Shipping (not selling) guns interstate

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Apologies in advance if this has already been covered - I tried a search and was unable to come up with anything.

I have a friend (no, it's not me -unfortunately) who's retiring and moving to Oregon. He's already purchased a house out there, has a gun safe in it, and has a trusted neighbor. The neighbor has agreed to keep an eye on the house for him and to receive packages of items and put them in the house. He'd like to ship some of his guns to said neighbor, who will then either hold them for him until he arrives, or will put them in the safe for him. The reason he wants to do it this way is that he's reluctant to take some 30+ guns with him when he finally drives out there, and he doesn't entirely trust the moving company.

UPS, and I believe at least one other similar carrier, has refused to ship guns from him to another individual. He's looking for some way to put his plan into operation. The UPS regs indicate that they will ship guns from "collectors" and I suggested he might try getting a C&R FFL, which would be a good thing to have anyway.

Does anyone have any better suggestions on how he can do this? Is it even legal? He's aware that he can ship them to the local gun shop out there, of course - however they've indicated that they would hit him up $45 per gun, which makes it prohibitively expensive.
 
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IMO he's better off just taking them with him all at
once. The cost of getting some gun cases, padlocks, and a u-haul (if
needed) is cheap compared to the cost of shipping and properly insuring 30 guns.
(not to mention, the chances that UPS will lose one of them, as well. ) He
should get a traveling partner and drive in shifts.

I know that doesn't answer the question, but shipping guns (especially
that many) is a pain in the ass, especially if it's not going to another FFL.
The letter of the law says that you CAN ship -any- gun to -YOURSELF- no problem
but it gets dicey when a 2nd party is involved. I think it is OK for longgguns
but not for handguns. (EG, you are allowed to ship a rifle to someone so they
can borrow it, as long as they're not legally prohibited. Note that this is -different-
from a TRANSFER where ownership changes hands. )

The shipping companies (FedEx, UPS, etc ) are all a pain in the ass to
deal with any way you slice it. USPS regs allow non FFLs to send longguns
anywhere they want though, but sometimes getting the droid at USPS to
believe their own regs is next to impossible.


-Mike
 
U-Haul (or preferably Penske) rental is the way to go. Driving across country is easy and the views are amazing.
 
A quick trip to the UPS site using these assumptions (PDOOMA):

15lb package
45"x9"x9"
$500 insured value
USP ground trac
OR Zipcode 97007

yields this info: each package will cost ~$25. Fedex and USPS are probably similar.

You said he had 30 guns. That means ~$750 in shipping costs. Probably more. If he only ships 15 guns, and keeps to the assumptions above on weight, that's still $375. Probably more.

So, he's looking a a lot of money--and no small amount of hassle--to ship the guns. For the same money, he could probably find a lot of other alternatives to simply sending them UPS or Fedex.
 
Thanks for all your suggestions, and I'll pass them along. He's planning to tow a trailer for the actual drive out there, but was concerned about (1) driving through some states with 30 or so guns, even though they'd all be cased and locked and (2) leaving the trailer with guns parked in various motel parking lots overnight (he's not interested in driving straight through). He's hoping to make the drive out there something of a sight-seeing vacation and just doesn't want the hassle of having guns aboard. He's in a financial position where the cost of shipping and insuring isn't a big deal, so the question was really how to go about getting some carrier to accept them, as well as whether the whole thing is legal.
 
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