Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2016 i Sporting Shooter

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

Hunting Public Land Make Sense

A FEW WORDS FROM THE EDITOR OF THE Eastern states, Victoria and NSW each have public land hunting models administered by their state governments, in Victoria by the Game Management Authority and in NSW by the DPI Game Licensing Unit (GLU). Now the two models are very different in the way they approach licensing hunters to access public land, in NSW primarily in State Forests, while in Victoria there are several National Parks that can also be readily accessed to hunt specific game animals. It is unfortunate that one special interest group has tied up hunting access in a few National Parks in NSW, the requirements even within SSAA NSW membership being very onerous and restrictive to fulfil, while excluding more than 99 percent of licensed hunters from realising the…

2 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

ASK THE GUN EDITOR

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 MO Don’t Soup Up The .240 Weatherby Q My only centrefire rifle is a Weatherby Vanguard Series II in .240 Weatherby Magnum for which I’ve been reloading using Norma unprimed brass. The load I’ve been using most is one you listed in your article about this cartridge in a past issue of Sporting Shooter - 100gn Lapua and 53gn of Re-22 for 3300fps in a 600mm barrel. I am unable to source Re-22 and have settled on 53gn of Supreme 780 which duplicates the velocity and accuracy I was getting with the same charge of Re-22. I…

13 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

SHOOTER’S SHOWCASE

WHAT’S NEW IN THE MARKET Ruger American- Magnum The Ruger American Rifle Magnum has all the popular features of the Ruger American Rifle and offers them in a hard hitting magnum calibre platform suited for hunting large heavy game. Here in Australia, these animals are frequently found in harsh unrelenting climates like the Northern Territory where heat and humidity are the norm and similarly in North America where snow, ice and rainy conditions are frequently encountered. For this reason Ruger has opted for an all weather build spec featuring a stainless receiver mated to a stainless steel, cold hammer-forged, 24” barrel with 5/8”-24 threading fitted with a factory installed thread protector. Like all Ruger American Rifles, the Ruger American Rifle Magnum includes the Ruger Marksman adjustable trigger which offers a…

9 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

Vanguard Equalizer Pro 1 Bipod

WHEN at the Sydney SHOT Expo recently I had a long chat with Victor Jettens, National Product Manager for Vanguard Hunting products and he gave me a hunting/target bipod to review and test. The Vanguard Equalizer Pro 1 is, in my opinion, a revolutionary development of the portable, detachable field bipod. The Pro 1 is designed to extend from 8 ½ to 10 inches to be used in the prone position or for resting on higher features like boulders or logs in higher field positions. This bipod is sturdily constructed from aircraft-grade aluminium, steel and tough polymer and weighs in at 500 grams. I attached the Pro 1 to my lightweight .303 sporter of Stormbringer notoriety and took off for the range to see if it would cure me of…

3 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

To Hunt A Buff

I'D always wanted to hunt and shoot a buffalo for as long as I can remember, but lack of money and no contact up north was always a problem. I worked fly in-fly out, up in the Territory a few years back and despite knocking over a few pigs, I just wasn't in buff country. A chance encounter with NT hunter Gary Hall, changed everything. “Tell you what, come down with a carton and I'll take you out for a look around,” Gary said. Well, you only need to tell me something like that once. My next stint at work couldn't finish quick enough and before I knew it, I was at Gary's – I nicer bloke you will never meet. Despite covering plenty of country, the buffalo were nowhere…

3 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

Reforming Cartridge Cases

TECHNICAL TIPS & INFO SOME cartridge conversions are as easy as necking up or necking down an existing case. Back in the 1960s unprimed brass for the .270 Winchester was hard to get, so I necked down .30-06 brass and kept on shooting. Aside from case necks being 1mm short (something that corrected itself after four or five reloads) that batch of Norma cases withstood 30 refills before I replaced them. Today's, shooters are being swamped with new and wondrous cartridges, mainly super-magnums. Hardly a year goes by that two or three more aren't introduced by the big makers, and no doubt they have several more in the works, being designed on computers and tried out on test ranges. Waal amigos, we all like new cartridges, and new calibres sell…

11 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

Tropical Rabbits

O RYCTOLAGUS cuniculus, or the European Wild Rabbit, is a consistent and popular subject material in Sporting Shooter. The humble bunny rabbit can be found reliably across all parts of the magazine, from feature articles, DIY’s, recipes, photo competitions and even the odd front page title image - (Maybe with the exception of the Trading Post in the back as I am yet to see somebody advertising guided rabbit shooting safari’s…) The reason for this is twofold. One is the broad range these small rodents cover in Australia. They came here as passengers on the first fleet in 1788, being a domesticated version of the wild European variety, but they didn’t stay this way for long. The first report of a feral population of rabbits is purported to be in…

9 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

Mossberg’s Model 464 Lever-Action .22 Rimfire

CAPITALISING on the nostalgic appeal of "western lever-action styling" and the concept of having "two matching rifles," Mossberg has introduced a rimfire counterpart to its Model 464 .30-30 lever-action under the same model designation. The rimfire version is a purely utilitarian, no-frills shootin' iron. The barrel is 500mm long and the gun features a black-anodized alloy receiver. The sights are an improvement on the old coarse adjustable buckhorn type found on so many of today's leverguns, in an era where nearly every firearm sports a scope. The front sight is a ramped bead and the folding rear sight has a shallow Vee adjustable for windage and elevation. Traditionalists will be pleased with the open sights. The flat top of the receiver has a full-length 10mm dovetail for Tip-Off…

7 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

The Advantages Of Shooting A Mild Cartridge

AN ASSORTMENT OF HUNTING FACTS & FIGURES THESE rifles are powerful enough to vaporise a mastodon, and are used to kill a deer weighing no more than 150kgs on the hoof and this is excessive "overkill". Alas, many of today’s riflemen forget that for 95 percent of us, most of our shooting is done at medium-sized soft-skinned, small-boned animals which are no more dangerous than a wounded rabbit. They also forget that killing power is largely dependent on placing a properly constructed bullet in a vital spot, not blasting off a magazine-full of rounds from a rifle powerful enough to upend a Centurion tank. Many shooters are scared of a "sissy" label if they admit to disliking heavy recoil accompanied by a loud report and muzzle blast that levels an…

7 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

My Stag Was A Real Cliffhanger

MICK Gilliland, my guide found the one on our left with his Leica binocular and pointed him out to me. "Only a double four," he whispered, "Let's have a look at the one farther along on our right." We continued tiptoeing along the cattle track for another hundred metres before stopping to glass the steep slope. We soon located the stag slowly walking around the sidehill, then he stopped right above us, raising his head to emit another deep guttural roar. "He's a five-four," Mick said, sizing him up with his Leica 10x40. After sizing up the stag, I made a snap decision to shoot him. It was the last hour of the last day of my hunt and daylight was fading; soon it would be too dark to…

11 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

Boot-Leather Tough

NEWS, VIEWS AND INSIGHTS THE personal stuff. Did they die of AIDS, in a street mugging, car accident, a heart attack in the kitchen, pneumonia in bed? BOB PENFOLD - our own larger-than-life entrepreneur in Japanese riding boots, a man who hunted all over the globe for giant species of game - not shooting lesser specimens, ever - strode the world for 27 years as Australia’s major go-to man for hunting all species in the South Pacific. Egged on by his mates, me included (I’ve known Bob since the early 1970’s), he finally finished his hunting autobiography, “PENFOLD. Life and times of a professional hunting guide from Down Under.” It’s selling well. But bob – always accompanied by his wife Kay and with grown daughters and grandkids never far away…

3 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

WEB NEWS

FROM MICHAEL GIBSON – WEBSITE EDITOR CALLS FOR A TEN-FOLD INCREASE IN PENALTIES TO CURB ILLEGAL HUNTING IN NSW The NSW Government is being urged to back proposed legislation to crackdown on illegal hunting and introduce a ten-fold increase in penalties. The justice department has been presented a report, outlining plans to introduce a law called The new law makes it illegal for people to enter private properties without permission. Anyone caught breaking this new law would face fines of more than $5,000. http://www.sportingshootermag.com.au/latest/calls-for-a-ten-fold-increase-in-penalties-to-curb-illegal-hunting-in-nsw SELF-CULLING DINGOES FOR FERAL GOAT CONTROL North Queensland’s Hinchinbrook Shire Council this month began releasing dingoes on to Pelorus Island as part of a radical pest control program. The program aims to control about 300 feral goats after methods such as shooting them from…

2 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

Two Firsts For Chelsea

WHEN I was about five I remember the first time dad took me bowhunting, we whistled in and dad shot 4 foxes, and also got 3 bunnies. Whilst we were hunting dad would pull out a few chocolates from his backpack and we sat on a really tall rock and watched the bunnies hop around. These were some really great times in the bush and made great memories. Fast forward to 2016 and on the way through the property we dropped off some frozen seafood to the farmer and collected some keys. I was so excited to actually get out into the bush, roll the swag out next to our car, doing it the bush mans way. I needed a good bush fix. While sitting on the camp chairs…

8 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

Weenen Wildebeest

IN AN all too familiar ritual I kissed my sleeping wife on the forehead and she stirred and grumbled. “When will you be back?” As usual, for want of a reasonable, factual answer, I simply replied, “Not sure honey, hopefully … sometime today”. Gulp. Despite the fact it was 3.30am and I was already dressed to hunt I made my ‘escape’; this time somewhat with a guilty feeling, like a cat caught with a canary in its mouth. My wife and I were in South Africa on holiday and I was about to disappear for another whole day, to fulfil my hunting ambitions. This time we had a two and a half hour drive to get to the hunting area my guide, PH Andrew Pringle wanted to visit. So…

8 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

Savage Model 11 Scout Rifle

I AM constantly amazed at the innovatory thrust that drives the American firearms industry. New models and improvements to existing models seem to appear on an annual basis, along with two or three new super-duper magnum cartridges. Savage Arms recently announced a new version of its well-respected Model 11 bolt-action rifle, the Jeff Cooper-inspired Model 11 Scout Carbine. Chambered in .308 Win. it comes with aperture rear sights, and an extended Weaver-type base adapter for mounting extra long eye-relief scopes, a light tan AccuStock, adjustable ACCuTrigger and cheekpiece and a threaded barrel with a muzzle brake. This rifle may well have been intended for the American law enforcement/ tactical market and features a short action, with its medium contour 510mm barrel finished in matte black. However, I'll bet it will…

11 min

Sporting Shooter|October 2016

The Three Year Buck

A FEW years back, my good friend Andrew took me out and introduced me to an area he knew well in Central NSW that had deer, pigs, foxes rabbits and a small river with trout in it. This spot was a couple of hours from home and it is a mix of State forest pine plantations, private forests, rolling to steep hill country farmland all with a backdrop of extensive reserved and private land native bush, perfect habitat for the fallow deer that have been in the area for about 25 years since the deer farming days. On the first trip in I met the farmer whose land we were allowed to hunt and camp on. Like most genuine country people he and his wife were wonderfully hospitable and easy…

9 min