evening u 3 its been a while but i have a question? what postal services do you recomend as this is how my gun turned up today.
4 days late with parcel force.
Damn, is the action ok at least? That should be worth throwing a new stock on if so.
It barely matters, the rule is that if you can't drop-kick your parcel down and the road twice it will get broken in transit. Good or bad experiences also depend on where you are as volume handled and final delivery drivers have an impact on how much each cares about your parcel.
If you're shipping something fragile like that, wrap the item in bubble wrap then sandwhich between boards of cheap board like ply or OSB. Fold corrugated card board around the open sides, bonus points if you can get proper cardboard angles, and fixate it all with generous amounts of palette wrap. Then wrap in packing paper etc. That'll get you through most systems, you'll just have to accept it's going to cost £5-£15 for packing materials not including effort. Tough to expect that for one-off sellers as well, sadly.
The good services have distinct delivery v.s. courier options, delivery is cheap-and-cheerful every day parcels while courier means dedicated pick-up and guaranteed delivery slots. It should be no surprise that the latter is orders of magnitude more expensive than the former (usually not worth it for items under £1000) but its the difference between a harried parcels-per-hour guy desperately trying to meet quota and a slightly less harried guy who's graded on timeliness and service not just quantity.
All that said, I've had generally good experiences with DPD, FedEx, Royal Mail, and UPS. Provided whoever did the shipping didn't pick their budget options.
I don't think you could buy guns through the post, I thought they only deliver them to your local gun shop where you collect them. How'd you end up getting it posted in the first place?
Least that's how it was when I bought my air rifle, and it's the main thing that's stopped me buying a fancy PCP bolt action one on a whim too. I know it's perfectly legal to do but I still feel like I'd raise eyebrows buying anything fancier than a spring powered beer can plinker.
Registered firearms dealers have to complete a sale in person, but that doesn't have to be at their premises. They can take an order online, drive to your house and do the paperwork on your doorstep. Pellpax offer national delivery on air rifles using their own drivers and I'm pretty sure there are others.
Private sales aren't subject to the same rules, but most couriers have a blanket ban on firearms and ammunition. Parcelforce will carry air rifles, but they're excluded from compensation. They also say that they won't carry compressed gas cylinders whether empty or full, so I can't work out where they stand on PCPs.
>>453160 That looks like a leaking over-oiled bit, but I don't your particular gun.
>>453161 Your local RFD will not ship you an air gun that way, but private sales you're only limited by what your chosen delivery services ToS are.
The RFD requirements say that it must be done in person, hence you get a rather bespoke service by those who do delivery (it's how I got pic attached) but outside of Scotland at least person to person you can do what you like.
>>453162 As far as I can tell PCPs are "don't ask don't tell". Most carriers have a ban on ammunition, but air gun pellets are tacitly permitted. Lead's heavy, so order in bulk if you can.
For lead free, I've had absolutely rubbish results with the plastic jacket excite pellets (H&N Sport's budget line) Apollo/Prometheus (wild fliers were the norm, more than 2" at 10m), but RWS was decent. YMMV, of course. For everyday plinking I still use exxcite econ :).
You know what's weird is you can buy a proper air rifle, you can buy a crossbow, you can buy a massive fuck off ninja sword, without any form of real legal barrier. But as soon as you want an airsoft rifle, it has to come in bright orange. Makes no sense.
The requirements to get one in normal colours are that you actually have to go and play 3 games at an airsoft game place for them to verify you. Fuck that, I can't be arsed. Nobody had to verify that I'm shooting rabbits or whatever when I bought my air rifle. Is there any way around it?
I ask because I fancy getting an airsoft replica AS VAL, for no other reason than because it's my favourite gun in Stalker. I'd also like to imagine that one day I'll get arrested for having a henry's of weed on me and the police will search my flat, then post my dangerous collection of offensive weapons on Facebook to make it look like they stopped some kind of super daft militant wog.
