Check this thing out! Uncle Owen...

[Wapiti]

How much fun would this be? No way this is real, right? a lever-release, Aus-made copy of an Owen Gun.
The selector switch has been reshaped and changed to catch the bolt back and release it, and it fires from a closed bolt now, instead of an open bolt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21UNTyIJWvw
This can't be real?
Is it April 1 again so fast?

[No1Mk3]

Alas will never fly down here, Appearance laws will kill it.

[perentie]

Is it made in Gympie by Ron Owen?

[No1Mk3]

Is it made in Gympie by Ron Owen?

Yes, I believe it's under the Enfield Arms Aust business name used for the Genesis One straight pull.

[deye243]

Alas will never fly down here, Appearance laws will kill it.

In Victoria what appearance laws we have any ?

[No1Mk3]

Alas will never fly down here, Appearance laws will kill it.

In Victoria what appearance laws we have any ?

In the Firearms Act 1996, S. 3.A (1) and S. 3.B (1)

[Gun-nut]

Surely it'd be fine under Vic's laws given we can get wedgetails and Oceania Precisions down here and the owen is an 80 year old, rather esoteric design. Time will tell I guess but I'd love to have one.

[Wapiti]

As soon as the coppers find out that even the most primitive backyard lathe enthusiast will be reverse-engineering the thing to chuck all the complicated bits in a box and make it open-bolt again... they will ban it.
Then again, senior up-the-ladder police generally probably couldn't figure out how a click-biro works, so hey, all good.

[No1Mk3]

Surely it'd be fine under Vic's laws given we can get wedgetails and Oceania Precisions down here and the owen is an 80 year old, rather esoteric design. Time will tell I guess but I'd love to have one.

Age of design is not relevant, the Commissioners determination of whether a firearm is "substantially military" in appearance is what woulod stop it. We already have the .22RF version of the AK47 by GSG declared Cat D from Cat C, an over 70yo design, as well as the .22rf Jaeger Euroarms M16, so the chances of an Owen gun passing muster is very unlikely.

[Die Judicii]

Surely it'd be fine under Vic's laws given we can get wedgetails and Oceania Precisions down here and the owen is an 80 year old, rather esoteric design. Time will tell I guess but I'd love to have one.

Age of design is not relevant, the Commissioners determination of whether a firearm is "substantially military" in appearance is what woulod stop it. We already have the .22RF version of the AK47 by GSG declared Cat D from Cat C, an over 70yo design, as well as the .22rf Jaeger Euroarms M16, so the chances of an Owen gun passing muster is very unlikely.

Don't forget the humble old Gevarm .22rf's
Basically an Owen action anyway.
So reliable, and incredibly simple to make, use, clean, and maintain.
Yea for the good old days, once again.

[alexjones]

Alas will never fly down here, Appearance laws will kill it.

In Victoria what appearance laws we have any ?

Victoria has appearance laws for cat C turning them into cat D.

Saiga 12, m&p15-22 etc are cat D on appearance.

[Wapiti]

Surely it'd be fine under Vic's laws given we can get wedgetails and Oceania Precisions down here and the owen is an 80 year old, rather esoteric design. Time will tell I guess but I'd love to have one.

Age of design is not relevant, the Commissioners determination of whether a firearm is "substantially military" in appearance is what woulod stop it. We already have the .22RF version of the AK47 by GSG declared Cat D from Cat C, an over 70yo design, as well as the .22rf Jaeger Euroarms M16, so the chances of an Owen gun passing muster is very unlikely.

Don't forget the humble old Gevarm .22rf's
Basically an Owen action anyway.
So reliable, and incredibly simple to make, use, clean, and maintain.
Yea for the good old days, once again.

Yes, unfortunately the one I had wasn't so accurate as everyone expects today, the clunking of the bolt as it shut on the cartridge after you pressed the trigger would jar the sights a bit.
It was minute of rabbit at 20m or so, this was at a time when rabbits were so thick in the Southern Downs that we'd go out after dinner and go through a brick of .22 Aussie Power-Points through the 10/22 in a few hours.
Unlike the 10/22, which fired from a closed bolt and was rabbit's-head everytime with a rest off the ute, the Gevarm wasn't. Killed them though, was not the .22 to take it you wanted a head-shot bunny for dinner.

But this Franken-gun fires from a closed bolt, so will at least be as accurate as the barrel allows. Which in an Owen type, sits in the receiver with a cone spring plunger, and can wobble around a bit. But who cares, it wasn't designed for a target competition.

This "appearance laws" thing is really insipid, I actually reckon it is a clever bastard of a law designed to even further take bans past the classifications and restrict even more guns.
I mean, mechanically something is a Cat B, but some police-politico-grub decides it looks like a scary war gun, so it jumps a few categories and becomes outside of what the blood-letting taxpayers that fund their penis-pumps allows.
If appearance laws had any sense about them, we'd only need single-shot .22's made to look like M4's and we could use them to over-run Russia.

This is something that I could never believe that the SSAA hasn't focused on this from the start. I guess that they don't like M4-looking guns either because they don't make good paper punchers down the range.