I sent the following e-mail to Doc in regards to a trade I was making on the English Sporting rifle I talked about in a previous post.


Hi
I hope the super 91 arrived safe and sound. The fact that it took 8 days to get from SD to utah had me worried. Anyway just checking

I received the following e-mail back.


You should have seen the box, it was beat to death, not a solid bit of cardboard left, holes torn and bent in the middle at least three inches. I figured the rifle was a goner, but it turned out OK, not a mark on it. Isn't the USPO a mess? And isn't bubble wrap wonderful. I refuse to ship USPS, I use either UPS or Fed Ex, both are safer and their insurance program really pays up if there is damage. .............
....Send me your UPS address so I can ship this Sporting RIfle. DOC


Needless to say I will use UPS from now on. And I'm glad I triple wrapped it with bubble wrap .Finally the 1:20 is on its way

I do not know what the best shipping method is Chet but I can tell you that the so called insurance that UPS sells is not worth the paper it is written on. I once recieved a rifle that was damaged. It was boxed and shipped at a UPS store and they did not do an adequate job of packing. I wasted hours trying to get UPS to pay for the damage but to no avail. I shipped a rifle yesterday and when the clerk asked if I wanted to buy the insurance I said "Why, they never pay anyway." She said that in all the years she had worked sending packages out she had only seen them pay on one claim.
As you know, I go to extreme measures when I pack a rifle, obviously you did a great job of packaging too or you would have been skirood.

Art

I cannot wait to hear some range results on that new rifle!

i agree UPS insurance is a waste of money and an even bigger waste of time when trying to make a claim. I lost out of $400 due to them breaking a windshield i had shipped that was for a 53 ford mainline. The guy that got it said the box looked like they dropped it right off the truck onto the corner on the box and just crumpled the windshield.

I am making it a priority to give it a good workout as soon as I receive it. I have a 100 No Excuse 460 gr 451'S to see what it will do. Plan on starting with 70 gr 777 3f and pyrodex p . Those are the only 2 powders I have right now for it.

Those overpowder cards from TOW (WAD-460-A) might not be a bad idea when using Triple 7.
http://www.trackofthewolf.com/catego...rt=1&as=1&as=1

The last delivery i received from UPS was a gun case. The box that the gun case came in was smashed down and had a big, fat boot-print in the middle of it. Under that big, fat boot print were these words printed on the box- FRAGILE: DELICATE INSTRUMENTS.

Ive personally watched a UPS driver throw boxes off of his truck and i gave the video i took to my boss. Needless to say that driver is no longer on our route. These boxes were full of OEM computer hardware like harddrives marked as "fragile".

I also used to hangout at a biker bar near the main UPS hub and the UPS employees joked about intentionally treating packages marked "fragile" more harshly on purpose. They said they did whatever they wanted because the union would back them up and they had little fear of a reprimand.

I have never had an issue with the USPS…no more so than Fed Ex or UPS. And using USPS Priority Mail usually gets the package there quickly for less. I am a firm believer that if you are shipping ANYTHING that is fragile, you should pack it like it’s going to be thrown off a truck, mistakenly dropped, and smashed by other cargo. Because it usually is. Think about the types of some of the people who you’ve dealt with at any of the shipping companies, along with the nature of the business itself. Enough said. I have shipped and received all-tube amplifiers (read: heavy AND fragile) many times over with no issues because I (or the shipper) have packed them right. I received one amplifier that was not packed worth crap, and, as a result, the box was all beat up and I had to purchase new tubes for the amp. I blamed the dude who packed it, not the shipper.

I've shipped four rifles across the country via USPS Parcel Post without a hitch. No complaints here.