An Adelaide gunsmith has attracted controversy after his decision to legally modify a shotgun to match the ammunition load of a higher capacity version which was banned from importation last year.

Importation of the eight-shot Adler lever action shotgun was suspended for 12 months in July because it could fire up to eight shells before needing to be reloaded.

Nik Halliwell runs a gun modification workshop in the Adelaide suburbs and is one of the few people in Australia able — and willing — to legally modify existing five-shot Adlers to give them a magazine capacity of eight or 11 cartridges.

• Nurofen-maker fined $1.7 million
• PM to boost big cities plan
• Father makes plea for ‘kidnapped’ aid worker

The eight-shot Adler has infuriated Australia’s gun control lobby, who believe it is an attempt to undermine the 1996 National Firearms Agreement brokered by John Howard following the Port Arthur massacre.

Gun Control Australia spokesman Roland Browne said the guns were completely contrary to the spirit of the national agreement.

“They just didn’t exist in 1996, they exist now,” he said.

“They undermine the agreement and they put the entire public’s safety at risk.”

However, NSW Upper House member Robert Brown, who is a member of Australia’s most powerful pro-gun political group, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, said he was not concerned.

“Who cares? We don’t want the ’96 agreement,” he told ABC’s 7.30 report.

“The ’96 agreement … was a piece of garbage — it should be torn up.

“The states had, in 1996, very strict firearms laws.

“Yeah, it went very bad in Tasmania, but every state then had the capacity to do what they thought they needed to do.”

– ABC