LeftHandGuy
Well-Known Member
I have a dilemma. Or rather I should say that I have a series of dilemmas, over choosing a rifle.
It starts with wanting to find a centrefire which would be legal (and ethical) for all deer in all of the UK, and ideally be capable of taking boar as well.
It continues with my being left handed, and more to the point, blind in my right eye. Whilst I can and have shot right hand bolt actions from the left shoulder I can't help but feel that I lose the main benefit of a magazine/bolt combination, which I see as being the ability to loose a second or even third shot without disturbing my shooting position and therefore aim.
So, as you can imagine I have looked at left-hand actions. Apart from the fact that there is a pretty limited selection (fair enough most people will want R/H after all) there are even fewer L/H actions available in what I laughably recognise as my price bracket.
Sure there are some great looking packages on, for example, Savage Axis rifles, but I really don't want to be spending £400-600 on an R/H action that I'm going to end up using like a single shot. Which got me to thinking about single shot rifles. Surely there must be some true ambidextrous single shot rifles out there. When I was a cadet we had .22 rifles some of which were No.8 Enfield actions, and some of which were Martini-Henri actions, and I always shot pretty well with the latter.
So I looked, and found a couple of references to the Baikal IZH 18-MN break-barrel in .308 Win. The opinions that I've seen about it seem divided, but the only really serious sounding problem seems to be that the trigger is very rough and heavy. In all other aspects it seems to be a lot of weapon for the £100-£200 they seem to command second hand.
What am I missing? Is this a great chance for a lefty like me to begin shooting full bore, or am I likely to end up with an unsellable lump? Any advice, especially from those who have stalked with one would be really welcome!
Many thanks,
steerpike
It starts with wanting to find a centrefire which would be legal (and ethical) for all deer in all of the UK, and ideally be capable of taking boar as well.
It continues with my being left handed, and more to the point, blind in my right eye. Whilst I can and have shot right hand bolt actions from the left shoulder I can't help but feel that I lose the main benefit of a magazine/bolt combination, which I see as being the ability to loose a second or even third shot without disturbing my shooting position and therefore aim.
So, as you can imagine I have looked at left-hand actions. Apart from the fact that there is a pretty limited selection (fair enough most people will want R/H after all) there are even fewer L/H actions available in what I laughably recognise as my price bracket.
Sure there are some great looking packages on, for example, Savage Axis rifles, but I really don't want to be spending £400-600 on an R/H action that I'm going to end up using like a single shot. Which got me to thinking about single shot rifles. Surely there must be some true ambidextrous single shot rifles out there. When I was a cadet we had .22 rifles some of which were No.8 Enfield actions, and some of which were Martini-Henri actions, and I always shot pretty well with the latter.
So I looked, and found a couple of references to the Baikal IZH 18-MN break-barrel in .308 Win. The opinions that I've seen about it seem divided, but the only really serious sounding problem seems to be that the trigger is very rough and heavy. In all other aspects it seems to be a lot of weapon for the £100-£200 they seem to command second hand.
What am I missing? Is this a great chance for a lefty like me to begin shooting full bore, or am I likely to end up with an unsellable lump? Any advice, especially from those who have stalked with one would be really welcome!
Many thanks,
steerpike