Owning guns over here is as you say quite restricted. To get a Firearms Certificate you need to be either a member of a Gun Club or have permission to shoot over land for either Deer Stalking or Vermin Control. Then depending on what you want to shoot with you either have the rifles/shotguns at home kept in secure cabinets or if pistols are wanted to be used...there are a number of clubs designated as "Heritage" centres where you keep the pistol on "site" and go there to shoot. These Heritage Centres as the name implies enable you to keep pistols which are deemed to be of historical value and fall within a calibre which is not a prohibited calibre...these are basically "modern" calibres like 9mm or .45 or .40 or .380 etc. The sort of pistols you see here are things like Broomhandle Mausers in 7.63 or my favourite is a 1911 chambered in .455 Webley made under contract for our Royal Navy for WWI. Other exotics abound and you can have some interesting pieces in a Heritage centre...

Black Powder pistols are able to be owned at home and shot at a Gun Club and don't have to be kept on site...so there are Pistols still which can be kept by owners and this is quite a popular sport.

Equally you can keep at home pistols which are deignated as collectors peices...but you cannot keep the ammunition. I know one guy who has a .455 1911 at a Heritage centre where he can shoot and another .455 1911 at home.

Then you have an unusual and often unknown ability to own a pistol in a modern calibre kept at home for dispatching Deer or other animals whereby shooting them with a centre fire rifle would be dangerous. Some experienced Deer stalkers have applied for these and have them on their firearms tickets. There has been a fair bit of resistance from the Police in certain areas to granting these but in others it is reasonably well established. In Scotland and down South where you have significant numbers of Deer involved in car accidents granting these pistols for despatch is relatively straightforward for killing Deer on the road side. To do so with a centrefire rifle would leave a bit of a hole in the road. Some Police Forces insist the pistol is a single shot...so Revolvers in .38 Special which have a cylinder which has been sealed up in five chambers leaving one free to be used are common...but elsewhere there are semi-automatics being used. It depends on your local Police Force Licensing Officer or whether you are prepared to challenge a refusal and go to Court.

One guy in Scotland has taken his Force to Court a number of times and has won on all occaisions and has I believe a Glock 9mm for Deer dispatch. I think though that you tread on thin ice often if you push like this as any infingement of a rule and the Force Officer will be right on top of you.

Rifles wise...so long as they are not Semi Automatic you can own what you want for shooting at a Club so long as you have a good reason such as Target use and can also own what you want for Vermin control with restrictions existing on calibres. Usually for Fox and Vermin control most Forces try to stipulate that the calibre in centre fire should not exceed 6mm or .243. You do have an ability to shoot Vermin with larger calibre rifles however on land where you have permission to stalk Deer on and where the calibre for Deer that you have chosen is larger than 6mm. For .22 LR you can get permission for Vermin control as well as say Target use and ditto for any other rifle in centrefire calibres...so you could have say a 6ppc rifle you transfer from a Benchrest Stock for Benchrest shooting to a tactical stock say for Fox control...

The rifles which are most common are bolt actions but there are a number of lever action carbines owned by guys who shoot at clubs in a given " Carbine" set of competitions or whatever. In .22 LR you can own and keep at home a semi auto rifle...so a Ruger .22 is still allowed and is a common rifle over here.

I have a number of rifles and shotguns...no pistols. I shoot competitively with rifles so have a number of these specifically custom built and then I have a number of other rifles used for Hunting/Vermin control. Shotguns are not restricted on numbers owned so long as you have a shotgun certificate. I have one semi-auto shotgun on my firearms certificate which is classified as a firearm as it can hold more than three cartridges...it holds 8 and is a Benelli M1 Super 90 which I use for practical shotgun comps and also I like to take this with me when I am working with our Army Reserves...in this role I get to shoot Pistols, Assault Rifles, whatever...as I am working mainly now as an instructor...but mostly I am working with the new .338 LM getting guys trained and qualified with this.

So shooting is not as "dead" a sport in the UK as many might think...although I do miss being able to do practical pistol competitions.