RFD’s requirement if over 12ft/lbs

[secretagentmole]

Was the Police Officer in question eluding to the fact that you can only act within existing law, which got me thinking ...

If you take an air rifle/pistol to an RFD for whatever reason, and the RFD decides to test it, is the testing apparatus they are using calibrated regularly to meet any Home Office requirement or national pre-determined Governmental and legal standard, as is required for the testing apparatus used by the Police to be able to be admissible in court ?

If not, then am I correct in saying that it is an unaccredited process and has no legal standing whatsoever, so, if the process is unaccredited, and un-admissable, how can the air rifle/pistol be seized by an RFD who has no 'legal' evidence that the rifle is over 12ftlb's as their testing apparatus has no 'legal' standing ?

There is no requirement. In fact on one occasion I had to tell the RFD that his chrono was out when I was selling a gun. I had tested it on my Combro and gt a nice healthy 11.3 and his twin arm thing was reading all over the place, one shot was 17ft lb, one was 15, he refused to buy and said he was going to seize the gun. I said "Just try a new battery in that chrono!" He did, got the same reading as my Combro over 20 shots, he admitted he had never checked his chrono for accuracy, ever!

[Beretta303]

There is no requirement. In fact on one occasion I had to tell the RFD that his chrono was out when I was selling a gun. I had tested it on my Combro and gt a nice healthy 11.3 and his twin arm thing was reading all over the place, one shot was 17ft lb, one was 15, he refused to buy and said he was going to seize the gun. I said "Just try a new battery in that chrono!" He did, got the same reading as my Combro over 20 shots, he admitted he had never checked his chrono for accuracy, ever!

Your experience proves the point, no requirement, therefore it can't be anything other than an unaccredited process which is inadmissible as evidence as it is deemed as being of no scientific value, so, there is no legal power to seize any rifle, just like the Police officer was noted as having said in a previous post, the RFD is simply required to give it back and advise the owner to get it altered.

[DJP]

Your experience proves the point, no requirement, therefore it can't be anything other than an unaccredited process which is inadmissible as evidence as it is deemed as being of no scientific value, so, there is no legal power to seize any rifle, just like the Police officer was noted as having said in a previous post, the RFD is simply required to give it back and advise the owner to get it altered.

Quite.

[rancidtom]

My chrono is calibrated, it is mains powered so no battery issues, it is of the same type our police forces use for their assessment of a gun before they refer the gun to the forensic test laboratory. While my chrono results may not be satisfactory as court evidence they are satisfactory enough for the police to make a decision on forensic testing and possible prosecution if they then decide to refer it to the CPS.
I am not ever going to tell a customer I am "seizing" a gun, I will tell them their gun is over the limit, they cannot legally leave my premises with it and we can refer to the FEO for his advice or I can repair the gun and only then will it be legal for the owner to take it away from me. I will make a customer aware that if they take a gun disregarding the advice of the FEO or myself that I will report them and that they have been recorded on my CCTV, the evidence will be passed to the police if they so require.
It's as simple as that. I don't argue, I will contact my Firearms Licensing Dept immediately and ask them to settle any argument. Not my problem, I will follow the advice from my FEO or whoever is on duty at the time. I don't try to mess people about by scaring them into surrendering a gun for "confiscation" or by making them pay for work that isn't required.

[DJP]

And the moral of the story is...

Buy your own Combro and avoid arguments with RFDs.

[rancidtom]

It won't just save an argument with an RFD it could save you a prosecution or whatever other action the police decide to take.

[angrybear]

Anyone else get fed up with buying expensive tins of pellets (that you never use) just to put through the chrono?

how often & with how many shots are you testing

[secretagentmole]

The problem is the wording of the law.

If you found that an 8.4 grain pellet was super accurate at 11.5 ft lb in your rifle, and you kept it at that power level you would have an illegal gun, as it has the potential to be over 12 ft lb with a 10.3 grain pellet. Both are commonly available...

It matters not that your gun is perfectly legal at 11.5 with the 8.4 grain pellet, the problem is the word potential.

It would be like giving every car driver a speeding ticket as all cars have the potential to exceed the speed limit!

The thing is with driving offences you have to have proof, so Camera traps and policemen playing Dirty Harry with lasers abound. They have to show you were exceeding the speed limit at the time!

It matters not of your seized gun was only firing the 8.4 grain and was therefore at a legal power level, the problem is that with a 10.3 grain it is at an illegal level and therefore you are a criminal! If it is tested with a 10.3 grain and over you are criminal despite never having committed an illegal act!

[angrybear]

Well I usually run through about 12 or more different brands to find which give the highest readings for a particular rifle, then i do several strings of 5 with those pellets at different fill pressures, i find generally heavies around the 150 bar mark give the max for most PCPs but i still check with several other types and weights to be sure. in total i keep around 30 brands purely for testing.

sadly you cannot test one string of shots with one brand of pellet at one fill pressure and expect to be legal and at 12-14 quid a tin it soon adds up

I would be interested to see a list of pellets that people have got the highest readings with for me its usually (pcp)
H&N Piledriver
Bisley Magnum
JSB jumbo monster
JSB express
AA field

Many of these new FAC pellets have the potential to push older near limit & previously legal sub 12s over simply because those pellets were not commercially available at the time they were manufactured and tuned to the legal limit, i believe it's also why newer airguns are now being sent out around 10flbs

Bottom line you need to test your gun with as many different pellets & weights as you possibly can, even then if you tested every pellet on the market today there is nothing to say a manufacturer won't release a new more efficient one tomorrow that pushes your gun over, personally i think it is a very unfair situation there is absolute zero tolerance for a gun being over, and also zero allowance for the huge variables yet there is no recognised standard or procedure for testing either

Well frankly I find most of that to be utterly unnecessary rubbish.
With any of the Heavy FAC pellets I've ever tested anything over 26gn & the ME falls off a cliff with sub 12 because they are simply too heavy for the available air volume to accelerate effectively.

I have never yet tested a rifle where it's as straight forward as being either the heaviest or the lightest that gives the highest ME, with most there's little in it, but I have had a couple where a specific pellet has given hugely more ME than anything else, in one case it was a gnats less than 25% over the bulk readings which were all within 5% or so.

Once you know the rifles "sweet-spot" that is the only fill pressure that needs to be tested & once you know that; the highest ME is from pellet "A", then you chrono your everyday (most accurate) pellet to see what that gives and simply keep the rifle set to that level with maybe a mag of the pellet "A" twice a year as a bench-line.

"Bottom line" is that Unless you intend to buy & test a tin of every single batch of every single pellet they ever make, then more than that is pointless, because it won't achieve anything further.

But crack on with whatever makes you happy.