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Thread: RFD’s requirement if over 12ft/lbs

  1. #31
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    And the moral of the story is...

    Buy your own Combro and avoid arguments with RFDs.

  2. #32
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    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.
    BSA Super10 addict, other BSA's inc GoldstarSE, Original (Diana) Mod75's, Diana Mod5, HW80's, SAM 11K... All sorted!

  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by Beretta303 View Post
    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 ?
    Valid point obviously open to interpretation and opens up a new dilema. I have been having a go at our governing body about the last 17 years about using chronos in uncontrolled conditions (unaccredited) penalising law abiding shooters.

    On the other hand any RFD has had back ground checks, deemed responsible, bonifide and to do the right thing within constraints of the law. Therefore carry more weight than Joe blogs off the street or any other organisation.

    I would like to know the testing procedure of the (Skan) police chrono and the methods used? Every one tried to date since 1997 gives stupid readings indoors semi controlled and exactly the same with ALL other chronos. Luckilly mine ties in with the Labrador radar 98% of the year, if in doubt all light blocked out, not talking about 1% errors more in terms of +/-12% dependant how they are used.

    Have had to use Shauns Skan a few times, ok on many rifles but just will not register some to giving readings 300 -350 ft/sec unless literally 3 feet back. Other chronos it can read the blast at sub 7" and why you get a so called power rise adding some silencers on pulsing the first sensor before pellet. Well out the realms of the average RFD of distinction.
    Most constabularys dont test any more, if suspected theyre automatically sent off to the lab at £500 a pop. I offered but was declined with that response.

  4. #34
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    Using personal contacts, I have spoken to several senior police officers both in England and Scotland. They all told me the same thing: the police test is purely to establish whether it is reasonable to take any further action and especially whether to spend several hundred pounds of public money in sending the gun to a Home Office accredited forensic service. There is no need in law for the police test to take place at all and guns could be sent straight off to the forensic service.

    The only tests that have validity in law are those carried out by an accredited forensic/ballistic service, and part of the accreditation is calibration of the instruments used. This is one reason why police forces don't publish details of their testing procedures, what pellets they use or anything else - they don't need to, as their test is purely a police internal procedure.

    The only testing procedure I was able to lay my hands on (from a large English police force, dated 2013) was clear that this particular force used a Skan Mk 10 set 1 metre from the muzzle of the gun and used a range of pellets of different weights and types 'based on experience and advice from the manufacturers, but always inculding any pellets found in association with the gun'.

    Hope this helps, and please don't shoot the messenger - I am just passing on what I was told.

    Alan

  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fat_Controller View Post
    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

  6. #36
    secretagentmole Guest
    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!

  7. #37
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    I would imagine there'd be an element of common sense used in these situations .....

    A couple of my close friends are coppers down this way. One of them once told me that they couldn't give a monkeys if a genuine law abiding shooters air rifle creeps over by a couple of ftlb as, they'd probably never know about it, the owner would more than likely have plans to sort it and, they don't have the time or inclination to chase after airgun owners in a rural county.

    But, he did say that some scrote taking pot shots at windows with a rifle doing 12.5ftlb or, someone deliberately taking the piss by running their rifle way over the limit would be a different matter.

    I've got to know my RFD well - if he tested any of my rifles and found them to be a bit warm, I'm fairly certain he'd offer me a cuppa and half an hour in his workshop.
    ..... Not that he'd need to because he sold me my Combro and my Chrony.
    Where as, if some chav walked in with an unlicensed .22 pcp kicking out 30ftlb, he'd have a lot more to say on the matter.

    From what I've seen and, the people I've spoken to since I returned to the sport, as long as you keep an eye on what your rifles are doing, maintain them properly and, take any corrective action as necessary, there really is nothing to worry about.

    All of the above.

  8. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by secretagentmole View Post
    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!
    it is very unfair, I believe muzzle energy for sub 12s should really be measured by the Volume & Pressure of the compressed Gas released (like a set charge weight)

  9. #39
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    Personally, I think there's a good case for testing only with the pellets found with the gun.

    It's all very well saying that a gun is capable of being over with "Brand X" pellet but if the owner didn't have any Brand X pellets then the gun arguably wasn't capable at that time.

  10. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by DJP View Post
    Personally, I think there's a good case for testing only with the pellets found with the gun.

    It's all very well saying that a gun is capable of being over with "Brand X" pellet but if the owner didn't have any Brand X pellets then the gun arguably wasn't capable at that time.
    Agreed.

    it's a little more of a stretch of imagination, but imagine if the same (bullshit) wording was attached to a vehicle's ability for exceeding the speed limit.
    You might run it on normal unleaded, but if plod used ethanol in your car to test it, to push the 'capable' theory, it could very well exceed 70mph.

    Whether you use it with ethanol, or not.
    Join the Free Speech Union
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  11. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by bighit View Post
    it would be if they use xylene to get conviction
    Max'll be along soon...
    Join the Free Speech Union
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  12. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by snock View Post
    Max'll be along soon...
    sorry Pete .I deleted it as i thought it was not in line with the thread .
    No doubt he used it in the air rifle that his mate shot a rabbit stone dead with at a 1/4 of a mile . I wish i could find that post now


    found that post Pete

    http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....73#post7431573 post 12.
    Last edited by bighit; 20-02-2018 at 05:34 PM.

  13. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by snock View Post
    Agreed.

    it's a little more of a stretch of imagination, but imagine if the same (bullshit) wording was attached to a vehicle's ability for exceeding the speed limit.
    You might run it on normal unleaded, but if plod used ethanol in your car to test it, to push the 'capable' theory, it could very well exceed 70mph.

    Whether you use it with ethanol, or not.
    I don't like motoring analogies, but it's more like prosecuting someone for speeding on the basis that they would have been over the limit if they'd been driving on a different road.

    More than a tad silly.

  14. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fat_Controller View Post
    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.

  15. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by spartan View Post
    quote ,,,I am an RFD, if somebody brings me a faulty gun which chrono's over 12FtLb then it is immediately locked in the cabinet for disposal, repair or until the owner has applied for and received the relevant certificate to possess the gun as an FAC (Section 1) airgun. The customer will be made aware that it is a lengthy process and the storage charges may be more than the gun is worth.

    I to am an RFD, i was told by West Mids Police that if a situation like that arises where a customers gun is tested and found to be over the limit, i was to give it them back and recommend they reduce the power, When i questioned this i was told, if i was to accept the gun, i would be in charge of a illegal gun, thus i would be breaking the law, Common sence would say as an rfd, i would be able to reduce the power for the customer, making it legal, rather then letting him walk away, with technically a firearm, then everyone's happy and legal, but no if i accept it, i could be done!!, Even the officer i asked thought what i said was logical, but as he said, he's only following the rules.

    Personally i wouldn't like the idea of taking someone's gun of them if it was slightly over, dont think they would be to happy

    It seems to me, that certain police forces interpret the law to suit themselves, as obviously Tom was told different to me, as he could take the gun of a customer, Who's right??
    Its more this^

    The non FAC rifle has failed its MOT and should be corrected so doesn't fall foul of any laws. Joe Blogs doesn't have the ability to know what power their rifle is, which has been tested in Court. Once he does he is responsible to get it back under the limit. The best defence is never have a gun tested and don't own a chrony. Put a new spring in it then it requires testing.

    For a RFD then its not their property, so best to advise the owner to get the gun sorted as fast as feasible. The owner now knows that the gun requires a service. A bit like a RFD seeing a gun obviously out of proof and advise accordingly.
    This shouldn't be confused with an RFD selling an out of proof gun, or an air rifle over the legal limit. They have due care, and beyond, on this.

    It must be remembered that any air rifle can be forced to go over the limit, through dieseling. However, if it was to it would be unintentional, the manufacturer, the RFD, the owner, wasn't intentional nor aware. Once aware then the onus is to have it serviced and the error corrected.

    A FAC rifle once registered as a FAC Rifle cannot be un-FAC'ed. However, for a non FAC gun when serviced its normal that some fettering would be required to get it set up correctly to the right power. Once a gun has been found to be over the limit, it may well require proof that every effort was being made to reduce it back under the limit. Taking the spring out would show some effort was made, and getting it booked in for a service. Having said that home servicing is also worthy, just more difficult to prove; book in another chrony test as you would going back for another MOT after a small failure.
    Last edited by Muskett; 18-02-2018 at 05:13 PM.

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