JJsDad

Dont know about West Mids, but most county firearms departments provide a guide on the times they take to process grants. In the light that they shutdown for the Christmas break I suspect you are wildly impatient, they only got back to work a week ago. Many forces are running at about 8 weeks to process grants & renewals. Chasing them wont get you anywhere.

Kent had terrible backlog 5 years ago and despite seeking advice from BASC, my local FEO and the head of Kent Firearms Dept and applying for my renewal 12 weeks before expiry, my licence was not renewed until 7 weeks after its run-out date. My repeated phone calls to my FEO were met by the response that it was a Kent Firearms causing the problem as they wouldnt authorize overtime or weekend working and were having difficulty recruiting new staff. About 2 weeks before my licence expired I managed after a bit of being messed about to get the head of firearms on the phone. I virtually demanded a Sect 7 to keep me legal. The response was that all staff were fully tied up with renewals and initial grants and taking people off that work to issue Sect 7s would cause further delay. I was assured that if they did not manage to re-new by my expiry date I was still legal !!!! and did not need to transfer my guns to an RFD or friend while waiting for the re-newal. I insisted that his department were causing me to be break the law but he fobbed me off with weasal words that even if stopped with a gun in the car in another county there wouldnt be a problem. Thankfully they now seem to be getting their act together and my application in mid Sept 2019 resulted in a new certificate coming through by early December.

Had the same sort of letter over here in Kent. As you applied early they are giving you a further 8 weeks beyond your certificate expiry date. This covers their & your bum in the event they dont manage to complete by the date on your licence. In my case they processed it all fairly quickly and the new licence came through 6 weeks before the old one was due to expire. As Tightchoke said; for reasons only known to themselves they never seem very keen to issue a Sect 7.

Should this not read: `Occasionally`

Aaagh ! Not just me then. I was getting quite worried there was some new peversion that had passed me bye. Never even heard the word until today. Nothing wrong with The Donalds values; threaten US citizens and you will get a Hellfire missile up your exhaust pipe.

Pansexual ? I am either getting to old for all this new terminology about gender mixing, or I need to get out more ! Who are they actually hoping to attract with this sort of statement ?

Hi Boggy. My understanding is that the only way you will save money is if you monitor the `usage-display` that the company provides and turn off unwanted lights etc; having a smart meter does not to the best of my knowledge reduce the ammount of energy used. It just shows what you are using in real time. The negative press generally refers to the Mk 1 version not the Mk 2 now being fitted. I like you have been regularly pestered over the last 6 months or so by emails from my supplier saying they were in the area and urging me to make an appointment to have one fitted. As a result of a phone call from my supplier in early December I finally bit the bullet and arrangement to have one fitted. During the discussion about the installation I explained that like many houses built in the 60s, my meter was in a rather small cupboard beneath the stairs with fairly limited access. This was poo-poo`d by the rep and I was told this was not a problem as their fitters were highly skilled in working in cramped conditions. I was therefore mildly amused when on the day a 6ft 2in fitter turned up with all his kit and the new meter, took one look at the access and said it couldnt be fitted. He took a number of happy snaps to pass onto his boss and told me the only way it could be done is lift 4 or 5 treads from the stairs to allow access. However, as the cost of this is down to the supplier, he advised that it wont get done. So the boast that all houses will have these devices within the next 4 or 5 years is all pie-in-the-sky. There are 30 or 40 identical design houses on our little patch, all of which presumably cannot economically be fitted with this new wonder meter.

You probably didnt notice, but you are responding to a post from April 2018 !!

Panoma1 got it in one. Second mark from the right is the 1924 to present day, Beligian proof mark for foreign weapons. As Belgium is a member of the CIP (Proof Commision) Belgian proof marks are perfectly acceptable in the UK and vice-versa.

As Dougy said. Defcon putty or one of the liquid metals. Defcon is good and I have used it for bedding rifles but its not cheap and obtaining a small qty might prove difficult.

Loctite 638 would hold it particully with a steel pin, not sure how it takes with a spelter type material.

Boiled chicken & rice.

Good post.

Thanks David. Shame the people who are not members for their own personal reasons, dont just keep it to themselves. We always seem to have a small selection of people who feel the need to broadcast on a public forum their ill informed views about BASC and what it does. Not a member for your own reasons, fine ! But do we need `shooters` knocking our shooting organisations for the whole world and his brother to read. The term `divided we fall` springs to mind !

Unfortunately there a several members on this forum who think like that. The fact that BASC/NGO and others did a load of work lobbying and producing evidence when the GL fiasco blew up seems to escape some people. However, these same people were happy to continue pigeon and corvid shooting when Defra stepped in, examined the evidence, sorted the mess out & re-issued the licences.

Seconded. I bet he would wonder where it all went wrong with this country since the war, in the light that London is becoming a free-fire zone for anyone with a gun or a knife.

Yep, but us oldies were probably only earning £10 or £15 a week back then, so 10 bob on cartridges was quite an outlay !

51p and a half-penny for a box of Impax. Grand Prix were dearer, at 53p !! Happy days.

In the early 1960s when I first started shooting there was very little choice, bar paper cased Eley Grand Prix. We didnt have a `proper` gunshop for miles, so it was Grand Prix or nothing. The ironmongers where we bought them occasionally had Alphamax in stock which we treasured for ducking, albeit the price was a jump up from Grand Prix. Yellow Wizard then came along and undercut Eley, but my recollection was that they were pretty awful and we had the occasional weak charge where you heard the shot rattling down the barrel.

The OP is saying the safety was off, i.e: in the ready to fire condition.

With the Police involved, they will get the weapon examined in great detail by a forensics lab or a a specialist rifle-smith to determine if it could discharge if dropped. Personell opinions from members of a forum, however well meaning, cannot be used to support your case that the weapon fired when dropped.

None of these have any jurisdiction over your GP. I had two seperate discussions with BASC over this, but other than vague promises that they are on the case I got no where, and ended up having to change GPs. British Medical Association are the Doctors union, so you could take it up with them. This work is not funded under NHS rules so it is left to individual GPs to charge as they see fit for their time in order to trawl your records and draft the letter. I believe BASC are lobbying the Home Office and BMA to try to get an agreed fee for GPs when they carry out this work, but I have seen nothing to suggest there is any form of agreement as yet.

The GPs report is mandatory over the water here in Kent. No letter, no licence. I had to change GPs practice because the old one would answer any Police requests or provide required medical report. No problem with new one, he charged £25. BASC telling people not to pay or challenging FEO that a letter is not required is outdated and trouble making. I challenged Kent Police over exactly this and the response was that the Home Office guidelines are guidance only and if the Chief Constable wants to exceed them he can.

The simple answer to your question is: `Yes` You do need to fill in all parts of the form regardless of the fact that many of your details have not changed over the last 5 years. As you live in Kent you will also have to get your GP to provide a letter and send it direct to the Police at Maidstone confirm you are free from a number of medical conditions. You may have to pay the GP for this service. Some charge, some do not. Mine charged £25 which I thought was a fair price, in the light that without this letter Kent Police will reject your application.

Exactly. Used a light smear on all my shotguns for years. Quite where and how people supposedly pick up all this grit that makes grinding paste is beyond me. I use an old AYA magnum for fowling and even if it gets wet & muddy I dont find it gets into the hinge pin area or around the knuckle between fore end and action. My game gun comes home fairly clean externally after a day walking & standing.