Report by Marcus O’Dean
Just last Saturday, Danny Galea and John Fuller sponsored a fantastic day to showcase to gun dealers and yours truly, some great new products coming out of Germany. On hand were representatives from old German gun, optics and ammo makers Sauer, Zeiss and RWS with answers to all our technical questions.
Above:The lineup of new Sauer centrefires, all just itching to be fired.
We all got to shoot and view the latest Sauer 202 centrefires including the new Synchro (watch for Nick Harvey’s review in an upcoming Sporting Shooter magazine) and Wolverine. With the highly consistent RWS Evo and Geco ammunition, it was child’s play to shoot from 100 out to 500 metres, hitting gongs with monotonous regularity by dialing in the range on the calibrated elevation turrets of the new 8-times magnification Zeiss Victory V8 2.5-20 power riflescopes mounted on .308 and .270 Sauers.
Zeiss Victory V8 Riflescope, a remarkably advanced ballistic tool.
Geco 165gn .308 bullet caused this entry wound!
During a break in the shooting, we retrieved some blocks of “ballistic soap” that were penetrated from about 30 metres by a .308 Geco standard, 165gn plastic-tipped hunting bullet designed for rapid expansion on soft-skinned game. The results, unlike with ballistic gelatin, showed the wound channel preserved at its extremities, as the soap did not retract back to a pencil hole, like gelatin does. That ammo had a three inch entry hole and fragmentation all through the block for about 30cm – perfect for our fallow, pigs and goats.
The .308 RWS Evo 187gn bonded core bullet was a different story, travelling slightly further down the soap, but with a largely intact, well-mushroomed bullet that would be more suited to bigger, tougher game. I was pretty impressed with the accuracy, consistency and terminal performance of all the RWS ammo we used that day.
Above: Zeiss VictorySF 10×42 Binocular, a totally redesigned and peerless optical instrument.
Below: A proud Danny Galea, MD of Outdoor Sporting Agencies, is grinning behind his hand, knowing that these binos will walk out the gun shop doors.
Now optics manufacturers can hype up their products to sell more of them but, when Danny Galea handed me a pair of the new Zeiss Victory SF 10×42 binoculars and I put them up to my eyes, I immediately noted the light weight and superb balance of this bino, to say nothing of the blistering optical performance – superb brightness and clarity were also immediately evident and combined with their ergonomics, I believe they are on a winner. Just one tip though to the designers, the mid-grey hard polymer barrels may be durable, but they are less attractive because of that colour, in my eyes at least.
Above: Muzio having a crack at some faraway gongs with a Zeiss V8-mounted, Sauer rifle shooting RWS Geco ammo. All this and they fed us lamb on a spit, too.
Well, I got to meet some great people on the day, including Muzio, Manager of Abela’s Melbourne Gun Shop, who you see lining up here on some poor unsuspecting gongs way out yonder.
The Zeiss optics should be hitting good gun shops very soon, so put in your order now for these top-end products.
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