Shooting for Sport E-Book

Tony Jackson

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The sporting shooting available in Great Britain today is the envy of the world. Many newcomers find entry into the complex world of shooting daunting, and this book explains the various aspects that surround sporting shooting in all its guises. Topics covered include: choosing a gun and gun safety; clothing and other equipment; finding shooting; the quarry species; driven shooting; the DIY shoot; rough shooting and gundogs. Fully illustrated with 80 colour photographs.

Leseprobe

SHOOTING FOR SPORT

A GUIDE TO DRIVEN GAME SHOOTING, WILDFOWLING AND THE DIY SHOOT

TONY JACKSON

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2015 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2015

© Tony Jackson 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 934 6

Contents

Introduction

  1     Finding Shooting

  2     Gun Safety

  3     Choosing a Gun

  4     Clothing and Equipment

  5     Wildfowling Past and Present

  6     Wild Duck Chase

  7     The Sound of Geese

  8     Woodcock, Snipe and Golden Plover

  9     The DIY and Rough Shoot

10     Driven Shooting

11     Gundogs

12     Dealing with the Bag

Afterword

Legal Information

Useful Addresses

Index

Introduction

The basic principle of the shotgun has remained unaltered since the very first ‘handgonne’ was held, doubtless with some trepidation, by a fourteenth-century soldier who, from the primitive character of the weapon in use, tended to expose himself to rather more danger than the enemy he somewhat optimistically hoped to slay. In those early days hand cannon, in various guises, were largely employed as weapons of war to fire a ball or bullets, and as one might anticipate, these weapons were highly inaccurate. They were, however, calculated to cause dismay amongst an enemy still armed with longbows and crossbows. It was not until the invention of the wheel-lock that guns were used for sporting purposes, and then it was largely on the Continent, for whilst firearms were being used for sport in the fifteenth century in Germany, Spain, Italy, and to some extent in France, it was not until the latter part of the seventeenth century that firearms were employed in Britain for the chase, and then they were mostly of foreign manufacture.

The development of the sporting firearm over the centuries has been related many times. Nevertheless, despite the many variations on a theme, the principle remained the same, namely a projectile to be fired at the quarry, though it was not until the use of ‘hayle’ shot, or lead pellets, that sporting shooting as we know it today really took off. Two hundred or so pellets, though they might be driven by slow-burning, coarse black powder along the length of a crudely drawn and finished barrel, could still perform remarkable execution when fired at duck, geese or other birds resting on the ground or water or feeding in flocks.

In those early days it was soon appreciated that whilst barrels could be made to ever finer, carefully regulated specifications, igniting the charge was the main problem. The sportsman wandering about with a matchlock, consisting of a loaded gun to be ignited and discharged by a slow-burning fuse, was at a distinct disadvantage as it would have been virtually impossible to stalk deer or other quarry with a glowing match, not to mention the time lag involved in actual ignition. It was not until the invention of rifling in the fifteenth century at Nuremburg, in conjunction with the wheel-lock, that sporting shooting really took off.