Thankyou everyone for your replies and Welcoming to the Forum, I appreciate being made feel welcome.
aiformula I read your articles and found them to be very informative. They were well written and easy to understand. Thankyou.
Chromechicken and others you can own pistols in Australia and no I am not a LEO.
The following is a very very short run down on pistols in Australia.
No pistols above 38 cal except when issued a commisioners permit to own calibre above this. You can only own above 38cal to shoot certain matches ( metalic silhouette, western action ) but if your club doesnt run those matches then you have vertually no chance of getting a permit.
Semi Autos. Barrels not shorter than 5 inches
Revolvers. Barrels not shorter than 4 inches
Magazines. Capacity maximum of 10 rounds
Specialised Target pistols may have barrels less than the above minimum lengths but must be checked by the police and passed. Certain rapid fire guns are an example.
If you have had a pistol licence for more than 12 months ( I think it is) and wish to buy a pistol then you need to apply for a "Permit To Acquire" (PTA). A PTA is $30. Acooling of period of 28 days applies then an extra wait for it to be sent to you. Minimum time I have heard of is just over one month, the most I have heard is 6 months. ( they are really understaffed and overworked at the firearms registry and that statement comes from the government its self!)
Before you can apply for a PTA you have to satisfy the Secretary of your pistol club that you need a new pistol ( no biggy that one ) and you have to satisfy the Police that your storage of your pistols meet the minimum requirements. Once the Police are satisfied they issue a certificate of compliance and you give a copy of that to the secretary of your club. (minimum safe, 1/4 inch walls and door, minimum 20,000 combination lock system, bolted to the wall and floor using approved anchor bolts, no more than 1 mm gap around the door and consealed hinges, etc)
If you have had your licence for less than 12 months you are not allowed to buy anything bigger than a 22 cal pistol. anything above this and you will have to wait your time.
Once you have your pistols you have to, for each catagory of firerm you own ( air, rimfire, centrefire, black powder ) you have to compete in at least 6 competitions and have at least 4 attendances for each. Its hard to explain but if I had 3 different catagory pistols I could shoot say 6 matchs for rimfire and none for the other two but I would still ahve to have 4 attendances for the other two catagories.
I wont go into transportation or ammo storage or powder storage etc as this short intro the Aussie law is getting longer by the minute but I think you all get my drift by now.
You can own a pistol but the barriers are there.
Thank again everyone
mulder (david)