I flew to San Antonio last March for the 24HCF Hog Hunt. I put all of the guns in 1 GOOD hard case that locked. Granted I was also taking a rifle and shotgun. I had the hand gun in that case, so I'm not sure about only taking a small hand gun case. United said we could put the ammo in that case, so I did. Check the regs. with your airline. We went to the United ticket counter and a very nice lady saw the gun cases and asked about them. We told her firearms, so she took us to the side and put us with a lady that really knew what she was doing. They make you sign an orange TSA Declaration Card, open the case and they throw it inside and tag the outside with a "firearms" tag. Then she took them to the TSA where they opened and inspected mine, but only swabbed the outside of Joe's case. But then they opened and inspected Joe's suitcase where his ammo was. They gave us a little run around.
When we came back through San Antonio, still had to sign the card and open the case, but the TSA guys were nice and happy. They took us in a back room, swabbed them and sent us on our way. They obviously see a lot of guns through there. It was like night and day.
