Interesting email from Amazon

Well, at least they cancelled the order (which presumably means no charges to you) and notified you.

Do you have a question?

Why is it on their site

AFS

I've ordered tritium sights from Amazon without any trouble shipping.

The sights were dead, but that's another issue.

How can they sell a product that they can't ship? Did it have to do with where you live? Maybe a restriction imposed by state or local govt?

ontarget said:

How can they sell a product that they can't ship? Did it have to do with where you live? Maybe a restriction imposed by state or local govt?

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That's usually the problem and it's not just Amazon. If others are reporting that they have ordered similar items and Amazon stocks them, it would seem the problem could be narrowed down to local issues.

I have shipped ammo through Fed Ex and UPS. Sadly a lot of the time it depends on you end up with behind the counter when shipping things. I had a phone conversation with someone pretty high up with Fed Ex, and they said they would deliver/ship ammo if it was picked up at my house in a prepaid package.

Now Amazon..... no clue about that one.

DownInTheDark said:

I have shipped ammo through Fed Ex and UPS. Sadly a lot of the time it depends on you end up with behind the counter when shipping things. I had a phone conversation with someone pretty high up with Fed Ex, and they said they would deliver/ship ammo if it was picked up at my house in a prepaid package.

Now Amazon..... no clue about that one.

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I had a similar expierence shipping a rifle to a gunsmith.The local business that will ship UPS for you refused to ship a box of ammo in a seperate package to him. I made an account with UPS in order to print the label myself ,marked it ORM-D and they let me leave it in their shop for pickup with the rifle. It seemed like just having a packaged box of ammo made the guy uneasy. He made it very clear they would not print the label for me.

If you are referring to the UPS Store, then no, they will not ship things like that. They are a separately held subsidiary.

abq87120 said:

I ordered Meprolight night sights from Amazon. After a couple of days, I received this notice:

Hello,

Due to delivery restrictions on your order #107xxx, we won’t be able to send you Meprolight Glock G26/ G27 G/G Fixed Set TD.

This is because this item contains regulated materials classified as dangerous goods and can not be delivered by Amazon. Although the amount of these substances in these products is usually quite limited, these products need to be transported in a certain way to ensure that they are handled with care.

Unfortunately, this means that we're not able to ship your order and it has been canceled.

We’re sorry for any inconvenience and hope to see you again soon.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department

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Are you inside the USA? Tritium sights cant be shipped internationally.

Jackal said:

Are you inside the USA? Tritium sights cant be shipped internationally.

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This was my first thought as well.

I bought mine from OpticsPlanet and they happily shipped them to me in California.

Jackal said:

Are you inside the USA? Tritium sights cant be shipped internationally.

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I'm curious, what's the rationale for that?

ITAR prevents a lot of things from shipping into or out of the US (I used to ship parts for a company and we couldn't get certain things into the host country). Not sure if sights fall under ITAR, but in a nutshell that's what covers military technology and supposedly keeps it from going overseas.

Walkalong said:

Might be about the Tritium in the sights.

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Total BS....buy a watch with Tritium in it and see if you get the same thing.

My two bits is it is agenda driven.

ITAR is usually the culprit, the intent is to prevent shipping military goods used for national defense to our enemies. They work around it and buy from others but it does slow down the process.

A casual look across the net shows a lot of items restricted if the web page is more closely scrutinized. And as noted, there are a lot of folks in the ordering process who don't have a clue about what can be legally shipped. We get posts from American citizens in Alaska and Hawaii who are regularly refused. Vendor clerks are prone to balk when there is something out of their experience, and these outfits aren't known for keeping employees well paid and having long term loyalty. It's a revolving door so the new guy is never up to speed.

As for tritium, it's a regulated nuclear substance, we quit making it in the US a while back, shipping it is covered by regulations, and at one time the Germans were thinking of banning it in watches which raised objections. In and of itself it's reputedly harmless in the small amounts used, in larger quantities its an accelerator in nuclear warheads. Therefore it's treated in the same class of military goods and controlled. Like it or not.

One thing to consider is that it does have a half life - as the night sights on my recently acquired police trade in pistol show. They're dead. Tritium has a half life of about twelve years and replenishing it in a set of sights commercially runs about $100 - which is about the cost of the sights.

On the other hand, I can replace the battery in my 35 year old first generation Aimpoint and it still lights up, vs an expensive overhaul for a watch or optic. There will come a day when led pistol sights will be feasible and I fully expect the better ones to impact tritium sight sales.

Tritium sure is pretty when two dozen are used in a watch face, but the long term aspects are pretty dim.

abq87120 said:

I live in Prescott AZ. Most of their stuff ships from PHX.

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Howdy, neighbor!
Looks like opticsplanet and Midway both have them, and I'm pretty sure they'll ship them to you. The Amazon thing is strange; when I looked them up there were quite a few glowing (so to speak) reviews, so somebody's been able to get them.

fpgt72 said:

Total BS....buy a watch with Tritium in it and see if you get the same thing.

My two bits is it is agenda driven.

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Lol, sure, it must be their agenda. OP can't get sights, while I (just looking at my recent orders) have received a TLR-6 for a G26, some rifle cleaning stuff to give for Christmas, Trijicon HD's (tritium), a Leupold, a Galco holster, an MOE light mount, Surefire X300U, and a whole bunch of other gun-related items.

Amazon's infrastructure is absolutely massive, to the point where it's difficult for some to get their heads around (estimated 1-3 million shipments per day). When an issue like shipping an actual radioactive material comes up once, for one person, when many others have ordered the same thing without a hitch, then a fault in that massive infrastructure seems more likely than it being an agenda-based move.

During the last administration, Amazon got really sticky on what they would sell and ship. The company that I buy my brass from was informed by Amazon that they would no longer be selling brass and he was cut off. Fortunately he has several other outlets for his product. Hopefully with the new administration, Amazon will start behaving better.

They have not removed the offending gun sights from their website.
https://www.amazon.com/Meprolight-Glock-G26-G27-Fixed/dp/B0002IN656

Amazon is happy to send you a compass with tritium designations...

https://www.amazon.com/Official-Mil...id=1486059700&sr=1-1&keywords=compass+tritium

I'm pretty sure Amazon has sold - and shipped - me a set of meprolight tritium sights. Amazon themselves, not a vendor selling through Amazon Marketplace.

The only answer is that you are on a secret watch list.

Just kidding... I think....