Bullets, not ammo, in carry on luggage?

[Highplainsdakota]

Unusual topic here:

I’m headed to Africa in 3 weeks to hunt. To gain the favor of my PH and owner of the outfit, I agreed to source him 7mm berger bullets and bring them over for his reloading.

I’m at 86 lbs, 2000 7mm 180 hybrids and 1000 30 cal 215 gn hybrids. I’ll put a lot in my luggage, but can I offload some weight in my carry on luggage through TSA?

Bullets only. No brass, and certainly nothing explosive like primers.

The TSA website says a dummy round with bullet and case drilled out with no primer or powder is Ok. Empty brass is OK.

Are couple thousand bullets OK????? Discuss…..

 

[AXEFORCE6]

I believe your concern needs to be with Africa and not the tsa. Some countries will jail you for just have a spent case.

 

[Clob McStrunk]

Yea I bet Africa has never had hunters fly in before

 

[Highplainsdakota]

Clarification, I’m flying directly into South Africa to Johannesburg. The next day via Airlink to Port Elizabeth.

 

[Blue Sky Country]

I believe your concern needs to be with Africa and not the tsa. Some countries will jail you for just have a spent case.

Was thinking this first thing. Even some our own jurisdictions have wacko definitions for stuff. In Washington DC and New Jersey, just bullets alone and muzzleloading balls/conicals are considered ammunition components and fall under same category as primers and powder. In Hong Kong, Taiwan, and ROK, a single slug or even a fired and expanded JHP slug used as an ornament found in luggage can mean imprisonment.

 

[memilanuk]

You'd be better off putting it in your checked luggage, and eating the overweight charges. Probably less than your PH would have to pay for those bullets - by far.

 

[Peloton]

Ran this past a buddy who works for TSA. This was his reply:

Nope. Anything that even looks like a bullet will be denied at screening. We deny anything that may cause a disturbance on an aircraft as well. Imagine he doesn’t see one of the bullets fall out of his bag. Now it’s rolling around in the overhead bin. Someone goes to get something out of their bag and they see a bullet. They sneak back to a member of the crew and secretly say “psst….someone has a gun”…… SCREECH!!! ALL STOP!! Tower! This is Alaska 411Heavy declaring an in air emergency and requesting immediate diversion to the nearest airport…”

That’s how stupid shit can get. So we deny anything that looks like it might cause a problem…to include just bullets.

Checked bag is fine as long as it is in a bullet box. Either original or one of the plastic ones. Can’t just be loose in a bag

 

[memilanuk]

Long ago and far away, on the way home from the 2009 F-class World Championships, a few bright sparks did something similar.

The ammo had all been shipped ahead to jolly old England by a team sponsor before the event, went through customs, held in secure storage, etc. etc. All we had to do was arrive, pick it up, go shoot (and win, yay us!). But some folks didn't plan ahead for the extra 15 lbs of spent brass. One or two had the bright idea that since it was *spent* brass, not live ammo, that it would be okay to put it in their carry-on. And... queue the shit storm. Obviously, the airport security were not on board with that idea. Questions were asked, resulting in them literally holding the flight as the airline unloaded their luggage so the cops could go through it, having a raging shit fit about all the spent ammo (and some remaining live rounds) loose in baggies or ammo boxes (not locked cases of their own). Meanwhile, our guys are saying "We just want to leave your damned country. Promise we'll never come back! Really!"

As an aside, *following* that little international incident was when Heathrow / British Airways began requiring 'proof' that any spent cases had been ultrasonically cleaned before they could be transported via checked luggage. No f'ing idea what brain trust decided that would do to make anything 'safer', but then again, it's England.

The group I was with was on hearing about all this via text and calls while we were taking a side-trip over to Ireland to shoot a little match there with some of our buds. We were all queued up in the line for the ferry from Hollyhead to Dublin with our hard-side long gun cases, binders of fire-arm permits, passports, everything, ready for the full-body cavity search by this point. Definitely getting the side-eye from everyone in line. When we finally got up to the counter, the customs agent started flipping through our binder(s) of permits, asked what our business in England had been. The team captain replied "well, we were there for the long range World Championship". "How'd you gents do?" they asked. "We took 1st place, and beat the Brits." said the captain. The custom agent looked up, smiled, closed the binder, and just wave us on through. End of inspection. They even wheeled our gun cases around *past* the metal detectors. We did about panic when we got to Dublin and we were trying to locate our gun cases - only to find them waiting for us stacked in a pile on the pier

But back to the point... that's two pretty solid votes for "checked luggage". And if they ask why you're bringing extra projectiles... well, it's up to you whether you want to try telling them that it's for reloading your ammo while you're there. If the bullets match your hunting guns in caliber, maybe. If not... they might get a bit prickly about attempting to import things bypassing customs. Just sayin'

 

[Franko]

Not my part of the house but are projectiles covered by ITAR?