It is a happy fact that the low power of sub-12ft/lb airguns means they can be shot in a moderately-sized garden. Stick to a few basic rules and you can enjoy tin-toppling plinking sessions, quick zero checks and fun target shooting with friends and family in your own backyard.
For some, shooting tin cans and other improvised targets over relatively short distances is as good as it gets. And it’s easy to see why. There’s the convenience factor for one – the ability to pop out the backdoor when the mood takes you. And of course, the kettle is never far away.
For others, being able to shoot in the back garden serves a different, perhaps more occasional, purpose – the need to zero or check zero before hunting. Or maybe to test a rifle that is being worked on for example.
But no matter whether you’re a dedicated or infrequent back garden plinker, the need to shoot safely within the law and stay on the right side of your neighbours is paramount.
There are a few cast iron laws that you must follow when it comes to shooting an airgun in the back garden, and remember also to always exercise common sense. In Scotland, you are required to notify the police so they can carry out a safety assessment.
The most important law is the need to ensure every pellet you shoot stays within the boundary of your property. That includes ricochets, which means an utterly reliable backstop is vital.
Equally important is the legal requirement to ensure you are not within 50 feet or 15 metres of the centre of a public road if shooting your airgun is deemed to potentially cause injury, interruption or endangerment.
There are, however, a number of advisable precautions that come under the ‘common sense’ heading. Only you will be able to determine what they should be, but consider, for example, putting up a sign to tell others that shooting is in progress, especially if your garden can be accessed from somewhere in addition to where you are shooting from. Even better if you can lock that back gate.
It's also worth letting everyone else in the house, especially children, know that you are going to be shooting. And keep pets locked indoors while you’re having your fun.
The commonsense principle also extends to neighbours. In theory there’s very little they can do as long as you are observing the law and taking other sensible safety considerations. However, no one wants a row with next door and the noise you make, either from your rifle or pistol or from pellets hitting the target and backstop, is usually the cause of most fallings out.
Of course, much will depend on your existing relationship with your neighbours, but consider popping round to tell them what you are planning, explain the precautions you have taken and laws you are complying with. Perhaps even invite them to pop round and have a go for themselves.
Once you’re happy you’re on the right side of the law and the neighbours, your next task is to ensure you have a suitable backstop – one that not only prevents pellets from straying but ideally deadens the sound of their impact too.
For some back garden shooters, coming up with a backstop is almost as much fun as shooting and some of the designs are as creative and inventive as they are beautiful to look at. Others forgo the desire to create the ultimate airgun altar and prioritise function instead.
Try to avoid using wood as a backstop. It may be convenient to pin targets onto, but it has a tendency to result in pellets bouncing back, especially when using lower power airguns designed specifically for the garden.
Brick or concrete paving slabs are a good choice as any pellet that hits is likely to flatten on impact and simply drop to the ground, especially if you can fashion a slight downward angle.
Sheet steel will kill pellets just as effectively but unlike brick or stone will make a potentially neighbour antagonising sound after each shot. By the same token, while pellet catchers are ideal for holding targets, they can be noisy.
Sand or earth makes an excellent and quiet backstop, especially if you can fashion some kind of bunker from brick or stone to contain it in. Lower powered Co2 BB airguns are more likely to ricochet than anything else and using an earth or sand backstop is by far the safest option. While you’re at it, a pair of glasses is also a good idea.
One of my early home ranges comprised three or four 100 litre peat bales stacked into a three-walled brick bunker. In addition to being ideal for pinning and taping targets to, the bags filled the bunker with peat as the shots tore them apart, providing an ideal base for knockdown and all kinds of improvised targets.
One of the negatives associated with shooting in the garden is the fact you are potentially contaminating the ground with lead. A sand or peat backstop will also enable you to sieve out your spent pellets so they can be disposed of or recycled responsibly.
A favourite way to deaden the noise of pellets striking a hard backstop used to be to place an old phone directory in front of it. Tape your paper target to the directory and pellets are slowed down as they cut through the pages, leaving them with very little momentum if they reach the backstop. Unfortunately, phone directories aren’t so easy to get hold of now.
If you are using a metal pellet catcher, try stuffing it with old rags. The resistance caused by the rags will slow down the pellets and muffle the noise of their impact.
Almost as important as the backstop is the platform from which you shoot. You can of course simply pull up a deck chair. A table or some other kind of rest not only makes shooting more comfortable, it will encourage you to shoot from the same position that is aligned with your backstop thereby reducing the potential for an errant shot from a different angle.
If your shooting aspirations are limited to the garden, there are plenty of low-powered PCP, C02 and spring airguns that are ideal and just as accurate as full-power guns over short distances.
Bear in mind though that with the potential for noise to be an irritant to even the most accommodating of neighbours, it’s a good idea to ensure that whatever airgun you use can be fitted with a silencer.
We all got into airgun shooting because it’s fun. And for most of us, it all started with shooting in the back garden.
There are a lot more rules today, and it seems that many more people like complaining and being offended. But, as long as you observe the law, take a few sensible precautions and make an effort to stay on the right side of the neighbours, observing the most import rule of all – to have as much fun as you possibly can – it is easy.
