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Every Workshop needs one…

I am slowly becoming quite a fan of Bell Target and spent a few hours trying to put the bell target into the 21st century with an Arduino micro controller and accelerometer with reasonable results. The principle being when the pellet goes through the middle a series of bright LED lamps light and a sounder makes a noise, 2.5 seconds later it resets and you can carry on.

Well that is all well and good however I missed the clang of the bell and someone walking forward to reset the target so I ordered a ‘proper’ Bell Target end of last week and here it is in place in the workshop with the eighteen foot mark taped to the floor alongside my desk, so I can literally stand up, grab a suitable .177 rifle and shoot to my hearts content.

For paint I ordered some Titanium Dioxide powder which make a great never drying paint when mixed with baby oil (Liquid paraffin) Right now I am using and old tube of white oil paint mixed with anti fouling black powder lube and a dash of gun oil which also seems to work nicely as well. next thing is to get some practice days booked at our teams pub and get ready for the forth coming season.

Happy days 🙂

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Technology

My back ground is for the most engineering, however I did have a bit of a break and ended up as Technical manager for an IT security company for a while. Now I know this sounds a bit random however I have always been capable of turning my hand to IT stuff and it was a nice break from noisy manufacturing plants and press lines. At the start of the IT thing I was contracted into a customer site by IBM and I always remember a 1TB ‘Jukebox’ storage system going in. This thing was approaching the size of a ‘phone box, was a vivid purple colour, had a theoretical storage capacity of 1TB, oh and it never actually worked whilst I was there, due to some issues with the SCSi interface. Luckily it was not a project I was working on so I only had to watch from a distance as people ran around panicking.

Fast forward many years. We run four primary machines here and they need to be backed up a lot as to loose the accounts and VAT data, or the CAD drawings or RFD register would be a nightmare. We use a variety of systems to backup our data and it was about time we invested in a new file server and here it is:

OK, so it is not exactly flashing lights and humming fans however it is very effective and notably it has a 4TB storage capacity. What you are looking at is the whole thing. In fact it is longer has the cables attached other than power as it sits in a corner and is connected to remotely. The thing you are looking at is the hard drive, a piggy back board and a tiny little single board computer running a variant of Debian Linux. Total cost was around £30.00 for the computer which is a Raspberry Pi3 B+ the expansion board was about the same and the hard drive itself was left over from a project of ours and probably cost around £75.00 so there it is, a standalone secondary file and backup server for less than £150.00 The back up process is automated in that every time a machine is shut down a script runs that throw new or changed files across before the workstation is turns off. In simple terms just choose shut down and the rest is done automatically.

I must admit to having enjoyed this project as it has  been a while since I played with a Linux system and I was impressed how quickly the command came back to me. Next job is to harden it off which I am in the middle of right now.

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Rear Bag Riders for the Tikka T3 TacA1

We have just finished a run of these in standard and lightweight options.

As ever the plate is 6082 vapour honed black anodised aluminium and this one has the ‘competition’ carbon fibre tube so overall weight is under 150 grams, whereas the standard is closer to 200 grams.

 

Do bear in mind the carbon tube is not as robust as the standard aluminium tubed version, having said that they seem to stand up to a lot of abuse, I just would not jump up and down on one of them!

We also build the RBR for all Accuracy International models including the competition special at 99 grams. Also covered are the Sako TRG 21/22 & 41/42 models plus a variety of standard T3 models.

Also, due back from the anodisers very shortly are rear bag rider brackets for the GRS range of rifle stocks in both standard and light weight versions which look really good when fitted to a GRS stocked rifle.

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Bell Target in Lincolnshire

Firstly, a brief mention of the Lincolnshire Bell target league, right now the league has half a dozen active teams with more being organised as I write this.

Bell target, if you have not come across it before, is a .177 target air rifle discipline, shot at 6 yards off hand (Standing)  The goal is to put a .177 pellet through the 3/8″ hole right in the middle of the steel target, this scores you 5.1 points. After this the score drops into the 5 ring, then 3 and 2, there is no 1 ring. Maximum theoretical score is 25.5 with 5 shots being taken. Rifles are strictly open sighted and about the only optics you can use are your prescription glasses. It is also worth wearing some safety glasses as the pellets have be known to ricochet back.

I have been shooting Bell target for the Nags Head in Middle Rasen for the Winter league and have thoroughly enjoyed it to the degree that we have a ‘Proper’ Bell target coming this week, so if you fancy giving it a go it will be permanently set up in the workshop.

The Lincolnshire league website can be found here:

http://lincsbelltarget.co.uk/http://lincsbelltarget.co.uk/

 

 

 

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Tikka T3x TAC A1 Tactical rear bag riders

We have another run of Tikka T3x TAC A1 Tactical rear bag riders due back from anodising within the next couple of days or so and it seemed like a good time to mention it now.

These are machined from 6082 Aluminium with a satin black anodised finish on the plate and a 6082T6 18,5mm polished Aluminium tube attached to the plate with an A4 stainless screw. Why a polished tube? Well it always seems to track better in my opinion which is why I take additional time to polish it instead of anodising.

Weights are <160.0 grams for the standard with 130.0 and 100.0 gram options if your rifle is on a serious diet. The 100.0 gram option includes a carbon fibre tube with polished end cap and boss as we do with our Accuracy International version.

Before you ask, yes we do ship to the USA as well as the majority of the rest of the world, There are a few obvious exceptions 🙂

I will add a picture when they are back from anodising.

You can find them in our e-commerce shop here:

https://shootingshed.co.uk/oscom/product_info.php?products_id=34

Yes, I know the picture is out of date and I will update it shortly and finally, yes these will fit the standard T3 as well and we also do a TRG 21/22 41/42 version for you Sako owners.