I was home packing for my flight leaving early the next morning to Seattle, then Ketchikan, Alaska. I got a call from work and they said I had to call Special Agent J right away. I called him and he told me that they confiscated my gun case and sequestered it in Anchorage because they scanned it and found I had an aerosol can in it. Gun Scrubber. Can you believe it? I couldn’t either. I needed to give him the combination for the locks or he would get a warrant and cut them off. He was not to be argued with, and I had to comply. I asked if he could next day it out and my expense sans spray can so I could have it for my hunt. Nope. Since ATF took possession of the case, the “chain” was broken, and since it was no longer going from me to me, they had to send it to an FFL dealer. I scrambled and called about a half dozen dealers until I found one that would accept the case. I made dozens of calls to Alaskan Airways, bush pilots, cargo companies and everyone possible to expedite this transfer, but to no avail. So it looked like I was going hunting without my guns, or sleeping bag, or other necessary equipment. It is normal practice to ship your guns, and neither I nor none of my compatriots have ever heard of such picayune trip-destroying practices.
I had nothing left to do but scramble to get back up equipment. I grabbed my Freedom Arms 454 with my EOTech OPMOD EXPS2 HWS mounted on two piggybacked modified mounts to make it work. I successfully used this combination to take a nice hog earlier in the year, was still sighted in, and I still had 40 handloads for it. I stuffed this in a hard case, locked it and buried it in my rolling duffel. I had an extra sleeping bag, an old Montgomery Ward’s down filled mummy bag that would have to do. An extra Stony Point Explorer tripod, Gerber knife and saw. I grabbed an extra Zeiss Conquest 8×30 binocular. I didn’t have a spare mattress. I had a UPS call tag sent the next morning to get the gun shipped to Frontier Shipping and Copyworks. Use these excellent folks next time you have needs in Ketchikan. Couldn’t have done it without them.
I really was going to miss my new Remington R-25 with my EOTech OPMOD MPO II sight and magnifier, and the new OPMOD 10×42 binoculars I designed. I was looking forward to seeing how they would hold up under a proof test. We just got them in and I couldn’t wait to abuse them.
I can’t ever sleep before a big hunt anyway, and it would do no good to cry about this situation. It would be criminal for me to whine, and I certainly wouldn’t bring this to the table with my hunting partners, so I grilled some chicken. Good therapy and great chicken.
I’m back from my hunt now and still have not received my gun case. No fault whatsoever of Frontier Shipping.
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