Survival Cache

Hey, Sorry reading your post about the storage of weapons. Would a PVC pipe buried on end work? i mean if it is screw sealed. I understand that vacuum sealing is the best option so I would add that as well.
The main issue is that I live in an Extremely humid area (Victoria, BC). How should i prepare my cache with that in mind?

Also, what coin are you guys talking about?
Thanks!
CBMS
Out

 

PVC is probably good; probably better than ammo cans, if you protect the contents inside with plastic. They've been putting it in the ground for water & waste for over 20 years, now.

I think that, if you use screw threads, using some sort of sealant on the threads may be wise. I'm not a plumber (although I did sleep at a Holiday Inn, once).


Insofar as your question about the coins:

About 30 years ago (as I recall) Special Forces groups started striking a "challenge coin". It was supposed to be a symbol of Group unity and esprit-de-corps.

But most important, if you went into a bar and another member slapped his coin on the bar, you (and all SF personnel in your immediate area) had to also show yours. Anyone who didn't produce the coin had to buy drinks. If someone made the challenge & everyone had their coin, the challenger had to buy drinks.

The coin is about the size of an old silver dollar. My wife had a fit when she saw a round imprint in the leather of my wallet. She thought that I was hanging around taverns with a condom in my billfold.

Now everyone has coins. I have one from the 101st Leg-Puke Division, and even got one for being a Hunter Safety Instructor.

 

haha, Yes the holiday inn does grant knowledge to all those who sleep there.
Lol, I can imagine that the wife would through a tizzy, but it probably worked itself out.

Now the idea behind the PVC was to use a postholer and to bury the weapon barrel up. Id use drainage rocks underneath it and some drainage cloth around the pvc pipe itself (the cloth is black and blends in well)
Anyone have any tips other than that?

 

Wouldn't you want to bury the gun barrel down that way if you got condensation it would drip down and out of the barrel instead of colleting in the action.

OGM

 

Make sure its below the frost/thaw line. To shallow and the expansion/contraction of the soild could bust the PVC pipe. Also would try to put it in a fence line under a post. It provides some camoflage for metal dectectors since wire fence and metal post would set it off and be obvious also on a property line isnt likely to be getting dug up for construction or whatever AND haveing it under a fence post makes it easier for YOU to find since when you go back for it thats a 6" or so target to find or miss so if you just go from a tree that later dies you now have say a 30' area to find a 6" target in thats invisible.

 

Make sure you have a method to dig it up, if on your own property then you should have shovels around, but where I live at this time of year you would never get through the ground with just a shovel, need a pickax to break the frozen ground. Then remember where the are kept, I forget where my keys are wouldn't want to forget where my supplies are.

 

EYEBOLT is a great idea...

Yup, our detachment,commander a rough sort who spent most of his years Eilson (alaska) had coins made up for the detachment...Unfortunately I think some traditions belong to the foks who built them. Like in the army now every bloke gets a cool looking black beret?? So folks don't feel left out,i guess.Only airforce PJ's(para rescue) wear the maroon beret, Le's and security troopers wear a black one,though I think other spec ops folks are allowed to wear berets now...

 

I think the best resort for us is a junk car in some farmers back 40, won't be suceptible to metal detectors, submerged may work if you want to chip through ice.maybe inside an old culvert or storm drain??
Digging in January is all but impossible.

 

Tango3, you're right. Special Forces was authorized to wear the green beret in 1961 by President Kennedy. Kennedy indicated that he was going to get his money's worth from them (possibly Cold War mischief?), that they were going to be special troops, and he wanted them to have their distinctive headware. (By the way, we tend to forget that Kennedy was a real-world, wartime, military small-unit commander who had to carry out a survival mission after having his boat destroyed and some of his men killed.)

Unconventional commanders were livid that this bunch of irreverant, unstarched, ballsy, sneaky misfits got to wear non-uniform headwear.

Then the Army Rangers started wearing the black beret. Back when I worked with them in 1970, the only place that the black beret was really "authorized" was with the Ranger units out in the woods. A lot of them started wearing the berets out in public. They may not have been Department of the Army authorized, but try to knock the beret off a Ranger's head. Better to poke at a wolverine.

Then the 82nd Airborne started wearing maroon berets. I was noticing that pretty much around 1975. Pretty, but I personally thought that the garrison cap with the glider patch looked just as good.

Then I saw members of the 101st Leg-Puke division wearing maroon berets and blousing their boots, because they went to Dope-On-A-Rope School.

Then Bill Clinton said "BERETS FOR EVERYBODY". It seems that we shouldn't have anyone being special or better than everyone else. It makes the people that weren't Special Forces, or Paratroopers, or Rangers feel left out. It's bad for their self-esteem. We want them to feel just as special as the best soldiers. It's kind-of like one big T-Ball game. EVERYONE'S A WINNER!!!!

 

Pea gravel is a good idea. One of the worst jobs that I had was working with a basement waterproofing company in the upper Midwest. Basement walls would crack, because water would get in the soil next to the wall, freeze, and expand. The soil had a high clay content, and when the water froze, it would push the wall in & crack it.

After we excavated the wall, pushed it back out from the inside, and reinforced it, we would back-fill the trench with washed stone. This helped to keep the water pressure off the wall.

 

If was going to use the screw in plug on the one end I would glue a cap on the other end just like if it was to be pressureized with water and have that end up. Water would then have to come UP through the screw in cap in order to get inside.

I would AVOID the idea of stashing stuff in a junk car on the back 40, especialy unless it is on your own place. Those cars are worth some money now and riseing as scrap metal so they are liable to be hauled off for that or if they happen to be old enouph for parts to restore something else. Old cars on the back 40 also often get used as targets/backstops to shoot at a lot of times so even if the cars still there it may be full of holes. Then theres also the other common use for old cars, when the creek starts to wash out you shove the car over the edge of the bank and into the creek then run a chain from the axel or frame to a tree near by so silt and such catches against the car and stops erosion, the car may become part of some near by creek bank.

 

Goodthing you mentioned that; I was looking at a few junkers(not on my suburban property ) didn't know about the creek rising thing.
How do you feel about a submerged tube ? With some heavy monofilment to a piling or stake underwater soon it'll be covered in algae like all old lost fishing line.

 

You would have to make sure that you filled the tube such as to have negative boyancy and that it was sealed well enouph, but if did both those and made sure it was in NON moveing waters then might work well, though recovery in winter mightnot be fun. I also wouldnt want anything on it that could be grabbed or snagged like the line, just burry it in the mud. Lots of stuff gets drug out of the water when snagged on a fishing line. If there is much of an air pocket in the tube it floats like a cork and if its moveing water the bottom changes constantly as silt is moved around so it could be exposed or 5 feet deeper under mud. Burrying it in a couple foot deep water in a stable pond though and makeing sure that it will sink well then burry it say 2' under the mud could be hard to find and if there is an overflow pipe in the dam then a messured distance/direction from that could be a pretty fair option IMO.

 

Dumb question here but for survival stash I am looking at some survival knives on ebay Rambo like style with a 15" blade and a section to store match compass etc and even bring a sling shot like rubber hose. Thus the question since the will be for BO are these types of knives worth getting or should you spend more money and get a top kick tracker or something like that?

 

I've added a gerber "backpaxe hatchet because of my woodland location. A bigger knife might take care of some chopping duty and still be a knife, personally I like the hatchet and a smaller more useable knife also.
At this point you should be carrying a "pocket kit"( fishing kit, fire starters ,signaling gear) in the woods anyway. I always carry my victorinox ( starting to carry my uber sharp,cheap mora in the woods) I'd rather have to build traps and dress fish and game with the "small" swiss army than my "big" issue kabar...IMHO The hollow handle is a liability from a strength standpoint. Anytime you try to compromise multiple functions( itsa knife; Its' a saw; itsa tool box;its a weapon) you compromise all these functions).Movie knives look mean for movies stars. But there are better tools for the job...hatchet in the forehead would get somebodies attention too...
recently bought one of these:
http://www.ragweedforge.com/SwedishKnifeCatalog.html
They come highly recommended by survival instructor Cody Lundin: the author of "98.6 degrees(keeping your ass alive)" fame.
It's embarassingly cheap (#1 @$10.50)/ simple (ugly), easily the sharpest thing in my bag (surgerysharp?),( it's the knife version of the .22 bolt rifle) for"survival" :However it won't can- open 55gallon drums like a heavy cold steel or custom bowie.
not fighting a war. Softer high carbon is easy to sharpen. and better for striking a spark. "Knife folks" will argue for magic alloys . I'm sure they have their various benefits.

 

Just a word of caution. If you're going to stash something expensive, have it sealed really, really well, and seperately. I had a stash in a sealed plastic bucket. C-ration fruit on the bottom, then ammo, then a couple of Air Force survival knives, then extra clothes.

Well, the fruit in the cans went bad, it burst the cans, juice flowed out and started a humid mold culture that put mold, rust, & corrosion over the whole works.

Whooda thunk?

 

Bump for a good thread.

If I was going to cache food, even canned I think it would be a good idea to place it in gallon size zip lock bags, just in case.

Since we started this thread, has anybody set up a cache? If so what did you put in it? I haven't set up what you would consider a cache, but I have transferred some items to the ranch house, just in case. Canned goods, camo, rain gear, boots, ammo, and as soon as we get the safe installed I am going to add to the arsenal there.

 

Due to OPSEC, I don't think anyone here would come out and admit it. With the way things are going, and with the known .gov snoopings on other survival related blogs and forums, you should never reveal any kind of info regarding your own preps and supplies no matter how you have secured/hidden them. It is a touchy subject that too many people will not reveal.