Good friend of mine had a very scary situation not too long ago in Bulawayo and I post this here with his permission.

He's made 10+ trips to Africa and ia a retired U.S. Army officer. On a recent trip his first stop was Zim and then he was continuing on to Namibia. He was not traveling with firearms. For a PH friend in Namibia he brought one box (50) Barnes .416 bullets in his checked bag. When at the airport leaving for Namibia the box of projectiles showed up on the scanning gear and he was questioned as to what it was. He told them and opened up his bag and showed them the box of projectiles.

Thus started a three-day major league nightmare. He was taken into custody and questioned. He would have spent time in a locked cell but was able to contact his Zim PH friend and released to him under a Zim version of house arrest. Such 'arms smuggling' is apparently assigned to the Homicide Unit of Zim police and that is where he went for questioning.

The Zim PH's came to his aid and got him a good lawyer. Lots and lots of politics came into play including the U.S. Embassy. My friend got the impression that involving the U.S. Embassy did more harm than good, kind of like waving a red flag in front of a bull and made him more of a target.

In the end my friend pled out to a deal rather than spending days/weeks/months in lock-up. He was sentenced to two years in jail, but received one year probation and paid a $500 USD fine and happily got out of Dodge. Terms like 'terrorist' were thrown about describing him while being videotaped and throughly questioning him about his true identity, vehicles owned, etc. The PH who took care of him during this three days has been subsequently hassled as well.

My friend speaks well of the support he received from the Zim PH's.

Apparently there is a blurb about this in the March 2010 edition of Magnum magazine.

I can attest that this guy is not on any radar screens for weird stuff. He's a 60-something hunter guy that had a box of 50 .416 projectiles in his checked bag at the wrong place/wrong time. Moral of the story is don't transport any components through Africa. He's convinced that the support of the Zim PH's that came to his aid are what kept him out of a Zim lock-up.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, a PH friend in Zimbabwe has a friend from Australia bring him a couple hundred Woodleigh softs and solids in 416 and 458 caliber every year. Several years in fact.

Rich

Matt,

Thanks for the heads up.

It just goes to show you how cautious one needs to be in this post 9/11 society in which we live.

It's been common practice for years for clients to bring odds and sods across from the States and elsewhere but nowadays we all need to be considerably more cautious with than we ever used to be.

I have advised against this sort of "favor" for our PH's since a similar unpleasantness in Victoria Falls in 2007.

As I understand it, the Vic Falls Airport staff and the local police are well known to be overly vigilant in protecting their country by stopping people from smuggling these items OUT of their country. They seem now to have advised their fellows in Bulawayo of this opportunity.

They have been known encourage an "on the spot" fine, in cash. [sometimes equal to the number of US$ in your wallet!]

Taking this sort of stuff through Zim is obviously a bad idea. Even with rifles to match it is a shaky idea.

Without a matching rifle it should not even be attempted. I understand that South Africa is equally strict on the components now as they are with the ammo - a matching caliber rifle is required.

Les

I have taken reloading supples to my PH's in Africa four separte times. I guess I have been lucky. Good to know. I won't be doing that anymore.

I hear this kind of thing all the time from clients. "My PH wants me to bring him a brick of 22's" or something similiar. My response is always the same. Do not do it. I know ammo is tough to get in some places but subjecting a client to unknown risk is just not smart.

Mark

I am in full agreement with Mark. I was told a number of years ago, along with a number of other hunters staying at that time at Afton House, and quite emphatically by Louis, that bringing even loaded ammo for your PH was illegal and not to do it. He said that PH's ask their clients all of the time to bring ammo and that it was illegal to do so. His lecture was in response to a question from one of the other hunters staying at Afton House. Now, if you leave it for a PH after a hunt and don't have to account for your remaining ammo, then maybe that's another story, but I wouldn't do it for any reason, and the story above is an example of why not to do anything remotely connected with it, with either loaded ammo or ammo components or parts, and especially if you are not bringing a rifle of like caliber to hunt with, and have it on your rifle permit application.

As I posted on another thread today, my rifle and ammo got separated last night due to a Delta foul up. The very, very stupid lady doing Delta's business told me to just take the ammo with me to the hotel and there would be no problem. (I didn't have a SAPS permit as I was not supposed to be R.O.N. in RSA.)

I can just see the SAPS guy licking his chops if I'd showed up this morning with 50 rounds of ammo and no permit.

The moral of the story is that you are in a foreign country. Do you best to respect their laws (which may be impossible to discover what the hell they are, btw!).

Vic Falls are counting every round of ammo coming in, and every round going out. Be prepared to explain the difference. They let me go but sent CIO and CID heavies to my lodge after I left. The lady who does the firearms permit inspections at departure is a particularly nasty and threatening piece of work.