Storing handgun ammo in backyard shed?

Question...

Just out of curiosity, does your question have anything to do with your wife "not wanting ammunition in the house"? My "pseudo-spousal unit" made that comment once and I asked her if the house was one fire what exactly she thought would happen to the 10 gallons of gasoline in the garage? The propane tanks on the deck? Or the 217 bottles of nail polish remover on her sink? ;-)
 
Moisture and humidity are the enemies of ammo storage. Ideally ammo should be stored in an environmentally controlled area. Unless you are talking about .22 ammo, several thousand rounds could represent a substantial investment.

If I were to store my ammo in an outdoor shed, I would consider air conditioning the shed so as to control the temperature and humidity problem and I would probably make sure that A/C unit had a heat pump for cold weather.

As a point of interest, I have over 25,000 rounds of ammo which I store indoors in an area of my house. That area has a constant temperature and humidity all year. The ammo is in its original boxes and cartons. I try to shoot the oldest stuff first and over the years have never had a problem that was related to storage. We are non-smokers and we do allow our smoking friends to light up in the house. Also the area where the ammo is, is far enough away from the kitchen so that if a kitchen fire should break out, the fire dept. could be here in enough time before the fire could spread to the other areas of the house. The fire dept is less than 3 miles away.
 
I think a gun safe with a fire rating would answer your concerns about storing inside the home. Outside in the shed would likely work short-term but I don't think it is a good long-term solution. Good luck.
 
The biggest problem is probably moisture.

Sealing up the ammo is fine. Sealing it up in humid air is a problem. You are going to need to get some sort of desiccant packs to keep the air dry.

I don't know what kind of pests you have, but it would also be a good idea to take measures to make it unattractive to them. It would be a shame to go out to the shed only to find a shredded cardboard rat's nest and urine soaked ammo in your Rubbermaid container.

Speaking of pests, it would also be a good idea to put a lock on the shed to keep neighborhood kids out or anyone else who shouldn't be in there.
 
"A case or two of 1000 rounds" isn't that much ammo. I have 10,000 rounds in a safe in my office along with my guns. The safe is rated at 1400 degrees for 30 minutes. I don't worry about a fire as much as I would worry about someone breaking into the house, or a shed for that matter, and stealing it. The safe weighs 500 lbs empty & about 1000 lbs. with everything I have in it. I also have an ADT alarm system, dead bolts on the doors, lights on timers so it always looks like someone is home & two attack cats. If a bad guy gets through all of that & somehow gets the ammo & guns out of my home before the cops get here, then more power to them. The probability of a fire is minuscule compared to theft or something happening to the ammo while it's removed from your direct control while out in a shed.

Actually I probably could store my ammo in a shed as far as the environmental issues go, because my stash is a working stash. My wife & I are members of a local range and we go through at least 500 rounds a session. I started shooting to save money instead of playing golf. Yeah, that didn't go quite as planned. I'm spending over $100 a trip to the range plus the cost of just one of my guns equals what I'd pay for a set of new golf clubs. I guess it's time to get into reloading before the guard cats starve.
 
store in sealed mil. ammo containers

get a few of those and that should do. Get good ones that still have the rubber seal in the inlining of the cans. I'd store the ammo in a "cool dry dark place" out of the sun light- to get the best lasting performance of the ammo if your looking to keep the rounds for a while. I believe that temperature changes might affect the shelf life of the ammo though I haven't done testing myself.
 
I like the refrigerator idea or maybe a heavily insulated cooler to slow the temperature swings in the shed.

I've never known anybody to have problems with ammo because they didn't have air conditioning. We didn't get ac of any sort until I was 15 in '65 and among other humid places we primarily lived in downtown Baltimore a couple of miles from the harbor and just north of D.C. My uncle near Charlottesville is 79 and still stores ammo on a closet shelf in his finished basement. I thought I had old ammo, he has odd boxes of old ammo.

I've been in Richmond since '72 and the James is tidal to the I-95 bridge. We're 100 miles from the ocean fwiw. I haven't had central air since '73. Some years I don't even use the bedroom ac; it stays in the closet. I like fans, high ceilings and thick masonry walls. The ammo hasn't suffered either, even the old paper shotgun shells.

Right now it's 91* and the humidity is down to 68%. It never did rain last night. It's not even noon yet and if it gets any drier I'll get a nosebleed. ;)
 
Now, if you are wanting to stash it for a rainy, then outside is still not a good place but is doable. Put the ammo in packs of 4 into a gallon sized Ziploc vacuum bag, seal, vacuum, and tape the vent shut. Put that into a smaller Rubbermaid with desiccant and seal the Rubbermaid with pvc packing tape.
Posted from above--

Another interesting post... Plenty of air flow VS no air anywhere near the ammo???
 
Well, you seal it that tight.... and the temps go up and down and it's in all of this plastic and tupperware, = condensation.
 
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