Shipping Primers and powder

T

tim3500

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Grand Forks BC
Iam looking for a little information about shipping Primers and powder for reloading. Who shipping now. Bought some primers a while back and had a friend pick them up in Calgary they need to find their way to West Kootenay BC
Thanks for any info.
 
I have some powder shipped Purolator Ground to BC to pick up today From Quebec.
Edit: From a store. Supposedly Canpar and CP is not OK. Check the shipper's website. Of course, they won't know who the sender is if it get opened, but Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992 may apply.
 
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Mailing dangerous or prohibited goods is an offence.

Please go to the Forum Rules and FAQ and review Rule #1.
 
From the CP website:

If you’re a contract customer or Solutions for Small Business (SfSB) cardholder, an expanded acceptance program is available for:

Limited quantities
Excepted quantities
Lithium batteries
 
bertn said:
Interesting.
Wonder why they would be allowed to ship powder with Canada Post.
Click to expand...

There is nothing external that says Canada Post isn't allowed to handle dangerous goods.

Internally, their policy is to do it only for contract customers, on a case by case basis. So a gun store can get an agreement from them to allow smokeless powder and primers.

They will not do this for individuals or SFSB customers.
 
Unfortunately there is a site rule about discussing illegal activities, otherwise I'm sure many would come forward with stories of private sales being shipped with Canada Post
 
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If powder showed up here by Canada post I would assume it was because the courier dropped it off there for final delivery like they do with everything else.
 
As was explained to me by local Post Office mistress in small town Manitoba - is not uncommon across Canada for a courier to dump off a load at a Canada Post facility - some sort of agreement organization-to-organization - leads to all kind of headaches within Canada Post - most CP employees / contractors not ticketed to handle Dangerous Goods, different weight and size limits for packages, and so on - so, she said, can get the CP employees and equipment attempting to handle stuff that they would not normally accept as "mailable", if it came in their front door - but it ends up within their "system". I had previously read of various "special arrangements" being made with various commercial or institutional customers, but I am not personally familiar with any of those details.
 
Received powder and primers via cp from private sales and retailers multiple times.
I’ve also tried to do it properly via Purolator dangerous goods shipping with a verified account. As far as I could find on their website, Purolator only ships complete ammunition in small quantities. I created a label and paid for a package containing 3lbs of powder, 800 primers and 8lbs of brass. (Basically completed cartridges lol). It was $130 from Regina to B.C.
I sent the label and appropriate placards to the guy I bought it from. He dropped it off at a depot. I got a call the next day from a distribution facility asking what was in the package and I told them. I can’t remember the placards and am too lazy to look it up, but the raw materials fall under 1.4c or something. Complete ammunition is something different. She said they don’t ship powder at all basically and was going to send it back to the sender. The next day the tracking showed it progressing to B.C. a few days later it was on my doorstep with new classification labels on it. I guess she just pushed it though.
Huge pain in the rear and I was lucky to even get it. I knew better but didn’t think it was much of a stretch… in theory if I had just labeled it as complete cartridges, it would have gone through no problem. Still $130 though!
 
Small Arms Ammunition aka Safety Cartridges for Weapons ship as Dangerous Goods, Category 4.1C. Can even be shipped by air freight, if the paperwork is done correctly. Similarly, up to 5kg can be carried in checked luggage in a passenger aircraft. This is not powder or primers.

Something to think about if falsifying the Dangerous Goods - Yes or No - question when mailing a parcel containing powder and primers... Mail often travels by air. It can be x-rayed if going by air. This is why there is a specific prohibition on mailing inert devices. Package gets x-rayed, examiner doesn't know if the grenade is live or not, bomb squad gets called, postal terminal gets shut down until the situation gets resolved.
 
tiriaq said:
Small Arms Ammunition aka Safety Cartridges for Weapons ship as Dangerous Goods, Category 4.1C. Can even be shipped by air freight, if the paperwork is done correctly. Similarly, up to 5kg can be carried in checked luggage in a passenger aircraft. This is not powder or primers.

Something to think about if falsifying the Dangerous Goods - Yes or No - question when mailing a parcel containing powder and primers... Mail often travels by air. It can be x-rayed if going by air. This is why there is a specific prohibition on mailing inert devices. Package gets x-rayed, examiner doesn't know if the grenade is live or not, bomb squad gets called, postal terminal gets shut down until the situation gets resolved.
Click to expand...

There is the "what if?!?" silliness. We aren't talking about mailing fake grenades. Do you actually think someone would raise a fuss because they saw a container with a powder in it on their screen?

I will ask the same question I always do when this comes up. Is there a single case where someone was penalized for shipping powder or primers? I doubt there is since it's completely safe outside of any situation that wouldn't be terrible anyways. This is an insurance issue so of course it's been made out to be much more dangerous than it ever would be.

I don't know what you mean by falsifying the dangerous goods question. I have never been asked and just because they say I warrant there are no DG in the package does not mean that is the case. When has simply saying someone agrees or states something with no proof been an effective argument?
 
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