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Parliament’s discussion about air rifle licensing

Ystranc

Ystranc

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I was skimming through this (for fun) https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmhaff/95/9508.htm when it occurred to me that there are almost certainly more attacks/crimes committed using hammers or baseball bats than there are using low powered non FAC air guns yet no one campaigns for their licensing. More people die from road traffic accidents yet no one has called for a ban and an amnesty on cars.
I often think that people see the word firearm and get things completely out of proportion.

If these people get their way we will be legislated out of existence and not be allowed anything more than a blunt stick to throw.
 
Are you also aware of the HSE report with regard to banning all lead ammunition. If it goes through it could happen in 18 months. I know the shot gunners gave themselves a voluntary 5 years to stop using lead in there cartridges and are well on there way to being ready. But I don't know how research has gone into alternatives for pellets and bullets. We have been trying lead free pellets at our club with mixed results, there's still a long way to go before they are on the same level as lead. Don't really know much about rimfire and center fire cartridges.
 
Copper isn’t an option for me and is way too fragile as a .22lr round, inaccurate after 50yards and doesn’t expand (even though it is a hollow truncated cone) and Bismuth/tin alloy is only in its development stages as far as bullets are concerned even though it makes reasonable small round shot for shotguns. My entire set up requires 40 grain bullets to travel at 1060fps. Standard lead hollow point subsonics. Nice and accurate, quiet and since I use the expensive segmented ones they stop quarry animals in their tracks.
A firm called Norma are producing copper coated zinc bullets but there are very few reviews and non are encouraging.
 
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Ark79 said:
So is banning lead ammunition just another way of getting rid of certain firearms ?
Click to expand...
It’s beginning to look a lot like that Mark. The voluntary end to the use of lead in shotgun cartridges has never really been much interest to me until I realised it may apply to rimfire and centre fire rifles as well.
The two are entirely different. The volume of lead from shotgun shells far exceeds all other calibres combined and lead from rifles is less likely to effect wild birds or enter the food chain.
 
We've been using lead ammo in shotguns for around 200 years.
We're had plastic in quantity for around 40 or 50 years. Which do you think causes the most problems considering micro plastics are now in the food chain.
It's not like we are shuffling through mounds of shot laying in the gutters.
 
Ystranc said:
I was skimming through this (for fun) https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmhaff/95/9508.htm when it occurred to me that there are almost certainly more attacks/crimes committed using hammers or baseball bats than there are using low powered non FAC air guns yet no one campaigns for their licensing. More people die from road traffic accidents yet no one has called for a ban and an amnesty on cars.
I often think that people see the word firearm and get things completely out of proportion.

If these people get their way we will be legislated out of existence and not be allowed anything more than a blunt stick to throw.
Click to expand...

Yup ! Same fluff that was spouted out when Scotland was under fire (pun intended lol) with licensing air guns …I would much rather they said, to get an air gun you will need a license and that’s that deal with it ,,,, not ! It’s to prevent crime with air guns ,,,, lot of trifle !!!! However it will prevent “some” accidents…. It’s coming lads so get ready for it 👍🏻
 
Manthing said:
We've been using lead ammo in shotguns for around 200 years.
We're had plastic in quantity for around 40 or 50 years. Which do you think causes the most problems considering micro plastics are now in the food chain.
It's not like we are shuffling through mounds of shot laying in the gutters.
Click to expand...


Ah but we’re all sensible driven man’y , them lot are profit and self preservation driven….. they can’t see/or won’t see the forest for the trees…
 
the proposal from the hse used prices from euro land and converted to £, needless to say the prices they got were close to uk trade prices. there is "non toxic" pellets out there but are much more expensive and they bounce if they hit anything hard, i think a study was done in australia about steel shot and found it more toxic then lead in the inviroment (put a steel nail in a tree and it will slowly kill it)
here is a study that was done (not the one i was thinking about but sat almost the same thing
www.preprints.org

Experimental Study of Steel Shot and Lead Shot Transformation Under the Environmental Factors

This paper presents the results of an experimental study of the patterns of steel and lead shot transformation under the impact of environmental factors (two types of shot exposed alone and in combination with each other). The analyzed environmental factors include atmospheric precipitation of...
www.preprints.org www.preprints.org
 
This is a Doctorate paper that was published in the US on the matter, it’s a little out of date as fresh data started to come to light and Canada has since banned the use of some bismuth lead replacement ammunition because it posed a significant health risk to First Nation peoples who depend on subsistence hunting for a much higher percentage of their food than the average person in industrially developed nations.
Section 5.1 is interesting and backs up what I was saying about the over estimation of the effects of lead rifle ammunition.

 
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