Innholdsfortegnelse for Jun-2018 i Sporting Gun

You might not be in the market for a new gun, but this month we might just tempt you with our pick of top 20 guns or under £1k. Mike George has used all his expertise and knowledge to select some of the very best affordable guns, both new and used. This month the Browning Liberty Light gets its first test on our pages. This lightweight sporter is designed for women, youngsters and shooters of a smaller stature who are tired of lugging heavy guns around. At around the £2k mark, it is well priced, too. The other gun we look at is the new Remington V3 semi-auto. If you are a wildfowler or pigeon shooter, this gun is definitely worth consideration. But it’s not just about guns this month,…

Ridgeline trail top This traditional design is new to the Ridgeline line-up, but uses the latest hi-tech fleece to ensure a comfortable mid-layer. Available in sizes from XS to 5XL Price: £49.99 Visit: www.ridgelineclothing.co.uk Jack Pyke dog handlers vest Designed for dog handlers, this vest will carry all of your equipment because it has eight pockets. Made using 600D Cordura and nylon webbing it is very durable and has fully adjustable shoulder straps with a quick release chest fastening. Available in Green. Price: £39.95 Visit: www.jackpykeshop.co.uk Gundog Health & Welfare Anyone looking for a concise guide on how to ensure their dogs live healthy, happy, active lives should read this book. Price: £19.99 Visit: www.crowood.com Oliver Brown Chapman wheeled gun bag This unique and robust gun bag is capable of…

“Straight out of the box the gun felt nicely balanced” While I was at the British Shooting Show in February, I took the opportunity to get around and see what was coming out. I was really happy to see Remington there in good numbers, thanks mainly to Raytrade UK. The last few years had seen a distinct down turn in the amount of Remington product on the market. I’m glad to see that new importers, Raytrade UK, has started to remedy that since it took over in 2016. I was taken with the V3 and asked if I could take a good look at it. I’ve been a Remington fan since buying my first 1187 Super Magnum from a friend a decade or so ago. Although, unless it was kept…

How did you get into shooting? Literally none of my family shoot, but my mum won a raffle prize to have session at The Oxford Gun Company. Being a typical stroppy teenage girl, I was like “I’m not going to go, I don’t want to get up early on a Saturday…” So after a lot of protesting from me, we got there and we found that I really enjoyed it and wasn’t too bad at it! So were you sold from your first session then? Absolutely. So after the 30 minute taster session at Oxford Gun, David the coach asked, “Are you sure you haven’t shot before?” I said no and he said, “Do you want to come back and have another lesson?” I said yes straight away. Do you…

Much has been written on the subject of working lurchers and the attributes that, when combined, complete such a canine. However, certain characteristics can be overlooked when discussing your working colleague, and this includes companionship. Over the years, I’ve worked with a series of dogs, all produced from the family of lurchers I keep. They are not perfect, they have their faults, but they suit me. They have had mixed ability in the field but, with experience and patience, each one has proven its worth in aiding my work. Strong ties But a dog’s worth should go much further than just being a tool. I get as much pride in knowing my canine partner wants to work for me, or tag along with whatever activity I am doing, as I…

Let me say from the very beginning that I neither condone nor condemn the use of electronic training collars (e-collars) to train gundogs. That said, I do find the debate about their use most interesting. I remember attending a gundog training course a few years ago. One handler had an Irish setter that took little notice of any command, especially the stop whistle, and would disappear into the next county at the first opportunity. After the first day and many miles covered by both the dog and handler, we all noticed that the owner had put an e-collar on it. It was quickly pointed out to him that if he wanted to remain on the course, he would not be allowed to run his dog wearing his ‘invisible lead’. Nowadays,…

INGREDIENTS Serves two as a starter Cooking method 1 Roll the saddle of muntjac in grounded black pepper, salt and then pour over a small amount of vegetable oil and sweet chilli sauce. Heat a pan until smoking and then sear the saddle for three to four minutes in a hot pan until sealed all over. Put it to rest on one side. 2 Peel and segment one orange and arrange on the plate. Slice the muntjac length ways and also add it to the plate. 3 Dress the muntjac and orange wirth rocket and drizzle balsamic and basil oil over. Serve with some fresh chunky bread as a starter or a snack.…

The Pulsar thermal imagers I tested impressed me and are a game-changer in the control of deer. However, there are positive and negative sides to most new technology, and this is true with the thermal imagers, too. Positive The deer manager who is willing to put the time in will certainly get more accurate population counts to support management plan cull figures. With this equipment it is also possible to confirm the presence of deer at distances without the need for a long trek, which will persuade deer managers to go that extra mile into an area that may in the past have proved to be a wasted effort. With both the Pulsar Quantum Lite and the Helion XQ38F, it is also possible to observe deer in thick cover –…

A record-breaking number of farmers took part in the fifth successive Big Farmland Bird Count (BFBC). Results show more than 1,000 farmers recorded 121 species across 950,000 acres during the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT)-led count, which took place between 9 and 18 February. A total of 25 red-listed species were recorded, with five appearing in the 25 most commonly seen species list. These include fieldfares, starlings, house sparrows, song thrushes and yellowhammers. The most plentiful of these were fieldfares and starlings, which were seen on nearly 40 per cent of the farms taking part. The five most abundant birds spotted were starlings, woodpigeons, fieldfares, rooks and chaffinches. A total of 99,712 were found, making up nearly 50 per cent of the total number of birds recorded – a…

In the UK, we like to think that the woodpigeon is the ultimate sporting quarry, though we might need to travel to Argentina to find sufficient volume. But what if there was a country that can provide that volume plus a quarry that can outfly even our humble woodie? That country is South Africa and the quarry is the rock pigeons that live in their tens of thousands around the suburbs of Bloemfontein, a city located in the Free State Province. I had booked two days of shooting through Shane Flanagan, a professional guide whom my wife and I met when we first came over here 15 years ago. On the first day, we began the six-hour drive from our hotel. Kevan Healey, our guide for the day, said there…

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 TONY BRACCI Bisley Shooting Ground’s deputy shooting manager and master gunfitter LEGAL DAVID FROST Author of Sporting Shooting and the Law. TECHNICAL MIKE GEORGE Engineering author with a deep love of gunmaking. PIGEONS PETER THEOBALD Author of Woodpigeon: The Ultimate Quarry. ANTIQUES ROBERT MORGAN Arms and armour valuer at Holt s Auctioneers. RABBITS ED COOK Professional rabbit catcher working over 30,000 acres. PEST CONTROL & WILDFOWLING TOM SYKES Passionate wildfowler and pest controller.…

“Raw meat diets may contain parasites that can cause illness” Oh dear! You have opened a veritable can of worms that is overflowing with myth, mystique and misinformation. I hardly know where to start but here goes… “All vets are opposed to raw feeding!” No they are not. There are over 70 raw feeding companies registered with DEFRA and they supply many veterinary practices. I know of one that sells six tonnes of the stuff every month. Another has three deep freezers in the waiting room. (But decries practices that sell conventional dog food for being financially motivated!). There is a Raw Feeding Veterinary Society, but Marge Chandler, co-chair of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association’s Global Nutrition Committee, suggested recently that there was little evidence to support the claimed…

My heart sank as I watched the weather forecast: the “Beast From The East” was raging across the country, bringing gale force winds and heavy snow, while Storm Emma was pushing up from the south west. I had arranged a trip “up north” to give Ted one last run on the bunnies. Although there is obviously no closed season for shooting rabbits, by mid-to-late March the grouse and other ground-nesting birds that thrive on the high ground are getting ready to produce next year’s young and need to be left undisturbed. Also, there is no pleasure in finding that you have shot a doe full of milk. Even the humble rabbit deserves the time to reproduce in peace. Not only did the inclement weather cause nationwide chaos, it also looked…

I mentioned in the May issue that I had the opportunity to test two Pulsar thermal-imaging scopes in the field. The models in question were the Pulsar XQ30V Quantum Lite and the Pulsar Helion XQ38F. The only previous experience I have had regarding thermal imagers was way back in the 1990s, when I was given an old technology imager reputed to have come over from the Eastern Bloc after the wall came down. It wasn’t that efficient, had hardly any range, was bulky and had a tendency to burn out. Current thermal technology is in a different league and Pulsar is one brand leading the way, offering clear, thermal images at night and during daylight with ranges of up to 1.5km, depending on the model. Lightweight and ergonomically designed to…

Tom’s easy recipe Sweet and sour pigeon Ingredients Method We all need a quick dinner that is super tasty, but easy to make. On nights like these we often make a sweet and sour stir fry with whichever meat is handy. This month we are making it with delicious pigeon breasts. Dice the breast meat to the size you like. I remove the sinew that runs through the middle of the breast before slicing to ensure it is tender. Heat the wok and add the oil. Once the oil is starting to smoke, drop the meat in and move it around in the pan to get a nice even colour. Season with garlic powder and salt and pepper before adding the onions.…

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22% A new paper by the British Trust for Ornithology says that there has been a 22 per cent rise in the UK’s breeding peregrine falcon population since the last survey in 2002. 3rd Scotland’s Seonaid McIntosh became the third member of her family to win a Commonwealth Games shooting medal as she took bronze in the women’s 50m rifle prone event. 1,000 More than 1,000 farmers took part in this year’s Big Farmland Bird Count (see full results on page 18). 200% The CLA says its members reported a 200 per cent increase in fly-tipping on private land in just three years.…

They say you only get one great gundog in a lifetime. Maybe so, but that of course depends on how we measure a dog’s greatness. By what yardstick. If it’s done on all-round capabilities then, yes, I’d have to say only one dog ticked most of the boxes – a fizzing springer spaniel bitch called, among other things, Skye. She was brilliant on the marsh, more than handy in a pigeon hide and, let’s just say, a character on game shoots. Not that she was a peg dog. Oh no. Sitting still wasn’t her barrow. Purist handlers and field trial judges would’ve definitely written her off as an unsteady fruitcake. But when it came to picking the “unpickable”, Skye could be counted on to find runners where all others had…

I received word from the powers above that this month’s issue was tailored around our four-legged friends, gundogs. This is a subject most of us can relate to as gundogs are a major part of our lives. I thought I would look at what I would like from a working dog in some of the situations I find myself in throughout the year. I have had the pleasure of owning dogs throughout my life and they have always been a major part of my family. I moved on from the family dogs when I rescued the late Fred and Troy, two spaniels that joined me through my gamekeeping career when I fledged the nest. After years of hard work, I lost both suddenly, only months apart, two years ago. Since…

“I pulled a few down from a good height, each shot worth six easy ones” In my locality, late spring is often a comparatively quiet time on the pigeon front, so I try to take advantage of any opportunity. Thus, when a handful of pigeons feeding on a small patch of chickweed not far from home had built up to a decent-sized bunch, it was a welcome excuse to take a well-earned break from work. Numbers were low but keeping an eye on the field a stone’s throw from home, most seemed to be turning up in small lots between late morning and mid afternoon. The success or otherwise of a decoying day greatly depends on how the pigeons are moving. To watch the whole lot arrive in a few…

When a novice is shooting single clays well and is confident handling the gun, it is time to start looking at teaching them to shoot pairs. In this case, Jack Woolland was the student and had been making excellent progress. Graham said: “When a student has grasped the fundamentals of gun safety, I allow them to load the gun themselves, but only when they have demonstrated that they fully understand safety with firearms. “When shooting pairs I start with shooting vertical pairs and then I introduce lateral or horizontal movements with other pairs. These transitions involve a cycle of, firstly, the gun hold point, the acquisition of the clay, the kill point, then coming back to the hold point for the second target and then the target acquisition and kill…

“The gun always felt controlled because it’s so well-balanced” Designed specially for lady shooters, this stunning new addition to the Browning range is likely to become a highly sought after lightweight 12-bore shotgun. What’s new? Although Browning has produced a lightweight range for some time, this new addition breaks the mould due to some new and exciting characteristics. • Weight is just under 6lbs (2.7kg) • New style engraved aluminium action frame • New style Monte Carlo stock, in American grade 2/3 walnut. • Diana Extended Chokes. • Back-bored 28in or 30in barrels. • Inflex Recoil Pad. The gun instantly impresses and exudes quality. Picking it up, its lightness, balance and feel give it the dignity and authority of a high quality gun. More on that later. Primarily designed for…

My annual housekeeping work is in progress. I’ve taken down all of the partridge pens, recovered the drinkers and feeders to be cleaned and sterilised and then stored, and I’m now working on the release pens. A good tip that I was shown is to brush off all of the wet leaves from the wire mesh that covers the ground around your pens. A bit of effort with a broom can make the wire last a couple of extra years by allowing the wire to dry out and breathe. A small thing I know, but the cost of rewiring a pen can soon add up and is a lot of work, which can be easily avoided. We had a vermin day last month and accounted for a good number of…

“Dogs should be trained to look out and away from the handler” The causes It sounds like you do a lot of training by yourself. This can have its limitations when trying to develop certain aspects of your dog’s education, especially when trying to get the dog to run out at a distance. I have always been of the opinion that it is better to “over-train” a dog than to “under-train”. This means that if you can train your dog to get out further than you think iy will ever need to go in the “real world shooting field”, it will then always have an overcapacity to deal with most situations that you will encounter. A dog that will mark and take a line straight out to a retrieve is…

Since I last wrote about the medical aspects of the revised firearms licensing process introduced in April 2016, two other readers have written to tell us their experiences. It is clear all is not well and the evidence of our readers is probably just the tip of the iceberg because many of us do not see the GP referral letters, which seem to be the commonest source of leaks revealing the whereabouts of firearms. Reader D wrote to say he was surprised to find that a referral note by his GP to the local hospital’s A&E department included a mention of his ownership of firearms. Why did A&E need to know that? When I asked the Information Commissioner about data security this is the answer I received: “In any case,…

I knew he was up to something, he has had that twinkle in his eye for a few days. I was down in Sussex a week ago training candidates on a DSC course. Alfie always accompanies me on trips away and he is happy so long as he knows we are together. He has always been comfortable living in the truck in his large cage during these periods. There I was chatting away to the candidates when he bursts into the training room to say hello. Mmm, he managed to unlock the cage door and squeeze out of the window. I took him outside only to see that he had all but wrecked the door of the cage. My only choice was to put him in the car with the…

LINCOLN VOGUE GAME 20-BORE Country or origin: Italy Price: £925 new The elegance of this gun suggests that it should cost more than £1,000. The action is neatly blacked to match the barrels, and the inlaid gold-coloured game birds form a neat contrast with the trigger. Even the internal workings within the action are neatly blacked Lincoln shotguns have been with us for many years now. They were first imported by Nickersons of Tathwell. Now guns are imported by John Rothery Wholesale, visit www.lincolnshotguns.com. Manufacturers are F.A.I.R (Fabbrica Armi Isodoro Rizzini) – another branch of Italy’s Rizzini dynasty. Mechanically, the gun is a typical Italian design, with a shallow action, barrels hinged on stub pins, and spring-loaded ejectors. The woodwork is a little plain, but the laser-cut chequering is neatly…

GUNS  adj— adjustable ble— boxlock ejector blne— boxlock non ejector brls— barrels c/w— complete with cyl— cylinder db— double barrel dt— double trigger ej— ejector ex con— excellent condition fac— firearms certificate fc— fixed choke gc— good condition grd— grade hg— hammer gun imp— improved ltwt— lightweight m/c— multi-choke mod— modified o/u— over and under ono— or near offer ovno— or very near offer p/x— part exchange pa— pump action rf— rimfire rnds— rounds (ammunition) sa— semi-automatic sb— single barrel sbs— side by side sle— side lock ejector slne— sidelock no ejector sst— single selective trigger tge— teague chokes u/l— underlever vgc— very good condition DOGS  b/w— black and white ess— English springer spaniel ftaw— field trial award winner ftch— field trial champion ftw— field trial winner hpr— hunt, point…

Back at the start of the 1980s I landed myself a part-time job helping out in a local gun shop. It was soon apparent that I had found my vocation in life, and I was taken on full-time to run an airgun mail order department. The market was very different in those days; the sporting market was dominated by the big German manufacturers, most notably Weihrauch, Feinwerkbau and Original. Diana was a low to mid-market manufacturer based in Scotland and more correctly named Milbro-Diana, and pre-charged pneumatics, the mainstay of today’s hunting scene, only existed as exotic tranquilising and darting guns for zoos and wildlife parks (Daystate). An enterprising company run by Ken Galway started putting silencers (sound moderators) on air rifles and even produced a low volume pre-charged pneumatic,…