About Us

About Yew Tree Fieldsports.

Having been stalking deer in a private and professional capacity for many years I have tried most hunting bullets available. I briefly flirted with non toxic bullets a few years ago but could not find a bullet where I was happy with the terminal performance on the UK's thin skinned game. I felt that they were simply too hard  and didn't dump enough energy into the quarry to provide a quick dispatch. At the time that was not great issue as I merely returned to using lead cored bullets.

Moving on a few years and the situation has changed markedly. The British Game Dealers association has announced that from July 2022 they will no longer accept deer carcasses that have been shot with lead cored bullets. In addition, (to quote the BASC) 'there are over-burdening legislative changes coming down the line as a result of work being undertaken by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). Despite Brexit, we are expecting that these regulations will be implemented in the UK either due to a requirement to sell lead free game into Europe, or by UK legislation.'

As a result it seems extremely likely that the lead cored hunting bullets currently used for stalking are more than likely to be banned by legislation or, simply through the prevention of the sale of carcasses, will drop out of use.

Having had a very keen interest in bullet design for some time (from a ballistic efficiency perspective initially, due to my F Class shooting) I took it upon myself in late 2020 to put my designs on paper, get some test bullets made and begin testing. In this case the design brief was to create a non toxic hunting bullet that had an element of frangibility about it in order that it dumped the amount of energy I wanted into the quarry.

Having had various conversations with a few engineering folk but particularly Neil McKillop (my riflesmith) about appropriate processes that could be used to manufacture bullets in bulk, we came to the conclusion that machining on a Swiss lathe was the way to go. Once the designs became reality testing could begin.