What did you do today?

[Oldbloke]

Bought another leupold 3-9×40 scope couple of days ago.

Now all my rifles will be wearing them.

[bladeracer]

Last week a young bloke posted on a local community group that he had gotten his CatA/B licence last year but has nowhere he can practice his shooting. He has to attend a range thirty-minutes away only on Friday evenings where they only shoot Benchrest .22LR, he's never fired a rifle while he's actually connected to it, at all. So I contacted him, met up with him and invited him to join myself and a mate for our weekly shoot. He spent a few hours here today and got some experience shooting 12ga. and .303, and played with a bunch of other rifles. I think he might be hooked so we'll be seeing more of him

[Oldbloke]

Last week a young bloke posted on a local community group that he had gotten his CatA/B licence last year but has nowhere he can practice his shooting. He has to attend a range thirty-minutes away only on Friday evenings where they only shoot Benchrest .22LR, he's never fired a rifle while he's actually connected to it, at all. So I contacted him, met up with him and invited him to join myself and a mate for our weekly shoot. He spent a few hours here today and got some experience shooting 12ga. and .303, and played with a bunch of other rifles. I think he might be hooked so we'll be seeing more of him

Goodonya.

[Oldbloke]

Been shuffling scopes and rings on rifles.

[jezzab]

Worked the morning on the computer.
Fitted a Timney trigger to my CZ 457 and had a little plink (I like it).
Pressure canned 1.5kg of salmon I needed to use up (will be good for a year now)
Spent a couple of hours on the chainsaw getting firewood and then relaxed with a few beers and now I might finish off with a nice muscat from the barrel for a night cap.

Was a good day

[Flyonline]

Hmmm

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Trying to decide if it's worth having a crack at making up my own replacement timber stock for my 30-06 as I don't really like the original Hogue. If I've measured everything right, I plan on running a glass, carbon or aramid lamination down each side of the middle piece (seen above), then laminate on another piece of timber either side to give me the right width. Then I can rout out the magazine box and trigger housing all the way through the middle piece without compromising the strength of the composite lamination. My original plan was to sandwich the composite layer between two timber pieces, but cutting out the mag box etc. would cut the full length composite lamination. I also want to go with a higher comb, so not sure on a monte carlo type, adjustable cheek riser or something else.

While I had the safe open, I grabbed my lens cleaning kit and went over both of my scopes to get them nice and clean for future action.

Started on a batch of venison jerky today to have ready for the coming winter months. Lining up a few weeks off so hopefully I can be chewing on some on a hill somewhere in the not too distant future chasing more game

[Oldbloke]

Well, that's a hell of a lot of work.
I don't like the hogue stocks either, put me off howa. Did you look at a laminated stock? They were the rage a while back.

What is your jerky set up? I'm looking at making some biltong.

[Flyonline]

Well, that's a hell of a lot of work.
I don't like the hogue stocks either, put me off howa. Did you look at a laminated stock? They were the rage a while back.

What is your jerky set up? I'm looking at making some biltong.

Yeah, it won't be a quick project, especially if I have to keep pulling it apart in between wanting to use it! There are basic walnut stocks as cheap as a laminated one, but I do really enjoy creating my own solutions.

Jerky I do in a standard dehydrator I bought back when we had a heap of fruit trees and can usually be done in a day or two. Biltong I understand is made with vinegar as extra and at much lower temps and dried for longer (~20C vs 50C+) which I can't do in mine as the min temp is 45C. No doubt a cardboard box and a PC fan would be enough to keep the air moving in current inside ambient temps.

[Wapiti]

I made a spider for the lathe. I've been doing stuff without one but having one to support a muzzle end of a barrel sticking out the back is a much-needed mod when clocking things in to 10ths to zero runout. Used some 65nb Sched160 A106 offcut LNG pipe, has a super thick wall to a great shortcut to getting a boring bar inside. Had a ball. Making stuff rocks.

[bladeracer]

We were up at 0530, got my ANZAC uniform on, and went out to feed and water the cows in the dark, then we hit the road at 0630. Traffic was pretty light and we arrived at Little River at 0915. No1Mk3 was there and recognised me instantly I signed on while Rose put some bacon and egg sandwiches inside her, and at 1000 the flag was raised, the Last Post was played and Lest We Forget was read. Then we headed for the range.

I was expecting we would all line up and shoot in one huge volley, but we shot in seven-person details, including walking up to the 300m line to score and patch the targets in between each detail, so it turned into quite a big day. We arrived home just on dark, checked the cows were okay, and now getting some food inside ourselves. Rose is heading straight out to a meeting and won't be home again until 2300.

Not as many uniforms as I'd hoped, but the few that did costume-up were pretty good. I think the highlight for me was the Bertier with three-round clips trying to keep up with the SMLE's. The shooter was poetry to watch, firing three, stuffing in another clip, firing another three and so on. But in the snap doubles he was severely handicapped.

We had no sighting shots. Stage One was 300m prone, 10rds in 120 seconds I think. I was able to put eight on the target, which was frankly astonishing as they were grouping about 400mm higher than I'd calculated yesterday based on my 50m zero. Stage Two was confusing for most I think. Load ten rounds. At 200m fire five rounds from either prone, sitting or kneeling, then change position to either prone, sitting or kneeling as long as five rounds were fired prone. This would've been less confusing I think if we had simply loaded five rounds, changed position, loaded five, and finished, but I guess the confusion was intended as part of the challenge. I got into a rhythm and fired seven prone before realising, getting my bum under me, and finishing off. I dropped one of these ten. Several forgot to change position in all the excitement Stage Three was ten-rounds offhand at 100m, double-taps in five seconds, and I put all ten on there. After the first two shots I still had the bolt open thinking there would be a pause, but nope, so I slammed the bolt closed on the call, found the target, and got both shots off in the five seconds. No idea of overall scoring but I think I was well behind some of the targets I saw.

Shortly after that the rain came down hard so rather than go out scoring we had a quick demonstration of some fun guns. It settled into an occasional drizzle so we continued. I did the "Rifle & Pistol Comp" which was ten rounds from the rifle on a small target offhand, then twelve rounds with a reload from the pistol, shot prone, all at 50m. I realised as I was firing the last couple of shots that I was holding very low with the pistol, just as I'd been doing all day with the SMLE. Unfortunately, the Browning shoots low left so I only fluked two shots on the paper. I think he said I had eight of the rifle shots on though. I had done a quick zero check with the rifle yesterday at 50m and it was about 150mm high, so I ran it through the calculator and it suggested I'd be hitting about 300mm high at 100m, 400mm high at 200m, and 200mm high at 300m. Trying to see the 300mm target was hard enough so I don't know how much I was actually holding low, but the bullets were above centre so I think they were more likely 600mm high at 300m.

Then we finished off with a Bayonet shoot, offhand at 100m, ten rounds in 120 seconds. No idea how it went as I got chatting. Oldbloke showed up for a look but couldn't hang around so we didn't get much of a chat in. Around 1400 we were all done and went out to bring the target frames back in, then Rose and I thanked as many people as we could for an awesome day, and we got back on the road. Well worth the drive and highly recommended. Even if you don't own an SMLE let them know you want to join in and I'm sure somebody will happily loan you a rifle for it. But it's not just open to SMLE's, there were Mausers, a Bertier, a Carcano, an Arisaka, No.4 and No.5 Rifles and P17's.

[Oldbloke]

Went to the dawn service with Mrs Oldbloke
And later to Little River with my grandson for a couple of hours. Met bladeracer.

[Wapiti]

My wife's 7615 has been very neglected lately, she's shot it on stock runs and has relied on me to make sure it's looked after, which I haven't. So in a spare hour I had this morning the faithful old girl came apart for a proper clean.

[No1Mk3]

Went to the dawn service with Mrs Oldbloke
And later to Little River with my grandson for a couple of hours. Met bladeracer.

Nice to have a quick chat with you two, hope to see you come and shoot one day.

[wanneroo]

Spring has finally broke here. Grass is turning green and a few things are sprouting and blooming. It was a long dark winter with endless wind. The wind is still blowing but at least the days are longer and there is more sun. May is a good month for kayaking and riding the mountain bike and I need the exercise.

I'm working on a video on the Manurhin MR 73 revolver and should have that released soon if filming goes well.

My range building is getting some work here soon, a carpenter is going to redo the door so it seals from the weather and rodents getting in there and making a mess.

I have several interesting trips planned and through mid August I am going to be flat out busy. Lots of interesting stuff going down this year but right now Sept through end of November is a big blank.

[bladeracer]

Went to the dawn service with Mrs Oldbloke
And later to Little River with my grandson for a couple of hours. Met bladeracer.

Nice to have a quick chat with you two, hope to see you come and shoot one day.

Was terrific to catch up with you guys. I'm so glad you posted the ANZAC shoot to the forum. I wish I'd known sooner that they had a two-day Wild Bunch shoot happening over the weekend, I might've been able to organise it so I could've stayed there and shot the whole weekend.
I really want to do the Little River Raiders Blackpowder shoot in July so I should be back there for that.

It's a really long drive, almost six hours there and back on Friday. So I would want to spend the whole day shooting. It'll take some organising I think as I was told we can't shoot on the range on our own? I've also been told that there are range fees whenever you shoot there even if you're a member?

We had a Cowboy shoot yesterday, then about ten of us stayed back and did a .303 shoot afterwards for ANZAC, so I wore the uniform again for that. At the pistol club though so the range was only about 30m, but we each put ten rounds on four targets from two positions. Finished shooting about 1500 and took an hour to get home.

I saw a flier for an eight-day Cowboy shoot in Queensland in September/October that looked like a blast but when I went looking for it I can't find it now. I think it was at Millmerran?

[Bugman]

Spring has finally broke here. Grass is turning green and a few things are sprouting and blooming. It was a long dark winter with endless wind. The wind is still blowing but at least the days are longer and there is more sun. May is a good month for kayaking and riding the mountain bike and I need the exercise.

I'm working on a video on the Manurhin MR 73 revolver and should have that released soon if filming goes well.

My range building is getting some work here soon, a carpenter is going to redo the door so it seals from the weather and rodents getting in there and making a mess.

I have several interesting trips planned and through mid August I am going to be flat out busy. Lots of interesting stuff going down this year but right now Sept through end of November is a big blank.

I am very interested on your opinion etc on the Manhurin MR73. A good mate of mine has one in 38spl, D/A. The general concensus was it can be very accurate, but the crown was a bit rough. Once this was attended to, the groupings became a lot tighter. He has seen other MR73 with same roughness. Just wondering if the quality may have changed since Chapuis Armes purchased the company in 1998. Apologies for wandering off the origional post, but I did do something today, just can't remember what it was. Damn this old age.

[Oldbloke]

Been shuffling scopes and rings on rifles.

Three rifles in total had scopes and ring changed around.

Didn't go exactly to plan but sighted them all in today.

All good now tho. Now to go hunting.

[Wapiti]

Early this morning I went out looking for a certain large deer I hadn't seen for a few weeks and busted 4 extremely large male black wallaroos kicking the sh*t out of a section of my new exclusion fencing. Fighting. I punished them extremely harshly because it was pointless leaving them to continue again later.

[Wm.Traynor]

Good Hunting Oldbloke

[Oldbloke]

Good Hunting Oldbloke

Thx

Over a couple of years I've replaced my 4 scopes with Leupolds. I did this mainly because of unreliable zero. Ruining a couple of hunting trips.

I've found my groups have shrunk!
Always believed that the main advantage is better glass. Seems there is a lot more to it.

We live and learn.

[wanneroo]

Spring has finally broke here. Grass is turning green and a few things are sprouting and blooming. It was a long dark winter with endless wind. The wind is still blowing but at least the days are longer and there is more sun. May is a good month for kayaking and riding the mountain bike and I need the exercise.

I'm working on a video on the Manurhin MR 73 revolver and should have that released soon if filming goes well.

My range building is getting some work here soon, a carpenter is going to redo the door so it seals from the weather and rodents getting in there and making a mess.

I have several interesting trips planned and through mid August I am going to be flat out busy. Lots of interesting stuff going down this year but right now Sept through end of November is a big blank.

I am very interested on your opinion etc on the Manhurin MR73. A good mate of mine has one in 38spl, D/A. The general concensus was it can be very accurate, but the crown was a bit rough. Once this was attended to, the groupings became a lot tighter. He has seen other MR73 with same roughness. Just wondering if the quality may have changed since Chapuis Armes purchased the company in 1998. Apologies for wandering off the origional post, but I did do something today, just can't remember what it was. Damn this old age.

Yes to me, they are damn good and live up to their famed reputation.

I heard when Chapuis Armes took over, quality took a drop and then recovered. Not sure if you know but Beretta bought them out a few years ago. I heard a few complaints about the recent ones but overall most folks are very happy. The good thing is it's made them more available here in the USA.

Beretta has upgraded and modernized all their machinery and production processes for the Manurhin.

My video is going to be about what it's like to own one, shoot one and what resources are available for them(not much). Mine is probably made sometime in the late 70s and early 80s and apparently was sent to the Ivory Coast in Africa and ended up as police surplus sold here in the USA. I don't think it was cared for at all on it's excursion to Africa, so the bluing is worn and it has an issue where it will not shoot double action in 357(it will in 38 Special).

I already shot some footage for the video, contacted Beretta for further info and have a few more clips to film and then edit and upload. Hopefully if I get some good weather later this week I can get it done.

[Bugman]

Let go some lead down range, went home and cleaned the cases.

[wanneroo]

After almost 2 weeks of rain and flooding, we finally have a nice day today. I think in the past few months I can count on one hand the number of days where the rain or wind or even snow wasn't lashing around like crazy.

I got my Swiss rifle out of hibernation and a case of that ammo for a future video and have a little bit to re film on my Manurhin video then I have to edit it.

[Oldbloke]

Good Hunting Oldbloke

Thx

Over a couple of years I've replaced my 4 scopes with Leupolds. I did this mainly because of unreliable zero. Ruining a couple of hunting trips.

I've found my groups have shrunk!
Always believed that the main advantage is better glass. Seems there is a lot more to it.

We live and learn.

Well that was a dead loss.
1st 2 days brew a gale.
Got out 3rd avo, got drowned.
4th evening, waiting for deer spotted a dog, but no chance of a shot.

Never mind, a bit of fresh air.

[JimTom]

Definitely beats work mate.

[Oldbloke]

Definitely beats work mate.

Absolutely. Retirement is good.

Mothers (grandma) day today. So, lunch with family at the RSL.
Spoke to a mate/land owner to organise a few days hunting later in the week,,,. Unsure still, but looking good.

[wanneroo]

I got my first drone and it's a game changer. I was going to get a much larger DJI Air 3S but had difficulties over 6 months getting one so I finally settled on an ultra light 249g DJI Mini 4 Pro with an RC2 controller. It's got 360 degree obstacle avoidance and can see up to larger branches to the point I was able to fly it through the woods up a narrow track. The camera is small but is 4K and can see great detail. On the controller you can maneuver and rotate the camera and zoom in or out.

For speed, as small as it is, impressive. It would take me 30 minutes to walk up the mountain to my range, but flew the drone up there in 30 seconds.

For a rural property owner I wouldn't go without one. Some of the larger models will fly for 10 kms and up to 100 km/h. You can deploy it in less than a minute and use it to inspect things fast. See if trespassers are around, see what the animals are up to or if you need to inspect something from the air that is difficult to get to from land. I even used it to inspect the roof of the house to see how it is holding up.

One thing that surprised me is how quiet it is. Once you get it 30-40 meters in the air you can't really hear it and it's hard to see.

[Bugman]

Would appear to be a game changer for the man on the land.

[wanneroo]

Would appear to be a game changer for the man on the land.

I wouldn't go anywhere in the wilderness without it now. Hiking, prospecting, hunting, just checking out your property, you can send it up and get a good look around you and fly it to where you want. Sure there is GPS but it's not really a 3D live view of the world. The Mini 4 Pro is 249g with battery, the controller is about the size of a hand held video game. Including spare batteries it's about half a kilo or just over a pound of weight to carry. The camera resolution is good enough to inspect the rivets on the roof. Impressive where the technology is today.

The drones under 249g have less legal restrictions and can be flown up to 120 meters in the air unrestricted. Drones larger than that need registered and if flown for commercial purposes need a pilots certificate. So I am going to sit for my test and get that in USA & Canada and then I'll look into what is required for Australia.

[Flyonline]

Today I headed out to a local creek I probably haven't fished in possibly 20 years. I took the original hard route in, bushbashing off the 4wd track to reach the creek only to find that a new trail has been cut in, so any lazy ass can now walk in fairly easily. Thankfully the difficulty of walking up the creek and out will put all but the hardiest off. Managed to land only the one, but saw maybe 20 fish from little tiddlers to a shadow that looked bigger than this 25cm model. Water was crystal clear, but veeery cold, so much so about halfway through I was stumbling along like a drunk cos my feet were no longer attached to my body - no the greatest when you're in slippery rock and goat country with no reception or backup!

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Monday I took a bit of a walk that ended up being a lot longer than expected going through a bit of goat country I haven't been through for a while for a look. Unfortunately it looked like the bush vandals (aka off road motorbikers) had been thrashing the crap out of the country and the usual illegal trails were worn clear. While they do piss me off a lot, occasionally they are of use....

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Unfortunately I never did catch up with the owners, though it did appear I wasn't too far away as I passed over some fresh sign on my way back to the car. Ended up doing 7km, most of it in country like this. I do wish I lived on the flats occasionally

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Yesterday I swapped over the spring in my 97k back to the original as the upgrade kit I bought seemed to have lost a bit of power vs OEM as my holdovers had grown considerably. I'd also bought an air rifle specific chrono, so I ran them side by side and discovered I'd gained about 120fps (~840 - 960) in the change and possibly a bit less spread. I was getting a couple of strange results that were 150fps down, but I'm still unsure if that truly is the case, or a dud reading. Weirdly it also feels to be a little quieter in the shot, though the spring does rattle around without a tophat when not cocked so I may retro fit one to get rid of it. PBR is now near enough 40m so I only have to think of holdover past that