Introducing the February Issue

Welcome to The Vintage Gun Journal, your free-to-view monthly magazine for all things British gun and rifle.

The shooting season here in England is over. As the season progresses on our small shooting syndicate, where we do our own 'keepering, take turns to be the beating team or the shooting team and look after the shoot as best we can, we often see the numbers of birds in each drive often tail-off in January.

In compensation, that last month of the season often produces the most sporting and strongly-flying pheasants, as well as an increase in the numbers of migratory woodcock springing from the woods and hedgerows.

I especially like working my two vizslas in January, as the ground cover has become more manageable, and this season my young bitch, Worm, has finally started to show some more courage, though still very much looking to her mum for reassurance.

On the last day she produced some textbook, rigid points to birds we had walked over and which were sitting tight.

These days, I confess, I probably get more enjoyment from watching the dogs at work than from dropping challenging birds, though I still enjoy my shooting.

I had the pleasure of using a few new guns this season: a Lancaster slide-and-tilt, 12-bore being one and another being a Thomas Bissell 1866 patent hammer 12-bore.

However, the last couple of shoots of every season are reserved for my father's old Webley & Scott Model 700, 12-bore.

He was gifted it (new) for his birthday when he was a teenager in the late 1950s and it was passed to me when I was thirteen, a sobering forty-four years ago!

I will pass it on to my nephew one day and can only hope that he gets to enjoy shooting it for another half century.

February brings us the British Shooting Show at the NEC, in Birmingham. I hope to see some readers when I visit, on the friday. Purdey, Westley Richards, Rigby, Holland & Holland, and more will be exhibiting.

There is even a rumour that I have been shortlisted for an award!

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