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Over here you just cannot arrive in a European country without documentary proof of ownership of a live firearm. Arriving in UK without a previously-acquired license will mean that your gun WILL be impounded until you DO have a license. Just 'walking through' the green channel on arrival is not an option here, or anywhere else, with a package that looks like a gun case. Those nice friendly-looking police officers with their HKs will sort you out on the spot.

an-armed-british-police-officer-patrols-outside-of-heathrow-airport-picture-id71630242.jpg
armedpolice2907a1-0.jpg

Until we get some kind of answer from the OP about where he is going, I'm shutting up now.

tac
 
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I have someone in the UK that deals with guided hunts as a profession and has dealt with this issue many times. If you PM me I would be happy to pass details along if you are asking about the UK. All tac's info is spot on of course, but my guy will know how to get your gun documented correctly. He can probably point you to the right people to help in other EU countries as I know he hunts Sweden as well and I think with his own rifles.
 
Spain. I have the very specific requirements for Spain, so I don't help with research on that. Really the only requirement that I can't satisfy is having a registration for a firearm that doesn't normally require one. Guys from the UK have it easier in this case because they rifles are already registered.

I'd prefer not to go the route of re-purchasing it in order to have the background check run, I just don't think that form would work. The Spanish authorities are going to be used to seeing hunters, and mostly from Europe. So they will be used to standard national registration forms. They'll have no clue about a background-check process, and probably will just get hostile with explanations about American gun laws.

I like the suggestion of contacting local LE and asking for a letter that looks official, something on letterhead that simply states I'm the owner of a gun with xxx serial number, I live at xxx address, my full name etc. Wouldn't have any legal authority in OR but would look like what they're expecting to see.
 
Surely the organisers of the venue have advice for visiting shooters from outside the EU?

Remember that not EVERYBODY in what you loosely call Europe is in the EU - Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Albania, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, Macedonia and Montenegro.

Talk to the organisers is your best bet.

tac
 
I just found this - regarding going to Spain to shoot a hunting rifle, posted by the trip organiser....

BTW, remove the words 'hunting rifle' and insert whatever it is that YOU have -

Travelling with firearms:
Spain has a strict system for firearms, but if we follow few steps, it will be pretty easy to follow.

These are the steps to proceed:

1.Contact the Spanish Consulate of your State and inform them about your hunting trip in Spain. They will provide you a form for you to fill up, where mainly you will have to write your personal data, the firearm information, dates of your hunt, as well as locations. You will have to enclose a notarized copy of your passport, as well as a notarized copy of any American documentation that you might have [in your case - membership of the NTA, N-SSA etc]. With all this info, they will provide you a certificate which allows you to travel to Spain with your firearm as well as use it. You will need to contact the Spanish Consulate no earlier than 2 months prior the trip, otherwise they will ignore your request. Please, download a list of the Spanish Consulates clicking here. Regarding the ammo, the U.S. and Spain has contradictory policies of how to handle ammo. Nevertheless, put your ammo (no more than 11 pounds, IATA regulations) in a metallic or plastic box, and pack this one in any of your bags except with the bag that will carry your gun.

2.Once you get the certificate, please, send a copy of it to your reenactment venue organisers, for starting the procedures here in Spain. Do not forget to bring the original one to Spain with you!

3.Once you land in Spain, do not expect your gun showing at the luggage claim, the Police will take it directly out of the plane and transfer it to their office at the airport. So once you collect your luggage, cross Customs, where you will hopefully be met by a representative of the group/organisation with whom you will be shooting.

4. He/she will walk to the Police Dept., where you will show the Consulate certificate, as well as your original passport. After this, they will give you a temporary permit, which has to go with the gun until you leave the country.

5.Leaving Spain: once again, before checking your luggage we first need to stop at the Police Dept. to declare you will be travelling with a firearm. We will show the temporary permit as well as the flight tickets and your passport. The Police will hand write a form with your flight & firearm info; one copy will stay in the case, and the other is for you to show at the airline counter. The Police will put a blaze tape around your case, to show this case contains a firearm (Spanish Law). Now, this time you need to pack your ammo apart, in the metallic or plastic box you brought from the U.S. Spanish Laws doesn t allow including the ammo with any other piece of luggage. But don t worry; this box doesn t count as a piece of luggage for the airline, so you won t have to pay for an extra piece. Do not forget this, airlines sometimes forget about it.

6.After doing this step, we only need to walk to the airline counter, and check your bags, including your firearm case and ammo box. Someone from handling will show up and after checking the rest of your luggage will take your rifle case & ammo box and take care of it. Some airlines tell you to go with the handling person, who will take you to a scanner machine operated my the Police, they may request to see the last form the Police handed you, and that's it !


To tell the truth, if I were you, I'd forget it and borrow one when I get there.

tac
 
Surely the organisers of the venue have advice for visiting shooters from outside the EU?

Remember that not EVERYBODY in what you loosely call Europe is in the EU - Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Albania, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, Macedonia and Montenegro.

Talk to the organisers is your best bet.

tac

And the UK?

''Brexit''. :s0053:
 
Good
Not yet, but hopefully, very soon.

tac
I'm rooting for you if that helps. I think there is some question with the High Court that it may not go through though.

I am not for the EU because of the Schengen Zone primarily, but I find it obscene that Brussels can tell a store in the UK not to sell meat in pounds or that the pint should be this or that. Nationalism is what we all need now to protect our national heritage.
 
Good

I'm rooting for you if that helps. I think there is some question with the High Court that it may not go through though.

I am not for the EU because of the Schengen Zone primarily, but I find it obscene that Brussels can tell a store in the UK not to sell meat in pounds or that the pint should be this or that. Nationalism is what we all need now to protect our national heritage.

Many of us here in UK, and as a UK resident and tax-payer, even as a pensioner [my military pension is taxed] I am seriously p***ed that most everything in our daily lives is ruled by Brussels and the laws that they impose. However, the decision to 'go metric' back in 1971 was nothing to do with Brussels, but was intended to help the UK get on better within the rest of totally metric Europe [apart from Ireland] when it joined the European Common Market - the monster that has changed into the dictatorial EU. UK pays scant lip service to being metric, as anybody who comes here would instantly see.

1. All mileages on road signs are in miles, or parts of miles [except in Wales, where they are Milltir - Welsh for mile, but actually derived from the Latin for a thousand paces, iow, the Roman military mile]. The Welsh also use the Llath for yard, a Welsh word that means, uh, yard.

2. We still have EVERY road vehicle with miles per hour on the speedo and just like you do, have kph hiding inside the mile indicators.

3. We still measure farms by acres, not hectares.

4. We still measure house space by square feet and not square metres - backyards by square feet or acres or parts thereof.

5. All heights are in imperial measurements.

6. In spite of having metric weights and measures, we buy pints or half pints of beer. We buy spirits by singles or double - who cares how big they are?

7. Eggs are sold in dozens, not tens.

8. We STILL think in yards, feet and inches. So does my 11-y/o granddaughter, who has never been taught anything except metric in her life.

9. Water depths? Feet and inches.

11. Geographical heights? Feet.

12. General AND military aviation worldwide, except for the Former Soviet Union? Feet AMSL.

13. Maritime/aviation velocities? Knots/MPH. Knots are a rate of one nautical MILE per hour. A nautical mile is defined as one sixtieth of the distance between two parallels of latitude separated by one degree [minutes, seconds, gettit?]. Today it is classed as a SI derived unit, despite having to have been being rounded to an even number of meters, and remains in use for both air and marine navigation and for the definition of territorial waters. Incidentally, the international territorial limit is 12 Nautical miles.

14. Personal body weights are in stones [a stone is 14 pounds].

15. Packaged food are bought by roughly what they weigh, but we don't buy sliced meat in metric - most of us buy 'a few slices of that, please', or ' a nice big piece of that, about that much...'.

16. Most important, we fill up the gas tank either to full, or by putting £20, £30, £40 or £50-worth in it, ignoring the litres totally, since our vehicle fuel gauges don't know that they are metric...

17. In any case, using metric measurements to describe fuel economy is NOT scientific. After all, who can relate to a gas mileage of, say, 8.5L per 100 kilometres? We use neither. It's 'How many miles per ONE gallon' that makes sense, not having TWO variables to calculate fuel efficiency.

18. Tyre pressures? PSI, and NOT BAR, even though one BAR is 'about' 14.5-ish pounds per square inch. That's really easy to remember. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

19. Bow draw weights? Pounds @so many inches draw length - usually taken at 28 inches.

20. Firearm bullet velocities? Feet per second. And muzzle energy? Foot pounds.

21. Firearms Proof Test pressures? [Long] tons per square inch.

22. Fishing line? Pounds test.

23. Thread counts? Threads per inch.

24. Font points? 1/72 of an inch.

25. Weights of LARGE objects - ships, for instance - Tons, 'natch. Imagine describing the USS Nimitz as weighing in at 2,000,000 kilograms.............

26. Mrs tac wishes to remind any ladies reading here that bra sizes are definitely in inches as are waist belt sizes for men and women - most clothing in fact is imperial and not metric.

Sure, there is confusion, mainly on posted loads on road bridges - 1 Ton = Imperial ton [2240 lbs] but 1 short ton, often used in USA, is only 2000 pounds. The so-called metric ton/tonne - 2,204.6 lbs just falls in the middle of both. However, the LONG ton, as the real English ton is called, is a true multiplication of all the smaller components still is regular use here in UK -

16 ounces = 1 pound [lb - Latin for pound]

14 pounds = 1 stone [used for weighing people and large amounts of caught fish]

8 stone = 1 hundredweight [cwt] = 112 lbs

20 cwt = 1 ton

Simple.

One of THE least understood of ALL metric measurements is that of the Newton, although it is named after the English scientist who almost single-handedly got the world into real science, rather than religiously-based gobbledegook. EVERYBODY can get a handle on foot-pounds to measure torque - who the he** can do it with Newton-metres?

I mean, just LOOK at it - The newton metre (also newton-metre, symbol N m or N·m)[1] is a unit of torque (also called "moment") in the SI system. One Newton metre is equal to the torque resulting from a force of one Newton applied perpendicularly to a moment arm which is one metre long.

By comparison, the ft lb is exactly what it says - ONE pound of force exerted at a distance of ONE foot. IOW, 500 ft lbs is sure as heck going to get you out of that ditch or off that line in a hurry, but a NM ? Who knows?

From the shooting POV, the UK and USA have a deathlike grip on measurements used for reloading, because the metric kilogram is simply too big to be finely divided into minute but still readily identifiable amounts. After all, there are only FIVE hundred milligrams in half a kilogram [1.1 pounds] but SEVEN thousand grains in a pound.

We no longer use cords for measuring wood, or pints and quarts for ice cream or shellfish. Chains, rods, perches have also fallen from common usage, although railroad track curvatures or radii are still measured in chains. Furlongs are fast disappearing, as are reams [paper] and quires [also paper].

Rather than two nations divided by a common language, the UK and the US of A are the last bastions of a sensible system of measurement.

tac
 
Rather than two nations divided by a common language, the UK and the US of A are the last bastions of a sensible system of measurement. tac

Many years ago I had a group from east Africa (Nigeria?) visiting our office. I was explaining our rectangular system of survey with meridian, baseline, parallels, townships, sections and the like. They were all smiling, and one of the bolder ones finally let me off the hook: 'we understand, we were a British colony once, as well.' Didn't have to explain fee simple, color-of-title or other realty terms either.

On the other hand, while visiting the Speights Brewery in Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand, I got cross-ways with the tour guide. He was explaining all the tools that were historically used in making barrels. I know he didn't have any first-hand experience with the trade as he was getting some of the sizes mixed up, as well as the names of some tools. When I pointed out the difference between two styles of shaving horse [traditional English bodger and European dumb-head] he got annoyed and launched into a diatribe about American ignorance in refusing to go metric. I asked him how he liked his metric watch and calendar, and the 'conversation' ended there: he was glaring, and I was rolling my eyes.
 
I have someone in the UK that deals with guided hunts as a profession and has dealt with this issue many times. If you PM me I would be happy to pass details along if you are asking about the UK. All tac's info is spot on of course, but my guy will know how to get your gun documented correctly. He can probably point you to the right people to help in other EU countries as I know he hunts Sweden as well and I think with his own rifles.
I also recommend that you read THIS - U.S. Persons Traveling Abroad With Their Firearms | Borderview | Firearm Export And Import Services To Canada, Australia, New Zealand And More!

Bear in mind that ANY documentation you have will have very little significance where a BP firearm is concerned, since it is not regarded as a 'real' gun in many states, but certainly IS in most countries in Europe.

And we STILL HAVE TO KNOW where you are going.

tac

This article led me to the US Customs site for "Form 4457", which can be used to temporarily register a firearm for export and re-entry into the United States. It has the bonus of ensuring Customs doesn't try to impose a duty fee without proof of the rifle being made in the USA.

Traveling outside of the U.S. - Temporarily taking a firearm, rifle, gun, shotgun or ammunition abroad for hunting purposes,

Thank you tac and everyone for helping!
 
I would fly over, buy a broom, remove the "broom" part leaving the "broomstick" part. I would arrive on site with said "broomstick" and begin saying pew pew PEW.... while smiling of course.

Take an actual "gun" to Europe ha ha ha...

~
 
Many years ago I had a group from east Africa (Nigeria?) visiting our office. I was explaining our rectangular system of survey with meridian, baseline, parallels, townships, sections and the like. They were all smiling, and one of the bolder ones finally let me off the hook: 'we understand, we were a British colony once, as well.' Didn't have to explain fee simple, color-of-title or other realty terms either.

On the other hand, while visiting the Speights Brewery in Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand, I got cross-ways with the tour guide. He was explaining all the tools that were historically used in making barrels. I know he didn't have any first-hand experience with the trade as he was getting some of the sizes mixed up, as well as the names of some tools. When I pointed out the difference between two styles of shaving horse [traditional English bodger and European dumb-head] he got annoyed and launched into a diatribe about American ignorance in refusing to go metric. I asked him how he liked his metric watch and calendar, and the 'conversation' ended there: he was glaring, and I was rolling my eyes.

Well, some people get defensive when their ignorance is shown up. He, the tour guide, from what you say then proceeded to pile on his ignorance by making sweeping statements about another nationality. Good to just ignore such people...which you did. I have a few on-line overseas friends who do that....to an extent...OR they play the "nationalism for me but not for thee" card whenever the chat veers into areas political especially given the results of our last election - for good or for ill. I just state my case, if they are open to hearing it, and change the subject if they want a one-way screed rather than an actual dyadic discussion/debate. Life is simply too short.
 
Hey Ketoiujin - if you want a really screwed-up nation, visit the UK.
Officially metric since 1971, you'll be VERY hard-pressed to find any visible evidence as you drive around the country. Except when you gas up - gasoline/diesel is sold in litres , but nobody cares, we just fill up or put in 'so much' fuel by value.

Oh yes, the money IS metric....

However, Wales has metric distances, although you have to be a Welsh speaker to appreciate what you are looking at. Welsh for miles is 'milltir' and is derived from the Latin word mille in the Roman thousand pace military mile.

Just to be getting on with......

JS55484453.jpg

tac
 

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