A grim reminder for shipping guns

[Richard Flanders]

A friend here in Fairbanks just sent me this. He's a rabid Mauser collector. Here is his experience with one he received via UPS recently. Below is a part of his email - the part that is polite enough to include here! - that came with the images. He's not a happy camper. To break this stock like this would have required one hell of a drop.

"The attached pics are of a near-perfect, all-matching M1893
Uruguayan Mauser that I bought back in November and delayed shipping
up here until after the Christmas madness.

The rifle was packed in a thick-walled double box, wrapped in over
24 feet of bubble wrap and inside that was a sock over the rifle.
End-caps were padded with both bubble wrap and thick spongy packing paper.

Despite the packing, it is pretty clear to me that they slam-dunked
the box so that the butt-end of the Mauser hit the ground with enough
force to shear the stock cleanly, just aft of the wrist. This rifle
survived 130 years of life but got destroyed by some pin-head
throwing it around like a javelin."

[stumpstalker]

What was the material of the box?

[charlie cleveland]

must be the same pin head that broke a d grade 10 ga parker for me a few years ago....it took some doing to break the stock on this gun....I know your friends pain over this....charlie

[Richard Flanders]

I'm sure the box was cardboard. He says it was a "heavy doubled box". I suggested that he start shipping these in two containers, the barrel in a well padded 6" pc of ABS pipe, the stock in a v thick 3-4 layered and well padded box. Without the barrel the stock wouldn't be heavy enough to break if they tossed it around. I got a 10ga damascus hammer gun shipped that way from Canada some years back. Bbls came in a cardboard tube, the stock in a cardboard box. His reasoning then was, I think, that no one would bother to steal half a gun. You could also ship this Mauser broken down in one v well padded and heavy duty box.

[Stan Hillis]

Not letting UPS off the hook by any means, but that is some poor wood selection by the original builder, IMO. I'd never stock anything with grain like that.

[Hammer Gun]

I always ship in a metal gun case, had no problems that way so far, but you never know, I even put "Fragile" tape all over it. Gary

[William Davis]

USPS UPS FED EX to different degrees the same. Distribution systems are mechanical, conveyor forklift etc. Depending on which carrier subcontractors likely to be the ones handling the box,

Only defense is good packing. Short box, gun dismantled, hard inner box, larger outer box. If it’s expensive inner box metal, at a minimum inner plastic..

William

[randallro]

i ship fragile wooden sculpture all over the country and the world. i believe in the "eggshell" theory of packing. i hard mount the sculpture in a wooden crate with no padding....then put that crate in another very heavily padded container...either wood or cardboard depending on size. i think in this case the cardboard might of actually been better as it would absorb some of the blow.

[John Allen]

I once had a Midas grade 20ga Browning delivered by Fed Ex with tire marks on the box. They drove over it with a fork truck. You have to realize these shippers can tear up a steel ball with a rubber hammer. Pack accordingly.

[Mike Franzen]

Every buyers worst nightmare. At least it looks repairable.