470Rigby

The ERA meet every few months or so, Sundays, at Minsterly ranges, next meet is 30th May, its a great place, has its own website and has a “running boar” facility if you need the practice, its about the best I have visited here in the UK.

http://www.minsterleyranges.com/

George Wallis of BASC who runs the Association has been off ill for a while so I am not sure if the meets are quite what they were but as far as I know, all is well.

As for centre fire rifle ownership being difficult, this I have not found to be the case. It seems it’s the silly little bits of legislation which makes there use restrictive. For example anything over the .375H&H is likely only to be authorized for target and overseas. Getting authorization to posses any of my present or past rifles has been no problem, indeed the Police licensing authorities I have found personally most helpful. However I believe others do and have had problems with there licensing authorities. It does seem to depend a little on where you live in the UK and of course the individual personalities you are dealing with. I believe it also depends on how many rifles you want of a particular caliber, you have to show good reason to possess, so wanting a few rifles of the same caliber may be a little difficult to justify unless like a friend of mine, a professional deer stalker who has a few rifles in .270Win. He “justifies” this as he has a high grade high precision rifle for his own use and a relatively inexpensive rifle for use by his clients, not such a disaster when it is “abused” by inexperienced first timers.

Mike375

As above, range use and overseas use only for the large bores. The .373H&H does appear to be the limit for deer use here in the UK; I have authorization on my license for a .375H&H for deer use but haven’t found just the right rifle to fill that gap on my license yet. As for the 375 Ultra or 378 Wby, I don’t know of anybody who has these but would assume OK as the authorities do seem to go by bore size.

Reading the press and comments regarding your countries direction, it would seem “they” are “closing in”. Support your associations and get everyone who does not belong to one of the associations to join, the bigger your voice the more notice will be taken.

Sorry this has all got a bit gloomy and political; I was only introducing my new baby!

Regards

Phil