own? It really can be quite dangerous

SBW: I'm going with a friend from facebook

Customs guy: Does he have a name?

SBW: Jon

Customs guy: a second name?

I show him my phone

Customs guy: It's pronounced Yew-n.

SBW:Ah, glad you mentioned that

Customs guy: Where does he live?

SBW: No idea where he lives, never even spoken to him on the phone, and to be fair I'm not sure how to pronounce the name of the airport I'm meeting him at either.

Customs guy: Ah

It's probably someone else's paperwork if I'm eaten by cannibals, and his if he deports me, so he wishes me luck and stamps my passport.

Our little chat means the next flight and my luggage have left without me.

Airport guy: "Happens all the time, we'll have you on another flight in an hour or so". I get the 'or so' version which is four hours. I message Jon who takes the whole thing in his stride

Jon: There's a gun shop, and I'll buy my wife a present

Of all the unexpected things that happened perhaps the most remarkable is the food in Stockholm airport is fantastic. I know you don't believe me. Why should you. Someone who gave a shit about their job cooked this from scratch. In England even the salad would have been shaken from a packet by a particularly spotty and ambivalent teenager.

The next plane is smaller, the airport smaller still, the daylight shorter.

And so it begins. I’ve only ever been to the top of Europe once and it was mid summer, I've also only skied. once, on a dry ski slope, just over 40 years ago. Surprisingly it's not that cold, maybe one or two degrees cooler than London.

In Alaska there’s a fella called Wiggy who makes the ultimate puffa jacket. I was having a productive period at work so I'd ordered one the day before Jon messaged me. Seemed fated.

Jon and I had met on Facebook in a conversation about 6.5mm choices, he mentioned hunting capercaillie, I'd said it was a long held dream to hunt them he'd said 'come along I go every year.' I'd not thought much of it, one day out of the blue he's back in touch "Are you coming?" Seeing as I'd just ordered the coat, I said yes. Seemed fated.

I consulted Bird House as he's done lots of cold weather camping, and I posted a thread on the Stalking Directory. One response seemed wise 'I'd spent all kinds of money on high tech clothes I was freezing my tits off, until I copied the locals and bought a big wool sweater, after that I was fine". I shared this insight. Bird House gave me the look that says "how am I having to explain this to you?'.

There's a company that advertise on Facebook that say they still sell the pullovers they supplied to Shackleton for his adventures in the antarctic. Bird House has tracked down the weavers that actually make them and have their own website. Loads cheaper and they were having a new year half price sale. I'm now the proud owner of the biggest, heaviest, itchiest Woolly Pully I've ever seen. I look the part. I could belt out a sea shanty at any moment

According to the historic weather data we should expect negative 13C during the day and negative 26C at night. I've never been anywhere colder than neg ten so I started to feel some trepidation.

All the 'Four Season' sleeping bags I could find in the UK were clearly not intended for Sami seasons, minus 4 isn't even a Scottish winter. The Shipping fees and import taxes on my coat from Wiggy's had driven me to penury so I wasn't in the mood to order from him again. Bird House was all about chemical heaters, Jon took the view that expensive sleeping bags were over rated and two cheap bags would be better. My inner Yorkshireman rejoiced. I've recently become more industrious with clay busting so I've been spending more time in the north with Super Plumber and The Northern Monkey. In yet another of the tedious displays of incompetence regular readers will be all too familiar with, I left the Wooly Pully behind. Attempts at shipping proved unsuccessful. So it didn't join me on the journey.

In the 18th century before the discovery of the country's mineral wealth, lead to the invention of dynamite, which lead to the armaments industry, Sweden had sunk back from its days of empire. and millions of Swedes emigrated to the USofA . Many of the things that to me are typically American are of Swedish origin. Lots of people, by people I mean chicks, look like they've stepped out of a Ralf Lauren commercial. The red wooden farm houses, and a preference for sweet foods.

Of all the many wonderful things Swedish culture has brought to the world, the most annoying and perhaps most baffling has to be Ikea. You never meet anyone over the age of ten who likes it, but we all go there.

I met a Japanese woman who worked for Ikea in Japan. Given the Japanese people's famous preference for a quiet, ordered, sort of calm, I had to ask.

"How do people cope with the infuriating madness that is a trip to the seventh circle of hell?"

"Foreign company, all part of the fun"

At the house Mrs Jon is serving moose meatballs with a crazy delicious 'brown sauce' I'm not sure if I said the right thing when I asked 'this is what the Ikea dinner is supposed to taste like' She pulls a face

SBW: Is Ikea not popular here? My children were raised on those horrible meatballs, they loved them?"

Mrs Jon: " I hate that place, but I have a whole house full of their stuff"

At this point the evening descends into a kind of gameshow:

She produces a coffee mug.

SBW: mum's house

She produces a bowl

SBW: we have those

She produces a glass

SBW: ex wife has those, actually we have some too.

You know how to make venison meatballs, but while we're passing here's the simple wonder that is 'Brown Sauce".

Reduce cream until it's thickened, add some browned or dried onions, add mushroom soy sauce, and then if you're so inclined a little whisky. You'll never endure the tyranny of that muck Ikea sell in a sachet ever again. It's crazy delicious. It would even go well with cardboard.

SBW: These are unobtainium in London. I'm under strict instructions, f I go home without one I'll never hear the end of it

Mrs Jon [incredulous] : But what do you slice cheese with ?

SBW: A knife

Mrs Jon [slightly more incredulous, and actually horrified] But the slices will be thick?

In the morning I gift their kids enough Tunnocks and assorted candy to open a sweet shop, and we hit the road. We leave to the sound of "No Mummy this is breakfast" which needs no translation.

After a short dive we collect Dan from his doorstep he greets me with "It may take some time to get warm in my clothes, mocking him in English" It took him no time at all.

Hunting friends always seem to come in pairs; one reckless, a speed demon, the other a chill fellow, happy to tootle along more concerned with not digging the car out of a snowdrift than the time of arrival .

The sport of unending criticism of the other's driving is the perfect middle ground everyone can enjoy. Its international. The Northern Monkey has it that gearboxes surrender when they hear me coming, I have it that were he to re-sit his driving test he would fail. My friends in the north are exactly the same.

Is it called a smorgasbord when there's only one dish ? Pretty easy to spot where the capercaillie have been. Past tense.

The capercaillie is an unlikely animal. About the size of a turkey they're omnivores in the warmer months, but when the cold comes and the ground freezes, they switch to only eating the toppist tops of pine trees.

Their shit suggests they don't really have the digestive tract for extracting nutrients from pine needles.

Not content with nearly starving to death their sleeping habits border on the suicidal too. They crash land in a snow drift, and hope to wake up in the morning. Sometimes the weather changes, more snow falls, then freezes, and they are trapped or savaged to death by predators. It's a wonder there are any left.

They also come with a perfectly placed white dot for rifle shooters to aim at. To make them a bit more sporting they have incredible eyesight, so 250-300m shots are the expectation.

Where I stalk in the hedgerows of southern England shots are a lot closer, but even in the highlands where shots are longer, there's usually a farmhouse or a road to be taken into account . The backstop is what defines a take-able shot. In the boreal forest the backstop is tens of thousands of hectares of hopefully empty forrest. Slightly unnerving.

The trick is to have a flat shooting round, as chances are going to be at 250 - 300m, but and its a big ask, a bullet that's also not going too fast, or expanding, so it doesn't detonate the delicious bird. You're looking for a neat pencil hole, in though the white dot, though the spine and out the other side. The Super 22's [22-250, 22 Creedmoor, etc] are probably a bit too destructive, 6 and 6.5mm are perfect. Lapua Sxxxxx are popular, and Barnes banded solids sound amazing if you can get any. Factory ammo is so expensive that Sweden is possibly the only place where you could actually save money by reloading.

[yes I know Lee loaders were made in 6.5 swede, I'm joking, sort of. I feel very sorry for anyone who is buying their Co-Ax now]

There's a giant network of unlocked huts, both private and public, you're never further than 6km from one. Mostly the last occupant has left you some tinned food, firewood and matches. Sweden is seemingly run on a slightly different version of the 'for us by us' principle. Where the 'us' is a much larger group. The extreme weather means there's a general assumption that some things are too important to be left to rugged individualism, of which they have plenty, so there's a sense of community and a government sponsored program of hut maintenance, rubbish clearance and wood gathering for huts both private and public. You can contribute if you want. Jon's taking the very reasonable view that his dad had done the hard yards building it in the first place and that as there were clearly others using it in his absence he'd paid up front.

Even a long way out into the forrest there are well marked snowmobile trails, which are graded during the snow free months. They are better kept than some of the roads in London. So you can drive really fucking fast. The boys tell me that the grading program is a kind of school leavers job everyone has had, it's quite well paid but extremely boring.

Ugnspannkaka the cube-ular pancake of Sweden. While cheese maybe be sliced thin pancakes are served thick. we really don't have anything like this. All the ingredients of yorkshire pudding, but cooked to achieve totally the opposite effect. Where Yorkshires must rise, [minimum 75mm - as defined by the royal society for chemistry] these bad boys are totally solid. Baked and cut into cubes, then fried to make them crispy. It's Sweden so eaten with Lingonberry jam. Bloody good.

Some things are universal to shooters everywhere.

Jon "I hate my Harris bipod."

SBW "I hate mine too."

In unison "the one I want is so expensive "

We confirm zero and take a couple of pops at 300m. Tikka man, what can you say? They are just excellent rifles; sure they lack the posh timber and style of the Shultz & Larsen, but two factory rounds a hair apart at 300m, you cant complain. I would have banged away to make a comforting little group but at this price per bang it seemed un-guestly.

During the travel show there comes a time when the protagonist must face his fears, like when Chief Brody gets on to the boat....

The sum of all my fears, in plank form.

I've never in all my life been anywhere where the constant complaint was 'Its not cold enough' they actually apologised about it. Seemed great to me, until we got moving, then I understood. The snow had melted a bit, a new crust had fallen, which had frozen insulating the melted snow and stopping it from re-freezing. On the snow machine this meant ruts, on skis it meant much much more inertia. On the lake it meant 20-50mm of icy water. I lived in constant fear of falling over and getting an icy soaking.

Fortified by a plate of stodge, and some vigorous coffee it's time to face my fear, strap myself to two planks and waddle forth.

Jon is wearing his 'I'll just be patient and see how this plays out' face.

Dan is going for 'You have no idea what you've let yourself in for'.

SBW 'I'm too fat to die, the dog will miss me"

Getting the first ski on isn't that bad, click in the toe and stamp down on the catch. Which begs the question. How to press the little catch to attach the second ski to the binding when you already have a two meter plank attached to your foot? Even lying in the snow like a divorced walrus its not easy.

And we're off! As long as I don't have to go downhill it's not as bad as I was lead to believe. A sort of tai-chi shuffle, keeping your centre of balance a little further back and letting the rigidity of the boots choose when your stride completes. Boots didn't leak which was a blessing as we traversed the frozen lake. Managed not to fall onto the sheen of icy water. We came upon a tree where the capercaillie had been feasting fairly recently, so recently some of the turds weren't even frozen. We glassed, and glassed, no birds.

The odd thing is the way sound is totally different to hunting in the forestry blocks of Scotland. It's all the other way around. As silent, but sounds when you do hear them appear much louder. On the far side of the lake we hear two birds spook, and then we see them. Flying away.

As we're completing the lap there's that feeling of prey, the tree tops are empty and without a thermal its looking for a brown thing silhouetted against a green-ish-brown-ish thing, in high contrast with lots of white. Again, but much nearer, birds spook and there's nothing we could have done.

I'm delighted I've made it all the way back to the cabin, I didn't have to radio Dan to come and get me on the snow machine. I'm pouring drinks and laughing.

Jon: I was quite worried but you were much better than I was expecting

SBW: you say that to all the girls

Jon: I just say what I think, then my wife apologises, really there are Swedish people who are worse than you. Take some lessons.

SBW: I fell over like seven times

Jon: Three.

Tires suitably inflated I decide to quit while I'm ahead.

Jon: This little stove really warms up this cabin.

Dan: If only your wife said the same thing.

Under a starry sky we drink Rum and listen to Americana, which I'm resoundingly mocked for liking back home.

Dan: I like music where the song tells a story

SBW: me too

Always wanted to ice fish, I even have an ice fishing joke ready and waiting.

"You bought your wife an ice fishing tent for her birthday? I didn't know she ice fished!"

'How could she? She didn't have a tent'

Jon skis off into what passes for the morning light. Dan and I get to boring holes, first to drain the surface of the lake, then to fish through. Tiny worms, hooked onto lures with LEDs, tiny rods, and fish after fish. There are really small ones called 'thousand brothers' that go back and Arctic Char after Arctic Char come out and stay out.

In the distance the report of a 6.5 Creedmoor.

Dan: He missed

SBW: How do you know?

Dan: Phone would be ringing.

Dan: I'm worried we've given you a totally unrealistic expectation of ice fishing, we've caught 28 fish that we kept.

SBW: how many do you usually catch?

Jon: Four would be pretty good.

Just like a divorced walrus after the tide has gone out.

There's one more species on the list. Beaver. How do you learn to hunt beaver? Youtube. We watch a couple of videos and after dropping Dan off at another lake we go a Beaver huntin'. The signs are easy enough to spot, we find their lodge but in retrospect are probably much too close to it. No Beaver were sighted.

Still, some worthwhile scouting, there's a big fallen tree that will make an excellent hide overlooking the beaver pond but far enough away not to spook them.

It gets dark rapidly and we go for a tour of the snow mobile trails before searching a few spots for Dan.

Who is sitting happy as Larry in the middle of a frozen lake, with his one Trout. One massive trout.

Jon: why do you spend so much time fishing ?

Dan; because you're hunting and I need to eat

By the looks of things he's not the first one to have caught it. That must have been some Pike!

There's one last tradition that must be experienced / endured Surströmming sour herring. this is some grievous shit, it actually smells even worse than it tastes. its not the eating, its not the swallowing. It's the burping that gets you. They even have a story about it being banned from some airlines, due to a pressure burst that contaminated everyone onboard's luggage. One Christmas a shortage had been announced on the nightly news, instead of breathing a sign of relief, Sweden flew into panic buying mode, even people who had refused to eat it before were caught up in the madness, it was reportedly changing hands for E500 a tin.

Jon: You can go home and give your wife the tongue!

As we leave for the airport and join the main road, with the rifle packed away, at less than 100m, from a treetop, a reasonably sized, shootable, capercaillie shouts ‘So long suckers’.

Next up the hedgerows of southern England

more soon

your pal

SBW

Review: Kalix CR1 Cheek Riser

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 23:01:00 +0000

The shotgun people have a lot to teach us about gun-fit. No clay-buster who takes their sport even semi seriously shoots from a stock without an adjustable cheek riser.

There's nothing new going on here, but Kalix have changed the expectation. At an unbelievable price, I still can't believe I bought one. But......

Wooden stocks aren't selling, most plastic stocks are a bit or a lot horrible. Tikka probably being the worst offender. Lots of companies are asking an unreasonable premium for their unprepossessing adjustable model. Yes Tikka I mean you. Most of the carbon stock makers do a lower cost version non-adjustable for half the price of their flagship.

Kalix have a solution.

Plenty of brands make a mechanism, but it not only involves a big curved cut in your stock, which is tricky to do with home tools, it also needs lots of patching and filling. Before you get to the bit where you need to make the two sections line up.

Kalix. Stick template to stock, drill four holes. Ya done.

Kalix also make a rather elegant solution for wooden and solid stocks. More about that another time.

More soon

Your pal

SBW

The Sako L-579 Forester - An Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 10:26:00 +0000

Founded in 1927 as Suojeluskuntain Ase- ja Konepaja Osakeyhtiö, later abbreviated to Sako, the company has been at the centre of Finnish arms manufacture ever since. .By 1958 advances in precision casting let Eino Mäkinen design the L579 action, with tapered dove tailed bases and a forged one piece bolt.

Opinion is sharply divided between a vocal minority "modern rifles are much better" and team 'made to a standard the bean-counters have all but eradicated'.

I first met this rifle about ten years ago, its belonged to two friends of mine. It accompanied us on our trip to Scotland, returned un-fired, and since then it's sat in the gunroom. Made in 1974 [probably in April/May when the serial numbers beginning 300 start] it's become mine, and for sentimental reasons I'm going to do a Resto-Mod and take it up on the hill. By Resto-Mod I mean I'm keeping the action.

The lovely McMillan stock is way too heavy for a stalking rifle, but fortunately worth about half of the price of its replacement. It's going to be carried in the highlands, and if I ever recover from the ignominy of the last outing, on skis too. My original plan to give it a nice Walnut stock is either going to have to be an example of radical lightening cuts or I need to learn the art a science of the carbon rifle stock. Maybe more Mod than Resto.

The fluted .308 barrel will have to go too. I'm abandoning .223 and 22-250 as hunting rounds, going one down for Hare .17 Hornet, and one up for Roebucks and Beaver. I want to be somewhere between the Scottish minimum of 80gr and the wind-cheating 115gr specified by Mr Tubb. The 6mm contenders de jour are 6XC and 6mm Creedmoor. With the Creed being a nominal 200fps faster, and the XC having a nominal extra 500 rounds of barrel life. The thing that's tipping the scales in favour of the XC is airlines are becoming more and more sniffy about hand-loads. Fortunately Norma are supporting the cartridge, so its got greater availability of factory ammunition. It doesn't hurt that I won't have to sacrifice any of my treasured Creedmoor cases.

Review: Steve Rinella' s American Buffalo

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 09:21:00 +0000

There is a Venn diagram with Hunting at the centre, and many overlapping subjects;

Weapons [not limited to rifles, shotguns, bows, spears, knives, how to make 'em, how to use 'em,]

History [ of animals, hunting, cooking, in prehistory, the last century, and the one before that]

Biology [of prey, of their prey, of their parasites, and symbiotic fellow travellers ]

And many, many more

You started off wanting to shoot a deer so you could live up to your moral concerns about the industrialised food chain. Before you know it you've got a room full of firearms and camping equipment, there's no room in your kitchen cupboards because you own every means of food preservation 2000 BC to last week. You're dressed in Tweed, taking the day off to accompany your friend who dresses like a viking blacksmith and only shoots rifles that were made in the century before he was born, to a symposium on restoring Pliocene habitat to Elizabethan mining sites, as chance would have it you're both reading the same book about parasitic infestations in non-native species. All you actually wanted was a venison burger.

Steve Rinella is one of us.

When the hunting and fishing lifestyle meets the writing and filmmaking lifestyle, it's what Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones described as 'Five years of drumming, twenty five years of hanging about'. Steve Rinella has spent most of his hanging about reading about Buffalo. This is the voracious appetite of the polymath. Find a decayed buffalo skull, take it home with you, contact every expert on your continent to find out more, when you exhausted the first one, fly to another continent, commission DNA testing. read every known account of hunting, processing, and selling every part of the animal by every culture that lived along side them.

Every year he enters a lottery to hunt a truly wild buffalo in Alaska. When his number comes up, he has a lifetime of preparation under his belt, and thousands of hours of reading to set the adventure in contexts; historical, biological and anthropological. He's the ultimate Buffalo buff.

More soon

Your pal

SBW

Unboxing Review The Shultz & Larsen Victory 7mm08

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:39:00 +0000

I've always wanted a Shultz & Larsen but they don't turn up secondhand at the prices I'm prepared to pay that often. The only time I was going to buy a new one the importer didn’t get back to me so I bought the money pit and took a moody Spanish chick on holiday with the change. To be fair there have been opportunities, but I'm an obscurest; I’m not after the comfortable logic of a .308 and I wouldn't be likely to buy another secondhand .243, so it’s taken a while. The ACL bought a mint 6.5 x 55 at the lesser end of grade two for a considerable saving, I was more convinced than ever there was an S&L shaped hole in my gun cabinet, the itch was upon me. At the range, one of the wealthier Who?'s from my club rocked up with a 308 in grade three. Southside D took one look at it and opined "that's a bit of you init" the itch got a little worse.

I tracked down a 7x64 in the highlands, [cracking round], but it had one of the crazy long barrels they like up there, its septuagenarian owner had used to shoot 'jackass prone' off the bonnet of a Landrover.

I found a 7mm08 in Yorkshire which hadn't really floated the boat of the young lad I spoke to over the phone, he was all about a black rifle that was the uk legal version of one he'd used to prop up the military industrial complex in a game he plays online. Ever the optimist I paid a deposit on the 7mm08, sent off my paperwork, and promptly forgot all about it.

Empire's rose and fell, teenagers became grandparents, glass dripped from its frame, and the bureaucracy coughed up a variation to my licence.

When I called the gun shop it had been so long the work experience lad I'd first spoken to was about to retire, but made a charming pretence of remembering me.

He put me in touch with the rifle's owner, who told a much more compelling story of;

'proper nice bit of timber that', 'wife wants takin' to Spain', 'cops want me to have less stalking rifles, had a pin though my wrist so I'm keeping the light one'.

He mentioned he'd sent it off for the two-stage trigger upgrade.

On one of our trips to Scotland I would be passing through Yorkshire so I popped in to take a look and either retrieve my deposit or ....

S&L do a range of mini rifles called Legacy in the 223 and 7.62x39 case families (there's a 6x45 and a Grendel, I know!) a working rifle called the Classic , The Victory - for the stalking gentleman who has to have a job, and the Ambassador for Oligarchs. All come with really nice features:

Three lug bolt; I've got a Tikka that'll shoot the lights out of almost anything, its only got two lugs, but if a three lug bolt doesn't stir something in your soul you don't like rifles, and probably haven't got a soul.

Takedown; that most beguiling of features, I've got two, never take either of them apart, but it's nice to know I could.

Cut rifling: Another thing its possible to wax lyrical about, I refer you to my Tikka now wearing a button rifled tube.

Magazine fed: The dual latches on this thing are really really nice. You don't care? Buy a Tikka and lots of ammo, you'll be happier. You have no soul.

Sexy timber: Sometimes I just sit and stare at it, within its blotches, and swirls you can see the birth of the universe. I never take it out in the rain, or anywhere likely to be muddy. It makes me feel slightly unworthy.

Pillars and bedding as standard: there nothing more to spend, just a lovely accurate rifle straight out of the box

Shultz and Larsen have both long since gone to the happy hunting ground, but their spirit of Danish high end design, woodworking, and engineering live on. The company lacks the marketing punch of their German, Finnish, and Swiss rivals, but by making a really great product at the price of a mass produced rifle. They have a fan base who aren't about to dessert them any time soon. It's a different kind of offering.

These days what's commonly described as a 'custom rifle' is actually a rifle assembled from bought in bits, its pretty amazing that you can, for the same or less, have one from a company where the barrels arrived as bars, and the stocks arrived as planks. A lot like John Rigby Rifle Makers, but with almost ten large knocked off Rigby's price tag.

More soon

Your Pal

SBW

Shotgun Shenanigans Pt.1

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 12:12:00 +0000

This: I was bouncing down a farm track in a pickup with some deer managers, you know what these guys are like, they are always trying to sell you something, or some form of sporting endeavour where they can leave you in a field with the meter running and go for a nap in the truck .

DM: Do you do much pigeon shooting SBW?

SBW: There'd be little point

DM [ears up sniffing the wind, not the expected answer]: Why's that ?

SBW: I'm a total Chump with a shot gun.

I have form you see, the day I met my culinary hero in a pigeon blind in Fife I launched a whole box of carts/shells at birds swooping in to the decoys, and hit exactly none.

From this inauspicious start it's been up hill all the way.

In the UK shotguns are licensed in a similar way to rifles; the criteria are less stringent, but the process is the same. You can save a few quid by getting your certificates to run contemporaneously. I got my first shotgun because not that I expected to be able to do much with it, but because, like a historic rifle, you have to have one.

A friend with a massive collection of firearms was out of work, so on a whim I asked if he had one he'd want to sell. No surprise he did, I collected the most unpleasant semi-auto anyone has ever seen from him and gave him £100 for it and some 1022 magazines. I came to think of them as expensive second hand magazines and a free shotgun. I was traveling home by train with the gun in the worst gunship I've ever seen. Another 'freeby'. It was a nice-ish afternoon, I sat on the station platform, two Polish chicks came to sit on the next bench, the train pulled into the station, I hopped up and was making the ten step journey to the doors of the train when the slip disintegrated, the zip gave up the coast and the little leather strap parted company. The shotgun clattered to the floor. The Polish chicks looked over and totally unconcerned got on to the train and continued with their day.

I scooped up the gun and got on too. In the toilet I had to quickly work out how to dismantle a semi, so I could wrap it in what was left of the gunslip. It was a long nerve-wracking journey back to London as I awaited the intervention of the armed response unit.

Shooter [who you'll know from other adventures] invited me to shoot geese with him for my birthday, I tried to make excuses, 'my gun is a disgrace, I'm slightly worse' but he would have none of it. "Everyone should own a semi-auto, you can clean it with Fanta and WD40 they are a perfect thing, you just need to practice". We drove up north in perfect goose weather; blowing a hoodie, iced water flying horizontally into our faces. It was a spectacular piece of goose-ground. We walked out onto a strip of land with a fish farm on one side and a nature reserve on the other. a skien flew over at not far off head height, I missed the first one, manly through shock, downed the next two, added a shell and popped a third. The gun was now a proven slayer.

Based on its record so far I can neither call it solely an unlucky gun, or lucky gun, but it certainly attracted attention. Not just from the goddess of the hunt.

I took it clay shooting a few times with Foxy, the ACL, and SouthsideD. It's ability to hit things had largely deserted it by this point, but in fairness we did always say we were going 'for a laugh' and it provided those in abundance.

The slide release is on the opposite side to the port, so reloading is counter-intuitive on its best days. I have never cleaned it, so it has some mud left over from the goose shooting, some blood from the same trip and a few comedy feathers travel in the same slip, now held together with more than one brand of packing tape. Strangers laugh at it. The ACL was unrelenting in his mockery.

After a while I bought my Browning; in an equally undiscerning purchase, that by dumb luck turned out to be both a bargain, with nice timber, and a bargain that breaks clays.

I was short of space in the cabinet and I'd been trying to encourage Super Plumber to take up a hobby so he'd not be driven mad. I gave him a cabinet I found in a client's garden, and filled out the forms with him. He'd gotten his ticket back from the cops, but was still making excuses about buying a shotgun. The same sort of excuses made by tool-fetishists everywhere "I only want the XYZ and I don't have the 2-3-4-or 5 grand they cost'. total bullshit of course. You should always buy the worst rifle or shot gun you can find [pretty sure I achieved that] as it will quickly teach you more about about what you actually want than any amount of reading other people's opinions on the internet. Then you'll enjoy the ecstasy of 'new gun X never see than piece junk again'.

To give him his due, while it took Super Plumber a while to engage with the sport of clay-busting he's certainly been 'all guns' since he has.

He'd been roundly mocked by the first person he'd shown his gifted Semi Auto to, undeterred he thought he'd buy himself something cheap and cheerful at the auction. Cheerful maybe.

If you're used to buying stuff on Ebay you have a wildly over-favourable view of the auction experience. He'd bid on some piece of junk he could buy for the price of a couple of rounds of G&T's. Not receiving a 'you won it' notification, he shrugged his shoulders and tired again, didn't get a notification, bid on an inexpensive pair of Spanish guns, still nothing. Assuming that he'd been too Yorkshire [tightfisted] he waded in the next time. Nothing.

The following afternoon he received a gloating email from the auctioneer

Dear Super Plumber, we're delighted to tell you your bids were successful you're now the proud owner of six [shit] shotguns and you owe us £475 and 30% + delivery.

Needless to say, he's now on first name terms with his local gunsmith, and on the waiting list for a new gun that costs more than my car.

More shotgun shenanigans to follow

Your pal

SBW

Pimp My CZ 527. The Parts List Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 15:38:00 +0000

You could spend all kinds of money on a lightweight mountain rifle, or you could buy a 2.66kg [5.87lbs ] mini Mauser and spend the change actually shooting it. It comes with a highly adjustable single set trigger at 3 lbs and 1.5 lbs but adjustable to a lot lower, an idiosyncratic 'backwards' two position safety. It's also offered configured for the left handed. The legend that is the CZ527.

Petite and pointable, [no not her, that's petite and surly] available in some wonderfully cheap-to-keep calibers it's the mini Mauser with a cult following. Introduced in '89, it's an update of the Brno Fox, which in turn is a modest evolution of the ZKW465 from the 40’s. Available in the.17 Remington, .17 and 22 Hornet, .204 Ruger, .221 Fireball, .222 and 223 Remington, 6.5mm Grendel, .300 AAC Blackout and 7.62×39mm. The 527 is a really nice starting point for a custom rifle, loads have been made and there are secondhand options at all price points. There's at least one gunsmith selling a custom 6mmPPC. I've always wondered, as the later .223's are 1/9 twist , perhaps a .223AI would be a good idea?

There have been quite a few factory stock offerings over the years: Full stock, Laminate, Lux, American, Carbine, Night Sky, the stunning Ebony, a particularly nasty Synthetic, a swoopy Target stock by Bell and Carlson, a Kevlar by HS Precision, and a 'Marmite' MTR Target/Varmint stock that looks to virtually double the weight of the rife, but would make a wonderful war-club/canoe paddle.

CZ themselves seemed to know they needed to do something with the 527 range , but seemed at a loss as to what to do. So they stopped making them. The aftermarket has taken the rifle in lots of different directions, for both hunting and competition.

The 527's traditional lines are part of its charm, but at the same time they're its greatest limitation. Famously, the bolt throw, clearly intended for shooting with open sights, limits the rifle to medium and high rings, so an aftermarket cheek riser is a good idea. There are a couple of aftermarket bolt handles and an improved design can be sourced from the factory. The factory new bolt handle's part number appears to be 5270-0631-08ND if you can find one.

Glade Armoury do at least three different bolt handles, personally I like the Anschutz style swept ball

James Calhoon is a gunsmith who has made a specialty of the 527, he does his own bolt handle with better scope clearance, his own very low rings and bases, a single shot sled, and his own wildcat the mental .19 Calhoon. Don't worry if you can't get his site to load, it does exist he's just hosting on the world's slowest server.

Richly deserving of a mention are RVB Precision who will, for a modest fee, machine your bottom metal to give you the svelt flush look that the factory only got around to with the Ebony.

The now discontinued factory three round conversion

JNP Gunsprings claim to significantly reduce your locktime with their custom wound spring and make a set of Weaver adapters for those of you who want a more traditional looking mount

For those of you adverse to a set trigger there are two options by Rifle Basix and Timney [listed for the 550]

Form make a version of their Cromwell for the CZ527, not sure who made the trigger guard

also by Form

GRS very chunky, but probably the best ergonomics

Boyds

Klinsky also from the Czech Republic do target stocks,

and something more sporting

Bell & Carlson

And then there are the customs...

This very well executed AI clone is a one off, seen on some UK forums

An even more ambitious build is this 6.5 Grendel from NZ, a full description of the build is HERE

Paul Green of Thames Valley Guns has written up the journey of developing his CZ527 into a 6.5 Grendel tack driver. you can read about it HERE

Last but not least. My absolute favourite 527 project is this stunning full-stock by Mike Connor

CZ Model 527-FS Full Stocked Rifle .223 Rem.
20" tapered round barrel with ramp front sight, barrel-band tie-down, and standing blade rear sight on integral island base. Custom stocked to the muzzle by Mike Connor with fully figured walnut, steel forend cap, borderless wrap-around fleur-de-lys checking, steel pistol grip cap, beaded left-hand pancake cheekpiece, European sling swivels, and Biesen checkered steel buttplate. Marked .22 Hornet but chambered for .223 Rem. Right-handed, controlled-feed action with detachable box magazine for .223.
Swarovski Z3 3-9x36 scope with 4A duplex reticle on CZ rings fitting directly to receiver dovetailed double square bridges without separate bases. Pull: 13 3/4". Weight: 7lbs, 8oz.
Details from Hallowell Co

If you see any more parts, or custom builds please let me know

your pal

SBW

https://riflebasix.com/product/ceska-zbrojovka-527-550-trigger-cz-527/

There's a Piccatinny rail by Britannia
LSS-XL Gen2 Chassis System

https://www.burrisoptics.com/mounting-systems/rings/cz-style-rings
bisley
sport match
warne

CZ BRNO ZH202 - Cold War Combination Gun

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sun, 27 Oct 2024 16:41:00 +0000

12 bore CZ BRNO ZH202 over and under, 26 ins ported barrels, solid rib, 2¾ ins chambers, 14½ ins stock

The ZH Series was introduced in 1958. It’s probably fair to call the design unconventional.

The ZH's were hand made. With that 'hewn from a sold lump' feel Mercedes used to have. Like many BRNO/CZ guns of the period, when compared with the Italians, the finish was a bit ‘wrong side of the iron curtain’, but they have a certain rugged charm. The only plastic is the butt plate, everything else is steel and walnut.

The skeet barrels are 26" with the muzzle ends "flared" into a muzzle brake that looks a bit like the ventilated "cage" on the Cutts Compensator Skeet chokes of the 40’s and 50’s.

The barrels are joined at the cage and the breech, with space between them for the rest of their length. and have fixed skeet chokes, made to cover a 30" circle at 20 yards with a nice, even pattern using most target loads.

There are other shotgun versions; fixed chokes, usually tight and barrels in either 28" or 30" and combination offerings. Durability is an understatement with these guns. The action is made to handle everything from 22 Hornet, and 5.6x52 [I know me neither] to 7mmx57R, and 7x65R. Typically over a 12g, although 16g were also available. The stock came drilled for recoil weights.

A sliding breech block is pushed forward by springs when it is closed, and cams back when opened.

The barrels pivot on trunnions that project out of the sides of the barrel set and engage with slots in the receiver. The fore end is screwed to the barrel set and doesn't get removed during take down.

The two triggers are an interesting set up. Front trigger fires the top barrel only, the back trigger has two functions; 1st pull fires the bottom barrel, 2nd pull fires the top. This is for when you’re using a rifle/shotgun set up, the top barrel being the rifle. The auto safety is in the front of the trigger guard, like a U.S. M1, and set by two independent systems.

The lockup is very strong, the breech system was intended to allow other barrel sets to be matched to the gun with minimum fitting effort by your gunsmith. They are not truly interchangeable but required less fitting when installing a barrel set, than from many contemporary brands.

This one slams shut with a bank-vault clunk and feels ready to do the next 50 years of service.

More peculiarities as time and cash permit

your pal

SBW

TV Chefs & Foodies: Adam Richman

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 11:14:00 +0000

et’s take a moment to big up Adam Richman Eats Britain on the Food Network .

The researchers have found him some charismatic cooks and foods that are eaten all over the world and take their names from the towns and villages where they were first made. He’s taken full advantage of the costume budget, tools around in a Mini and manages to see fagotts being cooked with a straight face.

If the rhymes aren’t to your taste:

Clotted Cream, your cardiologist’s dream.

The recipes will be:

At a boozer on the edge of Windsor Great Park they knock up some Venison Bon-Bon’s which are basically a béchamel free croquetta.

Method: poach trim, ribs etc in veal and chicken stock - 4 hours should do it

Cool.

Fork over so it’s shredded

Roll into balls

Dip: egg, flour, egg, panko, egg

Deep fry.

Serve with homemade mustard mayo.

Adam has an excellent grasp of English culture. On helping his host cut up some onion’s

“I’m crying like it’s the end of Blackadder”

He is big, and he is clever. It doesn’t matter if he is seeing mylene klass, the fact that the gossip pages say he is, is enough to give hope to fat boys everywhere

More soon

Your pal

SBW

If You Stand Very Still....

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 08:56:00 +0000

Drive to Ahab's without getting lost. Harder than it sounds.

Ahab has no mixers, so we slam neat Gin for a while, uncharicteristicaly I'm allowed to sleep until 8am.

Head north. Cross the border into Scotland - receive abusive phone call from an angry ginger motorist who has tried to stop us merging, photographed the phone number on the liveried wagon, and is now triumphantly announcing he'll CC us into his email to Police Scotland. An email which never comes.

There's a lay-by we always stop at to let the dogs have a run around, we're joined by a cheerful German chap in a motor home who is exercising his offspring. Ahab's dogs are amazingly well behaved (especially for a cloud of spaniel) and mill about playing with the kraut kids. For a reason that's never adequately explained we also have Ahab's sister's dogs with us, one is fine, the other is completely useless, it has none of the attributes you might want in a dog. The crap dog somehow slips its lead and skedaddles into the forrest, hotly pursued by a raging Ahab. The German chap, in a fantastic display of droll, deadpans "Basil Fawlty in cameo". Which was the funniest thing to happen that day, until from a thicket Ahab screams "It's not fucking funny!! I've lost this dog before" which kills me and the German.

On arrival its such a nice evening we decide to go for a walk. The drumlin remains the perfect vantage point so we crawl up onto the top where we're joined by some natural cover. You've not lived until you've had your rifle licked by a cow.

The morning dawns at about 4am and the first client arrives, is escorted up on to the hill, where he makes sight of a Roebuck, and has has to lie very very still for a couple of hours whilst being savaged by wee flying beasties. To his massive delight he shoots what comes to be known as the Bottle Opener Buck

Couple of days later the next team of guests rock up. I've seen the aphorism attributed to Richard Prior "You can stalk deer in a white shirt if you make use of natural cover" this week it was tested to the max.

It seems this is how stalking clients dress these days, her Hubs wasn't dressed much more appropriately.

We've got some more ground, it's not as good looking, but it teems with deer. This is incredible ground.
A thick forestry block is surrounded with wildly over optimistic and ineffectual deer fencing, which separates it from a lush meadow. We split up, I get Hubs. It's great to have someone to carry my rifle.
Hubs gets an incredible introduction to stalking; we see deer, we see deer vanish into dead ground less than 50m away and reappear as if by teleport 200m away. Only to hop the fence and disappear again. He gets the perfect lesson in natural cover.

There's a fortuitous hedge where the farmers get a grant to plant, but as neither neighbour trusts the other with the maintenance, and the grant money depends on the hedge being maintained the hedge is planted between two fences, leaving us a perfect approach. we find a smashing spot. So I give Hubs the binoculars to keep him occupied, roll up my jacket, and lie down to wait for sun down.

Hubs: you having a nap?
SBW: do you like Lou Reed?
Hubs: Yeah! I do
SBW: 'He's never early, he's always late. First thing you learn is you always gotta wait'.
SBW: Bet you didn't know copping horse and stalking deer had anything in common?

I'm wrested from the arms of morpheus by wee flying beasties sucking my blood, the wind has dropped, provoking a feeding frenzy, and then has the temerity to change ends, putting an end to the bites, but blowing our scent into the deer's obvious exit point.

Hubs gets that bit where the deer stand looking directly at you, unsure of whats discombobulating them. Tentatively going back to feeding. Wind changes and boom! They're off.

With the wind blowing over us into the plantation the deer have extra reason to head to the meadow, as we round the corner, as predicted, there they are. Gloriously milling about, in season and unaware we're there. This is the hard bit. Standing completely still watching three become eleven. Waiting for twenty two eyes to face away simultaneously. All the time my skin throbbing with Midge bites. All feeding. Viper sticks set up. Wait. All feeding. Resist urge to claw at my own face. Rifle on top of Viper sticks. Wait. All feeding. Hubs and I swap places. All feeding. The long long wait for Hubs to shoot his first deer. All feeding and still we wait. My skin crawls. Hubs whispers "nothing is happening". Push the safety off for him. Wait. All feeding. Wait. Bang-thwack-thump-meat on the ground. The sheer orgasmic joy of being able to scratch my face.

More soon
your pal
SBW

Review Stuart Mitchell Muntjac. Form And Function

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 07:52:00 +0000

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” Oscar Wilde

I've had drawers full of knives over the years, The Itch has been upon me more than once. Nearly every time I've given them away or sold to fund my posh glass habit. A million times I've championed 'spend 10 on a knife and a 100 on the sharpening kit'. But who am I kidding? Gorgeous pays for itself in the first five minuets.

Plenty of years ago when the much missed forum British Blades was still a thing, one knife maker [and perhaps more importantly knife designer] appeared and swept all before him.

The sion of a Shefield Knife making dynasty, Stuart Mitchell had spent his teenage years working in the family business, left cutlery and returned, bursting onto the 2000's bushcraft and stalking scene fully formed. Ive nearly bought one several times. When I was offered this one my resolve crumbled.

I've wanted a Muntjac for a long, long time. I've seen a few me-too knife makers come and go with their embarrassing knock-offs. I say embarrassing, as the best known of the menagerie of imitators can't tell that he lacks the sense of proportion that every Stuart Mitchell knife so effortlessly has.

Any muppet can stick a Mauser action in a stock. Only Rigby is Rigby.

More soon

your pal

SBW

Occasionally, Just Occasionally, Deer Stalking Is Very Exciting.

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sun, 19 May 2024 14:15:00 +0000

Deerstalking and Cricket are like marital sex. Occasionally it's very exciting.

Usually it's a game of patient observation, sitting in the high-seat listening to birdsong, waiting and watching for a brown and grey thing to move amongst the green, grey, and brown things. Its a pastime for people happy in their own company, who don't mind sitting very still in all weathers.

Just occasionally it's unbelievably, heart-poundingly, exciting.

When the glacier retreated north it left behind the range we know as the highlands, to their north, the relatively flat bits, the lowlands of Sutherland. With their fertile flood plains and estuaries. It's a geology teacher's field-trip dream, like standing in geo-history's giant footprint.

This farm is also a giant fieldcraft textbook, called Red Deer and Where to Find 'Em. As the steep side of the valley drops away there's a deep drainage gully full of gorse and birch where the deer bed down, it leads to another area of gorse that overlooks the fields where our friends are growing hay. I've spooked Reds into and out of them both. The deer can see for miles, and hide for days.

Meanwhile back on the geology field-trip: Drumlins, from the Gallic Droimnín [little ridge], are teardrop hills, composed of glacial debris, they formed beneath a glacier and like aerodynamics in super-super slow-mo they are aligned with the direction of the ice flow. Ours is about 20m high and has a bloody big rock on top. Technical term for the rocks is 'Erratics'.

I've learned my lesson, or at least one of them, so I don't approach by the road. I manage to cross the burn without falling in or renting a hamstring. I start the ascent and about half way up there's a slight terrace on the east side of the Drumlin, which I crawl along working my way left to overlook the gully. Of course my rifle is still across my back when I pop my fat head up and the guard matriarch and I are eye to eye. I proper freeze.

Oddly she remains interested, but gives the situation the benefit of the doubt. My heart's in my mouth. She keeps me fixed in a steely glare but lets the family keep feeding. Kneeling I wait, like a frozen Meerkat, I defocus my eyes and wait and wait and eventually I out-wait her curiosity. Unconcerned she leads her little troop out of view around the Drumlin.

Quickly. Back onto all fours and speed crawl back the way I came , there's only one place I can be, and I can only be there if I'm there first. I'm sweating like a Racehorse, and wheezing like a divorced Walrus. Up at the top of the mound there's the bloody big rock, on the right hand side facing north, there's the surface that 'catches the weather' just like that one window frame on your house that needs painting before the others. As they blow down the estuary from the Isle of Skye, the wind and the rain have abraded the earth and left an uncomfortable-sized divot under the Erratic

In my divot-fox-hole I'm now doing mortal combat with a long-legged and deeply unpleasant bipod, I've said a lot of bad things about the Harris bipod design, this is some kind of awful unbranded Harris Clone, I've spent a lot of cash on bipods, none of them are with me, clearly I've angered the bipod gods. The bipod lacks the much needed forty five degree position. It only has 90 degrees, legs up and legs down, they are supposedly adjustable for length, but it all seems like a cruel parody of what could be. Finally, flattened behind a tuffet, I have half a semblance of a shooting position. Wiping the sweat from my eyes either the deer have gone back around the way they came or about to appear. Another stress inducing mystery. If I bet on one, I will surely blow the other. If only I could stop wheezing.

Just before I'm ready. Bold as brass. The Hinds saunter into view, and start the umpteenth meal of the day. A quick squint through the scope. I've never been one for the calculation of cosine on the fly, but hash one is 200 yards, hash two is 300 yards. I opt for hash two. Ping!! Goes the .243. A hind drops to the 100gr bullet and the rest of the crew high-tail it away.

Occasionally, just occasionally, Deer Stalking is very exciting!

more next time

your pal

SBW

Scotland : A Thrilling Encounter With Big Boy

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 09:38:00 +0000

Morning is dawning the sun plays on the self seeded field of xxx pine. `I'm in the highest sheltered from the wind with my back to one block, a ride to my left and the fence line falling away infant of me.

Ive seen the little Roebuck break cover and cross the ride a while back, but now only the wind in the trees, the creaking of the dead lower branches, and a terrible racket coming from behind me. The way the seat is it's not easy to turn around that far.

Ahab is a notorious, and compulsive practical joker so my first thought is this is yet another of his practical jokes. The thrashing and cracking continues. Twisting my head there's defiantly something there.

There's only one stop where Ahab could possibly get out of the close-planted block, I'm not going to point even a de-cocked rifle at the spot. I'm just preparing a witty retort for when he steps out when a Red deer with a neck larger than my waist tears his antlers free of the branches and steps into the gully where the ride borders the trees. As I shoulder the rifle he hears something of my movement and spins 180 disappearing into the forest block. Never to been seen again. Easily one of the two biggest Reds Ive ever seen in Scotland

Every dawn, and every dusk, for two or three hours a time for the next five days I sit there. Not a sausage.

Every day I stalk up the ride to glass the fence line, every day I find hooj deer turds, steaming a couple of times, big foot prints, but I never see him again.

Should I have pointed my de-cocked rifle at the gap? No. Should I have sat still and waited? Of course.

Hunting, not shopping.

more soon

your pal

SBW

The Shrewsbury Reds Pt1

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 14:16:00 +0000

The Shrewsbury Red, all 11 points of him.

My friend Captain Ahab invites me to go stalking with him in Shrewsbury, where a herd of parkland escapee Reds are eating a local farmer out of house and home. He's been sending me pictures of some crazy big deer, one so big it couldn’t be lifted into the chiller. I've seen pictures and the slots left by monster Reds in Norfolk where they live by crop raiding rather than fighting for every calorie in the highlands. These boys get the same (or better) nutrients without the wind chill the fens are rightfully famous for so I'm pretty stoked to be invited

Shrewsbury is almost exactly in the middle of the country and mainly famous for a tiny herd of long-coat Fallow which are miles from a huntable population, plenty of Muntjac, Roe and Ahab's feral herd of turnip raiding Reds

The pre-dawn drill is familiar to stalkers everywhere. Stumble across a field just before first light, gap in the hedgerow, turn back on yourself and there’s a highseat. Pop the magazine, try to climb the ladder without mishap, mag back in, work the bolt, make safe and adjust clothing to exclude drafts

Once comfortable the despondency sets in. kvetch kvetch kvetch

Are 120gr big enough?

Has Ahab already shot em all?

When have you ever seen deer on a dry ploughed field?

Turns out that: yes, no, and in the clear light of day the field abounds with rape, that's Canola not sexual assault .

Ive been scanning the more promising looking field behind me for a while, when i turn back to find a smallish horse has rocked up, a smallish horse with ANTLERS! Seen Reds with antlers, never seen one, in season and through a scope! This young gobshite has eaten his last turnip, I gave him a round and he drops to the shot within three steps. Antlers are nothing to write home about, but as we've already seen, I’m no trophy hunter and on this trip we’re here to generate meat for Ahab’s game butchery and to keep the farmer who wants his fields deer free happy. No sooner than I've put the phone back in my pocket and huddle of Reds make their way into view, including this mighty brute, all 105kg of him, if his pal looked like a pony he's a shire horse. He gets a round, his pal gets one too, and loading loading through ejection port the forth deer of the day goes down. 120gr S&B Blue Energy are suitably destructive. I never found the bullets but it's safe to say expansion was, er, complete.The biggest deer Ive ever shot, and the most deer Ive ever shot in a day, or hour for that matter.

Lots more to tell

Will try to post more regularly

Your pal

SBW

Target Master review

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sat, 21 May 2022 23:58:00 +0000

There's a great trope of English life; the story goes that two guys in a shed, have a lightbulb appears over their heads as the bleedin’ obvious reveals itself, they go on to invent some world-beating innovation and then rise to greatness. Like most founding myths, it's usually somewhere between revisionist half-truth and outright bullshit. So its come as something of a surprise that for once I'll be able to park the cynicism and tell you a tale where the trope came true. Half true, it was one guy

Anyone who has ever slaved away into the night; tapping at a trickler, trying to get a set of beam scales to balance so they can get on to charge No.2 of 250, has wondered if perhaps there could be a timely middle ground between the inaccurate dispense-by-volume and the tedious dispense-by-weight.

There are lots of offerings; scales and dispensers, dispensers with built in scales, at all kinds of money from a round of drinks, to well over a grand. Some are very accurate, some are very quick, at the spendy end some are both. When you come to think about it all of them top-out at one kernel accuracy.

Way back in the early 80’s Working from home, in his shed or spare room, Allen Edwards was looking for a solution to the problem of accurately dispensing small pistol loads. When he hit upon the bleedin' obvious.

If all the kernels are the same size all you need to do is dispense them one at a time, and a trickler already does that very well. What a trickler doesn't do is monitor itself. But it could do

Target Master : an all together better trickler.

As it rises to zero The beam of your existing scales breaks a beam of light, the photoelectric cell stops receiving a signal, and turns off the motor driving the trickler.

That's all it does. Brilliantly.

Dump a scoop of powder onto the pan, press go, and the Target Master whirrs away until the beam settles on the mark. To increase the speed, use a bigger scoop. To increase the accuracy, set the trickler to drop the last few kernels a little slower and set a camera in front of your scale to remove the potential for parallax error

It's very easy to plan out a workflow where you're adding a scoop and pressing go, then turning to seat your next bullet and work the press, as you put the finished round into the box, the Target Master has already come to a stop and you're ready to start again. Simples.

“I designed the first Targetmaster in the early 1980's particularly for light charges of fast pistol powders. I found that no measure was accurate enough for the 1.2-1.5 gn charges required for the .32 S&W Long target pistols of the time.” AE

You can find TargetMaster here if you're not in the UK or you want the extra bits: camera, remote start, and stand, which i would recommend, you can email Allan HERE His name above the door he will sort your order personally

More soon

Your pal

SBW

The Mysterious Ticking Muntjac

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:35:00 +0000

While were making a list:

Few months back SSD and I made the trip to horse country to stalk with Mr 7mm

left me in a highseat and took South Side D stalking on another farm

It had been a while, at the far end of the field there was no clear backstop so I’d let some fallow walk on by and the light was starting to turn. When a most remarkable thing happened.

You know that sense that some kind of prey is pressnt, unseen but definitely present. Glassing the hegdes to left and right. Then starts an odd decidedly metallic ‘ticking’ coming from the hedgerow beneath me. To start with I thought it was SSD and Mr 7mm playing a joke on me, but they were nowhere to be seen, the sound was qiet enough that it would have had to be next to the high-seat i was starting to feel i was playing chicken with some unseen advisory

The ticking stopped so I stopped looking for its source and just had time to move the zoom ring to 4x when a muntjac doe exploded out of the hedge and made a dash into the field At less that 50m I gave her an “Erhum”:she paused, turning first her head back whence she’d come, seeing nothing she turned a little further and caught a 140gr SST had destroyed her front leg and raked her ribcage. SSTs seem to transfer so much energy into the animal, it had flipped her through the air, she came down like a sack of wet cement

I like to pause for a bit before collecting the carcass but cloud was blowing in so it was getting draker quicker than id like so i retrieved her and waited for the chaps.

Had covid so didn’t get out on the pigeons, more next time

Your pal

SBW

Chinese Water Deer: A tale of hunting hubris, or is that being hunted by hubris?

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 16:27:00 +0000

The idyllic nature of this shot can never show the sheer agony my butt cheeks were in after a couple of hours sitting on the bare metal slats that had once supported the seat

There's two trophies: a full freezer and a great tale. Ticked those two off, nearly got the other kind too. Nearly. Pull up a log, warm your hands by the fire, pour yourself a tin mug of scotch, this one has to be the most SBW hunting saga yet

Long term readers will remember the blogger known as Shooter and his Mountain Lion hunt. In the intervening years his kids have grown up a bit and he's moved to the country. Back in touch I was delighted to accept his invitation to a walked up day which I'll tell you about later, obviously we agree to catch up next time I'm in the area.

The ACL [who features in a few of the more recent tales] and I had made the journey to the fenlands, a hundred miles north east of London, for Shooter’s walked up birds, we'd got chatting to the gamekeepers; they'd shown us some pictures of substantial Red Deer, we'd seen some bloody deep slots left behind by some even bigger deer, and listened to their tales of many many Chinese Water Deer seen on the thermal scope while Foxing. These are the closing weeks of the season. With a much needed freezer top-up on our minds before we sack most stalking off until the big boys are back in season on the first of August. We eere both keen as mustard to get out there

Having been the victim of the curse of the Bushwacker- where I invite you stalking, shoot two deer and miss a third while every deer you see will be siluetted against a farm house or scared off by a dog walker, the ACL had booked us in for a couple of stalks so he was inviting me Prudent

My favourite Russian saying : we wanted it to be different, it happened just the same

The usual early start, the usual delays for all the usual reasons, [misplaced firearms certificate, wrong socks, only one boot] then once on tbe road it’s the usual realisations that the usual X,Y and Z had been left behind. That exhilarating feeling of the open road, the frustration of rounding the corner into a slow moving morass of traffic, the inevitable phone call to announce our arrival would be significantly delayed and the surreptitious roadside consumption of banned foodstuffs

Fortunately the ACL is excellent company and has been avidly following the war in Ukraine and so knows all kinds of great stuff about it. that soaked up a couple of hours and we found our way to Shooter's place. Only driving past it twice

Shooter, the long suffering Mrs Shooter and all the little Shooters are all in fine fettle. The new house is perfect for playing Tom and Barbara The menagerie has expanded to include rare chickens, peacocks and goats have been ordered. Theres even a puddle rather optimistically being called the pond

Where as the ACL,has one rifle per task, all rare and charismatic, Shooter has a vast collection of rifles all as horrible as i remember them being. On the other hand his shotgun cabinet is as glamorous as a weekend at Downtown Abby and he’s the only person i know with ore than one 10 bore shotgun

After a hearty and sustaining lunch and some trading over a .410 we set off to meet the keepers

Norfolk is pretty big and pretty flat the fields are punctuated by drainage dithlches the locals call sewers. Great banks of rushes line the sewers. You can really see how a deer with water in its name would be at home here. The road kill count suggests there are lots of them. Every 200m there's another dead deer by the side of the road

Chinese water deer are natives of the Yangtze flood plain and Korea. They were introduced to Woburn Park, Bedfordshire, in 1896, and Whipsnade Zoo in 1929-30. I’ve not tracked down why they were deliberately released into surrounding woodlands from 1901 onwards, but that release is often sighted as the start of their spread. Since then there have been numerous releases, translocations, and escapes. Adapting to live in gardens, deciduous woodland, grassland, arable land as well as their native wetlands, coastal & marshland,

A small, even compact deer, a pale fawn colour, with large rounded ears and button-like black eyes. The Bucks are antlerless, but have moody long tusk-like canines.
A bit taller, and paler than muntjac, lacking that hump-backed look. They look more like a mini roe deer.
Between 82-106 cm long with a tail length 2.5-9 cm tails and about 42-65 cm at the shoulder Males weigh 12-18.5 kg; females 14-17.4 kg. Some study’s show them living to at least six years old.
As the name Water deer would suggest they seem to prefer wetlands adjoining woodland and fen, though they often range onto nearby farmland where they will feed in the open. They are most evident in the Norfolk Broads and the coastal wetlands. Although a feral, uncontained, population in the grounds of Whipsnade park inhabits parkland and dry woodland, with no wetland available.feeding mostly around dawn and dusk, on weeds, grasses, herbs and some browse. Although they often feed in arable fields, they seem to be eating weeds rather than crops.

The keepers drop me off and I walk to my highseat, wish I’d noticed what I noticed later. I climb up to find that the seat is missing, tentatively I settle onto the slats that once held the seat arse rest. For a while I manage to space out and even doze a little, but the sheer agony brings me back I roll my jacket up and that alleviate a some of it now I’m cold This is clearly what Buddhism refers to as the sheer unsatisfactoriness of existence Some very encouraging barking is coming from the reeds behind me to pass some time I spend a while twisted round looking into the standing reds and willing something to wander out what looks at first sight to be a car gliders silently past, a human head pops up , it’s the roof of a boat

Meanwhile at the other end of the field The ACL has found his highseat knee deep in water and looking precarious so he sets up shop in the hedgerow a while passes, a couple of Hares bounce past, a Fallow doe rocks up, spooked by something behind ACL. Weary of this life she sets herself down within range and waits to be shot, ever the gentleman stalker ACL decides it’s somehow outside of the pact between hunter and prey to shoot while they are both seated, not used to being ignored she waits a while and then ups sticks and toddles off in search of someone who will release her from the wheel of earthly suffering

Meanwhile back at the SBW end of things three deer have ventured out of the reeds if they turn left they’ll at the only buildings in the neighbourhood. I’m willing at them, trying to lure them in my my Jedi powers it’s actually working ….

ACL feels a bustle in his hedgerows and a little CWD saunters into range having got all his nerves out of the way with the Doe ACL turns theory into practice, pops his cherry and her right through the shoulder. Text book

His story proves something of an interruption to mine. There’s a fizzing whoosh from his moderator, the posse of three deer disappear. Spooked deer usually run them pause to add whatever scared them to the database, if they check and it’s looking like a false alarm they often resume their previous behaviour. I’m promising Artemis the earth and everything on it, for once she delivers and the three of them come back down their unseen camino towards me The X from the X Yz of left at home were my posh binos, the short comings of the Bushnells the ever cost conscious Shooter has lent me are becoming clear, but that’s the only thing that is, I resort to spotting through the scope the Deer’s on the right is wearing some pretty impressive mandibles

The balancing act: wait but don’t let chances evaporate while waiting for better chances

The bolt of the SR30!acts as the safety catch, by some kind of German engineering voodoo it snicks forward into battery without a sound our boy turns slightly to look up hill and catches one in the pocket behind his front leg the 120gr S&B blue takes the top off his heart and purées his lungs we are both unaware of this development and he takes off like South Side D’s Porsche for the first time in my life I’m completely invested in the trophy, they usually stagger and die, i e only ever had one run off into the last light and hail of a Scottish hillside I can’t bear to risk it he’s arcing back towards the reeds, he breaks stride and gets another one, staggers a bit and lies down twitching the other two are watching Muntjac doe points herself towards the reeds, the buck presents a shot, jumps to the bullet and legs it too. If it’s in the Reed bed that’s all she wrote the light is dying and the keepers and a dog are a long way off

A long time ago someone who gave me a rifle lesson told me he’d spent a summer reading the accounts of deer stalking written by army officers in the late 1940’s and 50’who brought the concept of Roe stalking home from Germany. smoking wouldn’t be bad for you for years, so smokes were a unit of time ‘Shoot the deer, then smoke a cigarette before going to look’

I’m still worried the Muntjac will have made it to the reed bed. I’ve not walked 25 meters before I find him must’ve pulled the shot a little, bullet entered third rib mashed things up a bit and destroyed the off side shoulder from the inside. Dead is still dead

Finally. The Money Pit a Heym SR30 in 6.5CM doing the job I've always believed it was born to do.

Ive just taken the picture above when suddenly it hits me, a wave of illation the joy of not having to hear my own whining as i look for my much fettled Lapua cases in the long grass beneath the high seat! Turns out there’s a lot to be said for factory ammunition i leave the spent cases where they fell, walk past where much needed seat from the high seat lies almost at the bottom of the ladder and head off to find the ACL

The Y is why did I leave my rifle sling behind?

Shultz and Larsen Victory in 6.5x55 Swedish Nice

He’s standing around looking at his dead deer with a ‘I always wanted one, now I’ve got one I don’t know what to do with it’ look on his face I give him a hug I remember that moment all those years ago, when I had the same face on ‘Sheeet I’m a deer hunter!’

Gralloch and back to Shooter’s place

Just because that part of the story ended on a high don’t think for a moment that the feral failure ends there oh no not for a moment

The hour back flies by but it’s been a long day Shooter is a wonderful host, and a fantastic cook we hang our deer in his outbuildings and set about the feast he’s laid on Pile of carbs and a bucket of Islay malts later we hold a snoring competition for a few wee hours.

“Are you still alive? I thought you were dead for a moment there”. “Why had i stopped snoring?”

I’ll leave it to you dear reader to guess who said what

A brief tussle with Shooter’s coffee machine and hit the road

Trying to learn the ground we set up near a wood we saw muntjac in on our walked up day. Not a lot happens. I start to regret not wearing a smock length coat. By now I’m not only cold but busting for a piss. Out of the high seat and out of the wind it’s a beautiful morning still sling-less I’m pissing with the money pit leaning against me Who should pop his little antlered head out of the bushes but Mr Muntjac, by impatiently raising the rifle when I should have made like a statue , I spook him

The ACL tells his usual tale of dog walkers and we make a shameful detour to the Golden Arches

We’re three little deer up, its a beautiful morning, we’re a hundred miles from home, neither of us is wearing sunglasses and ACL is making all kinds of rash promises to Mrs ACL regarding his arrival time

You could say its all going swimmingly. Could

As we walk over to the hanging Chinese Water Deer Shooter gasps in administration “you didn’t say they were that good! Those tusks are Bronze, or maybe Silver” I grab the CWD lift and turn to check the symmetry and im met by a sickening tale of rural vandalism. During the night something with immense bite strength has grabbed hold of the lowest part of the carcass and rented at it, trying to break it free from its rope the broken off tusk is nowhere to be seen, my broken dream lies all around

Best crack on with the butchery Chinese Water Deer have hair, but unlike other deer it looks almost fur-like and is hardly attached at all, moving the carcass onto a different larder hook it’s coming off in clumps The skin too seems barely attached, even this end of the season theres an impressive layer of subcutaneous fat, you call pull the skin off with no knife work The ACL has just been on a butchery course so Shooter and I are at our most encouraging

“You’re actually in luck today. You want to process your first deer and we're here. I don’t know if you know this but Shooter was in the Indian National team for butting in, and I’m an exceptionally gifted amateur, if you'd like us to mither at you and butt in while you do it, we’re standing by. ready to interfere.”

All bagged up and ready to go we wend our now weary way back home

I cant help but wonder what might have been, so I make one last mistake..I post the good side picture on Facebook

Next time it’s pigeons
Your pal
SBW

Scotland 2021 Pt5 Wharp Wharp That’s The Sound Of The Police

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 03:33:00 +0000

Back at the guest apartment i pack up, empty the safe, and take a forlorn look at the unused ice packs a vacuum bags. Hunting not Shopping

Im 400 miles from mi casa, my phone rings incessantly with work nonsense, i bid the chaps farewell and stifling a yawn hit the road. The panel van is slightly reluctant to go into first. The phone routes me away from the M6 and on to the M1. The traffic fairy is my co-pilot and southward i trundle. As the afternoon wears on i could feel better. After 200 miles my eyelids are drooping so i take the turn off for Leeds and rock up at The Northern Monkey’s gaff.

I ring The Witch who is unable to contain her almost vegetarian delight that no goats were harmed during production of this blogpost and offers a stark choice, death on the roads or an early night.

Bit o’ ring road, 200 miles o’ M1 turn right and your at your mum’s. In either direction this is how TNM and i comute between our matriarchal abodes.

The deal with the hire company means we have the van for the rest of the week,, i set about running some errands, moving piles of floorboards from site to site. My phone runs out of charge. On what was to be the last of my cross town errands the left hand peddle wont depress, then it will but won’t rise, and the smell of burnt clutch fills the air.

I coast to a stop half on half off the pavement. Hazard lights on. Dead phone. I don’t know anyone’s number off by heart.

Flag down some passing cops. And begin the arduous process of explaining:

there is no number livery’d on to the sode od the pannel van, no i don’t know the mame of the hire company or their phone number/ email adress off by heart, no i cant look in my phone, no i cant charge my phone, which is the reason im interypting your day to ask you look up the name of Master At Arms’ company on google, ring the main number,,ask for The Viking and explain whay ive just told you to him so he can look up the hire company and ring them to find out which breakdown service provides covet.

By the third time we've been through this one of the cops is laughing so much he is no help at all and the other wanders off to ‘Make a call’ which see s to involve a cloud of cigarette smoke coming from behind a bin store.

The Viking will be back from lunch in ten minutes, could we call back?

A long and arduous process that has the laughing policeman in stitches several times later it transpires that the number for the rescue service is written on the van” s key. His colleague pushes him over the edge, into helpless giggling, one last time with the words

“If this doesn't work I'm arresting you for wasting police time”

Your pal

SBW

Join me next time for Shirt and Tie duck hunting

Scotland 2021 pt4. A Roebuck, A Mob Of Goats, And A Catalog Of Errors

noreply@blogger.com (The Suburban Bushwacker) — Sun, 26 Dec 2021 08:23:00 +0000

The road south

If you want to make Artemis laugh tell her about your plans for the hunt.

At last the bit I’ve been looking forward to.

During that perfect summer of the early pandemic South Side D and I had ventured north of the wall to hunt goats with our guides Alan and his son, the eagle eyed Bryce. It was a great trip READ ABOUT IT HERE I had high hopes of doing it again. Yeah. Right.

The drive down the west coast was as stunning as ever, the Irish sea as flat as that northern light that washes over it. The roads are refreshingly clear, unburdened by the library and blacksmith’s shop the van really picks its skirts up. The road is lined with speed cameras The van lowers its skirts

Truth be told I’m really starting to feel proper battered I stop for a sarnie and take an involuntary nap in the van. Stranraer is the closest point between Ireland and Scotland so its also the ferry terminal between the two. The roads are winding county roads, the trucks are international road haulage

Allan’s joint is usually self catering but his mrs has taken pity on me and included me in family dinner time. After a substantial feed I slope off to my bed pausing only to marvel that not many london hotels have water pressure like that.

Goatland, a bit different to our hedgerow stalking in the south. My happy place

Dawn, goatland

I’ll not make excuses, this is what really happened

Allan’s thermal binoculars were in the shop being serviced, we scan and scan, there are no goats.

Allan hops into the truck and drives off up the coast. Bryce and I follow the unbrowsed grass fringe along the cliff tops. By crawling and hiding, crawling and hiding we manage to put the hustle on a handsome Roebuck Did I mention I’ve lost my annoying Harris bipod? Well I have.

Bit more crawling and I’ve got the Money Pit balanced on top of a fence post. Chip shot.. 50 yards. Max High and right clean miss.Round sails over the Roe’s back. Bryce gives me a look that says ‘I don’t remember you being this shite last time” Obviously the Roebuck and his two pals have now skedaddled and are jeering from a safe distance. Probably 51 yards.

Bryce is growing up fast, from mumbling teenager to Highland Profesional. His dour Ghillie quips are coming on too “Its not awful, I prefer my Tika, scopes not too bad. I suppose “

It gets worse

We make some headway along the cliff tops and elect to go under a fence, even though the Heym SR30 is a german de cocking safety design I elect to pass it to Bryce without anything in the chamber like a good safe sport. Bolt won’t extract the round.

Here’s for why. while I’ve always intended to shoot 108gr lead free bullets from the Money Pit I've not finished developing the load, so I tested with everything I had, and found the 140gr SST load from my old barrel on my Tiktac gave excellent performance and being SST’s are guaranteed to mash up anything they hit. Where I was remiss is, I’d put a couple into the vbull, but I’d never cycled one through the action.

The SST load has a COAL of 2900 up from the factory 2800, Heym’s chamber is much closer to the lands than the Tiktac , I beat on the bolt and extracted an unfired case and mess of powder, its clear I’m at literal jam, and the bullet is still in the lands. Interestingly after checking the fired cases, I later fired the last three rounds from that batch, all accurate AF and no pressure signs. My policy of loading hunting ammo to the lower node is a good one.

We shan’t dwell on how I cleared the obstruction with a piece of fencing wire, but I was glad to have a VFG pull through with me just for a little reassurance afterwards. Allan’s mockery ringing in my ears we move goatward

We’re now on to the goats, up on a bluff overlooking the shoreline where they are feeding. We’re at 300ish yards, and trying not to silhouette. They can clearly see something is afoot, they eventually settle, we’re not getting any closer without moving back into sight. I take a hail mary off a rolled up jacket, the goats vamoose and that’s s all she wrote Bah!

Hunting not Shopping, Proper preparation prevents piss poor performance, yah de feckin’ yah

Sadly thats not all folks

See you next time

Your pal

SBW

Gun Jesus of Forgotten Weapons has done a review of the SR30