SKB just did a gun for me. I highly recommend letting him or another dealer who knows the ins and out of importing guns into the US do all the heavy lifting. Also try to do your gun with a group. Cheaper and more efficient in the long run. But it is not cost effective to do on guns below a certain value. You cant pay $550 to bring in a gun which is worth a grand if you pay top much for it at auction. Buyers premium, the cost of getting Holts to ship it all adds up on top of your bid price.
About eight years ago I did import a gun myself. In theory its fairly straight forwards. It was an antique, clearly pre 1898, should have been the easy. It was until Custom wanted to change me full duty on it.
They kept wanting to charge me duty on it when it should have been duty free. Then it was a big ticket item and I did not want to pay a tax I should not have to pay. Anyways it took multiple trips to get it through Customs without paying any duty.
While my time off is free there are things Id rather do than deal with someone who decides to not accept facts if they conflict with their views. They wanted a letter from the maker stating date of manufacture. The fact this firm closed a hundred plus years earlier did not get me anywhere. I had to show multiple documents, from several different sources to confirm the DOM. In the end I got the gun but decided the hassle exceed the money saved.
