Whats the biggest calibre rifle legal in Ireland?

rander00

Is a .22 the largest rifle you van legally own in Ireland?


And how much is a secure gun cabinet and do you legally require 1?

Seen as the shooting forum wasnt set up,, i guess we`ll just have to throw our threads in random sections of boards.

Tommy Vercetti

afaik that is correct

edit:

(2) The registers of all purchases and sales of or in relation to ammunition to be kept by a registered firearms dealer, whose registration is subject to the condition that he confines his dealings to the sale and purchase of ammunition for shotguns, for unrifled airguns and for rifled firearms of a calibre not exceeding .22 inches shall be in accordance with Form X in the Schedule to these Regulations.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZSI239Y1976.html

it's all in there

phoenix2181

erm...that can't be correct cause I've fired off rifles with bullets an awful larger then .22 & i was told that they were perfectly legal..altough the guns I was firing had scopes & silencers so I didn't want tto question the guy too much!

cranoo

you do not require a gun safe for a shootgun or a .22 rifle, but you do for a .243 or a.270 hunting rifles which are availble to be licenced in ireland if you have a hunting licence from the national parks and wildlife service


Crano

Micheal Wittman

Yeah the limit is .22, although replicas are so good now you dont really need the real deal to be honest with u. In most cases the replicas cost quite a lot more.

Anyways you could always import over deactivated weapons...Theres no limit on those. Ak47s are allowed once there deactivated of coarse

Hope this helps

Gavin

jabberwock

cranoo wrote:

you do not require a gun safe for a shootgun or a .22 rifle, but you do for a .243 or a.270 hunting rifles which are availble to be licenced in ireland if you have a hunting licence from the national parks and wildlife service


Crano

yes you do need a gun safe for all firearms now.

afair the max calibre is .270

Micheal Wittman

I remember when I got in touch with the Department Of Justice about getting a kar98 rifle (.303 - deactivated) shipped over. They said that an importation license would only be granted up to .270. Im guessing this applies to live weapons as well.

Strange thing is, It makes no difference what calibre a dactivated weapon is simply because - Its dactivted.

On furthe investigation it turns out that this .270 rule for deactivated weapons is actually wrong. It's fine what calibre it is as long as the local Garda Station have no objections to you having it.

When I have the money to get it, I will have to go my Garda Suoerintendent and get permission in writing. Then I pay for it and send it over in the mail.

If Customs do come across it, They will just asked the Guards if they object and thats it.

Regards

Sparks

All of this has now changed. From 1972 to the mid-90s, .22 was the largest rifle calibre you would get a licence for. From then to last friday, the largest was .277 (.270 Winchester actually). However, at the moment, that policy of restricting licences on the basis of calibre appears to have been rescinded, so you could in theory (as you could prior to '72), have a .50 cal rifle legally. Now, the odds of you actually getting that licence are as close to zero as is measurable No sane superintendent is going to give out a licence for an anti-tank rifle! But 7.62 target rifles are now being applied for (I know of one personally which has been applied for).

However, the local superintendent is the one who is the sole authority on granting these licences. And there is no right to own a firearm in this country, so you can't legally demand to own one - it is down to satisfying the super that you're not a danger.

Also, when the new criminal justice bill comes into effect (before christmas according to the Department of Justice), you will have to convince the super that you have secure storage - which will probably mean a gunsafe.

And this legal situation may change in short order, as I've heard rumours (as yet unconfirmed) that more amendments to the Firearms Acts are being finalised. However it's likely that we will get to keep target shooting pistols and rifles at least.

Moriarty

How much would a gun safe for a rifle set you back?

Sparks

Depends on who you buy from and how big a safe you want (not a useful answer I know, but...)
When I got mine, it cost me IRP200 and it was a four-gun safe. I've seen smaller (two-gun is about the limit, and it's for two shotguns or one rifle, practically speaking) for around the IRP120-160 mark but I haven't looked recently.
You might look in your local newsagents for the Irish Shooters Digest magazine and check the adverts.

Moriarty

Intwesting, I would have thought they'd cost more. Cheers.

Sparks

Moriarty wrote:

Intwesting, I would have thought they'd cost more. Cheers.

The price may have gone up since - those are pre-euro prices after all.

cranoo

jabberwock wrote:

yes you do need a gun safe for all firearms now.

afair the max calibre is .270

You do not require a gun safe for a shotgun or a .22 rifle, the NARGC went to court with the garda last year and won the case, but some supers insist that you have to have a safe, but they are wrong and its not law

cranoo.

OH :eek: it is a right to have a gun in Ireland, you just have to have a reason to have one, ie be in a club or have land to shoot on and be of good character to hold a gun licence.

ferdi

cranoo

fiacha

most of the gun safes advertised are in fact only gun cabinets. A gun safe will cost quite a bit more than a cabinet. if you have 1 or 2 guns then buy a 4/5 gun cabinet. The space inside can be cramped and it can be awkward to access. the extra space is also handy for ammunition and valubles etc.

i haven't heard anything about amendments to the firearms act, but I would welcome tougher security requirments that the Gardai will actually enforce. I'd also like to see the same setup as in the UK for shotguns. Once you are issued with a shotgun cert, you can buy shotguns (auto /pump capacity < 3 shot )over the counter and have them added to the existing cert. the process of having your gun sat in a dealers for 2 months while waiting for a new license to be issued is a joke.

fiacha

ferdi wrote:

this is exactly why we need a firearms / shooting forum so that the mods can keep this kind of carp under control.

did see a poll about a new forum recently, anyone know if it's going to be setup ??

ferdi

Sparks

cranoo wrote:

You do not require a gun safe for a shotgun or a .22 rifle, the NARGC went to court with the garda last year and won the case, but some supers insist that you have to have a safe, but they are wrong and its not law

Correct cranoo, but the Criminal Justice Bill 2004 (currently in committee stage, but due to be in force by christmas this year), Part 5, Section 30 amends the Firearms Act Section 4 to add in the requirement for secure storage.
In other words, after the CJB is passed, you need a gun safe. Until then, you don't.
(And I'd get one anyway were I you, for two reasons :
1: Safety;
2: It's not a good idea to annoy your local garda!)

OH :eek: it is a right to have a gun in Ireland, you just have to have a reason to have one, ie be in a club or have land to shoot on and be of good character to hold a gun licence.

Nope. There is no right to own a gun in Ireland. Never has been, not even when we were a part of the UK (there is a legal thing called the Bill of Rights in the UK that seems to give some kind of right to bear arms, but it's seriously arcane and it's been overruled in court several times).

What there is, is a right to apply for a firearms licence, so long as you're not underage, have a criminal record or so forth - the Firearms Act, section eight (if I'm remembering right) spells out the conditions that bar you from applying. But the actual issuing of a firearms licence is solely the decision of the local superintendent according to the law and it cannot be legally demanded or ordered, even by the High Court.

cranoo

I know an ex IRA man who had long given up the cause applied for a license and was refused, he went to court and the judge ordered that he should hold a license.

Cranoo.

bugler

That still does not constitute any right to bear or keep arms. Just a single judgement in a single case.

ssh

Wittman, where are you getting your deactivated weapons from? I've got a nice white wall that would look awful nice with a replica fg-42 and an AK47 on it

red vex

the size of the calibre shouldnt be used to judge a bullets power. a .270 bullet(legal in ireland) is enough to take out an elephant. the SAS have often used the .22 250(legal in ireland) as a sniper bullet. a .17 bullet is much more powerful than a lot of .22 bullets.
such rounds as the .222 and .303 are illegal in ireland because they are military rounds.
There have been cases where liscences have been obtained for such rounds

Sparks

cranoo wrote:

I know an ex IRA man who had long given up the cause applied for a license and was refused, he went to court and the judge ordered that he should hold a license.

Unlikely, since a judge does not have the legal authority to do so. He can order the superintendent to reconsider the application, he can order that a person's application is valid, but he can't order that the licence be granted - according to the Firearms Acts, only the local superintendent has that authority (or the Minister of Justice if the applicant is a non-resident). Dunne v. Donohue in the Supreme Court, 2002, upheld that.

red vex wrote:

the size of the calibre shouldnt be used to judge a bullets power.

Indeed, but that was how it was done for thirty years, we just had to work around it - that's why the .22-250 was being used to hunt deer, despite not really being suitable for the task.

such rounds as the .222 and .303 are illegal in ireland because they are military rounds.

Actually, it's the .223 Remington (used in the M-16), you can get .222s in Ireland so far as I know.

red vex

Yeah. the .22 250 isnt really good enough for killing deer but if you were getting it for target shooting a deer hunting liscence is required which is very stupid. .222 is still banned

Lozjm

Sparks wrote:

Actually, it's the .223 Remington (used in the M-16), you can get .222s in Ireland so far as I know.

M16 uses .764 same as the old british forces SLR

Sparks

red vex wrote:

Yeah. the .22 250 isnt really good enough for killing deer

Not to mention being rather inhumane. The .22-250 has so much kinetic energy in such a small package that it's sortof like hunting deer with a small grenade launcher

but if you were getting it for target shooting a deer hunting liscence is required which is very stupid. .222 is still banned

Not any longer - see the above post on the rescinding of the calibre-based policy of issuing licences.

Musashi

M16 uses .764 same as the old british forces SLR

M16 and variants use the .223 calibre rounds, same as the standard NATO Battle Rifle round the SS109, which is why a lot of forces changed to this smaller calibre.
The older British Rifle was the FN/FAL which was chambered in 7.62 or .308 calibre, same thing , just different ways of saying it.

a .270 bullet(legal in ireland) is enough to take out an elephant.

Largest game I'd take using .270 would be moose or Elk sized, you really need something in a H&H Magnum for Elephant

a .17 bullet is much more powerful than a lot of .22 bullets.

Depends on the .17 and the .22! The new .17 Rimfire Magnum round is not as powerful as the older .17 centre fires,a .22 could be .220 Swift or any of the other "Wildcat" varminting rounds, very fast and powerful on light game and "varmints".
The 22-250 is only barely adequate for deer hunting due to the light weight of the head, mainly used for Varmint hunting.Although it's inherent accuracy allows for precise shot placement once you keep your head!
I like the .270 in a medium weight head for light skinned game and would go up to about 180 grain heads for heavier game if I went for some foreign shooting!The recoil is not that bad but I know many who bought .270 calibre guns when they were allowed first, reverted to .243 and that general size because of the noise and recoil of the .270.

AdMMM

Is it just me, or is the Firearms Act being mis-read a lot of the time?

Sparks

In what sense?

Barry Aldwell

Before you all go running out to buy your sporting copies of the M16, I have been reliably informed that while you may be able to obtain a license for a .223/5.56mm NATO/SS109 rifle, the Gardai do not want people to be running around with centrefire semiauto rifles. So no assault rifles. Sorry kids, you'll have to join the RDF for that kind of thing

Sparks

Barry Aldwell wrote:

Before you all go running out to buy your sporting copies of the M16

Can't use it for ISSF shooting so I'll pass Barry and stick to my Anschutz

I have been reliably informed that while you may be able to obtain a license for a .223/5.56mm NATO/SS109 rifle, the Gardai do not want people to be running around with centrefire semiauto rifles. So no assault rifles. Sorry kids, you'll have to join the RDF for that kind of thing

I've been told that there are at least two AR-15's already licenced in Ireland (but not chambered for .223 Remington, and strictly straight-pull only). And don't they prefer to be called the PDF?

Moriarty

RDF != PDF

cranoo

Sparks wrote:

Can't use it for ISSF shooting so I'll pass Barry and stick to my Anschutz




don't they prefer to be called the PDF?

Rdf= reserve defence forces PDF= permanent defence forces

its a tad of difference dont you think Sparks

:eek: so you dont know it all

Virus_Inc

22-250 is a brilliant shooting iron and deadly accurate aswell - only rifle I've ever put two bullets thru the same hole on the target range! I have shot deer with it aswell, although that was using custom loads with a big long 60gr projectile (had to single load them - too long for the magazine)

Thinking of large calibres... If you were a big game hunter/enthusiast would the guards let you keep a 600 nitro express? (which is not so much a rifle as light artillery)

Barry Aldwell

Virus_Inc wrote:

Thinking of large calibres... If you were a big game hunter/enthusiast would the guards let you keep a 600 nitro express? (which is not so much a rifle as light artillery)

That cartridge is designed for hunting elephants, or so google tells me. Unless you plan on hunting in the zoo, I don't think you'd need something quite as large as that for anything other than anti-materiel purposes

After all, nobody wants you to be able to outgun the army (The largest rifles in the country are Accuracy International .50 cals, operated by the Ordinance Corps and the ARW)

red vex

customised loading isnt legal in ireland either. does anybody know if it ever will be legalised in the future? Anybody have anything to say about the rise in firearms offenses and its relevance to liscencing if any.

RicardoSmith

Why would you want anything larger than .22 for hunting or target shooting?

Sparks

red vex wrote:

customised loading isnt legal in ireland either. does anybody know if it ever will be legalised in the future?

Doubtful - it would mean granting explosives licences to thousands of individual people. It's been indicated in previous talks with the DoJ to be something they don't want to ever see.

Anybody have anything to say about the rise in firearms offenses and its relevance to liscencing if any.

The two are completely unrelated.

RicardoSmith wrote:

Why would you want anything larger than .22 for hunting or target shooting?

For the ISSF 300m discipline (in the Olympics till '82, still in the World Championships) you need a centerfire rifle just because of the range involved (.22 rimfire rifles like those used in the olympic 50m event are not accurate enough at 300m to be used). There are other non-ISSF disciplines that use centerfire rifles (centerfire generally means a larger calibre than .22, though there are exceptions), but I don't know as much about them.

As to hunting, well, foxes and similar animals can be hunted humanely with .22 calibre rounds, but for larger animals, it's not very humane. Culling deer, for example, is a necessary task - but there's no need to be inhumane about it. So you use a larger calibre to ensure a clean and as-painless-as-possible kill.

cranoo wrote:

Rdf= reserve defence forces PDF= permanent defence forces
its a tad of difference dont you think Sparks
:eek: so you dont know it all

Never said I did cranoo, but the people I know in the PDF who do most of the shooting are in the PDF's marksmanship programme, and so far as I know, the FCA aren't involved in that. And from what I've heard of the shooting training for the PDF and the FCA, if you join the armed forces because you want to use firearms, you should be joining the PDF. (I should point out that my information on the PDF/FCA is all second-hand, before I annoy anyone in either body - I've never been in either).

RicardoSmith

Would there be many people who need to cull deer? Do they use a rifle to do it? I would have thought they used something else, but I don't know anything about it. Just curious is all.

300m, didn't know about that. In fact I know little about the sport in Ireland. What Olympic and World Championship squads does Ireland have in shooting?

rander00

Exactly,,,, how many people need to cull deer? Theres a bit of a herd out where I live,,, herd as in 15 - 20,, see them every summer. Theres not alot of farmers that need to cull them, i`d say probably about 3 in the whole country. There isnt exactly, millions of them and they dont pose a real threat.

Most ppl that shooting deer use a shotgun. Only mufftys shoot deer!!

Sparks

RicardoSmith wrote:

Would there be many people who need to cull deer?

No, mainly gamekeepers. But there are quite a few who hunt them.

Do they use a rifle to do it? I would have thought they used something else, but I don't know anything about it. Just curious is all.

Technically you could do it with a solid slug from a shotgun or a hunting bow, but I doubt that either is as humane. I'm not even sure the bow would be legal.

300m, didn't know about that. In fact I know little about the sport in Ireland. What Olympic and World Championship squads does Ireland have in shooting?

There's the National Squad in rifle shooting, the Army's marksmanship team who would enter CISM competitions (international military target shooting), and there's the clay pigeon squad. Up North, there's also the GB squad and the Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games squad. But these wouldn't all be a set group of people - rather people would qualify to be a part of the Irish Team going to various competitions, out of a pool of shooters.

Basicly, there are open competitions through the year and everyone shoots there as individuals. Based on those scores, people are chosen to represent Ireland in international competitions. It's a bit more complex than that in some cases, but that's the general gist of it.

RicardoSmith

So how would you get started in shooting then? .22 target stuff at a club?

Sparks

Or air rifle stuff Ricardo. It depends on where in the country you are. College students tend to start on air in UCD, air or .22 in TCD. There's another air rifle range in Wilkinstown, and the Irish Pony Club's tetrathletes use air rifle as well, but that's then about it for the republic and air rifle. Everything else is .22, centrefire, or shotgun. Shotgun would in fact be the largest by numbers.

RicardoSmith

I'm in Dublin and I know I can shoot well with a shotgun. I'd like to try a .22 though.

Sparks

Are you a college student or college alumni Ricardo?

BrianD3

Seems to be a few gun experts here. One question I have is - are shotgun "slug" cartridges legal in this country. This were mentioned earlier in the thread so I guess they are allowed. However my mate swears that they aren't.

What happens when you shoot something with one of these. I imagine that the damage to a soft target would be devastating because the projectile is basically a .73 inch calibre (in the case of a 12 bore gun) lump of lead.

BrianD3

RicardoSmith

Sparks wrote:

Are you a college student or college alumni Ricardo?

college alumni I guess...

Sparks

are shotgun "slug" cartridges legal in this country.

Yes. I've seen them used in testing shotguns by firearms dealers. So far as I know, they're used for hunting deer with.

college alumni I guess.

Well, there's the TCD club which has an on-campus range, or the UCD club. Both are allowed have alumni members (the colleges don't allow them to have non-alumni, non-student members for insurance purposes).

Failing that, there's pretty much only the Dublin Rifle Club, whose range is out near Blessington. The problem is that land in the city is very hard to get, and damn near impossible to get a range certified for. So every club tends to be outside the city.

red vex

rander00 wrote:

.

Most ppl that shooting deer use a shotgun. Only mufftys shoot deer!!

OMG....why even bother use a shotgun. lets club them to death with their own legs.
In the area i live in the deer population has exploded. Deer numbers must not be let go unchecked because they are key carriers of tuberculosis. They also eat as much as a few cows, If a group of deer were let roam near a field of crops they would do a lot of damage.

RicardoSmith

red vex wrote:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=1830320#
Roll Eyes (Sarcastic)OMG....why even bother use a shotgun. lets club them to death with their own legs.
In the area i live in the deer population has exploded. Deer numbers must not be let go unchecked because they are key carriers of tuberculosis. They also eat as much as a few cows, If a group of deer were let roam near a field of crops they would do a lot of damage.

The only places I've see deer free are in the Dublin/Wicklow mountains and in the phoenix park. But I'm sure theres people who farm them etc. But I would have thought they would have some bolt gun like in a slaughter house, and capture them, rather than going all rambo with a rifle. But maybe a Rifle is easier I dunno. I doubt they use solid shotgun slugs though. I thought those things were used as large game like elelphants and rhinos etc. Do some use them to remove door hinges for stuff like SWAT and special forces etc?