Poor Shot

Thanks both 👍

Good afternoon. I'm kind of putting out the feelers amongst the PW massive for some assistance. It's a bit of an ask and I'm not expecting a great response but As per the title I'm relatively new to the sport and I would be extremely grateful for an opportunity to tag along on a days pigeon shooting, ferreting or similar. I'm not scratching for freebies or looking to scope out and poach someone's permission. The reason for this post is purely to try and gain some experience in the field before I go knocking on doors looking for permission of my own. Last thing I want is to gain the trust of someone and then let them down because I haven't a clue what I'm doing. I've been looking into joining a wildfowling club or similar and I will offer my services as a beater for any shoot that will take me when the season arrives. About myself I'm late 20s, responsible, sensible and all that. I've shot air rifles since a young age, clays for the last year and I fish a lot. I have an SGC, own guns, BASC member etc. Based in CF45 South Wales and I would be willing to travel up to a couple hours around Wales and South West for a days good experience. I'd even be willing to pick up the tab for a few beers afterwards as thanks.

I know they can be sourced from a brass rifle or pistol case, they generally have more complicated actions that leave more marks on the case and the case itself is made entirely of metal which retains these markings. I'm not so convinced that a fairly simple OU shotgun action and mainly plastic cases can retain enough unique markings to accurately determine which specific gun fired that case. Especially when shot from something like an ATA or Silver Pigeon which may be one of several hundred produced as a single batch all to close tolerances.

Had a similar letter appended to my certificate which arrived on Saturday. Honestly, I'd be amazed if you could forensically identify a cartridge fired from a specific gun which would have been 1 of hundreds, if not thousands of identical others which would have been manufactured as a single batch. I will be a good little certificate holder and retain a pair just in case though. Will probably need to replace them every thousand or so cartridges fired to keep pace with the wear of the gun.

Three weeks and four days since the home visit and near to 12 months to the day since I sent off for the medical proforma (4 month nightmare of its own) the letter landed on the mat this morning. The whole process is nothing short of a complete shambles and needs to be thoroughly reviewed.

No. To my understanding, while the DPF and GPF carry out the same function they operate under different conditions (gas particulate sizes, heat cycles etc.) So the GPF is a lot less likely to become problematic. Though I am not an automotive engineer or a mechanic. I do speak from experience having had 3 cars with a GPF filter with one of them being a toy that covered less than 6k miles a year for the three years I had it. The way in which it was used for short journeys would have been a certain death sentence for a DPF equipped diesel car.

3 weeks and two days on from my home visit and still no certificate. No issues and concerns on the day so I can only assume it's sat on a desk somewhere within South Wales police HQ awaiting a signature or someone actually mailing it out to me. A traffic offence would have been in the post same day..

Finally had an update from the FAO regarding a home visit. She's coming around on Tuesday morning. Any idea what they are going to ask or want to see? Cabinet is fully setup (has been since August last year) and contains my airguns at the moment. Would I be best relocating these for the visit?

I chased SWP about 3 weeks ago and was told that they had resumed home visits in line with the releasing of lockdown restrictions in Wales. Still haven't heard a peep out of them regarding a home visit. My application was in the post the morning that they resumed applications following the first COVID lockdown last year. Must getting on for 10 months since my application. Can't call and speak to someone about it as the phone lines are set to a pre-recorded reply blaming C19 for them not being able to man the lines. Emails get generic 'computer says COVID' type responses. At work, the office phones are set to redirect to mobiles provided to those whose job it is to answer phones in the office while they are WFH. I've conducted many interviews for potential employees via zoom and Google hangouts over the last few months. I don't see why the firearms dept can't also do this? Seems to me that they can but don't want to.

I'm now 8 months deep with my SGC application with South Wales police with seemingly no end in sight. Their phone lines are shut down and emails to the firearms dept staff just get generic 'its COVID Sir' type responses. Close contact services resume next week so I assume they now have no excuse and must proceed with home visits. It's been almost a year if you include the time it took to get the medical proforma sorted out. I wonder if it would take this long if the whole firearms licensing thing was privatised. I'd happily pay a £150-£200 fee if there was guaranteed timescales on license grants. It seems that with firearms licensing in its current state your at the mercy of admin staff of your particular force.

Screwed by autocorrect once again! 😂

Hi Vince. Based in Mountain Ash. A few minutes over the hill.. You've got that right! Shooting opportunities are indeed hard to come by. I've been invited out on a day as a guest to sindicate shoot in the next season which is a start. Hopefully I'll be able to put my name down for some beating on some local shoots this year. I did get chatting with older gent at a local clay shoot before the last lockdown who was willing to introduce me to a few contacts of his as he looked to 'retire' in the coming seasons. I'd quite like to join a shooting syndicate this year but they are proving hard to find. I don't know whether it's COVID reducing the number of active shoots or reluctance to accept a newbie into the group.

Many thanks Tightchoke, Jtaylor and Newbie.

Good evening PW. Glad to have joined the forum and look forward to learning from the more knowledgeable of the membership. My shooting background is somewhat limited. I was wildly into the sport when I was a youngster, had a few air rifles, a few ferrets and mooched the odd days ferreting from friends and family when I could. I wasn't born into a 'fieldsports family' so I never had the chance to keep anything more powerful than an air rifle and opportunities to get out on real permission with actual quarry to shoot were few and far between. I turned 17-18 and found beer and boobs and lost interest. Now I'm 28, have grown up and have enough disposable income to spend (waste according to the girlfriend) on fieldsports again. I put in for my SGC nearly a year ago but still waiting on SWP and their COVID restrictions (excuses) preventing them from carrying out a home visit. Hopefully the lifted restrictions will give them the kick in the *** they need to get a shift on. In the meantime I've taken up clay pigeon shooting and attend a local club most weekends. I'm not doing too badly considering I've not handled a shotgun since my early teens. It's a good opportunity to learn about safe gun handling and safety. No need to add that clay shooting is also brilliant and I love it! We also brought home a young springer pup a few weeks ago. Hopefully with a lot of effort and learning, on both mine and the dogs part, she'll make a brilliant first gun dog. What I'm looking to get out of the forum is the basics of keeping a shotgun. Everything from cleaning and storing the thing to being able to determine safe shots, appropriate distances etc. I found the forum when looking at where and how to site a shotgun cabinet so it's proved useful so far. When I can I also want to add a post to the shooting opportunities wanted forum asking very politely if someone local would be kind enough to take me out for a few days and show me the ropes. Pass on some knowledge to the new generation kind of thing. Also, I'm based in South Wales not too far from Merthyr. Look forward to joining in! Regards Richard.