I hope that ALL in UK may write to their MP or to our shooting press if in agreement with this I've sent to the UK "Shooting Times":


Dear Editor,

Letters again "from Surrey" in support of the 2012 Olympic Shooting Facilities going to Bisley when really all should be against that proposal. Does the "Bisley Gun Club" aka the NRA not already have enough facilities already?

The NRA Website makes very clear that only NRA Full Members can use Bisley Ranges. So there is access only to the few and not the many that constitute the United Kingdom's licensed shooters.

It cannot be right that a body that is exclusive and that has ample facilities and in both 1988 and 1996 dismally failed to defend our shooting heritage should receive this gift to be able after 2012 to usurp for itself alone facilities paid for by all.

Let the facilities be at Woolwich or elsewhere so that they afterwards may go to the Midlands, to the North, to the West or to Scotland. Perhaps to Northern Ireland where pistol shooting is still lawful. But please not to be squandered on the "Bisley Gun Club".

Or at least the NRA must give now and for all time an unequivocal guarantee that if at Surrey these facilities will forever be open to all without requirement for any kind NRA Membership or Affiliation.

Hmm, yet another less than enamoured with the NRA's stewardship of our heritage

We are talking about olympic disciplines here only, so access to these ranges to other shooters are purely academic.

Varminter, F class, TR, steel plates, ISSF 300m 03 positions are not catered for.

In UK, 03 years ago (whe the figures were last published) there are 648 registered olympic trap shooters now just under 250

I don;t know the exact figures for Olympic Skeet and Double Trap but certain in the hundreds for skeet and in double digits for double trap.

There are at the moment 12 special FAC issured for pistol shooters (UIT rapid fire, in door 10m and air pistol) in UK sanctioned by a special Act of parliament. Holders of theese FAC are potential quota place contenders for UK in 2012.

All other ISSF and UIT diciplines such as 300m will not be catered for under these olympic facilities. So what are we talking about.......

The number of shooters who hunt and participate in these olympic diciplines number under 12 in the UK. We know of each other and we do not talk about it in the open. A lot of them would not even dare to admit they hunt because of fear from loss of sponsorship or training place.

Its a shame and total hypocracy

Bisley gun club is a Down the line club with under 100 paid up members. They rent their solitary range from the N.R.A. and they have a very narrow focus group of members. I really cannot see what they can achieve.

Sorry I just cannot see they point

The main obstabcle to relocating the olympic ranges to Bisley is with the Uk olympic delivery committe and no other bodies.

There are numerous other possbilities but they would not listen or consider.

Sorry I am rambling on but where ever these ranges are build in the near future, a hunter who wanders in with his / her ' £6000 mauser stutaen will not be ablt to zero it there because it is not that type of range. Membership or no membership does not come into it at all.

It shows the ignorance about olympic shooting diciplines in the media.

I was under the inpression that a BASC/CA or any other shooting organisation member can turn up and use the short/long siberia ranges if they booked a slot. You just need to turn up and flash the insurance.

We were there yesterday and shot some Skeet and trap, but personally I don't think the ground can be classed as woorld class by a long way. We had clays from the next door clay range falling in the shoot zone of or trap layout!!

To use Siberia its really very simple but since January 2009 you really do need certification as decreed by the freeholder namely the ARMY. Since technically it is an army range we have to do what they say and want us to do.

I fully agree the Clay ranges there are well below par for what they are.

The problems really started with the Commonwealth games in 2002. When they were given money to built the ranges from Lottery fund and sports England. They were built substandard and somebody obviously benefitted from this decision.

The canopy leaks..

The targets are not thrown to ISSF standard

Background has poor graduation

Background management is also poor i.e. debris management

These ranges need updating and hence the fight to bring the olympics here for 2012.

It really take very little money to bring it up to ISSF standard.

However nobody will listen

It is literally falling apart

Nobody who is of any international standard practices there even if it is FREE

In 2008 the National Shooting Centre lost the Olympic skeet UK selection shoot

In 2009 the same was lost for the OLympic trap UK selection shoot.

With the Olympic traps not coming here and funding cut for Uk shooting in the coming 04 years one can only see it going from worse to worse

Very SAD state of play indeed ..........

"I was under the inpression that a BASC/CA or any other shooting organisation member can turn up and use the short/long siberia ranges if they booked a slot. You just need to turn up and flash the insurance."

Not quite. You now have to have completed a range safety test and carry a copy of the certificate with you. For some reason best known to the NRA, these certificates are only valid for one year.
These chuffin tests took up an inordinate amount of time and quite interrupted to flow of the day at the last BASC Range day held at Bisley. There was nearly as much Bore Sighting as Boar shooting!

No. You cannot use ANY of the NRA Ranges unless you are either a full NRA Member or shooting on a "Open Day" or a pre-booked range day by an NRA Approved Club as part of the activities of that club.

You can no longer turn up and those and the days of buying a rifle, on your FAC of course, at Fulton's (or Pistol AD or the Bisley Arms Fair) and then taking it to Zero Range to "set it up" before taking it home are gone since 2007 or 2008.

More than once I've been to Bisley with an open variation on a FAC seen a rifle I've liked and then wlaked over to set the sights up on Zereo Range when I've bought it.