Meet the remarkable couple behind Pro Hunter Swaging

Meet Graham and Yvonne Scase - the truly remarkable couple behind Pro Hunter Swaging

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In 1980, Graham Scase was in the Essex Team for 10-metre indoor match target shooting, and this is where his love of shooting really started. He was wife Yvonne’s childhood sweetheart and they have now been happily married for 27 years.

Yvonne’s love of the sport started when she went rabbit shooting with Graham on his aunt’s farmland, and she continued to shoot live quarry as well as enjoying clay shooting. After their son was born, Graham and Yvonne moved into a large house, with an acre of land, perfect for shooting, and after renovating it themselves, their daughter came along in 2000. By now, Yvonne worked with young adults, ages 8 to 18, helping them to change their pathways by showing them the life skills they need in today’s society. Yvonne’s role in life was incredibly rewarding, but one which was due to change drastically.

GRAHAM’S ILLNESS

In early 2018, Graham was not feeling well and had bouts of sudden collapse. His doctor sent him for a series of tests and eventually Yvonne received the worst call she could ever imagine from Graham saying that he might have a tumour. The consequences of that call changed the couple’s life overnight. Let’s hear the rest of the Pro Hunter Swaging story in the words of Yvonne Scase, herself.

LIFE CHANGES

‘At this point, Graham was still undiagnosed, was deteriorating rapidly, and eventually I had to take time off work whilst they did tests. We both thought the worst and I gave up my job to look after my husband full time. Mentally, it was hard, thinking that he was going to die, and the money was not coming in, either. All work on the house came to a standstill and even today, we still have scaffolding holding up the staircase!

In the meantime, Graham’s father who was 90, was about to go into a hospice. I used to care for my father-in-law, who treated me like the daughter he never had, and we didn’t tell him about Graham’s medical issues because it would have caused him to worry. He sadly passed in January 2019.

HELP FROM ACROSS THE POND

With all that was going on, life for both of us was looking very bleak, to say the least. I struggled to come to terms with Graham’s illness, but never once gave up on him. We had to do something to help our situation, and then our love of shooting came to the rescue. We found out about what airgun slugs were doing in America, and became very interested. So we tried them, loved them, then looked into producing them as an interest, just for ourselves, and especially for Graham to give him something to focus on. Soon, the distances at which we were shooting accurately with the slugs we made were unheard of, and we knew our version of these slugs were something very special indeed.

FROM AMATEUR TO PRO

Our shooting friends loved them, too, and word got about. Producing and developing the slugs became more and more fascinating, and this is how Pro Hunter Swaging began, turning a hobby into a full-time business, with us becoming the first UK manufacturer of hand-swaged slugs.

Although Graham now has a diagnosis; a very rare fistula tumour of the spine, which has ongoing treatments and rehabilitation, this gives us even more determination to come out the other side and continue to supply the best slugs on the market.

LOVING WHAT WE DO

We enjoy making the slugs, shooting them and giving air rifle shooters the pleasure of using them. We love to hear the feedback, and not only do we get pleasure when a customer rates our products and service, but this information also helps us to make changes to the manufacturing process to produce the best slugs. We listen to our customers, and have made some great friends along the way. Although we are always learning about the slugs, we give help and advice as best we can, no matter what the time of day, or what we’re doing. We strive to provide the best customer service, as well as to produce the best product, and we’ll always go that extra mile to help someone.

BUSINESS IS BOOMING

Pro Hunter Swaging went live in July 2019 and we have been growing every day since. We are very proud of our slugs and hope that all airgun users will enjoy the slug experience because they are a definite game-changer. They will never replace pellets, but this is the future for those who want to push performance to the limit and one day, we would like to see US-style long-range slug shooting competitions in the UK.

A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP

Through our testing, we have found slugs to be very gun specific; they will either love or hate your barrel. It is not an exact science – you can’t just pick a grain weight and expect it to be efficient, because it really doesn’t work like that. A lot of effort, money and time goes into making the perfect slug, but when you get it right, it’s the best feeling in the world!

Thanks to their superior ballistic coefficient, they buck the wind much better than a pellet, and hit much harder, producing humane kills. The best thing is, we have designed our slugs to be shot, not just with FAC, but sub-12 rifles, too.

BEST PRODUCT … BEST JOB

We might be just a small business, with a husband-and-wife team hand-swaging 99.95% lead slugs, but we love it! We didn’t think for one moment that it would take off like it has, but we’re incredibly happy that our hard work has been recognised by so many of our customers, and we think we have the best job ever!

Although Graham is still battling with his illness, and we still have half the house to complete, with the support of our family and friends, we have pulled through. Without Pro Hunter Swaging, who knows where we would be today? We still don’t know how we had the strength to carry on through all that’s happened in the last three years, but together, with determination, commitment, pride and love, we did.

We’re sure that those Pro Hunter Swaging slugs will continue to impress us, and do the same for the growing number of airgun shooters who want to take performance to the next level.’

Contact: Pro Hunter Swaging 07918 664 426 or 07752 326 653

Website: https://www.prohunterswaging.co.uk