Hi, well for target shooting you must first be a member of a shooting club and do their probationary firearms course, this takes at least six months if you go twice a week to the one on one lessons. After the course you have to sit an NRA exam then you are offered membership to the club if non of the comity object to your membership. Once you have done this you have to submit your application to the police with two reference forms from your friends, then you have an interview with a police man where you must justify each of the firearms you wish to own and demonstrate that you have adequate security. You also need three separate licences for black powder, one to keep, one to transport and one to purchase.
Once you have a FAC, firearms certificate, you can then join any club in the UK or go as a visitor without having to go through the probationary courses again.
You have a police background check when you join the club initially, when you apply for each of your licenses and yearly when the club has to submit its membership lists to the home office.
A normal fac covers muzzleloaders, 22 semi auto rifles, leaver rifles and bolt action rifles etc. You can have long barrelled revolvers but these either have a 16 inch barrel or a 12in barrel and an awful wrist brace thing. There are long barrelled .22 semi auto pistols available but I don’t know much about them. You can also have high capacity shotguns if you go practical shot gunning, but these are very frown upon, and require further back ground checks.
This is an example of an LBR:
or
We are also allowed what is called a nitro conversion cylinder which works much like a normal black powder cylinder but with semi wad cutters, herco powder and shotgun primers. But after seeing that thread with the blown up Remington I’m not as enthusiastic about loading this on the firing point.
This video is an example of a westlake converted Taurus being loaded:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlNjBhDjGgI
When you do the probationary firearms course it does not include certain guns so you have to more training if you want say a Mossberg 590 or a .50 cal rifle.
We’re allowed the originals of muzzleloaders but we are not allowed to fire them, they must be for collecting purposes only. If you are caught with an illegal firearm you can expect five years in prison.
It’s quite late here in England so I hope I’ve explained the system well.
