Can anyone shed light on if a gunsmith can send back your firearm directly back to you and not to a FFL?
Thinking about sending out a Glock to get modified but was wondering if it has to get shipped back to a FFL and I'll have to fill out paperwork again.

Awesome thanks for that info! So WA state doesn't have any additional regulation regarding this?

The fact that this question needs to be asked, and is even a reasonable question - that kind of pisses me off.

Not that I know of.

When my XDs had a re-call on the trigger, it was shipped back directly to me.

Thanks guys for the responses, one less expense to worry about

The short answer is yes. I've shipped several handguns off to gunsmiths for service/modification. The GCA and ATF regulations allow you to ship a firearm directly to a gunsmith for modification/repair and the gunsmith can mail directly back to your residence.

Don't bring your handgun to the USPS as it's against federal regulations. You'll need to take it to a UPS or FedEx service depot. The UPS Store franchises will not accept firearms for shipment, you'll have to take it to service depot. At the service depot you'll need to declare the package as a handgun. At that point UPS and probably also FedEx policy requires overnight shipment (personally I've always used UPS). This is not due to federal regulation but rather carrier policy. The UPS service depot personnel will also likely to ask for a copy of the gunsmith / recipient FFL prior to accepting the package for shipment. Your gunsmith should readily provide a copy on request prior to shipping. Plus adult signature required on delivery.

It's a spendy proposition with shipping likely to run $70-$90 each way. My current thinking is that it's worthwhile for action jobs on competition pieces, particularly for work such as the Apex Tactical Level IV tune for revolvers using Federal primers only. If a duty tune is what you're after, then there are local gunsmiths, notably CaR Firearms, that can do great work at a fraction of the cost of shipping to an out of area gunsmith.

Only reason I would personally ship a firearm out of state would be for a warranty issue and then the Manufacturer will usually send a UPS tag then ship it back at their expense.


For everything else there's certainly a qualified gunsmith within driving distance (or I do the work myself).

As for the high cost? I had a UPS clerk explain once that they require Next Day Air because it requires all kinds of monitoring along the way and also spends less time "on the belts". The longer UPS has their hands on the weapon they figure more chance of it getting stolen. In a way it's their answer to curing one of their problems, by making the customer pay at least 4x the cost of normal shipping.

Too bad one couldn't just put it in a large box that a Sump Pump used to come in. Pack it tight and make the seal on the end of the box look "Factory". Who'd steal a "Sump Pump"?

Maybe just attach a toilet plunger cup over the muzzle and call it a Redneck Toilet Plunger.

I'm thinking about getting a full modification package done by Taran Tactical:
http://tarantacticalinnovations.com/combat-master-package/

So can we take this as a tacit admission that Glocks are not absolute perfection distilled? I vote yes.

I don't get why all the customization companies are out of California.

Never been a Glock fanboy so... Yes.

I read somewhere that California is one of the biggest markets for gun sales. Maybe that's why?

I've had a rifle, and a pistol shipped directly to my front door from the manufacturer after repairs.

Bingo. With shipments between licensed dealers running into hundreds of thousands of firearms per year (at least), most of which travel by USPS or ground service delivery, you'd think that the rest of us could also use these same methods. UPS and FedEx basically make the average customer pay a premium because they have a problem with their own damn employees stealing firearms and god knows what else out of their own systems. No reason it should cost more than $20-$25 tops to ship a firearm to someone.