Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Johannesburg- Airport Police Station

Will be traveling through Johannesburg next week and staying the night prior to leaving for Port Elizabeth.

Can you keep your firearms with the police after you check them in?

Have rooms booked at the nearby Marriott and we cannot have them there.

Hearing mixed reviews and want to confirm if its just easier to stay somewhere else.

Thanks

I've been though Johannesburg a couple of times. I've never heard of anyone leaving their guns at the airport police station. I'm not sure there is anywhere to store them there anyway. I would get a hotel that will allow you to keep your firearms. City Lodge will do that and it's right in the airport complex.

If I were overnighting with guns and didn't want to leave the airport I'd stay at City Lodge, as mentioned above where you keep your rifles in your room. If you want to leave the airport, go straight to Africa Sky guest house.

This ^^^

Thanks

Easy choice CITY LODGE in airport

Cheapest choice, City Lodge at JNB. Nicest choice Intercontinental at JNB. It also has the best food.

Sky Africa is a very good choice. They’ll store firearms and the food, accommodations and service are very good. They’ll meet you when you disembark and take you through customs. Interestingly most of the service staff are Zimbabweans.

As far as I know SAPS at JNB doesn’t allow firearms to be stored there.

I've always stayed at City Lodge. Guns are allowed in your room.

We came back on Sunday April 30 and Hunter's Support stashed us in the Intercontinental lobby for a little while during our layover. The lobby was lovely. I thought I'd check out the pricing. No pricelist. Rates vary with how busy/capacity %. Sunday's rate was $320 USD, which was more than twice the rate we paid at City Lodge on April 11th. At best we are in the hotel room from 11pm to 8am. I'll pay the City Lodge rate and apply the savings to trophy fees.

Air 2000, Hunter's Support will put your guns in the safe, even for a few days, but only if you used one of their charters.

Africa Sky offers a great service at very fair prices.

Another vote for City Lodge

If you're on a daytime layover, one thing you can do is hire a driver from Hunter's Support. All your baggage, including rifle, will be with you in the vehicle.

Twice I've had Gavin S. from Hunter's Support, He's a retired dentist and drives a VW van with a 5 cylinder Audi motor in it. Plenty of room for the luggage and 2-3 passengers. Gavin is very pleasant and will keep you safe and show you some sights.

Tag

If you do this be sure to go to Safari Outdoors. Great hunting, firearms and fishing store.

They have an impressive collection of dies, powders, bullets, and primers.

Wish we had what they have...

ive been multiple time. City Lodge is the ticket

Been There, Done That. Nice store. In 2019, it had a restaurant upstairs.

Another store worth visiting is Cambanos and Son. We spent hours there looking for gifts and collectibles. Awesome store. Everything from gold, diamonds to elephant mounts.

If you leave a firearm anywhere in RSA that isn't very secure that firearm will be sold on the black market 20 min after you leave it. My experience is the PoPo in JBurg are not really trustworthy. Americans coming there for safari are seen as a cash cow to be milked as often and as hard as possible.

Used the City Lodge inside the terminal complex. Literally, less than a 10 min. walk from the SAPS office to the front desk. You will have your choice of "Official" and "Un-Official porters to help you get from the SAPS office the hotel's elevator up to the check-in desk. Official Porters will be dressed in dark blue and a porter's type cap on and name badges round their necks. The work for just tips.

Baggage trollies are free at the baggage carousal and you can take them all the way to the City Lodge elevator up. Depending on how many total bags/rifle cases a $5-$10 tip is all you need. Tell the porter what time you want to leave the hotel the next morning and same guy will likely be there at the elevator with a trolley the next morning and take you to the proper check-in counter for your flt and to the Domestic SAPS office on the opposite side of the terminal from the International side where you came in, for another $5-$10.00 tip.

IF you do decide to check your rifles in someplace for storage, TAKE THE BOLT(s) out and keep them with you. Perfectly legal and greatly reduces the attractiveness for them to disappear.

Ended up using a local recommended guy "Tumi" and he couldn't have been any more helpful.

100 bucks for the permit assistance and 20 bribe to the local poo poo to keep our rifles at the station overnight.

There waiting in the morning and expedited through the airport lines. Apparently he used to work at the airport and nows who's who.

Arrived at camp late yesterday afternoon about 3 hours North of Port Elizabeth and the weather is truly chitty.

Wind and rain, appears to be letting up and hopefully we can get out starting tomorrow.

Enjoy your hunt.

Jokers, one of the customs guys twisted my target knobs on my rifle scope a bit. Glad I decided to check my sights. A full turn back to 0 on both turrets, exactly. Must have been his standing practical joke.

Where?

In South Africa, the rifle never leaves my hands and I don't recall the Police ever touching them. SAPS seems to be getting lazier, they don't even wait for me to fully unpack from the TuffPak and they're telling me to case it.

If anyone screwed with your scope, I would suspect American TSA staff.

Man, the SAPS might know Tumi, but I would not be comfortable leaving my rifle with them overnight. It is Africa after all.

I hope you have a good trip.

I have been through the JNB SAPS office at least 24 times. have always handled my own SAPS forms. I have never had a single problem. Not one.

These are the “secrets”…
1. Be polite and respectful…if you go in grumpy and irritated then you will get the same in return
2. Don’t be complaining about the situation…if you don’t like it then stay home
3. A smile and a thank you will go a long way
4. Just because you are tired/exhausted after your long flight doesn’t give you permission to treat them as your garbage can. Pull up your big boy pants and rise to the occasion. The world doesn’t revolve around you.
5. Again, if you are going to be a pain in the ass and bitch and moan then stay home!

I would wager that most if not all of the issues folks complain of are due to their own screw ups.

Africa Sky is my favorite but City Lodge is a good choice also.

Have the laws changed? I had zero issues taking my firearms everywhere I went in South Africa. Upon arrival and leaving the airport we stayed in Sandton at the Michelangelo Hotel with zero issues or hassles with rifles. After that we went to Sun City and stayed at the Palace of the Lost City for a few days before hunting also with zero issue taking firearms with us. The Photo Safari guides at the Palace carried their double rifles inside the hotel without an issue. Also a couple of internal flights and other travel and not one issue. Is it just the Marriott that is the problem?

One thing to keep in mind. Some SA local/regional airlines don’t carry firearms.