What is the best ways to make a container for a cache?

[SHTFnTX]

Thank you in advance for everyone's input and ideas! What are the best (underground and above, low cost - high...etc etc)cache's for ( This advice and/or experience of all levels I believe would be of interest to others like myself. I am usually away a good distance (100+ miles in either direction..Texas is big state you know...:-D) from my BOL. Caches for long term and/or short term, different sizes, materials...etc etc.

[RICHFL]

For on the move where you need to hide a few days supplies like food, water, and ammo use a PVC pipe container they are water proof a metal detector cannot find them and they are cheap compared to other types. See them step by step on You Tube. There are many videos you can learn from.

For at home use your basement/root cellar for major storage but once you start building up you can think about dispersing around your property using: PVC pipes, to 55 gallon drums, up to a 8x8x40' steel container. Also see you tube videos.

[101airborne]

Thank you in advance for everyone's input and ideas! What are the best (underground and above, low cost - high...etc etc)cache's for ( This advice and/or experience of all levels I believe would be of interest to others like myself. I am usually away a good distance (100+ miles in either direction..Texas is big state you know...:-D) from my BOL. Caches for long term and/or short term, different sizes, materials...etc etc.

Your talking about several different scenerios here so I'll answer IMHO the best small underground cache "item" it can be used pretty well anywhere.

Get youself a couple joints of 6" schedule 40 PVC pipe. Cut into whatever lengths you want 2' 3' whatever. One one end put a cap making sure it's well glued. On the other end put whats called a "clean out" cap. You can then coat the outside with basement waterproffing sealer, Make sure you DO NOT get it in the cleanout threads. You can the fill the tube with whatever supplies you choose, food, water, ammo, clothing, medical supplies, whatever. I reccomend then to wrap the threads of the cap with thread tape before capping to help waterproof them.Cap the tube, You can then use a set of post hole diggers to a hole deep enough to bury the tube upright to where the cap is 6" or so below the surface. Slide in the tube cap end up, and fill in the hole. You can the use a GPS unit and drop "pins" for the location you can bury them in several locations on your property and even at family or other locations. I have some buried between my home and my BOL. Just make sure you have good location directions to find them. Unless you fill them with large amounts of metal items they should be safe from location by a metal detector.

[SHTFnTX]

Thank you!!

[SHTFnTX]

Thank you too! Heading to the hardware store now to pickup some now necessary items. Is 6" deep enough? Thinking about how I would get the things out of the bottom or the pipe. Maybe a string or parachute cord around them. Thank you for your idea(s)!!

[101airborne]

Thank you too! Heading to the hardware store now to pickup some now necessary items. Is 6" deep enough? Thinking about how I would get the things out of the bottom or the pipe. Maybe a string or parachute cord around them. Thank you for your idea(s)!!

Usually 6" should be deep enough below the surface. That makes if a little easier to dig down and get to the cap as well as helping reach down into the tube. I use 10' sections of pipe and cut it to make 3 tubes per section that make a tube about 3'4" deep. Usually most people can reach that far. If you need a longer tube then you could put longer items on the bottom to save reaching to deep. Course tying a cord or whatever to bottom items would work as well. Something I also failed to mention, Sorry! but remember once you stand up the tube in the ground and fill the hole it's almost impossible to get the tube back out once ground settles without a lot of digging.

[m38]

I agree that 6" pipe makes a great cache tube for supplies. I prefer the black drain pipe to the white water pipe. I also prefer to bury it horizontal, not vertical. I like the black because when I pull it up to recover the supplies, I can use/reuse the pipe above ground, and it's easier to hide because it's black. Just throw a few branches over it and it "disappears". I also prefer a horizontal bury because it's easier to recover the whole pipe. To me, the threat that someone will use a metal detector any place I might bury a pipe is very low to non-existant. And if you can recover the whole pipe with contents, then you can tip the pipe upsidedown to get everything out. No need to reach or tie strings to the stuff in the bottom. If you're going to pack dehydrated food into the pipe, you might consider putting a cleanout plug on each end. The foil packs tend to jam into there pretty tightly and accessing each end also allows you to push a stick through to push out the stuff in the pipe.

It's all good. But for longer-term storage, or larger supply cache's, I like plastic drums with removable lids. They are easier to get stuff into and out of them. They take more effort to bury them. But you can put so much more into them, than you can in a dozen pipes. Stuff like 5 gallon water filter buckets, or broken-down rifles, or larger tents and sleeping bags.

[zzak]

small tubes like that CAN be pulled out of the ground, without digging too much, if the ground's not frozen and you have had the forethought to provide greased aircraft cable around the tube, and have a long pole-lever and have something to use as a fulcrum.

[jimLE]

this thread gave me a idea to something i already have on hand.3-16 gallon barrels,in which dr pepper came in..i've already cleaned the inside and have water in them.and their in a front corner of the garage..any how.the screw on caps have a runner ring gasket on it.so,small chance on something leaching into it.as long as the cap is screwed on good.and going with something like 101airbourne suggested,when it comes to basement waterproofing sealer.if not something of equal quality,in the way of water proofing and all..

[RICHFL]

To keep it underground you need to reduce the use of metal otherwise any one with a metal detector could find your stash.

55 ,15, 10, 5 gallon screw top drums are water proof, can be buried, and do not have any metal. Your major problem is who is going to shovel all that dirt????

Each stash should have a combination of items stored in the same location, because you do not know what will happen to your group on the way to that site.

Priority's are shelter, water, fire kits, medical supplies, food, fuel, and security items.

As you move further away from your home you will need additional items added including clothing, barter items,

I live over 1500 miles away from our group's homestead. We have traveled the routes taking the main roads, your alternates 2 and 3 finding that these alternates are not always what the map says it is. Lesson learned coming up on that one.

[Illini Warrior]

small tubes like that CAN be pulled out of the ground, without digging too much, if the ground's not frozen and you have had the forethought to provide greased aircraft cable around the tube, and have a long pole-lever and have something to use as a fulcrum.

not sure why this guy got banned - but here's a reply to his old posting ....

in the frozen north - you'll still have to partially dig out a horizontally buried cache tube - ground is usually frozen to the consistency of concrete - it's not digging anymore - it's chopping & chipping ....

think about a vertical burial - ground auger a hole - cap it off however you wish at surface level - cover with a rock ....

[Mangler]

I just concluded my test of a buried stash container. I made a 6" x 40" PVC tube vault. I stored a long gun, two boxes of ammunition, unwrapped silver rounds, leather gloves, packaged food items, 2 rolls of toilet paper, wool socks, USB data drive, and some first aid items. Only the food, TP, and data drive were put in Ziploc bags. The other items were open and unwrapped in any way. Oh, I did pretreat the firearm with a gun oil before storing, but the silver rounds were open and untreated.

I buried the vault under my hydroponic garden trays. The site was exposed to freezing temps, leaking water from the garden, and rain and snow.

I dug up the vault after 60 weeks and inspected the items. No water had entered the vault. No corrosion on either the firearm or silver rounds. Everything was in good order. The packaged food items were stale but had no mold or rot.

The PVC tube, cap, and threaded end cost less than $50 to make.

[Illini Warrior]

I just concluded my test of a buried stash container. I made a 6" x 40" PVC tube vault. I stored a long gun, two boxes of ammunition, unwrapped silver rounds, leather gloves, packaged food items, 2 rolls of toilet paper, wool socks, USB data drive, and some first aid items. Only the food, TP, and data drive were put in Ziploc bags. The other items were open and unwrapped in any way. Oh, I did pretreat the firearm with a gun oil before storing, but the silver rounds were open and untreated.

I buried the vault under my hydroponic garden trays. The site was exposed to freezing temps, leaking water from the garden, and rain and snow.

I dug up the vault after 60 weeks and inspected the items. No water had entered the vault. No corrosion on either the firearm or silver rounds. Everything was in good order. The packaged food items were stale but had no mold or rot.

The PVC tube, cap, and threaded end cost less than $50 to make.

couple of things - understand it was only a test - but in a real cache situation you need watch the cross contamination between stored items - in particular any food - in the long term the food would become tainted by such things as the gun oil ....

no mention of desiccant packs or 02 absorbers - you should be packing long term caches the same as long term food buckets ....

putting a gun away? - in a burial cache or anywhere else - use the new technology available - just oil/grease and store in a mylar bag with 02 absorbers and desiccant packs .... http://www.discountmylarbags.com/shi...-bag-set-of-2/

[Morgan101]

Mangler: When you built your cache did you have an internal thread with a plug, or an external thread with a cap? Did you seal the threads with some type of sealant the way you would a pipe? I'm not sure if this would matter, or if one method would be more effective than the other.

[ZAGran]

Mangler: When you built your cache did you have an internal thread with a plug, or an external thread with a cap? Did you seal the threads with some type of sealant the way you would a pipe? I'm not sure if this would matter, or if one method would be more effective than the other.

The PVC tube, cap, and threaded end cost less than $50 to make.