Snakeeyes75

Firstly a massive thank you for all the response. I'm going to be brave and give it a try. I spoke to a local Airsoft shop earlier today and they "Off the record" said it's a big loophole, good idea to declare it as "toy parts" with a respective value but it's how people get round it. I think people get confused by the "Gift"option. If something is declared as $20 it doesn't have to be a gift, it's still within the UK import threshold (I should also say that I import huge amounts of 80's toys from the US). On my own head be it, I know it would be far safer to just wait. I suppose it comes down to saving a fair bit on rental concidering I have a fair amount of kit to start off with, courtesy of a good friend who's in the cadets.

Thanks for the swift response. Sorry about my lack of terminology, I understand what you mean about the UKARA not being a licence now. I want to keep this legal and obviously don't want to end up in jail lol. The cost of the gun to me is actually $100! (Told you it was a bargain). So there's no falsifying on the customs label, I regularly bring collectable toys into the country, the only problem I ever have is when I purchase an item from a registered business, never a private seller! I thought I read somewhere that it's not actually illegal to import "Parts" that are labelled as "replacement parts". The gun is without a doubt intended for proper use at a site, if I didn't actually build the gun until my first game that'd work for me!

Hi all, This is my first post so please go lightly I'm just getting into airsoft now at the age of 39, I've read up about UKARA and understand the process in getting a licence. Now, due to work I'm having my first game next month but then I aim to go atleast once every month. I have a good friend that lives in San Jose, California. He has offered to get me a G&G T4-18 for a bargain price from a local airsoft store and ship it to me. I need a bit of verification on this, I realize it's illegal to "Import" one, atleast if you have no UKARA. If he was to break it down into 3 or 4 parcels and label it as Toy gun parts and "Gift" to the value of $20 each. Would that be way of making this work? I do have another option of having him hold it till I actually have a UKARA, I just wanted it ASAP to use from day 1. I realize this is a touchy subject but is this classed as "Manufacture"? as it's A: just parts & B: Manufacture by definition would mean more than 1. I also had the idea of having 1 or 2 of the parcels sent to another address. Anyways, I hope to be on the field asap either way!