back down the gun club mate, back down the range, here back to the game again. Let's do some gun talk. There's been a moment. It has been, there's been a few things been going on and busy gun range, mate.
Lots of things. You've been sending this a lot to the expert, we haven't actually shared them with our lovely listeners, have we? So we thought we'd treat everyone to a gun club. Where should we start mate?
Do you want to start with your new weapon? Yeah, let's do that. That's an easy one. I've recently acquired myself a nice new hunting rifle.
It's a Savage Access XP, chambered in 308. It's got a nice old kick to it there, mate. Can you describe that? Just a bit of people who will actually see the gun.
But what we're talking about here, mate, what would it look like? So, like your classic rifle shape long, and it's a bolt action rifle, it's got a nice grey barrel, just like a thin grey barrel, and it's got a camouflage stock, a nice camouflage stock, like a proper... It's called an extra. It was already on it.
But that's one of the reasons I went for it as well, because it looked cool. Yeah, nice. Let me just ask you how much did it set your back, mate? Honestly, mate, it was a cheaper one.
It's about 650. But for a bolt action rifle, in the lower end price, that's where you're going to find that sort of thing. Mainly because it's got a composite stock, so it's not got a wooden stock or anything like that. That's OK with me, because I've been going out doing a little bit of hunting here and there with my buddy, and walking around and there.
And the last thing I want to be doing is taking a two-grant gun, slopping it off my shoulder, around the bush. Where we've been going, we've been going over barbed-by fences. Maybe I'm just not throwing my gun over, but putting it over and it fall over. It's on a rusty fence.
It's in the back of a truck. It's spouting off the back of my shoulder. It's hitting all the branches, getting dropped in the snow or in the mud. I don't think I'd be wanting to do that with a nice, expensive gun.
I'd be flipping out. So it's kind of like, obviously listeners can't see this, but behind in Will's studio back in Canada, got a nice selection of boards behind him. Yep. Got Kevin Beowie, he's got a K-list, and he's got TJ Rogers on there as well, mate.
Yeah, that is. Real nice shiny, shiny blue metallic covering. But I'm just going to focus on the middle one, mate. Obviously, you put it in the middle for a reason.
Yep. That board. If you set that, if you, I mean, gripping that board's a big deal, you know, once you've gripped a board mate, I mean, it's game over, right? That board's...
You've declared to yourself the world everything that you are going to fuck that board up. Even if you were just a... You weren't going to be putting some board size on that straight way. You're going to be so kind of tentative and precious about your favourite board day, you know, especially deck, that you wouldn't want to fucking ding it about and scrape all the lovely graphic of it.
So it's the same sort of thing, right? You've got a cheaper gun, you can throw it, you know, get it out and do the business with it. That's not... Not the walk around...
You find it hard to take it off, like you literally live on the mantle. Like a gun, you know, like a real fancy gun, you'll be like, I can't take that out today. So I can... It's got a 2% chance of rain, I can't take it out.
Well, you've got all these... Yeah, exactly. You've got all these guys down the range with these nice, real, nice fancy guns. And a real nice fancy scope on top that probably costs as much or more than the rifle they've got.
They might have even upgraded everything on, you know, the stock and everything. You know, it might be quite easily a 3-ground rifle. These guys aren't going to run down, lie on the floor with this gun, throw some dirt on it. You know, they're going to be...
They're not going to be climbing over that fence. They're going to be waiting for buddy to climb over the fence. Oh, you just take this. You know, there's nothing wrong with that, but you're not going to have the same...
You're not going to have the same type of day. No, you want to get down and dirty, right? Surely. That's part of being outdoors, right?
You're going to be in a dirty... You're going to be in a position where you've got obviously got through some brambles or whatever. Yep. You can't be...
You can't be precious about your gun. No, you've got to be... I mean, that might be a way of getting through the brambles, mate. You might even use it to...
Yeah. Is it like club anyway, pro? Yeah. I get it.
I get why you wouldn't want to go for a Mac Daddy of a gun rather than... You still have the price, mate. You're obviously... Yeah, that's it.
You're still going to care for it. But you can... Yeah, like I said, you can just be dirty, you can be at one with the elements and just something not to worry about. Yeah, exactly.
And come with a little cheap scope on it, so it's got a scope on it already. That's going to be something that I'm going to be looking to upgrade down the line just because that'll make a big difference. So what would you upgrade to, mate, for that particular gun? Have you got your eye on something or...?
Just more of a higher powered scope. The scope that's come on it is a free-to-nine, which is really a problem for hunting. But you're really not able to zoom in to what you'd like to be able to see. You know, I want to be able to zoom in at 100 yards and see a nice small gap instead of everything at 100 yards.
I want to be at a pinpoint right where I'm going to be shooting. Because for me, I feel like, you know, when you're aiming at something and you can see, you know, an eye this big at 100 yards away, you're pretty good, you're going to be putting the crosshairs right on the money, or whatever you're shooting. You take that back and you've got this on something that's this big, you're circling, then your real shooting skills start coming into play. You know, good scope that's sighted in properly and you're gun-sighted in with it.
It's a bit of a cheat code if you get it all right. Yeah, because if you aim at the sight of an animal, you know, and you've just zoomed in to its rim, you're going to fucking hit it. Whereas if, like you said, you can see the whole animal, and you're holding it there and you think you're in the middle of the animal, right? But you've got wind and shit like that, you've got the animal moving and all that sort of shit.
Exactly. So the chances are you might not miss, but obviously much easier if you're just going straight into the meat. The last thing you want to do is think, oh yeah, I normally hit here, and then you end up hitting here, you just skimmed it, animals run a couple miles, you've got to figure out if it's even died on art, and probably ruined your day and your mates' day, and you're probably not going to want to shoot an animal for a long time until you know that you fucking keep on it, right? So scope's going to be a good upgrade.
And otherwise that's probably it, mate, for what it is, but for what it is, that's going to be exactly what the doctor ordered. Someone I can just sling over my back, throw in the back of the truck and just take out to hunt. What's the name of the gun again, mate? Savage is the brand, and it's an AXIS XP.
XP, you know what the XP stands for? It might just be like the camo spec with the scope combo. Right, OK, cool. But also, mate, I've been looking.
You can upgrade the triggers on these guys, which plays a big deal. It's a bit of a heavy trigger. You pull in it for quite a bit before it's going off, but I can get a nice adjustable trigger for it, so it can be nice and sensitive, not too sensitive. But it's about $250 trigger, so I'm not going to be rushing to get it straight away, but someone who's going to be on the back burner for it, just to make it run a little bit nicer.
Yeah, just refine it a little bit. Exactly, and later down the line, I can put a different stock on it, I can get a nice fancy stock for it, if I choose to go down that route, and it'll cost about, the stock's going to cost about the price of the gun. Well, but that stock would change the whole gun into a more precise machine. But then again, maybe I can do that for a different one at the moment.
I'm happy with what I got, and I got it. Maybe in a year I might be bored and feel like, I can switch this up, turn it into a... Sorry, with the trigger. Just for a layman.
How much pressure are we talking with? We're finger pressure, we're talking about a mouse click or back, I'm just moving them. Oh, man, this is about... It's probably got to be at least a £4 trigger, so I guess I have a £4 weight on the table, and when you start to move that with your fingers, when that'll go off.
So it's pretty heavy. And then if you were to change it to the adjustable one, there's more sensitive. What are we talking about that one there? Because it's a hunting rifle, I don't want it to be like...
You're below on the trigger and it's going off, because you've got the elements and everything out there to fight with, and you want it to... You want to know. Some people might want it to be £1.5, which is... Breathe in territory almost.
Is that common? Probably closer to a pound. But there are a lot of people who have £1 triggers, but they're probably going to be more doing just precision shooting with that sort of thing. But anywhere from £3 to £2, something like that would probably be pretty nice.
Probably closer to the £2 mark. I brought that right down. And when you're shooting a large calibre rifle, you're expecting it to jump back out as soon as you pull the trigger. So you can quite easily anticipate the recoil, and you kind of end up punching the trigger a little bit.
So when you have a slightly nicer pull, it can kind of surprise you as you will when you follow them up. Yeah. Which is what you want. Which is what you want, right?
Yeah, you want it to. You don't want it to be like, all right, now I'm shooting, you know, you want it to be like such a slight movement of your finger, people that it's happening, and you're obviously aware it's going to happen. But exactly what it is when you're trying to home it. Can you do that yourself?
Like, when you take a gun of parts? Yeah. What do you guys at the shop do that? Well, I've not done a trigger job before, but I've changed some trigger springs, which also changes the weight of the trigger pull.
And that wasn't too bad. Most of the people who sell these aftermarket parts give you a YouTube video that they've made on how to do the install. And I've watched it already, and it's pretty simple. Like, pretty much you're undoing a couple of bolts, pulling a hole, like, drop in, set out, putting another one in, and just kind of changing some springs on it.
And then to adjust that trigger weight, you've got to spring up the front and a spring at the back. And you pretty much just dial it in with a screwdriver, and you can keep playing with it until you've got that, what you desire. Can you do that, like, while you're like, out in the six? I've done some rifles yet.
You can just put it, put a screwdriver right underneath sometimes. This one, you do it as you put it in. You can have the gun and the trigger together without the stock on it. So you put it all put that all together.
It's going to adjust either side of the screw and so you get your desired weight. So that'll be something I would be doing down the line. That's the first, the first on the list. Or scope first.
Scope's probably first on the list. I've been shooting at 100 yards of it, and I've been getting it on paper. I've been getting some okay groupings, but keeping that all consistent is hard because I'm not really, my cross is bigger than, the balls out, that makes sense, like the hash lines. Whereas on one of my other scopes, right in the middle of my hash line is a quarter inch group before that hits, anything, if that makes sense.
But that's mimicking a quarter inch group in the center. So I know whatever that's on, if I'm putting that on an inch, I'm only aiming really a quarter of that inch. Whereas when I'm aiming at this, I'm probably aiming at like three inches. So quite a big difference when you're trying to be accurate and get things all lined up for when you take that out to the bush.
Have you got any of your targets, your paper targets, mate? I do. You got any to handle or not? So I've got one right here.
This is on the first day, I took it out shooting. These ones at the bottom are not that caliber, so I'm worried about those. I like that target, mate. That's a futuristic, like trom style of green squares with some big red squares.
I take it, that's the targets, right? Yeah, and then where either you shoot, it chips, chips the paint off sort of thing. So it's called a splatter target. Some of them call them a shoot and see, because from a distance, you'll be able to see those a lot clearly than if you just had a black hole, if that makes sense, or a white hole on a target.
So I've got a good amount of these. And yeah, what I did to start with was, I have three different types of ammunition. So we spoke kind of briefly about it before. You can have, I've got this, got my 308.
You can have 150 grain in bullet weight, 160 grain, 168 grain, 172 grain, 147 grain, and every brand in between the does all these different types of grains. So slightly different power loads, slightly different bullet shapes. You know, you've got a hundred bullets, your precision bullets, hollow points kind of thing. All of those is, one of those is gonna like my gun.
Oh my gun's gonna like some of that ammo way better than others. So the first one was here. So I got one shot, two, three, four, I was doing three to four shot groupins to get good. One, and if you see here, it's around these four here.
It's quite old. Is this all the same grain bullet? Yeah, for this whole thing mate, or do you just say that? No, so this four is one type, then this four is a different one, this one, and this one.
So this one, first shot was on the money, but all the other drifted around. Right, money mate. So it wasn't consistent with my gun. Something else if it could be wet.
You'd say that's not you, that's just how it, that's kind of where it's. There's gonna be a bit of a play with me as well. And I would say here, we've got two on top of each other. So this is probably gonna be, if I point here, and it's sighted in, so LSA, one type of bullet, I've got everything goes in the center.
I use a different ammo, they could all come over here. Well that doesn't mean that ammo is not sighted in, it just means that particular ammo is sighted in for the gun that other one is, right? But yeah, we've got a good, probably like four inches of space between here, which a four inch group, about a hundred yards, isn't really that great. Cause as soon as you know, I thought that sounds reasonable mate, that sounds all right.
It's not terrible. And it's generally a big game animal, like do anything, eight to 10 inches around the chest of your vital organs, your lungs and heart, and that is about an eight to 10 inch group. So it's in the money of hand, and let's say that animals out 250 yards, this four inch grab is gonna probably triple. And then you add in the wind and everything else.
Which one am I gonna be lucky to have out of the shot, right? So you're probably gonna hit the animal, right? With this, you're not getting exactly where you want it to be. And you don't wanna be guessing, like we're saying, you know, you don't wanna hit the animal and the ass and run away and maybe not even just be injured, you know.
So yeah, we've got that one there. I had my second group here. So I had three in a line and I'd one up top. If you have one that's just totally out of whack, you just call that a flyer.
You know, maybe you just pull to the left or right. It's clearly quite far away from all the others. And same sort of group, probably about a three to four inch group. And then I had another one.
Sorry mate, before we go on, is this you just sand in or you set up on a... So when you're kind of siting in and siting in ammo, you're as solid as possible. So I'm using, I've got a bipod on the front of my gun, and I've got a sand bag on the rear of the butt, where it's pushed into my shoulder, just under there I've got a little bag, just so there's no real movement, seven equal in the trigger, and I've tried not to move. And every time I'm aiming here for all of these, so this is the first day I was using this rifle as well.
So this is me siding it in on the first go, and then with the ammo. So yeah, we moved over to this one here. So it's quite further away, but here we've probably got a two and a half to three in a group, but one that just clipped off the side, one, two, three. So that's not too bad, we're getting a lot closer, a lot nicer.
Now, I switched it again, and this is four shots. So we've got two shots in one hole, one just below it and one to the side, and these are in two squares, net inch squares. So we're looking at about an inch and a half to two inches, or just under two inches, which is fricking awesome. Could it be better?
How, yeah, but that's right on the money there, you know. If you think another fist, part's gonna be bigger than a fist, and then you've got your eight to 10 inches of idols around that. So this one, it was a Winchester PowerPoint ammo, 150 grains. So that's pretty happy with that one.
So I know at the moment that I probably should be just buying Winchester PowerPoint ammo if I keep getting results like this, and that's gonna be the ammo for the gun so far. And to most marks, I'm gonna do that, mate. Is it like your due diligence to do this procedure with guns, with some new ammo, you know, a couple of boxes of each in front of you, whatever, and then just figure it out. You don't just, you know, pick the same brand, you always pick, you always play around a little bit.
And you're gonna get some people who really like brand specific stuff, there are those type of people. But if that person goes out and shoots it, and it's no good, they're not gonna use it. Sometimes you can be really lucky to pick a good ammo straight away, maybe pick the most expensive ammo. Sometimes it'll work, sometimes it won't.
More expensive, they're gonna be a lot more consistent power loads, they're probably gonna have a finer scale and all that sort of more effort put into it. But most people are generally, when they're gonna get a new gun, they're gonna get a box of each different ammo, or a different weight of the ammo, and shoot them all and see what they're getting. And they'll do that with all different types of ammo. I went out again on another day with some different ammo that I got for a little bit of a cheap price.
So my first, first one was these two here. So this is a different type of target mate. What we call it, this is classic. This is classic one to me, this is what you'd see in movies.
Yeah, I saw big old balls I target with a couple of actuals on the side. So I had some federal stuff here. One of them didn't even hit the paper. I got two in about a two inch group of each other.
So I wasn't really feeling that one. Then I had another one. I got a three shot group here, one, two, three, which got too bad. And I shot that same group again up here, and I got a lot closer, so I got another two inch group with this ammo.
With this ammo, it was, it's target ammo. So we kind of spoke before, that ammo is just a solid, solid point of full metal jacket. So it's not a hollow point, it's not a soft point, it's not a fragment point. So you can't handle that legally, because it's just gonna go straight through and leave a little hole.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but if I can have one that's great for practicing, and one that's great for shooting, and they show similar results, that's great as well. Because then I've got one for when I'm practicing, pulling my trigger, practicing aiming, practicing these my scopes. I'm not wasting $50 of ammo for 20 shots, because that's how much free weight it is.
But that stuff is $25, 26 for 20 shots, which is, you can shoot that, not all day, but compared to the 50 you can, right? Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure it's even the psychology going on when you're all kind of putting that money in the barrel. You know what I mean?
Like compared to, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna throw this in, and then when you've got some real nice shit, expensive shit, it's like, well, let's just, let's make sure we hit something with this. Yeah, you almost wanna find out, okay, well, this works, and that's your hunting stuff. You don't shoot it, you take your hunting, once a month, maybe, or let's say you take your rifle out and you don't really shoot much, but that thing's been banging around on your back all day, you're gonna take it to the range, have a little couple of test shots, make sure it's still lined up in case something got banged out of whack or a bolt come loose or whatever. It's always good to be able to check it, especially with your target ammo.
Nice. So, still got some more ammo to go with, you know, there are fucking shit loads of them. So what ones have you used to make, sorry, what the brands that you've gone for already? One second mate, I'll just pull the box out.
Nice. It's showing up in the open wheel, like this. You didn't mention them at last, on the last target you hit, that top left one, that was right on the money as well. That top left wheel, that was right on the money.
The top left one on the last one, you know. Oh yeah. That was right on the money. We'll see, obviously he's being humble as pie, but that was, I can speak for him, that looked like he's the right on it.
Well, you know, you always, there's always room for improvement. And I think being, well, shooting with my other rifle, my 17-HMR, it's really accurate. Wow, right. I'm always getting bullets touching each other.
These are the sides of my thumb, where the other one inches and inches apart from each other. So, I would love to be able to just have one big hole, but you know, you got to have a little, you got to have a goal. Does that happen? Yeah.
That is really sick. I've seen people 100 yards shoot four shots in one hole. And then people get annoyed if one of them is just outside of the hole. But you know.
Like the splat points they're touching, to me looks legit, but some people we piss off of that, they'll be like, oh yes. That should be going through it. Yeah. I'm missing, essentially.
You know, you're not hitting where you want to hit. Where some of these old boys have done like, precision shooting competitions. They have a piece of paper as your target. And then there's a piece of paper behind that target, that moves.
Because these people will shoot four or five shots through one hole, but how can you prove it? So if you have that piece of paper, constantly moving, there'll be the four or five marks behind it. So that's how good some of these old boys are. Yeah, they sound good.
They sound very good. That's years they make surely. You don't pick that up and then hitting that. You know, there's, there's me 100 yards, sometimes one banging, a 25 cents coin or a 10 cents coin.
I can't even see it with, with your naked eye, so you've got your scope on it. And I've done a couple of one shots through those. And there's people who've never done that. Cause I've been like, oh, I did that 100 yards.
Now like 100 yards. Cause I've only ever done that for 50. And so I'm here every day. Yeah, but I suppose it's, you know, you go back to your front job, Will, probably, one of your top six maneuvers, I know you've got a few more, I'm not gonna just pin you just the one, because you've got a few, I've been real off, but let's just focus on the front job.
Like if you land a sloppy one, you know, you know, you know yourself. It's like that isn't, that's not what it's like. That's the land, even the strike of the board on the ground. Like you'll know straight away.
You know, the first day might not be Christmas. But the third one, third board, it's kind of, if you're not, if you're on a sloppy day, then you're having a sloppy day. I'm sure it's the same with you as well. Some days you're not gonna be hitting them the same way.
You know, the days are gonna be fucking just gliding through the ball site. Exactly. And you know, it's exactly the same with skateboard. Sometimes you go throw a front shelf and you're fucking looking at old matey, fucking cutting you up or something.
You do a quick rushed front shelf and your foot lands on the nose and your other foot dragging off the side. Why did that happen? Cause I fucking rushed and I was watching this old boy cut me up and, you know, I wasn't paying full attention. Same with the shooting, you know, back to the maple seed.
Pull the naturator slowly, you're breathing. All those things, same with skateboarding. You know, you're loading that rear foot up, you've got your front foot in the right sort of position. If that's an inch or two out, your whole trick's gonna be an inch or two different, you know, good or bad.
It's crazy that just those little kind of things, just to tell yourself, just to refine yourself again, you know, I've been doing my training every Sunday morning, mate, going down the park, eight in the morning to get back in the game, you know, to get me where I need to be, where I should be. You know, been a little bit lax a bit. And obviously the kicklet's back in the game, you know, no questions to ask. Even with that, even if you're on a sloppy day, you know, you're doing a line, you're doing a flip-drip verse, and then you wanna hit the ledge or something.
If that, and you're hitting some sloppier tricks, because you're doing a two-piece, it just happens. And it's like, right, you just gotta go back, and you gotta think, right, you gotta get that muscle memory where, like, because it's slowing it down, obviously you're slowing everything down about it, but slowing the process down, so you can break it down, it's like, right, yes, the squat is, your squat is this, you know, you're, oh, and it all the tricks are different, right? You know? I squat way much more, I don't really squat that much, but like for a switch hill, I'm going down, so I need that time.
I just need that time, just to regulate everything to know when my weight is everything, I'm always a kicklet. The squat's there, but I don't even need that, you know, you've given up a little hop before, like a shove or something, like a adjustment hop, where the kick, but I don't need that, that is just like, it's already preloaded. It's placed, and if you can get every trick like that, then you're in a good position. The movement back to the guns, I'm sure, it's the same thing, if you can just feel at one, in all different varieties, I suppose you've locations change shape all year, you know, like, that can completely throw you from just being down to the, that doing target practice down the range, you know what I mean?
I mean, compared to if you're out in the wild, when you've got just a new environment, I suppose, a new skate parking spot, it all, everything changes how you, yeah. Just where the sun's pointing at the end of your eyes, anything, bit of wind. Yeah, I don't think about that, but the sun, surely, that could change everything. You might be able to make a shot if the sun's hitting the wrong, you know, hitting you just, obviously it might not be completely obscuring your view, but it's enough to come like this, it's just, this isn't right, I know I'm not, I'm not gonna hit, yeah, my shot isn't where it should be.
Yeah, no, definitely, it's part of all factors. Yeah, I'll go through some of the ammo I've been using. I've got, I've been using a basic cheap federal power shot, 150 grains, this one. So, federal's a brand mate?
Yep, federal's a good one, brand. And this is more of a cheaper ammo, you gotta try it, you gotta try it, you gotta try it. It wasn't having a good luck with this one, this is the one that I was getting four inches or more sort of impact with, but good to try, and this is a jacket soft point, so the tip, I haven't got this one, but the tip of it is lead, and I'll give you an example of these quickly. So this is another federal, this is a soft point white tail, and the tip of it you can see it's got lead tips, so.
Yeah, right. That's gonna smush straight out when I hit, come into contact with anything. Which just makes it bigger, right, so the, yeah, exactly. Gonna cause more damage.
Yeah, it's not just gonna, it's gonna fall up, it's gonna create a larger wing child. And that was the federal non-typical white tail soft point, and this one is 150 grain as well. That's a hunting bullet mate, surely with the, with the head on the front of that? Yeah, exactly.
That's what it's telling me anyway. And it's an American hunting bullet. It's an American fag on it. It's a nice lighter colour one, and this one wasn't giving me the best results either.
But I had to try it, and this one was a very cheap price from my old matey boy in Chinatown, I got to say $35. Do you get suckered into the branding of the bullet boxes? Is there some that kind of like, you like the, the set of the box you go, I'm gonna have to get that. Even if you kind of know they're not like great bullets, are you, are you, are you past that now?
Do you not care about the? Sometimes, but when they're this expensive, I've got to just go with whatever it tells me. And hopefully it's a cool box. Yeah, kind of like about the, the bones ceramic boxes.
I can't necessarily snazzy a box, but you know they're better, they're better, better. You know, it's just, it's saying, you know, reds on it or whatever. You know it's a little bit better. But with the brand, I like more of a cheaper brand, the bronze PMC, I like the way the box looks, and they always run good.
And everyone, most people I meet say they always run good. Whatever size ammo the bronze PMC have always been top favourite. But yeah. Across all shooters in Canada, or is it?
Just after, just more of the people I've personally spoke to. Right. But I've never heard anything bad about them. Nice.
Yeah, the next one I got, I made this one, I made this more of a premium one. It is a federal premium. It's called the Berger High-Red Hunter. And these are 168 grain and they are hollow points.
And these ones have nickel plated brass, nickel plated brass shell. Yeah. You know, they're a really small hollow point on that. These are looking like something that you'd slay a vampire with.
So I do enjoy these ones. And these ones have given me an okay size grip. So they're not too bad. But not as good as these Winchester power points, which I've got right here.
Oh yeah, I like that. So everyone says the legendary white tail deer cartridge. So obviously a lot of people are using this for the white tail deers, made in the USA. And this is 150 grain.
So back down to the 150 grain. These are same as the other one we've shown. There are, well these ones are a lead point. But if you can look, you can kind of see it's got marks on the top of the brass, where it would curl open, kind of like hollow point as well.
Yeah. Yeah, a little indentation is just a little kind of... Yeah, so that would probably flower out a lot easier. But these seem to be the Mac daddies.
So I'm gonna have to keep playing with them, making sure they look good. And if they do, they'll be the ones to bite. Are you still gonna play around with that ones as well, mate? Or do you kind of just stick them on the shelf once you know that you've got a better bullet for your gun?
I'll probably keep running them and just making sure that they are staying consistently, not as good as the others, basically. I'll shoot the rest of the box. And then I got the bronze PMC 308. These are 147 grain.
So three grains lighter, which is fuckle, literally absolutely nothing. And these ones are just a solid carpenter, jacket. I'll start about... Yeah, that's a classic, right?
That's a nice big classic. That's a bullet. Exactly. So this, not for hunting, but for target ammo, sweet.
Been really good. So with this one and the power point, we're looking pretty good. They're still, whenever you go to the gun store, there's probably at least 20 or 30 different brands and weights. Half of those will be doubled up.
So you'll see, I'll probably see the power point at 150 grain and a power point at 160 or 168 grain as well. So I'm gonna stick with the 150 unless I start getting success from other 160 grains. Which I will try. So the Winchester, is there an alternative to that?
Would you think that's, you're gonna stick with that, change the grains up on that? Or is that kind of... I'm gonna stick with the feel less. I feel like the grain weight's probably the more important than brands, but I'm just gonna have to keep going mate.
At the moment, I know I've got one successful type of cartridge that this gun likes. So I can keep going with those. I've got another half of us to go through to make sure that we're still doing good. And I'm still gonna try other ones.
Maybe the next time I buy that one, I'll buy another one or two random other ones. And there's some hunting cartridges, which is probably hit the 65, 70 dollar mark. And I'm gonna have to try some of those as well, because if they're good, they're good. And if they're hunting, so I'm not gonna be using them all the time.
It's not like I'm taking down the range of plastic. Yeah, you gotta know. The same with bearings, right? It's the same principle.
Once you've tried, it's horrible. Once you've tried the fucking ceramics and things like, it's hard to go back. Like I'm running some reds because that's what I had. You know, set a fresh board.
Obviously it's kept the wheels, just once the fresh bearings. So that's all I had to hand. But it's night and day. I feel it.
When you first push on the, even on the skate park round, smooth as you like that first push, you know there's some drag, you know it's not a consistent. It's not the same. You can feel it. It's not true.
You can just, you know what I mean? It's almost that jolly. It isn't jolly, but it's not just gliding. You know this.
It's not handling your weight. It might work for a seven year old, you know, but a fucking 30 seven year old, it doesn't work the same way. You know what I mean? It's just you need something a bit kind of a true, I suppose.
That's it mate. I'm just trying to get a little bit of extra out of it. And go find out. Go find out.
Yeah, yeah, just imagine like what you're kind of almost changing your whole experience from shooting. You could just just pay that little bit extra. And the enjoyment factor is going to go like 10 fold because you're using something that's just so much more efficient. And why would you just because it's cheaper?
That's why the whole bearings thing is like the easiest analogy for skateboarders to really deal with. I know that ceramics, they're on 150 quid now as fucking steep. You know, I'm not saying anything against that, but Reds, you know, standard Reds, 20 quid, whatever. But if you went to the 30, 30 by 40 quid range of air in it, you can feel the difference.
Oh yeah. And you're going to have so much more enjoyment and long jerry out of it. Just for spending, because people that came in and bought these fucking, the Spitfire heads, I'm trying to think what they were called. Hot shots.
Yeah, they were used to sell the shot. The 10 pound one. And you know, you'd always try to just spend eight quid more. Yeah.
Just spend eight pounds more and just get some Reds at least. Because they weren't. They're almost there. Oh crap, I busted one good bearing.
I need to buy a pack of bearings for today. And you just put one bearing in. You keep the rest of your wheels and that saves your skating for the rest of the day. And then you go out and you order some nice bearings.
But they last longer. You go by the hot shots. You know, I ran a couple of those just because that was all we had at the time. Fuck, month later, they're all toasted.
You know, especially if when you're going out in the street, you're not just at the park, you're hitting dust, dirt, bit of wet, debris, everything. Vibration, you know, like all, yeah. You know, all of that pays a toll where if you've got some ceramics or a nice-priced, slightly more premium hardware, it's going to last so much longer. Does it kind of prefer a premium bullet mate?
Is it kind of on a gun? Or does it really change anything? Not always. You could just luck out.
And not every gun's the same, even if they're the same type and style. You know, I could have two guns that are the same. One might like one type of ammo more than the other one. You know, every Fintz, it's all been machined.
Some of them aren't made by the tens of thousands in a factory, some of them are a bit, you know. They're going to have slight differences. My 22, for instance, some of the cheapest 22 ammo I've got runs better than some of the more expensive ammo that I've got for it. Same weights and everything else.
Sometimes that's not always the case. Sometimes people, the more expensive ones, are on the best. More expensive ammo is not mass produced by big, big, big machines. They're still done by machines normally, but everything is all about consistency.
If they can make it as consistent as possible, that's what you're paying for. And obviously, slightly bad material. So everything needs to weigh the same essentially, you know? So the, yeah, tens of thousands of whatever, you know?
And I'm sure things like that. You know, if you put in a tiny piece of grain more, then that bullet's going to fasten the last bullet. All these things are going to make something spinn quicker or not spin as quick. Maybe dip down earlier or something.
I mean, it's heavier. It's going to have some sort of impact, especially if it's just not the same as the last one. If every time, you know, some people, every pack of bullets pretty much, has got a lot number on it. I can't find one here, but most of them will have a lot number on it.
And that's kind of the, so this one's got a lot number here. And some people go to a store, okay, cool, they've got my bullet and they'll try and buy every pack with the same lot number. So they're going to be as consistent as each other as you can get. Yeah, that's fair.
I think it's anal, but I get it. It's going to work. If you know that that bullet works and you get all of these ones that are the same, they're all going to be consistent to each other. Then you'll be gutted though, that when the next time you go in, you're looking for those lot numbers.
You know, one pack of your lot number and then the rest is a new lot number. Yeah, you'll probably have to change and hope it's not too much of a difference. Yeah. Because it might not be much of a total.
I get it. But even just, I think again, psychologically, placebo wise, you just knowing that it's the same, surely makes you feel more confident in your shooting because it's one less moving part. Yeah. One less thing to worry about.
So it's just, I don't know. Yeah. And that's it. If you know your gun, if you point that out, you know, an inch square and you fire it and it's going to hit that inch square pretty much every time as long as you're doing your job, right?
Then you've got so much more confidence in every shot you take. Because some people, one scary particular that I know, he was always after a certain shape of girl board. He wanted a certain shape. Yeah.
And he'd look at the shape number and it's like, I ain't got time for that sort of shit. I'll get this, I like to skate the same brand because you're generally, the shape isn't going to change too much. But like he was so specific, it was like, I have to have that. I'm not, he just wouldn't buy it.
He just wouldn't buy a board. And you've got to appreciate it because it is. You don't have to, you know, it's the same as the pair of shoes mate. Oh yeah.
You know, as soon as you change those shoes out, everything's different. If it doesn't fit in, it's not nice. Yeah. Or your style of skating changes.
Oh yeah. I'm sure if you stuck some old school vans, you know, like on your feet mate, at your front shelf, it's going to be, it'll even look weird. It'll even look weird because it won't be your front shelf. It'll be this new front shelf.
I wouldn't be able to find the right foot placement. Like it wouldn't, it wouldn't feel right. It wouldn't feel the same. I'd have to relearn to do it right.
Yeah. Yeah. With those shoes, that's what, even with shoes, it's nice to try to, I mean, it's hard, but stick with the same pair. As long as you kind of buy the same pair again, even if it's a new colorway or whatever, and you're not that into it.
If you know that's the, the shoe for you, you don't want to change the moving part because it will absolutely just throw everything. All your basics will change. Yeah. It's a completely, it's a, it's a new sport.
It's a new fucking, it's a new thing you're playing with. Yeah. So definitely any, any differences can make, make a big difference down the line. But yeah, mate, it's been, been enjoying having a new rifle, obviously really like to get a new scope on that when I can, but it's just gonna happen when it happens at the moment.
It's gonna, it's gonna be working until then. It's much as good. Yeah, but yeah, if it's doing a job, then you don't have to worry about the, the balance of the miss was just yet. You can, you can add a moment if you need to.
Yeah, and that's it. Then later down the line, those are the sort of things that make it more exciting as well. You know, putting something new on a gun, it's kind of like reviving that gun again, even better than what it was last time. And you're gonna get that more, a little bit more out of it, which is nice.
And I've taken it out once for a little hike and hunt in a different area than normal where my body went to an area where he goes hunting, or hasn't been there for about a year, but we went up there and had a little mission and had a good look at the spot. Saw a load of good animal prints and saw a deer hiking down, as we were on the way out. We were both not even looking for it really, just kind of popped out of it, we weren't around away, but rifles were already slung on the backs and just wasn't meant to be. So where it goes?
It's where it goes. And that's why it's called hunting, yeah. But no, had a good time there. Recently been doing a little bit of go for hunting and prairie dog hunting, which has been real fun.
Been doing that quite a bit with the 17 HMR and the good scope. So all the target practice has been paying off. Is it harder shooting a smaller animal? Not with the 17, because I've been only shooting extra small targets.
So they're almost, they're not big targets, but depending on how far if they're in 100 yards or closer, they're a decent size target for a smaller, smaller caliber. When you start getting past 100, that's when you start missing things. So let's, yeah, you're just going to be rigid or something. You know what I mean?
You're already a spot animal. Obviously you're kind of, you get a rangefinder out or not. You just kind of just feel it. You can kind of feel it.
It's not a goal for us, I suppose. They kind of know how far they can kind of hit it. So they've got that. And then you would just develop a rangefinder that would only help.
So it'd be good to have one, but generally on my scope, I've got a, I forgot what it's called, but like a distance focuser sort of thing. And so by quite my rifle down, there's a target 100 yards, I look for an extra level blurry. I just put that number on 100 yards and it'll be in the right focus for it. So then if I move to 50, it'd be slightly out of focus.
So if you point at that gun at a target or an animal and keep going and focusing it, that'll kind of show you how far away it is. So let's just say though, you know it's beyond 100. Yep. And 100 is a kind of like, you know, the max focal range or whatever we're talking about here.
Are you still making a shot? Or do you, or you would have tried it closer? No. So all right, then so where's the, what's the purpose you're, you're entertaining.
Oh, as just as far as I can. If I mess with this, it's not, it's not a deer or something like that. If it runs away, if you missed, this guy's just gonna go hiding his hole or stand there and don't even know what's happened. Yeah, right.
But I got one, one I know that was over 100 yards, it was downhill. And we'd had a lot of wind that day, the wind was going right past us. So like, if he was here, I shot about here, and I knew that it's gonna carry with the wind and I got him. It's so weird to me that your crosshairs aren't on something.
You know what I mean? Like I get it, but it's so weird that you're not, you're not aiming at the thing you're shooting at. Yeah. You're just allowing for.
I'm really, really nice to go. So instead of just being the cross, so the cross, hashtag, hashtag, hashtag, same for the sides. So if I know that I'm just shooting a little bit, I've still got reference hashes to put onto him. So it's a little bit of a guessing game, but when you, you know, okay, he's roughly between 120 to 150 yards roughly.
So I shouldn't get much of a difference between my 100 yards shot. So I'm just gonna aim it slightly higher. So if I normally aiming around here, just gonna aim here, if the wind's going this way, just gonna aim out here. Because if I'm shooting here and it's missing, then it's obviously just going just a bit past him.
Yeah. Sometimes as well, you can shoot, you'll see a little bit of dirt fly up. Sometimes they'll just back down, they'll be back up again in about 10 seconds that you're running. And you can make that look, you can walk it in if you like.
When you first go out, do you give yourself a little practice shot to see what the wind's doing? I suppose it doesn't, you know, depending on what angle you're at at that time is dictating to what's gonna happen. You know what I mean? If you saw the animal, it's the right of you, it'd be different because obviously the wind's hit at a different angle.
And then if you saw it in front of you, you'd be different. So you can't. Generally, most of the things, most of these goapers and parrot, or parrot dogs, they're in that 50 to 60-eyed range, which is not gonna be affected by the wind too much unless it's like a crazy wind. But yeah, you just go make the shot and that one day was really windy.
We're shooting downhill and the wind was just going, you know, left to right the whole time. So you'd go shoot, ah, I'm missing all the time. So I'm just gonna shoot to the left of this guy because I know the wind is going right. And if you face it in the other way, you just switch it, you know, swap that around.
If you're shooting with the wind, perfect, if you're shooting against it, you just gonna have to shoot and see how it affects like, cause the wind's gonna be inconsistent as well. It's gonna come in a gas. Sometimes you might have to wait a little bit if it's really windy, but generally you should be all right. When you start pushing it past the hundreds, that's when the wind plays until then, you know, you start losing, you've lost it.
The bullets falling around, it's gonna start flying around. But yeah, generally, no test shots. That's 17 HMIR, it's so accurate. I've dialed it in so much that if you come out with me and you've got a nice steady rest on the bipod, we're normally lying down on the grass.
You're probably shooting something first, go out 100 yards. Or inside that field. If you missed it, I would say, did you aim at him? Where did you aim at him?
You're gonna hit him pretty much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is nice, you know. And sometimes I take my 22 out of my body, or sometimes use one of those, or sometimes I use one of his.
But I'll give him that gun. I know it's like, then, so all he's gotta do is put it on the right spot, relax, and get his trigger pull in there. Nice. Yeah mate, it's been a really good fun.
And a lot of people have been saying that shooting gophers and prairie dogs is really good practice for proper hunting because you're hunting a smaller target. And generally when people are shooting big game animals, they're shooting them around that 100 yard mark anyway, a lot of the time. So if I'm lucky enough to get in that 100 yard rage, I know them, as long as everything's right, as long as I'm breathing right, you might see this animal, and your adrenaline might go up, whatever, but your steak arm, knock it out. So hopefully in the future I'll be lucky enough to get some bigger game animals.
But until then, it's all about the practice. Yeah, and I suppose the size of the animal, what you're kind of aiming for, that is going to be relative to the size of the area that you want to hit on a bigger animal. Yeah. I mean, if you were to stick a gopher on the side of a deer.
Yeah, that's it. It's probably around that sort of size of what we're talking about like the eight inches or whatever, you know, it's... Exactly. So it's going to be good for honing, yeah, honing skills, I suppose.
Yeah, that's it. That's it. I was just trying to... Was there another...
Did you speak about the deer that you got? I'm sure I'm not sure if you did. Might be in a while back. I don't know, yeah, I'll briefly mention it, but not too long, guys.
Probably four months ago, I was able to get a little deer. Yeah, it was right. Yeah, March. March, mate.
That's when it was. Yeah. Yeah, I've got a picture in front of me now. Nice.
Yeah. It was out hunting. And literally it was out about 15 minutes. Got into this one field.
And the last time we was in that field, we saw a deer in a certain... In the tree line of this field. We got into this field and I look around and there's... There's a deer right there in the tree line similar spot.
The wind is coming towards us, so no one will be able to smell us. And we're kind of tucking me, my friend, tuck ourselves down in this tree line. And there was some wild horses in this field. And the wild horses run away from us and run towards that deer area.
So we're thinking, oh, God, it's going to scare that deer away. But where they ran, they ended up pushing the deer to run, diagonally towards us. So if we're here, the deer's over here, he ended up running like this. So we came within about, I don't know, 40 yards of me.
Wow. San Francisco, down onto one knee. So I saw it run. Pat.
And, you know, when I shot, it just dropped straight down, popped back up and did a 180. So first of all, shit, I've hit it in his leg. And then it probably got about 10, 15 foot leg, drop dead. And are you moving with it?
Or are you kind of waiting? I kind of moved with it and then lined a little bit ahead of where I wanted to shoot, because I knew it was moving. It kind of followed just in front of it a little bit. And I was able to get it exactly where I wanted to get it.
It was sitting broadside. I kind of got just behind you. I'm hit there for a double, double lung shot. It's what a lot of people try and go for.
And hopefully get the heart in the middle. And I was really lucky and worked out. Nice. Did you get some meat out of it?
Oh, yeah. I got a good old lesson on watching my friend. He gave me a good old lesson on how to skin a deer, which is as a new hunter going into things. You either want to do it yourself or be there to watch someone do it, even if you don't get the chance of shooting.