On scoping again

Well, I thought I had understood it - I hadn't. Today I think I finally got a clue. My score improving by 30 points would seem to be an indicator.

Here is what I learned:

Find the spot in the distance from the scope where you have a clear picture. No back rim of haze around the image, plain clear image. This is more straightforward than one thinks. Where I fell down is that I did not realize that if one goes too far forward things will start to haze up again. I used to keep a bit of a haze around the image because I thought that allowed me to keep things centred. Well, it didn't. keep a clear image in the scope. If it is too dull, go back, if it has rims, go forward.

I should now be able to, with a bit more practice, reliably shoot and 8 or higher. at 50m that is a 1" circle, good enough for shooting bunnies as I am told. Also I am a bit shocked. German hunters claim that 'a beermat with 3 shots at 100m' is good enough. I'd prefer the 1€ coin, thanks a lot. After all we want to reliably kill.

Experiences with my Savage

I received my Savage in June. I absolutely love it. I shoot better with it than with the club's benchrest rifles. I have not used it much, mostly because the extractor doesn't work, which results in pulling 90% of cartridges fired from the barrel with a screwdriver. I have a kit sitting at home to replace that and then we will see.

I am told that that is a not uncommon problem with Savage. I am willing to accept that for the overall precision, unbeatable trigger.

I have not yet bought a moderator as I don't have a hunting opportunity yet.

more thoughts on the rifle

I am really beginning to think that I will be a Savage man (as opposed to a savage man). I like the ideas, the price, the reputed accuracy. And the Accutrigger. So when I get a full size rifle I am thinking a stainless steel action, left hand thumb hole stock, target or varmint trigger and in one of the endless selection of 338 cartridges. Have Steve Bowers install one of his over the barrel moderators and be done with it. That mod is probably going to cost more than the whole rifle, but ah well.

As for cartridges another one has joined the option list, which is the 338-284 again possibly as AI. I have not yet found cartridge data for my version of QL, so my usual data cemetery will haver to wait a bit.

1st moves

Ok, I have become a member of a rifle and shooting club and thus fulfill the necessary requirement to procure a gun. I have had a look around for gunsafes and will talk to the landlady about putting one up. I know which gun I want and will soon put down a down payment on one. A freind of mine who owns land has agreed to sign for me that I can shoot on his land. Things are coming together ... Rabbits here I come!

I will go with the Savage mentioned further down with a moderator and work on getting the licence for hares as well. That should prove entertaining, since it may well be the first licence in the state that says that. I hope my super can be talked to. I have contact persons I can name for him to ring ...

Time for a rant

OK, there is a German term "Waidgerechtigkeit" which is nearly impossible to translate, but encompasses doing things so that one's prey animals don't suffer needlessly and in general be humane and fair about one's sport. It has taken on a major flavour of tradition and "the way one does things".

The problem is now that this tradition of course will get in the way of progress, even if that progress might improve the chances for a humane kill. A couple of days ago I read on the German hunting forum on which I hang out two comments from the same experienced hunter:

• He would never let anybody hunt on his hunt who used a rifle with a thumbhole stock. When questioned why he said "because this shows a mindset of wanting to push the envelope and trying to do things that are not good for the prey" - basically I think he meant wanting to shoot too far.
  
• He said that he had never been on a shooting range since he took his hunting exam in 1973!

So let me get this straight mate. Not only do you not practice, you also refuse to allow others to use things that increases their chance for a good kill? And that is "waidgerecht" how ?!?! I honestly cannot believe this. In a lot of other areas the man talks sense but the bigottry displayed here is beyond belief.

Powders

I have been remiss in my updates

I have done a lot of thinking about shtuff and I am getting clearer on what I want.

This first update will deal with powders. Reloading is not legal in Ireland, and the new firearms law has provisions that make the import of guns and ammunition impossible for a private indivudual, it has to be done by a licensed firearms dealer. But: This part of the law has been passed but not yet scheduled andI am having my doubts that it ever will. It would be just like the Irish to react to the public's comments by not scheduling part of a law that was passed. An example I can think of is the German law on cheques which has crossed cheques but those 2 paragraphs never got scheduled. So for the time being I will assume that one can import one's own ammunition. If that changes I'll have to talk to a dealer.

Why is that important? oh, sorry forgot to mention that. KJG is mostly a reloaders bullet, the is no mainstream manufactured ammo with it. And as it happens the guy we are moving next door to in Sweden is a reloader, so I'll be able to work with him.

So from what I can see from Quickload is that one gets the best results from dual base ball powders like the Winchester W748 or Hogdon BL-C2. These are prone to creating big fireballs since the nitroglyicerin contained in them leaves spare hydrogen when burning which of course will burn when in contact with air, ie. after leaving the muzzle. So for hunting at night (boar) this would be unuseful. At the moment I am trying to find out what the story is with moderators swallowing that fireball. i know they can swallow the fireball from not 100% combustion in the barrel, the question is quite simply how big the fireball from the hydrogen is ...

I'll report back when i know this.

Interesting reading on internal ballistics

I have been reading on reloading and found this very educational little gem: http://shadowspear.com/vb/showthread.php?t=9340

Further on the subject of cheek weld and solutions to the issue

Having found out about cheek weld I am seriously wondering why a lot of scopes appear to be mounted even higher than necessitated by the big lenses. As far as I can tell this appears to be a case of lazy gun smithing? I would consider mounting a scope as low as possible the ideal.

Interestingly enough Leupold have come up with an attempt to at least ameliorate the issue and that is the VXn-L family of scopes.

as we can see they have a little cutout in the front lens and thus can be mounted lower. Given that most stocks are still made in such a way as to be ideal for the use of iron sights, this strikes me as rather a major improvement in the situation. Leupold seems to be in general a bit below the big 3 of scope manufacturers (Zeiss, Swarowski and Schmidt & Bender), albeit they are attacking that field with the VX-7(L) scopes that at least according to Chuck Hawks are as good as the big 3.

In general one wonders a bit why in this day and age where at least varmint rifles are being made without iron sights at all the stocks, at least of hunting rifles, are still shaped like they were made for iron sights. Interestingly enough target rifles are not upholding this tradition, as seen for instance here:

This is a Savage Arms varmint and target rifle and we notice the straight stock, built for people who are not planning to use iron sights on this gun ever.

And so it begins ...

A few months ago I decided that I wanted to be able to shoot my own meat and take up what was a rather early interest in hunting. I read a lot about this while I was still going to school, but never got around to doing it. I took one look at the hunters in my hometown and ran for dear life.

Now that I am married and feel like I can start on my dreams I have decided to revisit the issue. A few friends were interested when I posted on LJ about this and we went to the Courtlough shooting grounds and killed a few clays. I rather disliked the place, there was too much money expected and people weren't very friendly.

So I did a bit more research and found Hilltop Quad and Shooting Club in Co.Wicklow. Sadly a bit of a drive but much nicer people and loaner guns available for members. Last time I was there and shot the guy dealing with me was a metalhead. Fun guy. he claimed that I did well and I think I did when paper punching. That was the first part, shooting a bench rest rifle over 50m. 10 practice rounds and 25 'competition' at 25 small targets on a big sheet. The targets only had the 5 inner rings, so 6 was the lowest score. I scored 210 out of 250 possible and found that plenty of times I shot a 6 or 7 when I was of the firm opinion that I had the scope right in the center.

We then went and shot clays. On the way there I told him that I wasn't there so much for the craic, but in order to actually learn how to shoot. So he taught me a little bit of style and I began to see the importance of a good cheek weld. It is like the anchor in archery. When we went back to the shop we talked guns a bit and I picked up a CZ in .22 and for the first time in my life I had the iron sights in perfect alignment just from bringing the gun to my cheek! Now that I know what went wrong with the paper targets I actually can imagine shooting a 'possible' in that  discipline because I know I suffered from freefloating cheek there. This is rather a cool feeling :)