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Advice
Our magazines – Shooting Times, Sporting Gun and Shooting Gazette answer your fieldsports questions with advice from experts at the very top of their field.
Our tips include help with gundog training, gun maintenance, shooting skills, legal issues, licensing, technical gun information, ammunition advice, cooking tips, shooting etiquette.
New to shooting?
If you’ve just started shooting you’ll find answers to questions like what is the best first gun or how to buy a gun second-hand. Also what to wear shooting and the legalities you need to know about.
Or do you have a good few seasons under your belt?
If you’re a more seasoned shooter you might have questions about your shooting technique and how to improve it. Or queries about the legalities of gun cabinets and shotgun licences.
Beating and picking-up | Gundog queries | Starting shooting | Shooting etiquette | Shooting clothing | Shotgun certificates and firearms licences | Gun cabinets | Legal answers | Shooting answers|
How to clean your PCP airgun barrel
When you shoot a pellet, a small amount of lead gets deposited in the lands and grooves of the rifling in your barrel – and that’s a good thing. That lead provides a smoother, slicker surface for subsequent pellets to travel over. But the leading will keep getting thicker –…
Why gamekeeping is a calling
There was a time when the vast majority of keepers and stalkers owed their career to an accident of birth. I remember reading something years ago stating that, much like nuns, both nurses and gamekeepers must never be attracted to their chosen profession by high financial reward; gamekeeping is a…
The .25 airgun calibre performance
Q: I often go out rabbiting and am considering getting a new .25 air rifle. Does this calibre have enough hitting power for going after long-range rabbits? (Read Bruce Potts on the Harper Classic .25 HW90 in use for rats and pigeons.) A: The .25 airgun calibre is actually not…
How to buy high-quality poults
For most lowland shoots, the cost of pheasant and partridge poults is probably the biggest single outlay in the annual budget, so you want to spend your money wisely. Shopping around is clearly sensible, but beware of going on price alone. All poults are not equal and it is an…
How effective are comb raisers on a shotgun?
I want to raise the height of my comb and see that you can buy off the shelf raisers. How effective are they?
Revoking a firearms certificate: Alasdair Mitchell comments
Like it or not, society has decided that those of us with legally held firearms should not be allowed the full rights of a free-born citizen, as first enshrined in this country by the Magna Carta in 1215. I am not a lawyer. In discussing the intricacies of firearms licensing…
Shooting permissions – how you can maintain yours
For many people getting shooting permissions is one of the hardest aspects of shooting. And even when you’ve done so it doesn’t stop there. (Want to get a shooting permission? Find out how to go about it here) It is only too easy to lose your access. Sometimes it happens…
Where am I most likely to find deer antlers?
Everyone's expressing concern at increasing deer numbers, but why do I never find cast antlers during my walks through the woods?
Do I need to keep my guns at home for a shotgun licence?
Shotgun licence: If I apply for a shotgun certificate do the guns have to be kept at my home address?
Best tick removers
Lyme disease and how it’s picked up Stalkers and shooters are particularly at risk of picking up Lyme disease from the bite of an infected tick. How common is it? Lyme Disease Action advises: “Lyme disease gives rise to perhaps 10,000 cases per year in the UK, though precise numbers are…
What does the law say about carrying a shotgun in public?
I'm a student living in the centre of Cambridge and quite regularly cycle to shoot on land on the outskirts of the city where I have rights, or to our local clay ground.
How to deal with issues of spent shot and neighbours
Boundaries and spent shot Q: Our shoot’s boundary is next to a rural property that has several barns with corrugated iron roofs. Sometimes spent shot falls on these roofs, which has caused the owner to become very abusive to the point of saying that he will report us to the…
How to get a shooting permission
What is the next step when the local clay shoot or beaters’ day shoot just isn’t enough to satisfy your desire to shoot? If money is no object, you buy a country estate, employ a gamekeeper and throw a load of money at it until you get the shoot you…
How can you stop a scope fogging up?
Q: When I travel to my stalking grounds in a warm car I get scope fogging on my lenses in the cold weather. What, if anything, can I do to stop this? It’s a real nuisance and very irritating when I want to get out in the field. (Read deer…
What is a perruque head on a deer?
At the end of the rut a yearling buck on my ground was still in dark velvet and showed no signs of drying. The buck has an ear-high four-point head and appears in excellent condition. Is this a perruque and, if so, how long will it take to develop?
What’s the law on carrying a knife for hunting?
My son and his friend recently returned home with some un-paunched rabbits. When I asked him why he said they were concerned about carrying a knife in case they were stopped by police.
What you need to know about ticks and Lyme disease
Lyme disease in dogs and humans Lyme disease is an illness caused by bacteria that live in the guts of infected ticks, so those of us who take our dogs to areas where we are likely to encounter these parasites are particularly vulnerable. Lyme disease in dogs is also a…
So what’s so special about Teague chokes?
A reader is considering fitting Teague multichokes to his Breda Vega Special Trap gun so he can shoot a variety of birds
Road to the Classic 2022: Buying your first shotgun
I’m sure, like many shooters, you will have fond memories of buying your first shotgun. It’s one of those milestones you don’t forget, like the first clay you break or even your first shoot! Buying your first gun is an exciting time, but it can be worrying too. You’re making…