Vince Green

That is a good suggestion actually, join NOBs

I go back far enough that I can remember when you didn't need a licence to own a shotgun. Then, I think it was 1968 they introduced licences but it was only like a bus ticket and there were no security conditions and no serial numbers. Now we have SGCs with photos on, serial numbers, FEOs coming round to inspect your cabinets and now it seems they are starting to impose conditions like having to be a member of a club and checking up on permissions which they are not required (or allowed) to do. Apart from wearing down a lot of perfectly law abiding owners into giving up what good has it achieved? Was there a problem before? not as far as I could see? Is it any safer now? And the most important point of all has it reduced crime?

There is a point of law here irrespective of what you may think is good or sensible. That is that the police don't have the right to ask. Its outside their terms of reference. This sort of thing just gradually creeps into being law because over a period of time it becomes accepted practice and we let them do it.

9 times out of 10 the cartridge will go when you try it a second time

The only thing I would add to the list is some shotproof safety glasses. You can get quite a lot of shot falling on you. The temptation to look up can be overwhelming if you want to see how many are getting hit.

The old blue FACs used to say "State reason for transfer eg lent, given or sold" Years ago you also used to see FACs with authority to acquire "one C/F rifle up to cal .308" on them as well. Much more sensible IMO. when did that stop?

My Uncle Harry used to decoy pigeons using a .22 rifle. A true countryman he always said a pigeon wasn't worth wasting a shotgun cartridge on. So he would wait till they landed and shoot them on the ground. Then he would slit them down the front and cut just the breast meat off before the maggots got in it Then he would leave the rest of the carcass inthe hedge for the fox. His logic was that the fox is a lazy animal and if you leave it the dead pigeons it will leave the chickens alone. He begrudged using a shotgun for anything if he could get it with his .22

Yes it should be fine. Proof pressures haven't changed since it was made. It shold be a nice gun to use. The only thing is it will "feel" better using it with some Eley Grand Prix paper cartridges if you can get some but thats nothing to do with the cartridges, that just nostaligia.

As with any sort of auction you have to question why the guns are being auctioned. Some are no doubt dealer's rejects that they have taken in but don't want to resell. However not all are like that, some are very genuine from people who have to turn their guns back into cash because they have financial problems or are giving up for other reasons. Some guns go for what I think are top money and much higher than the estimate.

I have heard that said before as well.

Part of the problem with cheap scopes is that people often buy cheap mounts and thats where you may get problems if they are not rigid enough. Any commercial scope that couldn't take ordinary recoil would soon be the subject of posts on forums like this, so far I haven't seen any. I have always bought "cheap" scopes and so do my friends and they are used on all sorts of rifles. Never really found any reason to say they were not up to the job.

They were popular a few years ago, never heard anything bad about them then. My mate had one as I recall. £175 sounds a bit steep but .410s fetch a good price

Its a bit of a risk if you find you don't get on with the cartridges after all that. And you may well find that its not that much cheaper either. Also the police may have issues with you storing that many. Where can you keep them? You will almost certainly be breaching some obscure fire regs or something.

You should be aware that as it stands at the moment you have a section one firearm there, maybe even a section five. If I were you I would take the broken bit off and chuck it, that way there can be no misunderstanding. If you want to keep the broken bit as a template then put it somewhere safe, preferably off your premises.

Side issue but the 24" means the barrel and chamber but some police licencing authorities have got a bit confused about this and said it has to be the barrel and the chamber doesnt count. This is wrong so if you should encounter this get it clarified and don't take their word for it.

I have heard that before although I have never tried it. They used to eat rooks a lot and there was an article in one of the shooting mags about a year or so back on how to cook them. Apparantly the old nursery rhyme "Four and twenty black birds baked in a pie....." was a reference to rook pie

Although they can fire 5 shots quickly they are then very slow to reload so the reason the police don't like them is largely negated. I reckon you could fire ten shots quicker with a sxs or an o/u edjector. Back in the days when they were allowed they never put in much of a performance on flurry shoots. The shooter would spend ages reloading while clay after clay flew over unchallenged. They say that the fastest gun for sustained fire is the old Greener GP single barrel because an experienced user can reload without taking the gun out of the shoulder. Now thats food for thought.

Many more people die every year in horse riding accidents. Actually horse riding is one of the most dangerous sports around. But horse riders kill themselves and not other people, and not 12 in one go.

my mate used wine bottle corks. He said it was rough drinking all that wine but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Got a load from the bins of a local restaurant.

Any half competent gunsmith should be able to make something up for you. Its not rocket science.

Dealers seem to be very reluctant to stock priv ammunition when they have ammunition costing double or treble the price sitting on their shelves. I have sympathy with their business predicament but what we have here is the simple law of supply and demand. Without being nasty about it we should let our feelings on the subject be known. We are the customers, its our money that goes over their counters. If they think we can be blocked from buying cheaper ammo just by their refusal to stock it then their business sense it in question. My local dealer, A man I regarded as a friend for many years simply refuses to stock it so I have stopped going there and won't go back. Where is the sense in that?

If the police get a complaint they have to respond and thank god they do. Its a thankless job at the best of times so don't make it difficult for them by complaining. I don't always like their attituded either but who would want to turn out to reports of men with guns in a field at night. It must make them edgy

Deckers I love our discussions because we often seem to lock horns on subjects and I do enjoy it. My main belief is that a 32g cartridge is what is required and shot size is perhaps secondary to the main discussion. What I really deplore is all these reduced loads that the cartridge manufacturers are churning out and want us to believe they are not inferior. IMO its lead in the air that counts more than anything else.

Accuracy can be achieved but its not guranteed. Not by any means. You can produce utter rubbish as well but people don't post about their failures so you get the impression that everyones reloads go through the same hole every time. We buy .223s for about £40 a hundred and I don't think you could reload them for that. Not by the time you take in the cost of the equipment etc

The textbook requirement for pellet energy is usually regarded as being 1.5 ft lbs and 7s will fulfill that requirement easily. Energy counts for nothing if none of the pellets actually hit the pigeon. A pigeon's body is really small under all those feathers . Actually my beef is not so much with the shot size, I have used 7s for over 35 years now and I'm not going to change now. My beef is with the tendency of the cartridge manufacturers to produce increasingly lighter shot loads in the interests of cheapness.