USPS - back to pony express days!
 

Not sure if anyone else is experiencing this, but the USPS certainly isn't what it was, snow, rain sleet or shine, ok, but not with the virus.
Recently had a gun parcel, shipped 3 day priority, take 8 days to reach it destination. This is over a drive time distance between origin/destination of about 2 1/2 Hr.! :shock:

I am friends with a fellow who works in the local PO and he has told me that nationally a lot of postal employees have been hit by Covid and there is a substantial backlog of mail they are trying to process and get out to be delivered.

It's not just USPS.... In the last few years, I have had 2 long guns completely broken in half by UPS. One was inbound to me, the other I had shipped. One of them being a somewhat rare Ruger No1 in 6.5x55 Swede that had great wood.

Here are some pics, the third one made me :crying::crying:

Ruger really took care of me, completely restocked the rifle, test fired it, etc. The new wood is not quite as nice as the original, but they didn't do me wrong either. The forearm is actually nice, but but stock has less color.

Rifle still shoots sub moa with my handloads.

I can understand some delays nowadays but to compound things the USPS isn't scanning Priority Mail envelopes - at least not those that go through Phila - and the tracking shows a vague statement: "your item is on its way". No scans at intermediate stops as in the past. Just two weeks ago my payment and FFL copy for a SxS took 9 days to arrive in So Cal. That was with 3 day Priority mail. And the seller was about to sell the gun to the next highest bidder because he thought my envelope went astray to a far away galaxy and wouldn't be located for many additional days. Icing on the cake on the 9th day was the tracking showed "we attempted to deliver at 9:30 (am) but couldn't access the location", but the seller's agent said they were open and in the office starting at 7:30 and no post office employee came by. Nice.

Of course it's not a long gun but I ordered a MEC super sizer last Friday. According to USPS tracking it was sent priority mail. Arrived at the USPS distribution center in Wisconsin on Saturday, arrived at the local distribution center in Harrisburg on Monday and is out for delivery today. We'll see.

More sellers I deal with now offer a plastic hard case for a little extra to keep the guns safe in shipping. A good investment.

The virus has thrown off shipping for sure. I have a few things I need to send off for work, but am holding off until things get back to normal, assuming that happens in the foreseeable future

I will never ship another long gun without a hard case.... Unless it's a break down gun that can ship in a much shorter box, with LOTS of buble wrap and double boxed. It's not work risking the breakage of a irreplaceable firearm.

It just seems like service levels across the board for delivery services are not what they used to be.

Don't tell me about the USPS being overwhelmed due to the Hruhan virus. In December 2019 I purchased a Parker paper collectible from a friend living less than 100 miles away. I notified him I sent a check first class on the next day. After 8 days he called me and told me he had not received my check yet. I sent him another check by certified mail ($3+) and told him to cash the first check and shred the second if it ever arrives. After 12 days both checks arrived in the same delivery. This is not the only occurrence but one of many.

Shotguns should always be broken down no matter what. With rifles, you just have to pack and pack and then hope.

If that photo of the broken ruger in the box was taken after it was opened, and if that packing material is all that was in the box, then that gun was not packed properly and should have been broken, as it was.

The fact is that many simply do not know how to pack guns. Many methods are just plain laughable. Most issues with damage can be avoided by packing well with the proper materials.