Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2016 i Sporting Gun

“I want to create a magazine that continues to reflect your interests and keep you entertained” It is a pleasure to greet you from the pages of Sporting Gun as the new editor. I want to begin my inaugural welcome to the magazine with an invitation for you to join us at the first Field & Country Fair at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire. Organised by the publishers of this magazine and its sister titles, the fair is a celebration of all things good about British rural life. There will be shooting, fishing falconry and lots more. It’s a day out for all the family, and children under 12 get in free. It promises to be a great event and it would be good to see you there, so come by the…

When I heard about the Akkar Triple Crown Mammut (a triple-barrelled shotgun) I couldn’t help but smirk! All I could think of was Sergeant Harper from the Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell and how this sounded like the sort of gun he would be interested in. Triple-barrelled guns are unusual in the UK, but not that uncommon in the rest of Europe. Drillings – which are a combination of a shotgun and rifle, with at least one of the barrels being rifled – are used in Europe for driven hunting. They come in various combinations from two shotgun barrels and one rifled barrel or vice-versa. There are a few English gunmakers that have made drilling too, but often as a special order that disappears into a collector’s hands. The reasons…

FERRETS Raining rabbits Q Both of two low-lying farms where I ferret in Yorkshire have been flooded a number of times in the past few months by unbelievable amounts of rain. The water has at last drained away, but there’s not a rabbit to be seen. Do you think they have all drowned, or do they have enough savvy to leg it to drier ground when the going gets wet? How long do you think it might be before things return to normal? Edward says: Funnily enough I have just finished a job where burrows had flooded and the rabbits were all living on top in a large enclosure. We caught nearly all of the 85 without much help from ferrets. Rabbits are not as stupid as you might think…

Like the majority of shooters, my dogs are a major part of my life and not just a tool to use when out with the gun. We have a tendency to outlive our four-legged friends and I recently lost one of my closest companions, Freddy, a liver and white springer spaniel. Needless to say we shared countless tales from our shooting expeditions and these memories will stick with me forever. Where it all began Fred didn’t come to me as a puppy, or alone. He was given to me, along with Troy, my sprocker, off a keeper friend. Fred was roughly four and Troy was believed to be two, which was perfect timing because I was due to start a keepering job in North Wales the week after collecting the…

General appearance Strongly built, short-coupled, very active; broad in skull; broad and deep through chest and ribs; broad and strong over loins and hindquarters. Characteristics Good-tempered, very agile. Excellent nose, soft mouth; keen love of water. Adaptable and a devoted companion. Temperament Intelligent, keen and biddable, with a strong will to please. Kindly nature. Head and Skull Skull broad with defined stop; clean-cut without fleshy cheeks. Jaws of medium length. Nose wide, nostrils well developed. Eyes Medium size, expressing intelligence and good temper; brown or hazel. Ears Not large or heavy, hanging close to head and set rather far back. Mouth Jaws and teeth strong with a perfect, regular and complete scissor bite. Neck Clean, strong, powerful, set into well-placed shoulders. Forequarters Shoulders long and sloping. Forelegs well boned and…

The magpie is associated with superstition and it is considered bad luck if you fail to salute one if you see it in your travels. The superstitious among us might well agree with this, but I am tempted to say that saluting it with a couple of barrels is better. The magpie is an attractive bird, but it is one of several of the corvid family that can cause serious damage to the eggs and chicks of songbirds and gamebirds alike. Its numbers need to be kept in check and, as with all predators, keeping numbers down to a reasonable level is the name of the game. Spring clean Spring is a good time to look at controlling them with a Larsen trap. This excellent trap, invented by a Danish…

Recent news that a pair of eagle owls was preparing to nest in North Yorkshire has re-ignited the controversy around one of the largest owls in the world. As a top predator, they could have a big impact on biodiversity if their numbers increase. Fossil records show eagle owls were present in Britain from some 700,000 years to at least 10,000 years ago. There are currently around 12 to 40 pairs of eagle owls nesting in Britain. No one is certain how many of these have escaped from captivity when eagle owls were used as decoys to catch birds, such as the magpie, or how many have naturally migrated here from Europe. This top predator is also making a comeback following reintroductions in Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Germany.…

It has been a first for me this month. I was taking a guest who was on his first training outing on roe bucks. The week had gone well and the previous guest had had a good few days ending with a very nice buck taken from a vulnerable plantation. We set off in a pretty cold penetrating northerly wind with the idea that we would get into a sheltered area to see if the bucks were mooching about at the lower levels of the wood out of the wind. It seemed like a good plan. As it turned out the deer were noticeably absent from a favourite hideaway. In these circumstances there was only one thing left to do and that was to climb up the escarpment so we…

Ingredients Serves: 1 mallard, plucked and drawn 2tbsp vegetable oil 25g butter 2 bulbs of chicory (endive) 2tsp olive oil Pinch of salt , pepper and sugar 50ml whippin g or double Cream COOKING METHOD 1 Take duck breasts off the bone. Heat vegetable oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and seal the breasts, skin side down, for up to three minutes over a medium heat. Remove from the heat and take off the skin. Return duck to the heated pan, add a knob of butter and reseal on both sides. This should take two to three minutes for each side. Remove from the heat and set aside to rest. 2 For the creamed chicory, place individual chicory leaves in a heated wok with a splash of olive oil. Add a…

John Robert (Bob) Braithwaite, sadly lost to us in February 2015, was a legendary trap shooter who represented his country at two consecutive Olympics in the 1960s. A true sporting hero and one of shooting’s great natural talents, his Olympic gold medal is one of the sport’s most romantic stories. Born in 1925, the purely amateur Shot had only really even started competing when he reached his thirties – and had zero sponsorship (unheard of these days). He simply practised when he could spare the time from his busy Lancashire veterinary practice. Olympic gold Britain has won an individual gold medal for clay shooting at the Olympics just three times – most recently in 2012 by Peter Wilson, in 2000 by Richard Faulds and in 1968 by Bob. Speaking exclusively…

If you wish to buy a new-to-you gun for the coming game season, then now’s the time to be looking along the second-hand racks BERETTA 486 PARALLELO Purchasing a gun in July will enable you to shoot a few summer clays to get used to your acquisition, and get any handling tweaks sorted out, before the serious stuff begins. The choice will be between a traditional side-by-side and a more modern over-and-under, and if you take the first option, then a Beretta is well worth a second look. Although the company is best known for its O/Us, its smaller number of side-by-sides are well-made and long-lived, and the latest of the breed is the 486 Parallelo. The action represents a re-think by the Beretta designers, with the hammers driven by…

“In an instant the adrenaline pumped into my veins making my heart rate soar off the scale” It is not unusual to find me sitting quietly in the countryside, scouring the scenery through a pair of binoculars. What is unusual is when the focus of my attention is herds of grazing impala, or nervous bushbuck venturing warily out of the thick bushveld. You will have guessed that I am not in the fields of my native Essex, but in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa, where my wife Fran and I were spending a few weeks relaxing and shooting. We were returning to Douglas Vale Game Farm after a gap of seven years. It was good to see that the magnificent views as we bumped down the unmade road…

Place: Cloudside Shooting and Country Club, Red Lane, Congleton, Cheshire. CW12 3QG Easy to find? This is one you will probably need to feed into your satnav because it isn’t signposted from the main A523 Macclesfield to Leek Road. Approaching from Macclesfield, after about four miles look for a right turn into Tunstall Road – it’s opposite a large sign for Old Smith Garage. Follow a winding uphill road for two miles then turn sharp left into Red Lane. 5 Disciplines: English Sporting, compact Sporting, English Skeet, Down the Line, automatic ball trap and universal trench. 8 Traps: A mixture of fully automatic Promatic, Laporte and Winchester traps. All Sporting stands are kitted out with card operated Promatic clay counters, which have a solo release facility if you’re shooting alone.…

GUNDOGS: GRAHAM WATKINS A professional gundog trainer for more than 35 years and runs Gamegoer Gundogs. VETERINARY: NEIL MCINTOSH A practising vet in Scotland. TUITION: JOHN BIDWELL 6 times World FITASC champ and pro shooting coach. LEGAL: DAVID FROST Author of Sporting Shooting and the Law. TECHNICAL: MIKE GEORGE Engineering author with a deep love of gunmaking. GUNDOGS: LEZ GRAHAM Gundog trainer and author of the Pet Gundogbooks. PIGEONS: PETER THEOBALD Author of Woodpigeon: The Ultimate Quarry. STALKING: GEORGE WALLACE Former National Gamekeepers’ Organisation’s firearms consultant. FERRETS: ED COOK Professional rabbit catcher working over 30,000 acres. PEST CONTROL & WILDFOWL: TOM SYKES Passionate wildfowler and pest controller…

A common problem we see here at Gamegoer is dogs that will not mark. There are several reasons this can occur, but it is due mainly to the way they have been trained. A large proportion of handlers train their dogs on their own and two main problems can manifest. The first is when the dog will only go out a certain distance for a thrown dummy and constantly hunts short once the distance is extended. The second is that the dog is always looking at the handler rather than watching the dummy. This trait can sometimes be seen shortly after you have gone through the steadying process, especially if you have a soft-natured dog. Hunting short This can be a really frustrating trait in a dog and the reason…

As a youth I suffered an excruciating blow to the left testicle that caused considerable pain, alarming swelling and prolonged debilitation. I surmised that God, in his wisdom, had made a huge error when he designed the male anatomy. Later in life, during my university education, I learned that the reason the testicles were left so exposed was because spermatogenesis – the production of sperm – can only occur at a temperature lower than body temperature. And after my veterinary career had begun, I realised that God, in his wisdom, was correct in his designs. Unlike the liver, heart and kidneys, testicles are outside the body. This allows them to be easily assessed for injury or disease, but only if you know what you are looking for and if you…

“In my experience there is one thing that draws foxes in more than any other – and that’s cow afterbirth” If there’s one thing I’ve learned about foxes over the years, it’s that you’ve got to go where the food is to find them. As an illustration, one farm we cover is split in two by an access track. On one side, it’s really “foxy”, with rolling terrain covered with stands of gorse, thick hedges and lots of scrubby tree cover. On the other, it’s very dull – just open fields spread over some rather uninspiring ground. And yet, we never find foxes on the supposedly good side, but always get a result on the bad one. The reason is simple – on the latter there are sheep just over…

As part of the countryside management course at the Northern School of Game and Wildlife, we have to do work-related experience. This involves working alongside someone in a countryside or fieldsport related industry and through this I got an offer I could not refuse: work experience with a professional hunter in South Africa. I was fortunate enough to be supported by the Newton Rigg Society and Carrs Billington, via scholarships to subsidise my flight costs, so how could I say no? The offer came from Ben Thomas. He left the UK to become a professional hunter (PH) with Huntershill Safaris last year. Owned by Greg “Slice” Harvey, Huntershill is located on the malaria free Wildschutsberg Game Farm in the picturesque foothills of the Stormberg Mountains, near Queenstown, in South Africa’s…

Venison steak Sauternes I made this recipe using leftovers. We were kindly given a bottle of Sauternes by one of our guests to drink with dessert the night before. We didn’t drink it all, for once Ingredients 2oz butter 4oz mushrooms, sliced 4tbsp Sauternes 4tbsp stock 2oz cooked ham, chopped 4 slices bread 4 venison fillet steaks How to cook Melt the butter in a pan and quickly cook the mushrooms. Add the wine, stock and ham and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Cut the bread into rounds the same size as the steaks and toast. Heat a griddle pan until very hot, coat the steaks with oil and cook to taste, turning them once. To serve, place each steak on a round of toast and pour the sauce…

Rebecca Mickleburgh was brought up on a farm in Kent that is now a nature reserve. She spent her childhood attending shoots and enjoying rural life. Keen on art at school, she disappointed her art teacher by not taking it any further and went off to university to study architectural design. Until two years ago she was working in a stressful environment as a project manager in the renewable energy industry, specialising in wind farms. “Two years ago everything changed when my mother became seriously ill,” Rebecca tells me. “She was rushed to hospital with an aortic aneurism and her chances of survival were very slim. Miraculously she did survive, but while she was so ill I spent two weeks with her in the intensive care ward and had time…

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY: gates open at 7.30am, show opens at 9am and show closes at 6pm. SUNDAY: Gates open at 8am, show opens at 9am and show closes at 5pm. TICKETS: Adult advance ticket for any one day: £18 Sporting Gun promo offer: £18 Senior Citizens advance ticket: £16 BASC member offer: £15 CLA offer: £15 Student advance ticket £10 Tickets can be purchased online, visit www.fieldandcountryfair.com Alternatively, contact our ticket hotline, tel 01252 555213 (Mon to Fri, 9.30am to 5pm). GETTING THERE: Address: Cornbury Park, Charlbury, Oxfordshire OX7 3EH There will be free parking for all visitors to the Field & Country Show. TRAVELLING BY TRAIN: Charlbury railway station is situated directly on the Cornbury Park estate, so travelling by train is a straightforward option. Trains run regularly from…

“A true measure of your wealth is how much you would be worth if you lost all your money” As a child my only interest was the pursuit of rabbits and I was lucky enough to make rabbit control my career. But how easy is it to do this? The most important factor is the amount of rabbits in your area. If there aren’t any, then your services are not needed. If you are willing to travelling, this problem can be overcome. Next, you have to find people willing to pay for your services. Your customer base will vary greatly from farms to gardens, councils to railways. Some landowners or managers are more business minded than others. For some its a simple equation: damage done by rabbits will cost ‘A’,…

Although no records were broken, Gavin Gardiner’s spring auction, in association with Sotheby’s in London, brought some steady prices across a range of guns, which included pistols, rifles, and historic and modern shotguns. Among the better results was the £9,200 hammer price brought by a Holland & Holland Royal self-opening sidelock 12-bore of classic proportions, made in 1961. A pair of John Dickson round action boxlocks sold for £5,000, proving that there is still a strong demand for this Scottish classic. Military connections As usual with a Gavin Gardiner auction, there was a number of guns built for the famous and the infamous. One was once the property of a British military hero. He was Lieutenant General Sir Reginald Pole-Carew, KCV, CVO, who was born in 1849 and died in…

GUNS FOR SALE Cogswell and Harrison, 12-bore, extra quality avant tout ejector, boxlock, No. 1 gun of a matched pair, 27in sleeved barrels, choked ½ and full with double triggers, rib engraved with 142 New Bond Street, highly figured and very attractive stock, length 14¼in. £495 ono. Tel 01909 771000 (South Yorkshire). Browning 325, 12-bore, O/U, trap gun, little use, £700 ono. Tel 07833 921645 (Nottinghamshire). Browning Prestige 525 grade 5, O/U, 30in barrels, 12-bore, m/c, as new in makers case, £1,950. Tel. 07811 628783 (Northumberland). Winchester trap diamond grade, 12-bore, 30in barrels, m/c, 70mm chambers, high-grade stock, fewer than 200 cartridges fired, £890. Tel 07504 156249 (Surrey). Hammer gun 12-bore, 28in Vickers Steel barrels, 70mm chambers, nice case hardening, straight hand stock (oiled) with crisp chequering, quality gun, as…

“Even after 50 years of shooting, I love the renewed challenge of using a small-bore gun” It seems impossible to believe that no less than a decade has somehow skipped by since I last fired a 12-bore. Facing up to the challenge of switching tentatively to a gun just half its size hasn’t all been plain sailing, but what have I learned? I did not change to a smaller bore to have a lighter gun to carry. In fact, my 28 bore ended up an ounce heavier than my old 12 bore because it’s built on a 20 bore action and has a hefty chunk of lead in the stock to achieve the balance I like. As regular readers may remember, the whole point of down sizing was to avoid…

“The semi-auto’s single barrel makes the front end of the gun much lighter and controllable” What do Marmite and semi-auto shotguns have in common? The similarity is that they both divide opinion! Some people love both, some won’t touch either. I think the Marmite division is truly just a matter of taste, but unfamiliarity and lack of awareness does contribute to some shotgun users having an unreasonable phobia where autos are concerned. I’ll nail my colours to the gunroom door here and say that, as a coach, I really like semi-autos. In fact I love ’em. Why? Simple: the auto’s single barrel makes the front end of the gun much lighter and more controllable – a really useful asset for beginners and slightly built individuals. Couple this with the lower…

With summer just around the corner the game fair season is already under way. Many gundog owners will be heading straight for the scurry tent in an effort to qualify for the numerous finals that will be held later in the year. Nowadays, there are some big prizes to be won, ranging from cars to a plentiful supply of dog food. There can be no doubt that over the past few years the game fair scurry has moved in to the “big time” with major sponsors putting up big prizes for the winners. Bob Pownall and the Scurry Bandits have worked hard over the years to create a level playing field with regards to rules and standards. In particular I like the way they stop the clock when a dog…

First, in September 2015, came the report by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary (HMIC) for England and Wales into the efficiency of the licensing system. It will come as no surprise to readers who have the misfortune to live in Essex, Gloucestershire, Thames Valley or Hampshire that HMIC found much to be desired in the way the police operate the licensing system. In some cases, the average time taken to process grant and renewal applications was in excess of six months. It’s particularly worrying that Hampshire was found to be the second worst for turnaround times because its then Chief Constable, Andy Marsh, was chairman of the Firearms and Explosives Licensing Working Group (FELWG), which is supposed to maintain standards and ensure consistency. FELWG does come in for oblique criticism…

Over the years certain dogs were bred to do specific jobs and this is certainly the case with the Labrador retriever. A versatile breed, this hunting companion is the eyes and ears of its owner, can be used to detect drugs, explosives, open doors and even post letters. It can guard, jump, swim, and is the epitome of man’s best friend. No article on the breed would be complete without mentioning the Buccleuch Labrador. The Buccleuch Labrador In the 1830s, the 5th Duke of Buccleuch, Walter Francis Montagu Douglas Scott, was one of the first to import dogs from Newfoundland to his estates in the Scottish Borders for use as gundogs due to their excellent retrieving capabilities. Another advocate of these marvellous Newfoundland dogs, or Labrador retrievers as they became…

Good police work > For once, I am pleased to announce a pleasant experience when applying for the renewal of my coterminous shotgun and firearms certificates. At my last renewal five years ago, I applied for the certificates to be renewed 10 weeks before the expiry date, but the certificates actually took 14 weeks to process. The firearms enquiry officer (FEO) called to see me and said that because the application had been made, I wouldn’t have to surrender my rifles, but I wasn’t happy to use them without an in-date certificate. However, things have changed with my latest renewal. My certificates were due for renewal in mid-June, so I posted off the renewal application with a new medical report from my doctor. I have a longstanding health problem, which…

The hedgehog – one of the nation’s most-loved animals, is under severe threat. While the conservationists argue that their decline is down to modern farm practices, they conveniently forget that predation is by far the biggest factor. Thanks to our having wiped out all the bigger carnivores such as wolves and lynxes in this country, foxes are free to grow as big as they are able, which is up to three times their natural size. Consequently, the poor little hedgehog has little chance except in places without foxes or badgers. The sheds that free-range organic chickens are raised in have to be moved every twelve weeks for hygiene reasons. As a result, it’s not economically viable to construct big fences around such vast areas, and they have to be quite…

“A spring air rifle can be superbly accurate but they are unforgiving of poor technique” “The more I practice, the luckier I get,” is a saying most commonly attributed to golfer Gary Player; but whoever said it first, the principle is just as important for those of us who shoot rifles. Particularly powerful rifles. We all pay lip service to the need for practice, practice and more practice but very few of us actually do it. This is particularly true when it comes to centre fire rifles which can make a helluva bang, kick a bit, and use ammo that is eye wateringly expensive. Target practice may also involve a long drive to an expensive range, which only serves to increase our reluctance to practice regularly. I am lucky in…

You will be reading this in June, usually a month before the rut might start, but it is a good time to get out and observe what is happening. In early June the bucks will be sorting out territory which they may have been doing since May. There will still be action and if you take a look and listen to what is going on it will give you a better idea of where some of your bucks are and the territory they will, if lucky, hold until the rut is over. It is also a good time to practise your “calling” in advance. A bit of advice here, do it at home first or you will let the bucks know that there is some twit trying to imitate them.…

It’s that time of year again. The release pens are looking immaculate, drinkers are sparkling clean and feeders brimming. The rides have been swiped and the electric fences checked and re-checked. This season’s poults will soon be delivered. With seven week old pheasants nudging £4 a piece, stock losses need to be minimised and every step has to be taken to ensure your newly arrived youngsters mature into strong high flyers. Practical hints and tips, including some exciting new research into alternatives for traditional medications, were recently presented to a meeting of around 100 Sussex gamekeepers and shoot managers by specialist gamebird vets Dr Mark Elliott and Dr Kenny Nutting. Water can be costly Mark dealt with water; one of the cheapest “ingredients” in the release pen, but one that…

The mole has been trapped and managed for generations. There are still professional mole trappers practising across our land, turning fields of molehills back into rich pastures. In this article I will be talking you through how I trap moles and the equipment I use. Mole trapping is another one of those highly contentious pest control jobs where every one who has a ever caught a mole has a different technique. I hope to teach those who are new to the process how to catch moles in quick and clinical way and give those who have tried to catch moles in the past tips on how to increase their catch rates. Types of trap Mole traps come in many different guises but there are two main types. First the scissor…

“To say I was blown away by what I saw would be the understatement of the year” At Holt’s we put in a lot of effort to seek out previously unseen items for our various sales. We pride ourselves on the fact that more than 70 per cent of any given catalogue are fresh to market private items never before offered for sale. We are also fortunate that our many trade clients tend to hold back the rare and unusual for us, knowing that these items invariably perform better in an auction environment. However, from my own point of view, the best “finds” are those that come from clients who had absolutely no idea of what they had, or simply did not attach any value to those items. A good…

GUNS adj — adjustableble — boxlock ejectorblne — boxlock nonejectorbrls — barrelsc/w — complete withcyl — cylinderdb — double barreldt — double triggerej — ejectorex con — excellentconditionfac — firearms certificatefc — fixed chokegc — good conditiongrd — gradehg — hammer gunimp — improvedltwt — lightweightm/c — multi-chokemod — modifiedo/u — over and underono — or near offerovno — or very near offerp/x — part exchangepa — pump actionrf — rimfirernds — rounds(ammunition)sa — semi-automaticsb — single barrelsbs — side by sidesle — side lock ejectorslne — sidelock no ejectorsst — single selectivetriggertge — teague chokesu/l — underlevervgc — very good condition DOGS b/w — black and whiteess — English springerspanielftaw — field trial awardwinnerftch — field trial championftw — field trial winnerhpr — hunt, pointand retrievekc — kennel clubl/w…

Scientific research is a marvellous thing. I mean, who would’ve thought butter is not bad for us after all and two good glugs of red wine a day keeps the heart healthy and the arteries open. Amazing. But that’s not all: when it comes to keeping fit, walking is better than a gym workout, and blueberries (without cream of course) are the new super food. Yep, no doubt about it, science comes up with all sorts of useful stuff every waking day. Latest discovery is that Labradors have a gene that predisposes them to greed and gluttony. Oh really? Had the men in white bothered to ask anyone who works one of these adorable companions could’ve saved them a load of time and money. Every Labrador owner knows that the…