Quietest Suppressor: A-Tec H2 vs HQS Ultimate

It is big but is it clever? 

This one is the opposite to my Oceania Defence stalking suppressor: 160g vs 500g, one chamber vs two, Yeah this is something quite different. 

 

There used to be an advert with the strap line "There's No Substitute for Cubic Inches", and while smaller mods have defiantly gotten more effective its still true. Southside D's Atec H2 was the quietest suppressor I'd heard. I saw the Bulgarian company HQS claiming a 40dB reduction I was curious. 34dB is noticeably quieter than the mods of a few years ago 40dB would really be something.   

First impressions: Its a big old lump at 500g. The only time lightweight is better is when you're carrying the rifle, on target it's the other way around. It's also fatter and longer at 55mm/50mm and 300mm long. 

It’s in two parts. Two distinct separate chambers. 

Internally the design seems to take its lead from the conical chambers of a two stroke exhaust. It looks like the plan is to both slow the expansion by baffles and by diverting the expanding gasses back on themselves, and capturing them in the second chamber where they have to change direction again to escape  . 

Big shout to HQS for keeping the cost of thread adapters responsible, and to Livens for keeping them in stock and posting them out so promptly. 

more soon

your pal 

SBW 

 

 

Unboxing Gunwerks V's GRS Best Of The Bipods

Once upon a time bipods were made by Harris. They were made of steel, weren't too expensive, and they and made horrible D'oinggg noise that announced their and your presence. .Then came the Versapod. which is better, but still agricultural 

 Over the last twenty years Titanium, Aluminium, and Carbon have been tried, and they are up to 20 times the price. Yeah 20 times!! We've entered the era of the £/$/E 1200 bipod. I know, Yikes!!

We're at less than half that with both of these, but neither were in any way cheap. 

There are two scenarios where I want a bipod, and they are so completely different no one bipod can do it all. Low enough to shoot off a bench, or long-legged enough to set up amongst the tussocks of the highlands. Take it out of a Peli case at the firing point, and take it with you for a long walk. 

AKA Don't Care & Do Care how much it weighs. Theres a company who make a really cool looking model, all titanium and carbon, lots of people have them 'just in case' a bit like a Rolex its jewellery sold as a tool. Way too short for hunting any ground more undulating than a pool table.  

                                                        Extra large buttons for wearing gloves

GRS: we know these guys as stock makers from Norway. Having started out in furniture they first made their laminate stocks, then a chassis and a composite version. They've always done a few accessories but not been the best at telling that story. For their bipod they took the best in show Fortmeier and made it better. I've owned a few of the Fortmeier style bipods from different makers and they're fantastically strong and stable. The great thing about Fortmeier is also its achilles heel. They popularised the pendulum or 12 o'clock installation. BUT. At the time of purchase you have to choose whether you're going to mount it 12 o'clock or in the conventional 6 o'clock position. 

GRS stole a march by making theirs user adaptable between the two. Many of the bipod companies offer several different feet, always at exorbitant extra cost. 

GRS made flip-able feet. Skis on one side, spikes on the other. Nice touch guys. For your heavy rifle these are the bipod to beat, you can spend more, but nothing is any better. 

                                                    Tool less attachment to your rifle, twist to clamp. 

Gunwerks: I've tried a few times to buy a really lightweight bipod, and every time I've felt disappointed with the design or build and soon sold them on. There was a company that made their offering from PEEK, and their proud boast was 'it weighs the same as three rounds of .308'. It had a flimsy vibe and was so short it only really worked off the bench. The last missive I remember from the company was that people broke them testing them to see if they were as flimsy as they looked. They were. 

I saw Thomas from the THLR.no channel was using the Gunwerks, and as he has owned even more bipods than me I thought I'd give it a go. 

For the most part they have just put features we've already seen together. Two leg extensions; quarter turn, and notched spring-loaded. You set the tension on the cant in the usual way. Their innovation, and I really like it, is the lever-less twist-lock that attaches the bipod to your picatinny rail. Much neater than a dedicated adapter that needs to be installed by a gunsmith. 

Big shout to The Lone Star Parson who acted as my postie to make this happen.

your pal

SBW 

 

 

Tikka Custom Rifle. 1.0 The Dark Woods Rifle

Having scratched the itch to own a couple of the elegant European stalking rifles, my thoughts turned to the semi-custom lightweights. In the Kiwi style.

I know a very wealthy man, arguably the machinist of his generation, made his money selling ergonomic upgrades to military contracts around the world, and beautify machined parts to the shooting community. He could have any rifle he likes, he shoots Tikka's. The years since the 4,000,000 selling T3 was released have been great for fans of low cost accuracy, with the aftermarket now offering almost as many options as the Remington 700 platform. The ghillies, and cull-teams in Scotland almost always shoot Tikkas, changing them every year or two. So a used action isn't the hardest thing in the world to find.

For reasons, I like rifles in the 6 to 7 millimetre range. Back in the 50's some bright spark necked down a 308 case to make the soft shooting, flatter trajectory, half imperial-half metric 7mm08 AKA the Beatnik-Creedmoor, a .275 Rigby [7x57] for the 20th century. Seemed like a good idea, works well with a short barrel, and will happily punt 150+gr bullets at the biggest Reds and Moose.  

Ed at Edinburgh Rifles saw reason and knocked a lot off the price, I had started out with another excellent brand at 680g , but preferred the pistol grip of the Mesa Precision,  so I swallowed the price hike and extra 70g. 

  

Sterk swept bolt handle. If you've ever had an Anschütz  or an Accuracy International you'll know why

Kalix cheek riser. The shotgun people have a lot to teach us about gun-fit, once upon a time I saw an olympic coach gleefully shouting "where you look it will shoot" he wasn't wrong. 

Spuhr tikka interface mount. Less parts than a rail, more confidence inspiring than Optiloc's.  

Oceania defence mod. The trouble with most super light rifles is the can/moderator/silencer/suppressor moves the centre of balance forward. The total weight you notice across your back dragging a deer across the tussocks or a ploughed field. In your hands its the balance you notice, the cheap solution would be to add weight to the butt like a PRS shooter. Unthinkable in this context. 

This Gat was made for crawling the TAB gear rucksack sling

S&B Polar T96 - the 96 bit is from 96% light transmission. At the beginning and end of the day that 6% is a big difference. I'm sure there will be a chorus of 'bit heavy for a lightweight no?' Peering into those plantations in the failing light it'll seem like a very good idea. I'm in the market for another. 

Saving up for the PROOF barrel. 

Next one will be a Sako in 6XC

More soon

Your pal

SBW. 

 

 

Northern Exposure: A Northern Sweden Gear List 1.0

“The boreal forest stretches out towards the horizon, its farthest reaches swallowed up by icy mists, while hundreds of lakes reflect the sky in vast constellations, glittering like shards of crystal. This is it, I think. All of it. Everything I need, lit by the rising sun. A view no screen could ever replicate. A feeling no city could ever give me. Air that tastes like freedom. A temperature that could kill me, a fragile human extracted from my world of wires.” Dekka Nye

Few months ago, imprisoned in my world of wires, I got a much appreciated message titled 

Capercaillie the Revenge. 

Time to take a look at the hoard. There's a couple of ways to make the lifestyle affordable. Death and Seasonal. My reloading collection was kickstarted by an estate sale, in the summer, when its on sale, I'd started my snow camo collection. 

Baffin Impact Boots You know you've got it right when the people who always lived in the environment say 'Where'd you get those boots? They're fantastic!" 

Baffin boots are cleverly modular, if you did need to wade in very cold water you can; dismantle the boot, wade, shake the water out, reassemble the boot, and continue on your way with dry feet. 

Sealand Bibs/Overalls The value range of the overpriced Harklia brand. I've got a beef with them over their penny-pinching ruining what would be the most fantastic gaiters. Putting that to one side I'd say Sealand do represent better quality than most. at a price that less offensive than some.  

Varusteleka of Finland  Our friend Uncle Fedster and Gun Jesus (of Forgotten Weapons) have turned my attention Finn-wards. Varusteleka make gear for people who play for keeps up there in the Boreal forrest. Not cheap, but arguably considerably better value than the lifestyle outdoor brands.   

Patagonia Black Hole An overpriced bag with clever straps. With Patagonia you've just got to keep telling yourself you're contributing to all the great stuff the organisation does. Every other rucksack and duffle bag I've ever had has had the straps orientated pull down to tighten, for this one Patagonia have made them Pull-Up. ladies and gentlemen, lovely people, children of all ages, we have arrived at the elusive obvious. Ergonomic be thy name. So far its survived two rounds of Sweden, and two rounds of Italy, the only notable wear has been inflicted by Mrs SBW's dog. Let's see how long it lasts. 

Ikea seal top bags  Coals to Newcastle, sand to the desert, ice to an Eskimo I know. A big part of the modern hunter-gatherer lifestyle is collecting jars, Tupperware, and the endless search for really viable food storage. Every bag the UK supermarkets sell is complete crap, these are completely excellent. They are the best thing Ikea sells, [even better than Diam bar cake]. I always have one or two in my stalking coat for livers, hearts, and kidneys.

The Wooly Pulley Last year I'd posted on a forum asking about hunting in the cold place. One response resonated with me. 

'I'd spent all kinds on money on branded cold weather gear, I was freezing my tits off, so I copied the locals. Bought a massive wool sweater and was fine from that day on.' 

Best thing about the wool sweater is they enable you to manage your temperature like nothing else. Combined with a hardshell, if you open the hardshell they let wind whistle through cooling you down in a second, do the shell up again and you rebuild temperature really quickly. So much better than any fleece I've ever had which always seem to trap some condensation. Bloody heavy, but bloody warm. Sometimes the sacrifice of a few hundred grams is worth it. These guys manufacture for the famous brand that Shackleton wore and at 2/3 of the price are a serious bargain. Not often the best is also the cheapest. 

Good to have someting to read 

Which you can read HERE

 

more soon

your pal 

SBW

Westlake Muzzle Loading Revolver Redux

 

I thought I was out, they brought me back in 

Its worth prefacing this story by telling you I didn't start shooting until a long time after the pistol ban, so part from some youthful plinking with cheap air pistols my experience was entirely limited to a trip to Northern Ireland to shoot, Taurus, Glock, and Berreta one afternoon.

When the pistol ban came in there was an exemption for Muzzle Loading Pistols - like Flintlocks and the Ruger Old Army.

Alan Westlake - former head of the UK Army pistol team read the legislation and realised the letter, and the intent of the legislation had a sizeable gap between them. Some say he drove a coach and horses though that gap, some people call him a genius. You can read a history of his battles with the government here 

Its not legal to convert a gun into another form. You cant get a semi-auto and modify it to a single shot, you cant make a fully functional revolver into a flintlock. 

His early efforts were single shot target pistols, then came his first revolver the Taurus and then theArmscor which was made in the Philippines, they are pretty crude with each cylinder hand fitted to each gun. Things really got going when he teamed up with Alfa-Proj a division of CZ.

By ordering an unfinished pistol; frame, trigger, grips - but no load-bearing parts he could import the pistols, fit them with a cylinder and hammer of his own devising, send them to proof as a brand new Muzzle Loading Pistol. Having the cylinders made on a CNC massively increased reliability and compatibility.  

From the first day I stumbled upon his website I really longed for one, they're the nearest thing to a modern revolver you can have on your regular UK licence. I had the 4" version. 

But enough history what's it really like owning one? Our time together wasn't without episode.

Mine came with two sets of grips, the wooden and the plastic. The plastic look way cool, but I never got on with them, the foresight is rubbish, a replacement is £12. 

They are pretty fussy about which wadcutters you feed them on. I had a stash of unbranded bullets it loved, the Hornady are pretty good, Westlake's own bullets are awful and come massively over sized. several times they had to be drilled out. ALWAYS RESIZE TO .356. 

I know a very nice man who has two Westies, both with aftermarket springs which transform the double action, after the end snapped off my spring I tired one. The first two trigger pulls were sublime. It never worked again. I couldn't for the life of me get the factory replacement to work. I gave the pistol to a gunsmith who made it work like a slippery thing, slipping into a slippery place. I got the impression the job had been quite frustrating because as he handed it back to me he said "Sell it, I'm not fixing it again"

I did. Just to rub salt into the wound, the man I sold it to still rings me up to thank me, and tell me about the competitions he's won shooting it. 

But you know how it is. The Itch. 

If I ever attend the small bore events I always find myself in the next lane to someone basting away with their Westie, with its flawless reliability putting a massive grin across their face. 

The Itch. 

This time its a 6" [yep they write themselves] having entered the age group where your children will refer to you as a Spawny-Eyed-Wuzzock I thought I'd thumb my nose at convention, and the captain of my club's MLP team and fit a Red Dot. 

There's a lively community of 3D print aficionados making loaders for the Westie, and one of them published an STL that makes the interface. At some point I'll have it machined in Aluminium 

A lube-re-sizer, either the Lyman or the RCBS is a great idea. Both sell heater units at ridicules prices and with poor availability, I ordered a heat mat from China for £5. 

Lee make a sizing die which is a must have.  The alternative is to relive  your cylinder(s) which is a lot more work, and then they need to be re submitted to proof. The Lee die is sub £40. 

Let's see how I get on with this one?

Your pal

SBW.

 

Capercaillie The Revenge Toppjakt 26

TLDR: if you’re hoping for victorious whooping as we roast a grouse the size of a turkey under a starry sky. Ya fresh out o' luck. As were we.

My welcome home

Mrs SBW: You went all that way and shot nothing haw-haw I’m on team Capoer-what’s-it. I’m glad. 

But that all came later. First. Some housekeeping. 

Last year’s report needs a tad more to complete it. Having heard two versions of events I've pieced this, third, perhaps more factual third version together.

When I arrived back at the house Mrs SBW ran down the stairs to greet me shouting "You're alive!" 

Apparently she'd convinced herself I'd died in the Sub Arctic and had rung the ACL [Ambulance Chasing Lawyer or as he would have it Deerstalking's Robin Hood] for moral support.

Mrs SBW 

“he’s not answering his phone, he went to meet his internet friends in the sub-arctic, I don't even know their names, and now his phone's been dead for days. do you think he’s dead ?”

The ACL 

“He does stuff like that all the time, he did say I could have his black target rifle, it's scope, and his green binoculars if….."
Mrs SBW "Shut up!"

There is also a rumour that he offered her £50 for my reloading bench and all the 'junk' on it.

Another landscape where Capercaillie have been. Possibly recently. Defiantly not now.

This year the chaps are very excited about the weather,

Dan "we've already had more snow than we had the whole of last year!" 

Before last year I'd never heard people complain that it wasn't cold enough. Where I'm from when it gets to zero people lose their minds. It gets cold [-10c] in the Cairngorms where we stalk Reds,  but not for long, sub-zero is a twenty year event in the south east. 

 

Fred Bear's 10th commandment. 

 "Next year’s hunt begins the minute this season’s hunt ends." 

This is both fantastic advice, and the way you go from; Coat, Boots, Rifle, Binoculars, Knife aestheticism to posting pictures called 'My Gear Room' on Instagram.  

The northern exposure lifestyle means you need different clothes, in the highlands it's always about keeping dry from the outside, and warm. In the sub Arctic it becomes keeping dry from the inside and cool. 

I'm in love with the whole idea of pristine north so, inevitably,  I've started  a new collection of white snow camo and, you know how it is, what isn't a prompt for another rifle?

I commissioned a special 'snow rifle' a 6XC which I've built entirely out of traded parts.  It's the antidote to my much loved Money Pit. A recession-ista special, vigorous trading means I've not spent any actual money on it.  Although as is so often the way with 'bargains' I still don't actually have it. 

I've been buying reduced, remaindered, and secondhand snow camo where ever I can. I've not had the best time with the post, shipping stuff from the US has become a real pain and the European mainland not much better. Some stuff never arrived. June is a good month to buy cold weather gear. 

Following advice from Luke of The Outdoor Boys, I've bought the largest pair of boots I've ever seen.  

Baffin boots are one of the few things in this life that are exactly as awesome as people say they are. Go half size up. Absolutely perfect for standing on the ice for prolonged periods.  Even at full whack I'd say Baffin boots are a serious bargain. I'll do an in-depth review later as they have a couple of clever design tweaks that really set them apart. They also fit neatly into the category of comedy footwear - my bag is 100l, they probably amount to 40l so I had to wear them on the plane. Where they nearly fit under the seat. 

I set off for the pristine north.
It's two flights that don’t match up, so once again I’m camping in Stockholm airport for an age, In between: mocking strangers, giving trite advice [you're an adult act like it - go to stand up school until you've forgotten how to be nervous - you don't need a car buy a Zero Compromise Optic], and having pointless arguments on Facebook I do a little people watching.

Swedish men have a comfort, a utility even, with the backwards trucker cap that's always eluded the English. They start about two years old, and do it right into their late 60's. While we're on trucker caps. In southern Sweden that whole pastel pink-short arms-sportswear-Paris-Hilton look from 20 years ago is either back, or has never gone away. It's not improved with age. The lady's team rock it into their 60's too.

It's late by the time I'm in northern Sweden. Jon picks me up and we drive the tree-lined roads to his house. A few drinks and what passes for an early night.

Kids in Northern Sweden get up a lot earlier than mine ever did.  I'm a curiosity to them. Jon's children are convinced I'm Scottish, the complexity of explaining that I'm not to the under ten's eludes me. They are delighted with this year's hoard of chocolates. While Jon plays the game that all adventures seem to begin with, finding-my-shit. We play play-dough dinosaurs and eat thinly sliced cheese. 

One more synapes rattling coffee and we're off. With Dan collected, we start scrying and looking for omens: temperature, the texture of snow, the proximity of trees, recent weather, wind direction, a black cat seen three weeks ago. 

For a while almost every tree is a roost for Black Grouse. Capercaillie chow down on Spruce, and Moose loiter by the road side. The stars have aligned! Last year's pessimism is a thing of the past. 

This is THE year!

Dan: I've bought 'some' bullets 

This year we're living in Jon's village house, it's all very civilised. Dan has passed his exam, been granted his hunting and firearm licences and been on a spending spree.

His longed for Mauser disappeared down a waiting list and he'd been offered a Steel Action. a fairly new straight pull company from Cologne. I'd only seen one before. So I was intrigued to punt a few down range and see what they shoot like. 

If straight pulls are a continuum; with Heym the simplest at one end, then Blaser, then Merkel the most complex. Steel Action are between Heym and Blaser. It's a true straight pull, unlike Merkel no gearing, or second plane of movement like Blaser. Cycling the bolt is not as quiet as the Heym, not as noisy as Blaser. Not as many moving parts as Merkel, but with a rotating bolt head. Very nicely made. Like the others, it has the German de-cocking safety which is obviously better than the blocked firing pin designs.  

I’m very impressed action is smooth and less annoying than the slide and crank of a blaser. The trigger is a joy. Going to have to mark the design down on the stock design, if that adjustable cheek piece was 25mm further back you could take the bolt out without removing it. Given the Swedish rule about bolt out when in the car that’s an oversight.   

Every target has something to teach you. Clearly the rifle shoots groups, but also clearly, the groups are in different places. Unlikely to be the action screws, [a mistake I have made more than once], moderator seems good and tight, and the dispersal is too uniform for that. On cursory inspection the cap of the windage turret could be a bit more vertical.  At some point we really should name and shame the gun shop that set Dan's rifle up for him. Apparently they even had a jig, but still were lazy enough to say 'close enough' and hand the rifle over.  After dinner we set to with a plumb-bob and the shameful realisation that none of us thought to bring a torque wrench - long term readers will know that I of all people should know better. 

Dan: ski ramp cheese is a serious crime here. 
Jon: We'll let this one pass, but if my wife was here. [sharp intake of breath] 
SBW: I didn’t know you’d gotten married? 
Jon: Not yet. I bought a new rifle. She bought a ring and gave it to me to give to her. I had terrible back ache so I was begging her to say yes when I was kneeling down.

Sako S20 unloved on both sides of the North Sea. 
a cool looking rifle, if you like the thumbhole stock laser-blaster rifles. Where they get off asking a premium over the cost of a Tikka I don't know. It's not significantly better, in fact it's not better at all. I've seen the carbon version of this one in a posh London gunshop for five and a half large. Stock to metal fit wasn't all that. Considering that I built my carbon stocked Tikka for not much more than a grand and thought I'd over spent....

SBW: [a little surprised he sold his 6.5 Creed Tikka] Hey I've seen these, but never shot one, how have you found it? 
Jon: I hate everything about it. It rusts, the bullets bird nest, I hate it. 
SBW: I know a man who has a gun shop in Scotland who really sneers at them. 
Jon: The man in my gun shop refused to take it in part ex. 

One and Done, 200m Jon declares his rifle sighted in. 

  
I''ve managed to convince that sage of the prairie, the blogger known as The Mallard of Discontent to put WhatsApp on his dog n bone. We've taken to sending each other updates. 

SBW: Hey man doing some Arctic Warfare Cosplay
MOD: Dude! Where are you? And are there Scandinavian babes there?
SBW: About 200km south of the arctic circle, trying and failing to shoot capercaillie. And no, Wifey says the MILF hunting season has closed.

Fred Bear's 5th commandment . 

Take only the gear to the field that allows you to hunt longer, harder, smarter. 

From Dan's shopping spree, the Vorn rifle scabbard. The pack has side entry so the rifle can be carried butt down/barrel up. I've met a few people who have them over the years. There’s a 'sandwiches' size which we can discount, as a complete waste of time, this size has room for your jacket which feels minimum bid to me. The older I get the more I want zero weight on my shoulders, which Vorn haven't prioritised, but if its only a lightweight stalking rifle and a jacket I'd tolerate it. To me the butt-down orientation Vorn choose has to be loads better, I had a barrel-down rig at Midnight Sun Rifle Challenge and with most of the mass between your shoulders, and the chance of your silencer banging into things, it wasn't great.

The Vorn USP is this cunning quick release system which people tell me is 100% reliable. Of the scabbard systems it's certainly the most innovative. On my yet-to-arrive Ski-Rifle I'm experimenting with a biathlon sling I ordered from TAD. Jury's out.  

“Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go." Anthony Bourdain 

Where ever you go the food is a track left by environment, in the arid lands of Spain there's no shortage of  stale bread. So they have lots of recipes with stale bread. In Jamaica there's plenty of slow burning Hardwoods, so like Ireland where Peat was the fuel, low & slow stews are the tradition. Sweden has Tjälknöl a lump of frozen moose sliced and cooked without thawing then brined. A more recent Swedish tradition is Brown Sauce, the key ingredient is Mrs Cheng's Mushroom Soy Sauce which is literally the most delicious thing you can shake out of a bottle.  

Reduced cream, fried onions, mushrooms, mushroom soy and if you have it, a little whiskey. 

Seriously you could eat cardboard with this stuff. 

Jon refuses my attempts to cook dinner "My wife went to culinary school, no one could ever be good enough to cook in her kitchen, I'm not allowed." He casually knocks up a fantastic dinner, moose in mushroom sauce, with some of the smoothest mash potatoes. 

Right, enough target shooting, we're getting up early a skiing until we find some birds!! Skhol!!

My XC skiing is going far, far better than expected. Jon is doing the hard bit cutting a trail, Dan and I are taking it in turns to shuffle along in his wake. I'm finally having that glorious moment where I've stopped 'skiing' and I'm just, "skiing". 

Fred Bear's 9th commandment . 

Hunt where the deer actually are, not where you’d imagine them to be. 

We've stopped to glass the trees that line a frozen swamp. Not a sausage, lots of suspicious blobs, dark patches in the trees, but nothing with a pulse. 

Dan; How many brown dots have you seen?

SBW: A few

Dan: I'm at 300.

Dan: and One

The portal to hell

Fred Bear's 1st commandment. 

Don’t step on anything you can step over. 

We set off across the swamp. Passing a little island there's a gully. Jon demonstrates how to turn sideways and go down and up the other side. I follow. 

Suddenly I'm having that Wiley Coyote moment where there isn't any ground beneath my skis, More by luck than judgement I fall on to my side. I'm over my head in the deep soft stuff with my skis bird's nesting down a hole. 

I cant get up. I can't move my feet to get a better purchase, or get my feet out of the gully. My crossed ski's are under an overhang of ice. Which very probably means I'm lying on the other overhang of ice. 

We have an expression in the south of England "Fuck My Luck".

Obviously I'm at the edge on the known-world here, I don't know how to get out of this one, I can hear but not see Dan coming to my aid from behind.  The look that Jon gives Dan clearly says 'don't come any closer the whole thing will collapse'. 

I don't know if things are about to get worse before they get better.

If, problems occur, and they will, so its when problems occur. The most important thing is not to freak out, a close second is to come up with something to brighten the mood, to put both victim and rescuer at their ease. I've been both and it always helps.  The best I can do, when Jon, using his concerned voice, asking if I'm alright, is to channel my father, a man only slightly less droll than Robert Smith of The Cure

SBW: It wouldn't have been my first choice, very cold water has entered my shoe. 

Jon affects a rescue by bridging the collapsed snow bridge with his skis, kneeling on them, un-clipping me from mine. While I'm rolling about in the meter deep snow like a divorced walrus trying to get up, and praying to norse gods the ground doesn't give way. He tries to rescue my skis which are now at the bottom of the creek full of icy water. The water is too deep to reach to the bottom so he recovers my skis using ski poles, from what looks to be about a meter of icy water. Whole thing could easily have been a lot worse.  

Jon is Mr Bring 'Em Back Alive. 

Back on our skis with one boot full of warming water we make a good pace across the swamp. The frozen north is obviously not like the equator where the sun switches off like a light, its more gradual but the reflected light from the snow makes the end of the day seem longer than it is. Its starting to darken when Jon, to my and Dan's relief suggests that we stop at a shelter and ski's off into the gloaming to pick the snowmobile up. 

We ski over to a really solid little hut with a barbecue pit and take a breather. The hut is equipped with an axe and some matches to save your life if you did have to spend an unexpected night in it. 

In England the axe would have either, been banned on health and Safety grounds, or stolen, and Herberts would have used the matches to burn the cabin to the ground. 

I still have a lot to learn. This is us trying to walk back to the snowmobile without our skis. Doh!

We snowmobile back to the house. Only falling off twice.  

It's time to pack up and head for home. But first one more mythical Swedish beast must be encountered 
Hawaiian Banana Pizza. Yes I did say that, Banana Pizza. In a word 'Odd'. Or perhaps "Troubling"? Apparently it's considered a delicacy and is very popular. 

Banana on toast, with cheese, ham and a touch of curry sauce - tastes exactly as you're imagining 

Donner Kebab pizza, so sleazy, and yet suddenly it seems so innocent I suppose it's just a flat bread served unfolded?

The clash of the mash
Despite his being a couple of decades younger than me, there are certain similarities between Jon and myself. For instance we both believe that mashed potato should be creamy and that we are pretty good at making it that way. 

We also both have women in our lives who are horrified that potatoes should be served that way and are vociferous in their condemnation. 

We've not been in the house long before Mrs Jon breezes in. We're just hanging out, talking about cheese when Jon casually mentions how well the previous nights meal had been received. Mrs Jon gives him a look which makes it clear he should have been supervised

You can see he's lost this one, behind his eyes part of his soul is waving a white flag, but his brain hasn't got the message. So he, probably foolishly, produces a Tupperware of his frankly delicious mash from the night before. With the glee of a forensic pathologist unmasking a serial killer, she prods dismissively at his mash, 'you’ve made wallpaper paste' She mimes spreading paste on the wall. 

Jon: But But I ....

Mrs Jon: NO! It must be fluffy

She produces her own tub of mash from the fridge......

Rounds fired - gotta be a couple of hundred. Falls from skis zero! Falls from snow mobile 3 (as passenger). Capercaillie none. Amazing stews 1, Weird pizzas 2. Excellent mashed potato 2. 

On the way home we run into Jon's FIL "Don't worry I got 5 in the 35 years I hunted them for, you've got plenty of time". 

Maybe I should have quipped that I've been through them at a similar rate?

Next up adventures in 6XC

Your pal

SBW

Blood In The Snow.

 

Been a while since I've seen someone making films like this, the music is a vast improvement 

Shotgun Shenanigans Pt.2 Buying and Restoring a 40 Year Old Browning Citori

My Browning Citron, or 525 as they are called in Europe, dates back to 1982 Ive had it for a few years, it was a farmers Goose gun in Scotland before I had it, and although things have worked out pretty well this is another example of 'Do as SBW says, to avoid having to do as SBW has done’. 

I'll explain 

There is only three things that matter when buying a shotgun: it's not fancy wood, high tech coatings, or mysterious voodoo forcing cones. 

Does it fit? Does it fit? and Does it fit?

Length of pull, balance, and check weld are the whole deal. So only an idiot would buy one sight-unseen 

off the internet. 

I paid the farmer and he shipped it to my local gunshop, the owner was a bit sniffy about it as he had several gats for not much more, but I liked swing of its 28' tubes. Did some walked-up with it, shot a massive Hare. Took it to the clay ground and hit a few more than my usual dismal efforts and was well pleased. I kind of own a shot gun because you're supposed to, for the first few years I shot it not a lot and there was no decreeable improvement. Gamekeeping with the BambiBasher it amounted for a few squirrels.  

Regular readers will know from an earlier edition of Shotgun Shenanigans I got Super Plumber started and he became very well versed and very enthusiastic very quickly. So the Citori saw a lot more daylight.

Having an adjustable cheek piece retro-fitted more than doubled the money I'd spent on the gun. A few minutes peering across the kitchen at Super Plumber revealed that I'd been looking down the right hand side of the barrels the whole time. A bit of Up and a lot of Cast later I was in a better place. A few more flying ashtrays met their demise. It gets better. 

20 something years ago I went on a stag-do and at an outdoor centre we did some shotgun shooting. I was absolute murder on Rabbits [the clays that bounce along the ground] the tutor advised me to take up clay shooting and specialise in rabbits. For the next 20 years I'd been completely dismal at rabbits, I have probably hit less across the years than I did that day. Not any more! 

"You're breaking them for fun" Super Plumber 

Conventional wisdom has it that your gun-fit cannot and will not be calculated until your Mount is sorted. 

I'm unconvinced. My mount became obvious only as soon as my head was in the right place, the two are so interrelated, its as though you need to choose your gun in a shop, with a helpful and experienced shotgun shot helping you to see what would be obvious, but won't be,  until you've been shooting for a while. 

 Back in the mists of time, or 40 odd years ago there was a peculiar fashion for coating even nice pieces of wood in a thick layer of polyurethane varnish. It doesn't  look good and when it scratches it leaves white disfiguring marks all over the gun. Fortunately  even fairly stale Nitromors will dissolve it. The recoil pad wasn't original and had lost all of its give, so it was removed with extreme prejudice too.

Much sanding with wire wool later the Citori's true colours were showing through. I couldn't tell you which solvent finally cleared out the chequeing - I used several, a toothbrush and my thumbnail. 

Eleven coats of x High Speed Oil  later [I don't know what high-speed means either] at least I now  know how I would do it differently next time, and it looks OK. Which is a metric shit-ton better than its looked in decades. One side borders on exhibition grade, the other is firewood adjacent. 

                               

How much money I've actually saved is open to debate, if both sides were WOW a lot, if both sides were firewood probably not that much. Having learned what I've leaned.  I'd buy an older gun, with an adjustable cheek piece, from a specialist and pay whatever they asked for gun fitting. 

In the year since I've made it fit I've shot exactly three thousand cartridges more than any year before. It's been a lot of fun.  Super Plumber keeps extolling the virtues of a set of fancy chokes, I'll probably buy a thousand carts instead. 

If only I could find those two screws that hold the trigger guard in place 

Happy new year people 

Your pal 

SBW

 

 

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