just got my new Rifle Magazine ,just read Rifle Triggers in the 21`s Century , another very good article Mule Deer wrote ! John another A+ in my book ! thank you ,Pete53

Read it last night. Always hit the mark JB, good one!

It’ll probably be a couple of weeks before I get mine

You'll get your mag just as soon as the guys at the P.O. are done reading it.

Sounds interesting. Someday when my copy shows up I'll peruse that article. I've always liked JB's down to earth, honest, literary endeavors. I hear the U.S. Post Office does a lot less volume of mail compared to the old pre-internet days. Makes me wonder if those unionized hourly workers are slowing down on the job just to ensure some "job security".

Not a chance.
There is less volume of first class, magazines/catalogues......
Mail Carriers are now servants of Bezos.

Mine runs this route 2-3 times, delivering packages.
An older guy soon able to retire, he has come to hate his job.
It used to be ride around stuffing mailboxes. A couple packages,
He lives in Johnstown and was home by 5. Now, he rarely finishes here
before 6, sometimes later.

They spend as much time walking packages to doors as driving.
Delivery trucks can't really deliver mail, mail type vehicles can't haul
many packages. So they load up, return to load, then get back to it.


And they can't hire.
Another case of a job folks would kill to get 20 years ago.
Now, they can't hire to fill needed spots.



.

An Amish neighbor boy brought over an outdoor magazine that had been delivered to their house. It was a bit delayed and some of the pages had doodles on them. I got a good laugh about that. I’d give him a bunch but that might not be allowed.

There are help wanted signs in The PO`s by me.

Huntz,

Yep, any problems with the USPS are generally due to underfunding--at least in our area.

Our local P.0. is what we depend on for delivering our books, because it's right there--rather than 30+ miles away, as are the "local" UPS and Fedex outlets. Plus, we see BOTH Fedex and UPS showing up with piles of packages at the P.O. for final delivery.

These days our P.O. has basically two employees, for a town that keeps growing. Often each one is the ONLY person there, despite the fact that (like a lot of smaller Montana towns in this area) the volume of mail has increased signifcantly over the past couple of years, due to so many people moving here to "get away" from the problems of more urban areas.

Which is partly why we support our local P.O. as much as possible--and they appreciate it.

In March '23, you'll have to pay to track USPS.

They already charge a little to track media-mail.

Don't really give a schidt, as it costs a LOT more for us to either have our book orders picked up by UPS or Fedex--or to drive the 64-mile round-trip to drop stuff off.

Which is why USPS is still the best option in in our little town, whether mailing our books, or shipping firearms.

I’ll second the fact that Montana has some issues in their USPS. Sis, who lives out in Whitefish, sent me a birthday card that was postmarked November 7. Yesterday, December 6 it got here to Wisconsin!

Yeah, that sort of stuff can happen--though it isn't common.

When USPS started "simplifying" their routing in Montana in 2020, after the present Postmaster General was appointed. One thing that happened is that instead of sending mail directly to the town it was addressed to it was first sent to one of the bigger POs first, then rerouted.

For our little the big PO is Great Falls, which is a 130-mile drive north of us. This resulted in mail addressed to somebody HERE going up to GF and back--and sometimes it got routed oddly even in those trips.

Right after that change we had a party for a number of local friends, and sent out invitations a couple weeks in advance. But one invitation got rerouted from GF, and didn't show up until AFTER the party. We asked the local PO if there was some ways around that, and they said yeah, just tell us you want it delivered directly.

This "simplifying" was supposedly done to save money and time, per the Postmaster General's orders. I am guessing that's why your birthday card took so long to show up. (The other invitations to our party all showed up on time.)

We mail a BUNCH of packages each year. One of the problem post offices we've encountered is Denver, which we've started calling "the Denver vortex." On a few occasions our book packages have ended up in Denver for 2-4 weeks, according to the tracking--and a lot of them go through Denver, because it's the biggest PO in the region. But another one that has also "caught and held" packages is Philadelphia, though not as many of our packages go through there.

I once tracked a package coming to me that bounced between DFW and Houston twice. I did get it.

I sold a gentleman from this forum some bullets or some thing---maybe a scope, don't recall really, but it was to go from DFW area to some where in NY state as I recall. It took five or six weeks to get there. The fellow remained calm and patient, and *kudos* to him for that. It did arrive.

As bad as USPS can be at times, I'm really amazed it works as well as it does. I'm positive USPS is staffed with some dead weight, but I think there are some good folks working for them. I've met both kinds.

How do you know the problem was in MT? Maybe the letter made it within a few days from MT to Milwaukee or Green Bay or some other location in Cheesehead Central and then laid around in a bin full of empty Point beer cans for a couple of weeks?

Always get our stuff later than surrounding communities. They took the Williamsport post office, which had a 94% efficiency rating, and moved all the sorting and distribution 90 miles south to Harrisburg, which has an 83-4% rating. So we mail it here, gets shipped to Hbg, gets sorted and routed back to here to get sent out to the smaller local POs. A few years ago, I was sick and in the hospital for a few days. The girls in the office sent a get well card on Tuesday. I got it Saturday. It only had to make it a mile and a half to my house.

Had something like that happen when a guy in Maine and I swapped scopes, through a deal on the Campfire Classifieds. We each priority-mailed our scopes on the same day, and his arrived in Montana three days later.

Mine did not show up in Maine--and did not show for three weeks. I was about to send him a check when it finally arrived.

I asked the local P.O. about it, and they said it probably got caught in a bag of packages that didn't get emptied completely.

On the other hand, Fedex and UPS aren't perfect either. A rifle company Fedexed one to me to test--but delivered it to a house down the street. It was supposed to be signed for, but Fedex left it on the porhch. Luckily the guy knew who I was and walked it down here.

UPS delivered a box to me a couple years ago from MidwayUSA. I opened it due to often getting stuff from Midway, and found a brick of .22 Magnum ammo I hadn't ordered. Then I looked closer at the address on the box and saw it was the same street and house number as mine, but on the "South" side of town, across the main drag. So I drove over there and "delivered" it myself.

Yea, it appears the local FedEx regularly sends all the newbs who skipped the address-reading portion of class my way...

I told them one time on the phone after a particularly monumental CF there was one good thing that came out it - they make the USPS look like seasoned professionals...

During the worst of the COVID troubles, we started calling Harrisburg “The Black Hole of Harrisburg” because so many items went there and just disappeared for long periods. My local carrier explained that the quarantine rules dictated that when one employee tested positive, the entire crew in that group had to stay home. Things have gotten much better.

Overall, the service I get from USPS is better than the other carriers, due mostly to the good people working locally.

Many years ago we had mailboxes specifically for “in town” or local and another box for out of town. That would limit the number of times a letter or package was touched by the USPS.

The first “sort” is done by the public at the mail box.

It's a shame we dont all vote by mail.

All these examples pale in comparison to the time UPS delivered my bottle of Midleton Irish Whiskey to the wrong address.

To add insult to injury, it probably got mixed with Coke or Pepsi, drank by 16-year olds, and barfed all over someone's driveway by 10 PM.

Ain't I just a little ray of sunshine?