Doing your homework (shipping precautions)

[Silvers]

About 5 weeks ago I came across what seemed to be a nice Fox owned by a private individual. The gent had never sold a gun by phone or computer, nor had he shipped one out of state. We finally made a deal and I talked extensively with him and his FFL dealer how to ship it to avoid damage. From past experience I've learned it's best to have a Fox be shipped in 3 pieces, each wrapped with bubble wrap, then inside individual boxes, then inside an outer shipping box. That may be a bit of an overkill but I really wanted this Fox..... I didn't want to have him refund my money and get an insurance settlement at his end. Well she arrived today and I'm glad we took all those precautions. Outer box was punctured thru in several places, but no damage inside. With all the talk lately about the Post Office losing money and potentially downsizing, ya gotta wonder how this happened.

Just a word to the wise when you're buying a Fox and want to receive it undamaged. PS I'm not ready yet for pics of the Fox. Silvers

Front


Back side


L-R..... barrel - fore-arm - buttstock


buttstock


fore-arm

[Northern Bob]

Good advice, Frank. I bought a Syracuse grade 3 shotgun off a guy who was working away from home, so he had his parents ship it to me. I talked to him a bit about how to package it. It arrived in a box with no padding, just the shotgun in one piece in the box. I was surprised there wasn't any real damage. It could have been much worse.

[NJdblgun]

Good advice Frank, last summer i bought an early A grade, all original, S/N is under 2000. The seller is a gunsmith. Seller shipped in one piece, and UPS did the rest. Stock broken clean at the wrist upon delivery. A great piece of Fox history lost. Fortunately the seller did declare a value before shipping (aka, paid for insurance), and the UPS adjuster was great. UPS did pay the declared value, but took about 5 months in total. As you say Frank, always dissasemble and pack carefully before shipping.

PS - As soon as I suspected damage, I started taking pictures as I unpacked, the pictures did the trick when the adjuster came to the house to look at the gun, and I saved the original packing/shipping box.

[al]

Great advice Frank.......Now...What did you get??...lol

[Silvers]

Al, I want to get a new pad fitted, and I've got it in queue with my man. Also, the gun needs a tiny bit of work I need to do myself and i'm backed up with other stuff. I'll post more info and pics in the Members Forum when she's done. Silvers

[Witty1]

Hi Frank,

Great post! “Ship On Monday Or Tuesday Rule.” ?

My last online shotgun purchase was from a southern auction house. They told me they only ship UPS on Monday, or Tuesday, maybe Wednesday AM if the distance is only 2 days. Otherwise they wait till the next Monday. We all know how exciting it is to win at an online auction and I wanted my gun shipped Wednesday! Not wanting to wait till Monday plus three days of UPS ground, an eternity of an eight day wait.

The auction manager told me they have this policy because of past experience, that if the gun sits in the UPS warehouse over the weekend (no delivery on Sunday) the guns have a high average of getting lost (stolen). Have any of you heard of this? I makes since, when it was explained to me.

[ajjr]

Boy did this post awake painful memories.I bought a gun thru gunbroker,a skeet model 21 16 ga straight grip handed down from the guy's deceased father who finally decided to sell it to support his young family-an original condition, one owner gun.His FFL guy shipped it insured thru the post office packed well but in one piece!Yes,it arrived with the stock shattered at the wrist.The post office denied the claim because there was "no visible damage" to the exterior of the box,even though there were obvious tire marks across the box!The Us Post Office has a list a mile long for "reasons to deny a claim".I had to eat the cost of the loss!An expensive lesson indeed

[Vol423]

I ship a lot of guns. Here is my best method so far:

I buy 6X6X62 heavy boxes from Uline in quantities of 20 at about $1.50 each. I also buy 6X6X38 triangular mailing tubes from the same source at about $2.50 each. I wrap the barrel and fore end in bubble wrap, the action and stock the same way, and put them each in their own mailing tube with lots of padding at the ends. Two triangular tubes will fit perfectly inside the 6X6 outer box back-to-back with no void space. I then put padding in both ends of the outer box, cut off the excess length, fold over the ends and tape well. I even do this on bolt action rifles. I remove the stock and put it in a separate box from the barreled action. So for about $8.00 in packing materials, I get really good protection of the gun. Some of the boxes get banged up on the outside, but I've never had any damage to the contents.

[al smith]

r. e. UPS losing guns. I have had two guns mysteriously "lost" during UPS shipping. Both tracked all the way to my local delivery terminal. I now use US Postal Service.

r.e. packing for shipping. I have a homemade plywood box (similar to a double gun trunk case) with partitioned sections for barrel/forend and stock/action. Cloth bags are used to protect pieces from dust/ abrasion. Spacers are used to adjust for barrel length. bubble wrap used to fill void areas. Plywood box is the shipped in an outer cardboard box. If I buy a gun from a novice seller I will ship box and instructions for use to him. If I sell a gun I will ship in box and pay for return shipping. The plywood lessens the likelihood of puncture damage to a cardboard shipping box. All of this is heavy and costs more to ship but will pay for itself by saving one gun that would have been damaged in a standard cardboard box.

[Brian]

USPS Priority insured all the way. I buy boxes form a local box maker. I have a long gun box with sleeve and a double gun box with sleeve. They also provide dividers and other materials. I bubble wrap componenets and pack and then the sleeve goes over the inner box.
they arent cheap but never had one damaged.
I never send a gun assmebled that can be broken down. SOunds like common sense but you would be surprised how many dealers will send a double assembled in a long box.

[NJdblgun]

[quote=
I never send a gun assmebled that can be broken down. SOunds like common sense but you would be surprised how many dealers will send a double assembled in a long box.[/quote]

yup, amazing how easy it is, but can be so difficult for some of us.

[Ted Huff]

I also send the shipping case to the seller. I use a heavy aluminum take-down case with a heavy cardboard outer box. I send it stuffed with bubble wrap to be used on the parts.

It costs a bit more and delays things a few days, but I don't buy guns I don't really want to receive in one piece. I'm willing to wait a couple days and pay the double shipping for the peace of mind.

[jmc]

Related to shipping valuable double guns, insurance for full coverage loss or damage is what I do however, it always seems to cost me much more than what I see quoted for shipping or have paid for having the same guns shipped to me. I'm hoping someone can explain this to me. For example, if I ship a gun to its new owner or out for gunsmithing that is worth $4000, I want to insure it for $4000. If I ship USPS Priority + $4000 worth of insurance, the insurance alone is going to be over $40. It would seem that many folks selling guns are under insuring the item big time in many cases. Or, do I have it wrong and are there other insurance options?

Oh, and I've never had a problem with shipping from my local post office however, UPS did deliver a box that had the same kind of damage in the pictures in Silvers post.

Regards,
jmc

[BarkeyVA]

I just bought a 16 ga. Utica-Fox Sterlingworth. It is not valuable ($1350 incl. shipping) but I was very impressed with how the seller packaged it for shipment using FedEx Ground. He put the stock assembly wrapped in several layers of bubble wrap in one triangular FedEx box and the assembled barrel and forend wrapped in several layers of bubble wrap in a separate triangular FedEx box. He stuffed more bubble wrap in both boxes so that the contents could not move around during handling. He then taped the two boxes together and shipped them as one package. The gun arrived in perfect condition.