With some constructive criticism from you lads and some time to play with the various cases and foam patterns I've accumulated out in the real world I was able to figure out some optimizations. So, allow me to introduce you to the latest iteration and see what y'all think. The last version held 5x barrels, 7x 5rd magazinesand had a dedicated space for my PVS-30.
The previous version also lacked a dedicated spot for a cleaning rod but had extra depth so I had to cut a notch on the underside for that after the fact. Where the last design was meant for storage this design is meant for travel, international travel in particular. That being the case, this one eschews the night vision that can't go with me, allows for the soft case inside the hard case, adds finger notches to the magazine cutouts, puts the butt of the rifle at the wheel end, adds a dedicated shelf for the Dewey rod, improves the fit of the cutout for the maintenance kit, reduces the number of barrels supported to 4, sets up individual barrel support at the ends with vertical buffer space between each barrel to keep them from clanging on each other, tunes for the exact length of my .223rem/.308win/.338wm/.338LM barrels with the brakes they're supposed to have on them including a slight interference fit on the length and the width, adds barrel specific finger notches to one end of the barrel cutouts and, finally, normalizes the spacing between similar adjacent cutouts.
Other little tweaks that might not be obvious, it'll now take 3x of each of the 8rd long action, 10rd short action and 10rd .223 mags along with 8x of the assorted available 5rd mags. And lastly, the heaviest bits (barrels) are now located near the hinge instead of near the latches. Otherwise it still holds 4 bolts outside of the receiver and keeps the butt pad and spacers off the gun. Some cutouts that used to be for ammo are sized now for other odds and ends that I need like flashlight heads/bodies/tail-caps, special tools, arca/picatinny adapters, etc..
Having excised the barrels that are meant to go with me, having no ammo in it (I have plenty where I go) and not providing storage for things like special batteries, spare scope caps, rarely used tools and other bits that I don't need except for special occasions I'm pretty sure that the total weight will end up at or just under 70lbs which is the max for business class air travel on all the airlines I've used for international travel.
Enjoy.
Getting the 5rd mags out could be annoying so I added finger notches at their noses and figured might as well for the 8rd & 10rd mags. You can see the stair step style barrel supports at the upper right and the finger notches for the barrels, each of which only goes down as far as needed. The .308 barrel stays in the rifle chassis which helps even out the weight distribution a bit.
You can see the cleaning rod ledge at bottom. It also helps to align and control the soft case which acts as a top pad in concert with the actual lid foam.
Of course as I gain time with the modelling system at mycasebuilder.com my ability to create increasingly intricate designs has increased. If DT would get off their butts and spend a little effort they could create usable foam for their hard case. This is not for an OEM DT hard case, this is for a 42.5x17 SKB case. I could fit most things in the DT hard case; just not the soft case which is stupid, with the right foam but I like the extra height of this one and that the soft case can fit in it with very little persuading.
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