Innehållsförteckning för November 2019 från Sporting Shooter

I AM a very time-poor hunter these days, with limited access to hunting grounds within reasonable distance of my home, so I tend to slip away for a long day on roughly a monthly basis. Make no mistake though; if a nice stag popped up I would be busting my phoo-phoo valve to deck him. Consequently, the rut often sails by, while I just sit off a ridge to pop whatever shows its head within range and I butcher it. Cooled and packed on ice in an esky, I generally get home in the dark and leave the carving into cuts the next day on the outdoor furniture. My intro is a bit misleading however, as I rarely take the skin to tan these days – the better half does…

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. Stability Via Twist Q I am a fitter-machinist by trade and a novice reloader. I have a couple of questions for you: What happens to a the stability of a 55gn projectile if fired in a rifle with a 1:8" twist? If it remains stable, why buy a rifle with a 1:12” twist that will only stabilise bullets weighing up to 55gn? If I buy a rifle with a 1:8” twist I can shoot bullets from 53 to 80gn which will all be stabilised. Will I improve the measurement of the jump with a fireformed case compared to the one…

MY Client, a German forester, had misplaced his shot on a trophy buffalo bull which had taken flight and was running side-on about 125 yards away. Swinging up my Brno .458 Winchester Magnum, I tried to track him, but the image in the 2-1/2x scope was disconcerting to say the least - a blank space where I couldn't see the animal. Looking over the top of the scope, I had just enough time to send the 500gn solid on its way. When I pressed the trigger the bull nosedived while in full gallop and ploughed up half an acre of Northern Territory turf with his nose. For sure, that was the luckiest shot I ever managed to pull off in my life. The cost of a high quality riflescope can…

THE main advantages of a red dot sight are their compactness, light weight and unlimited field of view. It all began back in the mid-1970s when the Swedish company Aimpoint introduced a novel aiming device that soon became widely known as the Red Dot sight. With its short compact tube, long eye relief and illuminated dot reticle, the Aimpoint was as quick to see as a shotgun bead. But it was soon seeing widespread use on rifles and pistols as well as shotguns, and drew the attention of other makers of optical sights. Today, nearly every maker of scope sights, includes a red dot sight in their range. The latest company to climb on the bandwagon is Kahles GmbH who have introduced an ultra-compact red dot sight made of aircraft…

OCCASIONALLY a rimfire rifle comes along that in addition to being of top quality and pleasing to the eye, is deadly accurate and great fun to shoot as well. Needless to say this is the kind of outfit that instils pride of ownership. Such a firearm is the Czech-made CZ 457 which is not just another modified version of the ZKM series, but an entirely new design. Czech rimfire rifles started with the Model 451, which was built as a military training rifle under the duress of war in the early 1940s. A natural progression was a commercial version - the Brno Model 1 (ZKM 451) which was introduced in 1945. It birthed the ZKM 452 Brno Model 2 in 1954, the ZKM 455 Brno Model 3 in 1955, ZKM…

Frankford Arsenal – Rotary Case Tumbler This case tumbler offers a seven litre capacity drum so you can clean up to 1,000 .223 cases at a time. The drum features a dual layer with noise dampening rubber lining on the inside and operates via 240 volt. The unit features a maintenance-free geared drive train that eliminates the chance of having to replace a belt and has a built-in timer in the base which can be set to run for up to 3 hours, shutting off automatically. This versatile rotary tumbler can clean cases using the stainless steel media supplied, however, will also effectively clean without the use of the media pins using a mixture of brass cleaning solution and water. The tumbler comes with stainless steel media and also a…

I DON’T remember how I happened onto the Helmar gun cleaning products site, but when I did and read the testimonials and the claimed effectiveness of the products, I wondered why they had not taken the Australian gun community by storm. The answer could be that Helmar, headed up by owner Mark Ripper, caters for all sorts of chemical agents for use in areas from arts and crafts to automotive applications and they have not aggressively marketed the gun-specific range as yet. The range that Mark sent to me to test and evaluate was: • Helmar H7500 Firearm Carbon Remover• Helmar H8000 Firearm Copper Remover• Helmar H9000 Firearm Lubricant• Helmar H9500 Firearm Bore Oil• Helmar H7000 GP Bore Cleaner (for Rimfire use).• Helmar H1000 contact Cleaner I took three centrefire…

CASES which have been fired once or more will build up carbon deposits inside the neck. These deposits may imprint on the newly seated bullet’s ogive to be subsequently shot down the bore to potentially damage your rifling. A simple way to minimise this wear is to get an old clean bore brush and spray on it some Helmar Contact Cleaner, then give the inside of the neck a few scrubs in and out to clear out most of that carbon. Other non-proprietary chemicals that could be used are any safe solvent that evaporates quickly and leaves no residue, like metho.…

NOSLER commenced its family of high performance signature cartridges designed to surpass existing cartridges by introducing the .26 Nosler in 2014, the 28 Nosler in 2015, the 30 Nosler in 2016 and the 33 Nosler in 2017. All of these "super magnums" were based on the shortened Remington Ultra Magnum case and there was one characteristic they all shared - a short one-calibre neck length - a feature that’s drawn a lot of criticism for other cartridges that have short necks. Whether or not this will have a similar effect on the Nosler cartridges remains to be seen. There seems to be an ongoing argument about which is best - long necks or short necks. How many times have I heard shooters criticise cartridges with short necks, as if there…

Background of the NT Back Country Hunting program OVER the past 18 years or so the Northern Territory Firearms Council worked behind the scenes and quietly lobbying the Territory Government to open up areas of public land hunting and the Back Country Hunting initiative (BCH) is a product of these efforts. The BCH grew out of a “Territory Lifestyle Camping” concept developed by the NT Firearms Council some years ago. Firearm owners who enjoyed an outdoor lifestyle in the traditional sense in the Territory, centred around “going bush” on family camping trips that included hunting and fishing, became increasingly concerned that more and more of their favourite camping spots were being closed off and earmarked for high-volume tourism development. Local Territorians were also feeling disenfranchised as their beloved outdoor lifestyle…

BEING a hunter often involves being on the periphery of society. Yet still being part of a collective group. The reasons we have for hunting and the methods we all use are varied. Particularly in the Australian context where some people make it their duty to reduce the number of invasive and destructive pests on the landscape, while others wish to fill their freezer with a variety of free range and organic meat. I’ve written about my partner in some recent columns, as I find her attitude towards hunting refreshing, and she helps to keep me grounded in the fact that not everybody has to go about things my way. This isn’t to suggest that I believe my way is better than anybody else’s, but we hunters find ourselves justifying…

A mate of mine and I went deer hunting on a property in central Queensland. We walked for two days up and down hills looking for a good trophy stag, saw plenty of deer but no trophies. Never saw a dog track on the roads during the day but the country looked prime for dogs. On the third night I told my mate Kelvin I’m going to have a go at getting some dogs tonight, so I loaded up my swag in the buggy and headed out to find a good spot for the night. By the time I got to set up a camp I could hear howling in the distance. So I gave a couple of howls and within five minutes I had a dog about 100 metres…

TED Mitchell Snr and his mate Scott hunted a marvellous target-rich environment in North Queensland. It was may 2018 and my son and I were booked in June to hunt red deer and rusa in a spot that held great trophy class game. Unfortunately a phone call from the outfitter put a stop to that, as he said that there were no red deer there worth even looking at, as all the big ones had disappeared after a few shots had been fired in April. Could we please book in for the following year? It was a real let down as the thought of going on a hunt for some of the big red deer that come into that area, had had me “more toe-y than a Roman sandal”. Roll…

ALITA, The Redhead said: “There goes another stag.The next morning I did the rounds of the local deer haunts near home and noticed immediately the Samusa was missing. He’s that sambar x rusa cross I wrote about last month. He was about 28 inches on the true right side – carrying a completely sambar style antler – and 24 on the left – a typical rusa beam. I’ve only ever seen one like this before – in New Caledonia. And I shot at it and missed inexplicably. It was a helluva lot bigger than the one near home and I was cranky at myself for rushing the shot. While it was the biggest stag left standing after the massive poacher assault on the area last year, I was surprised the…