Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2019 i Sporting Shooter

EASTER would roll around and whilst most kids were frantically unwrapping their chocolate, but I was wandering the countryside. Years later and the situation is unchanged, with rifle, backpack nothing but my subtle footprints left behind. This Easter I found myself at my mate Ben’s sheep and cattle property in northern NSW. As we sat around the campfire that night I listened intently to the property manager tell of his plight, needing to rid himself of the wild dogs that decimate the local sheep industry. A skilful trapper and bushman, the stress in his voice was evident like the callouses on his old worn hands. As the night grew old and the stories tall, my eyes glistened like the smouldering coals before me, pondering what I might encounter on the…

MANY landholders think it is time to start culling these vandals with antlers? There have been at least six different species released in Australia in the past 150 years, and their numbers remained pretty stable until fairly recent times when populations starting exploding everywhere. There’s nothing that pleases a hunter more than to stalk close to a herd of fallow for example, and watch the skittish does leap up on their elegant legs and go bounding away, the white patches on their rumps jumping up and down, from side to side as they flee. The bucks may stay a little longer, staring from swivelling chocolate brown eyes as they try to identify the source of the threat. With their palmated antlers and hot blasts of breath pumping into the freezing…

“The hare then turned smartly and hopped back over the mound, never to be seen again.” I don’t think I’d so much as picked up my shotgun for over six months when a text message inviting me to participate in a fox drive beeped for my attention. The annual series of drives in South Australia’s mid-north is a locally organised affair that’s been going for over 30 years and I considered myself fortunate to have been invited by a fellow member of my local gun club. Naturally I responded, ‘I’ll be there’ and went to see what hunting ammo I had on hand. I found one box of BBs, a handful of #2s and a box of #4s. ‘That’ll do’, I thought and set about changing my Cylinder and Improved…

S THE plane began its descent into Bulewayo, I was taken aback by the difference in the landscape. I had been here in February 2017 and the country was dense, thick bush due to the heavy rainfall. It was now early September 2018, dry season, and what a difference! Sparse, flat and dry vegetation covered the terrain. Perfect for spotting the animals I had come to hunt. After a bumpy landing and the obligatory customs checks, I walked out to see the smiling face of my good mate Len and his wife Nic. We headed off to their place, half an hour away, and spoke about the hunting trips Len had organised over the next three weeks. Settling in with a couple of beers, we checked our equipment and weapons.…

FROM the comfort of the swag, he watches clouds stream across the moon. Early April. Sunrise is still a couple of hours away, but who can sleep at a time like this? The crisp air is alive with the angst of fallow bucks croaking their heads off. Scenes from yesterday play over and over in his head: that big buck in a thick patch of trees; the fickle wind; the kangaroos that blew his chances; the stalk that failed to close the gap. The anticipated alarm is an obnoxious reminder that he hasn’t slept well. He struggles in the swag cocoon to find and silence the phone buried by restless sleep. At least he knows that now is the time to get moving. He squirms from the tangle of canvas,…

THERE are those who claim that a medium calibre is best for all-around use and those who insist that only the biggest will do; while a few others insist on using a small calibre. However, the sensible hunter will use a number of rifles in different calibres, each matching the size of the game he is hunting. Realistically, it is hard to justify the use of the average big game rifle and cartridge for use on small game or varmints, while special varmint rifles are a poor choice for even the smallest big game - animals in the goat, pig, fallow deer class. There is also the question of rifle types; carbines being best suited for brush and lignum where ranges are usually short and game is often on the…

WE decided to do one last deer stalk before our lives got in the way of our favourite activity. The morning started well before sunlight on a beautiful still and cool morning. The rut had been and gone but the deer were still about. We arrived at the property, geared up and started the walk uphill just before daybreak. Covering noteven 300m, glassing every 10 metres or so, we spotted one red spiker, grazing away heading toward the thick. We pulled off our packs and set in to glass him for a while. After a few minutes had passed I took my focus off this spiker and glassed the ridge top to see a parade of red stags, spikers to 10 point reds, chest out, heads high strutting toward the…

WHEN we head out in pursuit of game, we are constantly trying to stack the odds in our favour so we have the best chance to be successful. We leave the comfort of our homes to chase game in wild and often unfamiliar surroundings. The animals call the wild home, and each time we enter their zone, we are piecing together what seems to be a never-ending puzzle. The more we make an effort to understand the places we hunt, the greater our understanding of the animals will be. My last column about getting out and about in the warmer months rings true here. If spending days at a time in the heat is difficult in your patch, spend a few hours here and there scouting. Hunting doesn’t always have…

WINNER…

Q Can you tell me if the Model 1895 Lee Navy straight-pull rifle was designed by the same guy who designed the Lee-Enfield? Also, did it use a semi-rimmed case similar to that of the later .220 Swift? – Mick Perry A Yes, James Paris Lee A who designed the action of the Lee-Enfield also designed the 6mm Lee Navy rifle made by Winchester under contract to the U.S Navy. But the Lee wasn’t exactly a straight-pull rifle, but rather a tilt-pull since it had a rectangular bolt that angled upward slightly as the bolt was pulled to the rear. Instead of rotating, lock-up was accomplished by a massive square “locking lug” on the bottom of the rectangular bolt dropping into a recess in the action. I’ve seen it described as…

WHEN I told my NZ hunting mate Donald Bray that I was planning a DIY tahr hunt in the southern alps with my new son-in-law, he asked if this was some sort of “rite of passage” with Aussie hunters. Donald knew that my long-time hunting buddy Anton had already taken his son-in-law on a similar DIY NZ alpine hunt. Google told me that “rite of passage” means a milestone experience which takes a person from one state of existence into another – after which they will never be quite the same. I pondered Donald’s question and concluded that the hunt I was planning with Michael could indeed be regarded as a “rite of passage”. I had previously taken Michael on a couple of less adventurous hunting forays. He’d chased a…

THE Bergara is a basic break-action single-shot that’s offered in a good many popular hunting cartridges from .222 Rem. to .45-70. The calibre line-up in the Scout V2 and Hunter series includes the .300 Blackout, but the BM13 is unusual in that it is the first rifle of any type that I've seen chambered in 9mm Luger. In recent years I've reviewed a number of Bergara single shots in a variety of calibres and this one is not much different. It comes with a 457mm fluted stainless steel barrel fitted with a set of Truglo open sights. The rear sight is adjustable for windage and elevation and features a U-notch flanked with a green dot on each side; the front sight features a bright red dot. The fluted barrel has…

HAVING mild myopia and not getting out very regularly to the bush to hunt, I have failed to highly develop a “game eye”. Throughout the latter part of my life that I have spent seriously hunting, I have owned quite a few binoculars and all have been 10-power. Ranging from the cheaper to the mid-priced end of quite a few brands, including one less common German optic, I was alternately surprised and disappointed and was most disappointed by the German model, which was incidentally the most expensive. Occasionally, I’d look through Tony’s Swarovskis and they seemed to add a level of clarity and brightness I did not think was possible, picking up an extra 15 to 30 minutes of usable light at day’s end, when my own optic had given…

IT IS just as important to to carefully screen new cartridge cases for packing or handling damage. These days most unprimed brass comes in a bulk pack and slightly dented case necks. Case mouths can also be uneven in length and need trimming. Sometimes there are even folds in case shoulders which occurred during manufacture similar to those which result from over-lubing the sizing die. These are all serious defects that need to be corrected before you can begin to reload them. All cases manufactured anywhere in the world for a given calibre conform to precise specifications in external dimensions, but do vary in weight and capacity. If you inspect a batch of new bottle-neck rifle cases you'll probably find some case mouths are severely distorted. So your first operation…