Are Firearms holders perceived as dangerous?

[r620521]

I will soon be losing my main shooting permission due to a change in job as the permission was linked to my work. So I have been looking at joining a local shooting organisation that for a yearly fee will allow me to shoot vermin over the club permissions. There are at least three such organisations serving my area but all three only allow the use of shotguns or air rifles, not rimfires.

 

Why is this? Are the land owners placing this restriction on clubs or is it for insurance purposes?

 

Or even worse is there a perception that allowing FAC holders onto an area with rimfire is more risky/dangerous?

 

As a keen rimfire shooter as well and game shooter, I am reluctant to join an organisation that does not permit the use of firearms and in my experience rimfire rifles are the most effective tool for vermin control and so I don't understand they are banned in these clubs.

[Gordon R]

The clubs concerned would be your best starting point. Members on here may speculate, but only those clubs can truthfully answer.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

By limiting use of only shotguns they do not have to worry about several users being on the ground together!

[Old farrier]

As it's a club it could have to get ministry/home office approval

Lot harder and more expensive for rim fire

 

Ask the clubs is the best plan

 

All the best

Of

[r620521]

The clubs concerned would be your best starting point. Members on here may speculate, but only those clubs can truthfully answer.

I have spoken to one club about this and it appears that the rule was based on a committee decision and that some members of the committee had reservations about using Firearms.

 

I for one don't see the use of firearms to be more dangerous as FAC holders are generally more experienced than many air rifle shooters and have had to proof experience and competency in order to be granted their FAC (I now that his is a generalisation and there are many highly experienced, safe and competent air gunners out there!). Obviously a rimfire rifle has a greater range and more energy but a rifle shooter will not shoot without a suitable backstop. I accept that ricochets are a risk (hence why I also use a HMR on certain areas of my current permission) but again a rifle shooter will recognise this and minimise the risk and only take a shot when the risk from a ricochet is minimal.

 

I was just interested in understanding why clubs like these will not allow the use of firearms which to me seems counter productive to their objective of controlling vermin.

[BrowningB525]

A firearm is dangerous for a much longer distance than a shotgun in the event of a mistake.

[rbrowning2]

Will be for several reasons;

 

When the club first got permission from the farmer he would have agreed what can and cannot be shot and by what firearm and after all the farmer will most likely then not control who and how many guns are out shooting on his land at any one time. He may not want lots of rifles on his land in the hands of people he does not personally know.

 

Safety as tightchoke has said a bullet can go a long way and many members may be on the ground hidden in hides unknown to each other. And the safety of himself, his family, any employees and livestock all moving around the land wondering if somebody is about to fire a rifle.

 

Then the paper work between the club and the police plus the potential for members who have no real interest in protecting the crops but just want to use the club to gain an Fac

 

Then they want to be out in the dark lamping which adds further security issues to the management of the farm,

 

so shotgun only keeps it simple.

 

Or that's my experience of the several clubs I have been members of. One did also allow air rifle on one farm.

Edited February 18, 2017 by rbrowning2

[kenj]

I was a member, for years, of a shooting club run by a farming family with several large farms, shot gun and air rifle were the same price, but when I added .22lr to my application, they demanded a £100 premium. Most members were pigeon shooters, while I was culling the many rabbits with an FAC air rifle. I didn't rejoin.