My buddy sent an old mauser to a buyer in another state. The buyer notified him that the stock had broken in 2 pieces right behind the trigger guard. Buyer said the firearm was packed well.
Does the buyer or shipper make the claim with Fedex? Any other things to be aware of, ie have original packing, pics ok ?

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Sure you did

Your buddy would have to make the claim...however, if your buddy did not have insurance he won't have a leg to stand on.

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Dick

The party that bought the insurance makes the claim, no insurance and they only cover $100. I would secure the packing, but the complaint should have been lodged with the driver. The drivers in our area make notes of damaged packages, probably to save their own butts.

Did he not send it in a hard case?

I can tell you this personally. The company I work for used to take care of one of the main FedEx companies dist warehouses in CT. I have worked there a few times and when the items come down the convayor they are handeled very poor to say the least. The people there throw the packages around etc... One reason I never use them for anything, due to their lack of respect for other peoples property...... besides theyre slow.

My local FFL told me if I'm going to have a gun shipped, to use anyone other than Fedex. He told me horror stories of finding packages that required a signature for delivery left on his doorstep without being signed for. These were guns being delivered. Fedex is endorsed by the NRA, which I would imagine is why several of the large firearms auction houses use them.

I had a gun shipped not long ago by Fedex. The tracking number told me the gun would be delivered on a certain day. When the package didn't arrive, I checked the tracking again. The delivery date had been moved back several days and I saw that the package went from point A to point B to point C, then back to point B, on to point D.

This varies depending on where you live. In this city UPS is the bogey man in a BIG way. Fedex have never given me any hassle nor my regular FFL. YMMV depending on location.

The main issue with long gun boxes is they cant make the turns in the auto sorting chutes. They get stuck and everything packs against them which often causes a break in the wrist of the stock. I have a gorgeous old Swedish Mauser that has a cracked stock wrist due to UPS. For long guns I always use the post office and I have never had an issue with them, either shipping or receiving.

Good luck on getting any money out of FedEx for this.

bob

All of them have bad reputations. Earlier this summer, I was in the back yard when the USPS Jeep-type thingy stopped at my mailbox, stayed a few seconds, then left while I was walking around the side of house. I opened the box to see a sticky note that was an Attempt To Deliver a Certified (signature required) Letter notice which says no one was home and they would deliver the next day or I could pick it up at the P.O.

He was two blocks away. I ran him down. I shoved the note in his face and said: "Dude, I was in the yard, My wife is in the house. You never got out of your truck."

He got the letter, handed it to me and said: "All this junk mail's slowing me down." Then he left. No apology. Nothing. And he did not even ask for my signature.

I was in the local P.O. the next week and asked who was in charge. The supervisor patiently listened to me and told me he could do nothing, there was a complaint form I could fill out on line. Guess what - THERE IS NO COMPLAINT FORM ON LINE!!

Let 'em go under, they deserve it.

I am with you - the same happened here in Germany to me!

When shipping firearms I use FedEx exclusively. Maybe it depends on what part of the country you live in. Here in WV-UPS is a nightmare. It is cheaper for me to send a rifle FedEx over USPS and UPS. All my bad handling experiences have come with UPS mostly, and the USPS second. They both just leave stuff out on the porch. Even if I am in the house they do not even knock on the door. They jut drop it off. And in alot of places UPS now drops off at the Post Office, then you have to go the the Post Office to pick up a package that UPS was suppose to deliver.

I had a neighbor who purchased some items from Midway. He wanted it shipped USPS, but Midway said USPS would not ship what was in the package, so he had to pay extra for UPS to be the courier. Then UPS dropped the package off at the Post Office, and he had to go to the Poast Office to pick it up. He was not a friendly neighbor that day. He was very disgruntled.

Good luck with your claim to FedEx. Tom.

My biggest complaint about all three is you have to pay and pay for additional "services" just for peace-of-mind that it will actually arrive. They have installed a "lack-of-trust" in the customer, from poor service, that you have to pay for: delivery confirmation, tracking, insurance, their packaging (cause using our own is going to be more expensive). Before I ramble on more, I do hope the buyer does get a satisfactory resolution to the damaged firearm.

This also happened to me also!

The wastrels at DHL did that to my niece with gun that was supposed to go from CO to NV. The package came open in CA and then all hell broke loose. Cost me (don't ask) two lots of FFL fees (CA and NV) and a wedge in shipping to get it back into NV.

I worked for FedEx Home Delivery for a while back when I was in high school as a package handler. My job was to unload the truck and send the packages down the line where they'd be scanned, marked with the route number, and sent to other package handlers who would load them on the correct truck's pallet.

After one day on the job I was scared to send anything fragile / important through FedEx.

When I'd open the back of the truck (big ones, not delivery trucks), packages would be falling out.... wherever our trucks came from did a horrible job loading them. The packages are just stacked on top of each other.. not secured in any way.

Also, once the packages got out of the truck, they'd be handled rather rough. Basically, as long as you didn't actually throw the package, you could handle it however you wanted. The name of the game was speed.. that's all they cared about.

FedEx, UPS, DHL, USPS... I always get insurance if sending something even somewhat important.

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- The Federalist #46 -