The company has been established as a motorcycle and scooter business since 1958, and is one of the oldest in the UK. It might seem strange for a company specialising in two-wheeled transport to branch out into a completely different field such as the world of guns and shooting, but if you read on, it might become a little clearer....
I got my first air gun, a second hand Diana, in 1942. There wa
s a bit of a war on back then and guns weren't as easy to get a hold of as they are now, but somehow an Uncle who lived in London, managed to find the Diana and bring it up to Barnsley for my 10th Birthday. I was delighted with the gift and from then on my enthusiasm for shooting grew and grew as did my need for a large pellet supply !! I used to sell my ration of sweets at school and with the resulting windfall, head down to the local hardware store and buy as many .177's as I could afford. I started work when I was 14, and so had a little bit more money to spend. One of my first investments(besides a motorcycle of course), was a year old BSA Cadet. BSA had only started manufacturing them in 1945 as the war ended, and so I guess they were pretty 'state of the art' back then. My favourite party trick was shooting an old penny out of somebodys hand, if I could find anyone daft enough to hold it, but I'd better not say too much about that kind of thing, not very 'health and safety', is it? As the years have flown by, I've gradually added to my collection and enjoyed shooting shot guns as well as air rifles and pistols. Then in 2010 I was mortified to hear that my favourite gun shop, Guns International, was closing down. I'd known Karl and Pat virtually since they'd opened the shop in the early 1970's (I bought my first shot gun there in 1972) and knew that Karl had been suffering with ill health for a while, so I suppose the news shouldn't have been a great shock. If any couple had earned their retirement, they certainly had, but that still left me without a local gun shop to feed my shooting bug. Disaster !! Karl had had no serious offers for the business, so it looked like they were just going to sell off their remaining stock, sell the shop and close. By November 2010, realising I couldn't face the thought of having no local gun shop, I'd finally made my mind up to go and buy what stock they had left, and set up a new gun shop within our existing business. Several van loads later (and a JCB to lift out the giant compressor!), we had the job done. By March 2011, we finally got our RFD licence and we could start selling guns at last. It's always exciting, starting off on a new venture and hopefully our enthusiasm will show through if you pay us a visit. We haven't got 40 years experience behind us yet, like Guns International, but we will do what we've always done since 1958, and that is try our very best for our customers. We are now in our 4th year of trading and we are going from strength to strength. We have an ever expanding product range and services becoming available, we hope to see you soon! Thanks for taking time to visit our page, please visit our website to browse what we have available. www.rondaleyairguns.co.uk
