Travelling By Air To An African Hunting Destination Has Your Firearm Ever Been Lost

[rookhawk]

@Royal27 I hope you're right. I want you to be right.

I've flown a tremendous amount all over the world and never had my luggage lost...until Africa. (Had baggage damaged before, however)

I'm going back in 17 days and can't handle the mental anguish of another lost gun debacle while on an auction hunt where time is ticking and there are no refunds or do-overs.

 

[Code4]

Five trips to Africa arriving J0'Burg, Bulawayo and Harare. Two trips with rifle/rifles. Never a problem. Then again I was flying direct out of Sydney on QANTAS/SAA. Nil problems return. One trip into Jo'Burg the rifle wasn't where it was supposed to be but I managed to walk back into the terminal from the firearms counter and a quiet polite word to a handler (no money exchanged hands) and it arrived. I then carried it into the firearms office myself and very quickly got put at the head of the line so I could declare it. Again, quiet polite requests and conversation helped (with a smile). That was at the old office. I believe they have moved it ?

One trip to New Zealand. That has to be the easiest country to travel in, with firearms. Nil issue at Auckland or Palmerston.

There seems to be more problems when you have a connection.

 

[cpr0312]

2 trips to Africa and many around the US for my rifles and no issues yet luckily!

 

[Desperatezulu]

My bet is that the gun loss/damage rate is on par with luggage in general, which is all it is, luggage.

Nope, it's not just luggage - it's checked separately, marked as fragile and is handled and loaded separately (in all my experience anyway). Statistically valid or not, in my experience and it seems in the experience of other posters on this thread, we have had worse luck with our firearms than with our regular luggage on the same trips. It seems that human intervention is the problem and the automatic baggage sorting and loading systems are more reliable.

Maybe the conclusion is that IF firearms were treated as regular luggage, there'd be fewer issues! So I accept your bet

 

[Ragman]

I have made one hunting trip to Africa (Namibia) as part of a group of seven hunters. On arrival, our rifles did not arrive until late on the first day of our hunt (we all hunted with our PHs rifles that day). There was no damage. All our other luggage arrived on time.

When we arrived back home, half of the rifles did not (mine included) until nearly a week later. I then had to go to the Customs office at the airport in Regina to pick them up myself. Again no damage and all of our luggage arrived on time.

Any other international trip I've made (without rifles), I have always received my luggage on arrival. The only issue being on my return trip from Texas in January, both U.S. and Canadian border services searched my suitcase after I checked it in. I don't have a problem with this at all, except that they popped the top off of my shampoo bottle and didn't replace it correctly. Needless to say, when I opened the suitcase at home there was quite a mess in there!

 

[Pheroze]

So far my rifle has arrived 100% of the time....1 for 1

 

[Foxi]

Never a problem into.
But back to Munic
1 times my guncase was delayed 5 days
1 times my luggage ,got it on the next day.

On my gun case, there are a few transfers from Che Guevara on.
The old freedom fighter
I hoped to got affections by the african customs.
But reality is other:they asked me"who to hell is that guy ..............."
I think a pic from Nelson Mandela would be the better one in that days
Foxi

 

[JimP]

When my partner and I flew over last year we arrived with our rifles after 3 plane transfers. We flew Dela from Denver to Salt Lake and then on to New York with no problems. Then when we checked in with South African Airways we checked on our rifles and they had everything that we started with.

No problems with either of us. My only minor problem was that someone had taken a hammer to my hasp on my metal rifle case and had bent it where I needed to pry it out a little to get it open. At least that is all I could figure that they had done because there was no other sign of damage or scrapes like it had been dropped or ran into by a vehicle.