For non-gun people, those are two of the cheapest and shittiest guns you can buy.
You shut your filthy mouth. I dont know anything about the pistol but the Maverick 88 is a great (possibly one of the best) budget firearm. It's literally a Mossberg 500 with a polymer trigger group.
Holy fucking shit do they love punishing you for it, though. Fucking Christ. Here's how that works at Orlando International Airport (this was Spirit Airlines, but they all do this; it's how the airport's set up for it).
It's a pain (mainly because I never otherwise travel with checked luggage) but my experience of one round trip flight was not nearly that bad. This was 2 or 3 years ago I think, either United or Southwest (probably Southwest).
I had to check the bag and go to the counter and do the form like you said, though I'm pretty sure you can have ammunition in the same luggage, though I think it needs to be either in a magazine (separate from firearm) or a manufacturer box.
Departing airport, they didnt ask to see the gun at the counter, they just put it on the belt and asked me to sit nearby for about 15 minutes in case TSA had an issue with it. Sat down, heard nothing, got up and went through security to my gate. I don't think they put stickers on the bag, but I could be misremembering.
On my way back, I went to the counter to check the bag and declare. Instead of putting the bag on the belt afterward, they walked me and the bag to the end of the counter and turned the bag over to a TSA guy in a cubicle. He was already looking over someone else's checked gun luggage. I had to wait there 5-10 minutes while he finished the other gun, then had me observe him remove the case from the luggage. He didn't ask me to open the case, just checked that it was sufficiently cased and locked (regulations are the case must be locked with a
non-TSA lock, as opposed to regular luggage locks that the TSA have keys for). Once that was done he packed it back into the luggage and threw it on his conveyor belt and i was on my way.
I will note, as a very frequent air traveler, there is no standardization of most TSA procedures across airports. Some of it has to do with the equipment on hand (whether you're taking your laptop out of your bag has to do with what type of xray machine they have), the layout of the airport, or just the whims of the TSA manager on site (I've lost a number of tools that were fine on my departing flight but somehow an issue on return).
" manifesto.
