TargetTalk

I have experienced problems recently - particularly with respect to an Austrian and an Italian Company with regard to shipping Firearms in Europe.
Has there been a shift in EU policy on the shipment of firearms including air weapons or is this a country specific problem?

I am thinking of selling 2 of my .22s in Europe and was wondering how much trouble I will have with shipping?

Lots and lots of problems. It's becoming standard operating procedure to use licensed dealers to export/import firearms, at least around Switzerland/Germany/Scandinavia...

Forget Swiss. Swiss is non-EU which gives even more problems.Norway as well.
Besides that, you, or any gundealer, will need a 'consent', export/import permit. This múst accompany the gun at all times during transport.
Also an issue, many mailing co's dont allow FA for transportation!
Some country's, germany for instance, have specialized FA mailing co's though.
I received several FA from germany. I'm in Holland. 2 went to my gundealer, 1 I received myself with a specialized mailing co. Bút, be aware, that co ONLY operates in germany! Over the border it goes into 'normal'mailco hands! So always a risk!
Airguns are usually no problem. Except out of the UK, which cán cause problems. There ís same issue, that most co's dont allow airguns, but as you dont need any licences etc in many countries, they usually slip through easily..

Even inside the EU, some countries are more trouble than others. Sweden, Denmark come to mind, from where it's close to impossible to export stuff, even to Germany... Italy can be tricky, too.

Yeah, varies from country to country.

I bought a rifle from Germany with very little effort. German dealer arranged the export permit and tagged the cost onto the rifle cost. Posted it to a UK dealer and he signed it onto my license.
Pretty painless.

Certainly dealer-to-dealer is the way to go. Even in places where you don't necessarily need to legally do so, they'll likely have much more knowledge of the shipping laws and can get the necessary export/import permits together.

Switzerland is all sorts of fun because they're not a member of CIP, so exporting Swiss-made guns means getting them proofed in a CIP-nation Bleiker for example have to send most of their barrels out to Germany to be proofed.

Even airguns can be a problem because in some countries like Luxembutg you need also a permit. Some countries limit the power (Germany for instance) while others don't (Belgium)... -> Dutch and German people buy (useless) high power rifles in Belgium.

Firearms are a mess, I tried to buy a FP from France and it didn't succeed, too much paperwork, takes too much time.

But I had a good experience importing a FP from Switzerland to Belgium, it was smooth and relatively fast fast (less than two months) but it generate additional costs for the shipment, VAT... You need to ask an export permit in Switzerland for any weapon part (ex: you buy an O ring for an AP -> you need a permit, of course if you don't mention that its an O ring for a weapon...) but it is easy and relatively fast to get this permit (many gunshop in Switerland are used to export weapons and know how to do the paperwork).