OV9

Makes sense I suppose - shows the level of commitment to owning the guns "the right way" and to maintaining competency and skill level etc...

I guess my mates "Full Time Game Keeper" job was his legitimate reason. The estate he worked was very "Green" ( for tax purposes) so no pesticides and importantly, no poisons or traps for vermin - so that meant shooting everything. Most of the time, when lamping rabbits, a good high powered Air Rifle was sufficient ( and tended not to spook the locals).

He used to get hired for culling jobs in South Africa, Canada, Alaska, Norway so that brough the whole "Travelling with gun" thing into the picture which was a whole other level of bureaucracy

dinny_g wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 8:47 am brough the whole "Travelling with gun" thing into the picture which was a whole other level of bureaucracy

Travelling isn't anything like the problem I thought it would be. I had assumed that going anywhere near an airport with a gun would be absolutely verboten. Another bizarre quirk of the legal system is that it can be easier to travel with guns than to travel without guns!

A friend told me a story - a few guys were going for a long weekend in rural Italy, and met at the airport. One guy (who happens to be some high flying criminal barrister) arrives carrying his shotgun. WTF the others all say, we're not going shooting. Watch this, says barrister man, as the whole group gets taken down a special channel and essentially VIP'd onto the plane.
When they get to Italy, barrister man puts said shotgun into the left luggage at the airport and leaves it there until their return trip.
And this was at the height of the terrorism on planes scare!
So, for the cost of one piece of "sporting equipment" luggage and three days left luggage, the group of 4 of them got to jump all the check in and security queue and not have to sit with the hoi polii at the boarding gate!

- very clever...

Nef will be taking more foreign holidays this year, in short.