That parakeet video

Good grief, the tabloids had a field day with my short video on AirHeads, about decoying a parakeet that was shredding my apple trees. I was labelled "deranged" by the Evening Standard, and "super posh" by the Mirror.

In fact this destructive alien invader has been on the General Licence for a while, for the specific purpose of allowing people to protect things like... well, fruit trees. That didn't stop the RSPB, Animal Aid, PETA and other loonies making misleading statements to the press, giving the impression that shooting parakeets was probably illegal and I would most likely be banged up.

The video attracted some classic "hate" comments - the usual threats to kill or maim me (you gotta love these animal lovers), including one from a chap so incompetent that his mobile phone number is still just two clicks away from his threat to "put me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life". My favourite was the one that said I deserved to "be sodomised by a large African man". Tautology, racism and homophobia in one short phrase - that's got to be some sort of record!

Anyway, enjoy the video!

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Airgun hunting on Skye

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AirHeads - shooting ginger rabbits on Skye

Postscript: My Mum found this one on YouTube and I got a right telling off, cos she doesn't like us to shoot the ginger rabbits!

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Slow-mo squirrel shooting

Here's my latest piece on AirHeads. They're uploading the show as a playlist instead of a single video - apparently it's the future, but I just find it confusing.

Continuing my earlier experiments with placing a camera near the bait point, I've improved the slow-mo settings for the camera and worked on getting better lighting. This squirrel happened to show up at the right moment for some strong backlighting from the sun, which shows up every detail of the dust and what-have-you thrown up when it was hit.

I notice there have been some negative comments on Facebook recently about slow-mo kill shots, and I agree they can be over-done. What I like about this one is that it shows a totally clean kill, with the squirrel dead within a couple of frames, or less than 1/25th of a second.

Does this sort of thing 'encourage' the wrong attitude to pest control? I'm not sure. People are what they are, and if someone has a responsible attitude to killing pests this video isn't going to turn them bad. Likewise a hooligan is a hooligan, he doesn't need to watch this to help him become one. Maybe you disagree? I'd be interested to hear your views.

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Squirrel shooting on AirHeads

Filming shooting is always complicated; filming yourself shooting can be downright impossible! I've been experimenting with ways of leaving a camera running near the spot where I expect the quarry to appear. This one worked rather well, almost too well in fact. The full footage is gory and horrible, and needed to be cut for inclusion in the show.

My bit starts at 10:45 but as always the whole show is worth a watch.

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Baiting crows and magpies for AirHeads

This one was an interesting challenge - I set out to film crows and magpies eating some eggs that I put out as bait. It took a few attempts, but with patience and some cunning camera placement I got some good footage in the end - I particularly like the bit where the crow smashes into the egg, and if you turn up the sound you can even hear him swallow! I was amazed to see that I'm berated in some of the comments for wasting opportunities to shoot. Some people are never satisfied!

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Rat shooting with an air rifle

Here's the latest episode of AirHeads, in which I visit some friends who are somewhat over-run with rats. They're running about the place in broad daylight, which gave me the opportunity to get some unusual daylight rat footage. My bit starts around 16:35.

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Squirrel assassin

Fieldsports Channel have put up my garden squirrel shooting video as a standalone item - and it seems to be proving popular with close to 5000 views in the first four days.

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AirHeads: a mooch down memory lane

In the latest episode of AirHeads, I'm out in the woods with an old springer, a BSA Meteor, just like the one I had from the age of 11. My bit's at 18:35, but watch it all!

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I'm an Air Head: official

I spend most of my time behind the camera, so it's odd to see myself on video - but here I am in the latest offering from Fieldsports Channel, Air Heads, in a self-filmed piece (does that make it a selfie?) about shooting a squirrel in the garden. My piece starts at 17:50, but the whole programme is worth a watch.



I expected some leg-pulling - and I got it! Some say I look/sound like Michael Caine, which I can live with. Less kindly souls have compared me to Bricktop in Snatch - not a nice chap at all, a villain known for feeding his victims to the pigs. I blame the glasses, although the grey hair and eye bags might have something to do with it.

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New airgun law - where did that come from?

A new airgun law comes into force on 10 February. You will be liable for a fine of up to £1000 if you don't lock up your airgun away from kids. Details here on the Home Office website. By kids I mean under-18s, and there's new government guidance on what they consider 'reasonable':

* store your airgun out of sight and separately from pellets
* use a robust, lockable cupboard and keep the keys separate and secure
* always store your airgun inside a house rather than in an out building, such as a garden shed
* never store a cocked or loaded airgun
* when using your airgun, keep it under close supervision and never leave it unattended

I can't argue with the stated aim of the new law, to prevent accidents and protect children. But is this any way to make firearms legislation? It's been slipped in the back door with no consultation that I was aware of - although the simultaneous publication of a supportive press release on BASC's website indicates they were involved in the process. It takes advantage of existing enabling legislation, so the minister just signs an order with no need for all that troublesome debate in parliament. I thought that was the New Labour way.

And how many children will it save? Frankly, without airgun licensing, this can only ever be enforced after the event. And anyone moronic enough to leave an airgun within reach of kids will find some other way to help them kill themselves - matches, petrol, kitchen knives, car keys (why not a law about locking up your car keys - how many kids are killed and injured that way each year?).

New government, same old rubbish attitude to guns, if you ask me.

AND ANOTHER THING... It occurs to me that this is a real danger for FAC and SGC holders - some of whom won't even have heard of it by the time their FEO next visits. FEO walks in, looks around, what's that propped up in the corner sir? Only an airgun. Hmm, got any grandchildren sir... Before you know it you've committed a firearms offence - and your shooting career is over.

With the press release coming out on 27 Jan, and the law coming into force on 10 Feb, there isn't even time for a monthly shooting magazine to tell its readers about the new law. As for those who don't read the shooting magazines - well, they may never find out.

Still, on the bright side the gunshops are rubbing their hands at the thought of all those cabinet sales!

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Fings wot I done

Following this blog, you might get the idea that all I've done over the past fortnight is sit and rant at the papers. Oh no! Quite apart from attending my brother's wedding to the lovely Gwen in Edinburgh recently...

...I have been practising my rifle shooting on plastic and steel foxes with Robert Bucknell...

...freezing my wotsits off in a barn on the Isle of Wight, filming Terry Doe and George Stevens shooting crows in a 20mph wind with air rifles...

...not to mention working on plans for a possible launch of a new magazine, chasing up contributions for the next issue of Sporting Shooter, travelling here and there to take photos, reviewing products, checking page proofs, researching several news stories (including CPSA ex-CEO Phil Boakes: did he jump or was he pushed) and wasting half a day transferring my contact list onto my new mobile phone which should synch with the old one but doesn't.

Busy, busy - but all interesting stimulating stuff. And now I learn that my 'editorial workflows' are to be 'reviewed' to ensure that they're being 'resourced, run and managed' in the most efficient way possible. Truly all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

How to hunt rabbits

Hubert Hubert writes an excellent blog about his exploits here. His post 'How to Hunt Rabbits...' is a really valuable guide - a distillation of everything he's found out in his first year of learning to hunt. If you're taking up airgun hunting, read it and save yourself a year of discovering all this the hard way!

Be afraid!

You'd expect alarmist, misleading nonsense from the League Against Cruel Sprouts. And their risible anti-snaring campaign doesn't disappoint.

"Norfolk pet owners warned of snare danger" screams their latest press release - which highlights a handful of cases where pets were killed or injured in illegal snares, and then calls for a ban on legal snares. Because the people who're already breaking the law will immediately stop when something else is banned, won't they?

You might hope for a more responsible approach from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, though, what with them being a registered charity, patron The Queen, etc. Nah. They've jumped squarely on the anti-airgun bandwagon with a misleading and alarmist release: "Surge of air gun attacks feared" which makes no mention of legitimate, responsible airgun use and calls for "anyone who witnesses an air gun attack on an animal" to call the RSPCA "24-hour cruelty and advice line" - virtually guaranteeing conflict between well meaning members of the public and legitimate pest controllers. By remarkable coincidence, this is released at a time when Scottish ministers are seeking the power to ban airguns.

If I was thinking of donating money to the RSPCA, I'd want to know just how much of my donation would be spent on expensive spin-doctors and lobbyists, and how much on actually helping the unfortunate animals that are entrusted to their care.

According to their latest Trustees Report, there were 143,501 animals "collected: rescued/signed over/seized" in 2008, of which so far as I can see 60,203 were killed - including an unspecified number killed "with great reluctance when there is no reasonably possibility of rehoming" - ie they were perfectly healthy but an expensive inconvenience.

In fact, glancing through the spending breakdown on p13 of the report, it's clear that they're spending proportionately less on animal establishments, and hugely more on turning themselves into a bossy 'Animal Police'.

Nice one Jake

A while back I got the following email:

hi my name is Jake on june the 7 2009 i killed my first rabbit with my weihrauch hw95 air rifle .22 cal. when i went there were there were not that many rabbits so please can you tell me what is the best time to go rabbit hunting throw the day and also when i go rabbit hunting is it crusial to were camo

Now you could write a book (or produce a 70-min dvd!) on that lot, but I did get back to him with what I hoped were some useful pointers:

Hi Jake, 

Well done on your first rabbit! If you have a photo you could send it in to Sporting Shooter, and we may use it in the mag.  The best times to see rabbits are at first light and last thing in the evening. The weather makes a difference too - they generally don't like heavy rain, for instance. Sometimes it's best to hide up in a hedge or etc near the holes, and wait for them to come out. Make sure you wait downwind of the holes so they don't scent you, and let them get a few yards from the holes before firing, in case they kick themselves back in.  Camo isn't essential, although it helps. Muted colours are ok. The thing that really catches their eye is movement. Try not to be silhouetted against a clear background (especially the sky), and make very slow movements if you are in view. Watch the rabbits for signs of alarm, and freeze if they look up.  Hope this helps - let us know how you get on.  Best wishes,  James  

...I'd forgotten all about it - and then today I received this:

Hi its me Jake again, thanks for the tips there really good and helpful. Also here is a picture of the rabbit i shot :) i sent all the pictures just incase you like one of them. If you do happen to put one of them in a magazine please can you tell me what the magizine is called and what issue it will be.  Thanks so much for the tips.

Nice one Jake!

Filming in the dark!

I was out well before dawn with Terry Doe today, filming for our next airgun DVD. Filming in the dark requires some special gear - this was shot with an infra-red floodlight, and the night vision attachment on the camera. Curiously, Terry's jacket has come out as a plain, light colour, although in fact it's camouflaged like his trousers, as you can see in the photo below. Funny how different wavelengths of light make things look very different. Worth remembering before you throw all your hunting gear in the wash with 'whiter than white' detergent full of optical brighteners!

Dawn is always my favourite time to be out. As the sun rose, a few rabbits came out to feed, and I managed to capture a couple of kills on video. We saw a host of wildlife, including a fox, buzzards, rooks and jackdaws, and dozens of small birds from blue tits to chaffinches. A good outing, and plenty of good footage in the can. Can't ask for more than that.

Moron shoots Glencoe stag with air rifle

I'm disgusted by this story - sometime around Hogmanay, an idiot with an air rifle shot a semi-tame red stag several times in the head, leaving it for dead. The stag used to hang around the car park at Black Mount, scrounging food, and had become one of the most photographed deer in the country.

A passer-by found the stag lying by the roadside and told local stalker Alastair MacDonald, who is quoted as saying: "I put it down immediately and when we opened the head up we found five or six air rifle pellets. Obviously somebody had been taking pot shots at it."

I just hope someone catches the person responsible for this despicable act of wanton cruelty. Please pass any info to Strathclyde Police.

Brocock Contour

Who needs to go all the way to Florida for the Shot Show when you can stay in the office and people send in stuff like this? Just launched, from £375, 30 full 12 ft lb shots per charge, .22 or .177, 27.5in overall. I want one!

More on Brocock's website...

Webley - a sign of the times

Webley Senior from auction-net.co.uk

I have a special fondness for Webley – probably due to the hours I spent plinking with a Webley Senior air pistol as a youngster. In those days it was generally thought to be a good thing for kids to play with guns, although you were discouraged from actually taking them into school.

So I was sad to hear about the troubles Webley had got into over recent months. And then, like a proper Penny Dreadful hero, with one bound Jack was free...

As a simple journo, and a country one at that, I don't understand the workings of corporate finance and company law. But Webley seem to have pulled a stunt worthy of Paul Daniels.

On 31 Dec, while most of us were either shooting or stocking up at the offie, Webley Ltd – the grand old gunmaking name with a history going back to 1790 – was declared bust and then bought by a company with a very similar name, which plans to carry on trading. Minus, so far as I can see, the debts that were causing so much trouble.

It's all explained in the letter (below) that Webley boss Mike Hurney sent out to the company's customers on 2 January.

I wonder if I could do the same thing to my overdraft?!


UPDATE: Apparently this wheeze is known in the trade as a "Pre-Pack Deal". It's perfectly legal, but the government is said to be cracking down on the practice which has been criticised over its lack of transparency and fairness. New, tighter rules came in on 1 January – coincidentally the day after the Webley deal, under which, for instance, the administrators must "always perform their role in the interests of the company's creditors as a whole". More here... (you may have to register to read the full article) And here. And here. The Insolvency Service has stated they will be clamping down on "any directors who misuse the administration process to disadvantage creditors or seek to gain benefit for themselves"

Shooting the Air Arms S510

Looks cold doesn't it - it was!

I was hugely impressed with the Air Arms S410, which I used during the summer and which features in my airgun hunting DVD. It's a great rifle - simple to use, consistently accurate, with a neat bolt and magazine arrangement so you can reload quickly. After years of shooting spring powered (and Theoben gas-ram) airguns, shooting a precharged pneumatic was a revelation.

The S410, though, suffered some sort of accident that rendered it pretty much useless. Basically, the barrel got bent. My best guess is that either the dog or one of the kids sat on it while it was in the gun-sleeve, laid across the back seat of the car. The S410 has a very thin barrel, and the large can-type moderator fitted on the end only serves to increase the leverage if it falls or gets leaned on. Yes, I know, it's important to look after your gun etc etc - but in the real world things don't always go according to plan, especially when there are youngsters and clumsy labradors around.

So... I've been looking forward to getting my hands on the latest version, the S510. This one is in .177 calibre (the S410 I tried was .22), not my normal choice for hunting. I took it out today, not for any serious hunting but just to zero it and get a feel for how it works.

First impressions were superb. The most obvious difference from the S410 is the barrel, which now has a larger shroud. This is, in effect, a full-length moderator, which makes the whole package much shorter and improves handling beyond belief. I found the S410 rather unwieldy, and certainly awkward to use from a vehicle or in dense woodland. The S510 is totally different, balancing nicely between the hands and coming to the shoulder so well you are almost tempted to shoot it shotgun-style.

The build quality on this gun is superb. I was specially taken with the woodwork - nice crisp chequering, and lovely dark wood inserts at the end of the fore-end and grip-cap. The stock shape is perfect for a right-hander, with a good high comb bringing my head into line with the scope.

The S510's bolt is a huge improvement
- and easy to operate with frozen fingers.

The next major difference is the bolt. The bolt on the S410 reminded me of the old Crosman bolt - rather thin and wiry, and not very positive to close. You'd close it, walk a few paces, then feel you should check to make sure it was still shut properly. Pulling it back to cock and reload was suprisingly hard work, with only a small rounded knob to grab hold of. The S510 bolt is completely different, and a huge improvement. It's not a traditional bolt at all, more like a miniature side-lever with a straight pull-push action. It's easy to operate, and opens and closes very positively - brilliant!

I fired a few shots at paper targets to get the scope zeroed, and was pleased to find that the rifle shoots just as sweetly as the S410. Accuracy is every bit as good, and the .177 pellets certainly hit the backstop hard (I was using Bisley Super Field - the only .177s I had in the cupboard, but they seem to work well in the S510).

I plan to adjust the trigger (which seems straightforward, looking at the manual, and the allen keys came with the gun), shoot a few more targets at different ranges, then get out and do some hunting - I'll let you know how I get on.