Importing overseas milsurp parts

[KevMT]

Hello all,

I have a Norwegian Krag with a broken firing pin. After searching high and low for one in the states, I found a VERY generous person who has offered to send me one from Norway.

My question is........ would there be any restrictions on his sending me this part? I don't wish to cause him any grief when he is being so helpful.

Thanks,

KevMT

[Scrounger]

I wouldn't look for trouble. Some Postal or Customs tyrant might want to show his authority. I'd tell him to just put it in a small packet and mail it to me, listed as metal casting for birthday gift, no commercial value.

[Buckshot]

................Mark it as locking plunger, locating pin, die ejector, centering pin, etc, & etc. Many many long years back I needed a breechblock pin for a MkIV Martini. I went to Rettig Machine here in town and asked the receptionist if I cold talk to someone about it.

This object is basicly a pin that passes through both sides of the box-like action, and hense the breechblock. The pin has a smallish increased diameter on both ends to form a head, and the pin is slotted about 70% of it's length so it will collapse and pass through the action and breechblock.

Very simple, and not "Gun-ish" in the least. Basicly a split pin that could be for most anything in the world.

Young Mr. Rettig (early 20's) appeared and looked officiously at the pin and asked how many I wanted. I'm sure he was hoping for maybe 100 gross. I said 'one'. He asked what it was for, in idle curiosity. When I said a breechblock pin for a rifle, he became a bit more animated. Guns, you know? :-)

Just then Mr. Rettig the elder appeared. A pleasant looking older gentleman, and his son handed him the pin and asked, "Do we want to be making gun parts"? The elder looked at his son, the pin, then at me and said it wasn't a gun part it was simply a split cotter, and how many did I want.

When I said one he didn't bat an eye but merely said it was no problem as they could have one done by tomorrow afternoon and it would be $20. The son seemed somehow disappointed in this very casual approch to something that was obviously part of of a engine of death, mayhem and destruction. I also had somehow been demoted in his eyes.

The next day I had my part, and very nicely done.

Regardless WHO you're dealing with (unless it's a gunsmith) it's a sad commentary on the media's superb job of demonizing guns and all things related where a small simple thing like a split pin becomes ominous, of dubious humanitarian objectives, a scourge to humankind, and otherwise undesireable in thier mind.

Had I instead said it was a keeper for a rototiller tine, I could have delt very easily with Mr. Rettig the younger.

...................Buckshot