Transferring Firearms to a South African?

I searched for possible threads related to this topic and did not see one that matched.
My daughter moved to South Africa and is engaged to be married to a fine young man. It's my fault, I hunted with him, he's a PH, a couple years back and then introduced my daughter to him. The rest is history as they say.
I've been Googling the subject and have been inquiring with people in South Africa, but my question is unanswered.
I know that if I take firearms over there, I cannot leave them there, they have to return back to the USA with me.
I know that my daughter cannot own any firearms until she becomes a SA citizen after 5 years of living there. She's almost at the two year mark now.
My future SIL is a PH, has his license/permit, and can own as many firearms as he wants, just no full auto weapons.
Under the current process over there, he has to go to a store, purchase the firearm, the paperwork goes to the govt, seller holds onto the firearm, months go by, then they finally respond back letting him know that he can now go and pickup his weapon.
So is there a way, legally, to get some of my collection to SA and transfer ownership to him?

I’m sure there is, Tim Sundles of Buffalo Bore ammo imported a couple dozen weapons to their farm in South Africa.

You just need to find the right import broker.

Have your future SIL talk to a gun shop.

I'd almost wager that it would be quicker and easier to just give him the money to buy one.

I'll look into the broker suggestion.
As far as the SIL buying me new weapons. Already in discussion on that. He's trying to get me Howa Mini Action, in 6.5 Grendel on order.
But are you saying to buy them from the gun store? As in sell them first to the gun store? Just making sure I understand your suggestion correctly.

But, like a lot of you, I have some collectors items.
Three of my duty weapons from my law enforcement career with the department name engraved. Glock would actually use our badge numbers for the serial numbers, S&W would not, but they did engrave the department name on them. When the 7th largest city in America buys the weapons, the manufacturers will do that.
A CMP M1 Garand, a CMP 1911 45, Winchester Wrangler 44 Mag, to name a few.

There are ways to do this correctly. It involves a permanent import permit vs a temporary one used for hunting that we all use when bringing our own guns to hunt with. Your local gun shop will have the current info on how to do this.

Dee S said:

I'll look into the broker suggestion.
As far as the SIL buying me new weapons. Already in discussion on that. He's trying to get me Howa Mini Action, in 6.5 Grendel on order.
But are you saying to buy them from the gun store? As in sell them first to the gun store? Just making sure I understand your suggestion correctly.

But, like a lot of you, I have some collectors items.
Three of my duty weapons from my law enforcement career with the department name engraved. Glock would actually use our badge numbers for the serial numbers, S&W would not, but they did engrave the department name on them. When the 7th largest city in America buys the weapons, the manufacturers will do that.
A CMP M1 Garand, a CMP 1911 45, Winchester Wrangler 44 Mag, to name a few.

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Think they mean by time you pay all the fees duties and tarrifs youd be better off buying one already in country

I was more or less referring to the legalities of exporting a firearm to a foreign country from the US.

Not to mention the hoops that you may need to jump through to get it to him in SA.

Are they some sort of customs or heirlooms? If not, the easy button, sell yours here, give him that money to buy locally.

I did it ... twice actually. But from Canada. The second time the permanent export permit had to be signed by the minister here and it almost didn't happen during COVID. Both were bona fide hunting rifles. One was a double rifle. Last I knew the license for it there was still not issued ... five years after the fact. I do not know if everything was handled properly on that end, but I returned without a gun twice without any problems. The recipient had a "handler" take care of things with the police when I arrived and departed at Tambo. I presume all was on the up and up but can't say for sure. You will definitely need some professional "assistance" on this. That's all the advice I can/will offer. I would never do it again.

I have looked into permanently exporting a CZ 416 Rigby rifle to my outfitter in SA as a gift. It is actually possible to use a licensed firearm dealer from SA and physically bring the rifle when I visit SA and meet the licensed firearm dealer at the airport who would take physical custody of the rifle and clear through SAPS. This rifle then subsequently could not be immediately transferred to the recipient, my outfitter, it would first need to be kept in custody by the licensed dealer while it went through the SA permitting process. Probably take a couple months.

Now for those in the U.S., to be legal, you must first obtain an export permit from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce and pay the fee for the permit. From the SA perspective and from the SA African licensed gun dealers perspective, they don’t care about a U.S. export permit and I’m sure it’s possible to skip this process if I were to take the rifle on my next trip to SA but I will not. I would not knowingly violate U.S. law.

So if I want to do this on my own, I must acquire an export permit. Personally, after given this some thought, I won’t do this on my own due to other reasons. The next time I go to SA for buffalo & hyena, I’ll be bringing my own personal Heym 416 Rigby and I do not want to bring two rifles of the identical caliber when it is illegal or a gray area since one would be permanently exported and furthermore I don’t want to be at Tambo International Airport at SAPS if for whatever reason the SA gun dealer isn’t there? Emergencies happen or for whatever reason, if they are not there to meet you which is out of my control that would not be a good situation since they would have the necessary paperwork. Plus with the two identical 416 Rigby calibers I can see this being too complicated for SAPS.

So this leaves me with using a licensed U.S. exporter/importer and one company who is very experienced with this process is Griffin & Howe. The contact person is Laurel, 973-398-2670. She is very nice and extremely knowledgeable about the process. It would cost approximately $1500 to export from our end in the U.S. and ship to the SA dealer. I do not know the cost of the recipient in SA regarding their license fees.

So is it worth it to use a licensed U.S. exporter like Griffen & Howe? I dunno. For a CZ 416 Rigby I’m not sure it is. Perhaps for other more expensive rifles it may be worth it. Hope this helps.

Brendon

Yeah, I knew it wouldn't be easy, but it sounds like it's going to be really expensive, especially for several weapons and mine are not that expensive to begin with, so there's that.
I do appreciate all of the advice and I will look into. Thanks for information.

I would work on taking them as you go over. It will be your most cost effective option.

It’s been a long time since I stayed at a Holiday Inn, but here’s how I see you can do it yourself. Here’s where I started.


Looks like this is what you have to do.

For the export of an ITAR item, you qualify for an exception under 15 C.F.R. 740.14 (e). This will allow the export of 3 firearms in your baggage.

For the DDTC you will have to file a DSP—5 or get the one time exemption.

For the Export Administration Regulation, you’ll file an AES an Electronic Export Information report on those items.

For the ATF, you’ll file a Form 9.

Then you have the South African side.

Good luck.

A lot of firearms are lost in boating accidents.

Hogpatrol said:

A lot of firearms are lost in boating accidents.

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Great point

So, let's hypothesize that we tipped the boat while on safari and all weapons were lost and prayers were said for their souls.
Will anyone question the fact that there's no record of them leaving the SA or not returning to the USA?

Ontario Hunter said:

I did it ... twice actually. But from Canada. The second time the permanent export permit had to be signed by the minister here and it almost didn't happen during COVID. Both were bona fide hunting rifles. One was a double rifle. Last I knew the license for it there was still not issued ... five years after the fact. I do not know if everything was handled properly on that end, but I returned without a gun twice without any problems. The recipient had a "handler" take care of things with the police when I arrived and departed at Tambo. I presume all was on the up and up but can't say for sure. You will definitely need some professional "assistance" on this. That's all the advice I can/will offer. I would never do it again.

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Canada has issues with RSA.....USA does not

Odinsraven said:

Canada has issues with RSA.....USA does not

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Huh? Trump is the one always hammering on South African persecution of white farmers, blah, blah, blah. As far as I know the Canadian government has no problems with South Africa. Not like we've slapped the country with big tariffs ... like Trump.

As I understand it, any permanent export of guns requires permanent export permit.

A. Export permit required from the US
B. Then using the export apply for permanent import permit from South africa.

Fly it on your own meet a dealer at the airport or use broker but those two steps above cannot be skipped.

Then there is ITAC and customs South African side so unless the rifles are really irreplaceable and you really want them to be here in Africa its not worth the time money and hassle rather come hunt with him and give him a big tip so that he buy locally.

I appreciate all the input and I believe we have a plan. Going over in October, I'll take two rifles and get with the firearms dealer.
In the meantime, my SIL is waiting to hear back from the same dealer about ordering me a Howa rifle.
And after much thought and consideration, and reading the replies above, I've gone through my long weapons list. Of my 18 rifles, there are really only 3 that I can't live without. I can sell the rest and I'll be fine with that.
Of my 11 pistols, 5 are keepers and I can leave those here with my other daughter. The others, I can part with and not lose too much sleep over it.
This has come about because my wife and I have decided to sell our house here and move to South Africa to be closer to our daughter. It hasn't been an easy decision and every day it seems that we are dealing with a new obstacle or 'unknown' issue. The weapons were one of those. At first, you think how am I getting 18 rifles to SA? Then you process it and realize, you know, it's not America. I can't own as many firearms as I want. You just streamline and get what you need, and only what you need.
For me, I'm thinking I'd like to get a 6.5 Grendel for anything from a jackal on up to a red hartebeest.
Then I could use a 308 Win for anything from a springbok on up to a zebra, maybe even an eland.
And a shotgun for birds.
That's three that covers just about anything I'd be shooting.
In reality though, rifles, or 'boom sticks' as I call them, are not my weapon of choice. I prefer a bow over a boom stick, but I do like to reload and plink. The 6.5 would get a work out on jackals and baboons.
One of my rifles that I will take over, my Winchester lever action carbine in 44 mag. Big loop and and all.