To Bushcraft or not to Bushcraft? Expedition Skills

Following on from last weeks post reviewing the Karrimor Trig rucksack this week we are going to discuss the idea of using bushcraft skills on expeditions.

Samuel Hearne who we mentioned on the blog just the other week adopted bushcraft techniques out of necessity on his journeys because the most up to date modern equipment and techniques of the time were simply too heavy for long distance exploration and he accepted that he needed to rely on native skill and knowledge to feed himself and maintain his kit over long periods. Nowadays with very light weight equipment being readily available it may be possible to carry all the kit you need for longer periods but it's the law that is the main thing that prevents us from heading into the wilderness for long term bushcrafting or to use bushcraft skills on our expeditions.

       By Nessmuk (George Washington Sears) - http://www.oldbookart.com/, Public Domain, Link

At the time of writing his 1884 book Woodcraft and his articles for Field and Stream magazine the kind of camping George Washington 'Nessmuk' Sears's was advocating was considered light weight. Nowadays the heavy canvas, tool kit and cookware would be considered grossly heavy by almost anyone contemplating an expedition on foot.

At the time though his approach was not practised by recreational hunters and campers and even the frontiersmen and mountain men of the early 1800's would, out of choice, travelled in companies sharing heavier kit between them and relying on their survival skills in extremis rather than as a routine. 

Compared to the heavy canvasses and iron cookpots of Nessmuks era though we can carry a titanium cook pot and a small gas stove that weighs less combined than the small hatchet he would have carried to process his fuel wood. Out tents or nylon tarps weigh a tiny fraction of his canvas tarpaulins and while they might now not be suitable for using to drag firewood or stretcher a casualty as they are much thinner and not as abrasion resistant as an old fashioned canvas they are more waterproof and far, far lighter.

bivibag, thermarest, sleeping bag and fly sheet; a combined weight of about four kilos, probably half the weight of an old canvas tarpaulin. 

A modern light weight camping shelter. 

Because the kit we have available nowadays is so light weight we can afford to carry more food than we might perhaps once have had the capacity to carry so we might be able to travel a little further without re-supply or without having to resort to fishing or hunting. Nowadays carrying hunting and fishing kit would be considered by many to be additional unnecessary weight on expeditions, but that's not the main reason that bushcraft and modern light weight camping an expedition seem to have parted ways. 

In the UK land ownership has been such a contention issue over the centuries and laws so restrictive regarding access to and passage over land that many of the rights exercised by Nessmuk during his adventures are denied us now. We couldn't go on an expedition across the UK and expect to hunt, fish and trap our own food or to be able to have fires wherever we camped in the evenings. Because we can't do those things we then have to rely on the modern light weight camp stoves, freeze dried food, and other modern equipment. Because we are then tied to using a modern stove instead of a fire we don't need an axe and saw to process firewood or a firesteel or bow drill kit to light it. Ye we might be able to whittle beside the camp stove in the evening but it's not the same as a camp fire and whittling for whittling's sake might be good practice for real bushcraft skills but without a purpose to you're whittling it's not really bushcraft. 

It's a great shame that we don't have the right to practice bushcraft in the countryside here in the UK, a right that is protected in law in Scandinavian counties. Allemansrätten in Sweden allows people to access more or less the whole countryside as long as they follow some sensible rules. These rules might include bans on fires in high risk areas during the Summer or completely in specific nature reserves, bans on fishing in certain conservation areas and the need to abide by relevant firearms and hunting laws. But largely access to the countryside is unrestricted as long as you practice courtesy and don't approach near peoples dwellings. 

At a camping shelter in Tyresta National Park in Sweden, due to fire risks and the need to maintain this pristine piece of primeval ancient forest fire, other than in designated areas like this one, is banned and you may only use wood supplied at camping shelters like this one rather than being allowed to cut and gather your own wood. But this is the exception rather than the rule and outside of these protected areas there is even greater freedom to experience the outdoors. 

 While I do love this principle and regularly take advantage of it on my trips to Scandinavia I can't see it working in the UK. The much larger population, the fact that most of the land is intensively managed lowland agriculture rather than forest and upland does not suit free access and neither does the mentality of many people here in the UK. We certainly aren't as a nation as closely linked to the landscape as out Scandinavian friends and I worry, having worked in the countryside my entire career, that the general level of respect for nature and the countryside here is far too low for people to be trusted with full access to the countryside.

The number of times I've seen people flout signs saying not to disturb undergrowth or cut live trees, even a few years ago at the 2014 Bushcraft show I watched a man and his young son, systematically cutting down willow coppice stems to make way for their shelter despite signs asking people not to cut vegetation.  The amount of litter I find in the countryside, the poaching that goes on, the gates that get left open, the dogs that are allowed to freely roam and terrorise livestock I'm not sure our nations countryside could survive the kind of access that Allemansrätten gives the Swedes.

Bushcraft when practised properly does not impact the countryside negatively, a neatly coppiced hazel rod here and there, some harvested fruit, fungi or some legal caught fish or game, a fire carefully extinguished and the ashes scattered, shelters taken down after use do not disfigure or endanger the countryside. That is not the perception though and and any thought of cutting wood, having fires or harvesting wild food on a hike, camping trip or expedition is fairly likely to be met with disdain by modern light weight campers, especially because of the weight of the kit and equipment that allows you to do those things. Additionally the though that you would burn wood or cut a piece of living hazel to make a spoon, whistle or bow for your fire set will shock and horrify people who don't understand the nature of hardwood trees and the benefits of coppicing. Leaving no trace is a good moto of campers but actually if more people engaged with bushcraft instead of insulating themselves from nature with modern light weight kit maybe they would feel inclined to leave a positive trace in the environment.

Chris Loynes of the University of Cumbria gave a great talk about this idea of leaving more trace at the Nature Connections Conference in Derby in 2016 and published a blog post on the topic HERE.

With the availability of modern light weight kit camping and bushcraft have become two very separate things to most people and that is a shame in some respects.

We'd be really interested to know how you link your practice of bushcraft with other outdoor activities and would love to feature some guest blog posts on the BushcraftEducation blog with peoples thoughts and ideas. Please get in touch with us through social media or in the comments section on the right of the page. We look forward to hearing from you and perhaps to publishing a guest post from you soon.

BushScience; Terminal Ballistics

The nature of this article does mean that there will be some pictures which are quite graphic and that we will be discussing a subject that some may find distasteful; PLEASE STOP READING NOW IF YOU ARE A SNOWFLAKE.  

Following on from yesterday's review of the browning x-bolt I'm dedicating a whole post to a lesson related to firearms and their use for getting wild food in the UK, rather than trying to shoe-horn it into yesterdays post. 

We'll be discussing terminal ballistics which is the term used to describe the path of a projectile once it has hit it's target. If we are planning to harvest wild game as part of our practice of bushcraft then we need to understand this so we select the right weapon to kill something for the pot. The nature of this article does mean that there will be some pictures which are quite graphic and that we will be discussing a subject that some may find distasteful; PLEASE STOP READING NOW IF YOU ARE A SNOWFLAKE. 

It's important if we are going to take a life to fill our freezer that we do so as humanely as possible and in accordance with local laws. 

I have written about archery here before and why I have never dedicated any significant amount of time to it's practice for the simple reason that it is not legal to hunt deer in the UK with bow and arrow so it practising never seemed like a good use of my time. So this post will focus on the terminal ballistics of rifle bullets and how they affect our quarry. 

A range of ammunition for modern rifles; from left to right .300 Win Mag, .303, 10.3x60mm, .243 Winchester, .222

When we discharge a rifle at a deer, rabbit or anything else that we intend to kill for the pot the projectile doesn't stop moving once it hits our target, obviously it penetrates it and causes traumatic damage and blood loss leading hopefully to a quick or instant death. The path of the projectile after it's first impact with the target and it, or it's pieces coming to rest, the projectiles terminal ballistics are the topic of todays post.

To set the scene watch this video to get an understanding of what happens when bullets strike their targets. These videos are quite old but show in great detail the effect of modern and antique firearms on ballistic gelatin and bone. Ballistic gelatin is made to mimic flesh in tests and so these videos are indicative of a bullets behaviour once it strikes a live target. One of the Browning X-bolts featured in yesterdays review is chambered in the same 5.56 mm calibre for the M16 that is tested in this video, the calibre is known as .223 in civilian circles.

The video is an old one but is does show perfectly what is meant by terminal ballistics and compares quite effectively the damage caused by modern rifle bullets compared to frontier era pistols and rifles which might also be of historical interest to bushcrafters.

To put what you have just seen into perspective and relate it to gathering food the legal minimum calibres for shooting Chinese water deer and muntjac (the two smallest deer species in the the UK) in England and Wales is .220 with a minimum bullet weight of 50 grains and minimum muzzle energy of 1000ft/lbs. For the larger species of deer the minimum is .240 and a minimum muzzle energy of 1700ft/lbs (there is no mandated minimum bullet weight). This guideline exists to ensure that deer are only shot with calibres that can kill them humanely.

It is true that smaller calibres can kill deer, especially with a well placed shot but the welfare of your quarry is paramount and you should never be tempted to use smaller calibres or inappropriate shotgun loads for shooting deer. Shotguns loaded with non spherical slug or AAA shot can be used to shoot deer in England and Wales but slugs require a section 1 firearms licence and good reason to posses and AAA is really only a loophole to allow farmers to shoot deer if they are doing severe damage to crops and they don't have access to a rifle. I would strongly recommend AGAINST using shotguns on deer unless it is to dispatch an already immobilised or trapped deer that can't easily get away and then only at very close range, even AAA shot which is large by most game shooting standards only carries a few ft/lbs of energy per individual shot and is not capable of killing or even severely wounding deer except at extreme close range. One of the reasons for this lack of wounding capability is that the shot (which is actually a similar diameter to a .223 rifle round) does not deform on impact.

The deformation of a rifle round is what allows it to transfer the maximum energy to it's target and kill it humanely. In fact rifle rounds for use on deer must be 'expanding rounds' that is they are designed to deform rapidly on impact with the target.

You can see the ammunition here on the left has plastic orange tips and on the right has slightly hollow points. The ammunition in the centre is NATO Ball ammunition with a full metal jacket. The other rounds are designed to deform on impact with soft skinned mammal targets and impart maximum damage to cause a humane kill.

The ammunition shown in the video was all non expanding ammunition in that it was either fully jacketed or solid lead which will deform but only when it hits something quite solid like bone. The rounds designed to expand rapidly are generally partially jacketed in copper but split open and rapidly deform on impact, an exposed lead tip, un-jacketed hollow point or plastic tip cause the bullet to rapidly open up bursting the copper jacket and smashing open the bullet to cause maximum shock and blood loss. The rapid expansion of these bullets causes catastrophic temporary wound cavitation even more extreme than what you saw in the video but the bullets do not penetrate as far as they deform and fragment so quickly. 

The permanent wound cavity of a .243 soft point rifle bullet. You can see the lead fragments at the end of the individual wound channels. 

A close up of the farm end of the wound channel. bear in mind that on a live target this expansion would start at the bullet strikes the skin and passes through the first layers of meat, fat and bone before entering the chest cavity and encountering softer organs and structures, so wounds to live targets do not look exactly the same. 

Comparing the wound channels of different projectiles, standard .22 rim fire hollow points on the left and expanding .243 rounds on the right. 

The rim fire rounds although hollow point do not do nearly the same damage as the more powerful centre fire cartridges as they do deform slightly but do not break up or carry as much energy. 

Another comparison of permanent wound cavity this time a .25-06 at the top, .22 rim fires in the centre and .243 at the bottom. You can see the .25-06 has caused temporary cavitation large enough to split the gelatin open completely. 

The temporary wound cavitation shown so clearly in the slow motion video isn't obvious looking at the gelatin afterwards except in the case of the 25-06 round where it has split the gel open but that shock as it is transferred to the target is often although not always enough to knock an animal to the ground even if it doesn't kill it instantly. To ensure a humane kill though this energy needs to be directed at a vital part of the animal where the wound caused will kill quickly and humanly. In small game a head shot is often preferred and the rapid bullet expansion through an animals skull is always going to be fatal. 

Entry wound of a  55 grain hollow point .223 round on a rabbit. 

                               

                               

Exit wound on the same rabbit; you can see that the bullet has expanded significantly and the temporary wound cavity was larger than the animals head causing the destruction you see here. There is no doubt though that it was a humane kill. 

While headshots on small game and vermin are acceptable they are not encouraged for deer, deer have large heads in comparison to the vital part of that head which must be struck by a bullet if the shot is going to be fatal. Not to mention that the head is the most mobile part of a deer and easily missed. Chest shots are considered best practice giving a larger target and an instant or near instant kill if the animal is struck in the heart and lungs. The head shot though has this major danger;

This might look like an ordinary young red stag but there is a gruesome story to this particular animal. It was shot due to a severe wound it was suffering from which you can see in the next picture.  (Image courtesy of David Carr)

Some time before it was finally culled it had been shot in the head causing this gruesome wound but had not been killed. You can see there that the wound is heavily infected and necrotic and this animal would have been in agony not to mention unable to feed and would have eventually died of starvation or infection. (Image courtesy of David Carr)

Just because bullets are so incredibly damaging doesn't mean that they are magically able to kill any quarry or that a head shot is always successful like in video games and movies. You need to carefully select a suitable calibre and type of ammunition for your quarry and be aware of the performance of the round so you can safely and humanely select your shot placement to ensure you achieve a humane kill. 

I would suggest the following calibres for common UK quarry;

Rabbit; .22 rim fire, .17 hmr, .22 magnum, small .22 centre fires such as .22 hornet, .222 

Hare; as above 

Fox; rim fire are acceptable at close range and if you are taking head shots but for mid to long range shots centre fire rounds such as a .220 swift, .22-250, .223, .222 up to things like the .243 and .260 are great for foxes. 

Muntjac and Chinese Water Deer; although .220 centrefire rounds are legal on these small deer I am unconvinced of their stopping power and prefer something larger such as a .243 Winchester. 

Larger deer; .243 Winchester, 6.5x55 mm, .308, .270 etc... for red or large fallow I would prefer something larger than .243 (6.5x55mm would be my first choice)  although it will do the trick and is legal. 

To sum up terminal ballistics then;

Temporary wound cavity; the shock wave caused by the energy transfer from the bullet causing the surrounding tissue to stretch and expand, due to the elasticity of flesh this will return to it's former shape once the energy has dissipated but the act of expansion may tear the flesh or split it open. Bones do not have the elasticity of flesh and will break, and may shatter, under the influence of this energy transfer.

Permanent Wound Cavity; this is the permanent wound caused by the passage of the projectile, it's pieces and potentially also of bone fragments. This will be a permanent penetrating portion of the wound where flesh has been torn away, bones broken and displaced and will not return to it's original shape. The permanent wound will bleed and will extend into the organs and internal structures of your quarry. 

You have seen these permanent wound cavities in some pictures here and that is the result of a bullet wound either killing through rapid blood loss by a shot to the heart and lungs or immediately through shock at the destruction of a vital organ like the brain or heart. So that is the gruesome reality of putting meat in the pot as a buschrafter. 

Traps are an alternative in some cases and air rifles are probably the most versatile weapon for gathering small game such as squirrels, pigeons and rabbits and do not have the same restrictions and licence requirements as section 1 and 2 firearms but if you want to go after deer you will need to use the larger legal calibres. Even your interest in buschraft and primitive skills doesn't allow you to use ancient methods to hunt although you can skin and prepare deer with flint tools to practice your primitive skills but must hunt and kill them according to local laws. 

butchering a red deer with flint tools. 

EMERGENCY POST; The Offensive Weapons Bill

This is an urgent plea for people to sign the petition to remove article 15 from the proposed Offensive Weapons Bill in this post I will also address the element of the Bill that proposes the banning of knives on FE college campuses. As a practitioner and teacher of bushcraft, a professional deer manager and a lecturer at FE colleges where I train game, wildlife and countryside management students knives and bladed tools are an essential part of my every day life and as the oldest metal tool known to man why should their legitimate and essential uses be criminalised?

Before bronze, copper and  steel our ancestors used flint and bone tools. 

 I put a letter in the post today to my MP and want to share the questions I asked in that letter here, I think they are relevant questions to the issue and it's a shame that a knee jerk reaction to knife crime is going to penalise law abiding users and makers of knives and tools without really affecting knife crime.

So here are my questions;

Does the government have evidence that knives ordered online and shipped to residential addresses are being used in criminal activity and does that evidence, if any, support this aspect of the Bill?

I find it hard to believe that this will in any way affect knife crime. Stabbings are most likely committed with kitchen knives taken from kitchens or bought very cheaply in person by people who are, or appear to be, over eighteen. Additionally screw drivers and other pointed implements are as ‘offensive’ in terms of their ability to wound or be wielded as a weapon and are far more accessible to someone intending to cause harm than a knife is. I feel that this approach will not affect knife crime and is just an attempt to be seen to do something about knife crime. It will unfortunately have a crippling effect on small businesses and craftsmen who specialise in making and selling knives and other bladed tools or sporting equipment online where local demand does not justify a permanent retail presence.

I received all these knives in the post the top one is a custom made knife by a Texas based custom knife maker by the name of William Collins and I certainly can't travel to Texas to pick one up. The centre knife is only available from one Finland based retailer and is not stocked by any brick and mortar shop in the UK, neither is the bottom knife. None of these can be obtained without postal delivery. Do I now have to complicate my purchase of these TOOLS by having to travel a long way, incurring significant inconvenience and additional cost to pick them up from a 'collection centre'? Also what if I wanted to send equipment for a bushcraft course ahead to a venue by courier  will this also be prevented? 

As a freelance bushcraft and survival skills instructor will this new legislation now mean that I can’t order knives and tools, that I provide for my students to use on my bushcraft courses, online and have them delivered to my home which is the same address that I conduct business from?

As well as knives I use other wood working tools in my teaching and practice of bushcraft, these particular tools were made in The Ukraine and I could only have received them in the post, why should I or other people practising traditional skills professionally or recreationally  be penalised, who is going to buy one of these for the purpose of committing pre-meditated crime? 

If, as I suspect it will, this new Bill does prohibit people who work from home from having knives and other bladed tools delivered to home addresses how does the government reconcile the loss of earnings and inconvenience I, and many others, will suffer with the forecast benefits of this Bill?

How will the system of receiving mail ordered knives now work? Presumably picking up these items from post offices or approved collection centres will incur an additional cost somewhere? Is it fair to pass on this cost to law abiding people ordering, making or selling specialist tools online? Especially if there is no data to suggest that mail order knives are being used in crimes.

Additionally I imagine there will be some sort of data collection and record of who has purchased and collected knives or other bladed tools including a record of their contact details and address carried out when people collect their mail order knives, why should this be?

Surely that is an invasion of privacy for individuals and effectively licences knives and provides police and government with precise information on the personal details of people who have purchased knives for legitimate and lawful purposes. I personally would feel that my privacy is being invaded to have all these details recorded and kept especially as it would not be by an official body such as the police force but by a ‘collection centre’, perhaps a post office, why should they have access to the information? Especially if I was purchasing very expensive handmade or collectable knives why should other people know that? Surely then my security and property is placed at risk? 

Also will we start to see cases here as have been seen in The States with the Starbucks debacle? I’m sure you are aware of that incident but just in case; the police were called because several black gentlemen were sitting in a Starbucks restaurant waiting for a friend and hadn’t ordered anything at the time. Are similar things going to occur now in the UK with knives, will ‘collection centre’ employees refuse to hand over the legal property of a person collecting a mail order knife because they don’t like the way they look, maybe I will pick up a package during a hard day’s work, my hair might be full of sawdust I might smell of camp fire or be wearing scruffy clothes will my knife be denied me or will the police be called because someone has profiled me a certain way just because I have been working hard out of doors? This all seems a bit like an Orwellian nightmare but I don’t think it is an unrealistic forecast of what may come as a result of this Bill.

How can the government justify this particular aspect of the Bill with the fact that it will effectively drive many craftsmen and artisan knife makers, who operate almost exclusively by mail order, out of business, or at least subject them to crippling additional costs?

These beautiful handmade tools from UK based craftsmen are essential tools in my work and I take great pleasure in having quality tools at my disposal. Because I use them every day I like to have tools that are comfortable to use and built to a high standard that I can trust. But craftsmen who operate on a small  scale will no longer be able to ship knives to their customers under the new Bill and will also not be able to order bladed tools to be delivered to their places of work because they often work from home. Does that also mean that  makers who do not heat treat their own blades will not be able to ship blades to be heat treated or receive them back from heat treatment in the post?

What benefits and reduction in crime are the government expecting to see as a direct result of the banning of the delivery of knives to residential properties?

With regard to the banning of knives on Further Education premises: FE colleges teach many specialist courses which include the use of knives and edged tools, additionally the college I teach at has a 360 acre farm where I train students in game and wildlife management and where I also fill the role of gamekeeper. I require a knife several times a day to do this work and we provide knives and edged tools such as billhooks to students during lessons as they are essential tools as students engage in vocational countryside management training particularly for topics such as woodland management and green woodwork.

Will this proposed bill ban the vocationally relevant use of knives on college campuses?

If so how are my students to complete their studies and take part in the full scope of vocational training?

Does a college’s farm and countryside estate count as part of the ‘campus’ for the purposes of a knife ban?

Are employees of a college’s farm therefore prohibited from carrying or using knives in line with their work?

I have taught land-based students for years at three different land based colleges and have observed them using knives, tools and guns and have NEVER seen a student under my tuition behave irresponsibly with these tools. I realise that the students I deal with are a very different group of people from those who are involved in violent gangs and urban knife crime but responsible people must not be penalised in cases like this, especially where this Bill does not address the root cause of knife crime.

So that's my rant and some hopefully thought provoking questions about this new proposed Bill that really needs to be thought out a bit more. 

Sign the petitions submit expert evidence if you are able to during the consultation period on this Bill and hopefully we can end up with a solution that really does address knife crime and doesn't penalise the legal use of knives and tools. 

Bushcraft and the Law; Foraging for eggs

I'm looking forward to getting eggs from our grey partridges this year #gamekeeping #partridge #birds #wildlife

A post shared by Geoffrey Guy (@gguy_bushcrafteducation) on Mar 16, 2018 at 5:17pm PDT

 If you have been keeping up with my wild food micro blog; Foragers Diary you will see that eggs have featured in a few of the recent updates. It is worth discussing the legal issues regarding the foraging of eggs for food, in a survival situation I would consider it acceptable to take and eat eggs from birds nests, however I am currently not in a survival situation and since the 1954 protection of Birds Act it is illegal to interfere with or take the eggs of wild birds, so where am I getting my eggs from?

The eggs that have featured in recent posts come from captive pheasants and partridges and most of them are destined for an incubator to be hatched and reared ready for release on to a shooting estate. A few surplus eggs though make it into my kitchen and are a lovely semi-wild addition to our diet. We collect them just as you would eggs from domestic chickens from pheasants that are captured and housed in large outdoor laying pens, these birds which provide the eggs are also released once the laying season is over, they will generally lay from the beginning of April until mid May. Each year at the end of January we set large cage traps to capture enough cocks and hens to lay eggs for us again. As pheasants and partridges are game birds this is acceptable, to catch other species of birds from the wild or to interfere with their nests and eggs though is normally illegal.

Game keepers did historically take eggs from the nests of partridges to rear themselves to improve the success of hatches and better protect them from predators but this isn't done any more although you can collect eggs from wild duck nests and rear and release the chicks under the conditions of a general licence.

There are a few pest bird species that the general licence for the control of wild birds for conservation purposes grant permission for you to destroy their nests such as;

• Canada geese
• Egyptian geese
• monk parakeets
• ring-necked parakeets
• sacred ibises
• Indian house crows

For this licence to apply you need to be operating under the authority of the landowner or local authority though, it doesn't grant just anyone permission to destroy the eggs and nests of these species though and it does need to be for purposes of conservation not just because you fancy a goose egg for breakfast. 

So before you head out foraging in the spring time and expect to make a delicious omelette remember that you generally can't interfere with the eggs and nests of wild birds.  

#gamekeeping #wildlife

A post shared by Geoffrey Guy (@gguy_bushcrafteducation) on Apr 14, 2018 at 2:22pm PDT

Wisport Forester; The Accidental Bushcrafter

WE ARE NOW FEATURING PRODUCT REVIEWS ON THE BUSHCRAFT EDUCATION WEBSITE. 

For a bit more information about the decision to start doing this please check out our new GEAR PAGE. 

There will be about one gear review a month along with our normal posts, you can expect posts regularly again now as of January 2018. 

We hope you enjoy the first review on the Wisport forester Rucksac. 

I recently received a new pack from Military 1^st, I was looking for a pack which I could use to TRANSPORT a firearm and basic equipment while I was out deer stalking. I say transport because I wasn’t looking for an alternative to a sling for my rifle, I’ve not come across a more expedient and quiet carry system than a rifle sling ever and I’m not looking for one, what I was looking for was something that would allow me to carry my rifle comfortably without having to haul an unwieldy and uncomfortable gun slip around over one shoulder if I had to walk a couple of miles from my vehicle to my cabin or to where I will be starting my stalk from. Rifle slips are not comfortable to carry for long distances and when I have to walk to the little cabin where I will occasionally sleep before an early morning stalk the mile or two walk with the gun slip bumping against the back of my leg the whole way is tiresome.

Today's lesson; When I launched the gear reviews on this blog I promised that every one of them would contain a lesson not just pure review about a piece of equipment. So today's lesson is on firearms ownership in the UK. I write a lot about firearms on this blog and I have already justified my position in firearms and their use as part of a bushcraft skill set many times, you can find out about that HERE so I'm not going to repeat myself but I am going to explain a bit about the UK's firearms laws as they apply to me personally and professionally. 

With this review I look at a rucksack designed to carry a firearm, this may well not be a feature that many people need but as I have a background in game, wildlife and deer management and am actively involved in the management of deer population in the UK including carrying out deer stalking and culling it is a feature which would be very useful to me.

Owning a firearm for deer stalking for any other purpose though is not strait forward. First lets deal with air rifles, yes they are firearms as in UK law a firearm is a barrelled weapon which fires a projectile but as long as they are not too powerful you do not require a licence to posses one. The limit is 12 ft/lbs of energy. Any air rifle capable of firing a projectile with more power than this requires a section 1 firearms licence for you to be able to posses it. Air rifles are extremely useful for pest control of species such as rabbits, pigeons, squirrels and rats and are a great way to put food on the table too.

However they have limited range and power and so to be more effective more powerful firearms are required for certain situations. Deer for example, it would be illegal, not to mention stupid, irresponsible, cruel and ineffective, to shoot a deer with an air rifle. To shoot deer (in England and Wales) legally you need to use a rifle with a legal minimum calibre of .240 which produces a muzzle energy of at least 1700 ft/lbs, for the smaller deer species (reeves muntjac and Chinese water deer, you can use a minimum of .220 with a muzzle energy no less than 1000 ft/lbs and a projectile no less than 50 grains in weight. To possess this kind of firearm you will need a section one firearms licence.

These licences must be applied for through your local police constabulary, you will need to explain your reason for wanting a firearm, give evidence of the land over which you want to shoot it, prove that you have a safe place to keep it, ask for the specific calibre you require and justify that preference, provide Character references and details of your GP, disclose details of an convictions or mental illness. Once you have made and paid for this application you will be visited at home by a firearms enquiry officer who will clarify the details of you application, check that you have an appropriate gun cabinet and separate storage for ammunition and ask about your reasons for wanting firearms. In England and Wales this visit will be carried out by a non uniformed enquiry officer, in Scotland it will be by a uniformed officer.

You will need to justify why you want a firearm of a particular calibre and explain your planned use of it, that may be for pest control deer stalking, target shooting etc... if you want a firearm for target shooting you will need to be a member of a club. At first you will be restricted to shooting at the land which you have provided details of to the constabulary (you can give them details of multiple places) but may over time and with experience be granted an open licence allowing you to shoot over any land where you have permission, you will always have to have at least one piece of land registered with the constabulary though. Your licence will restrict you to own a particular firearm or firearms of the calibres that you have been granted and for the reasons that you have given, these will appear as conditions on your licence on the very first page and ARE LEGALLY BINDING.

You must abide by these conditions even if they seem a bit odd; for example it is legal to shoot a muntjac with a .223 but if your condition for owning one is for shooting vermin and targets strictly speaking you can't shoot deer with that rifle. It's a strange situation but worth being aware of.

Your licence will also the exact firearms you are allowed to purchase by calibre and will stipulate the quantity of ammunition you are allowed to purchase, every time you purchase a firearm and ammunition it will be written on to your certificate and you must inform the constabularies firearms licencing team of your purchase or disposal of a firearm.

Shotguns are not covered by section one licences unless they are capable of holding more then two rounds in a magazine, these high capacity guns can be placed on a section one licence with the appropriate justification. Shotguns are normally carried on a section two licence which is applied for in the same way as a section one with a few exceptions, no named land is required taking into account the number of people who will shoot clay pigeons, go on pheasant shoots as guests etc.. at a range of different places. Although you need to keep shotguns locked up like you would a section one firearm there is not the same requirement for a separate safe for ammunition, and a shotgun certificate will not include conditions like a section one firearms certificate does.

That is the very briefest of lessons on firearms licencing and ownership in the UK.

On With The Review;

Military 1^st provided me with the Forester by Wisport which seemed at first glance to be everything I needed. It is sturdily constructed by Polish manufacturer Wisport and not only has a total capacity of twenty eight litres, plenty for a day’s food, map, knives, binoculars, ammunition and other assorted stalking paraphernalia but a built in rifle sleeve which seemed like the perfect solution to carrying my rifle. The pack retails at £79.95 and full specifications of the pack as available on the Military 1^st Website are;

• Capacity: 28L
• Primarily designed for hunting enthusiasts
• 1 main compartment with large inner sleeve pocket
• Front pocket with waterproof zippers, sleeve pocket, zipped pocket and MOLLE strap
• Unique engineered rifle mounting pocket
• Tough leather on high-use areas
• Two side pockets
• Quick-detach ACS carrying system
• Adjustable shoulder straps and back section padded with air mesh
• Enlarged and adjustable waist belt with buckled strap
• Chest strap with buckle
• Two pairs of side compression straps
• MOLLE compatible
• SAS zippers
• Duraflex buckles
• All seams secured
• Material: Cordura Nylon
• Dimensions: approx. 19.7"x10.6"x9.1" (50x27x23cm)
• Weight: 1150g
• Manufacturer: Wisport
• Made in Poland
• 5 years manufacturer warranty

It was this rifle pocket that I was most interested in. The other features of the pack, while executed excellently with strong fabric, good quality stitching and durable hardware used throughout the construction, are available on every other backpack, it was the packs ability to be used to carry a rifle that was important.

The Forester is built of heavy nylon and sheds water excellently. 

Before you attach a rifle to this pack one particularly excellent feature becomes clear, the fact that pocket for the rifle is not visible the whole time, it folds away into a small zipped compartment just under the front pocket of the pack and it is not obvious that it is designed to hold a rifle which is important as I don’t want to broadcast the fact that I shoot or own weapons if I choose to use the pack for more mundane tasks than going stalking. 

However as soon as I tried to mount my rifle in the specially designed ‘rifle mounting pocket’ I discovered a serious flaw; a scoped rifle won’t fit at all. Looking back at pictures which appear on the Military First website and the manufacturers website it is clear that none of the weapons pictures in this pack or in their ‘Reindeer Hunt’ pack which features a similar rifle pocket are hunting rifles, they are both un-scoped air rifles, in the 2016-17 catalogue the ‘Reindeer Hunt’ pack is pictured with an SMK B2 air rifle mounted to it and on the Military 1^st Website it appears that the Forester has an air arms TX200 in it’s rifle pocket, it’s worth mentioning that the TX200 can’t be purchased new with any form of open sights fitted to it so carrying it without a scope is pointless (I happen to have owned the carbine model of the TX200 for many years, it was in fact the first air rifle I saved up and bought as a teenager and I will be doing a post on it in the next few weeks). So my first and deal breaking criticism is that the pack can’t accommodate a scoped rifle at all so it was out of the question for using to transport my stalking rifle in.

My Air Arms TX200 HC clearly does not fit in the rifle pocket, my stalking rifle, which the pack was intended for doesn't  fit either. I use a Tikka T3 chambered in .243 for most of my deer stalking and will be doing a full review on it here soon. 

Additionally what I really needed was to be able to carry the gun while still in some sort of slip or covering to keep it out of the weather during transportation or just to avoid startling anyone I might encounter on my walk to my cabin or to the start of my stalk. So I thought I would try mounting a shotgun or my BSA sportsman five which doesn’t have a scope onto the pack in a slip, this didn’t work either shotguns and unscoped rifles will clearly fit in the pocket but they won’t fit with any form of slip or cover. The only reason to carry a weapon un’bagged would be to enable quick access to it, however the rifle pocket does not allow quick expedient access to any weapon mounted in it, the pack has to be removed completely to remove and replace a mounted weapon and several straps need to be loosened or tightened each time the weapon is removed or replaced. This tightening and loosening of straps every time the weapon is removed or replaced from the pack raises another issue which makes the pack less than suitable for carrying weapons. If the pack is not completely full when a weapon is mounted even with all the straps cinched tight the weapon flops back and forth quite considerably even bashing against the back of my head as I carried a weapon in a mostly empty pack. Conversely if the pack is completely full the fabric becomes so tight that it is almost impossible to situate a weapon in the pocket without unpacking the main compartment.

The pack will accommodate a shotgun or unscoped rifle but, the barrels will bang against the back of your head if the pack is empty and accessing the weapon quickly and quietly is impossible.  

These issues unfortunately make the pack entirely unsuited to my intended purpose of using the pack to carry my rifle.

This pack has become my go to bag for bushcrafting. The ‘rifle pocket’ has become an axe pocket allowing me to carry a larger axe securely without it poking out of the top of my bag. I’ve also used the rifle pocket to carry a bow for friction fire lighting, shelter poles and other equipment that is longer than comfortably fits in the main compartment of the bag. The front pocket is just the right size for stashing small tools and equipment for whittling and fire lighting while the main compartment will easily fit a light weight sleeping bag, shelter and cook kit.

The forester does fantastic duty as a bushcrafting pack. 

 So my conclusions are that this is a great pack, however when a product that is in most respects great but has a features which it claims as a unique selling point or special feature which sets it apart from other products the manufacturer has a responsibility to make sure that feature is fit for purpose, and in this case they haven't. Every thing but that special feature is great about this pack but when you consider that the whole reason I wanted this pack was to carry my rifle it is not at all fit for purpose.  

Adapt and improvise; Kydex belt loop

I hate having to take my belt off to hang or remove my knife from it, and if you've seen my previous post about knives and the law you will know why I think it's important that you are able to easily remove your knife from your belt and store it when you are not using it.  And while some knives come in sheaths that allow them to be easily clipped on and off of a belt not all do, so I made something that solves the issue. 

A sheet of 3mm thick kydex was easy enough to cut to shape and after a bit of heating in the oven was pliable enough to fold into the shape below. One 'roll' to the left now houses my firesteel with it's home made laburnam wood handle, the whole thing then wraps around a belt and is secured at the bottom with a carabiner. It will fix securely to a belt without the carabiner but it's that that allows me to then hang my knife from it. The knife can then be easily removed and stowed in a rucksac and re-attached whenever necessary. The clip it'sef can be left on the belt once the knife is removed without causing offence or alarm to anybody or equally it can be removed as well without the need to take your belt off.  

Bushcraft and the Law; Trapping Update

Fenn and Magnum trap

As bushcrafters we are often inspired and amazed by the stories of the mountain men of North America and their exploits across barren wilderness regions like the Rocky Mountains and their ability to live with little more than what they carried in their ‘possibles pouches’. What brought the mountain men to the frontier was the availability of beaver. At the time beaver skins, or ‘plews’ as the mountain men called them, were in high demand for the manufacture of hats and thousands of beaver were trapped over the years between the mid seventeen hundreds to the 1830’s when the demand for beaver hats, and the availability of beaver themselves crashed. Gone are the days though of the leg hold traps used by the mountain men and the wholesale, unregulated trapping of the mountain man era, and here in the UK we are expecting some fairly major changes in the laws that relate to trapping in the next few months.

Weasel trapped using fenn trap

In the UK we still use traps in the countryside a lot but almost exclusively for the purpose of pest control, to reduce damage to crops, or prevent the predation of game birds. We already have whole rafts of legislation which controls these activities but we are expecting more to come into force which may drastically change the way trapping is carried out in the UK. I discussed the use of snares and the banning of gin traps in my previous Trapping and the Law article in issue 56 and while I won’t cover gin traps again as they haven’t been legal since 1958 and nothing has, or will, change that now. However there has been a slight change in guidelines regarding snares in Wales and I’ll cover that first.

The breakaway link on a snare approved
 by the new
Welsh Government ‘Code of Best
 practice on the
 use of Snares in Fox Control’

As well as the stops and swivels that a commercially purchased snare would have the guideless for use of fox snares in Wales now demand a ‘break-away’ a weaker link built in to the snare near it’s eye which allows the automatic release of larger, stronger non-target species if they are accidentally caught. This new guidance on snares is specific to Wales and comes from the Welsh Governments Code of Best practice on the use of Snares in Fox Control.  

Moving on to spring traps, there have been developments over the last few years which may have a drastic impact on the types of traps we can use here in the UK in the very near future.

   

In 1991 a proposed EU embargo on furs trapped in countries which allowed ‘inhumane methods’ particularly the use of leg-hold traps,  inspired the development of the ‘Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards’ (AIHTS). It took several years to finalise the conditions of AIHTS which was finished in 1997. It does specifically apply to animas trapped for their fur though: In the UK most recognised fur bearing animals are already protected; marten, beaver, badger and otter and couldn’t be trapped or harmed regardless of the ‘humaneness’ of the method employed. Mink and fox are both regularly used for fur but this fur is normally sourced from farms rather than wild animals and so these animals are not covered by AIHTS. The one animal specifically mentioned that is still regularly trapped in the UK is the stoat. In other countries it is trapped as a fur bearing animal  because of it’s desirable white winter fur, when it’s in it’s white coat it is known as ‘ermin’. Ermin are rarely seen in England or Wales as the climate does not demand their coat change for camouflage. It’s the fact that stoats appear on the list of species covered by AIHTS that spells potential change of trapping in the UK. In 1998 the EU committed to following AIHTS standards and a decade later in 2008 implementation of AIHTS began in all signatory countries after Russia agreed to it’s guidelines. After the 2008 implementation five years were allowed for testing and certification of traps with a further three years allowed for prohibition of traps which did not meet the new standards. That eight years brings us to July 2016 and the UK has been a bit behind in testing and implementing the use of approved traps.

DOC 200 trap approved for use
on grey squirrels, stoats, rats,
 weasel and mink

Several traps were added to the ‘Spring trap approval order’ in 2007 at the request of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) in anticipation of the AIHTS standards being adopted, the DOC (Department of Conservation) range of traps from New Zealand were approved for use based on the fact that they had passed AIHTS standards for stoats in tests carried out in New Zealand.

Since then other traps have also been approved including the koro trap (added to the spring trap approval order in March 2016) which has already passed AIHTS tests in Canada. 

The main change in terms of the function of the traps is that rather than killing by a blow to the body, with the intention of breaking the animals spine causing death within 300 seconds, the trap must kill by a blow to the head and cause death within 45 seconds. These traps must all still be set in a tunnel as dictated by the specific conditions of the spring trap approval order  for example the DOC trap “must be set in an artificial tunnel constructed to the design specified by the Department of Conservation.”

A DOC 200 in it’s Department of Conservation designed tunnel showing how a target species can only enter the trap head first allowing for a clean kill

A KORO ‘Large Rodent Double Coil
Spring Snap Trap

The adoption of AIHTS standards will certainly mean that traps which have been commonly used for the control of stoats will no longer be permitted for that purpose in the UK such as the Fenn traps and Magnum traps which have already been found not to meet AIHTS standards in tests carried out in Canada and New Zealand. While the change may be as simple as prohibiting the use of these traps on stoats specifically it will likely have a greater impact as it will be almost impossible restrict access by a stoat to, for example, a fenn mark IV set for a rabbit. This may well mean that as of July 2016 fenn and magnum traps are no longer legal for use in the UK at all. 

Doubtless trapping legislation will change again in the future and traps will continue to be designed to meet future conditions of ‘humaneness’ as well as to make them more effective and efficient, we have already seen a gas powered trap in New Zealand which can automatically re-set it ‘self 24 times before it needs any attention and we are bound to see more innovation like this in the future. 

For the bushcrafter this is all fascinating, although we may prefer the simplicity of a Paiute deadfall or twitch up snare it is important that we are aware of the legislation that governs something that is a bushcraft skill.

Geoff