Tag Archives: storage

Back the truck up…again

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I’ve been having a heck of a time finding ammo cans lately. And before someone starts in with how Harbor Freight/CostCo/Sams Club/Whoever has brand new ammo cans for sale…don’t. They have brand new ammo can knockoffs on sale. Hecho in China. Will they work as well as US GI ammo cans? Maybe. But a) I avoid buying Chinese goods whenever possible and b) if something is important enough to store in an ammo can, then it’s important enough to  not take chances by saving ten bucks and buying a ripoff ammo can.

So…that leaves hunting down the real deal. Which I did.

Behold the new home of a rather embarrassingly large quantity of Magpul magazines in various calibers.

I prefer the larger ammo cans but these days you really do have to take what you can get. Anyway, these will get stencilled up and filled with Deep Sleep stuff. Then theyare off to a cool, dark place and …see ya in twenty years. Or at Der Tag. Whichever comes first.

 

3-gallon bucket/lids

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One of the problems of survivalism is that once you feel you’ve reached ‘prepvana’ (that nirvana-like level of enlightenment preparedness where you no longer feel the need to to continue with that particular prep item) you lose sight of potential improvements. Let me give you an example. Lets say that when you were preparing for Y2k you laid in a stock of top-of-the-line MagLites and SureFire flashlights. You tucked them away and patted yourself on the back. You have plenty, so now you’re done. And you move onto other projects that need your attention, the whole time thinking you’ve settled the flashlight issue. And, twenty years later, your Y2k flashlights, with their Xenon bulbs and battery-draining designs, are stone clubs compared to todays crop of LED flashlights that sip power from batteries by comparison. But…you wouldn’t have known about the potential benefits and upgrades because you had no reason to track flashlight developments….you’d settled the flashlight issue years ago.

Thats one of the risks of thinking youre ‘set’ on a particular prep and never revisiting it.

I’m sorta guilty of this. I was up at Winco when they first opened and, to my surprise, I noticed that not only did they sell 5-gallon buckets and GammaSeal lids in their food storage section, but they also sold 3-gallon buckets and matching GammaSeal lids. (Clarification: not actual GammaSeal brand but they appear to be identical and are made at what appears to be the same plant in the US.) I had no idea that such things existed for the smaller buckets.

The advantage? Well, it’s a heck of a lot easier for me to keep a smaller 3-gallon bucket of rice on my shelf ready to use than it is a 5-gallon bucket.

For comparison:

So the five-gallon buckets get stored away with the  other stuff and I now simply refill the 3-gallon buckets as needed and keep them in the kitchen where they’re a very handy thing.

And speaking of Winco, before the economy started it’s inflationary shenanigans, the bucket stash looked like this:

Not so much last weekend:

Fortunately, as I’ve mentioned, Home Depot not only selld food grade buckets, but the buckets are actually marked “Food Grade Container” So you know you’re getting the right ones.

 

Re-arranging

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A few years back, a local defunct lumber mill was repurposed into a bitcoin mining facility. As it turned out, bitcoin mining, I am told, uses quite a bit of electrical power and the rumour is that this business managed to singlehandedly generate enough demand to change local pricing and require infrastructure upgrades. Regardless, the business ran for a few years and then recently closed up. One of the things they were getting rid of was a huge amount of the steel wire shelving that I am so fond of. I scored a truckload of the stuff and now have the oddly enjoyable task of adding more shelving to my basement and reconfiguring the stuff that is already there..

With the…hmmm.. let’s call it ‘increase in activity’… in my own stockpiling, increased storage capacity was going to be called for eventually. Might as well get ahead of it.

Other than the increase in stored food, there was also an across-the-board increase in pretty much everything. Cleaning supplies, batteries, TP, toilet paper, dish soap, detergent, and pretty much every consumable you can think of. And that takes space. The payoff? Tremendous peace of mind.

There are a few things I hammer out in this blog over, and over, and over….and one of them is this: you will suffer far more personal, intimate EOTWAWKIs than you will the conventional zombie apocalypse kind. You will experience job losses, unexpected expenses, periods of illness, localized disasters (flood, hurricane, etc.) far more often than you will experience boogaloos. And while cases of MRE’s, .223, and night vision do have their place, you will use them exponentially less than you will use TP, battery lanterns, and wind up radios.

And, as it turns out, keeping all that food, toiletries, extra water, and sleeping bags on hand takes up space. So…new wire shelving. With inflation, economic uncertainty, ‘surges’, and who knows what else coming down the pike it just seems to make sense to keep adding a little here and there, yknow?

Vacuum-sealed clothing after five years

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One of the tasks I performed the other day was reviewing and inspecting the various items I have stashed away in the vehicle for those unseen emergencies. Among all the items is a complete change of clothes. That stuff has been packed away, freezing and roasting, for the last several years and I figured it’d be a good idea to check on them and see how they’re doing.

Answer? They’re just fine. However, I did unpack the shirt and jeans and discover that the plastic bag had imparted a wierd smell to them. Not offensive, just odd…a vinyl-y plastic smell that, after a few hours in the open air, seemed to fade away. Other than that, clothing held up just fine…as I expected. I re-vacuum-sealed everything and put it away for the uncertain future.

Why the vacuum sealing? Well, biggest reason is because if you need a change of clothes somewhere other than home that means you probably got wet, messy, bloody, dirty, or some similar ugliness. That being the case, youre most definitely gonna want clean and dry clothes. And, of course, vacuum sealing also reduces the ‘footprint’ of the clothing by compressing everything down as much as possible. But, when you’ve had to change a tire on a slushy and wet roadway while freezing rain is soaking you through, that bit of vacuum sealing is going to seem more like a Nobel-worthy idea than it is overkill.

Other goodies in there stored equally as well, although I discarded and replaced all batteries just to be safe. And I I updated the spreadsheet I keep of this sort of thing to reflect any changes.

What do I keep around in the vehicle for emergencies? Well, you can get the links to that epic series of posts here.

And, in other news………

16 years in storage

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For my backup heating needs around the house, I went with kerosene. It stores well, has the most BTU’s of pretty much any fuel, and is easily portable. But, years ago, I picked up one of those Mr Heater Buddy heaters as a ‘just in case’ along with a case of 1# propane bottles. I tested the thing out when I got it, put it away, and haven’t touched it since.

Until today.

I was going through some stuff and thought I’d check to make sure this thing actually still worked. I had packed it away in the original box and, surprisingly, I left the purchase receipt in there. So…I can see that I purchased it in December of 2004. (For about $75) Its sat in its box for the last sixteen years.

Okay, lets see if it works. Fished out an equally aged propane container, screwed it into place, turned the switch to Pilot, hit the starter and…*whoompf* it lit right up. Rather nice when something you put away a long time ago works just like it was yesterday.

Interestingly, the Buddy heaters have evolved since I got that one. They have a model that incorporates a battery-powered fan to circulate the hot air. I might get one of those and, since it runs on DC, wire it to run off a large battery.

My go-to backup heat is kerosene and thats one of the reasons I pretty much ignored the Buddy heater for the last four administrations. But, it’s nice to know it stored well. I’ll put it away, pick up a few more propane cylinders (because they have multiple uses and, if you want to carry the idea further, they would have excellent barter value.) Probably my biggest use for the Buddy heater is as a ‘spot heating’ unit for a room or are of the basement where keeping things above freezing is critical.

Gun storage

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Someone asked me in email about what I do, if anything, to package guns for the Deep Sleep. It’s probably a disappointment to most folks who are expecting some sort of long list of ritual greasing, packaging, preserving, etc., but….I really don’t do very much.

Any gun I’m packing away is a gun that probably has a history of ruggedness, durability, and survivability. I’d package up a nice blued Colt Python a lot differently than I’d package up a Glock. Because the guns I’m putting away are usually mil-spec in terms of material and finish, they are already enjoying a head start on being resistant to the threats posed from long term storage.

Really, for most guns all I do is clean them thoroughly, lubricate them normally, pack them into a quality hard case with dessicant, and thats really about it.

I’ve handled guns that have sat around for fifty years in closets, under beds, in attics, hidden in barns, etc, etc. These were guns that were not given any special treatment nor stored in any purpose-built gun vault. Problems encountered have been:

  • Rust – This is usually the most obvious problem. It can be a light freckling all the way to full-blown rust. The cause is, obviously, moisture. The source could be just the ambient humidity in the air, like if you live in Florida, or from an environmental scenario such as leaving the gun leaning up against an object like a furnace duct or other feature that has high temperature swings. The solution is to store in a case that is as airtight as possible along with a handful of dessicant. Most of the guns that I pack away for Der Tag are guns that are already pretty rust-resistant…Glocks, parkerized guns, etc… so I can give them less consideration than, say, a nicely blued Rem 700 or something.
  • Bore obstructions – Be honest…do you always, religiously, without fail, check the bore of a gun that has just come out of storage before you shoot it? Most people do not. I’ve seen plenty of barrels with cobwebs in them, old cleaning patches, and on at least one occasion a mud daubers nest. Some folks say you should plug the bore of the gun with a foam ear plug to prevent anything from getting in there. I worry that traps moisture inside the barrel. I clean my bores thoroughly, run a lubed patch through, then follow up with a few dry patches, and leave it at that. And I always check for obstructions when pulling a gun out of storage.
  • Dried grease – On older military guns (SKS, Mosin Nagants, Mausers, etc) guns were preserved by using copious amounts of grease…not oil. SKS rifles were notorious for having huge amounts of grease saturating them, this method preserves things beautifully but it is an enormous task to get all that grease out of a gun. I’ve had guns that, literally, sweat grease out of the stock when they heat up and this is years and years after I initially got the gun and cleaned it up. Grease that has dried up forms a crusty, hard residue that requires nothing less than sitting around for hours with a heat gun, rags, and dental picks to clear up.
  • Dust mixing with oil – overlube a gun and the oil pools and starts collecting dust, which becomes a sludge, which eventually becomes a caked on mess. I lube a gun thoroughly and then use a rag to try an wipe off the oil I just applied. This leaves just enough to keep the gun safe without overdoing it.

Virtually all of these issues are resolved by using an airtight purpose-built gun case. The $9 Flambeau or Plano gun case is not good enough. Spend $200 and get a Pelican or Hardigg case. A lot of cases, at half the price, claim to be ‘as good as’ or ‘just like’…they are not. When you have to pull your genuine Belgian FAL or pre-ban HK93 out of the rafters, that is not the time to find out that your bargain case that saved you $50 had a crappy O-ring gasket and one side of your rifle has a nice orange sheen to it. The one good and cheap(er) alternative is when it comes to handguns – a genuine US GI ammo can, with good seals, is a perfect container for pistol rug, with dessicant, holding your preferred handgun.

The next question is probably “What else do you store with the guns? Ammo? Tools?”

Storing ammo with the gun is a bit iffy, IMHO. Why? Because the well-oiled gun is in an airtight case. Leave some ammo in there and I suppose there’s a possibility of oil contamination rendering the ammo unreliable. Big if, sure…but if things have gotten serious enough you’re pulling Ol’ Painless outta storage then things are serious enough that the last thing you want is ammo of questionable reliability, no? As an aside, I pack ammo in perfect/good condition military ammo cans. Metal ones. Not the plastic ones that when dropped on a hard surface shatter like my dreams and hopes.

Remember guys, guns have only two natural enemies: rust and politicians.

 

FIFO

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One of my guilty pleasures is that the local restaurant supply place sells frozen dumplings by the case. I toss em, frozen solid, into my steamer and in 15 minutes I have delicious, hot, Chinese(ish) dumplings. No muss, no fuss. Splash some tamari soy sauce on ’em and eat. About as labor-unintensive a meal as you can get.

Except, when I opened the cupboard I found my bottle of soy sauce with but a few dribbles in it. Solution? Trek to the basement, locate the five other bottles on the shelf, pull out the one with the oldest date, return to the kitchen, make a note to purchase more on my next grocery trip, and then have dinner.

I went to Wallywolrd the other day, picked up another couple bottles, wrote the purchase date on them with a Sharpie, and stuck ’em back in storage.

Thats what food rotation looks like. Nothing magical, mysterious, or tinfoil-hat about it. It’s that easy. And it is bloody convenient to not have to halt your meal plans because you need to run to the grocery for something. And it’s especially convenient to not have to run to the grocery when the streets are littered with bodies of the BLM/Antifa/ProudBoy/redneck battles that, I am told, we are all heading for as the looming second Civil War approaches. (Yeah, thats sarcasm….I’m wrong on a lot of things but I’m willing to bet that this time next year the lights are on, the water is running, the shelves are stocked, and it’s not Bosnia out there.)

In other interesting news, when I was at CostCo the other day I noticed that the limits had been removed from some items (notably the torpedo-shaped “chubs” of ground beef I’ve been purchasing) and reinstituted on others (toilet paper). Doesn’t really matter to me, though…I’ve gotten into the habit of buying certain items every weekend, religiously, so a limit of ‘one per trip’ doesn’t slow my roll. Matter of fact, I may have to dial it back a bit because the freezer is way full. Buying another freezer might make sense but for my household, one freezer full of meat is plenty for a good long while. Also, it seems that freezers are a bit hard to come by in some parts these days. Restless natives…….

Box O’ Joy

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This is what addiction looks like. Three Ruger PC carbines (the old style) and a half dozen P95DC pistols to match with the carbines.

It’s also a decent example of what will fit in the Boyt51 rifle cases that are for sale at the local CostCo right now. This is the sort of package that goes up in the rafters or down in floorboards to sit quietly for decades until needed. More importantly this frees up a bunch of needed space in the gun safe. I know that the fact that two of those pistols are blued versus the other four that are not is pegging the OCD meter on some of you..have no fear. I swapped them out after this picture was taken for a couple stainless ones that were in the safe.

The utility of vacuum sealers

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Fella I know, who is getting started in the realm of preparedness had his birthday earlier this month.  I got him what I think is one of the best gifts you can get a fellow survivalist: a vacuum sealer. For the record, the best gift you can probably get for a survivalist is a huge chunk of land in the middle of nowhere. For this survivalist, the best gift you can get is a slightly drunk and mildly self-esteem-challenged Jennifer Lawrence. Or, if you’re on a budget, her body double.

Thing is, most people have a very narrow view of what a vacuum sealer is good for. In fact, the gift was met with a ‘my freezer is already full’ response. A lot of folks, in my experience, don’t think creatively about the uses for one of these things that have nothing to do with food. So, lemme mention a few of the non-food things I do with mine and maybe it’ll send you down a new road of thought in regard to using yours. (Or getting one.)

  •  Compressing high-loft items of clothing so they take up less space in a pack
  • Preventing powdered items from clumping – The cleanser that comes in the cardboard cans? I put each can into a bag and vaccuum seal it so that after years of sitting on the shelf it hasn’t drawn moisture and caked into a rock-like consistency.
  • Water bottles that get left in the vehicle in the winter are vacuum sealed in a bag so if the plastic bottle does explode from freezing (which almost never happens) any leakage is contained. And the water is still potable.
  • All the fire-starting materials in my hunting/bushwhacking packs are vacuum sealed to keep them dry, clean, and in one place.
  • Small first aid items get vacuum sealed for rather obvious reasons.
  • Critical documents are vacuum sealed so they are protected from moisture, wet, etc. For example, my birth certificate(s) and passport(s) are sealed up and sitting in the safe. (Uhm..yeah…plural….I know a guy…)
  • In the Pelican case I keep in the winter vehicle kit there is an an entire change of clothes that has been vacuum sealed to consere space and keep the clothing clean and dry so that in an emergency it’s ready to use.
  • Bulk first aid gear that would normally take up space gets vacuum sealed to allow me to pack more of it in a smaller space, as well as to protect it.
  • Have a dog? Dog food MRE’s. Phydeaux’s kibble and treats packed into individual servings.
  • Toilet paper that you keep in the truck or at the cabin. If you’re putting together a bugout bin or kit you really, really wanna make sure the TP is protected.
  • Medications in tablet form. Most pills come in plastic bottles that offer good protection, but a lot of stuff comes in blister packs and although you’d think those foil and plastic sheets would offer good protection…not always. So, into the sealer they go. Try to keep stuff in original packaging when you do this…last thin you want is a little vacuum sealed bag of unidentified pills laying around with nothing to tell you what they are or how much to take. And the cops really get curious when large quantities of pills are loose in a plastic bag.
  • Bars of soap. Bar soap seems to ossify over time. Seal ’em up so theyre still useful years later.
  • Road flares. Seal ’em up, wrap in cardboard to protect the integrity of the plastic bag, and tuck ’em away in your vehicle. Wet flares are the literal damp squib at a rescue.
  • Small electronics that absolutely need to be protected. Handheld radios get vacuum sealed with dessicant and then tucked away in a protective case of some kind. Suspenders and a belt, perhaps… but its an extra step that costs virtually nothing and makes sure that you have communications when you really, really need it. And thats worth pretty much anything.
  • Batteries. Water and batteries do not mix..at least, not in a good way. I store batteries in plastic tubs but I also vacuum seal the large CostCo-sized bulk packs of batteries.

The list goes on, but I think you get the idea. And, yeah, they are also handy for food as well. If you haven’t bought one already, do yourself a favor and don’t cheap out. Yeah, there are some models that are $50-$75. Skip them. This is not the kind of item you want to cut corners on. Get the Foodsaver brand, not the Cabelas, not the Walmart, not the other brand you’ve never heard of. Get the Foodsaver branded rolls of material as well. Plan on spending about $200. I absolutely promise you that it will be the best $200 you can spend on preparedness gear. Do it.

 

Article – The Food Expiration Dates You Should Actually Follow

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From the NY Times. If you can’t get to it because of a paywall, try clearing your browsers cache and then try the link again. Or open a different browser and cut/paste the link.

With most of us quarantined in our homes, chances are you’ve been reacquainting yourself with the forgotten spices and fusty beans from the depths of your pantry. But how fusty is too fusty? When is the right time to throw something out? And what about fresh ingredients? If I’m trying to keep supermarket trips to a minimum, how long can my eggs, dairy and produce keep?

Here’s the first thing you should know: Expiration dates are not expiration dates.

Decent article explaining what most of use should already know: those dates on most foods (though not all) are fairly meaningless. Speaking as someone who routinely eats canned/dry/frozen food that is years old, I can tell you that anything other than high-acid foods (pineapple, tomato products, etc) will last a lot longer than the date on the can. A lot longer. Like, several years.

However, that is no substitute for rotating through your stocks just to keep everything topped off and fresh. For canned goods, I use these and have find them quite handy.