Is it legal to buy flashlights with trit vials installed from china to us?

Seems like flashlights in US can’t sell trits in US but you can buy them without any warning from light makers from China.

When I searched around a few years ago on this subject. I believe I understood that no one can sell a individual trit tube in the US. But when it is installed in a product the law changed some how. I dont know the legal tecnical details but I do know they sell tritium sights all day long. https://www.truglo.com/firearms-handgun/brite-site-tritium-handgun-sights.asp
Importing trit tubes I have no idea about. But I do know people that have done it for years without any problems. :wink:

There are also tons of watches with trit tubes. Most come from overseas

I’ve ordered multiple lights with trits and trits by themselves and have had zero issues.

No problems. Ordered lights, spheres, and pendants with trit for over 5 years now.

Where do you get spheres from

The chances of the average person in Customs knowing what they even are is probably minimal. 99% of people would have no idea.

it is true that many watches have tritium vials in the hands or face

wle

I don’t think the problem is in buying the actual tritium. It stems from being illegal to ship radioactive materials in the US no matter how small or harmless it is.

I thought the same thing as neo71655. I worked with radioactive materials for two decades and we never received samples by USPS. The lab I worked in always brought samples in using the lab truck even if they were taken very far away and were very low level. I used to analyze those samples for tritium. BTW, the “cure” for someone suspected of having ingested tritiated water was to have them drink a lot of beer so they pissed it away.

When I looked at the postal regulations I found them to be very confusing but it is clear that you can ship tritium and other radioactive materials in the mail. I thought that packages had to be labeled with warning labels but that is only true if the activity of the package is greater than limits specified in the regulations. You have no way to know if the activity of the tritium vial is above mailable limits. I don’t think the seller tells you that and I doubt they care.

The radiation level at any point on the external surface of the mailpiece must not exceed 0.5 millirem per hour. The nonfixed (removable) radioactive surface contamination on the external surface of the mailpiece must not exceed the applicable limits specified in 49 CFR 173.443(a).“ USPS Packaging Instruction 7A | Postal Explorer

The highest level tritium samples I ever analyzed were from a local gun sight manufacturer. The state inspected the facility and took swipes which are just pieces of filter paper that are moistened and run along surfaces like workbenches and the floors. Most swipe samples took several hours to determine the tritium concentration accurately. These took three to five minutes. It must have been a great place to work considering how much tritium contamination must have been there.
https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52apxc_025.htm