Hi, my name is Matthew, my wife Maria and I are travelling through Switzerland this year (early to mid October). I should say first that I am a huge fan of Switzerland, I believe in Participatory Democracy and I am a competition shooter. So I am really looking forward to visiting Switzerland because these are two things I think of when I think of Switzerland.

There is one thing I am hoping to do whilst in Switzerland, but I am not actually sure if it is possible, so if there is anyone on this forum who can give me info I would be appreciative. I am hoping to shoot the Swiss service rifle, in particular the full auto militia version of the Sig 550.
My understanding is that serving members of the Swiss militia keep their full auto rifles at home and can shoot them at ranges at their leisure, if I understand it correctly these ranges are also used by civilians and that ammo can be purchased at the range.

I am not sure though weather full auto fire is acceptable at these ranges, if it is does anyone know of a militiaman who might been keen to meet me at the range. Ammo would be on me (naturally) and beers afterwards if they are keen. I do have a New Zealand firearms licence which licenses me for pistols and semi auto rifles in my country, so I do have experience with firearms – however, the full auto Sig 550 is sort of a holy grail for me and I would love to have a go with one. In New Zealand we cannot shoot full auto and I have only even seen a 550 once, in Auckland, and to shoot it I would have had to buy it for the $6000 asking price!

Thanks,
Matthew.

I doubt you can make your dream come true.

The answer to far too many questions is a simple "no".

If you still want to go ahead, contact one of those Schützenverein.

http://www.bsvz.ch/

And don't do any illegal things, the police is usually not far away here.

Hi Matt

Pardon my ignorance, but in my faint knowledge of New Zealand gun laws, are not all automatic and semi automatic weapons illegal? How would it have been possible to buy one? As far as shooting here, i agree with the previous poster....it would be quite illegal for you to just come over here and fire a gun.

I would suggest a trip to the USA if you are into automatic weapons. There are ranges like here where you can shoot just about any type of assault rifle in the world. (Ladies you can even try out a pink AK-47 here)

I'm sure there's a way you can do it but it involves knowing the right people, and being at the right place and right time.

Good luck

Semi autos are perfectly legal in New Zealand with a firearms licence (I used to have one). Handguns and shotguns require a B licence, and military style semi automatics an E licence. Full automatics are completely illegal though.

Over here you probably need to get in touch with a few ranges, see what kind of facilities they offer for guests.

Not sure what the rules are here, but I kinda think that it would be tough to convince the Swiss authorities to let you get ahold of a fully auto Sig 550.

I'd suggest what another poster said, which is to take a trip to the US. I've been to ranges that allow fully auto fire - seriously, just take a trip to Vegas. You could probably find one with a Sig 550.

Wow, thank you all for all the replys, I think Flight is probably right - I knew it was a "long shot" even before posting, but I thought it was worth at least trying.

America is an option but I can't imagine ever making it over there, our trip to Europe is a once in a lifetime thing so Switzerland is my only chance.

Kiwiguy08 - I probably should have specified that I do have my E cat and B cat licences for semi automatics and pistols, you are right that full auto is illegal here, the one I saw was semi auto only.

To clarify I am not interested in being let loose with one, I would really just like the opportunity to meet a militiaman and fire one under supervision. Is there anyone who knows about swiss guns laws who might be able to clarify weather this is legal. In my country a visitor can fire any weapon even a highly restricted one if the licensed owner is right behind them providing supervision, I guess I assumed it would be the same in Switzerland.

I am still hoping that Olygirl might be right so if anyone reading this has a lead don't be afraid to mention it, in the meantime I will try to contact some specific ranges and see if they can shed some light on this.

Thankyou all for your help.
Matthew.

www.bruenigindoor.ch

No its not ,matter of fact it would be illegal,now you sure But There is a guy "Bas72" in the EF he may help you

As mentioned. Contact the Schützenverein. They are the authority for all things gun.

maybe you can just borrow one, go into a remote forest and just let rip

or go to the US. they seem much more relaxed. just today, i tried out a variety of pistols, an AR-15 and an AK-47.

Even in the US there are bans on semi-automatic and automatic assault weapons for civilians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal...lt_Weapons_Ban
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law...%28by_state%29

Follow Tilia's link. A Swiss soldier is not allowed to just lend his gun to a civilian.

Hello again,

I should say I have contacted some of these organisations for info I am just waiting for a reply. However, I am conceding that it is not legal, thankyou cannut for the explicit answer.

More than one person has posted a link to this website indicating that it will answer this question –
http://www.bruenigindoor.ch/index.php?page=927
However you will see on the link provided that you can rent a "standard" rifle and an "assault rifle". My understanding is that the Stg90 is the standard rifle in Switzerland. I am interested to know what assault rifle means in Swiss because in other western countries it means a weapon capable of full auto fire – so I am sure you can all see how confusing this was. I mean the same people who were telling me it wasn’t possible were sending me to a site where it appeared that you could rent one! Its probably more likely though that the standard rifle is the K31 bolt action and the assault rifle is the semi auto Stg90. As a casual reader how could I possible know?

I take it that firing the semi auto version is still available to a visitor, provided they pay for supervision –
http://www.bruenigindoor.ch/index.php?page=879

In any case, I will post replies from the organisations I have contacted so that anyone else thinking of visiting Switzerland will be able to learn from my experience. As the purpose of this was to learn more about Switzerland... if anyone in the forum is in the Militia could you please tell me – does the militia have its own ranges for this purpose or is this feature of these rifles seldom used?

"Assault rifle" here is just a translation of "Sturmgewehr." As in the US, the term covers both full- and semi-auto rifles. You will have to call or e-mail the range and clarify what they rent. (Email is probably better given the time difference and possible language barrier.)

Swiss soldiers have to re-qualify with their army gun once a year. This has to be done on certain dates (necessary because someone has to certify your score) but it's at normal ranges, and doesn't involve full-auto firing. In fact it's only 20 shots total. I think the range nearest us offers these dates about once every two months throughout the year, plus a half-dozen additional dates in the second half of August, just before the yearly deadline.

Hang around Zürich HB for a while and you're almost guaranteed to see some guys in uniform lugging their guns off to the mountains. You can strike up a conversation if you like - they'll think you're a nutter but harmless. To be honest none of the Swiss guys I know took the "militia" face of it that seriously - to them it's just a civic obligation, with all the opportunities for later nostalgia/commiseration that entails. Think three weeks of jury duty, but with more lugging stuff around.

Well if you had read Wikipedia pages you posted the links to, you would have learned that the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) exprired in 2004. Tere are restrictions now in New York state, California, Conneticut, Massachusetts, as well as some municipalities e.g. Denver, Co., and Cook County = Chicago, Ill. (i.e. in the usual places you'd expect to have sensible laws).

Well first off I don't like guns but in the spirit of not spoiling a dream and one off holiday. Perhaps consider clay pigeon shooting. I believe quite a few hotels offer this. not the same as nasty automatic rifles but as its a holiday and experience how about trying maybe something you would consider tame but surrounded by nature and alpine views would still be an experience to enjoy and treasure?

Here's a link I found when I googled maybe this gives a more civilised option. Must say I wouldn't like to hear the sound of automatic gunfire, and seriously if the sound would scare swiss cows and disrupts this years chocolate quality you'll be in trouble
http://www.crystalhotel.ch/engadin/sommer/

Hello

I'm a fellow competition shooter here in Switzerland, and very familiar with the rules here, first I'd like to re-say what I told another person on a similar topic: (It might be slightly off topic, but I may answer other questions)

I'm a competition shooter here and I moved here from Canada (Meaning I came too, from a very different gun culture!). The general ranges here really are built just for that: Competition shooting. That means the 300m ranges are designed for the the Swiss military service rifles such as the K-31 bolt action rifle, the STG-57, and the STG-90. For the first two they use the GP11 (7.5) ammunition and the last uses the GP90 (5.6x45) ammunition. At the standard ranges this is the only ammo you can buy there.

There is of course the Standartgewehr, a brutal expensive gun designed just for competition shooting. It also use the GP11.

Most places frown upon the use of other firearms and they take the competition shooting very seriously. You must be accepted as a member, but of course you can come by to try things out and most are happy to see new members join. Most clubs have a year program where there are different types of shoots and you enter the results into a book and it all adds up in the end to decide the winner at the end of the year (best shooter).

There are also clubs for 50m where you can shoot either pistols (theres more leeway for the types of guns, but still, it's for competition) or smallbore, which is the .22 .

There are places for the crossbow, often 30m.

Then there is the 10m air gun ranges, often indoor. There you shoot everything, but almost always using special competition rifles. (Anything you buy at a hardware shop for the young 'uns is not accurate enough)

But almost everything is geared towards the standard competition shooting which every club has a similar program. Shooting at a range just to get some bullets out is not nearly as big here and not highly regarded. There are some places where you can do this though. Such as the Brünig-indoor shooting place. There they have everything; all sorts of ranges for everytype of gun, from shotguns to pistols, to any rifle really. (I go there to range in my K-98, even though it's similar to the Swiss K-31, at the regular club I go to, they don't like me bringing it, so you see what I mean by it not being the same as in the States). But places like these cost A LOT! But you don't join a club there, you pay per half an hour to rent out a range.

As for ammunition, as I said, you can only buy the standard ammo that the competition shooters are using at most of the ranges, otherwise you have to go to a gun shop to buy ammo, and often it's limited. I mean if you have a M1 then it's gonna be tough. So RUAG ammotech is the way to go, they have everything, even the extinct () 8mm for my K-98. And they have it all for both hunting and competition.

There is of course always exceptions...

There's lots more info to give, but this is a start. PM me if you have any specific questions.

Full auto shooting is NOT allowed here! Unless you get very special permission and have a very good reason and you manage to find a place that will allow it, so I would say your best bet is to sign up for service in the Swiss army, sorry mate. It's hard enough to be allowed to keep a full auto, like my antique MP-40, but that required a lot of hassling and months and months of fighting for it.

To get to fire the STG90 as we call it, you need a contact that is part of a shooting club. PM me, I might be able to help you if you really want to get a shooting day in. But it'll be only on semi @ 300m.

Cheers,

Arthur

Ok, a plan is coming together -

Cheers MathNut for the very interesting reply, when you mentioned the 20 rounds per year that the militia fire it peaked my interest. If I can’t shoot full auto then it would be nice to find something to do in Switzerland and I have done some research –
http://mitglied.multimania.de/swissrifleman/HTML/rule.htm
http://www.hwsportsman.net/SwissMiss.html

So it looks like it should be possible to shoot at the 300m range in a similar way to the Swiss militia. It seems like a good thing to try.

This would be very challenging for me in itself, I mostly shoot IPSC practical and 3 gun, so the longest shooting I have ever done was 150m standing – and that didn’t go so well. I will have to try to practice before I go I think.

Thanks Arthur for your helpful post I will contact a few ranges but if I have any specific trouble I will PM you. One question – can the electronic scoring system at Swiss ranges all score you for the A5 and B4 type targets – in other words are the ranges set up for both?

Thanks,
Matt