Hello guys,
I've had airguns since I was a young lad and I would say I have around 25 years of experience with the sport, on and off admittedly, but during this time I feel I have built up a reasonable knowledge of the sport of airgun shooting.
I am in no way an expert but I have owned and handled lots of different air rifles over the years and over the past five years or so I have really tried to improve my knowledge and shooting ability (a big thanks goes out to the BBS members for helping me with this!)
Last weekend I was invited to go shooting with a shotgun owner over a large piece of land, obviously I jumped at the chance and was really looking forward to it but it ended up one of the worst days of shooting I can remember!
My companion was constantly telling me what to do, what I was doing wrong and basically treated me like an idiot.
I'm the kind of guy who keeps his mouth shut in these situations and lets the other person dig a hole for themselves while I pay close attention to their comments but in the end I was pretty pissed off as I'm sure you can imagine.
Anyway we parted ways at the end of the shoot and I decided that I will stick to hunting by myself which I have always done and enjoy much more. Then to my surprise a few days later I received an email from my weekend companion with 'tips' on how I can become a better shooter...now this email was the most patronising thing I have read in my life! I really couldn't believe it as this guy doesn't know me and we have never gone shooting together and he didn't witness me shooting as there was f-all to shoot on his permission. What was most annoying was that half of these 'tips' were complete rubbish
Personally I have respect for the entire shooting community and all the various disciplines but it got me thinking, are airgun owners treated as the 'poor cousins' in the shooting community?
I think a lot of people from a non-shooting background think of air rifles as the old rusty rifle found in grandad's shed or the cheap rifle they used to shoot tins cans with as a kid which I suppose is understandable but is there respect shown to the airgun community from shooters of other disciplines?
Of course there will always be exceptions to the rule and lots of people on here own shotguns, rifles and air rifles but is the attitude shown to me by my weekend shooting partner the 'norm' or is he just a knob?
I know all of the above doesn't really matter and I will continue to love airgun shooting and learning as much as I can about the sport but it has been bugging me the past few days (I know it shouldn't) so I wanted to get it off my chest...sorry for the 'rant' but thanks for reading and I'd really be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject.
All the best,
Chris
Reply With Quote