Best way to store handguns mid to long term (without a safe)

Brancasterr wrote:
I don't own a gun safe and one is a bit outside of my budget for the foreseeable future.
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How many guns are we talking about? You can get a 10 gun Stack-On steel cabinet from Walmart of about $100 delivered. By the time you buy a bunch of gun socks or cheap fabric cases you'll have spent that much.

As far as preparing them for long-term storage, I have the unique experience of having developed a neurological disease that on-set suddenly and pretty much kept me from my guns for 20+ years. All guns had been thoroughly cleaned before being stored and all exposed metal surfaces (other than the portion of the barrel under than handguard on my Mini-14 and Armi-Jager AP-74) were oiled with Sears Roebuck & Co. Household oil. The portion of the two barrels under the handguards were oiled with 40 weight motor oil.
20+ years later there was no deterioration of any of the guns.

Your experience may, of course, be different from mine, but I offer up my expereince as a real-world example of long-term preservation with nothing extraordinary.
 
Stored in ac environment. Our closets have vents for heat pump intake and output. Pretty good size walk ins.
For security, a secret wall does wonders unless the perp knows about it.
Good gun safes behind secret wall and they will be around for your Grand kids.
Fire is another item expensive to deal with, for me anyway. Fireproof gun safes cost considerably more.
Insurance is expensive and you may get back their value but you will never replace them for that if the guns are quality and semi or rare.
I'm too old and broken to do what I want to and what should be done.
If you have your home built make provision , for a environmentally protected, or conditioned area safe by concealment, safe from fire and water, and safe from thives if they locate your safe storage.
A rebar reinforced, concrete or preferably triple layer brick like they use to build houses, with strong door and vented to heat pumps, filtered, and a steel door frame,set correctly with steel door and very good locks, behind a false wall . Make it big enough for all valuables and gun and hobby supplies, bathroom facilities and telephone etc.
Could even be your tornado shelter. Two access points though.
 
ALL guns including handguns have to be in a safe at all times when not used. It is an accident waiting to happen. If anything get a lock box and put a bag of rice in it until you can afford a real safe.
 
I have had great luck with Crown Royal bags. You know the purple sacks that Crown Royal comes in. I have no idea what material they are and they don't offer much in terms of protection from bangs.

My Grandpa gave me some of his old guns that had not been pulled out in at least 30 years in a closet, in those sacks and they were pristine. So that is what I use. I also don't have to spend money on gun socks then.

One of those guns is celebrating its centennial, M1917. It's in 90+% condition and people hound after me for it. If it worked for him, then it works for me. Definitely follow the grease and/or oil advice. I use oil, but if I stored long long term, it would be grease.
 
I think most of you are overthinking it and doing much more than is necessary. If a gun is kept clean and very dry, you don't need to do any more than put a light coating of whatever oil is handy on it. My oldest shotgun is 70 years old and spent most of its life sitting in a closet. I had a military gun from the 1870s and an army rifle from World War I that simply sat in my uncle's closet along with 2 40s era shotguns. They sat for decades undisturbed in a before I inherited them. They were all fine and looked like they did when they were put there. I have several rifles that have been sitting in my wormy chestnut gun cabinet since around 2000 and they still look new. My handguns from the 60s and 70s sat in my uncle and my neighbor's drawer for 20-30 years undisturbed and they still look almost new. The secret is clean and dry, especially dry.
 
Different methods for different weapons and conditions. I don't store my safe queens the same way I store my Cerakoted black guns. Some on here say "cool" place. I disagree. Heat, not cold, drives out humidity. Open a good fire rated gun safe with a good anti humidity system in it and the heat will blast you in the face. My best safe is a real safe. Its not a gun "safe." I bought it used. In its last life, It stored money. It has something like a 16 to 20 hr burn time. It is in my shop which is not climate controlled. The air inside the safe is always way hotter than the outside air, regardless of outside temperature.
 
I store all mine in a safe now, but prior to my safe I stored guns and ammo in an old refrigerator and freezer which I put locks on. just make sure you put a desiccant of some type in the fridge/freezer. I got the big ones from cabelas and then every few months depending on humidity you place them in the oven to dry them out then back into the freezer. I still use the old fridge and chest freezer to store reloading components and ammo. they are outside in an outbuilding and I've never had a problem with moisture.

v-fib
 
ALL guns including handguns have to be in a safe at all times when not used.
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If you add "at a licensed gun club" or "at the police station", then you are very "British". :rolleyes:

There is a difference between prudent advice and what comes off as making demands.

Unloaded firearms, with the ammunition stored separately is about the least likely "accident waiting to happen" that I can think of.

I don't want to come off sounding like I am arguing against the use of a safe, or lock box, or other secure storage. I'm not. What I'm against is other people, who aren't me, don't know me, or my situation demanding I meet their requirements because other people, who aren't me, and aren't in my situation have done the wrong thing, in their situation.

Living in town with your kids & teens and half the neighborhood's kids and teens rampaging through your house (mostly unsupervised) on a regular basis, is one situation.

Living miles from town, with your youngest child a staff sgt in the air force, thousands of miles away, and not even having had an adult visitor in several years is quite a different situation.

Living in town, single, in your late 50s, with the only other "people" in your house being your late mother's two cats is still another situation.

I know people in all these situations and many other different ones, as well.
Some of them have gun safes, some don't.

These people take what they believe are prudent precautions. They aren't the ones you need to worry about. The ones we need to worry about are the ones that won't listen to advice, or demands or even the law.

back on topic, there is another way to store guns long term, that absolutely protects them from rust, and that is wax. A proper application of a paste wax will seal all surfaces from contact with the air, and doesn't evaporate.

One "long term" storage I heard about was found in NY back in the 70s. A couple bought an old house to restore, and in the attic was an old trunk, which contained some Civil War era letters and the remnants of a uniform. also a rather large, and unusually heavy block of paraffin wax.

The wax block contained a pristine 1860 Colt revolver.

Maybe not the right method for your situation, but it absolutely did preserve that gun, for over a century!
 
Brancasterr said:
Hey All!

Some of you may have seen me around these forums the last few days. I just inherited a few guns from my grandfather. All much older than I am. And I'm wondering what the best method of storing them for longer intervals might be.
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Get some Johnson's Past Wax and coat the outside, oil the internals, and bore and stuff 'em in silicone treated storage socks. A dehumidified safe would be nice too. Good luck.
 
I can see owning one firearm and not having secure storage.
If you own more than one, especially high value in theft items like handguns, and no storage I disagree with your priorities.

It doesn't need to be a $5000 100 pound safe, but something that will require a few moments and making some noise instead of just walking off with it.
 
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