Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2026 i Sporting Shooter

FIREARM development always fascinates me and often surprises me. I’d long been aware of Lefaucheux’s development of pin-fire cartridges with a metallic base (see the story on page 68 of this issue) but it has only now occurred to me that this crucial invention is nearly 200 years old. That’s a very long time ago! In my mind, that’s still the flintlock era, albeit with percussion caps coming rapidly into vogue. The British army still issued flintlocks for years after Lefaucheux’s invention. We’re certainly on the cusp of another era in firearm design right now, sliding smoothly into the electronic age, and I wonder how long it will be before just about every shot we take is electronically assisted in multiple ways, from aiming to firing to maybe even bullet…

SOME rifles sell themselves on gloss and hype. Others, like the Sako 90 Peak, are built with a clear purpose and no need for noise. I’ve been involved in rifles and hunting long enough to know the difference. Overbuilt rifles are a pain to carry. Under-built ones fall short when it matters, and no hunter wants to carry something unreliable into the bush. The Peak sits at the top end of Sako’s hunting rifle lineup in performance and price, positioned as its premier ultralight mountain rifle. In Australia, the 90 Peak typically retails between $6200 and $6800, depending on chambering and retailer, putting it well above the more traditional Sako 90 Hunter at around $3500, and clear of the Sako 90 Adventure and Varmint models, which are around the $3700 to…

THE Warthog V-Sharp A4 will keep blades in a perpetual state of maximum sharpness, it’ll touch them up as required and it will sharpen them if they go dull — and it’ll do this even if you’ve never been able to keep an edge on a knife with anything else. Its effortless efficiency beats the hell out of stones of all kinds and it has numerous advantages over the common V-type contraptions, nor is it as hard on blades as electric sharpeners. It’s a lot easier than struggling to keep the right angle on a stone, and the slicing motion you use to run the knife through it is entirely natural, in contrast to many systems that use a guided stone. In my hands — which admittedly are not those of…

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BOY, IT WAS good to be back! I was on the same property I’d hunted three years ago, out near Charters Towers, and we were seeing some good animals as we went on a recce late on the first afternoon. I hadn’t seen chital up close for a long time so they all looked pretty good to me! A FEW of them looked like 28” or 29” which was pretty impressive, but they weren’t an upgrade from my last trophy from here, a wonderful 30” x 29” rounded-antler chital. I was looking for an upgrade. Not the 29-inchers my guide called the one percenters, but the 0.1 percenters that to go 30” or more. Spoiler alert: I didn’t get one but gee the hunt was worth it! It ended up being an…

SOMEWHERE around 1830, when muzzle loaders were de rigueur, a Parisian gunsmith named Casimir Lefaucheux began experimenting with a breech-loading shotgun. The ammunition he produced for it in 1835 would expand and form a gas seal at the instant of firing. To a large degree, the Lefaucheux cartridge was a modern shotgun shell, with powder, wads and shot housed in a roll-crimped paper case, but its main innovation was a metal pin protruding from the brass case head. When hit by the gun’s hammer, this pin struck a percussion cap set inside the case head to ignite the main charge, much like a modern firing pin strikes a primer. This cartridge was the critical development in producing the ammunition that has sustained shooting to this day, nearly 200 years later.…

PRECONCEIVED ideas are often altered or even shattered when the preconceiver gets relevant hands-on experience. This, I regret to say, rapidly dawned upon me as I started to put Mick’s Lithgow LA102 to a limited test run over a few months. During several ANZAC Rifle Range sessions, it required forethought to squeeze realistic tests from unforgiving range restrictions. Having lost quite a bit of upper body mass post heart attack, even slightly heavy rifles are onerous for me to carry and handle in field positions. Consequently, I now prefer most of my rifles to be on the lighter and shorter side. Yet despite weighing 4.0kg bare, Mick’s .204 changed my mind. I’d never really been one to lie down and snipe small furry or feathered things, because I’d only ever…

PART of pursuing excellence in hunting — or any passion, for that matter — is doing the hard yards to develop and refine skills, to enjoy what we do. For some skills, this might mean doing a bit of work early, and minimal maintenance for the rest of our lives. For others, it may require constant monitoring and a never-ending feeling of taking one step forward and two steps back. My constant love/hate relationship with traditional archery is just that. Over the past few years, I’ve managed to become reasonably proficient with a traditional bow, only to get complacent shortly afterwards. Significant mental energy and time are required to get to a level where I can shoot and hunt with confidence. Once I achieve that, I take a break and look…

Accessory trigger for the Arisaka Q I own a Japanese Arisaka Model 38 rifle in good condition that I use for military rifle shooting. It works just fine and shoots accurately, but the trigger is terrible. Do you know of anyone who makes a cock-on-opening kit with adjustable trigger for this rifle? John Wright A I have seen kits of this type for a number of ex-military cock-on-closing rifles, but to my knowledge no one has produced one for the Arisaka. The location of the sear in relation to the bolt components would make this change mechanically difficult, and this may be the reason. The first stainless steel barrels Q Can you tell me who first fitted stainless-steel barrels to their guns and when it first happened? Bill Boyd A High-chrome…

YOU’RE looking at the full range of the new Burris Fullfield rifle scopes, from the tiny 2-8x35 up to the 6-24x50. It’s the first time I’ve had a full range of scopes to test at the same time, which not only gives us a chance to look at their performance but also to consider how they relate to each other and the different uses you might put each one to. Burris has been building Fullfield rifle scopes since 1975, and to celebrate their 50th anniversary they released these fifth-generation models. Fullfield design has continued to evolve over half a century but there’s one thing that has not kept pace: the price, which has seemingly lagged behind, so much so that even the 6-24x50 model costs only $699. So they’re cheap…

SO muzzle brakes are loud, are they? Don’t believe everything you hear. This new shrouded muzzle brake, or compensator, from Australia’s Grizzly Precision Products, actually reduces muzzle blast while also reducing recoil. The concept is simple: take a standard radial muzzle brake and screw on a shroud to deflect the blast forward. A regular muzzle brake works by directing much of the muzzle blast sideways, reducing the amount of blast going straight out of the barrel and, as a result, reducing the recoil. The unfortunate side effect is that a lot of the redirected blast hits you in the ears — and it’s often unbearable. It’s also no good for anyone around you, which is one reason brakes are shunned on the range and unpopular when you’re hunting with mates.…

AS I get older, I appreciate the simple things in life more and more — the quiet of the bush, the smell of gidgee trees after rain. With a bit more time on my hands, I’ve traded the rabbit traps and .22 Lithgow of youth for a bigger challenge. Gone are the days of wandering the hills around Eccleston in the Hunter Valley, shooting and trapping rabbits. Now, my sights are set on more destructive game — feral pigs and wild dogs. These animals cost livestock producers millions every year, and most outback councils will pay a bounty for the scalp of a wild dog or feral cat. So when the call comes in from one of my rural contacts, asking if I want to come out and cull a…

Leupold BX-4 Gen 2 Pro Guide HD The BX-4 Gen 2 Pro Guide HD binoculars are engineered for serious field use, delivering crisp optics and a durable chassis that stands up to rough days in the bush. High-definition glass and optimised coatings produce bright, contrast-rich images with accurate colour rendition from dawn through dusk, while a wide field of view makes target acquisition fast and natural. The body combines a rugged, weather-sealed housing with tactile, lockable focus and dioptre controls so adjustments stay put when the terrain gets rough. Light enough to carry all day yet solid in the hands, the Gen 2 Pro Guides balance portability with a reassuringly sturdy feel. Whether glassing for game at long range or scanning ridgelines for movement, these HDs deliver reliable clarity and…

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NOW if you are a hardcore skeet or trap competitor you may find this review triggering, as it is all about fun, fun, fun! In what may be the biggest innovation since clay targets replaced live birds in 1880, Caldwell has changed the game and got backyard (or back paddock) shotgun shooters like me chasing a whole new target and hardly able to wipe the grins off our faces. The ClayCopter is a new clay thrower, a rechargeable battery-powered handheld launcher that spins out propellor-like clay targets at up to 15,000rpm so that they’ll fly as far as 100 metres. The clays are completely different from anything before. They are an open bladed design, and they actually dance in the air as they travel away from you, creating a very…

MY youngest son Bill and I have achieved a long-held ambition: shooting over 100 pigs on a single trip — 121 to be precise. My sons and I had talked about a “hundred pig trip” for a long, long time. What things contributed to such a successful outcome? Less than a month earlier, we’d hunted a normally productive pig property less than 150km from this one and shot only one pig. What was the difference? Go where the pigs are Obviously, the first step is to have access to a property in reliable pig country. The population of pigs will vary from year to year but, in good pig country, I believe the main determining factor of how many pigs you will shoot is the prevailing conditions, not the absolute…