Henry Rifle Forums

In the last few years, I have bought several nice guns from a good friend who is downsizing his collection. He knows what I like and when he pulls guns from the safe to sell, he sets aside this one or that one and emails me asking if I'm interested. He'd rather sell to me than to the local dealer, although because of the size of his collection and the volume he is downsizing, they give him pretty fair prices most of the time.

If I'm interested, he quotes a price and I normally pay the transfer fees on both ends, and shipping. Suddenly, the LGS he uses told him that UPS now requires NEXT DAY air for handguns. So shipping went from $35 to $40 to $100. However, the last gun he dropped on a Monday, didn't hit the tracking until Wednesday, and wasn't due to arrive until a Friday. Our question is how is that Next Day Air. So they changed the charges to Second Day Air. Fine, he dropped the handgun on Monday, Second Day Air would mean Wednesday arrival, not Friday.

Say it was after the Monday pickup time, though we knew it wasn't, it would still be Tuesday Departure and Thursday arrival. UPS is slipping.

Our local UPS driver is awesome, but the company overall is slipping. This is not the first time that the high cost shipping has taken a LOT longer than the advertised time frame. But, at least they are arriving at MY LGS here.

Checked the tracking, the hickup is now a choke.
The tracking page says updated today, and expected delivery jumped from Friday to Monday.

Anticipation sucks

And Amazon can deliver some things same day..........................

Didn't UPS get a big raise last contract?

Shipping lately is getting pretty iffy. Last 2 next day UPS deliveries got updated to 3 days. Both were 2 boxes each and both times one disappeared from tracking but they did get delivered together. Fedex deliveries seem to get the scenic route that add a day or two and USPS can show up right on time or get lost somewhere for a while. Can relate to the Anticipation sucks remark.

I trust none of them when it comes to shipping guns. Ill take a little less for one if I dont half to ship one. Im always nervous until it gets there.

BigAl52 wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 15, 2025 3:49 pm

I trust none of them when it comes to shipping guns. Ill take a little less for one if I dont half to ship one. Im always nervous until it gets there.

Me too.

The firearm in Question was a handgun and the UPS regs require Next Day Air. It was dropped off on Monday the 11th. It arrived on Monday the 18th. $130 shipping for UPS Next Day Air and it turned out to be UPS Ground. The tracking shows it didn't actually leave until Thursday. It made a half dozen stops, with multi-hour layovers at each. Sounds like Ground to me. When the box arrived I asked the receiving Shop NOT to cut thru the UPS shipping label so I was certain to be able to read all the info. First thing that stood out, was the 2nd Day Air bold as brass.

Seems like mistakes all the way around. Not Happy. Not because it didn't get here quickly, but because one of my oldest friends was defrauded by someone. We'll see how this plays out in the aftermath. I'm thinking they'll give him his refund and move on. Have two long guns due to be shipped in the next week or so.