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You should see the sailing version - about £80k for fat blokes on boats. Point is the tech is there now so it’s going to get cheaper and better. Honestly I think I would have bought one had it given wind readings out to 1km……..price is in the same ball-park (cheaper by about £700) than ‘normal’ Vectronix 25c lasers. Given the ‘gaming’ in sports like PRS etc anything that reads the wind for you down range at multiple points is going to give an advantage and will be afforded by the ‘sportsmen’ one way or another.

To the OP, StrelokPro supports the Weatherflow in the app. For a cheap option it’s a no brainier to me. Richard Uttings take on it: https://youtu.be/k9HnZPRsqr0 Kestrel is excellent but I am not sure how much longer the tech is going to be relevant, so I would not personally invest in the Elite models especially with the likes of Trijicon Ventus already here. https://youtu.be/0dgdZSDg_YA

Buckshot, another way of doing it is to use an optical collimator. I have a USO one which I think is good. It just really gives you a grid square…….. an argument could then be made how precise is the grid square in the collimator.

An easy way to check in a shop etc if the reticle is centred - if it is ffp and the reticle side bars extend to the edge of the tube) is to see if the side bars or whatever other suubtensions there are on the horizontal of the reticle appear / disappear at the same time if you zoom in and out, or if a particular marking is the same distance in from the tube on either side of the reticle. I’ve noticed slight differences many times. Tried to keep my head centred behind the scope. There are differences in how well reticle are centred. In ffp scopes I don’t think it makes any practical performance difference but annoying when you have paid 3k for a scope.

Two of the top end 9mm PCC ( pistol caliber carbines) are Sig MPX and Davinci. In fairness the JP gmr15 also belong in that mix. Base price is about £2k for the Sig and £2.7k for the Davinci, plus stock upgrades and red dots etc. They are basically IPSC and Steel Challenge game guns. We can have semi-auto anything in Czech but the U.K. I guess you are looking at a Marlin under lever or 22lr. Sig MPX: Davinci 9mm PCC sounds a good idea - cheap ammunition and steel target friendly however most 9mm carbines are still direct blowback and hamstrung by heavy bolts ( cmmg rotating bolt, heckler mp5 roller locking, kriss Vector and a few others spring to mind as exceptions) but to get the same or less recoil than a bog standard £800 AR15 in 223 you are going to spend a lot of money, flat and fast shooting are all that matters for IPSC games and it does make a big difference. Sig MPX (still my favourite) does it by a gas piston arrangement- and I think this is an excellent design and very versatile- one of my barrels is 6.5” plus suppressor, another 16” with compensator the same system works well with either. Sig gas piston: Davinci does it by direct blowback a magnetic buffer and short stroking the action. The rifle is lighter than the Sig and has a 2” shorter barrel so is more manoeuvrable. It still is not as soft shooting as the Sig but the Davinci side charging makes it about a second faster to load with a table top start. Davinci make the upper and lower receiver in house. I think the barrel is sourced from JP? All top quality components anyway.

Helps to buy in bulk. Powder multiple 20kg pots, bullets 30+k lots and primers - as many as you can. Purchase is from the factory or distributor. Money is not the issue with these people (usually successful business owners). The issue is time, with a commitment to train 4 or 5 times a week, but the same can be said of going to the gym to train, it’s a commitment.

Pops, A Dillon 1050 was not good enough so he bought a pair of Mark 7 Evolution presses - one dedicated to 9mm minor and PCC and the other for 9mm Major. It’s still very expensive. The only thing that has stopped him or me from getting through obscene amounts of 9mm in PCC with Sig mpx carbines is replacing hammer and recoil springs every 15k rounds, which nobody has in stock except in the US. The Sig mpx is a real addiction for me though. Not sure how much top shooters get sponsored but I don’t think that much. Certainly my mate shooting 50k gets nothing. Equipment cost is frightening, a 9mm major pistol (race gun) cost about £4k+ you need 2 or sooner 3 identical- one practice, one match and one is broken. 9mm Major eats frames and slides around the 25k-40k mark. Also limit down time on the range by having 10 or 15 mags for each platform that you can pre-load at home......not bad for a cz Shadow but 2011 prices are horrible.

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TSG, I had a group of 3 females and one male last week ( slicing the pie and attacking the crack) and a security company, agreed females are very good at following step by step building blocks for basic skill drills and manipulation (biggest issues are usually with pistols not carbines). This tends to hold true over different ‘bandwidths’. I don’t (cannot) instruct state police but I do instruct what you would call county / sheriffs police which are in general lower bandwidth and security companies and sport shooters which I think are higher bandwidth in general. Once you are past the basics what separates the wheat from the chaff to me is aggression (not the road-rage type) but the mentality to drive or go forward. Some clients want various degrees of stress induced - mental ( number boards and maths) to physically fitness or water boarding. It’s really just letting them push their boundaries. Sport shooters can do this very well- watch top level IPSC shooters, they don’t move or jog from position to position but rather an explosive drive. I can instruct the techniques but can only facilitate the amount of effort or drive someone wants to put in. Hopefully the army gets rid of any chaff before they get near a gun in basic training. How would you do this with U.K. police for a fully armed police? The Czech system is OK but normal police only at best get 50 rounds per month stand and bang training. It’s less than ideal. Rounds down range do make a big difference with pistol skills and drills. Personally if I shoot 5k per year I am ok, 10k I am better than ok but a mate who I was level pegging with now puts over 50k a year down range and pi**es all over me. By comparison top IPSC shooters put 100k-200k rounds down range a year, and that is just pistol, no surprise that they are faster than a fast thing.

Matt, it would be an up hill battle to arm the U.K. police. Management would see any Bobby with a firearm as a potential career threat. God forbid a ‘bad shooting’ with a woke media. Many police officers would see it also as career threatening- physical test, psychological test, re-fresh and qualification courses. H&S would require more advanced first aid , ballistic not just stab vest. Probably not so appealing and stressful to many officers. I also think percentage hit rates would be going down not up by a considerable margin - at least now you select the best candidates to become Firearms Officers. Dont get me wrong, I do feel the Czech system of a fully armed police force and civilian CCW is excellent . it’s just that the Czechs had a different history from oppression under communism and nazi Germany to learn from.

This was today in Greenwich. I don’t know what the answer is to that other than several bullets if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not that you can in the U.K. but what a depressing society, full respect to anyone having to deal with nut jobs like that.

Platforms: U.K. no one universal system but most popular : shorts: Glock g17, (g19 for vip) fly in the ointment is that it is the only pistol specified with a minimum trigger weight ( I think 12 lbs- it’s the US ‘lawyer proof’ weight anyway). You have now ham strung it. Other similar striker fired options S&W m&p 2.0. Cz p10F etc no such restrictions. Longs: police are HK fanboys- 9mm mp5 ( absolutely dated but the roller locking makes it easy and accurate to shoot) 223 - HK G36c, HK 416. PDW 6mm HK MP7. MP7 is quite CT specialised- negligible recoil, 6mm projo’s that defeats level 3 body armour. My thoughts on that platform- it’s not something that I would use in semi ( crap trigger reset) but full auto is where it shines - 40round mag, lack of recoil in a small form factor makes 10, 15 round bust so easy. Loved shooting it. Sights: Eotech seems to be the benchmark on carbines. Red dots on pistols are becoming more popular for civilian ccw and US military. I don’t think the U.K. is ready to get over the sticker shock that a red dot and mount is going to cost about the same as a handgun. Shield is U.K. based but Trijicon RMR / SRO is still the benchmark on handguns. Ammunition: it’s going to be a choice of what’s approved end up with things like 165 accubonds in 308w, 9mm MagTech for training etc. The best performing 9mm at the moment is either Speer gold-dot 2 (gd2) or Hornady Critical Defence...... so say a small testing lab called the FBI. They are overall evaluations rather than single category evaluation. (Czech - well S&B is a national company supplying a fully armed police force - no one said it was the best. Some anomalies like 308w being Sako 308 168g match as they bought Sako Trg 22s so that was specified in the warranty). Training U.K. approx 5% of the police force are armed, FO’s ( firearms officers) require higher physical fitness test, psychological test, first aid qualification ( ARV’s are equipped with defibrillators etc), tactical training (assessment). Pistol and carbine qualification courses. Refresher training re-qualification courses. Initial courses last around 12 weeks plus first aid course. Specialist courses - rifle, VIP on top of that and higher level SFO ( special firearms officer) gets into stuff like method of entry. UK system- well thought out integration of key tactical elements like active shooter and single system of search programs. Some things I noticed- Czech age of response units around 20-30 most are actively interested in shooting outside the job. U.K. age 40+ very limited numbers interested in shooting outside the job..... from those that I have spoken to. Sport vs Police : chalk and cheese really- there is arrogance in both camps but the best of the police units are happy to steal from anyone that they can gain knowledge from - eg. going to top level IPSC shooters to learn fast doubles and quick transitions saves you a lot of time in the learning curve. Other aspects are not appropriate. Some differences are not easy to appreciate- eg 1 part from an old police pistol qualification- 5m, draw from holster and fire one shot, time 3 seconds: that’s from a level 3 holster ( 3 levels of retention) full kit, target I’d and after shooting ‘scan and breathe’. It’s its own system. A sports shooter will look at the times and say that they can do a 1 second draw and 0.15~0.2 second splits so can fire potentially 10 shots to the 1 by the police. However they don’t have the same kit, protocols or consequences. For those who decry the police, how many would CCW given the opportunity- do a first aid course, take appropriate training and want the responsibility that you will be held responsible for your actions? That’s basically what the police do....... I do instruct ccw and people do it, me included so it’s not a slight but rather an informed choice and responsibility. (300k Czechs have fac’s from a 11M population, the majority with have the right to ccw, the majority will not normally ccw). Roy W. I heard the U.K. police might open the firearms training (not tactics) up to civilian contractors..... any truth in that?

Chris, I think the two position safety is AR style and 3 position on the bolt ( traditional AI). I don’t want to be an early adopter of a non-bonded action ( can argue until the cows come home about the perceived advantages / disadvantages of that) but bedding and glue-ins have been the way forward for benchrest. If you don’t want M-Lock, you may be better served with an Arca alloy forend ( ones here are made from 7075 alloy - fit AX also) and AR 15 grip module on an AXMC for less cash. I did this but then again I already had an AXMC.

Pat, the S&B pm2 FFP 5-45x56 with LRR reticle is going to give you the closet to what you describe for a varminting scope ( illumination, turret adjustments etc) the LRR is very usable for a fine subtending reticle ( 0.16cm / 100m centre dot) and has daylight visible illumination settings. OP, sorry for off-topic reply.

For anyone experimenting with brake designs I am really liking the JP Eliminator design. It’s only on a JP Ar15 224 Valkyrie but recoil is negligible.

Camberwick Green, Trumpton or Chigley would be my guess.

I seem to have upset the benchrest fraternity.......again Someone once told me ‘slow is smooth and smooth is fast’.........Truth is, fast is fast. After 50 I’m not getting any faster at anything.....just slower and older. Whatever standards I set myself become harder to maintain let alone exceed. A bit like women’s tits after 30 or kids, always fighting a loosing battle with gravity.

When you realise experience (being an old fart) is no substitute for youth. She is stronger, faster...... and possibly better looking than me.

Dave, I still have a Pathfinder- good work horse. This thread is giving me serious thoughts about maybe buying a JP 224 Valkyrie for a gamer toy. I am testing one for a mate but don’t know if I will get the use out of it. John’s last pics of his Tubb gun though are inspiring....... got the cyke pod ordered anyway.

If you use a rucksack too you can weight the front stick with it - or just rest it on the bottom of the stick ( I have seen an extreme version of this where one bloke was holding the tripod legs down whilst the shooter was doing his thing). I would think it would create more movement than help though. Another option to inner tube would be to use paracord and a piece of wood as a tourniquet.

AHPP, when you make a stick tripod as per picture it’s really just a rest for the sandbag. The rifle will recoil / bounce but it’s not hard mounted as with a tripod saddle mount etc. With that in mind you don’t need the stick tripod to have fine vertical adjustment- you can adjust them down by splaying the legs more but not up again - you loose the tension from the binding that you have when stressed into a lower position. I would tend to go for 2 legs back. Try something like a big rubber band from a hoover motor. If you can get it over the sticks tight- 2 or 3 times you might have something with enough tension that you could use and vary the height on. You need both tension and elasticity.

The big tripods are not very practical but obviously stable. For carry it all comps I use a Gitzo carbon. Fits into a 25L or 40L day pack. Tripods do not support the arse end of the rifle. However you can tension the front end with a HK sling (per picture) or something similar. This set up is easy to carry in a day pack and stable enough to enough to hit 10” plates from standing at 800m with an AXMC. Use a quality tripod ( carbon) RRS and Gitzo are good...... traveler / mountaineer series. A good ball head and find a way to support / tension the rifle and not balance it. It’s then a versatile bit of kit that works for sitting, kneeling and standing.

Mark, looks a very nice bit of kit :)

Yep

One thing does strike me, the AI product line is now a lot more differentiated. The AW, AE, AT,AX and chassis series were all ‘tactical’ rifles with an AW wooden target stock exception many years ago when the AW was not sold to civilians. The new AT-X and AX3 seem to fit very different roles. I think this is why we are getting red and blue stock media pictures...... a big push into a dedicated sporting market ( PRS). Possible the civilian market is out-stripping the military/ LEO market at least in the US? Terry.......IPSC and USPSA have shiny shirts..........PRS is ending up with shiny rifles