I tend to agree with Mickey Duck - we simply dont need a 22WSM - we have .222 and .223 and 22 Hornet plus a few assorted similar .22 oldies for those who want to play around with those
for some reason it needs to be semi auto tho..
plus trying to up the power to cf could be all they need to start down the banning certain calibers road..
yes and why - the only reason for semi really is heli shooting goats and deer otherwise a good bolt action will do the job every day - and I say that with 35 years as a professional under my belt - when goat culling magazine capacity was what was needed - that's why we liked the sakos 6 x .222 in mag and one in chamber 7 rounds to stop the mob - I carried a semi .308 for years culling ( moment of silence for my beloved Rem 742 ) and really did not need the semi capability that often
https://www.outdoorlife.com/story/gu...s-of-all-time/
Ballistics comparison between the rim fires.
It we cut the pleasantries, the only reason this would be appealing, would be to have something somewhat close to what we had before 2019. If it got banned for whatever reason - oh well. Everything else fun has been banned.
I’d be far more keen on a 30 cal subsonic Rimfire semi
300blk ish performance, or a 44special equivalent
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Problem they would have is they have set the precedent for buy back - so buying back every rimfire semi would be eye-watering and take so long that the logistics cost would be simply unaffordable. On the other side, if you made a more powerful rimfire it would effectively be NZ only meaning local manufacture for everything. That makes it much more expensive for one, but also more likely to be directly targeted by an order-in-council requiring a slight tweak and around we go. But there are other technical issues such as the specifications of the rimfire case and handling of the pressures involved.
To be fair and I hear where you are coming from, there are areas where the only way to get more than 1 goat out of the mob down is either multiple shooters with bolt guns or a semi with a skilled operator and a very good red dot/fast optic and a good suppressor to 'scramble' where the sound of the shot comes from to confuse the rest of the mob. There are areas where the mobs are getting back up into the thousands - just taking over but you never see more than 10's at a time and they are getting wise to bait, dogs and the noise pulses from heli's. There will come a time when we will need to look at the restrictiveness of the semi-centerfire system as there is just not the cash to fund enough professional control activity and get back on top of the issues. Using rec hunting as a resource is unavoidable in NZ, especially considering the current debt and lack of funds out there. If I was in DOC etc at the moment, I'd be campaigning for backing the restrictions off as the current decision making is 'do we use this pool of funds to do works to try and stop that that and that critically endangered species from going extinct, or that that and those species, or do we get that track back up to speed so the public stops bleating about not being able to access that area?'.
Not a nice place to be - and contributing fact is the increased demand/cost on conservation budgets through reduced efficiency of control. As far as the OP question, I looked into it with several people when the initial ban went in after the Mar15 event - the general solution was it would cost a LOT and be technically difficult but it was possible, but that was before you got into the legislative compliance and approvals nightmares. Now - remember how hard it is to get reloading components currently? Yep, either just as hard or harder to order precursor materials when you are competing with factories making the equivalent of the entire NZ annual order for a few days or weeks of consumption for other areas of the planet.
True, but not even being concerned with the 'fun' side - the costs for the planting of trees for one has gone hugely up with the increase of animal damage. I am very surprised that this hasn't been noted that often publicly, but I guess there are far more interesting things for the largely Auckland and Wellington based young greenie reporters to get sidetracked by.
If you really have a genuine need for more power and semi auto then just follow the correct process to get licensed for it? They haven't outright banned them, just restricted the use of them to the people that actually had a need for them.
The problem is the legislation is far too restrictive in scope. "Need" is always subjective, but there are lots of people other than professional cullers and land managers who previously used semi autos very effectively for pest control who are now not able to do the job adequately. I think the restrictions should be widened to non-commercial pest control, perhaps with some controls in place to stop the 'spray and pray' shooting style that gives semi autos a bad name.
I was told by a police officer that under the old law there were constant complaint from scared members of the public about hunters wandering DOC land etc with AR15s. Possibly had the MSSA category been restricted to sports events and pest control 20+ years ago it might have gone a long way to fixing the issues that led to the semi auto ban.
Bookmarks