I'm new to the forum here and I just wanted to say "Hi" and how very impressed I am with what I have discovered here. Wow .. what a resource for ANYONE who has even the vaguest interest in "things guns".
Handguns (with the exception of black powder firearms) are unobtainable in New Zealand unless you are a permitted collector or a member of a pistol club. Rifles and shotguns (even airguns) require some form of permitting - varying depending on the type of weapon you want to own.
I developed an interest in guns from a very early age (as most boys do) and in my early years enjoyed going bush hunting game - wild goat and wild pig, wild rabbit, pheasant etc. But my real love was handguns .. and as I've said .. virtually unobtainable to the average guy on the street.
I recall a now deceased great-aunt having a nickel plated mid 1870's 5 shot S & W .32 up on the farm, (her late father's) which she kept snucked away under her pillow at night for protection - and my Dad telling me how as young lads they used to go pinch it to shoot shags of the nearby wharf. That would have been interesting to watch! I wonder how many they hit.
My step grand-dad was to also introduce me to a most fascinating box lock turnover percussion black powder pistol which he found buried on his farm in the far north of the country. I won't go into the detail of that here but have an account of it on my blog. I'm left to conject whether it may have been used in the battle by the British forces against the Maori at nearby Ruapekapeka Pa in 1845-46. I suspect the pistol was manufactured some time between 1820-1840 - maybe of English or French origin. Some time I will try and get a photo posted up here.
Anyway - great to be a part of this awesome forum .. I figure as someone now looking to indulge my interest in black powder pistols that this will be a great place to revisit.
