Safe Requirements and Licence Questions

Hey all,

I am doing my firearms licence test in two weeks and have one question about that and one about the safe.

Licence test question: I have been studying up and doing the quiz on the Police website, I have scored low a few times as the test asks about bullet travel and specific firearm questions. Am I expected to know the distance all calibre bullets can/will travel? I was under the impression that the test was only on the Arms code and 7 main rules.

Safe Question: I am going to purchase a safe that has two compartments for firearms and ammo. Reading the Police guidelines it states that the cabinet should be fixed to two surfaces not that it must. I don’t want to skimp on security but I also need to understand what the rules are. Must I bolt it to the floor and wall?

Cheers

You can’t store the ammo in the same safe

You are best go and have a talk to your local Arms officer because ever area seems to have different rules. You also got to think of like this. Do i put in couple extra screws at a cost of less then $5 that will make it harder for lowlife to steal my pride and joy.
Also dont go buying a cheap piece of shit safe you can pry the door open.
I would check also to see what new rules are in the pipe line regards to safes in the future.

Good luck with your licence

Others with more experience will chime in I'm sure, but the Arms Officer who did my last inspection, looked carefully for / checked that the safe was fixed with 4 bolts (using the 4 holes already drilled into the (Kilwell) safe), into two (concrete) surfaces at right angles to each other.

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Originally Posted by MSL

You can’t store the ammo in the same safe

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This is a question i have ask the local cop and he went and ask the question came back and said it was ok.
the police need to get there shit togeather and write one set of rules and stick by them . nice and clear rules

the test is mostly common sense and no you wont be asked about distances that the projectile will travel. but it wouldnt hurt to know.
if you are only going to own one or two guns get a floor mount horizontal safe and just bolt it down into a wardrobe. if its a concrete floor use "merlin screws" or if you are going to use dynabolts drill the holes extra long so if you remove the safe you can hammer the threads back to floor level

Thanks for all of the replies. So safe and ammo combo is a big no no!. I will get a lock box for ammo and store it in another room. I might be overthinking it but I just want to be as safe as I possibly can. Are there any brands of safe I should avoid? is it safe to assume that a firearms safe that is sold in New Zealand meets our safety standards?

I have a safe with theo box inside it with a seperate key, that spot holds mags and bolts and I have ammo in a metal toolbox screwed to the floor in another location

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Originally Posted by ipv

Hey all,

I am doing my firearms licence test in two weeks and have one question about that and one about the safe.

Licence test question: I have been studying up and doing the quiz on the Police website, I have scored low a few times as the test asks about bullet travel and specific firearm questions. Am I expected to know the distance all calibre bullets can/will travel? I was under the impression that the test was only on the Arms code and 7 main rules.

Safe Question: I am going to purchase a safe that has two compartments for firearms and ammo. Reading the Police guidelines it states that the cabinet should be fixed to two surfaces not that it must. I don’t want to skimp on security but I also need to understand what the rules are. Must I bolt it to the floor and wall?

Cheers

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I had my wooden gun case in my garage at a previous house. I had to bolt it to the concrete floor and the wall.

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Originally Posted by MSL

You can’t store the ammo in the same safe

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You can if it's in the separate lockup that most have. You can also store ammo together with your firearms if your firearms have been made inoperable. There is also no requirement have the gun cabinet (they're not safes) to be secured to two surfaces. Obviously though you should make your gun cabinet or rack or safe as difficult as possible to remove.

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Originally Posted by 10-Ring

You can if it's in the separate lockup that most have. You can also store ammo together with your firearms if your firearms have been made inoperable.

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I’ve been told it’s not allowed on several occasions during inspections. So depends who you get I guess. I have separate storage anyway so doesn’t affect me.

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Originally Posted by MSL

I’ve been told it’s not allowed on several occasions during inspections. So depends who you get I guess. I have separate storage anyway so doesn’t affect me.

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That's an example of the vetting officer or AO not knowing the law.

I also think it's high time that the security requirements are updated to be more specific. Currently there is too much room for individual interpretation.

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Originally Posted by bigbear

This is a question i have ask the local cop and he went and ask the question came back and said it was ok.
the police need to get there shit togeather and write one set of rules and stick by them . nice and clear rules

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Most cops know bugger all about firearms, other than what they need to for the basics. You need to read up legislation and the arms code in full. Definitely don't just rely on a random cops word. Especially now with all the clamping down and heat on firearms licencing etc...

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Originally Posted by muzza

The law as it stands as present says you must store firearms and ammo "seperately". If you can do that then you will be fine

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Separately as in side-by-side safes (obviously with different keys) be OK d'you think?

As already mentioned, it is confusing, and many Police and 'inspectors' put their own interpretation on things. My take on it, is that E-cat rules are often mistakenly applied; ie steel-safe (rather than a "stout-cabinet"), bolted-down (E-cat requirement) but not a stdd requirement..and it goes on. It makes 'personal-sense' to make it as hard as possible (within reason), to make it as time-consuming and difficult, for someone to steal your firearms. The more it (theft) happens, the stricter the laws will become, so 'we', as a community, have the power to affect things. And I think you should have at least a basic idea about the range of rim-fire and center-fire ,though not each exact caliber . Join a club...it will come to this eventually anyway, there're heaps of knowledgeable/helpfull people there.

I have spent a lot of time and money over years making my equipment and ammunition hard to find and harder to steal - well beyond 'A' cat (which all my firearms used to be, before Stealcinda & Crew). If however my equipment is taken off me in September, I suspect there will be no market for the expensive safes I invested in, and I'll have little use for them either. Although, maybe I'll unbolting the safes from the concrete, labelling them misleadingly, and hoping any thieves double-herniate themselves trying to carry them off empty... or filled with cement

:pissed off:

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Originally Posted by muzza

The law as it stands as present says you must store firearms and ammo "seperately". If you can do that then you will be fine

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Under the current legislation if the firearm is made inoperable then you can store firearms and ammo together. Probably not a good idea anyway, however that's the law. The separate lockup within a gun cabinet is just that, separate. The downside to that is the separate lockup often has very poor quality, small lock on it so again, not a good idea. As rewa says, It makes 'personal-sense' to make it as hard as possible (within reason), to make it as time-consuming and difficult, for someone to steal your firearms.

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Originally Posted by ipv

Hey all,

I am doing my firearms licence test in two weeks and have one question about that and one about the safe.

Licence test question: I have been studying up and doing the quiz on the Police website, I have scored low a few times as the test asks about bullet travel and specific firearm questions. Am I expected to know the distance all calibre bullets can/will travel? I was under the impression that the test was only on the Arms code and 7 main rules.

Safe Question: I am going to purchase a safe that has two compartments for firearms and ammo. Reading the Police guidelines it states that the cabinet should be fixed to two surfaces not that it must. I don’t want to skimp on security but I also need to understand what the rules are. Must I bolt it to the floor and wall?

Cheers

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You don't need to be a ballistics expert, but generally a rifle will be dangerous far further out than a shotgun as round shot from a SG loses speed relatively fast.

It is relevant to the 7 rules in checking your firing zone. Think shooting an animal silhouetted over the horizon or up in a tree. A SG should be fine, but less so a rifle in that case.

For some commonsense ballistics, assume a .30 cal (~7.62mm) full power cartridge rifle will shoot 3-5km (that's a firing zone you just can't check is safe).
The same .30 cal (~7.62mm) may kill an animal through a 1m tree trunk at short range. Again relevant to firearms safety and pointing the firearm in a safe direction. The bullet can kill through a house very easily so pointing your firearm at a wall is not a totally "safe" direction either. You have to realise that a centrefire rifle is scarily powerful and designed to cause death at distance, so treat it with 100% caution, and don't "get used to it".

A .22LR will classically go out to a mile (1.6km), same considerations for going through wooden walls at short distance. Massively more powerful than an air rifle. A falling projectile at 1.5km or less can still kill or take out an eye, something to think about if shooting possums up a tree in a built up area. I heard of a fat sun bather who had a .22 rimfire projectile (shot almost vertically up by a neighbour) fall down onto her abdomen and lodge in her subcutaneous fat. Ignorance reigns supreme in a lot of places.

A wee trap in the exam is when two answers can both seem right (they MAY both be right in fact) but for the test the correct answer is the right answer which pertains to firearm SAFETY.

Good luck with the exam.

Having recently studied this for teaching purposes, the answer to storage of ammo is well known . It is in the arms regulations 1992 which are part of the 1983 arms act.

Arms Regulations 1992 (SR 1992/346) (as at 21 March 2019) 19 Conditions relating to security precautions – New Zealand Legislation

Yes it is specifically permitted at present to store ammo with the fiream provided it is deactivated (bolt stored separately) but really it's not a good idea to store either bolt or ammo with your rifle. This should be something that is tightened up. This is a drawback of having break action shotguns and everything else but a bolt action. It's a danger you take on when you choose to own that firearm.

Here's a recent discussion I started about storing your bolt, with comments about the "ammo with gun" issue: https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....ecurity-46755/

Note that most of the directions given about storage are by licence vettors who are NOT police officers and their informal requirements vary wildly between individuals. This is another area that needs tightening up.

Download this as its pretty clear
https://www.police.govt.nz/advice/fi...rearms-storage
Follow that and you should be ok when inspection is done. However if you do the minimum it states keep a copy on hand just in the inspector has a different opinion.

The inspector who looked at mine in December 2018 for my new license checked the gun cabinet was bolted to garage floor and wall as per that document. My gun cabinet has the typical separate internal keyed box but they said their preferences thats for knife, GPS etc and not ammo. Said a determined thief could steal the whole cabinet. I reckon they'd use grinder to cut door open before they'd wrench the whole cabinet from wall and floor but I accept the their suggestion to have a seperate secure place for ammo and another seperate secure place for bolt. Sure it's OTT to regulations but seemed sensible to me me to be a bit anal about security. So I bolted a steel tool box into a sturdy cabinet for the bolt and got a small keypad 'safe' for ammo. That's bolted to wall in different room. So 3 locations.

I’d wait till these changes are through, especially the 2nd round. Vetting and storage review.
I doubt any arms officer would be able to successfully push through applications at the moment, but I would like to be proven wrong.

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Originally Posted by Bagheera

Note that most of the directions given about storage are by licence vettors who are NOT police officers and their informal requirements vary wildly between individuals. This is another area that needs tightening up.

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You're right about that Chris. Bear in mind though, that AO's and firearms vettors generally (obviously not all) have a far greater knowledge of the Arms Act and Arms Regulations than the average police officer, some of whom unfortunately, know next to nothing about firearms and firearms law.

Even so IMHO, even after probable changes to the arms legislation in the area of security, all AO's and firearms licensing vettors should have to attend a course run by a specialist in firearms law such as Nicholas Taylor and then undergo a written or oral test so that they're all on the same page. It shouldn't be too hard to arrange and it would have benefits for everyone. Wouldn't be a bad idea for all police officers to undergo training in that area too.