Improve Your Shooting Days

23 September 2010

The research department recently assisted the shooting standards team with four autumn Improve Your Shooting days around the country. These events help shooters enjoy greater success and reduce unnecessary wounding resulting in the loss of shot game. They show members how to correctly pattern their guns, so that the most effective loads are used, sharpen up their range judging, and improve their shooting skills through time with BASC accredited shotgun coaches. Improve Your Shooting days were well received by all who attended and the team looks forward to supporting more in the future.

Recent Activity

23 September 2010

Over the last few weeks, the team has worked with BASC's Wildfowling Liaison Committee, Defra's Deer Research Working Group, and its Lead Ammunition Group. We have also begun converting space at Marford Mill to provide much-needed research laboratory facilities. These include new equipment to increase our capacity to use perma-gel in our shotgun and rifle ballistics and penetration studies with both lead and non-lead ammunition.

Gun Noise Study

Shooting is a major activity in the countryside but despite its many benefits the noise created can bring shooters into conflict with others and, possibly, statutory bodies. BASC’s Research Department, in collaboration with the CPSA, commissioned Sharps Redmore Partnership (acoustic consultants) to measure and characterise the sound produced by various sporting guns and cartridges, to determine their typical levels and how the sound behaves in the countryside. The fieldwork for this study has been completed and the results analysed. We will be discussing them with our CPSA partners before deciding what the next steps will be. A report will appear in a forthcoming issue of S&C.

Research Advisory Committee

We would like to record our gratitude to our chairman, Michael Alldis, who has stepped down from the committee for personal reasons, for his strong support for the research department during his chairmanship. In his place we welcome Sir Roger Jones, with a lifetime in the pharmaceutical industry and chairmanship of the Welsh Development Agency behind him. He is currently Pro-Chancellor and Chair of Council at Swansea University, and a keen Shot and salmon fisherman.

Lead v Steel

There has been much debate in the shooting press recently about the merits of steel shot compared with lead shot. One of our important research responsibilities is to provide our members with the best-available information so that they can make soundly-based decisions for their shooting. Consequently BASC ballistics research is science-based and statistically robust.

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Research Review

After some delays, a new review of research over recent years will shortly be published and available to interested parties.

Degradable wads

At the end of June we met a company developing a fully bio-degradable wad, which looks promising for replacing plastic wads where they may cause environmental problems. We are discussing a ballistics testing programme to ascertain whether the new wad affects downrange performance of cartridges. 

Working with others

During June we met colleagues from the CLA and NFU at one of our regular liaison meetings. We also welcomed representatives of the Swedish Hunters’ Association, who visited us to discuss aspects of lead ammunition. More recently we met the BTO, to discuss analysing and interpreting waterfowl count data, and hosted the proofmaster and a colleague from the Birmingham Proof House to discuss proofing and CIP matters relating to the guns and cartridges we use for our shooting.

Waders on grouse moors

In June Alison Loram attended a presentation by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) in the Peak District on the results of its nine-year research into the relationship between breeding waders and grouse moor management.
 
The study showed that the breeding success of curlew, golden plover and lapwing was significantly improved as a result of controlling numbers of predators – principally carrion crows and foxes – irrespective of the habitat management also carried out on well-managed moors.

Airgun ballistics

Our work with airguns continues and has recently demonstrated clear differences in the performance of different types of pellet in permagel, a standard body simulant. By using an artificial skin, we can also see how penetration into live quarry can be altered by the loss of energy in getting through the skin first. 
 
We have also been looking at the effect of temperature on the performance of airguns, especially to check whether it can push a non-FAC gun over the 12ft-lb limit.

Gun Noise

Matt Ellis and Amanda Holroyd recently travelled to Suffolk to conduct fieldwork for the Shooting Noise Study. This study, supported by the CPSA, is measuring the sound levels of gunshots at different ranges from different gun and cartridge combinations in the countryside. It includes shotguns and rifles. The data for this study have since been analysed and we are awaiting the final report from our acoustic consultants. An overview of this study, including the sound levels of different types and brands of cartridges, is currently being produced and will be available in the near future.

Severe Weather

The unusually severe winter of 2009/10, prompted calls for restraint in waterfowl shooting from BASC, and the imposition of statutory suspensions of wildfowling in Scotland and Northern Ireland. We have reviewed our experiences during these periods to help manage shooting better during prolonged severe weather in the future. In N Ireland, after their first-ever suspension, we attended the review by the NI Environment Agency, together with the other organisations involved. Sharing and discussing the procedures developed in GB over many years proved helpful in planning for future severe weather in the Province.
 
The GB review, held by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, similarly revisited all the issues, and identified a number of improvements for the future. The voluntary restraint shown by shooters was (again) applauded. A key action, sought by BASC, was to explore ways by which other users of wetlands during severe weather could also be managed to ensure that waterfowl suffer as little unnecessary disturbance as possible.