Most but not all of the theft usually seems to occur in J'berg. Yes, zippered luggage is pretty easy to get into with just a ballpoint pen. As long as the zipper tabs are just locked together and not secured to the bag so they can't be moved to re-close the zipper, you'd never now the bag was opened until you open it yourself and some kit is missing. Most soft sided luggage or roller duffel bags have little tabs sewn in somewhere along the zipper that you can pass either a sold hasp travel lock through both zipper tabs and the loop tab on the bag. If the little solid hasp travel locks are too short, get the ones with the flexible cables for hasps. They have a little more reach and that little cable is tough as hell. Bottom line is: just don't put anything of value that you can't do without in checked luggage.
As GRF said, I/we always carry binos in our carry-on and everything else of value goes in the rifle case. Rifle and ammo boxes and checked luggage with declared ammo boxes inside are SUPPOSED to receive special handling like US Registered/Certified mail. Once added to the aircraft manifest, each rifle case or ammo box has to be signed for as it passes from area to area AND they are SUPPOSED to be transported only on the same flights as the passenger. Doesn't always happen that way but that is what is SUPPOSED to happen.
For rifle cases, what I've found works well for me/us is a couple of flat sided Pelican/Storm cases without the foam. I put a layer of clothes in the bottom for padding, the rifles go in zippered soft cases on top of this layer, spare scopes, knives, and another kit kind of packed around them and then on top of the rifles a layer of heavy sweaters and medium weight jackets so the cases close snugly and stay under the 50lb limit. I know a lot of people swear by the octagonal Tuff-Packs that load all the kit and rifles from one end. I watch them and compare the easy of opening cases and accessing the firearms to show the various Customs, Security point inspections and I just don't see the advantage over a flat side case packed above. My experience and opinion only based on 30+trips. Others mileage may vary.
A couple of things you can do to minimize the lost baggage and theft is avoid J'berg all together. There are a couple of airlines that offer flights into Windhoek and by-pass J'berg completely AND carry firearms. KLM, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways and British Airways and Air Namibia. We've used KLM in the past and it was pretty good. Flying Qatar Air for the first time to Botswana in June and if it is as good as claimed, I'd seriously consider them. Be careful with B/A as they charge extra for firearms and also if you have to change airports in London (Heathrow/Gatwick) I wouldn't do it. I'd avoid Air Namibia and any of the South African Airways flights as both carriers are just about tits up or on life support.
The upside is, you've still got two years till your trip and the airline stuff can have a lot of changes between now and then. Don't start dealing with the airline choices until about 4-6 months before your trip.
