Safety with shot

An almost completely blind fox riddled with mange scurries along the outskirts of the village in broad daylight. It seems disoriented. A badger that’s been hit by a car and is severely injured seeks shelter under a log pile. What do you do when you unexpectedly come across a sight like this near a village and you only have a high-calibre rifle with you?
For safety reasons, there are only a few occasions where shooting these animals with a rifle would be an option. In the past few years alone, a wide array of accidents, some of which had terrible consequences, have proven to us how unpredictable ricochets can be when using rifles.

But with shot, by contrast, and lead shot in particular, the risk of ricochets occurring is not the only thing that is much easier to calculate. The shot’s much lower range is the main thing that minimises the danger zone when shooting. If you go by the usual rule of thumb that the universal lead shot size of 3 mm only has a maximum range of around 300 metres, even when shooting around 30 degrees in the air, the danger zone when shooting on natural or stony ground is even lower. It goes without saying that you still have to keep a very close eye on every possible risk and every eventuality when shooting with shot.
As always carrying your shotgun in addition to your rifle through your hunting ground is usually not practical, there is a place for the shotgun rifle now more than ever.

At least for all the hunters who aren’t just invited along to shoots as a guest, but who have a patch of land to look after. They will all see their combination guns as much more than just a reliable tool used during annual game hunting plans. The certainty alone that you can take every opportunity to hunt throughout the year is what makes combination guns so attractive. As modern over and under shotgun rifles and Drillings are evenly matched with single-barrel rifles in terms of their operation, safety and precision, opting for a combination gun is now an even easier choice to make.

Steel or lead? Safety is always paramount!

The increasing demand to stop using lead shot may be justified when it comes to hunting near bodies of water. Unlike trap shooting, where steel shot is swiftly becoming the norm and has very few disadvantages compared to lead shot, certain restrictions need to be in place when hunting. Whereas there is as of yet a maximum reasonable shooting distance of 40 metres for lead shot, with steel shot, you should never shoot game further away than 30 metres. However, when shooting foxes and badgers, particularly in cases like the ones described above, steel shot should never be recommended. Not only because the steel shot’s coverage is poorer as the necessary shot size here is larger, but also because of the very high risk of rebound with steel. If you’ve ever participated in Sporting competitions to shoot bolting rabbit clays on stony ground and have felt how painful these shot rebounds can be, even with the small 2.4 mm steel shots, you can imagine how high the risk of injury is with steel shot sizes of 3.2 mm to 3.7 mm – the ones suitable for hunting – might be. In all discussions of banning lead shot, we should therefore never lose sight of this important safety argument in favour of lead.