I just dropped by the US Customs Cargo office in Sky Harbor to register ownership of two guns. Walked in, an officer asked me if he could help me, and he was more than enthusiastic when I stated I wanted to register two guns I was taking out of the country.

I laid a .338 and .416 on the desk and no one batted an eye. No one asked if they were unloaded (they could tell the bolts were open) and no one treated me with suspicion of being a criminal. It was like I was registering cameras.

AZ

Isn't that a nice change!!!!!!

I think I just might have you beat on friendly, helpful Customs folk at the Juneau office. If I have more than 2 guns, they just have me write down the serial numbers and bring them in; leaving the guns at home. Also, there's a space at the top of the declaration for a form number, and they are always willing to make up a number to put in there so that Customs at the far end have a form number to make them happy. Would that TSA were half as helpful and cooperative!

Ok, I got a good one:

last May in New York, JFK Airport, two NY Port Authority Police, when I checked in at SAA they had to call the NYPAP to check my guns. When I opened the case, the one cop asked me what caliber that big guy was, after telling him it was a .416, he shook his head and said good caliber, What are you going for? After a short talk, He wished me good luck and ok'd the guns..



Nice guys!!

I can assure you these folks almost never hear a positive word. If you have a minute, you could send the Port’s Chief Inspector a note expressing the professional treatment and courtesy. A simple action like that will get back to them and WILL make their day.

Just a thought

That is refreshing. Here at home, I just fax the numbers to our local agent and he mails the 4457. Ain't that nice!

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:
I just dropped by the US Customs Cargo office in Sky Harbor to register ownership of two guns. Walked in, an officer asked me if he could help me, and he was more than enthusiastic when I stated I wanted to register two guns I was taking out of the country.

I laid a .338 and .416 on the desk and no one batted an eye. No one asked if they were unloaded (they could tell the bolts were open) and no one treated me with suspicion of being a criminal. It was like I was registering cameras.

In 1996 a friend of mine was getting a 4457 for some of his guns in Calais Maine once (crossing into Canada for a moose/caribou hunt). As he carried the cased weapons into the large open office one of the on duty agents screamed at the top of his lungs, GET THOSE GUNS OUT OF HERE! My friend was getting a 4457 for four guns. When he returned sans guns, the same mouthy agent said he wouldn't sign the 4457 because there were four guns listed and it was against Maine hunting law for a nonresident to transport that many firearms. At this point I jumped in and loudly posited the question of whether I had inadvertently wandered into a state rather than a federal facility. At this point the supervising agent came in and chased his compadre away and signed the 4457 without looking at the guns. He was rather apologetic about the other agent.

We were quite shocked that you could get a Federal document signed and stamped without the items being so much as shown to the agent.

In 1997 we were moving our entire disaster from Canada to Nevada...dogs, cats, birds, houseplants, and 25,000 assorted pounds of "stuff"....including over sixty firearms of all sorts.

We had documentation and permits for everything that needed paperwork, including ATF permits for the guns, and every box in the 25' Ryder truck had its contents inventoried in a loose-leaf binder.

The Customs guys said, "Wow, this is nice!" and proceeded to stamp each page in the binder. They never even opened the truck!

The very best part of this pleasant experience came as we were leaving the border station. One of the agents said, "Welcome to the United States. We all hope you'll be very happy here." How nice is that??? It left us with an extremely warm feeling toward our new home, and it still does.

I had two similar contacts with the Albuquerque NM Customs office. Both times were no BS, officers were enthused, polite, and wished me well, and promptly filled out forms and sent me on my merry way.

Yeager airport, Charleston WV, shares a Customs Agent with the Huntington airport. You call, find out when he's going to be in. Drive there in that day, call on the cellphone and he walks out to inspect, stamp and do his job.

Curbside service

I'll second the customs staff at Sky Harbor. I took two shotguns down before a recent trip to Argentina and Paraguay - I was there before they opened, and they let me in right away. I was done in 5 minutes, they wished my well on my wingshooting trip to South America. Great service!

I walked into the customs office at Sea-Tac and told them I was bringing in guns for a 4457. "Bring them in" they said. Went without a hitch. I have found that if I treat government officals with courtesy and respect, most of them respond in kind.

Dave

I've had great luck with the Houston guys. The very first time I went with a client and we were the only ones there. They looked at everything (which was fine with us), but were very nice about it and I think it was more for them to have something to do than anything else. Since then, they all but wave! I have been offered a job (they liked the organized paperwork I brought); I've been allowed to register items for clients without them present (again due to the paperwork); and had them want to "visit" for quite awhile before sending me on my way with a handful of blank 4457's. It pays to be nice and organized if you're dealing with the right people.

Last year when I went to register my guns here in Houston it was a very humid day.I am talking get out of your vehicle your glasses fog over,enter a building they fog over even worst.Well I ended up pushing the wrong floor button on the elevator.I walked into the Office of Homeland Security by mistake.The woman at the front desk acted like I was O.B.L.

I laid my .416 Remington Magnum on the counter when I was recently at the Customs office in Moline, IL, and the guy had no interest whatsoever in verifying the serial number against what I'd written on the 4457. Showed no interest in looking at the rifle at all, in fact. Signed the paperwork, stamped it, handed it back to me.

Russ

When I went to the customs office in St. Louis, they didn't even look at my guns. I never even got them out of my trunk.

The Customs folks in Charleston are among the friendliest and most customer focused civil servants I've ever dealt with. Very efficient and knowledgeable. Cudos to them!

My partner and I have had the same good experiences with the customs agents here in Colorado Springs. Had another good experience with the Canadian agents at Montreal. They were helpful, and seeing our paperwork and locks were in place, didn't even ask us to open the cases. One agent was even going into the concourse and walked us first to our destination!

Phoenix is a really good airport in my experience, as is Portland when it comes to checking guns.

Tucson hasn't been very good. One time, enroute to Hermasillo, they took my guncase downstairs, then an officer came back and asked for a key to open the guncase with. I asked to accompany the officer for the inspection. He asked why, and I told him I didn't trust the TSA guys. After some coaxing, I was escourted by a Tucson Airport police officer down to watch the proceedings. I watched as the TSA guy who was inpecting my rifle tried to bend and pry off the recoil pad. I told him that the pad was glued to the synthetic stock, and if he kept twisting it he might break it. His reply: "But your stock sounds hollow!" My reply: "Well, if it sounds hollow, that must mean there's nothing inside of it!" He quit twisting the pad, finished the inspection, and that was that!

The officer who took me downstairs commented on the way back, "I can see why you don't trust those guys...."

AD

quote:

Originally posted by Paladin:
Yeager airport, Charleston WV, shares a Customs Agent with the Huntington airport. You call, find out when he's going to be in. Drive there in that day, call on the cellphone and he walks out to inspect, stamp and do his job.

Curbside service

That is nothing!

Here we get home delivery too!

Our system is different. We have to write a letter to both the airport police and customs. The letters include details of the rifles, like caliber, serial number etc and any ammo. They stamp them, and that is all we need to get the rifles out and back into the country.

I got my driver to drop the letters at both the customs and police. The customs stamped it, and returned it on the spot.

The police officer in charge was not in, so the driver left the letter with his secretary.

Next day I called to ask when I could pick the letter up.

"I will drop it by your house this afternoon myself" came the answer from the man in charge.

Can't beat that for service!

Harrisburg, PA, went to get the blank sheets and asked what to do when I brought the guns for checking. I was told to ring the bell and they would let me in. When the day came it was about 10 degrees outside, I rang the bell and told them what I wanted. The officer let me in and then wondered where the guns were. I told him out in the truck and he said " well it's real cold out there and it's warm in here, if you bring them in then neither of us will get cold".

They did check all of the numbers on everything I had listed. In and out in ten minutes even with socializing time.

Dulcinea