Shipping Issues

A while back I was shipped an SCT in original factory box. I figured factory packing would ensure safe travels.
To my horror, the scope arrived with the secondary rattling around in the tube despite the factory packaging.
The reason for the near disaster was that the scope was fitted with Bob's knobs and the factory packing did not keep the front lens cover tight against the the Bob's knobs. Vibration during the shipping was then able to shake loose the knobs and release the secondary.

The moral is to look for unintended consequences of scope mods when shipping. A bit of extra foam would have kept the cover tight, would have prevented the knobs from turning, would have kept the secondary in place.

P.S. I was lucky. I figured out how to remove the corrector and found all the loose pieces. Only a few minor nicks and scratches resulted from the AWOL secondary.

I concur with your main points Thomas. I would add that the factory packaging DOES NOT GUARANTEE that the product will arrive undamaged. It only strikes a balance between protecting the product WELL ENOUGH to produce an ACCEPTABLY LOW FAILURE RATE of the many, many products that particular factory produces and sends into the shipping environments. Manufactures BALANCE less PACKAGE cost against costs of a damaged product making it to the customer and affecting the costs associated with replacing a damaged product. Also, if the carrier can be held responsible (or not) to eat the cost of a damaged product. FOR US SHIPPING ONE OR TWO PRODUCTS, we can't cut the packaging costs as slim or we risk eating the loss because the shipper doesn't view us as "PROFESSIONAL" product packers like they do Meade or Celestron or Televue, . . . for the large manufacturer, is is a game of STATISTICS and EXPERIENCE, but for us, OVERPACKING is often better than a broken product !!!