Theoben Taunus

[Whitey]

Picked up a Taunus from Lewis. It's a .20 cal. Was a left hander, but Lewis was able to get a beautiful new Evolution stock from Theoben. Put a Simmons 4-12 x 40 target turrets scope on it. JSB's at 713 for 15.5 and SB at 891 for 17.4. Not quite a Crusader but plenty. Shoots very smooth and comes to the shoulder nicely. Mounted my Olight T25 on it with a mount I got from http://www.jpt-australia.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; today. Also arrived today was a M2 mount from Glen at Wolfeyes. He is a good bloke to deal with and I am looking forward to getting one of his torches. Have to do some research.

[native hunter]

Thats a very nice lookin bit off kit.!!
Regards

[RayG]

Neat looking outfit Whitey. the stock looks good,nice bit of timber.Sounds like a good shooter.
When you get a chance put up a pic of the M2 gun mount you got from Glen. I can,t find a pic of it on his website.
Ray.

[Whitey]

Ray,

Look up the OS site for Wolfeyes as it has a picture of the M2 mount. Glen from Wolfeyes Aust. was telling me they removed the picture when they ran out of stock recently. He now has stock but hasn' t got to replacing the image.

[GriMo]

http://www.wolf-eyes.com/product/Mount.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Quick look at the different mounts Ray

[RayG]

Thanks GM, I managed to find it anyway, looks like that M2 mount could be a handy one for me
too.
Cheers Ray

[MISSED]

RayG ordered my m2 mount yesterday afternoon and recieved it today .Mate for the $`s go for it and I have to say unbelieveable service.

[RayG]

I spoke to Glen about the mount today M.
It will be on its way very shortly.
Cheers Ray.

[Glen C]

http://wolfeyes.com.au/wolf-eyes-m2-gunmount-p-130.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Stuck the picture up of the M2 mount so you guys wouldn't realise how bad I am on websites

[Dennis La Varenne]

Happy to say that I own Whitey's Taunus now. My own Rolls Royce air rifle finally. It only needed a new rear bedding screw and some new pads in the dampa-mount after all the use it must have gotten in the past few years. Still groups very nicely too with all the .20 Kodiaks and JSBs I got from Lewis recently.

Initially, I had a bit of trouble shooting it accurately. I couldn't get used to the trigger which seemed very deadly sensitive, but that is no problem now.

On another tangent, I do wish that these Theobens could be had with a more traditional stock design like the HWs and the Beemans. The high combes of today are a serious pest for me with glasses. The high combes push up against my cheekbone which in turn displaces the optical centres of my glasses in front of my pupils. That signicantly distorts the shape of the scope graticule and I tend to have to lay my head over in a bit of an unnatural position to get it right.

I have exactly the same problem with both my FXs too. The combes are just too high and too sharp for me with glasses.

I really do not want to have to take wood off the Taunus' stock, but I may be forced to. I don't like a high combe on any kind of rifle pushing against my cheekbone. I shoot better and more accurately with a lower combe just lightly resting against my cheek - which goes against all the stock-fit dogma.

That is why I much prefer the combes on the Beemans, HWs and the Dianas and such like. Anybody else have this problem. I am almost at the point of getting out the farrier's rasp.

[uncakikki]

Dennis,

I used to have exactly this problem years ago with my glasses. The answer is actually quite simple (or so it turned out to be for me at least). The problem was the overall size of the spectacle frames I was wearing and going to a shallower frame simply stops your "compressed" cheek from pushing up under you frames and upsetting your ocular centres. I'm pretty lucky that I have a "skinny" face so the shallower frame fixed it for me, but back in the 80's when the trend was for larger lenses and frames it gave me all sorts of grief.

The other option is to get another pair of glasses made up with a "high riser" bridge in them and a second optical centre in the lense to suit (bloody expensive and most of the younger optometrists will think your nuts when you ask for it to be done). This is the route a lot of spec wearing trap shooters go down because some of their stocks are really high so as to make the gun "shoot high" for their rising targets.

HTH

[Dennis La Varenne]

Chris,

I have tried all that except for the high bridge spectacles (shivver!!!). The high combe thing is why I am selling my otherwise very reliable FX Cyclone whose synthetic stock cannot be altered. My FX Tarantula has a beautiful wooden stock with more traditional dimensions and I will keep that.

Lewis has suggested that I have a look at the Theoben site for stock designs for the older Fenman and Sirrocco rifles which may better suit.

Quite apart from the spectacles thing, I really do not like the stock designs coming out in the past decade or so which are clearly designed for target shooting disciplines rather than general purpose hunting. They just feel sooooooo uncomfortable to shoot with from any position.

Why the need for so much wood bulk????? In the non-target sports, it seems to be more of a racy neo-sci-fi fashion rather than practical to me.

Many thanks for your reply though. It is nice to know I am not alone in this predicament.

[uncakikki]

I know what you mean by overly bulky stock designs Dennis. It seems that every other new gun that you look at today is either some fat "tactical" (a word that has become grossly over used in the last 5 or so years) "clunker" or has dimensions that were made to fit "Quasi Modo". What ever happened to the idea that "hunting" rifle was and is supposed to be light, slim, fast handling and should fit the shooter like a glove rather than feel like your carrying around something that weighs and fits like a wet hessian bag!

There is always the option of wearing contact lenses when shooting but that is not for everyone (I know I don't like them)!

Chris

[Dennis La Varenne]

Chris,

I am seriously thinking of contacts. Their only drawback for us long sighted shooters is that they can only be made for either long range or short range with spectacles being the back up for whatever the other correction is. If I have contacts made up to correct my longsightedness, I still need spectacles for close stuff and vice versa.

If you are short-sighted, contacts will correct for all distances as does the laser corrective surgery. Long-sightedness is a real bugger, especially when it is combined with presbyopia which makes everything out of focus because the muscles controlling the iris become weak and not able to dilate or contract to control light entry properly.

Wearing glasses actually contributes to that because they remove the amount of work the iris muscles must do to bring objects into clear vision and those muscles become very weak from lack of use. With multifocus glasses however, I have 20:20 vision which is uncommon. It is just the high combe thing which annoys me.

The bulky 'tactical' stock designs mean that one has to 'wriggle' into a stock in order to shoot it. On a traditional hunting style stock, one brings the rifle sights to one's line of vision and shoots. One never has to wriggle ones head into the stock as these things seem to require.

One thing I do not like particularly about the Theoben stocks is that ridiculous thumb position for the trigger hand. I wrap my thumb over the grip on all my rifles and always have for good shooting. That floating thumb position is a sheer pest and makes my Theoben unnecessarily sensitive to shoot. I shoot straightest with a firm (not stranglehold) grip of the pistol hand and my cheek touching but not resting on the combe.

I bring the rifle to my line of sight and NEVER bring my line of sight down to the rifle sights. That is all about stock fit. I cannot shoot with my face pushing against the stock to any degree.

[uncakikki]

I see what you mean Dennis, I'm lucky that I am in fact short sighted so I only need correctives for one thing. As I stated previously; I also have a thin/skinny face, and tend to use a lot of cheek pressure on the stock comb, but what works for me won't work for everyone else. I guess the only answer really is to keep experimenting until you come up with a combination that works best for you. (Unfortunately it is sometimes a relatively expensive process of elimination).