CHAPTER 441

An Act to amend and reenact § 29-140, as amended, of the Code of
Virginia, relating to the type of weapons that may be used in hunting
birds and animals.

[H 348]

Approved March 31, 1964

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That § 29-140, as amended, of the Code of Virginia be amended and
reenacted as follows:

§ 29-140. All wild birds and wild animals may be hunted with shot-
gun not larger than ten gauge, and with an automatic-loading or hand-
operated repeating shotgun capable of holding not more than three shells,
the magazine of which has been cut off or plugged with a one-piece metal
or wooden filler incapable of removal through the loading end thereof, so
as to reduce the capacity of the gun to not more than three shells at one
time in the magazine and chamber combined, or rifle or bow and arrow,
unless shooting is expressly prohibited. A pistol or revolver may be used
to hunt predatory or undesirable species of birds and animals between
sunrise and sunset except over inland waters. In the counties west of the
Blue Ridge Mountains game birds and animals may be hunted with pistols
or revolvers firing cartridges rated in manufacturers tables at three
hundred-fifty foot pounds of energy or greater and under the same restric-
tions and conditions as apply to rifles, provided that no cartridge be used
pe *, bullet of less than twenty-three/hundredths inch diameter (.23
caliber).