Technoid:

I am interested in buying a good gun case to transport my Arrieta to my hunting areas. I obviously want a highter quality case as the Arrieta broke my bank and the wife would kill me if I did not take every precaution.

90 percent of the time, I will be throwing the case into the bed of my PU truck and heading out. I also would like something that I could fly with if someday I decide to go somewhere else.

I have looked at Americase. I have looked at Kalispel(online catalogue) and they look good. I have also seen hard plastic cases like the Browning Travel Vault.

Comments, suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks for the help,
DAVE

Dear Dave,

Everyone has his own idea of what makes a good gun case. It all really depends on how and how much you are going to travel.

The Americase is nice, but as you noticed, pricey.

The Kalispell cases are humongous big giant nasty welded things with padlocks and rods hanging on them. They are virtually theft proof because most thieves don’t come with fork lifts.

My standard approach is to use one of the padded Boyt cloth cases (life time guarantee) and put that inside of a hard case if you are going to do any serious travel. I prefer my cases to be full length, not to be the “take down” type, as I find that more convenient on most shooting trips where we are in and out of the car a great deal.

The Boyt case does fine for light duty. When I want to travel seriously, I think that putting the Boyt case inside a Pelican or Browning Vault (Pelican makes the cases for Browning) makes the most sense. The Browning/Pelicans reinforced plastic outsides can withstand nuclear attack and, while heavy, they don’t weigh an entire ton.

I don’t like to use the kind of hard case where you have to take the gun apart and lay the barrel and receiver side by side. That always causes injury when they shift around on that bumpy foam rubber.

I also have a John Hall plastic two gun case and a Briley “coffin” tube set case. Both are far too fragile for serious air travel. My John Hall case has hinges that last about two air trips. The neat looking Briley case has split the seams on the top just do to opening and closing. It is far to fragile to even attempt flying with it. The cases that Hartman made for my old Brownings were fine for the station wagon, but not for any kind of serous use.

One case that is very good and has stood up surprisingly well are the older Perazzi and Beretta molded plastic cases with form fitting lined compartments. The come in all sorts of sizes. They don’t look real strong, but mine certainly are. Light and easy to carry too. Nice case and the price is right on the mark. Very similar are the current Negrini that are also excellent cases.

So there it is. Full length padded Boyt for around town. Boyt inside Browning/Pelican Vault for serious trips around the world- unless you like the Perazzi case better. One of those two solutions.

Where else can you get advice like this! Yeah, right. Well, other than there.

Best regards,

Bruce Buck
Shotgun Reports Technoid