Moving across country - how to move my guns?

So, I'm moving from VA to OR after the first of the year. I'll be pulling our camper, and we'll probably take a couple weeks and have some fun and see some sights along the way. We're going to sell most of our stuff, but I've spent a fair amount of time and money finding some of these guns, and several of them have sentimental meaning and are not replaceable. I have a safe, but it's a basic model and I'm considering selling it here and buying a larger, better one once I get out there. I'm trying to decide on the best way to move them securely. Here are my thoughts:

1) load them all up in the camper, and hope no one breaks into it.

2) load them all up in the truck, and hope no one breaks into it or steals it. I have contemplated getting a vault put in the truck bed, which would make them more secure from break-in theft, but I still have the same issue if someone steals the whole truck.

3) Ship them.

I feel like shipping them is probably the most secure option, but it's going to be quite expensive, and we'll probably live in the camper for a month or three until we scope the area out and find a place that suits us.

Any body have any other options, or have any thoughts about these three options?

 

Secret compartment....

 

I don't think there's any way to make one big enough and still be secret.

 

Why can't you just keep them in the camper? I mean unless you have hundreds and hundreds of firearms. Just put them in the camper you're pulling.

 

Camper. Doubt someone will break in

 

I have done this a couple times, however just from SC to NH. You should familiarize yourself with the federal regulations as well as the state laws for the states you'll be passing through. Assuming they will all be unloaded, some states still have strict regulations in the sense that you may be able to have them so long as you're just passing through. The main thing to note is that you can legally own them in the state you're coming from and the state you're going to.

Max

 

My biggest concern with the camper is that we may decide to set it up along the way and do some day trips. Leaving them unobserved for 12+ hours at a time makes me nervous. I don't have that many, but some of them aren't replaceable.

 

Get a dog lol

 

put those child locks on all of them. some shops even give them away for free..then cable them all together in the camper.

 

I would pack them up in locked cases, and take them on the road. I keep ammo locked up in a separate case.

 

unload ALL of them, wrap in bubble wrap cover up with clothes from your closet. Follow all traffic laws from where you are to where you are going. Make sure all your lights and tags/vehicles are safe and are working and plates are valid. This limiits the chance of getting pulled over.

 

You're either prioritizing moving your firearms or you're prioritizing leaving them unattended for long periods of time with no legitimate security.

You don't get your cake and get to eat it, too. If you want that, then accept the risk. There's no magic solution that leaves them completely safe and leaves you time to not pay attention.

Firearms are firearms, not objects. Respect them a little more and keep them a priority, or leave them/sell them. You don't know what they'll end up being used for if they get stolen, and you don't want your conscience being burdened with that.

Ship them if you want them to be secure and be able to putz around on the move and do as you want, otherwise I don't see any option as being the "right" one.

 

Mount them all over your truck and start a BattleTaco thread

 

You can ship firearms directly to yourself and technically you can ship them to yourself c/o someone else as long as they don't open them. If you won't be able to accept them then you will probably need to ship to an FFL to hold them for you. Note that when an FFL receives them they have to log them so if you have a gun that you bought face to face and don't want a trail on it then that's not an option I would choose.

Depending on what you have, you might consider breaking them down and shipping the non-registered parts i.e. barrels or AR uppers, so that you don’t need as much lockable storage space. If you still need more room you could look into one of the smaller sized job boxes; Home Depot for example carries several models.

 

Shipping is the one that sounds best to me, although there is the paperwork issue brought up by the previous poster.

If you bought all of these and did a 4473 form every time I'd just ship them and not worry about it. If you only have a couple that you bought privately you could take those with you and ship the rest. No perfect answer here that I can think of.

 

disassemble them

ship the bolts

take the rest with you

 

With the OP's concerns, this may be the best option

Max

 

You could ship them from your local gun shop to one close to where you're moving. It may not be as costly as you think.
I have shipped guns that I have sold and bought and the cost was $30 - $40 per, including transfer fees.

 

I ended up storing most of my long guns in hard-sided, foam-lined cases (one Pelican, one SKB, and a Cabela's imitation Pelican that my GF bought for her guns). One fit perfectly between the bedrails and on top of the wheel wells, so I stashed a bunch of boxes under the case, then piled the other two on top of it. I put most of the pistols in their boxes and duct taped the shit out of them, and stashed them under there as well. I had two rifles (that I cared least about) that I put in soft-sided cases and stashed between the front window of my camper shell and the pile of hard cases. I stuffed some canvas bags that I had around the soft cases to keep them from being seen from the outside. Then, I locked all the hard cases with heavy duty Master locks, threading a heavy duty security cable through each lock, and locking both ends of it in one of the locks. Then I piled a bunch of boxes in on top of all that so nothing could be seen, and filled the rest of the bed up with other stuff, with three ratcheting bed bars keeping things in place. It wasn't perfect, but I figured that unless someone stole the whole truck, I'd be good. They didn't, and I was. Also, since the weather was pretty shitty most of the way, we ended up not taking any trips away from the camper, so it ended up being a shorter trip than I originally anticipated. Thanks for all the replies. Gave me some good ideas for future trips.