TR on student...(Success story updated)

[nbk3y7k]

Awesome Dude. We met in COP on the day when your License got approved. A good case study for all. Congrats and based on inspiration from you I ve also bought a Ppk today.

[surajshuresh]

Hi thank you nbk3y7k i do remember you... Congrats that you have also brought a PPK which year make and how is the condition...

[xl_target]

So what did you bring back?

[nbk3y7k]

Hi thank you nbk3y7k i do remember you... Congrats that you have also brought a PPK which year make and how is the condition...

Thanks. I do not know the year but it's in kind condition. Almost 0 recoil when fired.

[Anand]

Hi Suraj,
Congratulations on your TR success. Now if you could elaborate as much as possible on how you accomplished this seemingly impossible task, it would be very helpful to others. Please give as much detail as possible on all difficulties faced and how you overcame them. The hurdles on the Australian side, on the Indian side and in transportation and Customs etc. would all be appreciated.
Regards,
Anand

[surajshuresh]

Hi XL_target i brought back a walther ppk 1971 make with 6 mags...

Hi Anand i will write a detailed report please give me some time...

[sa_ali]

This is great story man, i am sure it will give hope to many more ppl rather students out there.

COngrats once again, do share the pic of the beauti that you got

[xl_target]

Hi XL_target i brought back a walther ppk 1971 make with 6 mags...

Hi Anand i will write a detailed report please give me some time...

Congratulations! When You get around to shooting it please post a range report (with a lot of photos).

[ckkalyan]

Congratulations on your tremendous effort of bringing through the James Bond weapon on Student TR from Aus surajshuresh Maybe some images - and a how you decided on this weapon - since a lot of your earlier questions were on ammo availability in India?!

Hope you will explain in much detail mate, as to how you did the Aussie Salute (and Indian Salute) !

[surajshuresh]

Hello my friends in this post i would like to take you through the journey of my transfer of residence experience even though this journey was a long and difficult one. I have reached the final destination...

I was always fascinated by firearms since its in the family. I wanted to own one when i was 15 only, in fact i had got an arms application filled at that age i only was waiting for the right time. I did not even know that i had to be 21. I still do have the same filled application with me even after all this years. I had purchased a .177 Nation rifle at that age and used to target practice in my farm with glass bottles. Time came to handle and fire real guns when i had been to my native place. Tried out my uncles 12 gauge and was awestruck with the feeling and i could not stop thinking about it. During my college days i got to handle the big boys like insas, slr and .22lr CZ. I did well in the competitions but still the time had not come to own one. Finally i went to Australia to do my higher education and one fine day i found Indians For Guns and i was excited to so many like minded people. While going to the posts i read about import and TR. Later i got to know the real situation about guns and their regulations in India. I thought it would be great to get one back with me and it would be the best memorable gift that i got for myself after all those hard year of study. In 2010 i started this post i was glad that i got so much response and support from my fellow friends...

later that year i went through the Australian firearms regulations decided to get into sports shooting and applied for a handgun license and club membership. Since handguns are well desired and sought after in india. I went for the handguns because i know that i could get a shotgun or a .22lr rifle through renowned shooter even though this was hard but it was possible. where as to get a handgun it was impossible especially the non sporting ones. The first stage of this is was to get an Australian license and purchase and hold the firearm for a year. So I went to a handgun shooting club called Auburn shooting club and became a member. 1st day was a theory and introduction on the strict Australian Firearms regulation. There are different category of firearms license in Australia and you go that in the Australian police website.

1: Apply for a club membership then fill and send the license application to the Firearms registry through your club remember you need to be a valid club member to get and hold the firearms license
2: I went for the category H license which is a handgun shooting license but i can only own 5" barrel and above pistols 4" barrel and above revolvers and the magazine is max 10 rounder.
3: After a month you will get a letter and you have got the nearest RTA and pay the fee and get a license card done. The first 1 year a probation license and you can only own 2 firearms after the first 6 months within this months you must complete a firearms safety course which is not easy in our club since we take it serious and you had to do min 3 competitions in a year and also have the mini required attendance to keep your shooting license valid its much each for long guns but there are more regulations on handguns. After 6 months you can apply for full license in which you can N number of handguns but you will have to get a permit to acquire from the firearms registry before you can purchase any firearms and its give for the specific kind of firearms. You can apply for this after you have completed the firearms safety course and documents send to the registry. I enjoyed every bit of these 6 months and went every week to the club to fire off 100 rounds min and try out all kinds of handguns. I learned a lot and it was really fun. Luckily i was able to pass the test in the first go and after the 6 months i applied for a full license.

3: In the meanwhile i was researching on which handgun to buy after a bit of thinking and debate in the forum and also with the Cat H restricting i ordered a colt king cobra to be imported from the US. Because even if you can get a license in Australia its very difficult to find handguns. Most of the time there will be no stock and you will have to order it from the dealer and the dealer must order it from the authorised distributor and sometimes it will take months or even a year to get one handgun. You cannot import new firearms who have authorized distributors in australia Hence i could not get most of them i badly wanted to a nighthawk 1911 in .38 super but there was a long waiting more than 6 months to 1 year so i did not go for it and i feel i made the right decisions. Ok lets go back to the colt king cobra even after ordering it 6 months had passed still no colt king cobra. In the meanwhile i came to India on a short trip and tried to do get a KSRA membership and do the CRTC there but it was a failure and i was not given a member the secretary told me to come back after i am back in India and i would be given a membership i went home disappointed. It was then when i met Farook at KARS he told me "earning one crore is easier than get a arms license in India". Disappointed at this i spoke to Anand and he suggested me do the CRTC at CAR bangalore and one day i went there and get the application met the ACP and he was friendly. Filled up the application and got it signed by local inspector and did my CRTC. It was a great experience and i also won 1st place we had a small send of party in the end. finally felt happy that i got one thing of the way.

4: Came back to Australia still no update on the colt king cobra. After thinking a bit more and seeing the situation in India i though its only sensible to get a .22lr, .32 s&w long, .32 ACP, 12 gauge, 30.06 rifle. In these the best would be .22lr and .32 s&w long, 12 gauge since you can fire of and practice at your local club. Since the .32acp ammo is not available at the local club you will have to depend on your ammo quote... One final day i found a beautiful Walther PPK .32 ACP and in Brand new condition with the original box and etc. I told my i will go it insisted of colt king cobra but there one problem in my license i could not buy it nor would i have got a permit to acquire it since it was a compact gun and the only way to get was through a collector license but under collector license you can't buy ammo and to get a collector license it would more time, become a collector club member etc to many complications. Hence i found a special permit which is given by the commissioner of police to purchase and take overseas any non prohibited firearms while leaving australia but it had its own restrictions. So i paid for the Walther PPK and got it shipped to my dealer and got an invoice for it also and i had deposited it with my dealer for a year since i did not have a safe in my house but i had got the commissioner's permit after i books the tickets early and got it under my name had deposited it for a year with my dealer which costed a lot of money. After this i went searching for mags and trust me i searched the whole of Australia through online was not able to find one. Luckily i found one add for used ppk mags and called the guy brought 3 first and then later i got 2 more since the gun came with only 1 flat mag.The mags were in decent shape and they were original walther 2 were with pinky extension and one was a ppk/s mag now which does not fit my gun properly. He know i badly wanted it and asked 100 dollars for one and i no choice other than to pay him and take it plus shipping of course... Now looks like all is going smooth in the Australian side only an export permit from here and then the work is on the Indian side...

5: Finally came again to India on a short trip just for 2 months and to get my KSRA membership going and apply for a license before i came back with the gun but i was only able to get the ksra membership done because it took nearly a month because of the police verification etc and then there was elections so could not do the license part but got all the paperwork done and ready.

6: Came back to Australia started to do my export permit which is a simple process but got complicated and took too much time since the gun was not registered to my license and i got special permit for it and the customs guns were not aware of this at all infact i guess i was the only one to get this permit in the recent time. After a lot arguing and getting a confirmation from the department of defence i was issued with a restricted goods permit just before i left. Had did multiple trips to customs office. I also had informed the airlines early and chose Singapore airlines since they allowed to carry guns and at free of cost if its under 5kgs. On the day of departure me and my dealer went to customs counter and they inspected and escorted me to the airlines. I had been a few hours early and did an online checkin which helped to speed up the process after taking copies of the document the airlines checked in my handgun with 6 mags tucked in a nice pelican case locked...

7: Landing in India i was filled with excitement and but also thinking about the customs reaction. Luckily i found my box marked with a big X in the unclaimed baggage and declared it with the customs. They gave a detention slip and did not care to even see my documents. All this took an additional hour. Came back home and was happy that i got the gun landed safely in to India.

8: The very next day i started worrying about the license part and Anand suggested to me get a letter from KSRA which would help me to get my license after running the secretary's and with Anands help they saw my competitions certificates etc i was able to get a Letter from KSRA. Already two weeks had passed and i was worried about the gun because they was clause in the detention receipt that all firearms would be disposed of after two months if not released in accordance to the customs act. So then i got the fitness certificate prepared all documents like my Australian license, permits, certificates, crtc, fitness certificate, ksra letter even a few property tax receipts just to make my case strong. Gave in all the documents and with a week these came to my local area police but the guy there was not helpful in moving my case fast then i got my dad make a call and he got a call from the IPG office with 10mins he called to come to the station at 9pm i was sitting in the station and typing my own report...lol...hahaha... Then things started to move after multiple visits to the local station it was like 3 full days in the station i got to know many of them. After all the report was done got him to the house got the inspection and drawing done. Next was the 4 witness signature in which 3 of them were high court lawyers and the writer had written a favourable report for sports propose. The next step was to meet the Inspector and i went with my dad he told he will recommend my case after my dad spoke to him and this was last office i had to meet. I did not go for any interview i only went to the license section a few times to get my application status and got to my case office there. One final day just a week before two months of landing i got the letter saying my license application is approved. I went to the license section the very next sec and after requesting and stating my reason he agreed to get my license done on that day. It took nearly 4 hours in the commissioners office and a lot of palm greasing to get my license booklet done and signed by the DCP admin. At the end of the i was a happy man. But still it was the not the end i had one more step that is the bangalore customs.

9: My Brother in law who is also one of our kind was very helpful in dealing with the customs since he is an IRS. After firing off an AK in auto mode he was also stuck by the same bug and he was very excited that i was managed to get a Walther PPK with be back with success. He spoke to the DCP of customs who he meet in the Bangalore Airport on his trip back and called him told this situation. But was on a vacation but informed his superintendent the next day i went to the airport called the superintendent who came and got me a pass done. Went in and spoke to the AC of customs but he insisted to get a NOC from police but i told him ok and came back he told he would give me a letter if i need but me being fool in urgent did not take it but overall the response was good. Went to the license department asked my caseworker for an NOC the guy next to him insisted to get a letter from customs stating a request for an NOC. Next day again i went to the Airport and meet the AC for the letter this time is another person who i had to explain all over again. Some how i managed to get an NOC request letter after 4 hours but i was treated with biscuits and tea. While explaining my stance there was another AC who was in charge of cargo he poked in his nose and told that the gun needs to be inspected by police because it can be give to me. So i was end up get an request letter for inspection of firearms. Took this to the license department and give to the lady there she went though and told they are requesting for a inspection and not a NOC. Here things got complicated the case worker told give it in the single window and it will be inspected by the CAR police. He was actually scolding the customs for complicating the thing and told the NOC is not required since you already have a license. I was totally disappointed and called my brother in law he spoke to the DC and told me give a letter for release of my handguns to the customs since it was the last day of the 2 months i guess there is some kind of penalty after that not sure of this. He also told come after two days and see what he can do. Since he was still on vacation...

10: After the DC was back i went and meet him with a baggage act and showed him all my documents and the baggage rules and it requires only a license and no NOC and convinced him. He ordered an inspector check all my documents and clear my pistol. This usually take a few hrs but it took an whole day because they were not sure how much customs to put and after a few hours i told them visit the mumbai custom website where it was given as 154% and finally the DC signed and i paid the customs got it realised. In fact all the customs guys were excited to see it and were asking about it and wished me luck for my sports shooting. I also had full meals with the customs officers in the airport free of cost...lol...hahahaha...

11: Now what is all is left is get it inspected and enter it my license book which will be done this weekend... Once advice is that this is not easy its actually very difficult and takes a lot of time. I cant imagine how much running around i have done and how many paperwork i have done for this and not to forget the amount money i have spend on this process... Do this only if you have a license in India before only dont do what i did because i was lucky to get a license with in 40 days and without much difficulty. This was possible only with a lot of connections and hard work... And also being a sports shooter with some credentials will help in all the steps of the process...

Finally thanks to everyone and sorry for any typo and i will update the pictures as soon as i can...

Thank you,
Suraj Suresh...

[surajshuresh]

Thank you sa_ali, XL_target, ckkalyan... Please go through my long post...lol...hahaha...

[ckkalyan]

Thank you for sharing your experience in detail surajshuresh!

I can see how much trouble you went through; however I admire your determination and persistence. Well done and wish you much joy with your PPK!

[farook]

Getting an arms license is a pain staking process in India no doubt. It does appear from your write up Suraj that you file has not gone through the formal procedure or you would have been called for at least two interviews one of which would have been either the additional commissioner or commissioner of police. You must meet and personally thank the IPS officer at the IGs office who has in all probability informed all the six officers to clear the file

[deep27]

Congratulations Surajsuresh........well done.

Sent from my XT1022 using Tapatalk

[manpreet1422]

Thank you sa_ali, XL_target, ckkalyan... Please go through my long post...lol...hahaha...

Hi suraj, first of all congrats.

Can you please explain what you mean by 153% custom duty, I am still bit confused with this thing. Like how much you paid in INR and what was price of the gun?

Can you please explain it briefly. It will be much appreciated

Thanks
Manpreet Singh