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Good marksmen are disciplined, deliberate, careful individuals and the beginning of the craft is the consistent safe handling of a pistol. Safe gun handling skills are the foundation on which all else is built: without them you will be building on sand. If you ever hope to take on the more complex challenges like trick shooting, aerial targets and quick-draw work, then you must be above all else a safe shooter or such tasks will be extremely dangerous. The more advanced the challenge, the more scrupulous your safety drills must become: an air pistol may not have more than 6ft/lb of power, but that is sufficient to blind an eye, lacerate the skin or penetrate a child’s skull.

If someone objects to your shooting you could begin by explaining that your activities are legal, but if they still object you should try to work out some kind of solution to any problems they may have. You could for example show the person with objections the stringent safety set-up that you have established in terms of your shooting range, and demonstrate the fact that air pistols exhibit a very low level of noise. The correct means of carry when trans­porting pistols – a sturdy, lockable case.

The BB is used for fast-fire fun shooting, not for pin-point accuracy. BBs are considerably cheaper to buy than pellets due to their crude design; this may well be a consideration, as a keen pistol shot will fire thousands of projectiles every year. In fact, if you really get into fast-fire fun shooting it is possible to fire several thousand projectiles each month. This is another reason why the backstop has to be able to absorb the BBs: otherwise, you would have thousands upon thousands of BBs lying about on your garden range, which, apart from being untidy, is a hazard to footing, garden machinery and small children amongst other things.