A friend of mine is wanting to purchase a ruger 308 win. He is a resident in south africa and the local agents are quoting between 4 to 6 months for delivery as they do not keep stock of these rifles, and at a huge cost. Is there perhaps someone coming to south africa on a hunt in the next 6 months who would be willing to bring a rifle with them? The specs are as follows: Model no: 17979, catalogue no: KM77VTBBZMK11 in caliber 308 win. Thanks.

lal,

coming from the US there are a number of hopops to jump through. It has to be permanently exported and forms from our Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have to approved, as do US custom forms. On your end, a certified receiver, gun shop owner fullu authorized to accept firearms exported form a foreighn country has forms to fill out at the same time. It is a red tape frigup. Yes,it can be done, but it is not with pain.

Probably quicker to wait the 4-6 months. It took one of our members about 2 years to export from USA and import to Namibia a rifle.

Doubt SA would be any easier.

He could also probably expect to wait something like a year for the CFR in South Africa to get the paperwork sorted out here.

FWIW, CFR have just taken almost a year just to give me permission to sell one shotgun and buy another one.

I think some people do not realise that the US, as far as import and export of firearms is concerned, has one of the worst regulations one can come across.

I understand that people find it very difficult to fly transit through the US with firearms.

Times have changed, sadly not for the better.

Thanks for all the replies. I will pass the message on to my friend. And it takes upto 2 years to obtain a license in SA!!!

quote:

Originally posted by lal:
A friend of mine is wanting to purchase a ruger 308 win. He is a resident in south africa and the local agents are quoting between 4 to 6 months for delivery as they do not keep stock of these rifles, and at a huge cost. Is there perhaps someone coming to south africa on a hunt in the next 6 months who would be willing to bring a rifle with them? The specs are as follows: Model no: 17979, catalogue no: KM77VTBBZMK11 in caliber 308 win. Thanks.

Exporting a firearm out of the U.S. and into South Africa is the kind of task you take on when you have nothing else to do for the next five years or so.

Not many years ago it was an easy task -- no more. You've got a better chance of finding the elusive 8 inch Oribi.

An export document from the U.S. Department of State is required. I just went through this procedure two years ago to take a rifle to a PH in RSA. It is a time consuming and frustrating process for the parties on both ends.

You will be working with The U.S. Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, DTRADE for short. They have jurisdiction of firearms leaving the US to a forign country for export purposes, which is what you are talking about doing.

Here is the website,

http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/dtrade/index.html

You are risking federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison time for trying to just take a rifle to a forign country and leaving it there without going through the above agency for proper documentation.

The person receiving the rifle in RSA needs an import document from the RSA Government and a license to own the firearm in the RSA provence where he lives before the US DTRADE agency will process the document to export the rifle from the US.

It takes two very determined individuals, one working from each end, to get this done.