Drapers at the Shooting Show

As many of you have probably seen from our post Last Week Team Drapers went all out at the Shooting Show last Sunday. We saw a few familiar faces from the shop and it was lovely to meet you all as well as getting to know some of our suppliers so we thought we’d let you all know how our little trip went.

Starting on Saturday we closed up a little earlier than usual to make sure we all had enough time to get down to the show, the Team quickly getting changed out of their uniforms into something more show worthy. We sadly didn’t catch any of the show Saturday but arriving at the hotel we heard nothing but good things making us excited for the coming day.  That night we went out for a meal with the folks at Sportsman Gun Centre, who had kindly offered to show us around their stall the next day. We all enjoyed some wonderful food, the lads a little annoyed at there being no ribs but quickly switched to burgers instead, and had some great conversation before retiring for the night. 

Waking it up it was a quick hotel breakfast and then off to the show. Starting off we first made our way over to Edgar Brothers, as their wood panelled stall always stands out in a crowd, we were intrigued by their .22lr Rifles, specifically the GSG STG44 and Model 16 both of which offer a nice semi auto 22 at only a £450 price point. They also had a new model of the Hatsan Factor available with a shortened barrel which offered a large capacity and tactical stock for the same price as an entry level PCP, not a bad offering given the looks.

Moving on to what Sportsman had to offer and there was a lot. Given our current interest in shotguns as our licence changes over we all had a good look at the ATAs which we were absolutely shocked at the quality to price difference with these Turkish bad boys offering Italian Level Craftsmanship at American level pricing! Sportsman have even acquired CZ so the Czech are getting in on the action with lots of bolt actions on the way. Sportsman also revealed to us a new Pard Scope along with automatically upgrading the ones we already had on order to the new ones, talk about speed, meaning that Drapers Gun Centre will be among the first to see what this new 008 has to offer.

After talking with both Sportsman and Edgar Brothers we had a chance to wander around a bit for ourselves seeing what everyone else had on offer. BSA had once again put their historical foot forward showing off both the BSA of the past and the BSA of the future. We got a quick look at the new RAWS guns, the new breed of Theobens, definitely something to be on the lookout for those of you wanting to upgrade your old Rapid 7. Umarex had some interesting offers for those out there wanting accurate HK replicas with their blowback PSG1 being an almost exact copy of the real steel variant but at almost a 3rd of the cost of the real thing!

Finally we got to sample some of the smaller stalls, and their cakes!, before Josh had a go on the Tactical Training Scenario although he might need a few more tries to beat the top score. Overall we had a fantastic day out and hope you all did too and we can’t wait to see what next years British Shooting Show has to offer.

Lyalvale Express Factory Tour

As part of our current move towards the expanding of our Firearms Certificate we were invited by the lovely people at Lyalvale Express for a tour of their factory in Staffordshire so that we could learn more about Shotgun cartridges in the hopes of stocking them in the future.

Established in 1983 Lyalvale has had a long history with Shotgun Cartridges and pride themselves on being able to deliver Gold Medal winning ammunition at a competitive price.

Our journey begins with the outside of the factory, split between two buildings. Lyalvale really gets into the nitty gritty when it comes to cartridges, sourcing the best casings, powder, and wadding all from various places across Europe to make sure that every cartridge they produce is of the highest quality. The sheer size of the storage room alone would have many people in shock but what grabbed our attention was the fact that the whole room would only last Lyalvale just a few weeks of Cartridges at most! Moving on to the lower floor we watched each of the cartridges being put together with their large machines making quick work out of an afternoon's worth of reloading to the casual shooter. Each batch of cartridges is tested and changed to make sure that the same level of consistency is across all their range, no need to go hunting for batch numbers now.

Moving onto the main storage building we were met with what seemed like a mountain of boxes of all their different kinds of cartridges, from the entry level English Sporter to the more bespoke Ultimate Steel, Lyalvale seemed to have it all, even a friendly rat protector. In this building many different orders are put together on palettes ready to be shipped all across the UK and we hope that very soon they’ll be adding Drapers Gun Centre to their growing list.

Overall we left Lyalvale with not only the information we needed on Shotgun Cartridges but also the knowledge that the team at Lyalvale would be there to help us and our customers with anything we needed as we expanded our Shop Licences. We’d like to thank Lyalvale Express for the wonderful tour of their factory and look forward to working with them in the near future.

- Team Drapers