Rim-Fire Revival

I still smile with pride now at just that memory with my mentors looking on at me as I took the rabbit open sighted with Uncle Dave’s rifle with the Martini Action on his own farm, the farm was where they all taught me how to shoot everything from air rifle and air pistol to shot gun and back in those days live shot pistols too, this was where my Uncle Dave taught me how to shoot open sighted with everything from .22 rim-fire right up to the 303 Lee Enfield, Uncle Dave’s farm was a paradise for a country boy like me to grow up on, with mentors that many can only dream of.

My Pappy always said you are only as good as your last job and he was right to the wise old goat that he was god rest his soul, so I treat every job and client with the same high standards no matter weather a lord or a small holding and that is why some of the huge clients I do I have had on the books for over 20 years.

I was taught by the masters my mentors and they taught me to use the best tools you can afford for the job in hand, this is something I pride myself in buy once cry once, I have used all sorts of .22 rim-fire ammo over the last 25 years but finally settled for the Winchester 40grn sub Sonic’s, that was until they changed them and my rifles hated the new ones so a search was made for a replacement, I have now settled for the Fiocchi subs I get from www.reallywildadventures.co.uk they are deadly accurate pack an almighty punch and do what they say on the tin, normal service has been resumed.

I will take you along for a hunt with me, I am called out by a frantic golf course owner, a friend of another client of mine, the poor fellow sounded like he was at his whit’s end he really did not know what to do with himself, I went along in daylight to view the problem site and to hear his tale of woe.

I like to view every job in daylight not only to see the damage but track and build up a picture of what’s safe to shoot and what’s not etc, I also use infa red glow sticks with the night vision to mark off safety zones or no shoot zones, I could see what the poor fellow was talking about as I drove up the beautiful drive up to the club house, rabbits were all over the place I could of shot a dozen on my way up, but until my contract is signed and all the paper work done, I will never take a gun from its slip, what’s the point in having the insurance etc if you don’t cross the Ts and dot the I,s, also this covers your back side if the police are called etc in the early hours or late at night whilst you are there on vermin control duty, you will be surprised how often the police do get called after some old lady takes one look at you as you take a gun from the truck as they are walking their dog or something.

I remember starting off on the driving range this particular evening, I set up the .22 rim-fire on the NiteSite Viper and put the NiteSite Wolf on my 17hmr this was because some of the rabbits would be further than 100 yards, how did I know this? because the kindly golf course owner had range markers clearly displaying the ranges with windage flags attached to each one.

I thought to myself how kind of him to set me up a functioning rifle range, I still say to this day a golf course is a wilful miss use of a perfectly good rifle range, so with the flags and markers I can tell exactly how far these rabbits are and tell the windage etc, this was like the Rolls Royce of rabbit control for this rough ole country boy.