doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com USPS firearms shipping

I have shipped guns for umpteen times over twenty years in a aluminum gun case without any attempt to disguise it. Pretty obvious it's a gun. So far never a hiccup in delivery. Maybe potential USPS sticky hands have avoided it thinking it may be a setup? Dunno. Hardly ever buy insurance, preferring to self insure. But I'm not shipping Purdeys, etc., either.

I have always shipped my doubles in a plastic luggage case I bought from Thad Scott years ago, then boxed up really well. This only when it is coming back to me after repair etc. Ohterwise, I buy a cheap Doskocil case and modify it to work as necessary, but I NEVER ship in cardboard alone.

I use the PO approved gummed and reinforced tape that requires wetting as the final taping, but use the poly tape to assemble the box. It is a real p-i-a to use, but when it's finished, it is VERY secure. It may take a good hour to do if I have to make a box to fit the case. Cheap insurance.
JR

Nice call.

I printed these out and had them with me when I went to my P.O., just in case. I believe you can also mail overseas and domestically for service and the gun returned the same way. Am I wrong?

Just paid USPS $125 to ship and insure a $2500 gun overnight priority

That would be overnight express.

Express used to be a good deal on high value items at one time.

They used to charge less for insurance on express mail than they did for insurance on priority mail. I guess they figured that the less handling means less chance of damage.
So, even though the shipping was more, the total price would usually be less to ship express insured vs priority insured on an item that was valued at say, $3,500 or more.

But, they did away with that a year ago or so and made all the insurance rates the same regardless of type of service.

Then they did the ultimate smoke and mirrors trick and while they were touting that they lowered the price of stamps, on the other side of the coin, they took away the discount for processing a shipment on-line. That was nice of them.

As I see it; The post office is trying to survive in a world that increasingly has found better and more cost efficient ways(Internet of course) to stay in contact with each other and pay bills. Their mainstay for decades 1st class mail is going the way of the Dodo. Their one remaining core service is to ship goods from the current owner or manufacturer to the user. They finally started providing fairly decent tracking service on all packages in the last few years.
Unless someone comes up with a better way of providing this service they should survive into the foreseeable future. Their two main competitors UPS and FedEx have a niche part of this business but the barriers to entry(initial start up expense) essentially precludes another start up player.
Jim