Antique air rifle shipped from England to Canada.

[Buck1950]

jon - It doesn't matter how old your grandfather was, the 'critical age' is When it was Manufactured. as said above, 1898 or earlier. " Over 100 years old" doesn't mean squat to the Govts - look how they treat 'Seniors'.

 

[snurge]

1897 or earlier(nit pick)

 

[ScienceGryphon]

Tac: On the two occasions that I've imported antique arms from the UK, the seller (commercial) indicated their broker/exporter charged a flat rate for export of antique arms up to a certain number of items (I believe it might have been 10, but not sure). It was brutally expensive but, if I'd had 5 or 6 items purchased it would have looked fairly reasonable. I have no idea what the "broker" has to go through at the UK end to export, but, given the cost, I hope it was a lot! At this end, as you know, no import license is required for legal "antiques." The customs agents have no concerns as long as the arm is one of the obvious ones—Snider, Martini. Brown Bess, etc. One of the ones I brought in was a fairly obscure breechloader with no date on lock, etc, and the agent actually spent a fair bit of time googling the model before he was satisfied that it met the criteria. Would I do it again? Probably, but only for something extremely hard to find over here.

milsurpo

So what I had heard is that customs gets fidgety when something comes with export control paperwork:
Ship an antique that doesn't need export paperwork from the States (e.g. like a repro flintlock Brown Bess) - customs do quick check, decide they are happy its an antique here and import control exempt and carry on.
Ship the same gun from somewhere that considers a flintlock an export controlled firearm, and customs isn't happy...
Not sure how true that is; but certainly the advice from the UK shipping firms I dealt with was that you needed someone over here (licensed firearms dealer and/or importer) to confirm that the item was import control exempt

 

[milsurpo]

Not sure how true that is; but certainly the advice from the UK shipping firms I dealt with was that you needed someone over here (licensed firearms dealer and/or importer) to confirm that the item was import control exempt

I never had any inkling of that during my two importation experiences from the UK. The Canada Customs agents involved simply wanted to be convinced that the items were definitely legal antiques here. I suppose the onus was on me to fully believe the guns were definitely antiques here as the UK exporter provided next to nothing to help with that part of the process. Suffice to say I did know with 100% certainty that all of the guns were Canadian antiques. With three of the four the agent rubber stamped them. The fourth was an obscure type with no dates stamped externally and the UK exporter could have earned their fee by attaching some information. But it was a capping breechloader and obviously quite old and the agent satisfied himself in a few minutes that it was an antique. If he'd wanted to be a jerk about it he could have claimed there was no evidence to prove it an antique, and that is where the help of some sort of importer might be necessary. Obscure types, some antique breechloaders and some antique handguns (and airguns!) might require this help. The same would apply to antiques coming in by mail or courier from the USA. Things like Sniders, Enfields, etc. shouldn't be a problem, but anything obscure, or showing up without adequate documentation might be a problem.

milsurpo

 

[tacfoley]

You'll have to forgive me in advance about this, but seeing as the things we are talking about here are not even 'real' guns as we know it, Jim, why are they having to be treated as though the OP is trying to import cartridge-firing firearms that may or may not be considered as antique.

So long as the items have m/e less than 12 ft lbs, they require no license here in UK. Scotland has recently applied its own law concerning purchase and ownership of airguns, but as I understand it, these airguns are coming from England.

How about trying to import them as regular airguns?

 

[Jon9021]

You'll have to forgive me in advance about this, but seeing as the things we are talking about here are not even 'real' guns as we know it, Jim, why are they having to be treated as though the OP is trying to import cartridge-firing firearms that may or may not be considered as antique.

So long as the items have m/e less than 12 ft lbs, they require no license here in UK. Scotland has recently applied its own law concerning purchase and ownership of airguns, but as I understand it, these airguns are coming from England.

How about trying to import them as regular airguns?

That’s an option…

 

[mkrnel]

You'll have to forgive me in advance about this, but seeing as the things we are talking about here are not even 'real' guns as we know it, Jim, why are they having to be treated as though the OP is trying to import cartridge-firing firearms that may or may not be considered as antique.

So long as the items have m/e less than 12 ft lbs, they require no license here in UK. Scotland has recently applied its own law concerning purchase and ownership of airguns, but as I understand it, these airguns are coming from England.

How about trying to import them as regular airguns?

Well for a start in Canada, airguns with a muzzle energy greater than 5.7 joules or 4.2 foot-pounds are in law actual firearms here. Only airguns tested and approved by the RCMP that are under that threshold may be sold as non-licenced airguns.

 

[tacfoley]

Well for a start in Canada, airguns with a muzzle energy greater than 5.7 joules or 4.2 foot-pounds are in law actual firearms here. Only airguns tested and approved by the RCMP that are under that threshold may be sold as non-licenced airguns.

Ah, right. I did NOT know that. That puts a horse of a different blanket on the whole business.

Please consider all my previous posts as having been notionally deleted by me - I'll leave them up for reference to remind me that the UK is not the only place with ludicrous gun laws.