inonickname wrote:Customs, I'm not so sure of. I have friends who've returned with bb guns and the like from bali in particular, but I can testify that if you try bring something in by post you probably WILL get caught. I ordered plastic airsoft bb's, and asked the seller to mark them as slingshot ammo. They either recognized them to be airsoft ammo or he didn't mark them. Considering those are in essence plastic beads, you will get caught for a barrel. You wont get prosecuted, but you'll get sent a stern letter telling you that your items have been forfeited to the crown and further violations will result in prosecution. I know this from experience.
I don't think they'd know an airgun barrel from a random piece of aluminium pipe if the seller didn't mark it when posting, which is an easy request to make.
I'm surprised they got through with BB guns, how the heck do they manage that? Customs must be slacking off.
Talking about this is probably borderline against the rules, but I order fuse from overseas on a regular basis for other projects, customs have often overlooked shipments of "laquered string".
Marking them as slingshot ammo would probably arouse suspicion, I'd probably just tell him to leave it unmarked, or plastic beads, as you mentioned. One of my friends orders bbs for a commercial airgun on a regular basis. He's been caught 3 times, but all they do is keep sending the letters out, they've never taken it any further.
They cost like $10 for 1,000 anyway, so if he gets caught, no big deal, order another batch.
A barrel is a bit different because it's expensive, if it gets picked up, however remote that chance might be, that's probably $50-$100 down the dunny.
I found a cheap airgun on some site that ships to Australia, it's only 20 bucks, considering just ordering it and seeing how far it gets. I'd be surprised if it got here, but it's more about testing the water with customs.
