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

Speak to the clubs you are a member of and see what they recommend. At the end of the day you can only apply for guns that your clubs shoot.
Another thing to consider is how many guns can you afford to buy in your budget? And this is where all FEO's differ. Mine asked if I was planning on buying all the guns I was applying for within the first year. I have heard of others saying 3 months. If your FEO is one of the latter and you have put down 6 or 7 guns, they will ask you if you can afford to spend all that money over a very short period.
Also apply for moderators. They are separate slots on your certificate. So if you don't use them then you can always do a 1for1 variation to apply for another calibre.

In answer to Dave B, yes it is 6.5x47 Lapua, and I load for it..........123 & 136 grain Scenars.
For the 6x47, I use the Lapua 6.5x47 cases, passed through a Forster 6x47 FL die.

Pete

I recently had my FAC granted and received all the slots I applied for. For target shooting, I asked for;

2 x .22RF
1 x Long Barrelled Pistol
1 x 308
1 x .357/.38

The FLO recommended I also apply for a SGC at the same time in case I wanted one, so I did. I'm not planning on rushing out and buying all of these as soon as the shops are open. The FAC is valid for 5 years after all.
I chose .308 because ammo is plentiful and it's good for long range shooting (600m+) if I want to do some. I want a .357 for gallery shooting because .38 special ammo is relatively cheap and plentiful!
Hope this helps.

Mattnall makes a good point, I would add to it by saying buy the biggest cabinet you can afford and fit in place and accept it will be too small one day.

I'll second that.........I started with a so called 5 gun safe which would only hold 3 scoped rifles.............I ended up with not one, but two of the biggest Brattonsounds.
It was quite an expensive learning curve.

Pete

Hi to all,
Thank you for the reply’s and suggestions, certainly something to think about.
I will get a bit more shooting experience with different calibers at the range and read/watch and learn.
Cheers

Ovenpaa wrote: DaveB, I have always felt the 6.5CM to be inferior to the 6,5 Lapua and at the end of the day, what is the difference between any of the 6.5s when it comes to external ballistics? A 139 grain bullet at 2800 fps is a 139 grain bullet at 2800 fps regardless of where it comes from. I chose my rifle in 6,5 Lapua based on many factors including the testing of Zak Smith (Is he still around?)

Good point on the factory ammunition though, about all I have seen over here was some 139 Lapua many years ago and I still have the box to this day!

Yes, that really was my only point, the ready availability of factory ammo. I have nothing against 6.5 Lapua, except the fact that I have never seen a box of it on the shelf. However it seems Pete reloads, so he doesn't have that consideration to influence his choice.

One of these days I will get around to setting up my reloading equipment again, but frankly right now I just do not have the time or the inclination, and factory ammo will just have to do until I retire 13 months from now and have some time on my hands.

In any event any superiority between one 6.5 and another hardly makes any difference to me, the way I shoot. I am in no longer in any danger whatsoever of finishing in the top 10 (who am I kidding, top 50 more like) at any national-level competition. I am in it just for the fun these days, so the 6.5CM and .308 Win will do me just fine.

You should also consider what you can comfortably afford and continue to feed.

This wasn't an issue for me when I started shooting. I had a hoard of pistols and revolvers in '96 so the slots were already there and justification wasn't even considered come the handgun prohibition. I was asked what I'd like the slots to be converted to and it was done. I went for all the pistol calibre under lever rifles - .22 .357/38 .44 .45 and old school military calibres as I knew they would be reasonably affordable to buy and run. .303 7.62X54R and 7.62X39 I also threw in .223 (I chose wisely) and .30-06 The latter being a bit of a disappointment when I finally got a rifle in this calibre. It was expensive to feed with either factory or reloading. Frankly it was too much gun for my needs. I should have gone .30

And don't forget - once you have them you have to shoot them reasonably frequently or you'll be asked why. So if you go for a military calibre rifle you need to consider where you can shoot it that's within a reasonable travelling distance.

I was reminded this afternoon that there is a formula for the perfect number of firearms to own:

The equation is F = N+1

where
F is the ideal number of firearms
N is the number of firearms you have now.

Mattnall wrote:I was reminded this afternoon that there is a formula for the perfect number of firearms to own:

The equation is F = N+1

where
F is the ideal number of firearms
N is the number of firearms you have now.

Agreed