How old is the home? I would be worried about a house fire. Maybe unlikely but it would be catastrophic if they were in the crawl space
Moving out of country, want to bury my guns in earth
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How old is the home? I would be worried about a house fire. Maybe unlikely but it would be catastrophic if they were in the crawl space
Mausermolt
New member
ive got a friend that buried a SKS next to "a big rock next to a small dirt road off of (insert random named road) about 3 miles ....blah blah blah" about 20 years ago. cold war paranoia was his reasoning. guess what happened about 10 years ago? big wildfire came through the area and a dozer moved the boulder into a new unknown area. and now there is a SKS in some PVC and 500 rnds of ammo laying in the dirt somewhere near Vale, Oregon. probably never to be discovered again. unless you know FOR SURE that the property you bury the guns will not be disturbed and you have precise directions to find them again dont bury them. but if you do: grease heavily and store in sealed PVC should be just fine
. Funny storyNo one here seems to understand how moisture and condensation work.
Here == a little science experiment:
Get a large jar. Dry it completely inside. Toss in a paper towel. Screw the lid on tightly, air tight. Now, put it in your fridge for a few days. After a few days, you'll see condensation inside the jar. The paper towel will be damp.
That's just a refrigerator. Buried in dirt is a whole lot worse. I have a colleague who is a coroner. From time to time they "disinter" a burial. The caskets that are air tight grow all sorts of stuff inside them. Sure, there's a dead body, but you put anything in the ground, and it will grow mold, fungus, bacteria, moss, algae -- get damp, rust, corrode.
You don't have a huge arsenal. Most respectable gun shops will store your stuff for you -- climate controlled, secured, with a clear, contractual procedure for reclaiming your goods.
Or you could cash out -- It's a seller's market.
Burial in the ground sounds like some sort of whack job survivalists balderdash you hear about on Glenn Beck.
Here == a little science experiment:
Get a large jar. Dry it completely inside. Toss in a paper towel. Screw the lid on tightly, air tight. Now, put it in your fridge for a few days. After a few days, you'll see condensation inside the jar. The paper towel will be damp.
That's just a refrigerator. Buried in dirt is a whole lot worse. I have a colleague who is a coroner. From time to time they "disinter" a burial. The caskets that are air tight grow all sorts of stuff inside them. Sure, there's a dead body, but you put anything in the ground, and it will grow mold, fungus, bacteria, moss, algae -- get damp, rust, corrode.
You don't have a huge arsenal. Most respectable gun shops will store your stuff for you -- climate controlled, secured, with a clear, contractual procedure for reclaiming your goods.
Or you could cash out -- It's a seller's market.
Burial in the ground sounds like some sort of whack job survivalists balderdash you hear about on Glenn Beck.
Sell
Guns are objects. Tools if you will. They are replaceable. If you forsee yourself being away from them for that length of time, you need to be certain of your plan. As a gun owner, you have a responsibility to take reasonable precaution that your guns are safe against unauthorized use. Burying them leaves them for the first person with a metal detector/major catastrophe/new Walmart (possibly redundent, but anyways). Leaving them with friends/family does little, especially from what you have mentioned about your family. Hiding them does nothing, especially if your parents sell their home/have "inquisitive" guests. Selling your guns, and putting the money in a savings account allows you to gain interest on your money, so you can buy a new pistol/rifle when you return. Unless one of them is a family heirloom, (of which I have a few, for example) then you best bet is to sell. Sorry to jump on the bandwagon, but that may be your best advice.
Guns are objects. Tools if you will. They are replaceable. If you forsee yourself being away from them for that length of time, you need to be certain of your plan. As a gun owner, you have a responsibility to take reasonable precaution that your guns are safe against unauthorized use. Burying them leaves them for the first person with a metal detector/major catastrophe/new Walmart (possibly redundent, but anyways). Leaving them with friends/family does little, especially from what you have mentioned about your family. Hiding them does nothing, especially if your parents sell their home/have "inquisitive" guests. Selling your guns, and putting the money in a savings account allows you to gain interest on your money, so you can buy a new pistol/rifle when you return. Unless one of them is a family heirloom, (of which I have a few, for example) then you best bet is to sell. Sorry to jump on the bandwagon, but that may be your best advice.
That is the one place surely to be dug around. Cemetarys are the one place new holes are always needed. Now a family cemetary you own a plot at maybe.
Another tip we live in the era of GPS you could record the location to within feet and even if the local changes you can still find the spot.
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Willie Sutton
Moderator
"Here == a little science experiment: Get a large jar. Dry it completely inside. Toss in a paper towel. Screw the lid on tightly, air tight. Now, put it in your fridge for a few days. After a few days, you'll see condensation inside the jar. The paper towel will be damp."
Sort of like the science experiment where you put a box with rags and a handfull of cat food in a barn, and when you open it there are mice inside?
In your "experiment" above, one of two things is true:
(1): Nothing is there that was not there before, it's simply redistributed.
or
(2) The jar leaked and allowed something else to enter.
You cannot seal a container and "grow water" from air. But your point is made, which is that the air inside the jar contains water when sealed in the form of water vapor, and that water can be condensed out to liquid water with a temperature change. Naturally if you had done the same experiment in the Mojave Desert, where the humdity of the atmospheric air that you seal into the jar is near zero, you would be hard pressed to duplicate it.
Lesson #1: If you are going to seal something in a jar, seal it with as dry a gas as possible, and toss in a dessicant bag to keep that water someplace away from the other goodies in the jar.
Observation from fact: I have a friend who owns an aircraft salvage yard. Out in the yard is a pile of what look like soup cans. All of them are from the 1940's. Contained within each one is ONE small Lockheed aircraft part for a P-38. One small spherical rod end bearing, one small rubber seal, one small "anything". The labels are all long gone and when we are bored we will grab one, open it up, and wonder at the quality of the object and the fact that it looks brand new. Good packaging is the key.
Now then:
IF you wanted to bury objects, and I am not saying that you should:
1: Prepare the objects themselves, IE: coat the metal with a thin layer of spray-on preservative oil, such as LPS-3. You want a waxy coating that will not move under the pull of gravity once dried.
2: Place the objects into bags that are then vacuum-sealed. All you need for a rifle or shotgun length object is a seal-a-meal vacuum bagger from Walmart and a roll of the self-cut tubing that you use to make your own bags. Seal one end, slide the object into the other end, add a dessicant bag to absorb the small amount of water vapor that will remain in the (little) air that will remain, vacuum tight, and seal the other end.
This is exactly how I pack many steel objects that I store on my boat (tools, spare parts, etc), and mimics military long-term storage procedures. The military would use foil lined vacuum bags, but the other processes are identical. In VERY missiion critical stuff the inside of the bag is inerted with dry nitrogen. No oxygen = no oxidation. That's probably a bit of overkill here.
At this point the object inside will look the same in 1000 years *if the bag remains intact*.
So: Keep the bag intact.
(1): Protect it from Ultraviolet Light.
(2): Protect it mechanically.
For direct burial:
Place the vacuum-bagged goods into a second rigid barrier tube:
PVC Pipe lengths capped on each end, are ideal. You can either simply glue caps on both ends, or glue a cap on one end and a cleanout fitting on the other end. Diameters can be varied according to what you need to preserve. Never put all of your eggs in one basket: If a tube is damaged you do not want to lose everything. Distribute your objects into correct sized containers and deal with each one individually. Once again, this is a way that have stored things on my boat for years, and it works in direct contact with water.
Rifles and Shotguns should be disassembled for size reasons as well as keeping wooden stocks away from metal. A bolt action rifle action and barrel can fit into a pretty small diameter tube. Stocks are fit and try into larger diameter PVC. Once objects are into the tubes you can "pour and shake" ammunition into all of the spaces around them to completely fill the tubes. Less air = less condensation from the trapped air so use ammunition (or marbles, or whatever) to fill up the voids. Always place large dessicant packs into both ends of the tubes. Remember that these are to dessicate the trapped air, not to deal with any leakage. Leakage must be zero. Glued on PVC end-caps are the gold standard for that.
To summarize:
Place a preserved object into the smallest volume of dry air, seal it in, and protect it mechanically.
Oiled and vacuum-bagged objects placed into dessicant-pack protected glued PVC tubes are going to survive for longer than any of us will be alive.
I have to say that my vacuum-bagger is one of the most useful tools I own. Living on a boat, I bag everything: spark plugs, tools, rice, sugar, ammunition, even my winter clothes when we switch to summer climates. Even back home I use them to segrergate and contain all sorts of things in the shop and in the kitchen. Buy one and see.
Guns for the OP? Personally, I would sell them and buy new ones when I came back.
Willie
.
Sort of like the science experiment where you put a box with rags and a handfull of cat food in a barn, and when you open it there are mice inside?
In your "experiment" above, one of two things is true:
(1): Nothing is there that was not there before, it's simply redistributed.
or
(2) The jar leaked and allowed something else to enter.
You cannot seal a container and "grow water" from air. But your point is made, which is that the air inside the jar contains water when sealed in the form of water vapor, and that water can be condensed out to liquid water with a temperature change. Naturally if you had done the same experiment in the Mojave Desert, where the humdity of the atmospheric air that you seal into the jar is near zero, you would be hard pressed to duplicate it.
Lesson #1: If you are going to seal something in a jar, seal it with as dry a gas as possible, and toss in a dessicant bag to keep that water someplace away from the other goodies in the jar.
Observation from fact: I have a friend who owns an aircraft salvage yard. Out in the yard is a pile of what look like soup cans. All of them are from the 1940's. Contained within each one is ONE small Lockheed aircraft part for a P-38. One small spherical rod end bearing, one small rubber seal, one small "anything". The labels are all long gone and when we are bored we will grab one, open it up, and wonder at the quality of the object and the fact that it looks brand new. Good packaging is the key.
Now then:
IF you wanted to bury objects, and I am not saying that you should:
1: Prepare the objects themselves, IE: coat the metal with a thin layer of spray-on preservative oil, such as LPS-3. You want a waxy coating that will not move under the pull of gravity once dried.
2: Place the objects into bags that are then vacuum-sealed. All you need for a rifle or shotgun length object is a seal-a-meal vacuum bagger from Walmart and a roll of the self-cut tubing that you use to make your own bags. Seal one end, slide the object into the other end, add a dessicant bag to absorb the small amount of water vapor that will remain in the (little) air that will remain, vacuum tight, and seal the other end.
This is exactly how I pack many steel objects that I store on my boat (tools, spare parts, etc), and mimics military long-term storage procedures. The military would use foil lined vacuum bags, but the other processes are identical. In VERY missiion critical stuff the inside of the bag is inerted with dry nitrogen. No oxygen = no oxidation. That's probably a bit of overkill here.
At this point the object inside will look the same in 1000 years *if the bag remains intact*.
So: Keep the bag intact.
(1): Protect it from Ultraviolet Light.
(2): Protect it mechanically.
For direct burial:
Place the vacuum-bagged goods into a second rigid barrier tube:
PVC Pipe lengths capped on each end, are ideal. You can either simply glue caps on both ends, or glue a cap on one end and a cleanout fitting on the other end. Diameters can be varied according to what you need to preserve. Never put all of your eggs in one basket: If a tube is damaged you do not want to lose everything. Distribute your objects into correct sized containers and deal with each one individually. Once again, this is a way that have stored things on my boat for years, and it works in direct contact with water.
Rifles and Shotguns should be disassembled for size reasons as well as keeping wooden stocks away from metal. A bolt action rifle action and barrel can fit into a pretty small diameter tube. Stocks are fit and try into larger diameter PVC. Once objects are into the tubes you can "pour and shake" ammunition into all of the spaces around them to completely fill the tubes. Less air = less condensation from the trapped air so use ammunition (or marbles, or whatever) to fill up the voids. Always place large dessicant packs into both ends of the tubes. Remember that these are to dessicate the trapped air, not to deal with any leakage. Leakage must be zero. Glued on PVC end-caps are the gold standard for that.
To summarize:
Place a preserved object into the smallest volume of dry air, seal it in, and protect it mechanically.
Oiled and vacuum-bagged objects placed into dessicant-pack protected glued PVC tubes are going to survive for longer than any of us will be alive.
I have to say that my vacuum-bagger is one of the most useful tools I own. Living on a boat, I bag everything: spark plugs, tools, rice, sugar, ammunition, even my winter clothes when we switch to summer climates. Even back home I use them to segrergate and contain all sorts of things in the shop and in the kitchen. Buy one and see.
Guns for the OP? Personally, I would sell them and buy new ones when I came back.
Willie
.
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Its not food and vacuum sealing is not the way to go... if it leaks it will draw moisture in from the very humid under-ground environment.
A positive-pressure case is the way to go if you can find one large enough.
I'd probably keep it simple and just use this Pelican case and wrap it up in a couple of those real thick contractor-grade trash bags from Home Depot.
I'd also put each gun in its own bag (freezer zip-locks for the pistols) after oiling/greasing them up real good.
Lastly, scatter a few of those little moisture absorbing silica bags around, especially between the case and its exterior bags, including a few in each pistol bag, try to keep them out of the oil if possible.
Keep the oil/grease away from the foam in the case, they dont always get along well.
That should easily protect your stuff for 5-10 years if you dont miss oiling any spots and dont touch it with your bare hands when you bag it.
Going to Brazil?
A positive-pressure case is the way to go if you can find one large enough.
I'd probably keep it simple and just use this Pelican case and wrap it up in a couple of those real thick contractor-grade trash bags from Home Depot.
I'd also put each gun in its own bag (freezer zip-locks for the pistols) after oiling/greasing them up real good.
Lastly, scatter a few of those little moisture absorbing silica bags around, especially between the case and its exterior bags, including a few in each pistol bag, try to keep them out of the oil if possible.
Keep the oil/grease away from the foam in the case, they dont always get along well.
That should easily protect your stuff for 5-10 years if you dont miss oiling any spots and dont touch it with your bare hands when you bag it.
Going to Brazil?
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FoghornLeghorn
New member
This is a joke, right? Surely nobody is buying this?
buck460XVR
New member
Hard to believe a man in his late twenties does not have family or one friend that he cannot trust with a few ordinary firearms and a small amount of ammo for a short period of time. If that is truly the case, unless the guns themselves have been obtained illegally or the OP is prohibited from possessing them in the first place, there is nuttin' there that cannot be easily replaced upon returning home. My advice would be to sell now while demand and prices are high. Odds are, in a year when you return home the frenzy will be over and you can replace all of what you had for less or equal monies.
Willie Sutton
Moderator
Its not food and vacuum sealing is not the way to go... if it leaks it will draw moisture in from the very humid under-ground environment.
That's not too likely if it's also sealed in a PVC tube (my suggested method).
Repeated again:
You use a condensation barrier liner with included dessicant packs, in the form of a vacuum bag
AND
You then enclose that in a second barrier case such as a PVC tube with sealed ends.
This is how we made survival caches for remote islands on the Antarctic Coast where I ran small boats for the US Antarctic Program for a year. One of my jobs was to install and service survival caches that were distributed on all of the local-areas islands, so if one of the Zodiac boats was stranded there due to sea ice conditions or mechanical problems that there would be (sleeping bags, food, tentage, fuel, flares, etc). The vacuum-bag within a PVC tube method was perfect. We had survival gear out there that had been there for 15 years and was in perfect shape. This was in an area of constant freeze-thaw for months, and nothing ever was damaged. Many times the caches were water soaked and the gear was dry and secure. Once I found that a cachement had been selected as a wallowing-spot by a group of Elephant Seals, and the PVC was under literally a foot of water and a foot of Elephant Seal... "waste" that was laying in a hollow depression where they had wallowed for months, digging out a hole 10 yards across and three feet deep that ended up as a depression on the beach filled with.... seal feces and urine and salt water. The gear was fine.
I think the smell has finally washed off....
I speak from practical experience, not supposition.
Now:
I use Pelican cases daily, and the largest ones are not suitable for direct burial. The sides flex when weight is put on them for long periods of time, and after a while the seal will be lost. We have had this happen a number of times with our gear on the boat. They are "waterproof"... but not suitable for direct burial.
Willie
.
That's not too likely if it's also sealed in a PVC tube (my suggested method).
Repeated again:
You use a condensation barrier liner with included dessicant packs, in the form of a vacuum bag
AND
You then enclose that in a second barrier case such as a PVC tube with sealed ends.
This is how we made survival caches for remote islands on the Antarctic Coast where I ran small boats for the US Antarctic Program for a year. One of my jobs was to install and service survival caches that were distributed on all of the local-areas islands, so if one of the Zodiac boats was stranded there due to sea ice conditions or mechanical problems that there would be (sleeping bags, food, tentage, fuel, flares, etc). The vacuum-bag within a PVC tube method was perfect. We had survival gear out there that had been there for 15 years and was in perfect shape. This was in an area of constant freeze-thaw for months, and nothing ever was damaged. Many times the caches were water soaked and the gear was dry and secure. Once I found that a cachement had been selected as a wallowing-spot by a group of Elephant Seals, and the PVC was under literally a foot of water and a foot of Elephant Seal... "waste" that was laying in a hollow depression where they had wallowed for months, digging out a hole 10 yards across and three feet deep that ended up as a depression on the beach filled with.... seal feces and urine and salt water. The gear was fine.
I think the smell has finally washed off....
I speak from practical experience, not supposition.
Now:
I use Pelican cases daily, and the largest ones are not suitable for direct burial. The sides flex when weight is put on them for long periods of time, and after a while the seal will be lost. We have had this happen a number of times with our gear on the boat. They are "waterproof"... but not suitable for direct burial.
Willie
.
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Given that the OP is in fact sincere.
That on return it may be illegal or prohibitively expensive to purchase new guns.
That he in fact doesn't have anyone he wants to trust with them.
And if he actually lives in the country well outside city limits.
His guns will be perfectly safe if buried properly and as long as he maintains periodic contact with his folks and they know, like he said, the guns are buried out there. They can tell him if something is going to change, and he can in turn tell them how to go get them.
That being said, handguns fit just fine in safety deposit boxes. Long guns can be entrusted to family members spread around some. Face it, each one is an opportunity to see just how trustworthy someone truly is.
Think of the pleasure of returning and finding that your brother actually did hang onto your AR and it's just the way you left it. How much is it worth to find this out ?
The brother is an example .... he might not be the best to hold onto your prized AR
That on return it may be illegal or prohibitively expensive to purchase new guns.
That he in fact doesn't have anyone he wants to trust with them.
And if he actually lives in the country well outside city limits.
His guns will be perfectly safe if buried properly and as long as he maintains periodic contact with his folks and they know, like he said, the guns are buried out there. They can tell him if something is going to change, and he can in turn tell them how to go get them.
That being said, handguns fit just fine in safety deposit boxes. Long guns can be entrusted to family members spread around some. Face it, each one is an opportunity to see just how trustworthy someone truly is.
Think of the pleasure of returning and finding that your brother actually did hang onto your AR and it's just the way you left it. How much is it worth to find this out ?
The brother is an example .... he might not be the best to hold onto your prized AR
Burying them would be my last resort...
Assuming the OP is sincere and this is not a joke (going to South America to reconnect with his roots - Portugal is located in Europe last time I checked a globe, and yes I am aware of the huge Portuguese population in Brazil), burying them would be my last resort.
As others have mentioned, even if entrusting someone to hold them while you are gone is not an option, there are rather inexpensive long-term storage facilities out there. Some guns shops also offer storage of stuff, or safety deposit boxes would work as well.
If you do bury them, you better be 100% sure of the location (GPS coordinates, not landmarks) as well as the state of the land while you are away since you do not own the land.
Assuming the OP is sincere and this is not a joke (going to South America to reconnect with his roots - Portugal is located in Europe last time I checked a globe, and yes I am aware of the huge Portuguese population in Brazil), burying them would be my last resort.
As others have mentioned, even if entrusting someone to hold them while you are gone is not an option, there are rather inexpensive long-term storage facilities out there. Some guns shops also offer storage of stuff, or safety deposit boxes would work as well.
If you do bury them, you better be 100% sure of the location (GPS coordinates, not landmarks) as well as the state of the land while you are away since you do not own the land.
I'm surprised nobody has referenced this....
Selling them and buying new when he returns assumes that such things can be bought when he returns. That is entirely in the realm of possibility, the way things are going at the present time: The Boy Scouts of America can't seem to buy .22lr ..... nor can I, for that matter.
They are his guns and ammo. If he wishes to burry them to recover them at a later date, here's how:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/wood115.html
Were I him, I'd use something really permanent as a marker, though. ....and GPS is definitely NOT permanent*. Even compass bearings are not truly permanent- the earth's magnetic field fluctuates over time, causing declination constants to change......
*Were "I" another country or terrorist organization bent on attacking the US, the GPS system would be my first target...... the US .mil is not very big these days, just very powerful due tech-heavy "force multipliers"..... If the CONUS lost GPS and the electrical grid, both very fragile systems, even a medium sized third world army would do us severe, probably irrepairable damage if they could get here.
Selling them and buying new when he returns assumes that such things can be bought when he returns. That is entirely in the realm of possibility, the way things are going at the present time: The Boy Scouts of America can't seem to buy .22lr ..... nor can I, for that matter.
They are his guns and ammo. If he wishes to burry them to recover them at a later date, here's how:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/wood115.html
Were I him, I'd use something really permanent as a marker, though. ....and GPS is definitely NOT permanent*. Even compass bearings are not truly permanent- the earth's magnetic field fluctuates over time, causing declination constants to change......
*Were "I" another country or terrorist organization bent on attacking the US, the GPS system would be my first target...... the US .mil is not very big these days, just very powerful due tech-heavy "force multipliers"..... If the CONUS lost GPS and the electrical grid, both very fragile systems, even a medium sized third world army would do us severe, probably irrepairable damage if they could get here.
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BigD_in_FL
Moderator
You can take your guns with you to most countries in Central and South America - you might want to look into that; otherwise sell them, take the money and enjoy your new life
Willie Sutton
Moderator
They are his guns and ammo. If he wishes to bury them to recover them at a later date, here's how: http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/wood115.html Were I him, I'd use something really permanent as a marker, though. ....and GPS is definitely NOT permanent*. Even compass bearings are not truly permanent- the earth's magnetic field fluctuates over time, causing declination constants to change......
Very nice practical test-point!
Can't help but notice it mirrors what I wrote before, with no knowlage of this article.
Willie
.
Very nice practical test-point!
Can't help but notice it mirrors what I wrote before, with no knowlage of this article.
Willie
.
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