Posted: 7/13/2015 12:52:30 AM EDT
| Has anyone ever used an 55 gal plastic barrel with a screw on lid for a cache that they've buried? |
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Quoted:
maybe bury it upside down and the trapped air would keep the water out..... I think! Water intrusion will happen without a perfect seal -- you have several mechanisms, like diurnal pumping (temp differences between day and night will expand/contract the air inside, so it'll push air out and suck water in), barometric pressure differences, etc. At a bare minimum there will be near 100% humidity in the cache for days/weeks after rains. All is not lost, though, if you just consider the barrel mechanical protection and rely on packaging and additional containers inside the barrel for waterproofing/etc. Placing stuff in two foil laminate bags (not aluminized mylar but fully laminated foil, like MREs are packaged in), one sealed inside the other, is about as close to a hermetic seal you can get with easily accessible packaging materials. Do that with whatever you're storing, and place those sealed bags in a solid mechanical container that's crush/ animal proof and the cache will last pretty much forever. The bigger deal with a cache using a drum like that is the sheer labor of digging it in, and the fact that it's going to be much lower density than the surrounding area, so you'll almost certainly have long-term heave of the barrel unless you put a heavy rock or concrete cap on it, unless you're doing something really crazy like placing it in solid rock. |
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The bitch about such a large cache is having it rise out of the ground if there's a flood.
My caches are located in places where they're out of the 100 year flood zones, on stable public land, in locations where hobby metal detector guys aren't likely to sweep as there's been no history of human occupation of that area. There are locations where metal detector use is prohibited. An 6" or 8" diameter pipe long enough to hold what you need can be buried pretty quickly using a post hole digger. I salt the area with a few pieces of rebar and old bent nails buried below the surface for fun. Below one of them deeper is a cache. You can fit a bunch in a PVC pipe that diameter. In 15 years I've yet to lose a cache to development or weather. 
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Quoted:
The bitch about such a large cache is having it rise out of the ground if there's a flood. My caches are located in places where they're out of the 100 year flood zones, on stable public land, in locations where hobby metal detector guys aren't likely to sweep as there's been no history of human occupation of that area. There are locations where metal detector use is prohibited. An 6" or 8" diameter pipe long enough to hold what you need can be buried pretty quickly using a post hole digger. I salt the area with a few pieces of rebar and old bent nails buried below the surface for fun. Below one of them deeper is a cache. You can fit a bunch in a PVC pipe that diameter. In 15 years I've yet to lose a cache to development or weather. Just a heads up. As an avid metal detector I can tell you that even areas that are prohibited can and do still get hit pretty hard. Either from the detectorists lack of knowledge that the area is restricted or pirate hunters. Plus most states detector laws are vague and rarely enforced except on historic sites. If the area has any history of buildings or other landmarks someone will try to hunt it. I find old home sites and homesteads all the time in the woods and on old maps. I don't trespass on private land without permission but public land is always fair game. Also the better detectors can normally discriminate between different depths and metals. Depending on conditions 12+ inches of depth on larger objects isn't beyond most quality machines. And my detector can pull a coin within a 1/4" of an iron nail or other trash. Nothing is fool proof but I've seen some detectors who are almost magical in deciphering what the machine is telling them. And most of us keep pretty quiet on what we find. Of course all I ever find is just old trash. 
The thicker heavier vegetation areas are always hard to hunt so I would look for the thickest briush and tall grass as I could find if you are trying to avoid metal detectors. |
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Quoted:
Just a heads up. As an avid metal detector I can tell you that even areas that are prohibited can and do still get hit pretty hard. Either from the detectorists lack of knowledge that the area is restricted or pirate hunters. Plus most states detector laws are vague and rarely enforced except on historic sites. If the area has any history of buildings or other landmarks someone will try to hunt it. I find old home sites and homesteads all the time in the woods and on old maps. I don't trespass on private land without permission but public land is always fair game. Also the better detectors can normally discriminate between different depths and metals. Depending on conditions 12+ inches of depth on larger objects isn't beyond most quality machines. And my detector can pull a coin within a 1/4" of an iron nail or other trash. Nothing is fool proof but I've seen some detectors who are almost magical in deciphering what the machine is telling them. And most of us keep pretty quiet on what we find. Of course all I ever find is just old trash.
The thicker heavier vegetation areas are always hard to hunt so I would look for the thickest briush and tall grass as I could find if you are trying to avoid metal detectors. Quoted:
Quoted:
The bitch about such a large cache is having it rise out of the ground if there's a flood. My caches are located in places where they're out of the 100 year flood zones, on stable public land, in locations where hobby metal detector guys aren't likely to sweep as there's been no history of human occupation of that area. There are locations where metal detector use is prohibited. An 6" or 8" diameter pipe long enough to hold what you need can be buried pretty quickly using a post hole digger. I salt the area with a few pieces of rebar and old bent nails buried below the surface for fun. Below one of them deeper is a cache. You can fit a bunch in a PVC pipe that diameter. In 15 years I've yet to lose a cache to development or weather. Just a heads up. As an avid metal detector I can tell you that even areas that are prohibited can and do still get hit pretty hard. Either from the detectorists lack of knowledge that the area is restricted or pirate hunters. Plus most states detector laws are vague and rarely enforced except on historic sites. If the area has any history of buildings or other landmarks someone will try to hunt it. I find old home sites and homesteads all the time in the woods and on old maps. I don't trespass on private land without permission but public land is always fair game. Also the better detectors can normally discriminate between different depths and metals. Depending on conditions 12+ inches of depth on larger objects isn't beyond most quality machines. And my detector can pull a coin within a 1/4" of an iron nail or other trash. Nothing is fool proof but I've seen some detectors who are almost magical in deciphering what the machine is telling them. And most of us keep pretty quiet on what we find. Of course all I ever find is just old trash.
The thicker heavier vegetation areas are always hard to hunt so I would look for the thickest briush and tall grass as I could find if you are trying to avoid metal detectors. whats the max depth a average detector can find something of decent size?? example.... if the top of your barrel etc, is steel, and below 18" of dirt, would a detector find it? how deep would it need to be, to be safe from detection? |
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Quoted:
whats the max depth a average detector can find something of decent size?? example.... if the top of your barrel etc, is steel, and below 18" of dirt, would a detector find it? how deep would it need to be, to be safe from detection? Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
The bitch about such a large cache is having it rise out of the ground if there's a flood. My caches are located in places where they're out of the 100 year flood zones, on stable public land, in locations where hobby metal detector guys aren't likely to sweep as there's been no history of human occupation of that area. There are locations where metal detector use is prohibited. An 6" or 8" diameter pipe long enough to hold what you need can be buried pretty quickly using a post hole digger. I salt the area with a few pieces of rebar and old bent nails buried below the surface for fun. Below one of them deeper is a cache. You can fit a bunch in a PVC pipe that diameter. In 15 years I've yet to lose a cache to development or weather. Just a heads up. As an avid metal detector I can tell you that even areas that are prohibited can and do still get hit pretty hard. Either from the detectorists lack of knowledge that the area is restricted or pirate hunters. Plus most states detector laws are vague and rarely enforced except on historic sites. If the area has any history of buildings or other landmarks someone will try to hunt it. I find old home sites and homesteads all the time in the woods and on old maps. I don't trespass on private land without permission but public land is always fair game. Also the better detectors can normally discriminate between different depths and metals. Depending on conditions 12+ inches of depth on larger objects isn't beyond most quality machines. And my detector can pull a coin within a 1/4" of an iron nail or other trash. Nothing is fool proof but I've seen some detectors who are almost magical in deciphering what the machine is telling them. And most of us keep pretty quiet on what we find. Of course all I ever find is just old trash.
The thicker heavier vegetation areas are always hard to hunt so I would look for the thickest briush and tall grass as I could find if you are trying to avoid metal detectors. whats the max depth a average detector can find something of decent size?? example.... if the top of your barrel etc, is steel, and below 18" of dirt, would a detector find it? how deep would it need to be, to be safe from detection? There is a wide variety of answers to that. Soil composition plays a big part. Highly mineralized soil can wreak havoc on depth for some detectors. Neutral soil is easier to get good depth. A rule of thumb many use is $100 per inch of depth. So an $800 machine would be expected to be able to regularly hit small targets around 7-10" in good soil. We are talking coins, rings, or small things like that. A large metal object like an ammo can or the top of a barrel? Maybe 18+ inches with a good machine in good soil. Possibly 24" under really good conditions. There are some very high end machines (that I can't afford, $5000 and up in price) that might even beat that. The simple answer is for most areas I would bet 18-24" should keep it as safe as possible from the average metal detector. And below 24" I doubt most could be found. |
| If your compound has been targeted by whichever power is in charge, they will find your cache with either proton precession magnetometers or ground penetrating radar (GPR). Back when I was working, we found previously disturbed areas containing buried oily rags and metal anomalies that turned out to be buried drums down to 12 feet below ground surface. These surveys are not undertaken casually since they cost several thousand $$. However, the surveys may be performed in advance of industrial or public works projects if there is some suspicion of an old waste site. |