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.

Urban Survival - Radiation Protection

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received the following e-mail this morning: "Hey UrbanMan, what do you think is going on with the radiation from the Japanese nuclear sites? We're up in Washington State and have radiation alert equipment and we are monitoring the radiation levels very closely. There has been no significant rise in normal radiation levels yet. We are taking turns monitoring the levels. When do you think we should start taking Potassium Iodine? Before the radiation gets bad? or can we afford to wait until the radiation levels go up? Where should we get our source of potassium iodine? Okanogan Survivalist."

UrbanMan's reply: Potassium iodide use to block the Thyroid's collection of radioiodine and offer protection from radiation due to to nuclear accidents and emergencies, and, nuclear weapons has been approved by the FDA since 1982. The idea is to take potassium idodine in the event of an a nuclear power plant accident of nuclear strike if you are in the danger zone or located in the path of fallout.

The World Health Organization has published recommended doses of potassium iodine in milligrams per age group:

130 mgs per day for persons over 12 years old

65 mgs per day for persons 3 years to 12 years old

32 mgs per day for children 1 month to 36 months old

16 mgs per day for babies less than one month old

The apparent idea is to take potassium iodine daily, every 24 hours, until the risk of significant exposure to fallout by either inhalation or ingestion no longer exists.

Having said that, I won't be taking any potassium iodine. I have yet to figure out if I would change my mind if I was located in the normal wind patterns. I just don't know. I do know that you can buy potassium iodine over the counter at your local Walgreens or comparable pharmacy. If not, here are some sources from Amazon.

Survival Chronicles of Jim - Chapter 23 Evaluation of My Survival Preparations

I haven't written an article for UrbanSurvivalSkills.com for some time. Been too busy both with my contractor job with the government and my business, as well as contining to prep.

By far my biggest preparation is in the area of developing a source list of financial blogs, web sites, newsletters and such to keep on track of the, what I believe, it an impending economic collapse.

In fact, this past week I got pretty scared with the clamity in Japan, the news of Chinese inflation, oil prices rising as well as Gold and Silver, so concerned in fact that I went to Costco and bought a bunch more food. I think I have at least a years worth now for me and my son. Of course, I am expecting the straphangers (family and friends) that UrbanMan always warns us to expect.

Speaking of UrbanMan, I had him stop by my house to talk to me and look around so I could get an honest evaluation of my preps to date. This is what he told me:

Handgun, shotgun and Mosin-Nagant rifle are better than nothing, but I need a better long gun. UrbanMan recommended an SKS is I wanted to go cheap, or an M-4 or M-16 type rifle if I wanted to spend near $1000. When UrbanMan saw my ammo supply, he said "That's all?!,...that's all you have on hand?" I was advised to buy more .22 LR, 12 gauge and Mosin-Nagant ammunition.

I have a good supply of water. But I need to buy some 5 gallon plastic cans and store water in my garage or basement as well as continue the water delivery to maintain my purified drinking water supply.

I also have a big supply of food, but mostly pantry items. I was advised to buy some more cases of dehydrated food as well as some MainStay granola bars for emergency food when I can't cook or otherwise need something to eat during travel.

UrbanMan told me to pickup another good set of boots. He recommends a quality similar to the Danners he wears. He also told me to organize my hot weather and cold weather clothing better (I have them basically handing up in the closet. He recommended putting some in space saver bags then into military style kit bags or duffle bags,..which I don't have.

I am lacking in first aid supplies, so I am to procure more bandages, alchohol, hydrogen peroxide, bacitracin ointment, sterile eyewash, self sticking ace wraps, as well as some common medications (asprin, cold meds and such). UrbanMan actually wrote out a list which I don't have in front of me at this moment.

I have been avidly buying silver. But since I can afford more, UrbanMan told me to buy more

The last things UrbanMan told me was to get my outside basement door replaced and with better locks as well as get a battery powered radio shack anti-intrusion device for it; buy a solar powered motion detector light for the part of the house; buy some more re-chargeable batteries; and, get ready to plant my spring garden.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with what I've done so far. UrbanMan said "Go ahead and pat yourself on the back,...one time,....then get back to work prepping - he believes it only a short matter of time before the collapse as well.

Urban Survival Planning - U.S. Dollar Collapse At Any Time

U.S. Dollar Collapse Could Occur at Any Time

Very good and succint article on the impending collapse from Inflation.us
You should bookmark and add to your sources of collapse indicators.

Highlights from the article is below; please go to http://www.inflation.us/ to read the article in it's entirety.

China this morning reported 4.9% price inflation for the month of February

China was at least smart enough to raise interest rates last month by 25 basis points to 6.06%, while the Federal Reserve continues to leave interest rates near zero with there being absolutely no talk of the Federal Reserve ever raising interest rates again.

China will be successful at containing inflation, as U.S. inflation spirals out of control and becomes the greatest economic crisis in American history.

China this week reported a $7.3 billion trade deficit for the month of February, its largest trade deficit in seven years, which surprised many global economists. NIA believes China 's trade deficit is temporary and that China will quickly return to having a trade surplus.

The Federal Reserve's QE2 along with China 's destructive monetary policies, which artificially devalue the yuan, have led to a massive rise in China 's raw material costs this year. NIA believes that in the upcoming months, Chinese manufacturers will raise the prices of their products that get exported to the U.S., to counteract rising commodity prices.

With most products used by Americans today having been manufactured in China , this will mean Americans will soon see massive price inflation in just about all consumer goods they use. NIA projects that by the end of 2011, we will begin to see the U.S. CPI increase by 4.9% or higher on a year-over-year basis, with real U.S. price inflation rising north of 10%.

The mainstream media is proclaiming that China 's trade deficit will silence calls for the Chinese to allow their currency to strengthen against the U.S. dollar. The fact is, China 's government has for long been making the major mistake of printing too many yuan in order to artificially prop up the U.S. dollar. Their fear was, if the U.S. dollar was allowed to decline too rapidly, prices of Chinese goods would rise in terms of U.S. dollars and Americans would no longer afford to import them.

The truth is, if China allowed the yuan to strengthen, the Chinese would have enjoyed a much higher standard of living. Sure, prices would rise in dollars and Americans would import less, but the Chinese would have the ability to consume more of their own products. Now, as a result of China expanding its own money supply in order to keep the yuan pegged to the U.S. dollar, Americans will be forced to pay a much higher price for Chinese goods.

The U.S. government has been successful at temporarily paying off Americans into not rioting in the streets like in Arab nations. It was just announced a few days ago that the number of Americans on food stamps in the month of December of 2010 was a record 44,082,324, up 13.1% from one year earlier and 1.1% from one month earlier. That is more than 14% of the total U.S. population!

Combined with President Obama extending unemployment benefits up to 99 weeks, American citizens are too busy and distracted playing with their iPad 2s and gossiping on Twitter about Charlie Sheen, to have any time to protest in Washington, DC.

NIA believes the U.S. government's entitlement spending is currently having the unintended consequence of making Americans dependent on government. It is like when you take wild animals into captivity and you feed them, teach them to do tricks and take care of them for a period of many years; if you just dump them one day back into the wild, it will be very difficult for them to survive. Americans who have become dependent on unemployment checks and food stamps will likely soon abruptly find out that they must begin to fend for themselves without any help from the government. The result will be many Americans turning into wild animals and becoming so desperate that they will have to rob and burglarize their fellow neighbors who were smart enough to prepare, or else they will risk starving to death.

This is what UrbanSurivalSkills has been saying, that we will have 80-120 million people that can't feed themseleves - this is a recipe for anarchy.

The U.S. budget deficit in the month of February reached a record $222.5 billion or $2.67 trillion on an annualized basis. With the Federal Reserve now monetizing our debt in full swing, a complete and total loss of confidence in the U.S. dollar could be imminent.

Just like how nobody in the mainstream media was calling for the collapse of Egypt's government a few months ago, almost nobody in the media believes a collapse of the U.S. dollar could possibly take place anytime soon.

NIA members are educated enough to see that the writing is on the wall. The Federal Reserve can deny all it wants that the U.S. is experiencing inflation, but with the cost to print a single U.S. dollar paper note rising by 50% since 2008, massive inflation is here right under Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's nose.

So few Americans are presently preparing for hyperinflation that if hyperinflation broke out today, approximately 90% of Americans won't have the means to put food on the table or put fuel in their automobiles. During the upcoming hyperinflationary crisis, food stamps will no longer have any value at all and all U.S. entitlement programs will come to a complete halt. Americans will take to the streets like the world has never seen before.

The biggest question NIA has today is, will the U.S. government resort to firing at its own citizens?, if major riots take place in Washington, DC. On Thursday, police in Saudi Arabia shot and wounded three protesters. The price of oil rose by a few dollars per barrel as soon as this news hit the wire, which shows just how nervous the world's financial markets have become in recent weeks and the Dow Jones has declined significantly in recent days.

From April to August of 2010, the last time the Federal Reserve allowed its balance sheet to shrink, the Dow Jones fell by over 1,000 points. If we see a major sell off in stocks, we could see gold and silver rise along with the Dow Jones falling.

NIA believes the worst decision any American can make is to sell their gold and silver and go long U.S. dollars, hoping to buy their precious metals back at a lower price in the future.Amen to that!


You can become a member of NIA for free at: http://inflation.us/