shipping to a relative in North Carolina

I am gifting a gun that is registered to me legally in PA to my mother who lives in North Carolina. (Mom decided she wants to learn how to shoot)
I want to know if I need to go to an FFL here in PA and have the transfer done through them or if I can ship it directly to her FFL in NC.
I received the shipping information of her local FFL and rangemaster to handle the registration in NC, just curious if I need to do any paperwork here for PA before sending it out.
Thanks in advance, great website you have here!
Bob

Welcome to the Forum! I found it less expensive and more certain to ship handguns through a local FFL. If one is not an FFL, carriers require that handguns be sent overnight, which could be as high as $70. When shipped through an FFL, the fee charged is usually under $35.00 as their is no overnight requirement.

To ship the handgun to NC it will have to be received in NC by a FFL. The FFL in NC will then take care of getting it transferred to your mom.

Any non FFL can ship a handgun to any FFL by using a common carrier (UPS and FedEx being the top shippers). However, you need to insure that the FFL in NC will accept a shipment from a non FFL. FFL's do not have to accept from a non FFL, that is their decision.

If the handgun is shipped from an FFL in PA to a FFL in NC, the PA FFL can use USPS (Priority Mail) to send it to NC, the charges are about half that of UPS or FedEx and it only takes a couple days to get there.

Oh, and before someone else brings it up, there is no registry of guns in PA. What you have is a gun that has been recorded in a sales database as being sold to you ;)

The other thing you can do is to take the gun yourself to the FFL in NC. Good reason to visit mom!

There is no registration in NC, just the standard paperwork.

Your mother will have to get a purchase permit from the sheriff of her county to have a handgun transferred to her. Long guns don't need the purchase permit.