I've read of several experiences with D&C police being very unreasonable and making up their own rules. To add to that when I had my .375H&H my force were willing to give it to me for large Deer and I had a contact in Devon who would give me written permission to shoot them. Well it got as far as D&C police who then stated that they will not pass any land in their area for .375! It was a whole valley and more than suitable but no, they don't do that?!
Thanks for the info - are we to take it that your FAC wasn't 'open' at the time, otherwise why would it have been neccessary for land to be cleared for the .375? And what's the thing with 'large deer' - if it's deer legal calibre it's suitable for use on all deer isn't it?
I see this as another case of them ignoring the guidelines. Ok it may be in our favour but they're still ignoring them. On the whole that's not a good thing and a .243 isn't exactly ideal for something as hard as a Pig is it? It's questionable on large Deer! It will kill them and is fine in some circumstances, but in general something bigger is much more suitable!
Agreed that .243 might not be ideal for driven boar, but shooting as we would deer at a static target, possibly from a highseat, I can't see it creating too much of a problem as long as people are sensible about using a decent bullet weight and construction. As Chickenman has quite correctly stated, the reason behind the arbitary .270 recommended by DEFRA et al might just be because it was the standard calibre used by the FC and no real thought went into the decision - our european neighbours will allow smaller calibres than that and the 6.5x55 comes readily to mind. The plus side for D&C residents with deer legal calibres is that at a stroke it removes many of the hurdles they would have had to jump to get boar on their FACs, so all-in-all I think it's a positive devolpment.
My reason for originally stating that D&C firearms dept were IMO quite sensible in discharging their duties was based on my 20+ years of dealing with them both as an individual and obtaining visitors permits for stalking clients - I could have used Avon & Somerset where our office was based but D&C were just so much more efficient. My relatively recent return to stalking and re-issue of FAC has likewise been relatively grief free due to the HQ staff - although the local FEO was a nightmare and freely admitted to knowing little about firearms, and I've detailed the fun and games we had elsewhere. Above all they appear to act in a very open manner as you can see from the minutes of the FLC published on the web, and anyone with a issue can contact one of the committee members and get their point put to the department officially and investigated and acted on.
The last thing is, does anyone know of any other force south of Hadrians Wall that places one simple condition on an FAC that covers
all the four rifles from .22RF to .308, including 12 bore slug, thereby putting the onus on the holder to make decisions on what would be suitable or legal for any species/circumstance?
"The firearms and ammunition, shall be used for shooting deer and any other lawful quarry and for zeroing on ranges, or land over which the holder has lawful authority to shoot."
So overall, and having read the horror stories from elsewhere, I'd say they are one of the more progressive forces in administering the Firearms Act