Shooting Times

This article is about the British magazine. For the unrelated American magazine, see Outdoor Sportsman Group.

Shooting Times

Cover of 13 November 2024 issue
Categories	Shooting
Frequency	Weekly
Circulation	21,303 (ABC Jan - Dec 2013) Print and digital editions
First issue	September 1882 (1882-09)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Website	www.shootinguk.co.uk

Shooting Times & Country Magazine, more commonly known as the Shooting Times, is a British shooting, fieldsports, and conservation magazine. The magazine also features articles on fishing, deer stalking, gamekeeping, gundogs, cookery, and conservation.

The magazine was sold by former owner Future plc to Fieldsports Press Ltd (now Time Well Spent Group) in 2023.

History

Wildfowler's Shooting Times and Kennel News, the publication's original title, was first published in September 1882 and has not missed a single edition since. Lewis Clement was the first editor.

Throughout its history, Shooting Times has offered a forum for debate in the shooting world—famously in the 26 October 1907 issue, Stanley Duncan, (a long-term contributor to the magazine) wrote in with a request: "Sir, I have been asked to suggest a Wildfowlers's Association, to which you, Mr Editor, might give some assistance by permitting your paper to be the organ through which proposals might be considered and views obtained?"

The name of the association born out of the ensuing correspondence was the Wildfowlers' Association of Great Britain and Ireland—now known as the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) and one of the principal shooting organisations in the country.

Over the years Shooting Times has carried articles by writers and such sportsmen as Denys Watkins-Pitchford ("BB"), Colin Willock, Arthur Oglesby, Gough Thomas, gun expert Geoffrey Boothroyd and Major Archie Coats, the grandfather of modern pigeon shooting.

Modern day

Shooting Times magazine is the official journal of both the BASC and the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association (CPSA).

Shooting Times has had 19 editors, including the current managing editor Ollie Harvey. The magazine, in recent years, has had a renewed focus on good writing, with columnists such as Simon Garnham, Gethin Jones and Miles Malone. It has also become more focussed on conservation with writers and commentators such as Patrick Laurie and David Whitby appearing regularly. The magazine is published weekly and is considered to be the leading shooting publication in Britain.