[How To] Prep and Cut Pelican Case Foam

We'll walk you through how to prepare and cut the foam in your new Pelican case to fit your rifles, handguns, magazines, and more.

All you'll need is a marker and electric carving knife

What You Need

Pelican or Similar Hard Case

In our Best Cases For All Budgets article, we cover several of the most useful sizes of hard cases.  Pelican has the reputation of being the best and it is all we use.  Here are a couple of recommendations with their interior size.  If in doubt, go one size up!

Cutting Device

For the handgun cases listed above, you'll see "Pick N'Pluck" foam which means the foam is already pre-scored so all you need to do is to roughly mark the outline with toothpicks and then pull the foam out.

It doesn't look as nice but gets the job done.  If you'd like to follow our cutting method for the smaller cases, you can get replacement regular foam.

Otherwise, the rifle cases come with regular foam which will need to be marked and cut with an electric carving knife for best results.

How to Cut Foam

Here's a quick overview of what to do with the regular Pelican foam before a detailed video.

Skip to the 10 minute mark if you just want to see him cut the foam.

Check out more of our favorite Pelicans and others in our Best Gun Cases article.