Informal plinking and shooting practice, outside of ranges

johngalway

I remember some talk a while back about informal plinking/shooting practice and anything except zeroing your rifle and actual hunting potentially being made illegal.

What is the legal status of those activities at this point in time?

Looking for verifiable facts and links please.

Reason I am asking is related to the long range fox shooting practice in Wales thread over in Hunting.

ATB,

John

It wasn't me!

Target shooting is prohibited outside of an authorised range. Since there is no clear definition of the point at which checking zero becomes target shooting, it's a tad up in the air. I mean, setting out steels out to a given range and shooting at them is also checking zero with regard to different ranges with a drop chart in hand. It's a crazy bit of legislation really.

johngalway

Would making a drop chart constitute part of the zeroing process?

patsat

johngalway wrote: »

Would making a drop chart constitute part of the zeroing process?

You thinking of setting something up John?? Twud be a good idea.

johngalway

No, just trying to get some facts.

It wasn't me!

Well, a published drop chart isn't worth bollocks, frankly, since they make assumptions about a muzzle velocity. If you don't have a chronograph to verify your own, then the only way to do it is to shoot at targets, and shoot groups obviously, out to different ranges, to check the drop of your own rifle. For instance, with a 22 1/2" barrel and overly tall mounts, my .25-06 drops about an inch and a half more at 200 yards than you'd get from a typical internet drop chart. I'd expect that to be about 3" more at 300 (but obviously, I have to verify it against that assumption, which means shooting it). Obvious also is that ranges do not make provision for intermediate and unknown distances. If I want to check shot placement and corresponding aiming point at say 175 yards, I've got to do it in the field, because the range is no good for that. Similarly for unknown distances. If I know the target is 100 yards away, or 200 yards away, because there's a big bloody sign telling me so, that's no use as a hunter for learning to estimate distance. Only way to do that is in the field, by eye or with a reticle that has that capability, then checked against a range-finder. The correction for that unknown range then has to be plotted by, again, shooting at it. So there are a series of vital skills for hunting and a lot of information that needs to be plotted out, not all of which it is possible to do on an authorised range. While with a .22LR, you could make reasonable predictions from a given drop chart, because the ranges are short and the figures are consistent, for anyone who wants to shoot a centrefire rifle, even at relatively modest ranges - say out to 300 yards - in the field, you need an awful lot of information and to do an awful lot of work to get it, and a range isn't the right place for a lot of that.

poulo6.5

johngalway wrote: »

I remember some talk a while back about informal plinking/shooting practice and anything except zeroing your rifle and actual hunting potentially being made illegal.

What is the legal status of those activities at this point in time?

Looking for verifiable facts and links please.

Reason I am asking is related to the long range fox shooting practice in Wales thread over in Hunting.

ATB,

John

this is exactly what i was thinking, fair play johng

IRLConor

The way I look at it, there's two ways to look at it:

Way 1 (the cautious way):
There's no clear definition or guidance so the only really clear decision you're going to get is from a court and it's much more pleasant not to be the test case. Guidance from a Garda or solicitor/barrister would be nice, but at the end of the day, they're not going to pay the fine/do the time nor will they be much help at renewal time if you've been done for a breach of the law. Until some poor fecker goes to court for target shooting on an unauthorised range when he was zeroing his rifle, you won't know what the deal is.

Way 2 (the gamble):
This is probably an "I don't like the look of that" or "I'll know it when I see it" law, so provided you a) don't annoy your local Gardai, b) don't annoy the landowners/adjacent landowners, c) do it on your own/with one or two friends on an unimproved piece of land and d) don't take the piss, you'll probably be fine. The more people shooting together, the more complicated the target/firing point setup, the more gizmos you have with you (chrono, wind flags, etc) the tougher case you're going to have.

Me, personally, I'm fairly conservative so I'd go with option 1. For those who decide to go with option 2, be careful and don't push your luck.

bunny shooter

I think Connor has it fairly right there

Like he says it's like a "breach of the peace" type law. If they can't do ya for something else they'll use that :eek: