is it legal or not?

sniperman

hi folks,so is it legal or not to lamp and shoot foxes with a rifle?some lads say it is illegal to shoot a rifle at night,are they right,or pulling my leg? i want to start off with my 223 and a mate with his lamp,on permissions of course,so whats the laws on it?thanks

dodderangler

If it's illegal then half of us on this site would be locked up

ezra_

Lamps are legal, nightvision scopes are not IIRC

Vizzy

Perfectly legal as long as you apply the same safeguards that you would use during daylight hours.
Best of luck with it though as I am having serious difficulty being able to get out at night due to the number of incidents of a certain cohort of our population lamping for rabbits and "other" animals at night.

Stealthfins

Well when I'm fishing for whiting late at night in the winter in the Shannon estuary they're shooting ducks or something at night or is it snipe or deer lol

Cass

It's completely legal. Section 38 of the 1976 Wildlife Act as amended by section 45 of the 2000 Wildlife Amendment Act states that it's illegal to use a lamp, dazzling device, NV, heat intensifying/seeking device, etc. to hunt protected wild animal/fowl.

The key term there is protected wild. This refers to animal and birds that are protected (with season or without) under the Wildlife act. So deer, pheasant, etc.).

Anything outside of the term protected wild is completely legal to shoot by means of lamping. That means stuff we call vermin. Foxes, rabbits, etc.

ezra_ wrote: »

Lamps are legal, nightvision scopes are not IIRC

Nightvision scopes are legal you just need to apply for authorisation for them as you would with a suppressor. On the FCA1 in section 3.2 (IIRC) there are two boxes to tick. "Silencer" and "Sights". The "Sights" box refers to NV/IR, etc. IOW any light emitting device. Tick this box and give a reason for it and you're good to go.

Also using Nightvision for foxes, etc is legal because, as above, they are not protected wild animals.

sniperman

well got the first one (fox) friday night with 223,55 grain v max,dropped on the spot,sand hill as a back stop,we paced it out at 166,so we guess around 160 yards,delighted with the gun,many more nights to come.

Cass

Nice one. First of many.

HW100S

Cass wrote: »

Nightvision scopes are legal you just need to apply for authorisation for them as you would with a suppressor. On the FCA1 in section 3.2 (IIRC) there are two boxes to tick. "Silencer" and "Sights". The "Sights" box refers to NV/IR, etc. IOW any light emitting device. Tick this box and give a reason for it and you're good to go.

What would be considered as a good reason to have NV other than 'I want one'........
I'm making a new 223 application soon and am considering ticking this box........

sniperman

i ticked both boxes not knowing the "sights"box was meant for permission to use NV,i did not give any reasons,got back the license with the S on front,so am i allowed to us NV,or do i still need permission from super?

Bad_alibi

S is for silencer/moderator, you should also get an authorisation letter from the super stating you have permission to use a silencer or NV

Cass

HW100S wrote: »

What would be considered as a good reason to have NV other than 'I want one'........
I'm making a new 223 application soon and am considering ticking this box........

I couldn't tell you for definite as i've never applied myself and don't know anyone that has.

I'd imagine things like not being able to use a lamp, definitive identification of quarry, etc. would suffice.

sniperman wrote: »

i ticked both boxes not knowing the "sights"box was meant for permission to use NV,i did not give any reasons,got back the license with the S on front,so am i allowed to us NV,or do i still need permission from super?

No.

As said above when you tick the boxes you must give reasons why. The "S" shows you were given permission from the Super for the Suppressor so i'd imagine there would be something similar for NV.

Also with the amount of people still wrongly ticking "Sights" any application that has it ticked without the supporting reasons would most likely be ignored.