What Rifle?

I think getting a rifle is a very personal choice and I have a certain fetish of making every piece of equipment I own an expression of myself and have it tuned to a t to my preferences.

Also I am left eye dominant hence need either straight shafts or left hand ones and also in repeating guns, left hand systems. Now there are some companies that supply left hand rifles, but usually the selection is not as good as for right hand ones. A good example is Remington, who don't offer a significant amount of their rifles in left hand. Also I want my own cartridge and a Southern German/Alpine look to the rifle. This means either a custom rifle (too expensive!) or a company that has no problem fitting a custom barrel. After some research I found Roessler in Kufstein, Tyrol, Austria who are a small manufactury turning out affordable rifles and who when ringing them had no issue getting a custom barrel made, if I had no problem waiting 3 or 4 months ... and I don't.

Here is what I am planning on getting:

Roessler Titan 6 with a 61 cm barrel in stainless steel (I am living in Ireland after all) in 8x64S and with Bavarian cheek and a hogsback on the stock, whcih also is in nice root timber. Bigger magazine for driven hunts and a muzzle break, since I am planning on using ear protection anyway and less recoil is always good. With the load mentioned below and a muzzle brake I am expecting a recoil energy of about 18 Joule. No sound moderator I am thinking since these are so far only really legal in Ireland, UK and Finland at the moment, current EU legislation nonwithstanding. Estimated cost for the rifle is around 1500 € maximum.

Thoughts on which hunting cartridge

Like most men I am a bit equipment-obsessed and I have been doing a fair amount of research on this subject. Summarising this will likely take more than one post, but here goes:

1) What are my hunting parameters?

I am likely to hunt in two jurisdictions, Sweden and Ireland. Sweden demands at least a 9g bullet with 2,700J for mammals bigger than roe deer. Ireland allows anything from the 22-250 upwards to be used on mammals bigger than a hare. Ireland also has an inofficial legal limit of .30 as a maximum calibre. Now usually that would not be a problem. But: I have been seriously convinced by the modern breed of non-lead bullets like KJG, Impala and Jaguar. Especially KJG seems to make a lot of sense and those bullets are light! The smalles calibre a 9g one is offered in is 8mm. So this will make getting a 'rifle of all trades' which basically KJG seems to make possible if one doesn't shoot into bone, ie. the shoulder, but behind it. But 8mm is bigger than expected in Ireland and might need more arguing than I am capable of.

OTOH if I can argue it I would like a rifle in 8x64 S, which is an old German cartridge invented by Brenneke between the wars. I shoots a bit flatter than the 8x57 IS without being such a magnum monster as the 8x68 S. With the 9 g KJG and a reasonably hot load I could get it to shoot like this (data out of QuickTarget):

Optimum trajectory information :
Optimum sight-in range (X) = 213 m
with max. ordinate above LOS at range (M)= 125 m
and max. point blank range (P)= 248 m.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sight-in clicks, 1 click = 1.0 cm/100 m or 0.394 in/100 m
Height of sight above bore axis = 3.61 cm or 1.421 inch
Gun is zeroed-in at 210 m,
by sighting-in at level firing

Range(m)	V(m/s)	Energy(J)	Path to LOS(cm)	Drop (cm)	Elev (MOA)
0	1000	4509	-3.6	0.0	4.6
25	981	4335	-0.6	-0.3	5.4
50	962	4166	1.8	-1.3	3.4
75	943	4003	3.5	-2.9	3.0
100	924	3846	4.5	-5.2	3.0
125	906	3694	4.8	-8.2	3.2
150	887	3547	4.4	-11.9	3.6
175	869	3406	3.1	-16.5	3.9
200	852	3268	1.1	-21.9	4.4
225	834	3136	-1.9	-28.1	4.8
250	817	3007	-5.7	-35.2	5.3
275	799	2878	-10.4	-43.2	5.9
300	780	2742	-16.0	-52.2	6.4
325	761	2611	-22.5	-62.0	6.9
350	743	2484	-30.1	-72.9	7.5
375	724	2363	-38.9	-85.0	8.1
400	706	2246	-48.9	-98.4	8.8

M = Peak vs. L.O.S, X = Set Zero, P = Max. Point Blank Range
Elevation above Angle of Site (0.0 deg.) = 0.0760 deg.

I think that should do and if I ever want to shoot a bit further that is what ballistic tables are for.

OTOH if I end up not getting a permit for this calibre for Ireland I will need either 2 rifles or 2 barrels for the same rifle (saves money in scopes if nothing else). In that case I may well give in to the temptation to get magnums: .270 WSM for Ireland and .338 WM for Sweden. But it would be silly.

And the nice thing about the KJG is that I can basically shoot the same cartridge, load and rifle on anything between hare and elk/moose.

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

Hares in Ireland II

Well, I have now spoken to a conservation officer and to a ranger. Both have made inquiries and they both concur with my own findings. It is perfectly legal to shoot hares in Ireland with a rifle. If you want to use a rifle that is not deer legal, as I would recommend, unless you are using something like KJG or Impala bullets which require reloading or having ammo shipped from Germany or Austria and on which I will expound later. The smallest cartridge legal in Ireland for shooting deer is .22-250 which from a humanity POV I'd abolish, but it will still make quite a mess out of a hare.

So if you want to shoot hare with a .17 HMR or .22 Hornet, you'll need to have it stated in your cert.

The origin of this myth appears to be that the law says that it is legal to shoot hares with a shotgun. Since no other protected species can be shot with both shotgun* and rifle, only 'vermin', somebody must have deduced that the inclusion of the shotgun is an automatic exclusion of the rifle and the myth stuck and got perpetuated.

*birds only with shotgun (why?) and deer only with rifle (I effin well hope so)

On binoculars

One of the things one needs for hunting is a good binoculars.

Now there are options. First there are the big three which happily will set you back a grand for a stalking binocular (8*42 or similar). Then there is a second rate where you'd expect to around 300 € for those same binoculars. Now contrast and clarity especially when it is getting dark won't be quite as good, but your rifle scope won't show you all of that anyway - partly because you're only looking through it with one eye.

Or one can look for Carl Zeiss Jena 7x50 Binoctem on Ebay where one can get them for maybe 50 € ...

New species to hunt in Ireland

We seem to have 2 new species to hunt: Wild boar and muntjac. The former I would suspect has escaped from the farmers farming them, they have been seen in Wicklow. The latter are clearly being criminally introduced. Yes, introducing an alien species is a crime in Ireland.

If you ask me I am of two minds about this. On the one hand I dislike the criminal disregard for the law and the danger of introducing diseases into Ireland. Also they will eat the undergrowth in the forests, albeit probably not as much as people fear since it is their cover. On the other hand I welcome the addition of new species to a rather poor eco system. Germany for instance has wolves and elk coming in from the east, but in islands this is impossible.

There is a shoot on sight order out for the muntjac but given their breeding habits and ability and small size I don't think they can be eradicated. I just hope there were enough introduced to create a genetically stable population. And the wild boar? Long may they live :)

What can one use to shoot hares in Ireland?

I recently got told on boards.ie that it was illegal in Ireland to shoot hares with a rifle. I had a browse round the Irish Statute Book and found this:

(3) It shall be an offence for a person to hunt or injure in the course of hunting with a shotgun a protected wild animal other than a hare otherwise than under and in accordance with a licence granted in that behalf by the Minister.

Now this seems to say that it is legal to shoot hares with a shotgun, but not that it is illegal to shoot hares with rifles. I have asked in the forum and got told to ask my local ranger or the Ministry for the Environment. I have asked a ranger who is on boards.ie via private message and I rang the ministry who took my details and promised to find out and ring back. The guy actually sounded interested. My current impression is that this may well be a well perpetuated myth.

I am admittedly finding it bizarre enough that one cannot hunt protected wild birds with bullets in this country (doesn't apply for vermin such as crows as far as I can see) and would be surprised if one could not hunt the smallest protected mammal with a bullet - on earth why? But we will see ...