Midway, Sinclairs, all Fu^&ing crap

[Sim G]

But you'll still have the shipping cost from the freight forwarders to yourself.

And, people need to be wary with the "US address" thing when it comes to ordering stuff that the Americans regard as restricted for export. You are committing an offence by having a freight forwarder send restricted items..... And the Americans do like to go after those that flout such "arms" laws. Tappin, Savage and Hyde will no doubt attest to that!!

[dirtydawk]

Sinclairs done me for $40 post earlier this year. Great how they process your order and then don't tell you what the postage costs will be until it has been shipped. Proper set of bandits and I shall never use them again. I had wanted to gear up for neck turning cases for my .308 and was trying to keep the costs down. By the time I had been mugged for postage and then parcel farce stung me for import tax it turned into a rather costly endeavour.
All that remains is to chalk it up to experience and spread the good word about not touching them with a barge pole!!
Cheers
Ian

[John MH]

If you check the cost of postage paid to the USPS when your package arrives from Sinclair you'll probably find they charged you what it cost them to post it using the USPS Flat Rate system. They tend to use a service that provides tracking and unfortunately you can't usually specify anything else, it costs what it costs.

If they charged you $37 and the postage cost paid by them on the package was significantly less then thats a rip off. The other unfortunate thing is that Duty and VAT are also charged on the postage.

[saddler]

Sinclairs done me for $40 post earlier this year. Great how they process your order and then don't tell you what the postage costs will be until it has been shipped. Proper set of bandits and I shall never use them again. I had wanted to gear up for neck turning cases for my .308 and was trying to keep the costs down. By the time I had been mugged for postage and then parcel farce stung me for import tax it turned into a rather costly endeavour.
All that remains is to chalk it up to experience and spread the good word about not touching them with a barge pole!!
Cheers
Ian

If you check the cost of postage paid to the USPS when your package arrives from Sinclair you'll probably find they charged you what it cost them to post it using the USPS Flat Rate system. They tend to use a service that provides tracking and unfortunately you can't usually specify anything else, it costs what it costs.

If they charged you $37 and the postage cost paid by them on the package was significantly less then thats a rip off. The other unfortunate thing is that Duty and VAT are also charged on the postage.

One of the problems with postage from the USA is that as US firms are not hampered by the same method of price calculations, they tend to use a standard sized box no matter what the contents are.
Another issue is that the Gov't USPS killed off the surface mail option some years ago - so ONLY airmail options are available
Due to frauds some firms also INSIST that orders are tracked to get around people saying that their order never arrived or constantly tying up staff time by phoning in to ask where their item is - if they have a tracking no. they can call the courier to moan at instead...

Sinclairs/Brownells are one of the better companies out there.
Order ONE item & yes, they will stick it in the $40 box & that cost is added to the value of that one item & then taken as the cost of the goods when working out duty, etc.
The biggest rip-off here is the "handling charge" that Royal Snail add to the total due at this end
Rather than "not touching them with a barge pole!!" IF you'd added more items to the cart the average price per item against the $40 shipping would have dropped; making the purchase more cost effective.
Some folk I know import bikes from the USA in shipping crates...but they bring two in, not one. No extra shipping for the 2nd bike & the extra bike is then sold to part pay for the 1st one...

Other smaller firms will also listen to your message/instructions IF you bother to tell them to ship 1st Class International rather than Global Priority Tracked

Midsouth Shooters Supply are good to deal with & ship to the UK as long as the goods are not ITAR restricted...
I bought two Hornady Bullet Feeder dies from them for $20ea & about $15 P&P!! (check the UK price for the dies, if you want a laugh, i.e. MidwayUK, £27.86 or £28.15 & £8.85P&P)

Brownells & Sinclair ARE good - you just have to get used to their in-house system & use it to your advantage!!

[Polchraine]

If you check the cost of postage paid to the USPS when your package arrives from Sinclair you'll probably find they charged you what it cost them to post it using the USPS Flat Rate system. They tend to use a service that provides tracking and unfortunately you can't usually specify anything else, it costs what it costs.

If they charged you $37 and the postage cost paid by them on the package was significantly less then thats a rip off. The other unfortunate thing is that Duty and VAT are also charged on the postage.

[Mike357]

I me never suggested trying to send restricted items. Merely a way to reduce extortionate shipping costs!
A US registered top up debit card is easy to get or you can get the shipping company to buy it for you.

[Blu]

Midway I will no longer deal with (unless it's for someone else) because I am a tight Jockanese b'stard who refuses to pay their rip off $3 handling fee for anything under $25. Sinclair's I haven't dealt with much so can't comment on them. My go to place is Midsouth Shooters, fast shipping, good customer service and good prices.

Blu

[phaedra1106]

I tried to use Mid-South and have stuff sent to my friends in Florida to collect when we go over, unfortunately their card verification system refuses to accept my pre-paid US$ Mastercard

Sinclairs, Midway, Cabellas and even Titan accept it without a problem so get most of my business. The only other option is to send money to my friends bank account, most banks will charge £25 for this. However, I've just found and used GlobalWebPay who gave a better conversion rate and only charged £4.75

[saddler]

I tried to use Mid-South and have stuff sent to my friends in Florida to collect when we go over, unfortunately their card verification system refuses to accept my pre-paid US$ Mastercard

Sinclairs, Midway, Cabellas and even Titan accept it without a problem so get most of my business. The only other option is to send money to my friends bank account, most banks will charge £25 for this. However, I've just found and used GlobalWebPay who gave a better conversion rate and only charged £4.75

I use my normal UK cards with Midsouth with no issues

[artiglio]

Worst service I've had from US was purchase of some DTAC's from CSS ( David Tubbs), they could'nt be bothered to condense the packaging so needed a fixed rate box 2 sizes larger than necessary, also they filled the customs declaration in incorrectly so i ended up paying ,duty and Vat ,on the shipping cost twice. When I emailed them about the customs form, not even the courtesy of a reply. Rather disapointing.