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

As the Secretary of our club we have held membership prices below £30 for 8 years & we still have a surplus. This year we will offer £5 back as a discount on range fees for attending a 3rd or poss 4th shoots, as an inducement to get back out there, retain some members & as a thanks for standing with us & waiting.

Our local club is doing a free renewal for this year. Half price next renewal at end of 2021.

Contrast this with the NRA - ZERO discount.

I asked if they would at least be extending the MOD range cards given we weren't able to use said ranges (mine expires at the end of 2021).
No, of course not.

It's irked me to the point I'm seriously considering selling my bolt action rifles (when the market is back to normal) and quitting the NRA for good. I've always held a grudge for their lack of support running up to the handgun grab of 1997, as I'm sure a lot of shooters also do. Thereafter I'll concentrate on my lever action rifles and BP revolvers.

My issue is that they have continued their lack of support ever since then.

I am well down your route to more BP, BPCR, and the underlevers my only smokeless guns will be my lve quarry battery. As most of my range shooting now is 1-200, it is rare that you get a military range shoot beyond 100yrds nowadays and when you do it is with stick ins or if a gallery range then the targetry is in such disrepair that it cannot be used. And the NRA has done nothing about it, I suspect that they have lost any goodwill the military had for them a long time ago and with Bisley making money which no doubt helps with the CEO's remuneration there is no incentive to anything beyond Bisley. There is no national plan that I can see, shooting in the UK will be dead in the couple of decades anyway as there is no resistance to chipping away, wither on the vine approach that the anti gun establishment is now using. They see how ineffectual our "representative" bodies are and are just walking all over us as a consequence, at my age it doesn't trouble me too much as I have had my fill including the pre Hungerford days so my shooting itches have been well scratched over the years.

Still I feel sorry for those generations to come who will miss out on such a absorbing and rewarding past time and it is all down to the self serving, gutless bodies like BASC and the NRA.

Each enjoying heir own fiefdoms and the expense of legal shooting.

dromia wrote:My issue is that they have continued their lack of support ever since then.....

I can't disagree with anything you've said.

An example of the contempt staff seem to have for shooters has stuck in my mind for several years.
I was returning to the range office at Bisley following an afternoon shooting with the NRA club.
One of the Range Officers that had been supervising our shoot was returning an armful of borrowed rifles and had parked directly outside to facilitate this. Whilst he was inside the office some NRA groundsman (or some such), in a fit of pique, deliberately rammed the back of his car with a Land Rover for having the temerity to park there. I could scarcely believe my peepers! But looking back it seems a fitting demonstration of our relationship with them.

I had high hopes of switching to the Silverstone range - £650 for their gold membership seeming a small price to pay to continue shooting my bolt action rifles free of the NRA and also being a good bit closer sans all that clogging on the M4 and traffic jams around Bracknell, Unfortunately full bore rifles have to be moderated - which means my Lee Enfields, Mosin Nagants, Saiga AK, et al can't be catered for.

I may join BASC simply for the insurance / legal assistance. Not that I feel they are any more effective against the constant barrage of anti-shooting legislation. They just aren't the NRA.

Pippin89 wrote:My club (smallbore indoor 25m range with fullbore at Bisley) is £96 a year with £4 range fee. We only have something like 28 members and I don't think any of us would accept a reduction in membership fees for the sake of the club. Small "non-business" clubs like those stay afloat with the goodness of volunteers and the committee that run it. If I was a member of a larger "business" club then maybe I would think differently...

That was much the conclusion of our virtual AGM on Sunday, keep the membership fees covering the fixed costs and the range fees, no more.

dromia wrote:My issue is that they have continued their lack of support ever since then.

I am well down your route to more BP, BPCR, and the underlevers my only smokeless guns will be my lve quarry battery. As most of my range shooting now is 1-200, it is rare that you get a military range shoot beyond 100yrds nowadays and when you do it is with stick ins or if a gallery range then the targetry is in such disrepair that it cannot be used. And the NRA has done nothing about it, I suspect that they have lost any goodwill the military had for them a long time ago and with Bisley making money which no doubt helps with the CEO's remuneration there is no incentive to anything beyond Bisley. There is no national plan that I can see, shooting in the UK will be dead in the couple of decades anyway as there is no resistance to chipping away, wither on the vine approach that the anti gun establishment is now using. They see how ineffectual our "representative" bodies are and are just walking all over us as a consequence, at my age it doesn't trouble me too much as I have had my fill including the pre Hungerford days so my shooting itches have been well scratched over the years.

Still I feel sorry for those generations to come who will miss out on such a absorbing and rewarding past time and it is all down to the self serving, gutless bodies like BASC and the NRA.

Each enjoying heir own fiefdoms and the expense of legal shooting.

I share Adams's views. I also have been around shooting for more years than I care to remember. Most of my shooting is done at 100 yards due to a lack of suitable ranges. Probably the same ones Adam is referring to. Shooting at stick ins with bits of paper attached for targets. In fact, lately, I have been questioning why I do it. Do I really miss it that much? I think this Covid thing has taught me that I can survive without shooting. I am in no hurry to get back out there.

Funny how any threads on this forum that include "NRA" dissolve into a slagging off of them.
To bear a grudge against them for what happened back in 1997 makes no sense.
To base your thoughts of the NRA around a car being deliberately rammed by an alleged staff member in a Land Rover again, makes no sense.

Lets all pack in shooting, take up knitting and say good bye to the NRA and Bisley and get it sold off for development.

I have said this before - start up your own range and organisation - simples.

I know from experience that "simples" (whatever that means I am assuming it is a misspell of simple) it is not.

What we don't need is another damned organisation we have too many as it is that divide us, to the anti gun establishments and the shooting organisations benefit and to legal gun owners detriment.

So you are completely satisfied with our shooting organisations and the state of legal gun ownership in the UK today?

There is nothing you would wish different in legal gun ownership in the UK?

dromia wrote:...

So you are completely satisfied with our shooting organisations and the state of legal gun ownership in the UK today?

There is nothing you would wish different in legal gun ownership in the UK?

If there are enough mag41uks who will just accept their level of service, grin and bear it, put up with it etc. then they will carry on as usual. Which, of course, they have.

YES I bloody well do bear a grudge for their rubbish performance in 1997. The way for the NRA to undo my and thousands of shooters' attitude towards them is to IMPROVE. VASTLY.

Or you can go with "simples" and just keep on taking it.

Dark Skies wrote:The way for the NRA to undo my and thousands of shooters' attitude towards them is to IMPROVE. VASTLY.

But the only way that can be done is from within, and that means from within the council.

So, unless enough people with this view stand for election, and then get elected......

It ain't gonna happen.

That's the unfortunate Catch22 situation.