How Many Guns do we Need...

Breachloader

What is the bare minimum number of guns that an Irish sportsman needs to compete at target shooting and go hunting in this country???

Target:
Gallery 38 Rifle
Gallery 22 Rifle
Gallery and/or Olympic Pistol 22
Pistol CF (If you had one before 18/11/08)
Bench rest 22 Rifle
FTR 308 Rifle (long barrel)
Classic Rifle (303 etc.)
Sporting 12g shotgun O/U

Hunting:
22 hunting rifle with mod (bunny).... Gallery 22 could possibly do both jobs
243 hunting rifle with mod (fox & deer)
Some big safari rifle (for holidays to africa)
Game 12g Shotgun SXS for upland
Semi or Pump 12g for Duck and Pigeon

Its possible but difficult to reduce this list by using one shotgun for everything and having a target 22 pull hunting duty, but they would not excel at any job, instead merely being useable.

So there you have it folks. At a push the Irish shooter can get by (Barely) with just 10 guns, but realistically he needs a minimum of 13 and could do with quite a few more.

Am I right or am I right :-)

BR

Sparks

Breachloader wrote: »

What is the bare minimum number of guns that an Irish sportsman needs to compete at target shooting and go hunting in this country?

Well, if you're intending on competing in everything, you'll need to add a 10m air rifle, a 10m air pistol, an ISSF .22 (the benchrest .22 won't pass equipment control) and an ISSF fullbore rifle (none of the other fullbore rifles will pass equipment control, but you could use the ISSF fullbore rifle for FTR in a pinch if you got a .308 instead of the more usual 6mmBR or 6.5mm) and possibly a Palma .308 (I guess the ISSF fullbore rifle in .308 could also sub in for Palma in a real pinch).

And once you had all that, and the gunsafes, alarm, 24hr guards and the brother-in-law who's a Chief Super to sign off on all of this, you'll just have to buy the ammo and find the time to train in any of this

Me, I'll stick to my one serious rifle, my hobby-level pistol and my feck-I-need-to-get-to-the-range-with-that other rifle for now

FISMA

...

∞

dax121

breech loader is right if we want to compete in comps/hunting and can prove useage why cant we have 10 or 12 firearms? what laws are we breaking. pity our supers/chief supers dont see our point

IRLConor

There are three things that restrict my shooting:

• Available money
• Available time
• Licensing restrictions

To be perfectly honest, the licensing is the least of my worries!

It wasn't me!

I've got four target rifles in my head to cover my training and competition needs, and that's before back-ups for travelling internationally (Buying a spare rifle is pretty cheap insurance as if you travel enough, sooner or later something will go wrong and the back-up will be required).

Four more rifles would do me for hunting everything, everywhere. Throw a shotgun on that and we're up to 9 for what I do. Shotgun could double up for clays too, of course, if I decide to give that a bash.

Breachloader

Sparks. You are of course right.
I was trying to be minimalist, but of course people shoot all sorts of other competitions, so we can add:

10 meter air pistol
10 meter air rifle
50 meter free pistol
25 meter rapid fire pistol (Gallery pistol could fill this role but would be a compromise)
Issf 22 rifle
Issf CF Rifle
Palma 308

That brings the bare minimum up to 16-17 guns, if some pull double duty with 19-20 being a more realistic minimum.

I am laughing now lads, come on.. Tell me what else I missed.

And if we add It wasn't me!s sensible philosophy on the need for back up guns (especially for the hunt of a lifetime or the world championships in your chosen discipline) the numbers really start to grow. lol

BR

Sparks

Breachloader wrote: »

50 meter free pistol
25 meter rapid fire pistol (Gallery pistol could fill this role but would be a compromise)

For a bare minimum, one single 25m ISSF pistol could do those two roles as well.
Badly for the 50m mind (slightly better if you allow for switching out pistol grips), but the pistol's about the same for the rapid fire if you had a removable noseweight (they switched to .22lr a few years ago away from the .22short).

Issf CF Rifle
Palma 308

I wonder if you could do Palma with a .308 ISSF Standard rifle...

I am laughing now lads, come on.. Tell me what else I missed.

Just the wheelbarrow for the ammo I think

It wasn't me!

Sparks wrote: »

I wonder if you could do Palma with a .308 ISSF Standard rifle...

Can't see why not. It makes the trigger and upper weight limits, so should be fine. You'd need it at the max barrel length more than likely, which is 30", but I don't see any issues really. Of course, whether you can shoot standard rifle well with a .308 is another question.

rowa

dax121 wrote: »

breech loader is right if we want to compete in comps/hunting and can prove useage why cant we have 10 or 12 firearms? what laws are we breaking. pity our supers/chief supers dont see our point

Its not the supers/chief supers Idea, it was the law forced through the dail by a pita rat of a td who was trying to stop a "gun culture" , whatever that is. Pity he didn't concern himself more with corruption , it would have served the country better.
I don't understand the concern with the numbers of guns someone owns, but then again i don't understand the hang up with sound moderators or guns resembling military firearms either.

Breachloader

Ok. Lets say we are being really frugal now and half our guns are pulling double duty (Which seriously compromises competitiveness) one ISSF pistol to cover 25 and 50 meters and one ISSF rifle to cover Palma as well.

Then at a serious struggle the Irish sportsman would require a bare minimum of 16 Firearms and with this frugal number putting himself at a major competitive disadvantage.



BR

tac foley

Breachloader wrote: »

I am laughing now lads, come on.. Tell me what else I missed.

You have only missed EVERY kind of black powder muzzle loader - handgun and rifle AND shotgun, percussion [loose-loading and cartridge loading] and flintlock, matchlock, wheellock and so on........

Not much, really, just the first 600 years of the history of small arms.:rolleyes:

tac

Breachloader

tac foley wrote: »

You have only missed EVERY kind of black powder muzzle loader - handgun and rifle AND shotgun, percussion [loose-loading and cartridge loading] and flintlock, matchlock, wheellock and so on........

Not much, really, just the first 600 years of the history of small arms.:rolleyes:

tac

Sorry Tac.
I have never shot any black powder competitions so I am unfamiliar with them.
To be honest though I don't believe these have a great following in Ireland as I have never heard of a major competition, but of course I have been wrong before..
How many here own and use them for competition by the way (IN IRELAND)?
But from the sound of it, Its now a case that an individual could possibly own and compete with even more firearms.

So what is the bare minimum so?
Would 18, 19 or maybe 20 cover it?

I suppose the Irish sportsman could struggle by with 20, but who wants to struggle :-) lol

BR

Breachloader

Being realistic though, I believe 16 is the bare minimum that an all round hunter and competitive shooter needs to do it all (and that is cutting corners).
Do you guys agree?
Could you make do with only 16?
What is the general feeling?

BR

tac foley

Breachloader wrote: »

Sorry Tac.
I have never shot any black powder competitions so I am unfamiliar with them.

Well, I naturally thought that as you are talking about an entirely hypothetical situation in which you had all the firearms you wanted that you might as well go totally daft and join the rest of the Free World in the shooting fun.

tac

Breachloader

tac foley wrote: »

Well, I naturally thought that as you are talking about an entirely hypothetical situation in which you had all the firearms you wanted that you might as well go totally daft and join the rest of the Free World in the shooting fun.

tac

I wish that was the case Tac, but No. lol. We have to justify our reason for possessing and using each and every firearm we own over here.
Without going daft we can be logical about it.
This is a realistic down to earth analysis of the minimum number of firearms that an avid Irish competitive target shooter and hunter needs.

To be honest I would imagine that most would struggle to get by with less than 16 and would downright fail to be able to do it all with less than 10.

What do people think?

BR

It wasn't me!

Competitive target shooters (really competitive ones) don't tend to shoot multiple disparate disciplines much. World class rifle shooters don't tend to throw time at shotgun or pistol, for instance, because time spent doing either of those is time not spent shooting rifle, and time spent shooting rifle is what keeps them world class. If I shot all the ISSF rifle disciplines from 10-300m I'd need four rifles, plus any spares I needed for travelling if that's how I went. Then it's whatever I used for hunting, and to be fair, I could do that with two as easily as I could do it with four, but four covers the bases more evenly. Nine in total would still do me just fine, maybe ten or eleven even allowing for spares in some of my main competition guns, but spares are a big luxury when they can be five grand apiece.

tac foley

Breachloader wrote: »

I wish that was the case Tac, but No. lol. We have to justify our reason for possessing and using each and every firearm we own over here.

As do we in UK.

Except that only in Northern Ireland can we own a modern handgun of a recognisable kind.

Here, if you are not found to be using any particular gun, it can be taken off you.

tac

Hunter21

How about a few decommissioned display pieces of famous guns

LB6

If you're doing benchrest. There's 3 classifications, International Sporter, Light Varmint and Heavy Varmint - so 3 guns (not one)

Glensman

Hunting:

I need the 4 I have:

12G o/u
.22lr
.223
.270

I would like to add a 12G SA and maybe swap the .223 for a 6.5x47...

FISMA

Glensman wrote: »

Hunting:

I need the 4 I have:
12G o/u
.22lr
.223
.270
I would like to add a 12G SA and maybe swap the .223 for a 6.5x47...

Nearly in full agreement.

12ga - the most fundamental. If I had only room for only one firearm in my Get-Out-Of-DodgE (good-e) bag, it would be a 12ga.

22lr, next one on the list, plentiful ammo...

223 cannot argue with, nor the 270. But if I had to consolidate, I would make it a 30-06. Maybe a bit overkill wrt the 223, but where I am the selection is one of the best you'll find for any round.

I'll change things up and nominate a handgun - 1911.

fish slapped

Not to forget F-open and Benchrest 1000 yard ....

stick shooter

Sparks wrote: »

I wonder if you could do Palma with a .308 ISSF Standard rifle...

A "standard" .308win is designed to shoot all sorts of .30 cal projectiles from 110gr thru to 220gr+.

A palma rifle is optimised for the 155 grain pills.

Sparks

stick shooter wrote: »

A "standard" .308win is designed to shoot all sorts of .30 cal projectiles from 110gr thru to 220gr+.
A palma rifle is optimised for the 155 grain pills.

Well, firstly, 110 < 155 < 220+
Secondly, I was more wondering about this:



than about this (which is odd, but we said already that minimising the number of firearms needed was the goal here...):



(And thirdly, I went and looked it up out of curiosity; not only is it possible, quite a few people do it, though not at international level - they use .308s with 155gr rounds and shoot both matches with the same setup).

Grizzly 45

To mis quote Mae West[?] you cant be rich enough,or good looking enough,or own enough guns.;):)

meathstevie

tac foley wrote: »

As do we in UK.

Except that only in Northern Ireland can we own a modern handgun of a recognisable kind.

Here, if you are not found to be using any particular gun, it can be taken off you.

tac

The handgun thing unfortunately has nothing to do with sporting purposes, they're personal protection weapons.

juice1304

No they are not very few have them for personal protection most have them for taking part in practical shooting which is banned here. They can have pistols for sporting purposes if they wish and reload, Which is why it is so stupid.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

tac foley

meathstevie wrote: »

The handgun thing unfortunately has nothing to do with sporting purposes, they're personal protection weapons.

Sir - I'm afraid that you are mistaken. In addition to those thousands of handguns that are carried for personal protection by menbers of certain organisations - the PSNI, prison service and those whoe lives have been deemed as under threat from certain factions, for reasons that we need not discuss here, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom where modern handguns of all kinds may be owned for sporting purposes - NOT for the hunting of game, but for all kinds of target shooting. Moreover, the magazine or cylinder capacities are not limited, as they are in the RoI, nor are the calibres limited.

See -

More than 100,000 people in Northern Ireland own firearms, having 380,000 among them. Gun control laws in Northern Ireland are slightly different from those in the rest of the UK, being primarily affected by the Firearms (Northern Ireland) Order 2004. Under the new law, first-time buyers will be required to demonstrate they can be trusted with the firearm. It will be up to firearms dealers selling the products to tell new buyers, and those upgrading their firearms, about the safety procedures. Firearm owners in Northern Ireland must not transport their firearms to Great Britain. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom where personal protection is accepted as a legitimate reason to obtain and own a firearm and is the only part of the United Kingdom where handguns [of the modern, cartridge-firing type] are permitted. Also, carrying a firearm in plain view in a public place is allowed without a permit. However a firearm certificate for a personal protection weapon will only be authorised where the Police Service of Northern Ireland deems there is a ‘verifiable specific risk’ to the life of an individual and that the possession of a firearm is a reasonable, proportionate and necessary measure to protect their life.

As for the comment above, about 'very few have them for personal protection', it rather depends on what you consider to be a few. As of 23 Aug 2012, there are a total of 2,924 licenses for personal protection firearms.

tac

meathstevie

tac foley wrote: »

Sir - I'm afraid that you are mistaken. In addition to those thousands of handguns that are carried for personal protection by menbers of certain organisations - the PSNI, prison service and those whoe lives have been deemed as under threat from certain factions, for reasons that we need not discuss here, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom where modern handguns of all kinds may be owned for sporting purposes - NOT for the hunting of game, but for all kinds of target shooting. Moreover, the magazine or cylinder capacities are not limited, as they are in the RoI, nor are the calibres limited.

See -

More than 100,000 people in Northern Ireland own firearms, having 380,000 among them. Gun control laws in Northern Ireland are slightly different from those in the rest of the UK, being primarily affected by the Firearms (Northern Ireland) Order 2004. Under the new law, first-time buyers will be required to demonstrate they can be trusted with the firearm. It will be up to firearms dealers selling the products to tell new buyers, and those upgrading their firearms, about the safety procedures. Firearm owners in Northern Ireland must not transport their firearms to Great Britain. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom where personal protection is accepted as a legitimate reason to obtain and own a firearm and is the only part of the United Kingdom where handguns [of the modern, cartridge-firing type] are permitted. Also, carrying a firearm in plain view in a public place is allowed without a permit. However a firearm certificate for a personal protection weapon will only be authorised where the Police Service of Northern Ireland deems there is a ‘verifiable specific risk’ to the life of an individual and that the possession of a firearm is a reasonable, proportionate and necessary measure to protect their life.

As for the comment above, about 'very few have them for personal protection', it rather depends on what you consider to be a few. As of 23 Aug 2012, there are a total of 2,924 licenses for personal protection firearms.

tac

Tac, I stand corrected. By the way, I personally am in favour of law abiding people being allowed fullbore handguns for sporting activities. It's a simple fact of life that in the overwhelming majority of incidents sporting firearms are not the ones used by criminals.

cavan shooter

Breachloader wrote: »

What is the bare minimum number of guns that an Irish sportsman needs to compete at target shooting and go hunting in this country???

Target:
Gallery 38 Rifle
Gallery 22 Rifle
Gallery and/or Olympic Pistol 22
Pistol CF (If you had one before 18/11/08)
Bench rest 22 Rifle
FTR 308 Rifle (long barrel)
Classic Rifle (303 etc.)
Sporting 12g shotgun O/U

Hunting:
22 hunting rifle with mod (bunny).... Gallery 22 could possibly do both jobs
243 hunting rifle with mod (fox & deer)
Some big safari rifle (for holidays to africa)
Game 12g Shotgun SXS for upland
Semi or Pump 12g for Duck and Pigeon

Its possible but difficult to reduce this list by using one shotgun for everything and having a target 22 pull hunting duty, but they would not excel at any job, instead merely being useable.

So there you have it folks. At a push the Irish shooter can get by (Barely) with just 10 guns, but realistically he needs a minimum of 13 and could do with quite a few more.

Am I right or am I right :-)

BR

Very good thread you started, I would love to see if anyone is in this category. From my calculation I doubt he would have the time to go to work as he spends his time shooting/hunting, he is probably single, either very rich or very broke. Would you actually have the time to use all of them thus fulfilling "the need/just cause for the firearm box" I'd say if te Gardai got smart and linked purchase /use of ammunition to the need for a gun it would be interesting how quick you'd be culling the numbers