flying with firearms - how i pack for matches.

[davsco]

says packaging has to be for small amounts.  guessing they mean 50/100 round boxes and not ammo cans?

[CrashDodson]

The limit is like 11 lbs of ammo.  Which is not very much.  

 

I flew for the first time with firearms to from Dallas to atlanta for Area 6.  I drove to dallas and flew southwest so that I could have a direct flight to Atlanta, limiting the chances of my bag getting "lost".  I bought a nice case from patriot cases and two nice midrange padlocks for the case.  Locks that screamed, dont F*ck with me.  I also used a thick steel cable to attach the case through the handles to the frame of the roller bag I put my gun case in.  I locked this with a beefy padlock.  I went overkill on the locks.  I purchased TSA locks for the rolling bag.  I also purchased a luggage tracking device and hid in inside my gun case.  

 

At TSA at dallas love field they just had me fill out a form and stuck it to the gun case.  Never asked to open the case and TSA did not call for me.  A good trick that was recommended here is to tape a ziplock bag to the case for this form, it makes everything go faster.  In atlanta my bag came out on the carousel.  There were no TSA inspection notes in my bag.  On the way home from Atlanta I had to take my roller bag to the "oversize" tsa luggage area.  The dude opened my TSA locks, looked at my gun case, closed the roller bag and said I was gtg.  The bag again came out on the baggage carousel in Dallas.  I shipped my ammo to my hotel in atlanta.  I had 600 rounds of 40.  I came home with 250ish rounds which I also shipped back to myself from a UPS store.  The 250 rounds would have pushed my bag over the 50lb limit and cost me 75 to fly with it.  

[digby7]

For secured - theyre thinking MTM style or factory boxes where ammunition is physically separated as opposed to a bunch of rounds rolling around in a bag. 25/50/100 rounds in a box.

 

11# is roughly(if I remember this right) - 400x of 9mm 115gr or 300x of .40 180gr so yeah, its not a ton.

Alaska is the one airline that lets you fly with up to 50# of ammunition for whatever reason.  That includes the bag obviously otherwise youre paying the overweight charge.

 

I have status on the airline so I dont usually have to pay for a 2nd or 3rd checked bag when I fly.  If i'm coming back from a match, often times i will check the super locked down bag with my gun as well as a normal roller bag with my clothes - ALSO with whatever unshot ammo I have.

 

At check in i'll tell them i'm checking 2 bags, and one of them has a unloaded fire arm.  typically they then just weigh the bags, make sure neither are over weight, send the bag with the clothes/ammo down the conveyor and then tag/possibly inspect the firearm bag with TSA. 

 

Also - the little portable luggage scale that I got off amazon - its paid for itself several times over with zero overweight charges and not having to faff around at the check in counter shuffling things around to make weight. 

 

 

 

 

[davidb72]

I traveled with a firearm for the first time recently (Philadelphia - Las Vegas) on Southwest Airlines.

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was.