Survival Planning - Caching Firearms and Ammunition

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received the following question: "Any information on how to package firearms inside the PVC pipes to maintain them as ideally as possible while emplaced?"

The dangers to firearms emplaced in a below ground cache are water leakage, humidity and oxidation. You would deal with this by oiling your firearms, sealing in a plastic water proof/air proof bag then into a waterproof container such as PVC pipe.

I would not slather your gun with oil. With a clean gun, I would run an oily patch through the bore then coat all metal parts with a light coat of oil. You can spend alot of money on gun oils and can use your brand of choice,...however I particularly like Snake Oil, Rem Oil, FP10, and the RIG line of oils as well as have used common 3 in 1 oil quite a bit of the time.

I have wrapped firearms in rags and sheets then wrapped with plastic bags, then placed in wooden boxes for below ground caches without any surface damage to the firearm, but a better technique would be to place the gun in a plastic bag and vacuum pack to remove all the air. The commercial available Space Bag with the one way valve to use a vacuum cleaner work well. I guess you could also use mylar bags and oxygen absorber as well or even the food saver bags if you could disassemble your firearm to a small enough package.

I know someone who has cached guns without vacuum packing, he swears by it and uses MIL spec desiccant bags from ULINE. I think you could get the same effect using commercial dehumidifers available at gun shops for use in gun safes. I prefer the vacuum packing to remove all the oxygen myself.

If you really want to be anal about it, you can wear rubber gloves so you will not leave a moisture laden fingerprint for rust to gain a foothold.

It would be a good idea to seal the PVC pipe with PVC sealant or use rubber cement. I would lay a seal of rubber cement around the end of the pipe and coat the inside of the cap. You can also run a bead of silicon around the lip of the cap once seated onto the pipe.

If you are caching survival firearms then you are probably also caching ammunition. This requires as much, or more care. Vacuum packing ammunition would be a good idea. Commercial ammunition does not have the bullet or primer sealant that military ammunition has. You can do it yourself with clear fingernail polish - a thin coat on the primer and around the bullet where it seats into the case mouth. I have not fired much field expedient sealed ammunition, but would imagine the fingernail polish could gum up your receiver and barrel. Really not necessary if you prepare the ammunition. If you are using a water/air proof container then the big threats would be temperature extremes. If you bury it deep enough, you can reduce the temperature extremes that will be on the surface of the ground.

I have recovered ammunition that was similarly prepared and cached underground for up to 24 months. It worked fine. I have also kept two type of commercial handgun ammunition (.357 Magnum and .40 S&W) in a steel container for six years and shot some if it every six months or so to test it. After 6 years in a steel container with the temperature and humidity changes, we started to experience a 1 - 3 % fail rate for primer to ignite....that 1 to 3 rounds per hundred. Small percent but not good.

Good luck on your cache. I would also put a cleaning kit in each firearms cache as well.

For your cache report consider emplacing and taking a geographic coordinate with a GPS of exactly where you emplaced it,.... but better yet if you also note a intermediate reference then a final reference point from to measure direction in magnetic degrees and a distance to the cache.

If you write these cache report down, then you can encode them or use a number substitution method in the grid coordinate. You an also include the type of recovery equipment necessary such as shovel, probing stick (gun cleaning rods work well for this), and tape measure.

As you emplace the cache, use ponchos or plastic to separate the layers of dirt, so you can cover up the cache and sterilize as close to as natural as before.

Good luck with your caches. They are certainly a good idea, especially in support of your Bug Out Plan.