nae pict


Bow Sight Setting

I am shooting a compound Merlin "lite storm" on glass wings with an Arten "Midas" sight together with a "LAYSERLYTE" sight imported from the states.

The conventional sight calibration information is stored sight settings are here.

As a matter of interest for beginners I found that using a laser sight is ideal for training - once set up for distance it  pretty much ALWAYS points where you are going to hit.  You can then concentrate on your form to ensure that your own sight coincides with the laser.  I appreciate the purists will scoff but it took months off my learning regime.  With a wee bit of engineering it is possible to mount both sights at the one time - sure there some parallax errors but 2 inches at 90m is not significant in the big picture.  Juxtaposition of this paragraph is dangerous as I have no plans to shoot the big cat discussed below.
 
 
Its a year with the merlin, I have been shooting
X7 eclipse 2412 4 fletch
carbon redline 410 420 and 520 3 and 4 fletch, the 520s were for a recurve but to be honest at anything out to 50m they all shoot the same.  
the 410s were on acc/redline parabolic 100 grain
the 520s were on acc/redline parabolic 60 gr

recently moved onto vector 480s - pin nock, (8grain) + plastic nock 2g + vector breakoff 480/530 at 110gr

Broke the string!  Eagh.  NO damage to anyone, broke at nocking point, arrow hit the target but things were a bit slow for a while.
I was estimating 10000-20000 shots in the year.  NO dry fire that I know of.  I am using a speedloop and wonder if that is to blame?

308 Full-bore scores

I am a Lefty and I have a pair of .308s.  A Fultons of Bisley handbuilt TR based on a quadlock action and a 1 in 13 borders stainless barrel.  The 2nd is a borders rebarrelled Remington 700 set up for F class/fun.

Start of season 2007 with 178 shots through my barrel.  Started on H/L rather than RG ball issue. Low load and far from the landes to start

Date
 Place
 A/B
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
 10
 11
 12
 13
 14
 15
24/5/5
 Cawdor 600 Club rifle
 M/1
 3
 3
 2
 3
 2
 5
 3
 v
 4
 3
 2
 3
 3


2/5/06
 Cawdor 300  97+12 remington
 V/4
 4
 5
 5
 5
 2
 4
 V
 5
 5
 3





21/6/5
 Cawdor 300 Club rifle
 M/4
 3
 M
 3
 4
 3
 4
 2
 4
 3
 4
 4
 4
 4
 v
 4
13/5/06
 Cawdor 300 Issue TR 25+17
 5/4
 5
 3
 2
 4
 4
 4
 3
 5
 4
 5
 5
 2
 5
 4
 3
15/5/06
 Cawdor 300 Issue 59+12
 2/3
 2
 2
 4
 4
 5
 4
 4
 5
 4
 4





15/5/06
 Cawdor 300 card 2 issue 71+12
 4/V
 4
 5
 v
 3
 v
 4
 5
 4
 4
 4




43.2
31/5/5
 Cawdor 600 IssueR700 issue
 4/4
 4
 3
 3
 M
 5
 V
 V
 4
 5
 V




39.3
13/5/6
 Cawdor 500 42+17
 3/4
 4
 4
 4
 4
 3
 3
 5
 2
 5
 v
 4
 5
 v
 5
 4
 62.2
27/6/06
 Cawdor 500 119+17
 3/3
 v
 4
 5
 4
 4
 3
 v
 5
 5
 4
 5
 4
 v
 5
 4
 67.3
24/4/07
 Cawdor Lapua 43g Feb210M 1st fire 178+12
 2/2
 2
 2
 M
 2
 V
 4
 4
 3
 V
 3




30.2
1/5/07
 Cawdor lapua scenar 44g varget 190+12
 3/4
 V
 5
 4
 V
 5
 4
 3
 4
 3
 V




43.3
14/5/07
 Cawdor ?300
 V/3
 5
 4
 5
 4
 4
 5
 4
 4
 4
 4




43.0
22/05/07
 Cawdor 44.5 214+12
 3/2
 V
 5
 V
 4
 5
 5
 5
 4
 V
 4




47.2
27/6/06
 Cawdor 500 issue
 3/3
 V
 4
 5
 4
 4
 3
 V
 5
 5
 4
 5
 4
 V
 5
 4
 67.3

Cawdor 500 H/L 256+17
 4/4
 5
 5
 5
 V
 V
 V
 4
 3
 5
 4
 V
 5
 3
 V
 5
 69.5
10/7/07
 Cawdor 300metric H/L 44.5g varget+Lapua 155 273+12
 9/9
 10
 9
 9
 10
 X
 X
 9
 9
 9
 10
 10
 10
 8
 8
 9
 90.2

285+17
















31/7/07
 Cawdor 500 H/L 302+12
 4/2
 2
 4
 4
 4
 3
 4
 4
 V
 V
 V




41.3
7/8/07
 Cawdor 600 H/L 44.5gn varget+Lapua 155+F210M 314+12
 3/3
 3
 4













14/8/7
 Cawdor 300 H/L 326+12
 2/1
 V
 4
 4
 4
 5
 5
 v
 4
 4
 4




44.2
14/8/7
 Cawdor 300 Issue 338+12
 4/4
 V
 5
 5
 5
 V
 3
 2
 4
 5
 5




44.2
16/8/7
 Cawdor 100+200 group testing on ammo
44.5-46.5@+10thou front rest and shoulder
45.5+46.5@ -10 and -20.  off front rest and rear bag 350+70
scans of the targets
















21/8/7
 cawdor 500 H/L 46.5gn +10 thou 420+24 (12 not mine!)
 3/4
 V
 4
 V
 5
 V
 5
 4
 V
 4
 4




46.4
28/8/7
 Cawdor 300 H/L 46.5+10thou 444+12; 1.0/3.6 no filters
4 mins from 500
 3/5
 5/c
 5
 4
 5
 V
 V
 V
 V
 V
 4




48.5
28/8/7
 Cawdor 300 'Rons Expensive Ammo' - poor groups, some 4's were almost 3's.  Shot 2 standard loads after this series and got V/V 456+14
 4/5
 5/c
 4
 4
 4
 4
 5
 4
 V
 4
 5




44.1
3/9/07
 Cawdor 300. 'Bought ammo' Batch 407/240407; 43.8gr N140, mii primers and 155 lapua scenars.  Poor groups, shooting felt OK 470+12
 4/4
 4
 4
 v
 5
 4
 v
 5
 4
 5
 5




46.2

.22 scores

No way - far too much - I must shoot about 8000 rounds a year, indoor/outdoor twice a week over the winter see Clachnacuddin for more details of small-bore in general.  You would think I would be good at it with that number of rounds!

Big Cat

We have a big cat of some sort around our area. Lots of anecdotal evidence, some 'perhaps' sightings, but here are some photographs of tracks in the mud taken 26/12/01.
paw prints

Each picture is a jpg of about 100K. Stored in this directory.
 
 

Crofting

I have the assignation from Lord Burton of a 40 acre hill croft. so officially qualify to be called a crofter.  I keep about 40 ewes and associated tups, riggs, wethers, hoggs, gimmers and anything else that passes.  4 (sort-of) working dogs are in the outside kennels.  3 are OK to work the youngest one is useless but I have not had the time to sell him yet.  The dogs work in Gaidhlig so are only of use to a select band of people.

The ground is coarse and at at height of 1000 ft has a very short growing season.  See pictures for the ups and downs.  In a bad winter drifts of 3-4ft around the buildings are usual.  Occasionally the road get blocks - perhaps drifts of 6ft or so.  JCBs dig the road open.

This year I bought an old Massey Ferguson tractor - so there will be some ploughing and cultivation going on in the coming year.  Expect a crop of tatties.

Crofting is done traditionally.  Lambing is outside, shearing is by hand.  However castration and docking uses new tools - not the old techniques.  My son of 7 can shear 1/2 of a sheep - he is so small that he can't turn them.  The older son is too clever even to try you can see him thinking "shears -> sharp, sheep -> big" NO.

The meat tastes good - even the mutton!  Using the styles of old we eat the wethers at 2 years - we sell the cast ewes.

Photos and notes of things about the croft.

HillWalks/Camping

Here is the detail and some pictures of multi-day walks that we have undertaken in Scotland.  Packing lists and comments are included for anyone else planning the same kind of walks with young kids.

photos and motes on walking/camping.

Caber Tossing

The local Abriachan Highland Games run a "heavyweight" (for me read fat) competition each year.  Stones, Hammer and Caber are the threee disciplines.  I am working on my own caber  - I think this qualifies as cheating since nobody else practices from one end of the year to another.
 

Fire breathing

Getting better at this.  The kids have caught on too (no put intended).  I'll try and get some video clips taken on a dark night and attach them.  The 8 year old does better than I do for distance.  Can't yet figure out why.

Before moving onto the spirits I found it best to start the kids on cornflower and/or drinking chocolate blown through a biro case (or a short piece of 1/4 or 3/8" pipe).  After that move onto lycopodium (sp) in a tube.  Finishing up with the lyco in the mouth.  Mixing the lyco with cocoa powder helps make it more palatable for kids but it does clag up in the mouth much faster than pure lycopodium.

Takes about 2 elapsed weeks and about 1-2 hours of work to get the habit for kids.  20-30 mins for adults.

After this people at least understand volatility, blow back, the effect of the wind.  When not to swallow!  How to do a rinse out.

Overall I think that the liquid breathing is too dangerous for anybody to do - both in terms of toxicity and also interms of safety.
 

breathing with fire

see here for some pics James took

Juggling with fire

Getting better at this too.  The kids don't touch it - far to dangerous.  3 balls in a home brewed concoction of chemicals - everything from vodka (the only thing to do with vodka) and meths up to colemans fuel.  Normally a retarder is added (oil of some sort).  If you only use fuel the flames are too blue and not visible from a distance.  Gloves are needed.  Get the ones that formula 1 drivers use.  They are not cheap, they dont stop your hands getting hot/burnt but they are the best I have found.

Vocals

Three traditional puirt a beul from the Si\leas album "Beating Harps"
From Craig Cockburn Click here for files

Windows based Gaelic word quiz

A wee windows based utility is under development. Down load the latest alphaXX.zip file you can find - heavens above it might be beta one day I started in 1995 and have not done anything for 6 years. As a base I am using an old SMO dictionary, so I only have about 3000 words. Worse old spelling is used. However you can add your own words
You will need unzip.
Bug reports and comments welcome.
I hope to have it talking soon - then it will be beta!
Click here for files

You can contact me on (but take the _ out of the name - stops spammers hunting my site for names) jon_@malone.scotnet.co.uk .

Different lead pellets have different spread patterns

Different lead pellets have different spread patterns (.177)

All information Copyright (c) Dr Jon Malone 1995-2002 All Rights Reserved