One of my friends is retired now and he inherited a lot
of money. Fort he rest of his life, now he will do what
he allways dreamed about – hunting. (btw, he is not married)
On the SCi web page he read something about a
„diamond level“, and now he asked me for this
diamond level in sheep – hunting, for he diceded to
hunt sheep.
As he likes to see all challenges in its details, his
next question was „what means „sheep“ for hunters and
for the SCI?
Oh. Now I started to investigate and found out what he meant.
Are sheep the members oft he „OVIS – group“ only
or ist he „barbary sheep“ (ammotragus lervia) a
sheep in the „SCI diamond level“? And what about the
„Pseudosis“ group? Sheep?
I kwow this questions sounds a bit strange, and maybe
the questions are very german but I meanwhile think,
they are interessting.

Next discussion – the rifle. One rifle for all, money doesn`t count.
Break action, only rimmed ammo, 260 – 300 caliber, wildcats
possible.

Burkhard

Sounds like a good problem to have.

If only all of life's little questions were so pleasant to find solutions to.

7x65R is good rimmed round and very accurate.
30R Blaser one of my favourite rimmed round.

Maybe he should try this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfTqkdGY3F4

I do not know what sheep means for SCI hunters, but look here the sheep that I know in alphabetical order:
Aoudad Sheep
Arrapawa Sheep
Barbary Sheep
Bighorn Sheep
Blue Sheep
California Big Horn Sheep
Corsican Sheep
Dall Sheep
Desert Bighorn Sheep
Feral Sheep
Four-Horned Sheep
Kerman Sheep
Mouflon Sheep
Red Sheep
Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep
Soay Sheep
Stone Sheep

Here would be a good place to start, seems like the Ovis website lists them all. http://www.wildsheep.org/sheep/index.htm

@Sevens,
Thank you very much for this information.

sheeps for the rest of his life, i'm exhausted just by thinking of it.
i would much rather retire on a estate in southern England and shoot driven birds for the rest of my life, only interrupted by tea and biscuits.

don't know much about sheeps, but i do like to talk about cartridges.


i've been looking at a sheephunting outfitter site a while back, and they said the hunter could expect 350m+ shots.
for me personly i would have preferred something faster than a 7x65R.
in other words 7mm rem mag performance from a rimmed cartridge.

i do not have any litterature handy, but isn't there a rimmed version of the 8x68?
if so a 7x68R would be great.
or maybe a 9,3x74R necked down to 7mm loaded with a good bc 9,1g bullet, and hopefully reaching 950ms or so.

A .300 Weatherby, or even a .257, will take good care of the job.

B.Martins

quote:

i've been looking at a sheephunting outfitter site a while back, and they said the hunter could expect 350m+ shots.

I got curious about shot distance and mentioned it to a friend of mine who, it seems, is always off sheep hunting. He said the only places he had a shot over 200 yards were Azerbaijan and Tajikistan.

Thank you for all the interessting answers.
The ideal rifle is a real challenge.


My friend prefers a break action like the Blaser
K95. The cartridge must be rimmed.

There ist not so many rimmed ammo.

First we were looking in the 6,5 mm league

6,5 x 68 R
6,5 x 65 RWS
6,5 x 63 Messner (with a 65 cm barrel)

in 7 mm only the 7 x 65 R

in 7,62 (300) the 30R Blaser

in 8,5 mm the 6,3 x 63 R

The latest idea

a 30R Blaser necked down to 6,8 mm (270)

This is from SCI

Wild Sheep of the World
MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS AND ELIGIBLE CATEGORIES
Only 3 allowed from North America Introduced, all must be free range.

Level Rifle Minimum, Bow Minimum
Copper 4,2
Bronze 6,3
Silver 8,4
Gold 9,5
Diamond 12,6

Aoudad or Barbary sheep
Himalayan blue sheep
Chinese blue sheep
Dwarf blue sheep
European mouflon
Konya mouflon
Armenian mouflon
Esfahan mouflon
Laristan mouflon
Red sheep
Kerman sheep
Transcaspian urial
Afghan urial
Blanford urial
Punjab urial
Ladakh urial
Altay argali
Hangay argali
Gobi argali
Marco Polo argali
Gansu argali
Karaganda argali
Kuruktag argali
Littledale argali
Sair argali
Severtzov argali
Tian Shan argali
Tibetan argali
Kamchatka snow sheep
Putorana snow sheep
Kolyma snow sheep
Koryak snow sheep
Okhotsk snow sheep
Yakutia snow sheep
Dall sheep
Stone sheep
Rocky Mtn. bighorn sheep
California bighorn sheep
Desert bighorn sheep
Hybrid sheep

Thank you Thomasjohn,

this is a very detailed answer, and I see that the
barbary sheep is on the list and it counts
(it's not an "ovis"). Your list answers all
my shepp questions.

My friend's reaction "Only twelve for the diamond level, is there a special
level when I hunt the complete list?" One of those dreams.

Next problem - the rifle.

Break action, rimmed cartridge. Long range huntig.

Why not a personell cartridge. Is there a wildcat
in 500/416 necked down to 270 - 338??
Or 9,3 x 74 R necked down?

i think making a wildcat in this caliber range would be a bit unnessary, i still think that the 6,5x57R or the great one 7x65R should cover everything he would encounter.

as to the gun, the german rifle makers are indeed masters at this game. or he could go for a slim tasty double in the same calibers for the fun of it. he should be abel to get a really nice double in those calibers weighing around 3,3-3,5 kg, now that would be a classy outfit for sheep hunting.

best regards

peter

quote:

Originally posted by Burkhard:
My friend's reaction "Only twelve for the diamond level, is there a special
level when I hunt the complete list?"

If he got everything on the list he would be broke.

I think for the argalis he will have to burn a hell of money.

Can I be your friend's booking agent? :-)

For any questions regarding the SCI listings and awards he might want to contact Norbert Ullmann of the SCI Bayern chapter.

Frans