Stray shotgun pellets

squire1

Mods, feel free to move this if it is not appropriate to this forum.

Just looking for opinions from experienced shooters/hunters. I was sitting out on my patio this lunchtime having a cup of tea with my lovely wife. The local farmer was letting off a few shots from what I presume was a shotgun. My patio is at least 30M and across a public road from his land with two large hedges between us. I did not at any time see the farmer. All of a sudden a couple more shots go off and me and the missus are showered with shotgun pellets from above. Now I dont think they were travelling at a speed that would harm anyone or anything and they were widely dispersed but I was just wondering should I have a word with him about it. I don't want to make a big fuss over it but I would be concerned for my two young kids who were not present at the time.

Is it safe/PC to shoot out over a public road? What is the effective range for one of these shotguns?

Thanks.

TomBeckett

Yeah that often happens
it will not do you any harm its basicly what goes up must come down.
its like its raining pellets for a few seconds..

Rovi

I've been 'rained on' many times, but it's always been while out decoying pigeons when another shooter's shot has happened to come down around me. Anyone who has ever been out with a group of other shooters will almost certainly be aware of the phenomenon.
It's no more dangerous that a quick shower of hailstones, but I don't doubt it'd somewhat disconcerting when it's going on at someone's home, and particularly if they weren't familiar with guns and what was going on.

While it's not dangerous per se, it is a bit of bad form on the part of the shooter to be cutting loose in the direction a house and the public road.
All else being equal (and I don't know what your relationship with your neighbour is like), I wouldn't rush off like a bull at a gate making a federal case out of it, but I would let him know 'in general conversation' some day. Just so he knows it happened, and that you're not entirely happy that it happened.

All that said, unless he's built a hide facing your house, it's quite likely that it'll never happen again.

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squire1

Thanks for the replies. Not really a problem. I just wanted to make sure there was no danger at those distances. I'll let him get on with it.

BTW, can I tell everyone I've been shot:p

Rovi

squire1 wrote:

BTW, can I tell everyone I've been shot:p

But of course!

My story is usually along the lines of: "Well, I was in the field when I came under fire; but I don't like to talk about it."
/goes quite and stares off into distance as if listening for helicopters coming in over the paddy fields...



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Vegeta

he's only 30m from your house and he's firing shots????

as this is causing you a disturbance i think you can ask him to stop.

as always the lads have given fine advice, definitely tell him.

PAIMEI

I'd imagine that if the pellets landed on you and were not going at a speed sufficient to do serious damage that he was a fair distance from your house when he fired the shot, I've been duck shooting across a bay from other shooters, roughly 200 yards away and pellets were raining down on us so I'd say he was a reasonable distance and not up to anything dodgy. Still not a pleasant experience though and as said previous might be no harm to let him know it happened. Might just wise him up for future reference to be careful where he's aiming.