Interviews Archives - Page 3 of 3 -

The Big Interview: Andrew Hood (Archery Instructor)

With our store selling everything from compound bows to arrow quivers, it seemed only fair that we interview someone from the world of archery, for the avid and passionate fanbase that buy our products.

That’s why our correspondent Hazel Randall talked to archery instructor, Andrew Hood, nine-times winner of the Norfolk Championships (in consecutive years), founder-owner of the successful archery training and advisory business, Feathers and Fletchings, based in Worstead in Norfolk, and proud owner of a banana-yellow Triumph 955 RS.

Andy – tell us about Feathers and Fletchings.

We do archery-related stuff. We’re archery coaches, mainly. We run sessions for schools and colleges, activity centres, sports centres … that sort of thing. We provide private coaching – that’s the really intense stuff for competitive archers – and we do a lot of these two-and-a-half-day Archery GB Instructor courses. Hopefully that’s a sign of increasing opportunities for youngsters to learn archery.

We’re technical advisors to Hautbois Activity Centre in Coltishall, and a number of other centres across the country. We provide information and guidance regarding industry compliance, teaching practices, personal safety, range position … and we organise their staff training.

Is the arrow wrap product Fletch-o-Set your own design?

Yes – I’m an inventor!

The arrows we usually use for teaching are made of aluminium. Now, there’s a natural oxide layer on the surface of metal that delays corrosion, but to thicken the oxide layer and increase resistance to wear and tear and corrosion, the aluminium is anodised. Are you keeping up?

Just about.

Good. Well, the anodising process leaves the aluminium slightly oily, which makes things very difficult when it comes to sticking on the fletchings. That’s where Fletch-o-Set comes in. It’s a strip of vinyl with an adhesive backing that’s wrapped around the back portion of the arrow shaft, forming a barrier between the oily surface of the metal and the glue that attaches the fletchings.

We can print whatever you like on your Fletch-o-Set strips – a club’s or sponsor’s logo, for example – so it serves a proprietary purpose as well.

Do you teach people with physical disabilities?

Yes, we do. There are ways to accommodate students with disabilities, and this is actually a big part of the GB Instructor training course.

Equal opportunity is key. I’m not talking about equal or uniform treatment. You need to treat people in very different ways if you’re going to provide them with the opportunity to achieve equally. We train instructors to assess the needs of individuals and to provide the help that they need.

I’ll give you some examples: a blind archer may need a tactile sighting aid; an archer with only one arm may need someone to lend a hand in holding the bow or some form of mechanical device to pull and release the string; a wheelchair user may need a little help in manoeuvring the wheelchair.

As an instructor, you have to be aware of different needs and you have to be constantly developing the skills to adapt your lessons to these needs. I’ve worked with severely abused kids. Their perception of right and wrong – i.e. the consequences of ‘doing something wrong’ – is sometimes warped, and can be detrimental to learning. Reassurance and consistent treatment will help to free a child from the bonds of fear. Sounds a bit fluffy, I know, but fear is restrictive. Take social anxiety – a perfect example.

What were you doing before wielding bows and doing archery-related stuff?

Until eighteen years ago, I was an engineer, working in steel fabrication. One particular job I’m very proud of is the design and construction of the enormous steel brazier that contained the first millennium beacon, lit by the Queen.

I know that you care deeply about giving children the opportunities they deserve. Can you tell us about Kids With Cake?

Well, it’s a simple system whereby a proportion of our turnover is siphoned off for the purpose of providing free sessions for disadvantaged kids who wouldn’t otherwise get the opportunity to have a go at archery.

The name comes from an experience I had when teaching after-school archery sessions at a school for ‘difficult’ children. It’s a long story. It’s on the website of one of my other companies. (click here for more).

While we’re talking about kids with cake, I might as well mention the Big Brownie Tea Party in August 2014. I taught an archery session in the garden at 10 Downing Street with 100 brownies – and David Cameron!

Have you ever taught archery abroad?

Yes, a few times. And I’ve also been taught abroad. I had a wonderful experience at the US Olympic Training Centre in California. I was trained by head coach, KiSik Lee, and was awarded Level IV Performance Coach status. I’m not a big-headed person, but I’m really proud of this achievement; there aren’t many coaches outside the US who are trained and qualified to this level.

The laws of physics, as defined by Scottie in Star Trek …

(Andy has an exceptional knowledge of human behaviour and the psychology of learning. He also has an in-depth understanding of the science of archery. He hides his intelligence pretty well, though, behind humour and brusqueness.

When I asked Andy for a business card, he said he couldn’t find any, but he produced, instead, four playing cards – all Kings of Hearts. Then, at point blank range, he performed card tricks that had us all gaping. He told us about his magic tricks.)

Sometimes a group of kids will get restless. You might have children wandering away, others being noisy – and maybe a quiet kid is left out. That’s when I bring out the card tricks. It’s like a magnet. They gather round, totally focussed – and unified in one activity.

(The four playing cards turned out to be business cards!)

You can find out more about Andy and archery training with Feathers And Fledglings at the official site. And we have archery equipment for sale including compound bows and arrow quivers in our ecommerce store.

You can also learn how to shoot a recurve bow in our blog.

The Big Inteview: John Bidwell

This month, we spoke to veteran shotgun champion, John Bidwell. The Suffolk-based shooter is highly respected in the world of shooting, and has won in venues all over the world – from Spain to Australia, Germany to America, and many at home in Britain. In this interview, he shares with us his illustrious shooting career, his conferencing and shooting venue High Lodge, Clay Pigeon Shooting Association, charity work, and much more.

With seven World Championship titles in individual events and 30 years’ participation in the Great Britain shooting team, 68-year-old John Bidwell is still competing at international level in the Super Veteran category. He is the inventor and manufacturer of the Auto Sporter Clay Trap machine and the founding owner of one of the most prodigious shooting venues in the country. John is the author of Move, Mount, Shoot: A Champion’s Guide to Sporting Clays, described as ‘the only comprehensive manual’ of the maintained lead method of shooting.

Do you come from a shooting background, John?

No, I don’t. My dad really wasn’t a fan of guns, although he’d worked as an armourer during the war. I got no encouragement from my parents when it came to shooting. I loved the sport, though, and I grabbed every opportunity to practise. In the late 1960s, when I was in my early twenties, I joined a shooting club, and ten years later I was part of the Great Britain shooting team. I’d never had a single lesson!

Tell us about your first shooting club and how you moved on to High Lodge.

The sport had been rapidly gaining popularity during the 1970s, and in 1982, we – my wife, Sally, and I – leased a bit of land at Henham Park in Suffolk, bought some second-hand equipment, and set up our first shooting club. I’d already got this vision of helping to make shooting a more mainstream sport, giving everybody the opportunity to have a go. I did some coaching while Sally ran the clubhouse. I say ‘clubhouse’ – it was a portable hut where members could get a hot drink and a burger!

In 1989, when the lease on the Henham Park land was about to run out, we got the opportunity to buy 100 acres of land at Hinton in Suffolk.

Can you describe High Lodge?

Well, I’m very proud of the fact that it’s one of only a few British shooting venues with a CPSA Premium rating. We’re now a 120-acre luxury resort, catering for conferences and corporate hospitality, short breaks, and celebratory occasions; we do quite a few weddings, actually. I run it with my two daughters, Jane and Helen. Sadly, Sally died in August 2011. She’s very much missed in the shooting world.

A popular feature at High Lodge is our ‘indoor’ outdoor range. Safety cages are incorporated into 12’ by 8’ wooden structures that provide shelter for people and equipment. We have a golf course, which opened in March 1998, an archery range, and two half-acre fishing lakes.

As far as accommodation goes, we’re growing. At the moment we have 19 luxury lodges – with planning permission for an additional 32, which are presently under construction. We have some rather nice function rooms and five-star catering, with extensive parking – and even helicopter landing facilities.

Is the Auto Sporter Clay Trap your own invention?

Absolutely. When we opened High Lodge, all the traps were manually operated, which was restrictive for shooters, because you couldn’t just pop out for a session without booking someone to pull. So, during the following few years, I worked on the production of electrically powered traps. My first model ran off the mains, but eventually we had the Auto Sporter Clay Trap machine, which is still manufactured on site at High Lodge by experienced technicians and engineers. It’s supplied to shooting clubs and competitive events all over the world and is used in conjunction with an automatic counter system.

What is your connection with Blaser, the German gun manufacturer?

Fourteen years ago, Blaser got me to help them design their new F3 model. I showcased the F3 prototype shotgun for sale in the FITASC World Championship in France – and actually won! This was great publicity for the F3. I’ve had a close relationship with Blaser and the F3 ever since.

… And other sponsorships?

I have a long-standing relationship with Eley, the leading shotgun cartridges manufacturer, and I’ve recently engaged in mutual promotion with Lings of Lowestoft and their Mitsubishi L200 truck.

Tell us about your relationship with the CPSA. You’re Honorary Vice President.

The CPSA – that’s the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association – takes good care of its members. But the recruitment of new members is a role typically taken on by clubs like ours. The have-a-go sessions that I organise at shooting events, and the accessibility to the sport that High Lodge offers, open the door to beginners. At High Lodge, a special rate is offered to anyone who joins the CPSA – in fact, High Lodge recruits more CPSA members than any other club in the country.

What’s coming up this year for you?

Okay – I’ll give you a list of events. There’ll be have-a-go sessions at most of these.

High Lodge is well known for its charity events. Is this an important part of your work?

Yes, we’ve hosted many fundraising events for causes like East Anglian Children’s Hospices (EACH), East Anglian Air Ambulance, Cancer Research, The Multiple Sclerosis Society, Macmillan … and lots of others. One particular cause that’s close to our hearts is the care of Guillain-Barré sufferers; this is the debilitating disease that attacked Sally five years ago. We have an annual memorial shoot for Sally. I donated my solid silver World Championship trophy, won in 1996, as the champion’s prize for this event.

John is running a series of ‘have a go’ drop in sessions at his lodge. The dates are.

April 25^th-26^th: East Anglian Game & Country Fair at the Norfolk Showground, NR11 7WW

June 15^th-18^th: The Clay Shooting Classic at High Lodge, IP17 3QT

July 2^nd-3^rd: Country Fair at Heveningham Hall Estate, IP19 0PN

September 1^st-4^th: CPSA British Open Championship at High Lodge, IP17 3QT

September 10^th-11^th: Sandringham Game and Country Fair, PE35 6EN

You can learn more about John Bidwell and the services and events at High Lodge by heading to the official site.

And you can check out out our range of shotgun for sale by heading to our store. We sell shotgun cartridges by a range of manufacturers, here.

And learn more about clay pigeon shooting by heading to the CPSA website here.

The Big Interview: Kate Griffiths

kate-griffiths-shooting — Award-winning Olympic hopeful, Kate Griffiths

This month, we spoke to Kate Griffiths, winner of the Kent County HFT (Hunter Field Target) Pistol Championship and the SEAC (South East Airgun Club) HFT Pistol Championship. Kate told us about her shooting career so far, her love of Umarex and Steyr airguns, and her hopes of competing in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

When did you start shooting? Were you very young?

No, I’ve only been shooting seriously, as a sport, for a few years. I’d handled guns before, of course, during my army training, but it wasn’t something I had a great interest in. And then I started watching the shooting events at the 2012 London Olympics – and I got hooked. I actually got the opportunity to go to the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, where the shooting events were held, and I really felt the urge to have a go. So I joined my local gun club and found I was pretty good at it!

In 2014 I took part in a talent-spotting event – Target Tokyo, they called it – in Bisley, organized by British Shooting, which is an umbrella organization for the five national governing bodies for shooting in the UK, and I was picked out as a potential Olympic contender.

Tell us a bit about your army career.

I served in the 2^nd Royal Tank Regiment as musician and medic.

Musician! What do you play?

Cornet and trumpet. I’m very fond of Big Band music, and I’ve played in a couple of Big Band orchestras. It’s traditional, in the army, for musicians to receive medical training, because, historically, the band was always there on the front line, leading the way into battle. It was the bandsmen’s job – those who survived – to tend to the wounded. Although this combined role doesn’t apply nowadays, it’s just a tradition that’s stuck. I was in service during the Gulf War in 1990 to 1991. I saw some terrible things. I was only nineteen.

What shooting disciplines do you enjoy the most?

There’s a relatively new shooting discipline called Iron Plate Action Shooting (IPAS), designed specifically for multi-shot CO₂ cartridge pistols. I’ve had a lot of fun with that. The objective is to hit all five metal targets in as short a time as possible. You start in the ‘surrender’ position – hands raised, either side of your head. The official asks if you’re ready, and then says, “Stand by,” and when the starter signal sounds, you draw your gun and fire until you’ve hit all five targets (or until you’ve run out of pellets!). You do the course of fire five times, and the fastest four times count towards your score. This is normally done 10 times in a match.

Promotional photoshoot with Katherine in Leeds — Kate with an Air Force one Trophy Pistol.

And what’s your choice of gun for IPAS?

I use a .177 Umarex Colt M1911 airsoft semi automatic pistol with a circular eight-shot magazine. This is a superb reproduction from the German manufacturer, Umarex. In fact, the original model is a real classic – it’s still in production today.

What event are you hoping to compete in, in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo?

The 10 metre Pistol Target Shooting – an event for single-shot air pistols. You shoot a set number of pellets at a standard target, from a distance of 10 metres. Each shot must be taken within 75 seconds. The scoring is a standard 10 points for the bull, down to one point for the outermost ring. Training for 10-metre competition is basically putting lead down range and working on technique. I do an actual Olympic match – i.e. shoot 40 pellets in one hour.

What gun do you use for this event?

I have a new gun – a Steyr LP 10E air pistol. It’s made by an Austrian manufacturer, and it has a great track record. It was used to win all the gold medals in the 2004 Olympics, the 2008 Olympics, and the 2012 Olympics, as well as the ISSF World Shooting Championships in 2006 and 2010.

British firearm laws are pretty tight. Is that a problem in competition shooting?

Yes, it can be. There was an incident during the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Rachel Carrie, a British shooter who was taking part in the competition, arrived late at night at a hotel in Dundee for an event the next day, and the hotel staff called the police because she had her shotgun with her. Rachel produced her shotgun licence and explained that she was a competitor in the Games, but she was questioned for hours, and her gun was kept at the local police station overnight. She didn’t get a lot of sleep that night.

You’ve been very active in the campaign against transgender discrimination in sport. How have the regulations affected you?

Until 1996, shooting was a mixed sport. But the 2004 ruling – which is actually documented as ‘recommendations’ – puts a blanket ban on transgender participants until two years after genital surgery. Another condition is that enough hormonal therapy has been received to ‘minimise gender-related advantages in sport competitions’. Well, it was only twenty years ago that there was considered to be no gender-related advantage in shooting. Very importantly, the final recommendation is that there will be a ‘confidential case-by-case evaluation’.

I’ve been working with British Shooting on the development of their policy regarding transgender shooters competing in the UK. I’m now turning my attention to the ISSF (International Shooting Sport Federation), in the hope that I can get them to modernise their transgender policy.

What’s the make-or-break factor when it comes to your chances of making the 2020 Olympic team?

Sponsorship. Training and competitions cost an awful lot: there’s range time, pellets, air or CO₂(for the pistol), travel, entry fees, accommodation … Corporate sponsorship isn’t easy to find for this sport, because many companies are reluctant to be associated with shooting. On my website there’s a sponsorship appeal, with a link for donations. I’m hoping that enough people and businesses will be behind me to help me achieve my dream.

Both the Steyr LP 10 E and the .177 Umarex Colt M1911 are available to buy at Pellpax. We’ve got a range of Steyr air pistols here. You can find Kate’s site here.

The Big Interview: Mat Manning

Here at Pellpax, we’re proud to bring you an interview with a very special featured guest. In the world of airguns, Mat Manning is that rarest of things: A bone-fide celebrity. Mat works for Blaze Publishing Ltd, and is deputy editor of Airgun Shooter magazine. You may recognise him as being presenter of The Airgun Show, which regularly airs on Youtube. He is also the author of Air Rifle Hunting Through the Seasons: A Guide to Fieldcraft and Hunting with Air Rifles: The Complete Guide.

Tell us about your childhood, and what brought you to shooting?

I was outdoors for most of it. My grandad was a herdsman on a Somerset farm, not far from where I grew up, and I spent a lot of time there, helping grandad and doing a lot of fishing with my uncle Kevin – Mum’s little brother. Kev was actually closer in age to me than he was to mum.

I started shooting when I was ten. I loved it. Kev would lend me his old Webley Vulcan airgun, and I’d tag along with him whenever I got the chance. Kev and I still go out shooting together – he’s one of the cameramen on The Airgun Show.

Having a grandad in the farming network was a great help when it came to obtaining shooting permission. My ears would prick up at the mention of pests, and I’d be in there!

You’re coming up for forty. Career-wise, are you where you planned to be twenty years ago?

Well, yes. As a youngster, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I wasn’t a good scholar – I messed about too much – but I loved writing, and I knew I was good at it. At sixteen, though, I went off to Cannington College (a residential agricultural college) to study Countryside Management. I already had a very keen interest in wildlife and conservation, and I was familiar with the concept of balancing wild and domestic habitats. I never forgot about writing, though. In 1999, I went off to Glamorgan University to study journalism.

How did you do?

Got a First.

Excellent!

So yes, I wanted my career to be a combination of writing and shooting. Talking to a camera, though … that was a shock to the system! It’s a lot less forgiving than having time to compose your words on a keyboard, but it’s a challenge I’ve embraced, and I reckon I’m getting the hang of it now. Some of our films have had around 300,000 views, so we must be doing something right.

Tell us about your early career – those first jobs after studying.

For three years, after agricultural college, I worked for a woodland management company and also on a game farm. The work was seasonal, so these two occupations complemented one another well.

During the colder months – September to April – I’d be working on a chainsaw. This included the regeneration of hazel coppices, hedge-laying, and woodland thinning. You see, when the canopy is dense, there’s not enough sunlight on the woodland floor – nothing can germinate, so you don’t get any regeneration. By taking out some of the mature trees, you let the light in, wild flowers and young trees flourish, and biodiversity is improved.

Mat out filming with Tom O'Carroll from the BASC — Mat out filming with Tom O’Carroll from the BASC

Summer work was game rearing, and I also played an active role in pest control. The introduced grey squirrel population is detrimental to a lot of native wildlife – and not just the red squirrel. Greys are very partial to eggs, and they’ll even eat newly hatched birds. This has a destructive effect on songbirds and game birds. The squirrel’s taste for tree sap also causes major damage when they strip bark to get to the syrupy liquid beneath. It deforms trees and can also kill them. This habit makes the grey squirrel an enemy of foresters and also impacts on the habitat needed by our indigenous wildlife.

During these three years, I wrote an occasional article for shooting and fishing publications. I was itching to write, so, at twenty-three, I went off to Glamorgan to study Journalism.

My first ‘proper’ job as a journalist was with the Blackmore Vale Magazine. As a news reporter, I was thrown in at the deep end, covering anything from crime to planning and business, from sport to food and farming. It was great; bashing out 10,000 words of news a week is pretty good grounding for a career in what is a very hectic industry.

I also had my own shooting and fishing page called ‘Field and Stream’. At twenty-six, I had a lot of knowledge and experience when it came to wildlife and countryside issues. And I loved writing. This was a really good job for me – especially with the extra training provided by Trinity Mirror, which owned the magazine at that time. I spent twelve years at the Blackmore Vale magazine in various roles, including Content Editor.

You’re really busy at the moment with Blaze Publishing. Tell us about what you do.

Well – I’m Deputy Editor of the Airgun Shooter magazine, which is a four-weekly publication dedicated to all aspects of airgun shooting. I’d been a freelance contributor for shooting magazines for more than ten years, but presenting on The Airgun Show was completely new to me – as you can see if you look back at the early episodes!

Normally, I’d be hunting alone. Moving around with someone else, who’s weighed down with camera and sound equipment, is very different to your usual shooting experience. And it’s even trickier when we use the scope camera. This is a marvellous bit of equipment that allows your audience to see what you’re seeing, as you’re actually shooting. It takes some getting used to, though. The camera is fixed to the scope, while the shooter has to look off to one side at the little monitor. This means that the gun isn’t nestled snugly into your shoulder, and you find that it’s more difficult to hold it steady.

I try to make the best use of shot quarry that I possibly can. If it’s good for the table, I take it home with me and make burgers, sausages, pies, pasties, stews … and I save magpie and jay wing feathers, and squirrel tails too – the fibres are great for tying fly hooks and are always gratefully received by fly-fishing friends! It’s important to understand why you are killing. Conservation depends on achieving a balance. Population growth in a struggling species can sometimes only be achieved by the suppression of another. However, I feel that it’s vital to make the best use of culled animals.

Mat – we all want to know: what’s your favourite airgun?

Not telling!

Only joking. It’s a Daystate Mk 4 – a PCP (pre-charged pneumatic) air rifle, fitted with Daystate’s patented MCT – that’s ‘map compensated technology’. That’s my favourite at the moment, though I’m also very impressed with the latest incarnation of Daystate’s electronic firing system in the Pulsar. My Mk 4 is FAC-rated, but I also have several legal limit (sub-12 ft/lb) airguns in my collection. My Air Arms Ultimate Sporter and BSA Ultra SE see a lot of action.

To catch the latest episode of The Airgun Show, head to their website. You can also check out Airgun Shooting here.

You can grab a Daystate Mk4 PCP air rifle, Air Arms Ultimate Sporter and BSA Ultra SE from our store.

The Big Interview: Darren Kirk

To kick off the first in an occasional series of interviews with people in the world of airguns, shotguns, archery and outdoor gear, we talk to the director of Pellpax, Darren Kirk.

A dynamic leader who has turned this online business into a multi million pound organisation within two years, Darren has his sights on making it the biggest player in the airgun market. We chatted to him to find out more.

You’re running an airguns website right now, but what’s your background?

My background is actually IT: sixteen years as IT manager for Dupont. It was older technology – way older technology. I’m a certified Novell Engineer, but nobody uses Novell anymore! When I left that job it was early days of Windows, and very early days of anything Internet related. We had wide area networks – nothing like there is today, of course – but even in those early days I realised the power of IT, especially in a business like ours, where we’re a warehousing and online business, and the website is effectively our shop front. That’s where we need to invest the money. Whereas other people would invest it in infrastructure – things like dummies and shop windows and displays – our shop front is the whole of our website.

What’s a typical ‘day in the life’ for you, as the director of Pellpax?

Each day I do some work to keep control of the finances, sorting out things like who gets paid when, so in that sense, I keep a very tight control on the purse strings. We’ve got so many projects on the go at the moment, and we can’t bring them through as quickly as we’d like, so it’s just a matter of spending a little time on each project, trying to move it forward. Then there’s a lot of day-to-day stuff like paperwork and so on. It’s so easy to get diverted, and then at other times you just get held back. It can be really time consuming. For example, at the moment I have 1018 unread emails! I scan through them, pick out the most important ones, and reply to them. And whenever I get time, I start from the oldest ones and work my way forward – which is not a good place to be. It’s just that there aren’t enough hours in the day to physically do everything at the moment.

How has Pellpax grown in the past few years? It seems to have experienced a rapid period of growth.

It’s actually been only two years. The current website went live on Feb 13 2014, so we traded for six months on a different website. The biggest achievement is that we’ve achieved that growth without borrowing any money. Everything is paid for. All our stock is paid for upfront. We pay our suppliers pre delivery, before we get our products in. That’s the biggest challenge: juggling the money. You want to be sure you’re safe in the bank for anything that happens, but at the same time you don’t want to be holding back too much money and stopping the business from growing. It’s quite challenging at times. It’s a juggling act, but we’ve managed to keep the balls in the air so far – and without needing any financial help from anybody.

Tell us about the type of customers you get.

We do have two main types of customers. One group is the professionals or the ones who are seriously into their shooting. We have people working here who are very knowledgeable and know what they’re talking about. We’ve got three gunsmiths on site. We’ve got a guy who has three British archery records. We’ve got a guy whose business is hunting, managing deer herds, and game keeping. So we’ve got the in-house expertise in all the areas our customers are interested in. But then we do have a large number of customers who are first time buyers. Or maybe they’re retired, and they had an air rifle as a child, and they’ve got a bit of spare time and a bit of spare money. Our experts have to look after these customers in a different way. So we have two ends of the spectrum: people who really know what they’re on about and what they’re looking for, and people who have no idea beyond a budget and a rough idea of what they’re going to use it for!

We don’t always sell people the most expensive gun or the item we can make most profit from. If they say, ‘we want to use it for pest control’ or ‘we want to use it for target practice’, we do advise them, and they end up with a product that’s most suitable for the purpose. So really, the level of qualifications, knowledge and expertise in the staff team is a big advantage for us.

Tell us about Pellpax’s unique delivery service.

We have our own fleet of five vans, and occasionally we’ll hire an extra one if we need it. They’re all caged and high security, with cameras and lights inside. We have two full-time drivers, who go out every weekend, and then we have a bank of seven ex-policemen – drivers that we pool from, depending on how many we need. Most of them are former fire officers and ex-marines. They know the guns anyway, and they’re used to dealing with people in difficult situations. So we take the security very seriously. We try and give as good a service as possible. When you’re planning routes that cover the whole of the country, it’s very difficult to be at a certain person’s house at a certain time with no room for error. There’s always going to be traffic problems or whatever. But we do achieve over 95% hit rate on getting to the door at the time we told the customer we’d be there.

A couple of things that have happened over the last few months: we’ve had our explosives licence through, so we can deliver powders and ammunition, and if we turned our hand to it, even fireworks too; but we also do quite a lot of canoe deliveries, believe it or not. It’s really expensive to courier a 15-foot canoe anywhere, but our vans are going everywhere every weekend anyway, so it’s very easy to strap one onto the roof. We’ve got a canoe trailer too, and we can tow that. So we’re making a fair impact on the canoe business at the moment!

It seems like there’s a lot of innovation in the business. How important to you is trying new things?

I think, in a lot of businesses, if you stand still, you’re actually going backwards, because other people are coming along and doing things bigger and better and faster than you are. So there’s no room to stand still. We’re constantly moving ahead, looking for new suppliers, looking for new products, investing money in improving the website, investing the money in doing the email marketing and blogs and facebook and twitter, and all the other things we’re doing at the moment.

A lot of it is going to take years before we become big players with some of those products, but the whole point as far as I’m concerned is that if people are searching for something, and they end up at your website, they’ll then see what other products you supply. You might just get somebody coming along for a boat box, for example – a Dragons’ Den boat box – and they come onto our website, and they’re into their shooting. And they might never have found us if it hadn’t been for some relatively obscure product they were searching for.

We’ve got the development of the show trailer at the moment, with an idea that next year we’ll be at a lot of shows. The base is on order and the first money has gone to the carpenter who’s building this thing for us. So the emphasis isn’t just on new products and how we expand the range, but also on how we get those products in front of potential customers, either electronically or physically.

Finally, tell us about the new warehouse plans that are underway.

Yes, we broke ground about eight weeks ago now, and we’ve got a new warehouse that will be split into three sections. One will be a small retail unit, and then there’ll be the main warehouse to one side of it and a further warehouse, for bulk product, on the other side. So the three units that are being built are in total well over three times the space we’ve got at the moment. And there will be a full-length archery and gun range built down the back of them. So, customers will be able to come along and look through what we’ve got in the retail unit shop, and if it’s not there, we’ve got the warehouse next door, and we’ll be able to fetch something off the shelf for them to look at. And if they’re seriously interested, they can go down into the range to test fire the guns before they buy.

With exciting times ahead at Pellpax, stay tuned for announcements on the blog, or sign up for our regular emails for news, features, and info on the latest products in our range.

David Ward on Norfolk Deer Management

David Ward of Norfolk Deer Management gives us insight into a slice of countryside life by telling us about his service.

My name is David Ward and I’m a professional deerstalker, trading under the name Norfolk Deer Management. I’m passionate about what I do, and I offer a free but professional service to farmers and landowners, managing deer numbers on their land. I simply keep the carcassof any deer that I shoot. I’m registered as a food business with North Norfolk District Council, and I process the carcass myself and supply the venison to local pubs and restaurants.

I’m looking for more land over which to manage deer numbers, so if you think you could make use of my free service, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me so we can have a chat about what you require and how I can help. I use a range of calibres in my work, the Browning X Bolt in .308 calibre being the mainstay. I also keep the rabbit numbers down on a couple of farms and use a CZ .22LR and CZ HMR17 for this work – both great calibres, despite the issues around the defects in HMR 17 ammunition.

Advising & Working With Pellpax

I load my own ammunition and was very happy to advise Pellpax on reloading supplies and equipment for them to stock. Pellpax is a Registered Firearms Dealer and offers a unique service in that they carry out face-to-face deliveries to their purchasers across the country every weekend. This includes powder and expanding ammunition. I have also agreed to carry out impartial reviews on some of the products they sell, and these can be found on my website.

As to the future: well, I’m looking to create a deer park. So I’m looking for property owners – of stately homes or events venues – who might want such an attraction on their land. It would make a great photo shoot backdrop to a wedding. Also I’m looking to rent the deer shooting rights from a large estate in order that I can take clients out to cull deer under my supervision. I’ll keep you updated on any developments.

If you’d like to contact David, you can find out more, and get in touch with him, over at his website>>>> http://www.norfolkdeermanagement.co.uk