Advice Needed - Air Rifle

[Drcamburn]

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[Deeps]

Thanks for all the info guys, really appreciated.

Sadly in central London I do not have much "open" space to practice, I do have a large garden but it backs on to a main road (so legal issue there plus the general nervousness of neighbours seeing a guy with a gun needs to be factored). Plus being very honest am a bit lazy to join a gun/shooting club.

Luckily their is a gun shop not too far from me that also deals with air rifles as well (Archway) so will maybe pop over to see what they have etc. Guess I'd need to use them to take delivery anyhow.

Am wondering how honest I should be though when discussing why etc. Of course am going to say for shooting rabbits, squirrels etc but should I mention prepping? I mean how much rabbiting or squirreling do people do in London?

You could just say its for plinking or you have a mate/brother 'up norf' who has a bit of land you can shoot on, assuming they even ask. Personally I wouldn't mention any prep stuff but if they're all wearing paracord wrist bracelets (prepper ID cards) then go for it if you fancy.

If you have a large garden, no harm in mentioning to your neighbours and shooting the 'other way round' and shooting towards your house rather than the main road.

[Jamesey1981]

Bit of kitchen worktop (particle board, not granite...) makes a very good backstop for air rifles if you do decide to have a few shots in your garden, its soft enough that they'll penetrate and not ricochet and hard enough that they shouldn't go through, (although do check that with your rifle and pellets) mine doesn't go through and it's a .177 right at the top end of the legal power range, so if mine doesn't then few will.

[preparedsurrey]

Thanks for all the info guys, really appreciated.

Sadly in central London I do not have much "open" space to practice, I do have a large garden but it backs on to a main road (so legal issue there plus the general nervousness of neighbours seeing a guy with a gun needs to be factored). Plus being very honest am a bit lazy to join a gun/shooting club.

Luckily their is a gun shop not too far from me that also deals with air rifles as well (Archway) so will maybe pop over to see what they have etc. Guess I'd need to use them to take delivery anyhow.

Am wondering how honest I should be though when discussing why etc. Of course am going to say for shooting rabbits, squirrels etc but should I mention prepping? I mean how much rabbiting or squirreling do people do in London?

From memory I think you need to be 50ft from the crown of the road to be discharging an air rifle on your own property.
That said if you are in London given the current state of alertness the last thing you want to happen is a neighbour calling in on 999 that they've seen you with a rifle in your yard. Not good for you and a waste of valuable resources.
You want it for vermin control and plinking away at targets, no need to mention anything else. Given your location it would be as well joining a club so you can get regular practise.

Apologies if I've missed it earlier but has anybody shown you/ explained basic gun safety?

Also what Jamesey said about using a sensible backstop, getting hit by a ricochet hurts!

[Jamesey1981]

The 50ft rule is commonly misunderstood, discharging the firearm is not in itself illegal, it has to be proven that someone using the highway has been injured, interrupted or endangered, and if you're shooting safely then they won't be, so it's actually a fairly toothless rule really, interrupted could cause a problem, if someone is alarmed and makes a detour as a result of your shooting then you could be in trouble, but if you're in your own garden and have a reasonably high fence that the public can't see over then it's unlikely that anyone using the road would realise that you're shooting anyway.
You do need to make sure that no pellets leave your garden, I use pellet traps with a bit of worktop behind them, and I'm shooting at an uphill slope so I have solid ground behind the worktop.

But that said, unless your neighbours are understanding then you might have armed police turn up, as preparedsurrey mentioned, modern air rifles don't look like air rifles to non shooters and with the state of alert people are twitchy, you won't be in trouble once the police have checked that you're not breaking the law, but it is hassle, and not all that pleasant.

[Plymtom]

Sadly in central London I do not have much "open" space to practice, I do have a large garden but it backs on to a main road (so legal issue there plus the general nervousness of neighbours seeing a guy with a gun needs to be factored). Plus being very honest am a bit lazy to join a gun/shooting club.

Yeah that was sort of me for most of my life, then I joined here, realized from others that it is possible to go shooting for good clean safe family fun, which if I'm honest did lay behind my desire to have the things in the first place, my kids and I now with the exception of airsoft and paintball ( though my son tried and enjoyed the latter) own and regularly use everything else which goes bang. twang, or phut, without harm or any intention of harm to any living thing, I'm here to encourage you off your bum and out to find clubs, few of you will be lucky enough to find one which does it all, but airgun clubs are quite popular, as are archery clubs and clay shooting, smallbore and fullbore are rarer yes, but no reason to not go looking and joining in, many (with the exception of fullbore) to be honest may be a bit "clicky" and it is beyond me why folk get tribal or eletist about any given discipline, and you'll find crossbows the hardest to accomodate, but get out there, you'll make friends

[BugOut66]

Air Pistol Law

I had no idea things like this could be bought:
https://www.sportsmanguncentre.co.uk/um ... on-586-177

What do I need to do to get this? It reads on the site like I can just order it. Is it necessary to have a licence or anything to buy this air pistol? I live in Scotland.

Ta

[Plymtom]

Air Pistol Law

I had no idea things like this could be bought:
https://www.sportsmanguncentre.co.uk/um ... on-586-177

What do I need to do to get this? It reads on the site like I can just order it. Is it necessary to have a licence or anything to buy this air pistol? I live in Scotland.

Ta

Yeah you need a licence in Scotland even for a toy like that! Once you had one and a secure place to store it you can buy it from Sportsman yes, but you have to have it sent to your local RFD (gun shop) to pick up in person, I do believe you can still buy second hand and send privately in the rest of the UK on sub 12 ftlb air weapons, but given you need a licence now up there i'm betting the RFD thing is in force.

[Jamesey1981]

Air Pistol Law

I had no idea things like this could be bought:
https://www.sportsmanguncentre.co.uk/um ... on-586-177

What do I need to do to get this? It reads on the site like I can just order it. Is it necessary to have a licence or anything to buy this air pistol? I live in Scotland.

Ta

I would say that was a "Realistic Imitation Firearm" as covered by the violent crime reduction act 2006 so that would be a bit dodgy anywhere, they are technically banned but there are exemptions for airsofters, practical pistol competitors and suchlike, it's all a bit complicated and it's not something I do so I'm not 100% on those laws, but in Scotland you definitely need a license and airguns have to be sold face to face everywhere in the uk (not necessarily by an RFD, but not mail order), so if you had to have it sent to a dealer in Scotland they'd want to see your licence, you could buy it in England and take it across the border but you would be committing firearms offences that would get you in a whole heap of trouble (pretty certain to do some time kind of trouble) if you were caught with it, you will have to show ID when you buy it and the RFD may report it if they think you're breaking the law, they have a duty to do so.

Unless you're doing practical pistol competitions with it then the only real reason to have that is because it looks like a handgun, so I don't really see the point personally, air pistols are limited to 6 ft/lbs of muzzle energy and you'd be lucky if that was half that, you couldn't use it for hunting as it isn't powerful enough and even if TSHTF then a gun that you can't fire without giving away that it isn't real has rather limited usefulness in my opinion, and that's if you can even get the CO2 cartridges for it, they're single use and not refillable.

Better off with a decent catapult, you can hunt with it and in the event of a complete breakdown of law and order I'd think twice if I had it pointed at me, point that pistol at me or anyone else the knows anything about guns and the .177 calibre barrel will be a dead giveaway.

[BugOut66]

Thanks for input. I went away and looked at police Scotland site. The air pistol rules say that you DO need a certificate (interesting that they don't call it a licence) but you DON'T need s secure storage space to keep it locked.

I will email the company to see how it falls into the lifelike imitations category.