For our first few trips to South Africa, bringing in a handgun for personal protection was easy; just fill out the required paperwork upon arrival.

Now, I understand that handguns for personal protection are not permitted; any handgun must be for hunting. Fair enough, I'd like to use my S&W 629 Mountain Gun (.44 mag/4" bbl) to take one of the smaller animals. But I've heard stories that a handgun for hunting must be something that is NOT reasonable for personal protection. They want 6" or longer barrel, single action, scope, etc. Is this correct? Is there any place that spells out the requirements in understandable form? Any personal experiences? Thanks.

It is true that you can't take a handgun into RSA for personal protection. It's also true that whatever SAP official you deal with may have their own interpretation of the rules.

In 2005, a buddy & I each took a handgun into RSA for hunting. Mine was a T/C Contender with a 10 inch barrel and scope and his was a 500 S&W Magnum double action S&W revolver with scope (probably an 8 inch barrel). Both our handguns appeared to be hunting handguns and we got them in without problems.

I suspect having a scope on a handgun helps a lot in showing the SAP official that the gun is going to be used for hunting. A longer barrel would also make it appear to be more of a hunting weapon. The handgun can be single shot, single action or double action but not semiautomatic.

If you use one of the meet & greet services like Air2000 or have a knowledgeable travel agent, they should be able to give you all the details on what is currently permissible in the way of hunting handguns.

The way I got it is, any revolver of a suitable calibre with a barrel of at least 6". I think the smallest they will allow is a 38 Spl. Any pistol is out of bounds.

Wonder if one of John Linebaugh's single-action 475 or 500 revolvers would qualify ?

Linebaugh revolvers are almost always 5 1/2 inch barrels.

The calibers are big enough.

But all mine use iron-sights.

Can't imagine a scope on a Linebaugh.

Yes, you could in 2006. I also used Air 2000.
5 1/2 inch 500 Linebaugh, no scope.