Innehållsförteckning för July 2024 från Sporting Shooter

YOU’LL have noticed increasing use of metric measures over recent issues. Don’t worry, we’re not going to drop the traditional imperial figures. I am, however, going to include metric figures alongside them as often as practicable. The idea is that you can choose to read whichever one makes the most sense to you; just train your eyes to go to either the number before the brackets or the number in the brackets. But don’t complain to me that it’s confusing having to do that. The whole subject is confusing in the shooting sports, which must be one of the last holdouts of imperialism in Australia. The reason is obvious: a vast portion of our market is rooted in US products that are measured in imperial figures. So we Aussies have…

AUSTRALIAN shooters are by now very familiar with Turkish shotguns, some of which are fantastic and some not so much, but most are largely unaware of the quality hunting rifles also coming out of the nation’s ever-growing firearm export trade. Arttech is a fairly new name to us, and most of us haven’t had much to do with the Prima series of rifles. When I took the straight-pull bolt-action Prima SP out of the box I was immediately impressed by the wood and the wood-to-metal fit of what’s a mid-price hunting rifle. It hefted well and balanced nicely just ahead of the trigger guard, making it easy to carry and manoeuvre. It made me very interested in trying it out in the field. But first some background because, like me,…

BROUGHT TO YOU BY YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A WEATHER RIFLE & ZEROTECH SCOPE PACKAGE IN EVERY ISSUE IN 2024 *THE WEATHERBY VANGUARD WILL BE CHAMBERED IN .223 WITH BLUED METALWORK AND SYNTHETIC STOCK With the basis of a cold hammer-forged 24-inch barrel, 3-position safety and adjustable Match-Quality Two-stage Trigger, the Weatherby Vanguard S2 Blued Synthetic guarantees sub-MoA accuracy and user safety. The Griptonite® stock and Weatherby recoil pad makes for comfortable shooting and the hinged floorplate allows instant unloading. To be eligible you need to include a box of any Fiocchi ammunition in the submitted photo. ENTRIES: please send your high resolution .jpg or .png image as an attachment to your email addressed to mickmatheson@yaffa.com.au – all images must be at least 1MB in size. For entry to be…

OVER THE first days of hunting in Africa, we’d seen plenty of that ubiquitous African pig, the warthog, but every time I pointed them out to my PH, Mansu, he’d say, “big female” or “young boar”. Hunting a trophy warthog turned into something of a game of patience as we sat for hours on end, 14 hours in fact over two days, waiting over waterholes. We saw warthogs — heaps of them — but it was always the same response from Mansu: big female or young boar. AS it turns out, female warthogs only have two ‘warts’ on their head so while they might carry extra oversize tusks they are off limits. The young boars had me stumped as every one I saw seemed to possess tusks out of all…

Marksman air rifle pellets Manufactured in Birmingham, England since 1932, Marksman air rifle pellets are meticulously manufactured to ensure consistent weight, size and shape. Paired with rigorous quality control, they guarantee uniformity. I remember using these pellets with my very first air rifle, a Gecado .177, and found them accurate yet extremely well priced. Marksman air rifle pellets are available in the popular .177 and .22 calibres in pointed or round-head configurations. The benefits of a pointed pellet are that the streamlined shape results in higher velocity and improved performance at longer distances. The round-head pellets provide excellent aerodynamics and minimise drag, resulting in a stable flight, and they are the preferred option for target shooting and plinking. Available in the familiar cardboard packaging, they retail from $13.95 to $24.50…

COMPETITION BROUGHT TO YOU BY WIN a GARMIN eTrex 22x EVERY MONTH! ENTRIES: Please email your high resolution .jpg or .png pig hunting image as an attachment to the email addressed to mickmatheson@yaffa.com.au – all images must be at least 1MB in size. For entry to be valid the following contact details must be included: First name, surname, full mail address, contact phone number and email address. A short explanatory sentence with the email is also needed. Garmin’s outdoor range features unparalleled innovation in hiking, camping and hunting tech in handheld or wearable configurations. Options span from navigation, communication, safety and tracking devices. Garmin also produces a range of bow sights with built-in rangefinder enabling better shot placement. A Garmin eTrex 22x GPS Navigator will be sent to the best entry…

Nick Harvey passed away in February after almost 50 years as our Technical Editor. He left us with scores of unpublished answers to readers’ queries. To honour his memory, we will continue his column until we have run them all. LETTER OF THE MONTH Overall cartridge length Q Various reloading manuals that have a diagram illustrating cartridge dimensions show a shorter overall length for a particular cartridge loaded with a hollow-point bullet than a soft-point. Why is this? When hand-loading for my .220 Swift, I seat bullets out so they just barely clear the lands of the rifling. The overall length of my reloads is often longer than what is listed as being maximum in the manuals, yet I seem to get the best accuracy when bullets are seated out…

WHETHER you live exclusively on game meat, or a couple of choice cuts are a rare treat in your freezer, enjoying wild game is one of the most rewarding parts of being a hunter. We all have our favourite cuts and a lot of that may come down to our skill in the kitchen, and who we are cooking for. Over the past few years, I’ve tended to favour less desirable cuts over others as I enjoy the challenge of turning them into something amazing. Still, it’s hard to beat a piece of backstrap and easy to see why it’s favoured by most hunters. I think we prefer cuts such as the backstrap and tenderloin because on paper, they’re the easiest to cook. What does ‘easy to cook’ mean in…

THE purposes of a diary are many. Some use it to record personal reflections, a place where it is safe to express ourselves without intrusion. Others manage their schedules, bills, meetings and appointments. For some it’s a tool to build knowledge and improve success in the pursuit of chosen pastimes like hunting and fishing. My situation is a commercial need. As a beef producer, the protection of newborn calves is an economic necessity. Losing calves to feral dogs has a resultant economic and emotional impact (a dismembered newborn calf is confronting). With a reluctance to utilise indiscriminate baiting techniques, I had to get better at controlling the local population. The first half of 2023 would best be described as a series of classic bloopers punctuated by near misses — “nearly…

AFTER A long hiatus, I resumed my hunting pursuits in 2017. I took a few fallow deer in the years afterwards, but by 2023 I was yet to get a run on the board with a sambar. I became determined to do it before the year was over. HOWEVER, in late April I found myself sitting in a hospital bed contemplating two new knees. As I sat there looking at the finished product, it dawned on me that the 2023 winter hunting period was probably over for me before it had even begun. Hadn’t thought about that when I’d accepted the short-notice chance to have the knees done, had I? Still, after 20 years of knee pain, it wasn’t something I would have passed up. The first couple of weeks…

THIS WASN’T the gentle saddle between hills that it’d looked like when we set out, it was a bloody canyon! Coming this way was my first bad call. I looked back down into the narrow chasm I’d climbed out of, hanging on for grim death as I slid my feet around a slender piece of crumbling rock, and realised my second bad call was scaling this face: now that I was committed to the ascent I could see a clear path along the flat bed below me. FEELING stupid, I struggled on, followed by columnist Dylan Smith and guide Temps. I knew they’d curse me for leading them off the garden path and up this little cliff. It wasn’t really a life-threatening detour, but it wasn’t good. Any hope of…

BLASER riflescopes offer clarity, precision and versatility, but first a little history. Blaser is a high-end shotgun and rifle manufacturer based in Germany. In 1993 it developed the R93 straight-pull bolt-action rifle, which was very well received throughout Europe for its versatility and ease of calibre change. In 2008 Blaser replaced it with the R8, a slightly heavier, meatier straight-pull with a combined trigger and magazine housing that was removable — a better solution than the R93’s top-loading design. I’ve used a Blaser rifle since they first became available here in Australia around 2003 and currently use an R8 Professional in 7mm Rem Mag. In 2017 Blaser started producing binoculars and later entered the rifle-scope market to complement its fine firearms. The B1 and B2 series scopes are now available…

THEY say a fish rots from the head, but when it comes to attacks on shooters in Australia, it seems the rot starts from the tail end of the fish — or in this case, Western Australia. That state’s appalling anti-gun attitude is making its way east, and the latest example is in Queensland, of all places, in the form of the Queensland Community Safety Bill. The Bill changes more than a dozen Acts of Parliament, notably the Weapons Act, Explosives Act, Criminal Code, and Police Powers and Responsibilities Act. There’s some very concerning changes in there, particularly to the “Fit and Proper Person” tests for obtaining (or keeping) a firearms licence. To add insult to injury, the consultation period initially proposed was dangerously short — practically 10 days or…

THE big, thick flakes of snow drifted quietly down, covering my jaeger (guide) and I as we stood tense and immobile behind the great pines of the Austrian alps. It was early morning and the forest lay silent, not the slightest breath of air to ruffle the snow-laden branches or betray our presence. We stopped briefly on the top of a pine-covered ridge that fell away steeply for a thousand metres. The snow that had been falling lightly since early morning was getting heavier, and the shadowed sides of the high Austrian alps made it impossible to see well enough to shoot. My guide hurried me along to reach one of the log cabins that dotted the region to provide hunters with shelter when the weather gets too bad and…

AFTER A call from my sister regarding a fox harassing her guinea fowl, the boy and I decided to slip away after an Under 6’s footy game for an overnight hunt. My sister lives just over the border on a property beside a large lagoon that has an abundance of native wildlife and some feral pests. In the past I’d been called in to sort out Mr Fox and a few mobs of pigs with great success. The combination of a reliable water source and cropping keep pigs close by and it was not unusual to see them and the odd fox mid-morning or mid-afternoon. LOADED up with footy gear, fishing gear, yabbie pots, hunting gear and the trusty Silva fox whistle, we headed at the break of dawn for…

WHEN using different brands of brass in the same chambering, it pays the handloader to critically measure some possible variations. Proportionality and caution are bywords here. A few of you may know that I recently acquired an older FN Mauser-actioned Parker Hale sporter in 7x57. Never having owned a 7mm anything, and having a few batches of brass donated to me by friend Simon Munslow, I thought I would do the rifle and the venerable cartridge due respect by trying to wring all I could in performance within pressure limits that I thought reasonable. The rifle came with 50 new Sellier & Bellot (S&B) cases and 100 Hornady 139gn Interlock bullets, giving me a jump start to develop some trial loads. Within four days of receipt of said bundook, I…

IT was mid-May and work was just about as busy as it could get. I was still trying to catch up from my month off chasing red and fallow deer. I was driving back to the office after a site visit and thinking, “I’m surprised Mick hasn’t hit me up about another column.” When I got back to the office there was an email from him reminding me… Crazy how great minds can be alike sometimes. So, I promised him I would have something to him on the weekend. The weekend came around quickly, and I set off up the bush with my eldest boy to chase sambar with my friends’ hound crew. We managed to take a hind for meat and the young fella had a ball. We headed…