I used USPS to ship a barreled action (rifle) at the end of February…….they lost it for 3-4 weeks, then claimed it was refused on delivery (it was not) and returned it. When it arrived the Schedule 80 PVC pipe I shipped it in was shattered and the gun was damaged in several places. I filed a claim and received a letter denying it, claiming it was illegal for me to ship a handgun or gun that could be concealed.
I answered their letter saying it is a rifle, 24” and 8lb. so not concealable and included a printed page from the ATF site proving it’s legal for me to ship…..now waiting again.

Use USPS at your own risk.

That's insane...good luck P_102...I wish I had more faith in the others but I've come to the conclusion they all suck. Insane that they had no problems collecting money for the insurance but when it comes to paying they want to argue.

I've never once had a problem shipping/receiving ammo, firearms, or almost anything else with UPS.

Thanks, Judd. I shipped it to Lapua and they tell me they never refused delivery. They also pointed me to the warning on their site (that I missed) about using USPS. Apparently they had lots of problems in the past.

Dang it Chris you know better, UPS or FedEx for anything important, and insurance. I hope it goes good for you but have doubts. I have a claim open that’s at least two years old for some brass that a neighbor brought to me a few weeks after USPS claimed it delivered to my house.

Chris this is right from the USPS manual, hope this helps in your claim.
They are worthless. Sorry you have to deal with this.

Thanks for the help, guys…according to the denial letter they are claiming my 10/22 is either a hand gun or concealable, they weren’t clear on which. I replied clarifying it is a .22 rifle and included the ATF page of shipping regulations. While it was lost for 3-4 weeks I spoke with at least 2 USPS people that said it was mailed illegally…..that’s how little these people know about the law.

Another matter: I paid extra to mail my claim Priority, signature requested and guaranteed delivery date. When it was delivered late I went to the post office to get my refund and they looked it up on their tracking, it showed scheduled delivery 4/30, actual delivery 5/2 but the clerk refused my refund saying “that’s not what that means, it was delivered on time”. It’s in black and white, printed out, yet she refused. I even had the clerk sign the printed copy for future reference. What an incredible mess they are.

Oh, it was insured Gary.

Wow Chris sorry to hear that. I don’t really have any faith in any of the shippers. I used FedEx to ship a shotgun. Their machines ripped the entire front of the shipping box off including the label. I came home 3 days or so later and it was sitting on my front porch. Have no clue how they knew to return it to my address but very glad they did. It’s a crap shoot.

Dang, those stories are enough to make me want to stop doing deals with shipping. I sent off a rifle and upper recently, about $3k worth of stuff. Thank goodness it made it to the buyer.

Jeeper, what I learned over the last 80+ days, talking to 4 different reps over the phone, is that USPS employees only care about showing up and doing as little as possible to earn their paycheck, nothing more. On top of that, some of their procedures are absolutely moronic and do more to hurt the shipper vs. help them. Do you know who determines when a package is ‘refused’ by the addressee? The postal worker makes that decision; if they try to deliver before hours and nobody is there, they simply write “refused” on the package so they won’t have to go back. No signature required from the refusing company, all up to the postal worker. It’s insane and we the people are paying for it.

Although on USPS I’ve been shipping my CBD through them. When we first started we had “Miracle Meds CBD” as the name on the shipping label and we lost several packages. I changed it to “The Mandalorian” and haven’t lost a package since.

So that tells me the mail carriers were stealing them.

So anyone that receives a package from “The Mandalorian” it’s from me lol.

I used UPS last and it was great transaction. Proof Research sent me a label to use. I shipped about $5000 worth of rifle to them in a Pelican case. No issues on the shipping or the return.

I tried to use USPS once to ship a rifle legally, they gave me so much flack at the post office I had to bail even though it was all legal.

USPS has always worked for me, ups however broke 2 custom bows. That said, with so many people having issues I basically quit trying to sell online just so I don't have to deal with any shippers

Heavy wall cardboard box, a $9 moving blanket from Uhaul and roll it up like you are making a burrito. Trim box to be slightly longer than the rifle or barreled action.

It would take the Samsonite gorilla to destroy it.

UPS up here won’t ship firearms. We have both a hub and a UPS store. Neither will accept firearms.

Who did you use to ship the ugly [censored] broach you gave me? They did a bang up job of getting it to me

In 2020 we received a package that we didn’t order. All that was left of the address to be shipped to was a state that wasn’t Texas. We tried to return it to which UPS refused unless we paid for shipping. They also refused to look up the shipping information in the system since we were not the correct end clients. So we took the package home and opened it. Someone lost out on a pair of Apple AirPods due to the stupidity of UPS.

4” Schedule 80 PVC has a tensile strength of over 4,000 lbs. and a “crush weight” of 325 PSI.

They have lost three of mine in the last 18 months. All were packages I pre-paid the label for and mailed from my mailbox. All of the same type shipments I dropped off at the PO have made it. The last shipment I ordered went from Bixby, OK to Pennsylvania. Tracking showed I signed for the item.

USPS sucks at life.

Been several threads in the O.T. about it. I can drive 7 minutes to the post office, or 22 minutes to UPS or FedEx. I'll take the 22 minute drive since they tend to do their jobs.

Lol I swear on my life I sent you the tripod pic rail.

I bet Giles could destroy it in less than a minute!

I use and my customers use UPS through pirateship.com. Using them gets the you the big boy discount and super easy to print labels. No standing in line etc just walk in any mailing store and get them to scan it, done.

Ship hundreds a month and rarely, rarely have any issues. UPS is my favorite, between a dealer in miami and Capitol Armory here in Texas we ship 10-20 barreled actions multiple times a month for many years now and never one single issue.

I will say using a tube to ship an action has the highest failure rate, those are the only issues I have seen. Never had damage on a properly packaged box.

Its easy for a tube to get treated rough and everything fly out the end, and most tubes aren't thick enough for enough padding for insurance claims too.

Used fedex for 5 years straight, they were reliable and never lost a single one but had problems with them paying the only one claim I ever had.

I would rather an uncaring government employee sort, ship and deliver my rifle in a box over a tube any day. The PVC tube seems like a great idea until you have one in the back of your truck. Tubes roll, sometimes out the door and sometimes get ran over by the truck they fell out of. Boxes lay flat and when packed properly don't get crushed. Tubes don't fare well on conveyors and have to be hand sorted through a hub rather than fed to the outbound truck with the rest of load, so they are more often missed, and then who knows what could happen. I'm sorry about your situation and hope it works out well for you.

Looooong ago, UPS got 8 years of my life. 3 while I worked part time in college, sorting and loading, a couple as a driver and 2 in loss prevention trying to figure out stuff like this. Everything was hand recorded back then, with the exception of Air. Knowing what I know about UPS as a company and the employees, I'd gladly pay the xtra to ship a firearm UPS over USPS. I've only shipped a firearm once, and at the request of the buyer I used USPS. Well packed in a box I bought and had zero issues.

That's no fair, he's a professional.