Showing posts with label shooting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shooting. Show all posts

Sunday, 11 October 2009

A Night-time Rat Hunt with the FX Verminator

Recently had a great time thinning out the scaly-tails at a local organic farm which my mate usually looks after. He's unable to get there at the moment... and I've been charged with keeping the black stuff at bay in his absence.

I've written about the night's shooting antics in December's Sporting Shooter magazine (on sale from the first week of November), and I've put together this short movie to set the scene...

Tuesday, 22 September 2009

Sloe Gin & Blackberries - a full bag!

A big haul of blackberries

I love autumn - even if there's only a hint of it round here. Good 'Indian Summer' days have made me get out and about more than usual this year - and although I think I pretty much reduced the woody numbers earlier in the year, the last couple of weeks have still seen me coming home with a pretty full game bag. Not woodies and bunnies... but blackberries and sloes!

"A season of mists and mellow fruitfulness", now is the time for the airgun hunter to gather a lot more than just meat for the table. Blackberries are pretty much everywhere, and on one of my shoots (which is well off the beaten track for the public), they've been in particular abundance this year. On Sunday alone, I picked four kilos (yes, that's almost nine pounds in old money!) which I'm having with a shake each morning for breakfast. (It makes it the colour of Ribena, but it ain't half tasty.) The kids love 'em, too - snacking on them instead of buscuits when they come home from school. And, of course, with the cookers I picked up from the old orchard, there's my wife's scrummy apply and blackberry pie for pud after supper. I probably should be making blackberry jam, too...

I also collected a large bowlful of sloe berries last weekend - and the sloe gin production line is now well under way! They say that sloes are at the best in October, after the first frosts, but down in the south-west, they're definitely a little ahead of time this year - probably because of the wet summer we had. In fact, some are visibly 'going over' on the bushes.

How do you know if a sloe's ripe? Well, certainly don't taste one straight off the bush! If they've got that deep blue-purple look with a white-ish bloom over them, they're most likely ripe enough for picking. Gently pull at one and it should come away quite easily. If you need to give it a tug, it's not ready yet.

Spotting sloes can be quite difficult, particularly on bright, sunny days as they're perfectly camouflaged in the hedgerow shadows cast by low sun's dappled light. But you can make locating them a lot easier earlier in the year.

The fruit of the blackthorn hedge, when you're hunting around April time, make a mental note of where you see the emergence of the white blackthorn blossom amidst the othewise bare hederows - because that's where you'll be wanting to head in the coming September and October!

And how to make sloe gin? It's easy. Halve the contents of a full bottle of gin (by transferring it into an empty, equally-sized bottle). Into each, pour in around 150 grammes of white sugar (it doesn't have to be exact).

Next, the laborious job; prick each sloe and drop them into the bottles until the level comes up to the neck. (A quicker method is to freeze the sloes overnight. When you take them out of the freezer to thaw, they'll then split.)

Screw the bottle tops on tightly and store them in a dark cupboard, away from heat. Agitate the bottles every day for 10 days, then perhaps once a week until Christmas, when you'll need to decant (and filter) the gin into clean bottles. Now you'll be able to serve your family and friends one of their best-talked-about tipples of the festive season!

They say sloe gin gets better the longer it's kept (I wouldn't know!) - but if you are able to make enough that lasts into the following year, then remove the sloes after about six months.

Cheers!
Allen's sloe gin production line begins!

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

.22 Calibre Officially Better Than .177!


.22 calibre is better than .177 - and that's now official!

The verdict comes from the votes cast by readers of my blog over the past few months - with almost 1 in 2 of airgunners saying they favoured the bigger bore size.

However, .177's still popular with more than 1 in 3 airgunners, showing that the dominance of the larger calibre is coming under threat. My bet would be that if this poll was run 10 years ago on a UK blog, the .22 would have won a landslide victory.

RESULTS:

1st - .22 with 48% of the vote

2nd - .177 with 35% of the vote

3rd - .20 with 16% of the vote

4th - .25 with 1% of the vote


There's a new poll starting today. Now we know your favourite calibre - tell us your favourite type of pellet. My money's on the round-head winning, but who knows? You decide...

Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Blow me... A Revelation in Windage!



Wind. It's the airgunner's worst enemy... and my Achilles heel in the field. In all but the most blustery of conditions, it is masterable, though - but how much do you really understand about the effects that wind has on your pellet?

I've spent a few months testing the windage characteristics of typical roundhead airgun ammo - and I've discovered something that I've never before seen in print!

So, I'm in the process of putting the record straight right now - and will shortly be updating my blog with a discovery that's sure to get airgunners talking. Though I'm the one who's done the testing, even I think it's somewhat of a revelation!

Make sure you check into my blog where I'll be giving you the link to an exclusive, never-before published review on how pellets react in a head wind, tail wind, oblique wind and (very interestingly) side winds.

Watch this space... it'll blow you away, not just your pellets!