Yelled at Cabelas today

[10x]

http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/res...hip/hazardous/
Its Charged per Physical Package ..
Primers are supposed to be shipped seperate from Powder and both require a Haz Mat Fee
some companys decide to skirt the rules and ship both together.. At least till they get caught and then they will have He@@@ to pay .. The fines are no joke
some of the larger companys will wave a second or third haz mat if THEY have to ship from separate locations .. They are still paying the charge just not passing it on to you .. That's their decision
I know all this as I am a Haz mat shipper not just guessing ..
UPS charges the shipper $27.50 per package up to 100 LBS
..

There is nothing extra done to packages in how they are handled by UPS, nor do the contract drivers get any compensation for hauling and delivering UPS hazmat. But there are fines for UPS contractors who do not have hazmat signs on their delivery vehicle. Also hazmat signs means that the vehicle must stay on certain routes to make a delivery - adding time and loss to the contractor.

[pearcetopher]

I want to make my own and it seems simple enough however I need proper granulation and I dont know how to go about doing that. How do I make FFG instead of FFFG?

Several of us here make our own, but read "ALL" of the sticky before you do it please.

[Digital Dan]

Funny, but sometimes customer service needs a good verbal thrashing.

Few years back my wife and I purchased a home. We started getting official court mail as soon as our mailbox was installed, addressed to a woman we did not know and who certainly had never lived there. We notified the appropriate jurisdictions verbally and in writing and it stopped for awhile.

She kept using our address however and in the process of nurturing her felonious ways it got the attention of the US Marshall's office. Left hand never met right hand I guess.

One night about 9 PM my wife heard noise downstairs and went to investigate. She did so unarmed, quite unlike me. Anyway, she walked into the carport and flipped on the light and found herself looking at the wrong end of two Glocks.

They were gone when I got home fortunately. It was the next day during conversation with the two deputies' supervisor that it got really ugly. He listened to my sincere exercise of 1st Amendment rights, found out I respond poorly to implied threats and probably remembers the conversation to this day.

If there is a point here it is that I expect straight forward explanations when I speak with the customer relations wonks. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but,,,it's been awhile since I've been susceptible to BS. A simple explanation of the HAZMAT fee schedule could have precluded all of this.

Dan


PS: Powder Valley and bulk purchase is your friend w/ BP. There's others just as good but I've blabbed enough.

[Randy in Arizona]

HAW!HAW!HAW! KARMA BABY! I recall back in 1993 when on a trip to Niagra Falls you durn beaver-dragging Canucks diddled me $6 for a beer. The same beer on the American side was $1 so suck it up. Ohhh happy day that I have lived long enough to read this. The wheels of justice grind slowly....but they grind fine...aye? Audie...the Oldfart... (while the post is factual...please consider it my poor attempt at humor)

But over on the North side of the river, it is imported beer!

69

[lental]

Years ago, I used to buy a lot of stuff from Cabelas...flyfishing stuff, camping gear, hunting gear, etc. Used to find pretty good stuff for very reasonable prices. This must have been not too long after they moved out of the garage where they started the business.

Sadly, as they got bigger, they started getting rid of the reasonably priced good stuff and went to the high priced, high quality big name stuff that only the very rich can afford. I guess it's been over 15 years since I've ordered anything from them though I'll still occasionally check their website. Mostly, I find that I can always get things way cheaper elsewhere...sometimes the very same stuff. Too bad, they've always had a good selection of products.

Bass Pro shops seems to be moving in the same direction. I needed some instant bluing last week so I checked it at Amazon and found Birchwood-Casey for $7.12 and free shipping. Went to the new Bass Pro Shop and it was $9.99. Went another quarter mile to Academy Sports and it was $5.45. Same product, same size, same brand.

Been in Bass Pro Shop four times since it opened in September and came out empty. Seems like I can always find what I'm looking for way cheaper somewhere else. I think it's called "Corporate Greed."

[JakeBlanton]

Been in Bass Pro Shop four times since it opened in September and came out empty. Seems like I can always find what I'm looking for way cheaper somewhere else. I think it's called "Corporate Greed."

Well, *someone* has to pay for the fancy decorations.

[Kull]

Cabellas is not and never has been on my shopping list. Too expensive and the folks there are mostly tree hugging fools.

I was in the Eugene Cabela's recently, lots of granola eaters round them parts.

[Garyshome]

Yelling at some stupid policy is THERAPY! At least for me.

[unclogum bill]

"Funny, but sometimes customer service needs a good verbal thrashing."
Years back some old geezer in Phoenix, looking out his back window saw two guys breaking into his shed. Called 9ll and was told would be about an hour. He said his stuff would be long gone , they said they were busy and to wait. He calls back and says he shot one robber, and gets six cars there in 3 minutes. Sarge guy had no humor in his voice when he found out old man had lied, didn't even have a gun. Said "you said you shot someone". Old man said "and you said you were to busy. Moral, maybe its all how you say it.

[Digital Dan]

Point, set, match.

Funny story.

[44man]

Canada is funny. Had friends up there. We bought new Browning compounds for $83 once to find they had to pay $1000 up there. It is mostly taxes, everything is free, get laid off and the Govt pays your wages, free health care, etc.
Talked to a girl on the plane and asked what she would do if she could not find a hotel room. She told us she would go to the hospital, tell them she didn't feel good and they would give her a bed.
We are headed that way, last threat I heard is Obuma wants anyone buying ammo must buy a fed license.
Liberal's are the ruination of every country.
But yes, BP is costly to ship, has to go motor freight or train.

[Bad Water Bill]

When was the last time a package containing components caught fire or exploded?

IIRC it was sometime back in the 70s.

[unclogum bill]

"Canada is funny." statement brings this to mind. When I was running sled dogs I would cross over several times a year. Once using a old Dodge van that had a "insured by Smith and Wesson"sticker on bumper. Crossing guard ripped my van end to end throwing stuff in the snow looking for that gun, which was never there. Funny thing l was towing a trailer with dog box holding 8 dogs, he wanted no part of looking there. Once lost , trying to get stateside I approached two cops sitting at a dinner for directions. They told me to get lost until they were finished eating. Another time spent overnight for "excess beer consumption at a station that was uncalled for. But the people , not the police , have a heart of gold and to this day if I spot someone with Canadian tags needing a hand I pull over.

[abearir]

Yeah, I've wondered why a Canadian beer would cost more in Canada than it does in the US.

Government run healthcare. Basically it's a sin tax to prop up the cost of unhealthy lifestyles of those how imbide.......

[PuppetZ]

Tried to buy some H4895 on Cabelas.ca back when I started reloading. Either they are idiots or they just dont want to do it. DHL will truck powder and primers in max 21lbs package for whatever the cost to ship is +25$hazmat. 175$ to ship 2 pounds of powder is simple, plain and literal theft. Order from Higginsons powder in ON. They will ship via DHL and if you order 21lbs, you just pay hazmat fee. I ordered some CCI LPP from sporteque in drummondville, Qc last Jan and it cost me 10$ shipping via Purolator, no hazmat but I dont think they declared it as a hazardous material, no markings no nothing on the box. I picked up GOEX BP from a local store for just over 25$/lbs so I guess they must not pay a bunch for shipping or else they would have to charge hu?

And as far as things goes for canadian pricing vs US pricing, a lot of it is a remnant of the time when CAD was worth about 0.70$ USD. Back then, everything cost 30 to 40% more north of the border because of change rate. Now that our CAD is on par with USD, we still pay 30 to 40% more on everything. It's VERY profitable for a business to be selling it's stuff up here. They will sell for about half more than down south and they'll then change the currency back to USD and still have about 50% more than selling the same stuff in the US.

[TXGunNut]

Yelling at a CSR rep that did not make policy and had no way to resolve the issue made you feel better? That's just wrong.
I buy a fair bit from Cabelas but no haz-mat stuff. I've had occasion to talk to their credit card CSR reps and they are the nicest, most courteous phone reps I've ever had the pleasure of talking with. I've talked to a couple of their catalog folks as well, good people. I think both call centers are in Nebraska, certainly not in some foreign country.
Dealing with international shipping regulations is expensive and time-consuming, blame the regulatory folks and our tort-happy society for that, not the CSR rep who explains the regs you obviously haven't read.

[pearcetopher]

the replies to this thread have been awesome and theres been a bajillion of them

thankyou for listening everyone

I love canada and I love the USA

[binarybro]

Well said!

Everyone knows that shipping on smokeless and especially black powder is very expensive and you have to buy a large quantity of it to make the shipping worthwhile. Pay it, buy local or do without. Your telephone manner was completely uncalled for.

[dkf]

Powder was probably located in a US warehouse. Ship from US to Canada via UPS or Fedex and it will cost you. All the Canadians on another site want things shipped USPS from the US to Canada.

DHL will truck powder and primers in max 21lbs package for whatever the cost to ship is +25$hazmat. 175$ to ship 2 pounds of powder is simple, plain and literal theft.

DHL is basically gone down here in the states. Nobody uses them since they cut operations to nothing.

[JakeBlanton]

I seem to remember stumbling across a site that would ship you all the ingredients to make your own blackpowder, but since they were not already combined, they could ship them without a hazmat charge. Also, the cost per pound of generated black powder was a lot less than what you could normally get at any powder supply company.

Quick Google search came up with this:

One recipe for black powder:
75% potassium nitrate
15% charcoal
10% sulfur

50 lbs potassium nitrate -- $85 = $1.70 per lb
10 lbs sulfur -- $24 = $2.40 per pound
10 lbs charcoal -- $35 (significantly less if you make and grind your own) = $3.50 per pound

So, for 100 lbs of black powder, it would cost:
75 * 1.70 + 15 * 3.50 + 10 * 2.40 = 127.50 + 52.50 + 24.00 = $204.00

Thus, you could make it yourself for $2.04 per pound and you won't be paying any HAZMAT fees.

There's probably even cheaper places to buy the chemicals -- I didn't really search that much to get the best prices.