Airlines and checked firearms

My wife and I are taking a vacation to Alaska at the end of the month. I've been reading all the TSA and Alaska Airlines websites about checking our pistols. Seems pretty straight forward, locked hard sided container, ammo in factory boxes, and declare it at checkin so the TSA can inspect it.

We have a Hardigg laptop case that I was planning to put my OEM Springfield Armory case inside of, and then it still has room for ammo and if we decide to take our Ruger..

So I think I have all my stuff in order, I've just never done it so I'm a little nervous, anyone have any experience? words of wisdom?

Word of wisdom... when you walk up to check-in and "declare" it, don't say "I HAVE A GUN" really loud.

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Originally Posted by Matt_

Word of wisdom... when you walk up to check-in and "declare" it, don't say "I HAVE A GUN" really loud.

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LOL!!!

Make sure it is a LOCKABLE case or you will not have a gun when it arrives in Alaska.

Yea it's required to be in a locked case, and I believe it isn't even supposed to be a TSA approved lock in this case. The hardigg case is like a pelican case, so it's fully lockable and waterproof actually. I was told not to use the Springfield case because it said Springfield on it so it just says steal me..

I was figuring locked hardigg case, with trigger locks, and maybe even locking the springfield case inside also.. better safe than sorry I figure.

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Originally Posted by hoaxci5

Yea it's required to be in a locked case, and I believe it isn't even supposed to be a TSA approved lock in this case. The hardigg case is like a pelican case, so it's fully lockable and waterproof actually. I was told not to use the Springfield case because it said Springfield on it so it just says steal me..

I was figuring locked hardigg case, with trigger locks, and maybe even locking the springfield case inside also.. better safe than sorry I figure.

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Sounds perfect!

Try not to make it too much of a pain to access either... like locking a case within another locked case. Last time traveling with mine I was instructed to unlock my case to show a properly packed (in my luggage) unloaded cleared firearm and to prove that ammunition was not in the same compartment as the firearm. Also, I employed a trigger lock AND a cable lock on my firearm before i locked it in my pelican case. it was a Fullsize SA XD40

FYI, They should NOT handle the firearm. They are only there to approve its travel means

Well we are back from our Alaska trip so here's the update on my experience with travelling with a firearm.

We used a Pelican style laptop case for transport. It locked securely and didn't allow the sides to be pried up like the Springfield Armory factory case did. So I put the SA case inside the pelican case. Both firearms had trigger locks on them (not required). They were put inside the SA case, and then that case put inside of the Pelican. Ammo was in factory boxes, and put inside the Pelican case.

Flight out of LAX, all I did was sign the firearms declaration and put a copy next to the case inside of our larger checked bag. That was the end of it, made it to AK with no problem.

Flying out of Anchorage, I did the same thing. Only this time, I was paged overhead.. It turns out that out of that airport all firearms are supposed to be brought straight over to the oversized baggage area and checked right there before they go "downstairs." So they asked me for my key to inspect it downstairs.. I told them no, I would rather they brought it back up and inspected it in front of me (I wasn't going to give my keys to someone to wander around with and hope I got them back) TSA said thats fine it will just take a little longer, we weren't worried about that as we always leave plenty of time for flights. So they brought the bag up and opened it and the case and we had a little discussion about how it differed from flying out of LAX. Overall it was pretty painless, it would have been even less painless if the counter girl had known that all firearms were supposed to go to oversized baggage, but it was nothing more than a time inconvenience.

Glad you got them through without any hassle. I was hoping that you did some hunting and had some pictures for us but i realized that you probably checked 2 .45 pistols and probably weren't using them for hunting large alaskan wildlife. Or maybe you did........scary thought.

Pictures here
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...7f757ba&type=1

No hunting, just our side arms.. XD 9mm, and Ruger LCP .380