On part of my permission there is a rimfire target club, they also do archery, an arrow left their range, and landed in the horses field that I shoot rabbits on, luckily they didn't hit a horse or me, but they seem to think that as they have insurance, that until someone is either hurt or maybe killed, it's not really a problem, as far as I'm concerned it's irresponsible and illegal, it's a wonder that nobody was actually hurt, any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Rog
A strongly worded letter to the club from the landowner where the arrow landed with the implied threat of legal/ police action should solve the problem. That should focus their mind.
Not disbelieving you but I find it very difficult to believe that they would display such an attitude, did an official of the club say this to you verbally?
If they shoot rimfire they will be a Home Office approved club, whatever other activities they carry out their approval could be removed for wreckless endangerment!
If it is a NDA range then no projectiles should leave the range.the email should have been worded differently and given assurance that they would work towards ensuring that this should/ could not happen again. However, it may not be clubs fault that the arrow was found where it was. Did anyone see the arrow leave the range??? There are a lot of devious bastids about!
Pistol & Rifle Shooting in the Highlands with Strathpeffer Rifle & Pistol Club. <StrathRPC at yahoo.com> or google it.
No longer Pumpin Oil but still Passin Gas!
If that is indeed as stated with nothing to say that they have put measures in place to assure it never happens again? then personally I would take that to the authorities.
If they are shooting .22RF there as you say then the attitude must be that a bullet is never able to leave the boundary regardless of a negligent discharge or other event, this mentality must be applied to any projectile leaving the boundary or else the attitude towards safety is negligent at best!
With respect, as you are not the owner of the land, the club probably had no legal requirement to reply to you at all.
In legal terms had the email included an apology, that apology would constitute an acceptance of blame for stray "projectiles" which could be used in any future insurance claim.
They have stated they realise the potential consequence, which is as close to "Oops sorry" as you're going to get, & have also stated that they have insurance to cover any loss/damage/injury, so I'm not sure what more you expected
My point with this, is as a responsible pest controller, I'm expected to obey the law, and keep my pellets within my permission, I don't think that the insurance company I'm with, would be happy to honour any claim made against me, if I do it wrong, and I don't think the police would pat me on the head and say naughty boy, don't do it again either. Or am I being naive, rules for one! Rog
You obviously missed the point so I'll use a more well known & obvious version.
Car insurance companies tell you to never accept or admit blame for an accident, OK ? well the same is true for shooting insurance & the club sec is simply doing their job.
Your insurance would be considerably less happy if any claimant produced a letter from you admitting that whatever had happened was entirely your responsibility and you would be extremely unhappy if due to the wording they were able to avoid paying & put the burden on to you.
Point not missed, but I haven't explained myself properly, after the arrow arrived in my permission, a woman from the archery club turned up to collect it, seemingly oblivious of the legalitys of the situation a bit like the kid next door asking for his ball back, again, I'm sure if they could have located the arrow, and not been seen by anyone they would have, but unfortunately, they weren't that lucky, and that's probably the reason for my email being replied to, hope that explains it better. Rog
As an ex-archer and coach (knackered wrists/shoulder) I have witnessed some amazing fliers when an arrow clips the edge of a boss; 45degrees outwards and upwards. Similarly seeing arrows that have overshot the boss clip a stone and skip upwards for a lot more yards than expected. However, the fliers did not have enough energy to stick in the ground and were invariably found lying on the grass/ground.
I am not condoning the stray shot - stray arrows should be retreived, and at up to £30 a pop, who wouldn't - just saying that the expectation is the straight line shot to target is expected to have suitable measures of containment/control, but there can still be circumstances where an arrow can go in an unusual direction usually with very little remaining energy. I have helped look for arrows and then found them several days later in very unexpected locations, but never sticking in anything.
A direct, aimed shot that left the range should have been dealt immediately with by whoever was controlling shooting at the time. That is inexcusable.
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Jerry
Hi Jerry, you will know what I mean, turns out they were clout shooting, I've done this myself, and the arrows come down point first, would have done a lot of damage to whoever or whatever it hit.Rog
the best thing you can do is get good life insurance as things do wrong in any sport that cant be helped, i have seen lots of things go wrong with the most experienced archers (ex comp archer myself) but the club in Question should have rules and procedures to try and prevent this from happening, but like i said sometimes it just simply cant be helped and usually they are the most deadly times