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Whether you work for the Ministry of Defence or within the police services, using the appropriate foam inserts is vital to avoiding damage occurring to your firearm or weapon, particularly so during transit.
If you’re not utilising custom gun case foam to safely store your firearms or weapons, you’re already failing to provide it/ them with the highest level of protection.
At PottertonPacs, we provide custom cases with custom cut foam for highly trained individuals to safely store away their firearms and weapons. Keep reading to find out more.
Foam Inserts – What are the Physical Benefits?
How is it that foam inserts provide the required protection? How do you know that the inserts are actually doing the job they were intended to do?
The way to answer the above questions is to possess a little understanding of the different foam materials available and to have an insight into the design process.
There are three key ways that foam inserts inside protective cases provide protection:
- Eliminate movement
- Absorb shock or impact
- Protection of firearm surface
Eliminate Movement
The initial point to consider when asking how to store your weapons safely with custom foam is with regard to how the foam inserts prevent movement of the weapon within the exterior case. There are a couple of ways whereby this could potentially cause damage to the weapon.
Firstly, if any of the equipment inside the case is not secured, there’s the potential for damage simply through collision with the exterior case walls. It’s more than likely this could occur during transit.
Secondly, and similar to the first point: If the exterior case contains multiple items, if not secured, then the items could, and likely will, collide with one another when the case is moved.
Both of these points are fairly obvious: Foam inserts work to eliminate movement. Nevertheless, this can be taken further through recess design within the foam which is precisely tailored to fit your firearm and any additional equipment.
You may already be using foam inserts, but if the ‘pockets’ for each item are square holes (like you would get with PICK N PLUCK™ foam), your firearm and any additional equipment will still see some movement inside (and possibly outside) each recess.
Needless to say, for a firearm and any other highly calibrated items, this is still going to cause some issues.
And it’s exactly why foam inserts that have been precision made to fit your firearm through the use of CAD design and 3D modelling cater to the best level of protection. Effectively, this will eliminate any movement within the case.
Absorbing Impact/ Shock
Despite the elimination of movement of items inside a transit case, those items are still subject to external forces that the case may experience when mishandled.
It might be that the case is dropped or dispatched into the rear of a vehicle without the necessary level of care. Or it could simply be that over the longer term the case (and its contents) are subjected to a lot of vibration. That wouldn’t be a healthy scenario to a highly calibrated firearm and its component parts.
Nevertheless, predictive software can be used to create foam inserts in such a way that they absorb these types of force. They do that by controlling deceleration of the contents of the case.
What this means is that, for example, if the case were to be dropped within a particular height range, the foam compresses upon impact prior to retaining its original shape. The items contained inside are, therefore, effectively cushioned.
Foam densities can vary which in turn provides enough cushioning to align with the case’s surface area and with the product’s fragility. This ensures that the amount of protection provided is keenly tailored to what you need.
And the end result of that? Complete elimination of damage that can be caused during transit.
Protection of Firearm Surface
Custom foam cases provide great protection of firearm surfaces. This means that regardless of the conditions of the environment, the firearm should be free of scratches and cosmetic damage while in transportation and storage.
Not only this, it also means that the firearms will be accessible at all times rather than being away in a repair shop. This would also be very costly to military and police operations, particularly when considering the cost of returning the item/s, arranging replacements, and either making necessary repairs or even writing the firearm off completely.
As foam inserts eliminate movement during transit, the chance that either visual damage and/ or structural damage occurs is extremely minimal.
Visual Safety Options
So, while you can and should safely store your firearm, there are a variety of ways you can enhance not only the appearance but the safety and efficiency of your protective case when you add custom foam inserts.
These are:
- Duel Colour Foam / Dual colour inserts
- Item presentation
- Inventory masks or labels
Duel Colour Foam or Boards/ Dual Colour Inserts
During the creation of foam inserts, one process that is commonly used is to laminate various colours of foam, one on top of the other. When the recesses are cut into the foam, contrasting colours show through.
This process is often referred to as “Duel Colour Foam” for “shadow boards”.
Rather than having one solid colour, you can choose dual colour foam inserts which provide instant assessment of missing firearms or weapons. Armed professionals use this as a solution to keep track of their inventory and avoid any safety breaches by making it evident to see if any parts are missing with colour-coded tool control.
Having dual colour inserts also makes it easier to locate specific items and also ensures they are easily accounted for with audit trail requirements being commonplace with firearms and weapons.
Item Presentation
While not being a strictly relevant factor in terms of safe firearm storage, foam inserts can also be utilised to enhance firearm presentation and facilitate fast item location which is crucial for an armed response situation.
This is easily achieved using foam inserts by way of the process outlined just above.
Inventory Masks or Labels
Foam inserts for custom firearm cases can likewise be further enhanced by using an inventory mask or label. The inventory masks are predominantly manufactured from foamex boards which are a hard PVC foam with a high quality smooth finish. Foamex is durable and well suited to being digitally or silk screen printed with contents identification information which is then overlaid on the upper surface of the foam insert.
Similarly identification labels can be printed with product names or codes and inserted into recesses within the foam next to the connecting parts.
At PottertonPacs, we take extreme pride in that we are experts at designing, manufacturing, and supplying safe solutions for the presentation and protective transport cases of firearms to meet the needs of armed forces.
We also recommend reading our two guides, Military, Defence & Aerospace Protective Solutions, and Protective Hard Cases for Military & Emergency Services.
Why not browse through our product range, and when you are ready to get in touch you can send us an email or give us a call on 0116 276 7562. If you have any concerns or any queries, our friendly team is ready and waiting to help you out.