Add a knife near it to open the bags? Or add a knife inside as more of a total survival kit?

I would want something in a cache away from the house. You already have a bunch of guns in the house. It would be nice to have a spot that, in case you needed to egress, you still have access to rifle and some mags.

Vacuum sealing is unnecessary. Just airtight and dry will do.

Maybe that’s the plan ;)

Why stash guns in a house you already have guns in. Maybe place some in some strategic places if you want, but it would be nice to have a cache with an AR, IFAK, FLC with mag pouches and mags, batteries in a sealed bag and flashlight, don’t store with batteries inside, a blade, lighter, etc..  Those nice Husky totes from Home Depot are airtight and rock solid.

Take the upper and lower apart, take off the pistol grip, put every thing in a 6 inch pvc pipe, fill the rest of the empty area in with silica packs or dry rice, glue end caps in place, and bury it a few feet under ground. Now place something on the surface, like a heavy concrete bird feeder, so you know where its buried. nothing sucks more then forgetting EXACTLY where you buried something. BTDT.

I bet it would last a long time like that.

Use a mylar bag and seal it using a clothes iron.

You can add an o2 absorber as well. Be sure to lube it well before storage

Also, get a dog that will alert you if someone is at the house. if power is out, nice to take a low tech option to wake you when you are sleeping.

Have a plan to stay and play and plan to load and go. We have a well, a generator, solar on the well, lots of food etc.. I need to work on my egress plan a lot more. Not just for SHTF, but for wildfires.

If power is out longer than 3 days, society will be a much different place.

Both are good reasons add ammo as well...  The only bad thing about burial is frozen earth in winter....

Storing a rifle offsite hasn't complicated my ability to practice for years.
Attached File

It's not much of a problem down south.

@bradpierson26
I'm looking at this and seeing Page 8 listed as high-barrier, but it is clear and doesn't list an OTR.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.duropac.com/Duropac_Catalogue_2023.pdf

I am seeing bone-guard sheets, and those would certainly be helpful if you're using metalized mylar or weaker bags. Basically, you lay a sheet of BG over the product, and then bag it, and the BG film keeps the product from puncturing, without the need for actual BG film.

I tried to call my old contact at the packaging company but he's no longer there. That sucks, he was a Marine with common interests.

PA-154 120mm Mortar Military Surplus Grade 3 Ammo Can

Dessicant

I had to put some rifles in long-term storage so I used foil bags with VCI chips.  I also gave them a good douse of BC Barricade for good measure.
One was an M1 Garand with no finish remaining.  

When I had to take them out of storage about 10-15 years later, they were all perfect.

I left a bunch of firearms in an attic in Virginia when I was posted overseas for a few years.  I purchased Mylar bags, cardboard gun boxes, and a bunch of desiccant packs.  

I put each gun in a bag, tossed in 2 desiccant packs, sucked out as much air as I could, then sealed the bags with a clothes iron.  Worked perfectly.  Zero rust.  It cost about $5 per bag.  Well worth it.

If you bury it, do it under a metal fence or something that won't trip a metal detector as easily.

Cosmoline it, and pack it with mags ammo, and a cleaning kit.

There was some dude on Gun Tests or some other mag who buried a Mini-14 and accoutrements then dug it up. It was in a PVC pipe, well sealed, and it looked like the day it had been buried.

Rodents will probably make light work of any plastic bag solution... once they pierce it it's no longer airtight.

I like those ammo cans. I wonder how much the shipping is.

I just ran it on 10 cans. $99 in cans, $191 in shipping for me.

And then it looks like payment is only Paypal or Venmo.  Is this site even legit?

That payment method is problematic. Probably a scam site.

I'll keep buying locally when they show up.

I'm not a fan off the off property cash. If you have to leave un an emergency you might not have a choice which way you go. Also the whole risk of being gone when you go to retrieve it.

Other thing to consider about burying near metal is utility pipes/lines. People don't generally like too dig near those unless they actually have too.

For those that don't have enough guns to or simply don't want to is a pre staged hiding spot that can be accessed with a 5-10 minute heads up to stash or retrieve it. Like dig the hole, bury a container that seals and can be opened quickly. False ceiling/attic access in the water heater closet. Mounted inside the frame under a vehicle, tractor or trailer.  Inside the walls of a detached garage or barn. In a chicken coop under wood shavings. The list is pretty expansive.

@bradpierson26

Whatever you do - do NOT use heavy grease on the BCG in long term storage!

I've told this story several times on ARFCOM, but here is goes again

MANY decades back, I was in the Texas Guard in an MP unit in Austin.  

We went out to Camp Swift nearby for weapons training & certification on "Riot Shotgun - 12 gauge".

Our Riot Shotguns back them were old (even for back in the early 90s). Cases of Remington 870s & Winchester 1200s from the 1970s.  

Anyway, as "Designated Gun Guy" NCO, I got to be Instructor so we pulled several cases out of the armory along with many cases of 12 gauge shells and headed to Camp Swift.

While going over the lesson plan for instruction for the following morning, I opened up one of the cases of 12 gauge shotguns - in this case 10 Remington 870s.

Went to work the action by pressing the release button, pulled back on the forearm and nothing moved.   Tried again.  Release button is fully "in", pull back HARD on forearm and still nothing.  Grabbed a different 870.  Exact same thing!

Opened a different case that had Winchester 1200s in it.  Picked one up, pushed the action release button and pulled back on the forearm - and still nothing.  Tried another one. Still no movement at all!

W.T.H. ? ! ? !  

Turns out some helpful "eager beaver" decades past decided to go "one better" and put USGI Rifle Grease on both the bolt lug & barrel mating surface of each shotgun before packing them away in their wooden storage cases.

Over the years that Grease had dried to a super strength Epoxy - the actions were literally glued shut.

It took much of night to let penetrating oil work to soften into that dried out grease and eventually we could "Mortar" slam them open.   Then the fun part (that was no fun at all) began.

I had to stay up all night cleaning that hard dried on grease / crap off of each shotgun so they could smoothly function on the range the following morning.

I ended up cleaning 4 entire cases (40 shotguns) we had brought - all were completely non-functional & FUBAR thanks to "Helpful Grease" becoming "Super Epoxy".

And I ended up having to fire 10 rounds (two strings of five each) out of each & every shotgun to certify as "functional and as ready to issue".

My shoulder was very sore that weekend (400 rounds of heavy 12 gauge) & I said many "unkind things" about that unknown eager beaver's parentage & origins.



The point of this story - for GOD's sake - do NOT put Heavy Grease on your AR you will be putting up in a hot dry attic.

Bigger_Hammer

This is a very real concern, it's why I put my sealed rifle inside a cheap sheet metal rifle case, just to preserve the
preserving! That attic seldom had rodents but that was an exception.

Attached File


Remoil is all I use after CLEANING my shotgun after being in the field, but I still use heavier lubricant/grease for when things go into the safe.

Same with pistols... Never put away dry.

Worked out great for me.  GTG, in my experience....not a shill.

Store extra gear at friends house.

I’ve had good results with BC Barricade.
Break-Free also makes a long-term storage product called Collector.

never crossed my mine but in for the opinions

I keep reading posts that oxygen will permeate the vacuum bag... My double sealed (inner bag) held for almost 20 years...

I stored firearms for a year + in an unheated space in Idaho.  They were fine.  Not a spot of rust

I wiped them down with Barricade, wrapped them in plastic, and--most importantly--insulated them from rapid temperature change.

I'd guess wetter environments would benefit from silica packets and vacuum seal.

Something you can retrieve in under five minutes from a concealed location outside the house. Maybe in the woods a hundred yards away etc.

This isn't your grab and go gun. That should be in a closet.

This is how you take your house back if you're forced to escape from it in a split second or you come home to find it's been occupied.

The military uses metalized Mylar bags for storing small arms. Use cardboard as a sleeve to protect the bag from the rifle.

Anyone have a link to good bags to use?

worthwhile tweak.

Someone posted PolyGunbags earlier.

https://polygunbag.com/product-category/poly-gun-bags/

You can get them on Amazon as well.

How about a big ass PVC pipe and some caps for it. Bury the sucker in the backyard with a non-descript marker.

I store my NIB M4 in a VCI gun sock inside a Case Cruzer gun case with pressure relief valve.  So far so good.

Yes, be careful about this.  
Hot attics or garages will destroy plastic bags (and other plastic containers).

Somewhere cooler or underground is probably better and more stable.

Come on, this can be easily mitigated.

Wrap it with some suitable padding.

I second this.  

One fairly common event is a house fire that destroys everything in the house.  

Off-site storage would be immune to this problem, and a few other location-dependent problems.

Airtight and dry is nice, but when you have temperature and air pressure changes, air and humidity can be pumped in and out.  

More specifically, a pressure change can bring humid air into the container, where it then condenses on the cold item and causes corrosion.

I saw a guy pull out a fine bolt action rifle that had been stored in a cloth-padded, zippered soft rifle case in his closet in Colorado Springs for years, and much to his surprise and dismay, it was horribly rusted and essentially ruined.

Don't underestimate this phenomena.   Airtight can be a big bonus.

--------------

They are a legit vendor and have been mentioned here many times. I ordered/received a bunch of stripper clips from them within the last couple months and were in much nicer condition than the lower grade rating description and pictures implied. Paid with normal CC, notice "Proceed to Checkout" in red. Also, those are huge cans and the shipping doesn't surprise me.

John Wick did this.

You’re welcome lol

THIS.  Plastic bags will not keep out water vapor.  Try using a PVC pipe with a desiccant and an oxygen absorber.

Worked for WWII firearms.

We've had some developments in the last 80 years...