there are pigeons in a tall tree above my garden that, of an evening, like to recreate the Somme in the decked area with their multi-coloured scatter-gun droppings.
the only way I can see of getting rid of them is to shoot them down.
the legalities, as I understand them, of shooting stuff in my garden is that it is fine as long as the pellets don’t leave the boundary of the garden.
so, technical questions are, can I be sure that if I shoot up in the air that 1) the pellets aren’t going to land outside the garden boundary 2) that they won’t hurt anyone when they return to earth; what is the terminal velocity of a standard air rifle round falling from the sky?

i’m presently at my old man’s B & B in North Norfolk and the buggers are a) very big wood pigeons b) quite bold and c) in plentiful supply. Next week he has a guy who comes every year who’s a registered pet controller and he will only use a very powerful catapult to take them out.

They then barbeque them

If it was me I wouldn’t worry about pellets leaving your property providing they don’t hit anyone.

If they go outside you are breaking the law. Easy. Just wait until the angles are right. You never know who is waiting to cause grief.

What’s behind your garden as in the backdrop? If it’s fields fire away but if it’s houses or public pathway your a bit stumped. Although if your a crackshot like me you won’t miss 🙂
On a serious note though only shoot for the head and yes it’s not a big target I know but there’s a very good reason. Use a .22 rifle as .177 calibre could rip straight through and I say go for the head as hitting the body is a big no no as if you hit the crop the pigeon will just fly off and have a painful death so be humane please.

Head shot a pigeon .. you would have to be an Olympic standard marksman to hit it anything further than 20yds or so.
Middle of the chest will cleanly dispatch them.
That said .. the law says all birds are protected.
You have to have a good reason to shoot them and show that you have tried other methods first .. thats strictly by the law of course.
Just mention your plan of attack to your neighbours first .. shouldnt have any probs then.

as mattsscm said just wait until you can get them safely,

i have the same issue here but with a very long garden complete with a footpath at the end, my garden has a full width brick shed but either side of that is trees and bushes, i know if i take a shot past the brick or above, the angle would be perfect to put a shot into a passer by’s head,if i shoot over the shed profile the shot will carry into the garden behind it on the other side of the path,

i wait until the flying rats land in my kill zone which is any where below the profile and sides of the shed backstop, i have taken three in the last 2 months and a total of double figures in the last couple of years,

a good silencer is worth the expense too,

just as a guide i put a .177 pellet clean through my 3/4” shed door last week chipping the paint off my compressor receiver in the process, that was after it had debrained the pigeon at 30 meters, the shed door is 55 metres from the aiming point.

be careful, you don’t want to be visited by the police and you defo don’t want to end up wounding someone. that would not go down to well at all.

be careful, you don’t want to be visited by the police

IME they phone you first, had a long conversation with them about shooting rats from my bedroom window. They didn’t agree with my argument was safer that way as the pellet is always heading down, I think his eyes glazed over when I went all “James May” on him explaining that this was the reason that MG nests are best situated at ground level as the bullets just keep on going.

Don’t bother shooting them

booby trapped inflammable christmas trees, crafty. How do you prevent them going off when song birds land on them ?

booby trapped inflammable christmas trees, crafty. How do you prevent them going off when song birds land on them ?

As with all operations, there’s a possibility of collateral damage, wrong place, wrong time – whooshhhhhhhhh…………..

Head shot a pigeon .. you would have to be an Olympic standard marksman to hit it anything further than 20yds or so.

Do you heck but I was in the National Squad so I was pretty good :D. A good air-rifle, well set up will easily hit a pigeons head out to a good distance with a decent marksman behind the sights. If your not confident of hitting the head then get someone who is as like I said, body shots on a pigeon are not good and the last thing you want is one flying off wounded into a neighbours garden and be found by them and you then get reported to the police. Remember, the police do NOT like firearms offences of any kind and they will take action against you and the punishment is severe.

just as a guide i put a .177 pellet clean through my 3/4” shed door last week chipping the paint off my compressor receiver in the process, that was after it had debrained the pigeon at 30 meters, the shed door is 55 metres from the aiming point.

Wow, how much power has your .177?

pigeon head shot up to 50 yards ok as long as scope sighted properly. as for pellet velocity et etc they weigh nothing so wouldnt hurt a fly if just falling but! do not let it leave property, as prev. mentioned ditty babylon dont like it!

Wow, how much power has your .177?

12ft.lbs and not a penny more occifer.

What? These washers here? No they’re just there for cosmetic reasons, honestly.

You need an ACME pidginator 5000…..guaranteed to succeed!…

The law states it’s an offense to discharge a weapon within 15 meters (or 50 feet) of a highway (this does not include footpaths/bridleways etc) ….and here’s the important bit…. if doing so would cause danger or disruption to a user of said highway.

If you are not a regular shooter of air rifles you are just going to end up wounding the bird, it’s not going to be a nice experience going to find it to dispatch it cleanly. Especially if it falls in the neighbors garden or in the road. Just get pest control in, bet it will be cheaper than a nice gun and scope.

anyone remember there used to be a 24ft lbs air rifle once , was supersonic (or maybe twice super.) apparently

Ive got one of these, think it’s all of 1ft/lb. Can see the pellet fall out the muzzle 😉

fortunately have also an HW35 carbine for vermin bashing.

I’d advise against it. The legalities –

The only defence to firing an air weapon beyond the premises is if you can show that the only premises into or across which the missile was fired were premises the occupier of which had consented to the firing of the missile (whether specifically or by way of a general consent).

It is also against the law, in England and Wales, to fire an air rifle within 50 feet of the centre of a highway if this results in someone being injured, interrupted or endangered.

s. 21A The Firearms Act 1968.

People are also under the misapprehension that all birds considered as vermin can be shot at any time and by anyone, which is not entirely true. All birds and animals are protected by law and only “authorised” persons – and I’m assuming the OP isn’t, who have proper permission can lawfully do so.

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981

Maybe use a scarecrow or other visual scarer –

the law says all birds are protected.

No it doesn’t.

Stoner

Weirhauch, nice – I’ve an HW55M (very, very accurate but underpowered).

Now we’ve moved to the ‘country I’ve been looking for something with more ‘umph’, but unsure what to get.

oh dear pigeons are just a ruddy nuisance i should know,… they’ve been sat on my roof for decades :twisted:..they wont budge :cry:…literally lived on our roof for years… filling up my gutters eating away at my roof…. took pictures sent them to the council numerous times…they wont help ..(only if you live in a council house then they mite help) :twisted:….. years ago they would be shot down in the early hours…nothing like that now…and they used to put poison out hidden in bread…. my roof is extremely high and what they pigeons do is they go down they market to be fed then they fly back up to my roof to nest….grrrrrr…. a never ending battle… 🙄 …you have to be so careful these days who is watching you cos you could end up worse off ! 😉

CFh – I think you’re quoting moomman but I think he’s right as per my post. I’m prepared to be corrected though?

The law doesn’t protect all birds, it restricts those who can kill ’em. The “permission” piece is largely irrelevant, IMO.

Plus – Define pigeon…

In Britain the shooting of collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto) and the feral pigeon (descended from Columba livia) is also permitted all year round.

http://www.basc.org.uk/en/codes-of-practice/woodpigeon-shooting.cfm

If a .177 can go through a 3/4 wood door at 55meters … It def over the legal limit.
A .177 pellet is so light it loses its clout very quickly.
And all these headshots at 50yds etc ….
Yeh – sure you do Elmer ..

feinwerkbau, tuned for smoothness, all polished internals, by me old man, drilled piston etc. old but super accurate, added barrel weights custom stock etc.

used to be able to hit empty shotgun cartridge at over 80 yards!

As a kid I always wanted a theoben rapid seven, although the rifle that everyone said was ace vermin gun was the HW77
Theoben

HW77

In the end I got into Fullbore 7.62 target rifle and 12 bore for vermin control. Got a handful of national caps at TR and got to shoot in the National Schools shotgun comp at Shugborough.
Ive let my bang licences lapse though so now stick to the air rifle.

Careful now, Stoner…..you’ll be accused of being a bloodthirsty, violent fantasist before you know it! 😉

Cfh you miss a bit off the end

is also permitted all year round

… under the current general license arrangements.

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 states that it is an offence to kill any bird – including pigeons – unless a license is held, but section one allows exemption if an organisation or individual complies with general license regulations. This would require a specific public health risk to be identified and other non-lethal methods to be used to disperse the birds before taking the decision to shoot them.

You can’t just shoot a fricking pigeon without being a licence authorised person.

Being an engineer I could easily “tune” my guns and did so to my Weihrauch HW80 where I polished the internals to a mirror, enlarged the transfer port and fitted a special spring and it was er slightly illegal. I did use it for FT shooting when it was in it’s infancy and they didn’t check the power of the guns then. But i took it a game fair and Airgun World had a stall and a famous writer was testing guns for people and so I took mine in for testing just to see. Well it came out at 17.2 ft/lbs which is way way over the legal limit but the guy was amazed at it’s consistency as it varied hardly anything per shot and he offered buy it there and then. I said no and then went on to finish 3rd in the shoot that day with it. It was an incredible rifle with a big 8×56 Kassnar Beta 3 scope on it and was a joy to shoot – illegally though!

You can‘t just shoot a fricking pigeon without being a licence authorised person if you are given permission to do so by a landowner who complies with the general license regulations.

AFAIK. But then, I’m not a lawyer. I do love a bit of tasty pigeon salad, though! 😉

anyone remember there used to be a 24ft lbs air rifle once , was supersonic (or maybe twice super.) apparently

Hmmm. Surely at 24 the pellet would need to be so heavy so as to obtain super sonic velocities that it would simply roll out of the end of the barrel…

Hadge which national squad ? 10m air rifle/pistol and when ? I as I have had a few years in them a few years back.

brakes will the pigeons come down for food ? otherwise dont do it you could end up in bother.

I do love a bit of tasty pigeon salad

That’s not something I’d coo about. 🙂

thanks for the info everyone.
you have no idea how much they crap – they sleep in the tree and just shit all night – everyday I have to clean it up, it’s disgusting – I have friends/ family with young children and they can’t play in the garden if it hasn’t been cleaned up.

what would pest control do? would they shoot them?

if I somehow got permission to shoot them (if it’s required) I guess I could put food out and see if they’ll come down to feed – that would make it safer and easier to hit them.

the garden is more than 15 metres from the highway. the garden is bounded on either side by other gardens. there is unused land behind my garden that belongs to the freeholder. a fence at the back about 100ft from the back of my property, and a large (5 storey) brick wall of a residential block beyond that.

what about a catapult? how legal/ accurate are they?

Hw100 thumbhole rifle with hw silencer and very tasty MTC viper 50mm optics, set up on shooting bean bag in daughters window, as far as i know it’s legal i’ve never done anything to it and i’ve had it from new, i only shoot hw pellets as i gave up on JSB’s as the quality had gone downhill a few years back,

shot that door as a back stop many times before and it’s never gone through, saturday it did ?

it could be weather specific ?

haven’t had the gun tested in a few years but they are known to creep up and are bang on the limit with hw ammo,

would happily post a picture if i could be arsed.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/InYourHome/PestAndWeedControl/DG_10030298

Check out the section ‘Taking further action to deal with nuisance birds’ and apply for a licence under the grounds of public health – danger to the nippers in the garden etc. See what the local council can do for you.

Kidnap a Sparrowhawk for a few days. Tie it to piece of string just long enough to reach your gardens’ furthest extreme and bish bash. Keep chasing it off the prey and it’ll continue to hunt.

Possibly…