Bog Myrtle & Peat

As was driven home quite firmly once again last week, rifle shots on the Chayne are always long. 1600 acres of open, undulating moorland mean that stalking skills are almost  totally redundant. You either take a long shot or you don’t fire at all. My confidence with rifle accuracy is steadily building, but only because of the support I’m getting from my friend Richard Waller. Richard has been helping me with various bits and pieces as my project on the moor progresses, but his real speciality is vermin control.

Richard is a rifle enthusiast with a real interest in high performance bullets. He recently established a new business in nearby Dalbeattie selling custom loaded ammunition for local stalkers and foxers, and I have found his bullets absolutely second to none. Watching him shoot crows and foxes well over three hundred yards away with his own hand loads was mind blowing, and as soon as he had compared how much tighter his groupings were with those from factory rounds, I became a complete convert.

When my .243  fires factory rounds, I can put three bullets in a 3 inch group at a hundred yards. With Richard’s bullets, I can put them into a space the size of a five pence piece. There are so many different variables in the world of ballistics, and just a little tweak here and there can make an enormous difference to accuracy. Each rifle is subtly different, and as soon as Richard worked out the basic specifications for my .243, he was able to churn out fantastic quality bullets for a fraction of the price of factory rounds.

Now that his new business is up and running, it won’t just be the vermin on the Chayne who need to watch their backs…