Garlands Ltd brand accessories

Garlands have quite a comprehensive selection of general shooting accessories, but here I’ve cherry picked through the range to find what I feel are most useful to me as a hunter and will definitely be of interest to fellow air rifle and rimfire shooters. 

Most of these accessories are available in camo patterns; either Realtree® apgHD® or, where stipulated, in Advantage Timber®.

Sling it & cover it

First up a look at a quite unusual padded rifle sling, as even on first inspection you can’t fail to notice the elongated and wide figure of ‘8’ shape shoulder pad. The benefits of this will become apparent soon, but first an overview to the build and design. Grandly named the ‘Deluxe Style Rifle Sling with Non-Slip Neoprene Shoulder Pad’ (£14.95), this is one size fits all and comes without swivels but accepts 1” width type. Sling Swivels are attached in the usual way to the adjustable canvas strap extensions that are double stitched and riveted to the leather connection points at the shoulder pad and hold sling swivels by the usual ABS buckle arrangement. Once you’ve got a set of swivels in place and adjusted it, the sling shows it’s usefulness as the clever design of the shoulder pad offers maximum comfort whether worn as standard over one shoulder or across the body if stalking or walking any distance where you need to keep both hands free, rather than worrying over a rifle slipping off the shoulder. The wide Neoprene shoulder pad offers a high level of comfort and stays put. Available in Advantage Timber, this is a nice take on a trusted design and obviously a very useful, secure, carrying aid for any shooter.

Now to the Jersey – Neoprene PEZ Silencer Cover (£6.95). Made from stretch Neoprene it measures 22 ½” long and stretches to fit all 1” to 1 ½” diameter silencers. It can be cut to length and for the average airgun/rimfire silencer will cover three moderators. I used it on my rifles and also found it ideal for covering barrel shrouds as fitted to Rapid MFR’s, Rapid Tactical 2 (as shown) or a full length BSA SuperTen MkIII Bull Barrel. Available in Advantage Timber, it can easily be ‘trimmed’ to any length you require. I recommend where you cut the ‘sleeve’ you put a few dabs of superglue on the stitching to prevent it coming undone.

Next up is the Neoprene Gun Barrel Guard (£9.95) available for rifle or semi-auto shotgun. Though this can be cut to suit the length you require, due to the design it’s not of great use to rifles with floating barrels as the end nearest the shooter is designed to fit over the front end of the forend of the rifle. No problems with a semi automatic shotgun, but for rifle use I found it best to slit the lower section so it didn’t hinder barrel harmonics. I found that as it’s much smaller in diameter than the Silencer Cover previously detailed, that if you cut the back end off completely it was most useful for covering standard size barrels for protection and to aid with concealment. It would however, be of use left as it is and trimmed at the front if you have an old style side-lever action springer. This is available in Realtree apgHD.

Pouches, Pads & Bean Bags…

Now to a clever accessory I feel is a must for the airgun hunter, The Air Rifle Accessory Pouch (£9.95) is available in Advantage Timber. It measures 6” in length by 3 ½” deep and has an un-stretched depth of 2” at its widest point where the external Velcro fastened 4” X 2” external pouch is. The main pouch has a full zip closure and is useful for carrying pellets as its padded and waterproof, whilst the front pouch will easily hold two spare magazines. With two large canvas belt loops on the back, personally, I don’t now go hunting without mine as it’s so useful.

The Adjustable Comb Raiser (£9.95) is just as the name implies and consists of a Neoprene wrap over sleeve and three oblong foam raisers of 3, 6 and 9mm in thickness. You can use these alone or combine them to really add to the height of the rifle’s comb. To fit you simply place the thickness of foam you require on top of the butt section and then offer the butt to the cover and wrap it over to affix in position by the strong and full-length section of double sided Velcro fastening. In my opinion this is great for air rifle use where on many springers (especially those with open sights) the comb can be rather shallow. So if you fit a large objective lens optic that needs high mounts this will give you a better head position and feels comfortable to the cheek. Available in apgHD.

Another handy accessory is the Neoprene ‘Anti-Shock’ Recoil Pad with ‘Anti-Slip’ Shoulder Grip (£9.95). Available in apgHD it comes with three different sizes of ‘anti-shock’ foam of 3, 6 and 9mm in thickness. To fit you simply place your chosen recoil pads and then slip the 4” long stretch sleeve over the end of the butt. This securely holds the pad in place and on the outer edge where it meets your shoulder it has a ‘knobbly’ texture that give it its ‘anti-slip’ shoulder grip. I’ve fitted one to the butt of my Sako Quad but I’m sure many will appreciate this even on a spring airgun. Either way it’s a good product.

Finally we come to the Bean Bag Seat. Available in apgHD (£19.95) or standard Green (£15.95). Measuring 15” high and with a 15” base this standard triangular design is approximately 7” thick and has a handy 5” X 5 “ square zip close pocket on the front for range data or the like. Made from tough wearing Nylon, it has a canvas-carrying handle and access to a zip open top should you require adding or removing some of the poly bead filling.

Conclusions

When you consider not one single item in this feature costs more than twenty quid, with most being half that amount, then that in itself is a good reason to take a look at the products Garlands have on offer under their own brand name. Every accessory in this feature has a very high quality of manufacture and is well worth any shooter investing in. The camo aspect is the icing on the cake and of course for certain items such as the Silencer Cover and Barrel Guard this does have particular concealment benefits; I’d heartily recommend that you check all these items out for yourself.