Quoted:
Quoted:
From time to time the topic comes up and while I don't see why I'd ever actually bury any of the things I've worked so hard to buy, I'd like to refresh myself on the basic rules of how to do it so that if/when you recover your items they are in good condition and serviceable.
1.) I'm assuming the container must be air tight. Water tight is is what you need.
2.) I'm assuming that the container must be at least 3' below ground to stay below the frostline. Depends on your area. Such as a vertical PVC pipe, only the bottom needs to be below frost line.
3.) I'm assuming that you'd want the smallest container possible to hold whatever you wanted to minimize empty air space.
4.) I'm assuming that you'd want to put a coat of oil on anything metal you'd be burying. More like a grease, or cosmoline, or such. Oil will run off. Of course, you could fill the PVC pipe with oil and dump the metal <insert metal whatever here> in.
5.) I'm assuming that you'd want to have O2 absorbers in the case for added protection. Moisture absorbency is what you need. O2 of course won't hurt.
While I don't see myself doing this I think it's an interesting topic and I like learning about new things. Is there anything you see that's blatantly wrong on this list, or anything that I should add?
And OPSEC.
As stated a water tight/proof container. You can even run a bead of silicone to help seal off lids/ends if it doesn't have a rubber gasket. OPSEC as always, but depending on your family group situation more then one person should know the locations. Maps are great but physically showing someone where it is and the land marks helps too.
I "read" somewhere, and for the life of me I can't remember where, maybe it was a fiction novel.....but these people didn't want to leave all their supplies laying out in the open on there BOL (for multiple reasons) so they started burying supplies in strategic locations.
They said burying food grade 55 gal barrels (the ones with the screw tops) into the ground worked quite well. Mind you they had a tractor with backhoe which made short work of digging the a hole large enough to fit a 55 gallon drum........
If I remember correctly.....they checked the contents of the barrels a little over the one year mark and they were the same as the day they put in the ground. No noticeable rusting on any of the ammo cans or #10 cans. None of the ammo cans were pre-treated before burying.
Leaving some sort of tool in the 55 gal drum that lets you reach in to grab what ever it is you have stored inside is a sound idea if you go that route. Just in case you don't have the time or equipment to dig the actual 55 gal drum up and you just uncover the lid to access the contents (which is what they suggested). They also did not use any moisture absorbency or O2.
I think they even had a few guns stashed down there that made it one year without any issue. They just cleaned the weapons and applied a light coat of gun grease, wrapped them in a rag and vacuum sealed them (rag stopped the weapon from poking holes in the bag). Handguns where then placed into a ammo can, shotgun and KISS AR (AR was broken down) where just placed into the barrel.
I think this summer might mark the two year mark.....they did say they where going to unearth another one to see how everything held up at the two year mark.
I would also add that some people here have suggested salting the area you plan to use. Buy salting I mean either burying small metal parts around at random at different depths, sprinkling steel casings at random all with the intent of giving false hits to someone running a metal detector. And did anyone mention OPSEC?
Some evil bastard even suggested mixing gravel with the dirt above the buried drum to make digging by hand with a shovel tedious work......probably a good idea for that guy not to be present when you uncover the drum with a shovel
Hope that helps but remember, this is all something I vaguely remember reading about somewhere.......and I am just some guy on the internet.
Oh and OPSEC.
BT