Invasive Deer Sika A First Attempt.

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

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

"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