I recently bought a Tuffpak and will be taking it on a hunt next month. I plan to pack a couple rifles in the case. There seems to be a lot of room remaining in the case.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks!!

I put extra foam in the bottom and top, put a jacket at the bottom, 2 rifles in soft cases, and a sweater in between. Best I can recall...

I normally take 2 rifles in soft cases but I buy another $10 softcase from academy and use it as packing supplement.

I use a beretta jacket as a the base plus additional clothes.

I put guns in barrel first.

I buy lots of bulk socks at Walmart and use as additional packing.

I also take old clothes as packing.

My tuff pick weights close to 50 pounds when I am done.

On the way back I normally buy soft gun cases in Zim that are leather and bulkier.

Whatever clothes I am bringing back goes into the tuff pack. The return tuff pack is 30-35 pounds. I normally leave my bag, shoes, most clothes, toleteries, medical kit and nearly all gear back in Zim.

Mike

Use a couple of layers of egg crate foam (I use the stuff that comes in cheap rifle boxes) cut to shape and put in the bottom to cushion the end of your barrels. The worst jolt your rifles will take is when a baggage handler tosses your case off a conveyor belt and it lands on the end and all the inertia of the rifle is concentrated on the end of the barrel.

Put your rifle(s) in their soft cases and then fill the extra space with 48” foam pipe insulation tubes. Put a sweater and/or your gun cleaning supplies on top to fill the room left, if any. Make it easy for some security officer to get your guns out without having to (unpack) a ton of stuff in and around them.

I have used these to tie fishing rods.

https://www.basspro.com/shop/e...stable-stretch-bands


Tying your two gun in soft case together with these plus T-shirt as other clothes would work well. I do it for fishing rods and they are far more brittle.

Mike

All good advice.... just remember you will have to show your guns to officials at both ends of the trip pack so you will be able to pull your guns and return them. Some officials (may not) want you to touch your own guns.

Good info above. I also remove the bolts from my rifles. I have soft cases with zippered pockets on the outside. I put my bolts individually into an old sock and then put into guncase pockets.

Removing the bolts and stashing them elsewhere
is a good idea. I put my rifle in a soft case inside the Tuffpak, the TSA guys really seem to like it when I partially slide out the rifle for inspection and it does not have the bolt in it.
A quick look on their part, easy for them, and you are good to go.

Here is a tip that I used and worked well for me. Pack your rifles in cases or a TuffSack per the other recommendations, bolts out and wrap them in bubble wrap with a rubber band. Add extra heavy foam to the top and bottom of the case as others have said, that is where most of the damage can occur.

To take up the additional space surronding the guns, I took some of my clothing, pants, and shirts mostly, rolled them into long "tubes" and slipped them inside a heavy duty contractor black trash bag. Roll the whole thing up into a tube the length of the Tuffpak, add a few rubber bands to keep them rolled together and slide down into the case besides the guns. The trash bag is slippery and will slide in or out for examination easily. I think I made 3 tubes last trip and surrounded the gun cases to provide extra protection. It really added lots of protection, made the whole TuffPak setup movement free and had the added benefit of not having to pack those clothes in my normal suitcase. I have done it on three trips with success.

Good luck, the TuffPak is a good case IMO because it is so light but I fell you have to add some additional protection.

Paul