Category H, NSW

[Josh304]

Hi all,

I am new here and am in regional NSW.

I currently hold Cat A, B and am wanting to obtain my H for the purpose of target/sport.

I have read numerous posts and legislation regarding the NSW laws however I have a few question you may be able to help me with if you don't mind.
I did use the search function which helped me some but I have been struggling to find some answers.

1. In NSW I understand I have to attend a range/local pistol club that I become a member of to keep up my licence.
my question is, do I have to complete? or can I just go and practice for myself and not take part in the competition side of things? How many times a year is one required to attend for upkeep of pistol licence, does it vary club to club or is it a mandated thing?

2. I understand the probationary licence and whatnot, however after the time there is little or very difficult to find information regarding which handguns I would legally be allowed to own and use for above mentioned purpose, can anyone shed a little light on this, i.e, caliber restrictions, capacity, semi vs non ect?
forgive me if these are super novice questions, I have a very limited knowledge of the Category H and in fact handguns in general hence wanting to learn.

3. After the PPL period, what changes exactly? I understand after the initial 6 months I can purchase my own firearm (is there restrictions on type at this point in the process?) after obtaining my full Cat H licence, what changes exactly from being on the PPL?

Thanks in advance for your time guys and girls.
Much appreciated.

[boingk]

1. my question is, do I have to complete? yes or can I just go and practice for myself and not take part in the competition side of things? depends on the club and how strict they are How many times a year is one required to attend for upkeep of pistol licence, does it vary club to club or is it a mandated thing? 6 minimum, more if you have more types of pistol

2. caliber restrictions, capacity, semi vs non ect? You can get two pistols on your probationary, of the same category and only after the first 6 months. Anything under .40 cal is okay, .40 and higher is a 'Hi Cal' permit which is another category on your licence with a minimum 4 shoots a year and a total of 8 shoots all up and 4 shoots for the other category.

3. After the PPL period, what changes exactly? You can add additional categories of pistol. Say you started with a rimfire pistol on your PPL, and wanted another pistol in centrefire... you would have to wait until your full licence for the PPL. You would, however, be able to get another rimfire if you so chose.

Thanks in advance for your time guys and girls.
Much appreciated.

Hi mate! See the above replies in bold.

Cheers - boingk

[pomemax]

Hi regional NSW. is a big place lol what club you thinking of
read boingk,s reply see if I can add to that a bit .
My club you have to do a Min of 6 shoots a year 3 in your own time and 3 competitions for your first type or Pistol ie: rimfire (or centerfire) revolver or semi auto
if the next pistol is centerfire (or rimfire) you have to do 2 more shoots so in all you have to do 8 (4 in your time 4 comps)
say you then go to the range *8 times a year for pistol.
I take a rifle along and get a rifle attendance at the same time no extra cost just say target or hunting for my A/B attendances.
caliber in 2nd 6 months you can get 2 rimfire or 2 centerfire up to under 40 cal but not one of each
your PPL is just as it says a probationary pistol licence a different number to you A/B different photo additional card you get full H they combine your A/B/H

[Bugman]

Some clubs have an A/B rifle section along with regular pistol matches. Worth investigating.

[linkoln]

I'm not trying to be harsh but pistol shooting in Australia is a massive commitment and if you are already worried about competing and and how many times you have to attend you need to rethink if this is something you really want to do.

[boingk]

I'm not trying to be harsh but pistol shooting in Australia is a massive commitment and if you are already worried about competing and and how many times you have to attend you need to rethink if this is something you really want to do.

Not really mate. Sign up, jump a few paper hoops, attend every other month. Store safely in between. If thats a massive commitment... well... enough said.

- boingk

[Gamerancher]

In NSW, the minimum attendance for 1 pistol is 6 and they must be competition, i.e. scores kept.
If you want to get a pistol so that you can just go to the range and shoot for s**ts and giggles, you'll be disappointed.
Perhaps indicating the local club that you are thinking about joining might help with more detailed information as to how they run things.
I'm "rural NSW" and can give advice on the two clubs I shoot with, as could others for their clubs.

Here's a link to the information you need, if it's out of date, I'm sure one of our resident "out of State Experts" will correct me.
https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/as ... embers.pdf

[Communism_Is_Cancer]

In NSW can you just rock up to the range anytime its open shoot and leave? The unofficial non legal term is a “rolling competition”. The competition may be open for lets say a month and you just have to participate anytime in that month.

[Gamerancher]

It is up to the individual club as to how they record scores for "competition". The two clubs I belong to do not allow individuals to shoot alone, there must be three in attendance before any shooting can be done. There are two reasons for this, one is for "safety", the other is due to people in the past who have shot the sh!t out of the range infrastructure for whatever reason and of course "no-one" ever did it.
Other clubs that I have been to have similar protocols in place.

[Communism_Is_Cancer]

Interesting thanks for the reply. I would of thought the job of the RO is to observe the shooters?

[Gamerancher]

Pistol clubs that run their own ranges aren't generally "open" with a designated range officer. They're not like a general shooting range that's open to the public like Belmont, Little River, Majura, etc.

[Italianorama]

Any reason why you don’t want to compete?
At my club we running four stages every Saturday,
I have just started, and still couple months away to get my license .
Usually come last, but don’t really care. Matches are lots of fun and a grate tool for practice safe gun handling and accuracy under stress

[ricardo93]

In short... Yes you do have to compete.
It isn't like having an AB license for target shooting where you can just attend the range and shoot off a few shots then go home when ever you feel like it and have it count as an attendance. You must be part of the competitions to meet the quota. Depending on the club they might cut some slack and count things like practice, meetings, worker bee days etc. as attendances. But if you don't want to be part of the competitions then you probably shouldn't bother going ahead with trying to get your license because competitions are basically the only thing you can do with it, you would be lucky if you even found a club that was open and had time to let you practice. Anyway the competitions aren't any sort of big deal, who cares if you do badly? Don't even worry about your scores when you are starting out, just do a couple of months of competitions to get used to it before you start worrying about scores. You will probably do as well as some of the guys that have been doing it their whole lives anyway. If it is more of a anti social reason for not wanting to compete then well... It is a club, just like any other sort of club someone joins, they expect you to be an active part of it. You don't have to be there every week like some of the blokes are but you need to attend whenever you can. They look at people who join up, buy a gun and then barely show up as kind of fishy.
Once you own a gun you have to shoot six competitions a year to meet the requirements. That is 1 every 2 months, quite doable. There are three "types" of pistol. Air pistol, rimfire and centrefire. If you only own one "type" it is six shoots a year, if you own two "types" it jumps to eight (I think, better look that up before taking my word for it). An example is you could own 5 rimfire pistols and still only have to shoot 6 times but as soon as you add a centrefire pistol to your collection it jumps to 8. Or you could decide that you don't need to own a pistol and just burrow a pistol owned by the club for the day. This saves you from having to make the attendances and saves you from spending money on a safe and other expenses etc .Also it doesn't have to be at your club, once you are a member and licensed you can shoot at any pistol range/club in NSW and have it count as an attendance,
The handguns you are allowed to own are pretty much any that are not prohibited weapons. Semi autos, revolvers and single shots are the only pistols there is.They just have to have a legal barrel length, as far as capacity goes I don't know what is legal.. But in general any gun you buy isn't going to have a mag with more than 10 rounds anyway and most competitions only have you load 5 shots for each round. Caliber restrictions are up to .38/.357 I think. Anything over that you can still have but you need to show that you are part of competitions that shoot those higher calibers. Whenever you put in a PTA application the firearms registry will contact your club representative and ask them questions like if you are an active member and what competitions you are involved with before approving it.
During your PPL period you must attend 3 shoots (must be competitions) in the first 6 month period. In your second six months you are entitled to purchase two pistols but you can not own a rimfire and centrefire at the same time, you can have 2 rimfires or you can have 2 centrefires or a rimfire and an air pistol or whatever... but not 1 rimfire and 1 centrefire. All that really changes after you get your full H license is that rule, you can then own more guns and that you will no longer be allowed to shoot because of your P650 form but because of your license. And a few other small things that aren't even worth mentioning.

Pistol shooting is something you need to be pretty serious about if you are going to get involved. Otherwise you will waste a lot of time and money on it and might come to find that you don't even enjoy it. The best thing you could do is either take the initial safety training course and see how it goes or a lot of ranges will also offer a "try shooting" program where you sign a P650 form and have a go at pistol shooting for a few hours without having to commit to any sort of license application and stuff. From there you can decide if it is something you are interested in committing to or you can decide that it isn't really for you and walk away and not have to deal with it anymore.
Whatever you end up doing, good luck and welcome to the sport.

[Rider888]

I have just raised this with the FAR as it only states that you have to do required shoots if you own a firearms which means that if you dont, there is no need to attend 6
Seeking confirmation

1. my question is, do I have to complete? yes or can I just go and practice for myself and not take part in the competition side of things? depends on the club and how strict they are How many times a year is one required to attend for upkeep of pistol licence, does it vary club to club or is it a mandated thing? 6 minimum, more if you have more types of pistol

2. caliber restrictions, capacity, semi vs non ect? You can get two pistols on your probationary, of the same category and only after the first 6 months. Anything under .40 cal is okay, .40 and higher is a 'Hi Cal' permit which is another category on your licence with a minimum 4 shoots a year and a total of 8 shoots all up and 4 shoots for the other category.

3. After the PPL period, what changes exactly? You can add additional categories of pistol. Say you started with a rimfire pistol on your PPL, and wanted another pistol in centrefire... you would have to wait until your full licence for the PPL. You would, however, be able to get another rimfire if you so chose.

Thanks in advance for your time guys and girls.
Much appreciated.

Hi mate! See the above replies in bold.

Cheers - boingk

[Bidgee]

I'm not trying to be harsh but pistol shooting in Australia is a massive commitment and if you are already worried about competing and and how many times you have to attend you need to rethink if this is something you really want to do.

At different stages of life it can be a PITA meeting the requirements. I sold my handguns a few years back and only just got back into it.

Comps at our club are fairly relaxed. Certainly no overbearing range nazis. Most of it is talking s**t about guns, trying out whatever new gun a members has recently bought, shooting a few targets or some steel and drinking coffee. We do occasional working bees to keep the place up to speed. Great environment to talk to a bunch of people who share a common interest.

[bullzeye]

What’s worth mentioning is that many pistol clubs have their own rules.

The shooting competitions aren’t really proper events. You just shoot a target with 50 bullets and hand it into the scorer/ club official. It’s basically practice except your score gets registered in the club book. Whatever score you actually get doesn’t matter.

If you want to shoot more than 50 bullets just get another target.

The club I’m a member of wants members to attend at least once per month. So because I have rim fire and centre fire pistols I have to do 4 competitions per type/ per year - 8 competition shoots in total.

So my yearly attendance looks something like this

January - club closed
February - rim fire match
March - rim fire match
April - centre fire match
May - centre fire match
June - rim fire match
July - rim fire march
August - centre fire match
September - centre fire march
October - attend club, sign attendance book, no shoot, go home.
November - attend club, sign attendance book, no shoot, go home.
December - club closed.

10 attendances in total. Say 1 hour per attendance. Who can’t spare 10 hours per year?

Amongst all this I also do the SSAA Hunting attendances at the same range.

[dnedative]

Cat H is dead easy to maintain, plenty of people who shoot have families and jobs in the way so turn up once a month, shoot a box of 22 and a box of 9mm, talk s**t and then head off home so they can pick the kids up from sport.

Its not hard, you just have to be sociable

[tb65]

Cat H is dead easy to maintain, plenty of people who shoot have families and jobs in the way so turn up once a month, shoot a box of 22 and a box of 9mm, talk s**t and then head off home so they can pick the kids up from sport.

Its not hard, you just have to be sociable

that's mostly me.

[bladeracer]

Cat H is dead easy to maintain, plenty of people who shoot have families and jobs in the way so turn up once a month, shoot a box of 22 and a box of 9mm, talk s**t and then head off home so they can pick the kids up from sport.

Its not hard, you just have to be sociable

While that does sound easy enough, what would be the point of keeping the licence if you have zero interest in doing any actual shooting? I would say that if you've not interested in shooting the comps you're signed up for maybe don't bother getting into the sport. I'd get back into handguns if I could find a club relatively close that did IPSC or Silhouette but I have no interest in the target shooting they do around here.

[dnedative]

Cat H is dead easy to maintain, plenty of people who shoot have families and jobs in the way so turn up once a month, shoot a box of 22 and a box of 9mm, talk s**t and then head off home so they can pick the kids up from sport.

Its not hard, you just have to be sociable

While that does sound easy enough, what would be the point of keeping the licence if you have zero interest in doing any actual shooting?

Its a social sport for a lot of people, they like guns and shooting but its more about having a bit of fun away from the missus on the weekend and talking s**t with your mates.

I knew people who played rugby only because they would go to the pub afterwards lol

[bladeracer]

Its a social sport for a lot of people, they like guns and shooting but its more about having a bit of fun away from the missus on the weekend and talking s**t with your mates.

I knew people who played rugby only because they would go to the pub afterwards lol

Yes, but playing rugby doesn't require licencing costs, club membership, safe storage, or minimum attendance requirements
Just seems like an awful lot of effort to get into, or stay in, a sport you're not actually interested in.

[dnedative]

Its a social sport for a lot of people, they like guns and shooting but its more about having a bit of fun away from the missus on the weekend and talking s**t with your mates.

I knew people who played rugby only because they would go to the pub afterwards lol

Yes, but playing rugby doesn't require licencing costs, club membership, safe storage, or minimum attendance requirements
Just seems like an awful lot of effort to get into, or stay in, a sport you're not actually interested in.

How do you figure they are not actually interested? Or is it only people who go 5 times a week and shoot 1500 rounds who are interested in the sport?
If they were not interested in it....they probably wouldnt do it.....
And playing park cricket/football is more expensive than my pistol club membership by a massive amount.

[bladeracer]

How do you figure they are not actually interested? Or is it only people who go 5 times a week and shoot 1500 rounds who are interested in the sport?
If they were not interested in it....they probably wouldnt do it.....
And playing park cricket/football is more expensive than my pistol club membership by a massive amount.

I responded directly to your statement.
"Cat H is dead easy to maintain, plenty of people who shoot have families and jobs in the way so turn up once a month, shoot a box of 22 and a box of 9mm, talk s**t and then head off home so they can pick the kids up from sport. Its not hard, you just have to be sociable".

Somebody that is interested doesn't need to "maintain" their licence as they probably go and shoot every month or two anyway. People with families and jobs in the way but turn up once a month, shoot a box of ammo for attendance and go pick the kids up don't sound like enthusiasts. That's why I asked the question, why maintain a licence if you're only showing up to shoot the required attendances?

In my day we had to log an attendance every eight weeks, even while I was working up in the Kimberley. We couldn't zap them all in when it was convenient. Maintaining a pistol licence nowadays is dead easy in comparison.

[dnedative]

If your shooting two matches once a month your well in excess of the requirements

[Biscuits]

Comps at our club are fairly relaxed. Certainly no overbearing range nazis. Most of it is talking s**t about guns, trying out whatever new gun a members has recently bought, shooting a few targets or some steel and drinking coffee. We do occasional working bees to keep the place up to speed. Great environment to talk to a bunch of people who share a common interest.

Bump to this thread.

Long time long gun user, not owned a pistol before. I want to obtain a Cat H licence and am looking for a club convenient to Inner West, Sydney.

The club atmosphere described above suits me, although I would also like more formally run practical shooting competitions on top of that.

Any club recommendations?