Moving with firearms

[Jim in Salt Lake]

I moved mine myself packed in my tent trailer and I felt pretty secure the whole time. I had movers move my safe with the rest of my stuff. They moved it into place, probably cost me $200 extra, well worth it. Shipping with UPS sounds like a great alternative, though.

[1886nut]

What is the law about using a commercial mover (Allied Van Lines, etc.) to transport your firearms with the rest of your personal property when you move from state to state?

TA, I can only reinforce what these other posters have said. Its a bad idea to let complete strangers know you even own guns at all, let alone turn them over to their trust. Like the others said, "licensed and bonded" is a sales pitch. You wont get but a fraction of their worth if they are stolen or damaged.

I just recently completed a move to a neighboring state with a wife and young son and a house full of stuff, including a large and fairly valuable collection of military long guns (most of them irreplaceable 19th century stuff). I could have gone out and spent $100s of dollars on a dozen 4 gun cases (many 19th century muskets and cartridge guns are too long for these anyway), instead I went down to the local church thrift shop and bought a bunch of old and and reasonably clean queen sized padded comforters. What I didnt have cases for, I rolled up several gun to each comforter, like a knife roll. Each roll was then bagged on each end with Hefty bags and taped up neatly. I transported these in the bed of my pickup, underneath a plastic tarp with a modest layer of pine straw on top of it (note to self.....invest in a tonneau cover). No one was the wiser.

You dont have to go this extreme, but its less than conspicuous than having lots of rifle cases in the back of your vehicle where everyone can see them. I sold my old safe before we left our old house, and just picked up a good used one out of the local trader paper for about the same money. Total cost to me? About $40 or so for the comforters and packing supplies. Peace of mind? 100%, and there is no amount of money you can put on that.

[kurt varga]

my understanding is that in 1986, with the mg ban they made a law that if legal where you reside and legal to where you are going you can transport through any states in between , i moved tons of stuff from ct to sc, just bypased DC

[Tango Alpha]

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I do have enough sense not to "advertise" that there are firearms in the shipment --- I wasn't planning on saying to the movers, "Now this box contains a lot of really valuable firearms, so please be careful with them. Oh, and all my gold and jewels are in this container, so make sure it doesn't get misplaced."

I just wanted to know what the laws were. I'm probably going to move them myself, as I always have in the past, but I wanted to know what legal options I had.

Thanks,

[Former Cav]

stay away from allied.
Man I got ripped off by them big time!
Bob

[Former Cav]

whoops.
it was ACE/Atlas that ripped me off. I just checked my letter that I saved disputing their rip offs.
Bob

[Former Cav]

BTW. the way I moved my firearms was like this.
I rented a U-haul trailer (Penske and Ryder did not rent trailers when I moved in 05).
the trailer was 6 x 12 if I remember correctly.
I went to a lumber store and bought 3/4 thick plywood...the cheapest stuff I could get. (rough side etc).
I cut it and made it into a sub floor on top of the aluminum floor of the trailer.
I laid down my two safes over the axles on their backs. I made numerous pull straps out of duct tape on their doors so I could "lift" the door open.
I put 2 x 4's around the safes and sheetrock screwed them to the 3/4 plywood to keep them from shifting. I then wrapped my rifles in bubble wrap and put them in the safes and locked them. (good idea but BAD execution as I now had to carry my ammo cans while bent over beyond the safes to the tongue area (front of) the trailer. I should have put in the ammo cans first).
Then I put all the boxes of my wife's china, computers, etc on and around the safes.
I chained the vehicle to the receiver on the truck with a quality padlock and chain. I'd also try to chain the axle of the trailer to a lightpole at night. I'd Jack knife the ford expedition and trailer and make sure I had the trailer against a curb or better yet, the back door of it against the wall of a building (when possible). Always right UNDER a parking lot light.
I traveled from MN to AZ that way and had NO problems.
The unpacking of the trailer was much easier then packing it and I just took out what was nearest and worked forward. I got the safes out of the way before I went after my 20+ ammo cans.
All of the weapons arrived with NO scratches etc so the bubble wrap worked out good.
One word of advise, before you LOAD the trailer...look at all the wheels / tires and drive the vehicle and have somebody observe the wheels tires etc. I had a bent wheel on the bead (like someone hit a curb side wise) and the wheel was also "cambered over". Of course I didn't notice it until I had it loaded. I drove over to u-haul thinking they'd at least replace the wheel/tire. The guy kicks it, and says "holds air don't it" and walks away from me. The trailer had 4 wheels so I took a chance and thankfully made it out here without incident.
I also left each location at about 5 AM and that way I'd start looking for a place to stay at 4 PM in DAYLIGHT so I could check out "the hood" etc. This sure beat my old way of arriving at 10 PM in the dark and you are dead tired and can't see. It is also easier to negotiate the room rate at 4 PM rather then 10 PM when they know they got you by the nuts.
HTH
Good luck.
Bob

[ClaudeH]

I drove (O/O) for Mayflower in the '70s. There are several distinctions in these kinds of moves. There are self-packed versus agent-packed moves and there are straight-through versus storage moves.

You MIGHT be just fine with a straight-through, self-packed move. A lot depends on how much stuff you have to move and how much of that is arms, ammo and components.

The agency will inform you of what you cannot pack and the driver will quiz you whether you have anything in your sealed boxes that he can not accept. Lying about this is a common procedure.

If you have an honest driver (Can I say that after the last sentence?) in a straight-through move (that's a move where it is put on the truck at your old home and comes off of the same truck at your new home) there is no way that driver is going to allow your belongings to be disturbed.

Lying about powder, primers and ammunition may be S.O.P., but if there is a catastrophe caused by your cargo, the fed's are going to be very upset with you and you will be held liable for losses. So, don't pack primers and powder together and don't concentrate either of them - spread them out in your other boxes and a catastrophe is unlikely.

Ammo is heavy and kind of hard to keep from being guessed as what it is. But books are heavy too. If you have a lot of books, intersperse the ammo in the book boxes.

Long guns are very hard to disguise as to what they are. Broken down and packed into locked footlockers, they're just cargo. The driver may be curious, but he really just wants to do a good job for you and get paid, if he wanted to be a cop he'd be a cop. Somewhere, somehow it must be illegal not to tell the carrier he is carrying firearms, but whatever happend to privacy in this country, anyway?

If you have "wardrobe" boxes heavy with coats and long clothing, a rifle case or two can hang between the clothes and not be noticed. But make sure they are well stuffed, heavy, sturdy wardrobe boxes and well taped.

In the '70s the only place within the U.S. that a cargo might ever be offloaded for inspection was entering California. Most astute drivers know what causes that and how to avoid it. Ostensibly they're looking for produce or refuse that may carry pathogens harmful to their crops and for outdoor furniture and yard implements that may harbor gypsy moths. But, ultimately they're just another flavor of cop and CA DOT might not be as willing to look the other way as your driver and may open boxes. California is a bad destination for these shenanigans!

Now most of the above has been based on just plain old deceit and is not necessarily the best way to fly. If you are moving a whole household and have a minor amount of arms, etc. it might be okay.

Getting back to the straight-through move - I put a lot of emphasis on the honesty or at least fealty of the driver. Is that a mis-placed trust? I don't know. I know I would never have considered mis-appropriating property from a move but who know about another driver? Realistically, he's got a couple hundred grand of his own property he is worrying about and he grosses well into six figures if he "bedbugs" all year. (Not that he necessarily gets to keep much of it.) so he is more likely to be an upstanding citizen than a petty criminal.

If your move involves going into storage at one end of the move or the other, all bets are off. Your stuff gets handled by a lot of people from various stations of life, is exposed to risk in big dark sprawling warehouses, does not have continuity of responsibility for its care, etc.

Also, the day laborers the driver hires in a straight-through may not be of the best chartacter. But the driver is very unlikely to ever let them be alone with your boxes long enough to cut them open and rifle them. If they do rummage something it has to be small because it has to go undetected when they hop up in the cab with the driver to be taken back where they came from.

But, what I'm leading to is that handguns in particular are a real risk to try to ease through the system. They are the ultimate theft prize to a criminal and if they are discerned as being in a load they will be targeted energetically. But small safes can be sealed into boxes and small safes do not fit into anyone's pocket.

Almost all of your risk is in the loading and unloading, your belongings are mostly very secure while they are on the truck - it would be almost impossible to get to most of the load once it is loaded even if you wanted to. The risk during loading and unloading extends beyond the movers - in high-crime urban areas you must be vigilant (and the driver will be) that no one unintended is walking in and out of your house.

Your big risk in schmoozing your "contraband" through the move is that anything not declared on the Bill of Lading is not insured at all - it officially isn't there. Aslo when it comes to insurance, you can buy a replacement value rider to supplement the previously noted limit of so many cents per pound for any lost or damaged item. When I drove I believe the limit was 25 cents per pound. If I dropped your TV you were coverd up to 25 cents per pound, if you had the rider you got a new TV.

If your firearms are legal at the origin and destination of the move, and if your move is straight-through, you might as well declare them. The driver is likely to be very cooperative with letting you see them being packed deep inside the load where they cannot be gotten too. I would have been perfectly happy to load a gun-safe into the nose of the trailer, let you pack your guns into it, and bury it behind mattresses and boxes right away.

I could not have been so cooperative about powder, and primers bacause I could not take responsibility for them being on board. But I practiced don't ask don't tell for the most part, I really didn't want paint, gasoline or propane on board but I never made an issue about powder and primers even if I saw other guns stuff. I'm sure I carried tons of ammo, as far as I knew it was not an issue in the seventies. Oh yeah, don't mark those boxes "gun room", "law library" might be better!

I'm sure for most of us the best solution is to move these items yourself, but keep a few things in mind. For one, California is just as willing if not more willing to inspect a "U-Haul" load as a semi-truck load. And this might be an issue in other fruit/vegetable raising states like Florida, Washington? For another, you see a lot more burning or flipped over "U-Haul" rigs than you do big-rigs, proportionately.

Lastly, crime happens at night. Consider driving all night and sleeping during daylight. Or consider sleeping in your trailer or the back of your truck with one of those firearms handy - but take something off of the motor before you curl up in back! I virtually never slept in a motel when there was cargo in my trailer, I slept in the cab and had my own "contraband" within easy reach.