Questions about shipping overseas

[MAGgot Man]

I was wondering what the legalities were behind shipping a marker overseas. I am trying to ship a marker to England. Can I legally do it? Are there any regulatory things that I need to do? ANY help would be appreciated.

[blembiggity]

i have shipped a marker to both japan and korea and have had no problems but then again i am in the military. i dont know the civilian legalities of it but the APO addresses are ok with it.

[Deadeye]

MAGgot Man, I'm in Singapore and almost everyone knows about the REALLY STRICT laws they have here in Singapore. Maybe this might shed some light on the question.

First off, you might have to ask the local police force whether a paintball marker requires documentation in England, is it classified as a sporting equipment tool or something other. From the info here, you can work out the rest...

Secondly, as you are bringing it in from outside the country, is there any specific paperwork that needs to be filled out or declared before getting it in. Do you need to use a specific mail carrier? And so on...

That covers more or less what you basically need to do/find out first.

Hope it helps somehow...FYI, I was in London a few years back [94] and played my first Paintball game there. You could say that I got first addicted to Paintball there:)

Here's my story in Singapore:

I had to approach the Police, specifically the Arms and Explosives Branch and enquired about the prospect of allowing the marker into the country. It's considered a FIREARM here...go figure. It took me 3 months of negoitations and alot of restrictions on my part to finally get permission to allow it in; IE, it has to be kept at the field armoury only..sigh.

I had to get a 2 year FIREARMS permit, costing about $100 fort. This permit also allowed me, if I wanted to, to buy REAL firearms...LOL! Talk about opportunity...;)

I was told that I could either use the specific mail carrier or use any cause it would be stopped at Customs. Guess what? My Mag was shipped via UPS and came right to my doorstep...the Police were livid about that...LOL!

Finally it got here, and I can honestly say that I have the BEST Paintball Marker here in Singapore...LOL! The rentals here are Tippmanns and the field owner's personal gat is a souped up Spyder...

Thank you AGD!

[MAGgot Man]

:)

[Aslan]

I realize this is an old thread, but a similar question has arose. A guy wants to buy a marker from me and he lives in England. I know that you can't ship markers to Canada as they are considered firearms, but I'm not sure about England. I know we have some Brits here on AO...anybody from over there with some advice? :ninja:

[JESTER22]

its fine to ship markers to england. i have bought several from ebay and never had a problem with them being shipped. also brought direct from kingman with out any trouble and that was more than one marker at a time. just get a tracking number from the post office and you can follow it right till when it is delivered in the uk.

hope this helps :)

[Aslan]

It fell through...but thanks alot for the info...it'll come in handy in the future when this comes up again.

[FiXeL]

I also have some extra shipping information for shipping to europe.

Shipping to the U.K. - no problem at all, but does not hurt to ask the buyer about local laws.

Shipping to Belgium - Also no problem because their weapons laws have nothing on paintball markers.

Shipping to the Netherlands - Should be no problem as a paintball marker is considered a airgun, (BB gun) and those you may have when you are 18 years or older. BUT, the dutch law also states that a paintball marker or any other weapon may not resemble a firearm or can be used to threaten or scare people. Keep this into consideration when you ship to holland. A friend of mine bought a pump from somebody in the U.S. and it was inspected by customs to verify it was indeed a paintball marker. Since it did not resemble a firearm it came through customs, but i doubt it will happen to a Tippmann A5. Everything coming from the U.S. is checked, so no chance it will get trough customs unseen. Better not send any mil-sim markers to holland ;)

On a side note: Holland is one of the few, if not only countries in the EU where airsoft is illegal.

Shipping to Germany - In germany, mil-sim markers are allowed, but ALL markers must have an "F" stamp, stamp of the company that certified it, and the .68 caliber on the marker body to be legal. These stamps can only be obtained by sending in a marker to a company that does certification.
The "F" mark means "Frei" or Free in english. That means the energy of the shot does not exceed 7,5 joule what equals to max 220 feet per second for a paintball marker. If you marker has no "F" stamp it will be treated as a firearm by german law.
For more information on the "F" mark, go here (http://www.pbportal.de/forum/showthread.php?t=93003) (it's in german, but you'll get the general idea.)

Other sidenote: When you want to play in germany with your own gear, have your marker stamped (can be done here (www.paintball-direct.nl) in holland) And leave your camo gear at home! For some vague reason it is not allowed to play paintball in camo in germany. :eek:

Firemodes:

Im most european countries only semi-auto is allowed, so no 3-shot burst or full auto. I don't know if ramping is allowed, but my guess is customs/police officers never heard of it and will not look for it either.

Other countries in the EU will be more tolerant to paintball markers, but when shipping to holland or germany take extra care when shipping a complete marker.

Hope this helps out... :headbang:

[Aslan]

Firemodes:

Im most european countries only semi-auto is allowed, so no 3-shot burst or full auto. I don't know if ramping is allowed, but my guess is customs/police officers never heard of it and will not look for it either.



I wish America was more like Europe...damn electros :mad:

[BerSerK]

I know that you can't ship markers to Canada as they are considered firearms

Well Rogue sent my RPG and I got a race cocker from ebay without any problems, both came from the US and I'm in Quebec, Canada. ;)

[FiXeL]

I wish America was more like Europe...damn electros :mad:

Now you know why eclipse products don't have full-auto or burst modes... Also SP makes 2 kinds of boards for the ion. The european version does not have burst and full-auto, but still has semi and rebound.
Because it is not legal, does'nt mean there are no full-auto markers here. You can get the upgrade boards here, so yeah sometimes you got some noob players that use it without asking the ref if its ok. :mad:

And you really don't want America to be more like Europe... Do you know how hard it is to get upgrades for a specific marker? Even AGD markers are hard to get here so often you have to order them in the U.S. and put up with customs fees and taxes that take a nice 20-30% of the total value of stuff you ordered.. :mad:

[Aslan]

Well Rogue sent my RPG and I got a race cocker from ebay without any problems, both came from the US and I'm in Quebec, Canada. ;)

That's weird...it states on Ebay that you're not allowed to sell paintball guns to Canada. I guess what they don't know wonlt hurt them.


And you really don't want America to be more like Europe...

No, I don't really. But I wish electros would go away... :( I was actually in the Netherlands 2 weeks ago. Over in Amsterdam and Arnhem. You may not be able to find upgrades for markers...but you have the red light district... :eek: which is far cooler. I don't think I though about paintball once as I walked through there! :wow: Next time I'll go, I'll take some paintball marker upgrades in a suitcase and try to find a prostitute that plays paintball...I can get a little deal going :bounce: ...or not.

[FiXeL]

Hehehe, better take a lot of cash, have some fun in the amsterdam red light district, and play ball on sunday at paintball jungle. They have walk-on days every 1st and 3rd sunday of the month.
They have woods fields, airball fields and hyperball fields.

[Aslan]

Hehehe, better take a lot of cash, have some fun in the amsterdam red light district, and play ball on sunday at paintball jungle. They have walk-on days every 1st and 3rd sunday of the month.
They have woods fields, airball fields and hyperball fields.

The problem with that scenario is Europeons hate Americans...so I'll probably get shot up like a gangster on the paintball field...unless I pretend I'm Canadian or something...pretend to understand metric and say eh every now and again. Not to mention I don't speak dutch...so I'd have to actually find out the translation of the "Paintball Jungle"...it would just be a mess.

[nixcamic]

AFAIK paintball markers aren't considered firearms in canada, I think it's just an ebay regulation, as noone I know has ever had problems with them there.

As for shipping to Guatemala, I had my classic mag brought down on a plane, and had no problems, but I did once with an airsoft gun, a friend of mine had it seized going out of the country (he had a switchblade and a machete with him, those were fine, go figure) Of course, customs here are pretty random about what they let through, they will sometimes let something through, only to seize the exact same thing next time.