I just went through this business about 2 months ago for the first time. I would recommend you picking up a Pelican case. There was a guy on this forum who was selling or trading Pelican cases for ammo. Here's a link to his thread. Maybe he still has some.

http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/showth...t=pelican+case

Inside a 1450 series Pelican case I had 2 pistols with 2 magazines each and a factory box of SD ammo. The Pelican case was then locked and placed inside a overnight type roller suitcase. I walked up to the Southwest Airlines counter and told the attendant that I needed an inspection done on my suitcase and I had to fill out a small form and place it inside the case directly on top of the pistols. Then I had to accompany the case to a luggage x-ray machine and wait while it was scanned. When I received the all-clear I was good to go. I had my carrying belt on my body and 2 holsters in my other piece of luggage and didn't have any problems with both of those items.

The info from the airlines website was good except for one thing (which I found out when I called up the airlines customer service): I read online that the Pelican case could be checked in as is but the CS rep told me that the locked Pelican case needed to be located inside another soft unlocked suitcase. No big problem for me though.

Any questions let me know.

Patrick