Mulligrub

Hello chaps. We're looking for a small team of trustworthy people exclusively to help reduce a population of rabbits causing great nuisance to a particular area of the estate, which will involve regular shooting trips (two or three times per week) at early and late hours for a limited period of perhaps the next three or four months or so. The land is in central south Dorset, and covers an area of approximately sixty acres. Due to the particular usage of the land, we will need a few sensible people who are willing to respect some basic rules (like communicating their comings and goings, etc.). The shooting is to be by sound-moderated rifle only. If you think you might be able to help, please send me a PM. I apologise now if I don't reply to all your messages as I am shockingly disorganised and time poor (the last time I came on here looking for similar help I was quickly overwhelmed with offers, so I'm sorry if you sent a message that I didn't reply to, but please let me know if this new venture might interest you instead). Many thanks. M.

We're having an afternoon of pigeon shooting on the farm tomorrow (Sunday), from about 3.00pm until 6.30pm. The plan is to have guns stationed at certain places throughout the estate to get the birds up and moving about and to roost shoot in the woods. Please PM me if you'd like to come along.

My apologies again for starting this thread and then immediately abandoning it. Life took over (and mother and baby are doing very well). I'm pleased to have received a number of private messages from people indicating their willingness to come along and do some pigeon shooting on the farm. I'll be replying individually to these messages in due course, but wanted to post something here in the mean time just to say that I'm not ignoring them. My plan is to run a group pigeon shoot on Saturday next weekend (or Sunday, if the weather looks likely to be much better when we get nearer to it), and I'll be inviting some of those who have contacted me to come along. This would seem a sensible way to meet up and show some of you around, and we can take it from there. I shall have to repeat the exercise so please stand by if I don't contact you initially. Thanks again for your interest. M. P.S. Good point about insurance documents. Sight of document will suffice- no need for a kept copy.

So sorry for not getting back to this thread and the private messages. My wife is having a baby a little earlier than expected! Please stand by, and I will get back as soon as possible. M.

Thank you so much for the advice, which I find immediately helpful. Our farm is 900 acres arable (OSR, winter wheat, spring barley, rye) and we have woodland and grassland. It is a beautiful private family estate in central South Dorset, and we have some game shooting with pheasant and partridge. The game shooting is absolutely seperate from the pest control for the purpose of crop protection that I am looking into here (namely, pigeon and rabbit). The shooting would of course be free, and indeed I would be keen to show my appreciation for effective pest control by way of appropriate reward (e.g., cartridges). The terms and conditions would be agreed in advance, and I am grateful for some useful pointers on this thread. Safety and trustworthiness would be of paramount importance to us. I'd be glad to hear by private message from anybody on these boards who identifies himself as the sort of candidate described in the posts above as being well suited. I would be especially keen to meet mature and sensible shooters who would treat the estate and approach the shooting here with care and respect. [Please would a Moderator move this post to the appropriate board if that would be preferable? Many thanks.]

I'm thinking about trying to recruit some responsible, sensible and insured people to come along to our farm in Dorset to help control the massive pigeon population that's eating our arable crops. Does anyone have any advice on how I should go about this? What should be the terms, and so on, and are there any obvious pitfalls to look out for, etc. Many thanks. M.

My chap is a general farm worker, and this shooting would be in his own unpaid time. I'm aware he can't afford to buy his own cartridges, and for all the good reasons suggested above I think it would be beneficial for the farm if we provide him with the gear so he can shoot the pigeons- just so long as I don't supply him at the rate that I would need if I were to do it myself, being as I'm such a shocking bad shot! Thanks for the helpful comments- much obliged to you all.

Thank you so much. I'm glad I asked, as I would have guessed a lower hit rate than that (based on my own shooting!) and would have oversupplied cartridges accordingly.

What's a reasonable hit rate for rough pigeon shooting? We have a farm worker who's very handy with a shotgun, and I'm going to provide him with cartridges so he can shoot pigeons on our germinating OSR crop, one field of which is especially likely to be hammered by rabbits and pigeons this year. Although he's quite trustworthy, it would be useful to get a ball park idea of how many cartridges he would reasonably need per kill, allowing for a fair ratio of misses. Frankly, I don't want to end up resourcing my chap and all his mates with cheap cartridges that he keeps on needing to be resupplied with, if you see what I mean. Thanks, all.

I have a Baikal Hushpower 410 shotgun to which I want to attach a red dot sight as I'm a shocking bad shot, but I'm having trouble working out how to fit a suitable rail as the moderator is a chunky 38mm (ish) in diameter and has no screwholes. Has anyone fitted a rail to one of these? I'm thinking I could get a barrel clamp mount like this one on eBay, and replace the screws with 45mm or 50mm long ones which should allow the clamp to open up wide enough to fit onto the mod... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hunting-Universal-Single-Rail-Picatinny-Weaver-Barrel-Mount-w-3-Slots-Clamp-On-/161429682434?hash=item2595f57902 Any thoughts?

Hi chaps. I'm looking to get a 20 gauge semi-auto for my girlfriend, and would appreciate any pointers in the general direction of choosing something suitable. It would be only for vermin control (rabbits, squirrels, pigeons, ramblers, etc) and needs low recoil as she is very sensitive at all times of the month, and as light as reasonable (notwithstanding the inverse relationship this has with low recoil). I'm prepared to spend up to 1500 as I would definitely be wanting to borrow it... I'm clueless, and would be glad of any ideas. Thanks muchly.

I suppose the 60g of 1 shot might seem somewhat excessive... I just dont want to anger a fox with a light load and have it turn on me! Seriously, though, althoigh I really don't want to wound something for it to die slowly and in pain just because I'm a clueless novice and don't yet have the skill for a clean kill, mostly I wanted to know the maximun theoretical load gun can handle. Superb forum, this. I've lurked here on and off for ages. Nice to be a member.

Thank you, chaps, that's very helpful and more or less what I thought. I'll be using it for game birds and rabbits, but we do have lots of foxes round here, and being a novice I reckon I need a big load of heavy shot to be more certain of a humane kill if I do stumble across one that's within my range (which will be very close!). I'm thinking 60g of 1shot in a 3 inch cartridge, which I see above that the gun can handle, even if my shoulder will sting a bit! Many thanks.

Hello forum. I'm very new to shooting, and have a noob question that I can't easily find an answer to on the web. My shotgun is a new Beretta Silver Pigeon 1 Field, with 30" barrels. I know this gun is proofed for steel shot and has a 3" (76mm) chamber, but my question is what is the generally recommended maximum load and size of (lead) cartridge that I should sensibly shoot with this model? It's not that I plan on any elephant shooting or anything, but I'd like to know what experienced shooters would suggest is a sensible upper limit on shell whack so that I don't go over it, and I'm a bit confused about pressure ratings, footpoundage and muzzle velocities and all that. Many thanks in advance!