HAD A PLOT against the life of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, worked out in 1655, airguns would probably have a more notorious place in British history. As it was, the plan to import a powerful airgun from the Low Countries for that purpose was foiled by Parliamentary agents and Cromwell’s life was saved. Airguns have always had a slightly subversive image, assassination attempts notwithstanding. Their stealth made them ideal tools for poachers, and in the past many windows have been broken by stray pellets. Lots of us learned to shoot with airguns and they have wormed their way into our subconscious. For example, British Army squaddies used to call their SA80 rifles ‘Gats’ after a particularly ineffective push-barrel air pistol produced in Walton-on-Thames from the 1930s until the mid-1990s.
It was at the beginning of the 20th century that air rifles took a more prominent place in British affairs by helping us prepare for war. They turned the British Army from soldiers who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn into accurate and efficient marksmen. After the disastrous showing ofRoberts made a call to the nation to take up rifle shooting and many new shooting clubs were formed. Airguns were an accessible and inexpensive way to train all people to shoot for the defence of the Empire. British companies such as Webley & Scott and the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) made many rifles for this purpose. These airguns were not military rifles in the strict sense of the word, in that they weren’t ordered in large numbers by the British Army, but they were used by clubs such as the National Small-bore Rifle Association and what is now the Preparatory Schools Rifle Association.
