The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

In my job when statistics show an area of high risk we develop and deliver a training package to reduce or nullify it. Maybe the NRA should consider a free hand loading course... They could then make hand loads a competancy tested discipline and have it put on the safe shooter cards.

You don't make statements like that in an organizational publicity document without the intention to follow up with some form of action or policy? To me that is a very clear statement of intent; "We are going to do something about protecting the organization form the potential liabilities of using unregulated hand load manufactured ammunition on our premises".

The stats argument might be applicable to hand loading as one member of the hand loading population I have now shot more hand loaded ammo than CIP & without incident. Possibly the RFD community could pool info on the number of SMK 155 heads sold pa & thus the TR/FTR/308 community might be able to say the argument used about rule 150 : millions used over many years without incident is a safety case for do nothing about rule 150? might also apply to hand loaded ammo.

Also am I reading too critically the comment on 'fairly priced ammo' then ruag is he trying to infer ruag is fairly priced! MOD do not pay 50p a bang for RG try dividing that by something!

Hand load & club load have become a response to high ammo prices that must have dented NRA ammo sales, thus margins?
How do you recover that if you cant or wont reduce the price? corkage? inhibit others sales? Ask the many RFDs why they are not attending events now with sales stands & there is already rules about trading from the camp.

Writing on the wall?

The NRA may not yet have a policy against hand loads. However, I read that comment in the Journal and was surprised that it had been made. Either (a) Andrew Mercer is a moron, which I doubt or (b) he really does think hand loads are a problem. Whether he intended it to come across that way or not, it did to me.

I hope the NRA doesn't go on a safety vendetta with reloaded ammunition; I for one will pack in shooting if they do. I simply can't buy a 223 factory round with a 90-grain bullet; nor can I buy a decent factory round with a 168-hybrid.

I also object to yet more certificates and courses and expense, so I hope it was simply an off-the-cuff comment without the thought I expect from the head chap at the NRA.

I would not support a move to prevent the use of handloaded ammunition at Bisley or elsewhere.

paulbradley wrote:In my job when statistics show an area of high risk we develop and deliver a training package to reduce or nullify it. Maybe the NRA should consider a free hand loading course... They could then make hand loads a competancy tested discipline and have it put on the safe shooter cards.

Not sure that would achieve much mate.

The usual blinkered leading the blind with opinion rather than fact, tailored to one type of discipline, and only valid for the few hours it is being banged out.

Bit like a driving test....here's a licence, you've passed. Now go and learn to drive. Far better to be mentored by someone who shoots your discipline and knows whats what.

And, like anything, loading is as much about attitude as ability. A monkey could re-load. I know a few who are living proof of that. I know folk who have loaded the wrong bullets (or a mix) for a match, put the wrong powder in (never proven but it nearly killed the shooter), and the usual mix of reversed primers or no primers.

Moreover, in the unlikely event they did stop it on NRA ranges, how would that work with some of the historic lot that may HAVE to form and handload their own ammo?

Oh well, hopefully the usual rumor mill generated BS....hopefully.

What ever he meant by it, it is an unhelpful and poorly thought through statement.

The ambiguities of it just add insult to injury.

Again it demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of what most target shooting/plinking shooters do and enjoy as part of this pastime. Handloading is major part of the shooting experience and to many of us is more that just a way of making ammunition it is a hobby in itself and there are many like me who shoot to handload and cast.

This is another typically Bisley/TR centric, divisive statement alienating a section of the shooting community. Thoroughly irresponsible and lacking in any sort of leadership. Issue solving using power rather than ideas.

Fairly priced ammunition? I can easily knock 10p off the NRA's price-per-round for factory .308" purely by shopping around. The only reason I buy from the range office is convenience - once I've saved enough pennies to invest in handloading gear I'll never buy factory again, except a handful of the Imperial Meeting issue stuff to get a zero.

I'm just more pleased than ever that I didn't renew my membership.
Mercer must be thinking that Bisley could be a great money making operation without all those damn shooters getting in the way!

I've seen various youtube videos where people turn perfectly good rifles in to pipe bombs, but potentially how dangerous is it for those around them? How big would an exclusion zone have to be to reasonably protect people against this? I'm not suggesting this as an outcome, I'm just trying to visualise the worst case scenario.

In the early 1980s, there was a fatal accident due to a New Service Colt cylinder exploding. Apparently, the bullets were insufficiently crimped and moved forward on recoil, causing the cylinder to jam. The shooter used his finger to push the bullets back----too far---increasing the pressure dramatically. The person killed was standing to one side of the shooter---he happened to be the owner of the gun, who had loaded the faulty ammunition.
Two years ago, a Taurus LBR exploded on our range. We have plywood partitions between the shooters and the top strap and bits of cylinder sailed through them without really slowing down. No injury was caused.
When rifles explode, it is usually the shooters left hand which is damaged, but spectators are definitely at risk.
I have never purchased factory ammunition for any of my centrefire guns in more than 40 years of shooting. I must be in the low hundreds of thousands of reloads fired without any problems. That said, there are idiots in the world and we need education and vigilance.

Fred