A must read if you ship brass or buy brass from private sellers

I received this info tonight on facebook buy a fellow reloader and glad I did.
WARNING!!!!!!!! If you sell and ship BRASS……..READ THIS!

This was a post submitted by Mark Classens over on one of the reloading pages. Mark has been selling brass for sometime now and has a well established brass business.

Ever ship primed brass through USPS???? Well, I just had a conversation with Nik Davrados the other day before he almost shipped out some primed brass. Little did he know how close he came to a shutdown. This is NOT going to be short, but well worthwhile...... Up until a few months back, I never thought twice about shipping out brass where there were some primed brass in the mix. I truly thought they were okay via USPS or UPS. Then one day I was yapping with Wes Sage out in WA and he told me DON'T do that. He proceeded to tell me a story about a local guy he knew that shipped some brass with some primed ones in the mix. The box broke, the postal inspector got it, and confronted him. He didn't know the rules! So he was slapped with a huge fine, can't remember if it was $15,000 or $50,000, but it was a bunch of house payments!! On top of that he is facing some jail time. Well, that was enough for me. I stopped doing it. the other day when Nik was going to ship his brass and I shared the same story, so he didn't. Well.....this was an eye opener for me, guys. What happens next will scare the Be Jesus out of you. Last Friday night I boxed up 9 packages of brass, scheduled a pickup for Saturday morning, printed the labels, and set them out on the front step for the carrier. Early Saturday morning I get woken up out of a dead sleep by my phone. It is the U.S. Postmaster, and wants to talk to Mark Claessens from Big Dog Brass. He said and I quote, "Mr. Claessens, I am going to ask you one question and I want you to give me the straight up truthful answer. And don't lie to me. I see you are shipping out 9 boxes today: are there any live rounds of ammunition in there?" I said no. He then said, "Are there any primers or brass casings with live primers in them?" I said no. He asked me if I have EVER.....EVER at ANY time shipped out a live round of ammo or a live primer. I said never a live round, but truthfully I had shipped brass with live primers before. I didn't want to lie. Then I told him the story that Wes told me and he said I should thank Wes for saving me from some fines and jail time. VERY SERIOUS!!! He then asked me this, "Okay, if I open up every single package that you are shipping today, will I find even ONE live primer in there?" I said, "No. I will never ship a live primer again as long as I live and have not since my discussion with Wes back before Christmas." He said he may check them anyway. THEN he asked this, "How about this package being delivered to you from Nik Davrados, will there be any live ammo or live primers in there?" I told him NO. Well, they opened up Nik's package and checked it and then re-sealed it and delivered it. So had I NOT had that talk with NIk, whom I love deeply, Nik would now be facing possibly $50,000 in fines and up to 90 days in jail. Period. No apologies. He further said to me, "Your name has come up over here and I can't tell you who said what. But I needed to ask and check." MAN, I would love to know who would report me like that!!!!! The point is that the postal service is on the watch, guys. They really do care and they care a LOT about this stuff. You can NOT ship any primers that have not been detonated. Period. And no live ammo. We all need to play by the rules, guys. It will be no picnic if you are caught. I don't know how much "profit" i have made over the past couple of years, as this is not how I earn a living. It is fun for me and gives me some extra money for reloading. But I can assure all of you that those fines would put me in the ground and FAR outweigh any pennies I have earned selling brass. And the jail time would not only kill me, but my real estate career would be over. Oh, one last and funny thing. After he got through with all the questions he complimented me on the thoroughness of my answers and my knowledge of reloading components and how they function. Then he asks, "So, do you ever run across any .30 Remington brass? I reload a bunch of calibers and am in need of a bunch of those." So I sent him my entire inventory list of over 100,000 cases of brass in 184 calibers that I stock and at his request, I put him on my waiting list for the 30 Remington!!! Now how cool is that??? You know what would be cooler? Is if a bunch of you were thankful for me sharing this and helped me find this U.S. Postmaster 100 of the .30 Remington. I will gladly just give them to him and pay it forward. Honestly. now....I am done. Look forward to hearing thoughts from y'all. And I think I will copy and paste this to a couple other groups, as I had planned on sharing this anyway.
 
I've shopped primed before and just specified ups ground. I now only ship it fedex since they are the ones that are open when I get off. I believe it's rediculous for them to open packages. They can scan if they want, but just because you have shipped a lot of brass out to out right ask you? I have been asked about shipping gun parts, because they knew I did, and flat refused to ship a rifle barrel I was selling. I spoke to the post master and asked him to have his people learn the difference before telling someone no that's keeping them employed. Really erks me.
 
ANY package can be opened by the USPS if they have even the slightest suspicion it may contain anything "hazardous" like primers, smelly liquids, loaded ammo, bad packaging, no return address, bad packaging etc.
Gun parts are legal to ship via USPS when you follow the ruling they have on them.
 
Good story. However, unless things have changed...The Postmaster couldn't open your packages even if he wanted too. That is unless things have changed. I am a retired Postmaster, (16 years) and up until 2000 the Postal Inspectors were the only people that could open a package. Forgot...The personnel at the, "dead letter office" also.
 
Originally Posted By: Redleg84You're lucky, my postmaster is dumber than a box of rocks, she doesn't even know what the USPS accepts and doesn't accept

Been there. I printed out their guidelines before I went to ship some live frogs (Don't ask) in anticipation of problems at our local main branch. Sure enough they denied it, and then had to get out their own thick book to double check what I handed them was true.

You can ship live chickens and scorpions by mail as well if memory serves
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A long time ago I ordered a bunch of primed 44mag brass from one of the major retailers. They *had* (according to them) ship them loose in a plastic bag and they could not be boxed in individual slots for some reason. It's been too many years for me to remember the fine points.
 
Originally Posted By: newmexkidGood story. However, unless things have changed...The Postmaster couldn't open your packages even if he wanted too. That is unless things have changed. I am a retired Postmaster, (16 years) and up until 2000 the Postal Inspectors were the only people that could open a package. Forgot...The personnel at the, "dead letter office" also.

This is true, it has to be an inspector or "dead" letter joint, any item shipped USPS can still be pulled off the line or a carrier can hold it if it raises suspicion and held for an inspector to do so.
 
That is crazy.. Sounds like a more of that choke point operation mentality.. .

If they had called me, i would have asked them to hold for a minute, and then told them to go ahead and ask their questions, I am recording the conversation for my lawyer and records.

See what questions you get then? I would also ask them how they knew the name of someone that is shipping something to me..
That tells me they are creating a file and collecting information. My postman delivers my mail every day, but wouldn't be able to tell you anything other than Netflix comes to my house.
 
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