Never even once in my life have ai flown with a locked ammo box, never even once have I been asked this, or had to show any sort of locking box.
I've flown equally with ammo in with the guns, and in the checked bag. At no point was this ever an issue and nobody ever suggested otherwise. There was one TSA fella that said I could not fly with ammo in the gun case when TSA first became an agency. I said that I was told it was fine, and it was suggested by TSA to do this. He called another TSA fella over and they spoke, a Moment later he said " it's up to the individual airline not us, fine with them....fine with me"
Other then that couple seconds of concern, it's never been a problem since. I fly with firearms and Archery maybe 5 times a year, both domestic and international. Not a lot of resolution to make this 100% certain in every case for every person. Furthermore there are complicated issues with the rules being set by several entities here. Different countries, and different airlines. Add to that the frequent changes made by all of them.
There is no 100% answer for this today because tomorrow it changes again. You must prepare for whatever they throw at you when you get to the ticket counter to check the bags. I don't carry a locked box, because no American Carrier nor TSA requires it. If I'm leaving Africa and they somehow pull this on me, I'll just leave whatever minimal ammo I had with them and carry on with my trip.
If I knew connections were in order in Africa and that they might require this locked box, then I would get one and pack the ammo in the case and lock it. The locked ammo case takes up a lot of room and adds additional weight to the already minimal amount we are allowed today.
I want to see a scale in front of the ticket counter, each passanger stands on that scale with all his bags and they set a maximum weight for each total "package" of person and luggage.
It's totally not fair that some enormous person barely fitting into a seat can walk right on board for no additional cost. Yet I have a case 11 pounds over weight that they charge me 150 bucks for an overweight bag. That's just wrong, when my total "footprint" is easily 100 pounds less then the giant and they did not have to pay one additional penny for any overweight cost.
I wanna see a scale for the whole "package" ....for each person and their kit when they pitch up at the baggage check point! Yeah that's it, the whole body mass weight adjustment fee, or don't charge them more, just give me money back, a credit voucher, or a credit I can accumulate for upgrades, something to reward all this fuel savings I'm helping Al Gore with.
