Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2023 i Sporting Shooter

THE Australian firearms manufacturing industry is going gangbusters. The number of gun makers is expanding, the number of guns they’re making is steadily increasing and there’s growing demand from overseas. Best of all, it’s only going to get better. Lithgow Arms has, of course, been making contemporary sporting rifles in rimfire and centrefire for eight years and the factory is making a bit of a push now to expand its range of rifles and calibres. And on the quiet (you didn’t hear it from me!) there’s a lot more being contemplated by management and engineers. Lithgow is our biggest manufacturer. Second is Southern Cross Small Arms, based in Campbelltown, south-west of Sydney. I went through the factory the other day and saw the huge investment the company has made in…

ON a hunt in Queensland back in 2019 I paid a visit to my good friend Ron Owen at Owen Guns in Gympie. He showed me the prototype of a tactical-style, straight-pull rifle that he’d designed and manufactured in-house. It has taken him a few years to perfect the design, but it is now available in gun shops. I received two for review, one with a heavy barrel and the other a light barrel, carrying low serial numbers — 120 and 139. Designated Genesis One, this is a highly-specialised, high-precision rifle, a straight-pull bolt-action unlike any other, and it’s built like a battleship. Initially, it is chambered for four popular calibres: .223 Remington, .243 Winchester, 6.5 Creedmoor and .308 Winchester. Later, it will become available for the hell-raising .277 Fury. Ron,…

A BACKPACK that’s been properly designed and constructed is one of life’s pleasures, and Spika’s Drover Hauler pack and frame bring joy when you’re facing the most unpleasant back-country hunting conditions. This is a hunter’s backpack that’s every bit as good as some of the best of the big-brand hiking packs, designed not just to be comfortable and cart camping gear but to also carry your rifle and the meat and trophies you’re hoping to bring home. There are two parts to the Drover Hauler system, the frame and the pack, which can be separated. There are two pack sizes — 40 and 80 litres — which both fit to the same frame. The 40L pack is intended for shorter hunts of a day or two, maybe three, while the…

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Ridgeline Steady Shot gun rest When sighting in a firearm, a solid, steady rest is a must for that accurate shot. To achieve this, Ridgeline has released the Steady Shot gun rest, a weighted shooting platform for comfort and accuracy. Its forend rest and, in particular, its butt rest hold the firearm in place and absorb much of the recoil. The rest features elevation adjustment in two points, using threads: the rear foot can be shortened or extended, and there’s a collar to raise and lower the forend. The unit’s base is made up of two trays that are adjustable to accommodate many different types of weights. Testing has shown that lead shot absorbs the most recoil per kilogram, but sandbags or common weights will work also. While the Steady…

HOW’S your knowledge of hunting trivia? “I am a well-regarded hunter and author. I was born in Wales in 1937. My family moved to Australia in 1953. I worked in the Australian outback and then at the age of 23 settled in New Zealand. In New Zealand I worked as a deer culler with the Government Forest Service. During my life I wrote over 50 books. Some say Pack and Rifle is the book that started a lot of people’s interest in hunting and has inspired generations of hunters to experience all that hunting and the outdoors has to offer. Who am I?” A lot of hunting knowledge comes from being in the field, from trial and error and from practice, practice, practice. Walking the field while looking for game signs…

Letters containing questions for answering by Nick Harvey must be accompanied by a stamped self-addressed envelope. Mail your letters to: The Technical Editor, 3 Reef Street, Hill End, NSW 2850. LETTER OF THE MONTH CZ 527 Lightweight .223 Q I have been given a CZ 527 in .223 Remington by my uncle. I have Lee dies, 100 new cases, a can of AR2208 and 100 60gn Sierra soft-pointed bullets, so I’m all set to begin reloading. Can you suggest a load using my components? Also, I’ve been told to watch how deep I seat the bullets. This puzzles me? Cliff Cooke A The CZ 527 is a fairly light yet accurate .223 hunting rifle featuring a 24” barrel with a fast 1:9 twist which enables it to stabilise a wider…

THE .45-70 has staged a major comeback in popularity and currently it is being chambered in a number of lever-action and single-shot rifles that are, generally speaking, fairly expensive. However, there’s one single-loader that’s affordable — the Bergara BA13. The Bergara BA13 single-shot has a strong action which allows the use of heavy charges of smokeless powders. This convinced me that I should find out what kind of performance this handy carbine would be capable of with carefully developed handloads. The little Bergara chambered for the .45-70 is one of the sweetest sambar rifles a man will ever carry. It is lightweight and powerful with the extent of the latter being determined only by how much recoil you can handle. At about 3.6kg with a scope attached, the BA13 is a…

IT’S the time of year when rural people are in the groove of winter. I prefer the cool to the hot and that’s been mentioned in my column a few times. For me, the idea of being an outdoorsman and living this lifestyle is heavily geared towards cooler climates, when flies aren’t a problem and the sun coming up over the hill doesn’t force you to retreat to the shade. Fire is heavily rooted in this lifestyle, whether it be for cooking game meat, giving us light or keeping a hunting camp comfortable. I strive to have the best understanding of my surroundings as possible. It can be difficult for an Australian to know about all the trees in their hunting spots as there are many varieties and some of…

THE 2023 roar had me very excited this year. I’d driven a lot of kilometres and put up plenty of trail cameras. I knew I was going to be in for a good week’s hunting. After seeing numerous fallow bucks and red stags in the first three days I made a play on a certain fallow that had my attention. I made my way slowly in the car to get to that particular hunting spot around 5am and got all my kit on. As I was locking the vehicle I heard a red stag roaring not far from where I was originally going to hunt the buck, so my plans changed quickly and now my sights were on that red stag. The stag roared hard for a good 45 minutes while…

BOASTING a water capacity of 88 grains of water against 89.2gn for the .30 Newton, the .300 PRC could well be the reincarnation of this 110-year-old cartridge. They even look enough alike to be twins! Both have big, fat rimless cases with a reasonably sharp shoulder and similar body dimensions. The .30 Newton’s neck length is 7.87mm (.310”) against 7.81mm (.307”) and case length is only 1.52mm (0.06”) shorter. These are minor differences. Having almost identical powder capacity, the same charges of a particular powder should give almost the same muzzle velocities. That’s something we’ll look into as we go about developing hunting loads for the new .300 PRC. The only place where the two rounds differ widely is in overall cartridge length — the Newton’s loaded length being a modest…

ZEISS’S entry into the four-times zoom market is the Conquest V4. The Conquest line is the company’s midpoint in terms of price. Manufactured in Japan, the V4 is, overall, an optic with all the basic controls the average hunter wants or needs. But the most impressive feature of any Zeiss Conquest scope is its value — the relationship between cost, quality and utility. The V4 range includes 1-4x24, 3-12x44, 3-12x56, 4-16x44, 4-16x50 and 6-24x50. The sample I received is the 3-12x56 model. It was paired with a new Sauer 100 Stainless Classic in .223 and was a good match for the gun. Zeiss cut costs of the V4 by working directly with a manufacturer in Japan where labour costs are lower than in its traditional German Oberkochen base. Examining the V4,…

AMONG all the doom and gloom shooters often have to deal with, it’s easy to overlook the countless positives shooting and hunting bring to our lives. Whether it’s turning the 10-ring into a ragged series of holes at the range in a competition, bringing down a trophy stag or eliminating a crafty fox that’s been terrorising lambs, shooting is a rewarding and enjoyable pastime which everyone, regardless of gender, can participate in equally. Shooting also shares similar secondary benefits to golfing and fishing — even if you’re having an off day and shooting like crap, or the opportunity for a clean, humane shot on your quarry never presents itself — you still get to be outside, enjoying the fresh air and generally being active. And what’s even better than doing those…

AFTER using sporting optics — riflescopes, binoculars and spotting scopes — for seven decades, I have gained a reasonable knowledge of these products and how they work. It is indisputable that optical instruments vary considerably in quality according to their price; there are excellent ones, very good ones and poor ones. Hunters and shooters reading magazine articles about optics are often confused about the system of terms which forms the nomenclature used to describe how sport optics work. Here’s an explanation to help you understand the terms generally applied to riflescopes. EXIT PUPIL The exit pupil is the small disc of light that can be seen in the eyepiece of the scope when the optic is held at arm’s length and pointed at the sky or a bright light. The…