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Old March 5, 2000, 04:42 AM   #4
Hal
Senior Member
 
Join Date: October 9, 1998
Location: Ohio USA
Posts: 8,563
Before I bought my safe, I stored all my handguns in those plastic Doskocil cases. I just trasferred those cases to the shelves of the safe. If you don't have em, dont rush out and buy them though. With the prices of the original boxes the guns came in being anywhere from $6 to $20, just put them in their original box. The long guns are stored muzzle up with an old sock covering as much of the gun as possible. I worry as much about them knocking together as I do about rust. Maybe a bit more in fact. A few packs of dessicant and frequent checking of overall conditions, as well as the safe being in a room where temps are pretty constant helps.

Dessicnat packs are common place in containers of stuff imported from overseas. One of the guys on another forum used to go to his local home fix up store and arrange for one of the warehouse guys to collect it for him. 12 pack of brew for a box of what was destined for a landfill. Good trade. Wish I would have thought of it when I worked at one of them. I must have thrown away a ton of the stuff.

Ammo storage, in any confined area, is an explosive threat when exposed to fire. A bad thing if the house is on fire, but a good thing if the fire comes from a cutting torch I suppose. That being said, ammunition is expensive, and is significant part of my total cost of ownership. It also adds to the overall weight since it's heavy too. Your call. On a related note, be careful of any possible chemical fumes. I ate a giant bowl of stupid once (yeah, yeah I know, no comments about a steady diet ) and "stored" a tin of percussion caps in the wooden presentation case my Smith 29 came in along with the wooden target grips from said Smith. Some 15 years of fumes caused the lining of the case to transfer itself to the grips. Ugly sums it up well. This applies to any long term storage and cases also. That coating of whatever may not bother the foam in the cases now, but in years, who knows?

Another thing to consider is a "just in case" gun. One that is always loaded and stored in the safe, just in case. As in just in case someone gets tired of trying to get in the safe, and waits for you to open it for them.

On thing I don't do is store important papers or anything else that has a little $ value vs a high hassel factor to replace in the safe. Birth certificats, marriage licence and such. Xerox copies of gun manuals and parts info can fit into an envelope and take up little space. If you have access to a scanner, scanned copies of these can fit onto a couple of floppy disks.

Magazines, parts and reloading dies can all benefit from a temperture and humidity controlled enviroment. Office supply stores sell locking fire proof boxes that can hold them, and fit inside the safe

A lot comes down to long vs short term storage. I have 3 or 4 guns that get shot an awful lot, and a few that seldom get shot. Currently I am looking into some long term storage for a number of guns that I won't ever shoot again, and in all probability won't be shot for a number of years. The FW's will get pretty much short term, and the others will have to be delt with as long term.

Looking at possible legal ramifications, be careful about what goes in the safe. *For info and reference only*. That expensive auto knife for instance has no place in the safe alongside any legal guns. In Ca substitute a *banned* Sk or something, or even you and your signifacant other dressed up as Bo Peep and the Big Bad. If some dirt bag wraps a chain around the safe and drags it through the wall and down the road, it could cause some uncomfortable moments at *inventory time* when it's recovered. I'm certain that some of the LEO's could tell some real side splitters about things they have seen in this area.


I committed the cardinal sin of safes. I bought too small It gets cramped in a hurry for us mortals. Don't want to mention any names, but a certain gunny has a walk in
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