For those of you in the U.S. that have ordered bullets from Gerard, what has been the normal "air mail" time? I ordered mine 8 weeks ago and they haven't arrived yet.
Shortest was 3 weeks (surface, too!) Longest was 10-12 weeks. Nobody knows how to predict it. Order them 12 weeks before you want to start load development, not before you want to go hunting!
I used to get them in three to six weeks by air mail. Then I thought I would do an experiment and try regular post with the .475 cal. bullets. That was in late August. Twelve weeks went by, no bullets. Gerard said he shipped a replacement order. I am still waiting on that.
I fear that the terrorism thing, the Anthrax thing, the war thing, and the homeland security thing may be screwing up the system on both ends.
------------------ RAB
Posts: 28032 | Location: KY | Registered: 09 December 2001
Ron, nah, I ordered some in March, 12 weeks later nada, Gerard sent another one out, 10 weeks later, Bingo! Got to worrying there, cause the season was getting pretty close! FWIW, Dutch.
Posts: 4564 | Location: Idaho Falls, ID, USA | Registered: 21 September 2000
Has nothing to do with anthrax or Sept 11..Has to do with the indegenous species of South African postal workers, who sort out the mail and decide what to steal and what to send, and they operate on African time....
Another thing to note - sometimes email to and from Africa is unreliable. Send extra copies of the message and ask for confirmation that the message was received.
Faxes seem to work though.
Posts: 18352 | Location: Salt Lake City, Utah USA | Registered: 20 April 2002
I've been trying to reach Gerard concerning my first trial order but no response. I never heard that e-mail could be a hassle too in Africa. A well, maybe he'll look in on this post, in that case, Gerard, it's order no 151866.
Posts: 544 | Location: Sweden | Registered: 27 October 2001
HMMM..... My order is only about 3 weeks old. I guess is that about late Febuary or early march I can begin to try to get some loads worked up. Oh well one must endure much to be an African officianado. Good hunting "D"
Posts: 1701 | Location: Western NC | Registered: 28 June 2000
I'm in the same boat as RAB. Order and paid for in September. The first order was figured to be lost and replaced but I still haven't received any bullets. Gerard was very quick to e-mail me when I contacted him. I'm not in a hurry but will be glad to see and test them. 470 Mbogo
470 Mbogo, have you ever received any bullets from GS? Reason I ask is I remember a couple of articles in magazines where the reviewers' orders never showed. It was due to there not being any French language on the boxes. I remember a conversation I had with Art Alphin when A-square was still up, he had lost a whole shipment of projectiles to customs due to the French labeling thing. This was right during his episode with the JBT's.
Hi All, Many of you e-mail me when your parcels arrive and there is no doubt that many things have changed. Some parcels have arrived completely sealed with "saran" wrap which I presume to be something similar to cling wrap over here. Some parcels were opened and resealed. Our postal service tells us that there are backlogs on mail handling in New York, Florida and London. London and New York I can understand, but why Florida? From previous years, we also know that Christmas mail starts to flow in October and tends to slow the systems down as well. We have lodged several claims on overdue parcels only to be told the parcel is still in transit on the systems and can only be considered lost if it does not scan as forwarded from a handling point after a certain period. The "period" seems to vary depending on the backlog.
On another subject, our currency is taking a dreadful beating and touched 12.5 against the US$ last week. This does not affect us in SA other than the price of imported goods going up quite radically and having a ripple effect across the board. Since our previous price increase, our currency has devalued by almost 30% and, to cover the increase in maintenance parts and tooling which are imported from Germany and Austria, we will have to increase bullet prices. Cost of labour is stable and raw material is sourced in SA so that is also stable. We will increase prices by 16.3% which means that the price outside of SA will still be about 15% lower than in July this year.
To all the many, many new friends we have gained in the past 18 months, we wish you all a peaceful holiday season. More than anything else, we are grateful for knowledge we have gained through our contact with you guys. Thank you.
Gerard, Your bullets are a great bargain, and I am sure they will continue to be so if you have anything to do with it! I will keep ordering them as long as the pipeline keeps flowing.
The thing about Florida: that is where Anthrax first showed up through the mail in the U.S.A., at some tabloid newspaper building. Anthrax death number one following 9/11/01.
So packages are opened and rewrapped? Maybe, despite Ray's reassurance, the terrorism mess is slowing the mails somewhere??? I dunno.
Thanks for taking the time to post. Happy holidays to you and yours.
------------------ So many bovids! So little time and money! RAB
Posts: 28032 | Location: KY | Registered: 09 December 2001
