GunsOnPegs: working towards a sustainable future for shooting

At GunsOnPegs we work hard to bring the joys of shooting and the countryside to as wide an audience as possible, and to help create a sustainable future for our way of life for our children and our children’s children. Put simply, we live and breathe shooting, not just in our working lives, but in our personal lives. 

We recognise that as the UK’s biggest game shooting platform, we not only have a responsibility to our members and users to provide them with the widest possible selection of shooting opportunities and content, but also to use our powerful voice and broad reach to the long term benefit of our lifestyle. We seek to help shape the future of shooting through educating guns and shoots on best practice, and supporting shooting and conservation organisations.

Supporting our shooting organisations

To this end, GunsOnPegs works closely with all the major shooting and countryside organisations, including:

• BASC
• Countryside Alliance
• National Gamekeepers Organisation
• British Game Assurance
• The Country Food Trust
• Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust

In addition to supporting these organisations through our platform, members of our team hold unpaid positions within several shooting-related organisations:

• Our Chairman, James Horne, is Chairman of the Trustees of the Gunmakers Company Charitable Trust. He has also acted as a consultant to the Countryside Alliance.
• Our Managing Director, Chris Horne, is an advisor to British Game Assurance, a board member of Countryside Alliance, and a Trustee of the Country Food Trust.
• Our Director of Sales, Frank Stephenson sits on the GWCT Suffolk committee
• Our Editor, George Browne, has recently joined the GWCT Hampshire committee

In addition to working with shooting organisations, we also support selected charities within the shooting world with their messaging and fundraising. Our charitable partner is the Country Food Trust, for whom we have raised tens of thousands of pounds in recent years. You can read more about CFT and our work with them on our Charitable Partner page. We also help to promote the fundraising efforts of GWCT.

Research and education

As a digital-first business, data is our currency, and this mindset forms the backbone of the work we do with shooting organisations. The Game Shooting Census and Shoot Owner Census are annual surveys of the shooting community, carried out in association with GWCT, BASC and Countryside Alliance. The data collected on the habits and views of shoot owners and guns helps these organisations to make informed decisions and provides valuable insight that can be used to help promote and protect shooting in the corridors of power.

We also make use of the data to help shape the way that guns and shoots think, and guide them towards best practice.

We have also been instrumental in the creation of a number of tools designed to help promote best practice and demonstrate the benefits of shooting to the wider community. This includes supporting and guiding the BGA shoot audit programme, and working with GWCT to develop a Net Biodiversity Calculator for shoots, to help them demonstrate the positive impact that they have on their surrounding environment.

From our position, we are able to use our knowledge of the shooting world to help guns to better understand the challenges that shooting faces, and to help shape opinion. We do our utmost to ensure that guns are well educated on what a well-run shoot looks like, and that they feel empowered to ask the right questions of shoots during the booking process, on the day, and after. 

We have a robust approach towards shoots that violate the Code of Good Shooting Practice, and regularly remove shoots that do not meet the high standards that we expect. Our shoot review system allows guns to leave honest reviews of the shoots that they visit so that other guns can make informed decisions.