[Go Davy Go]

What do you plan on doing with your gun safe when/if you have to Bug out?

I'm not talking about leaving for a couple of days and then coming back, I'm talking about leaving and possibly not being able to return for years, if at all..

We keep as much as we can at our BOL but lets face it there is still a considerable amount of valuables in our home safe, things like jewelry, firearms, pictures, hard drives and records.. there is no way in a bug out situation to take all of these things. so what do you do?

My wife and I were discussing this today.. We came to two conclusions..

1. If there was no time constraint we would cut the floor out and place the safe into the crawl space and then cover the hole with a double layer of plywood and way too many wood screws..

2. Time is of the essence!! we cut the floor out from underneath the safe dropping it into the crawl space and set the house on fire..

the thought being that we might conceal it from marauders.
What are your guys' thoughts?

 

[Ricekila]

Depending on the amount of big-out-ness -- time / distance ---- if anyone can find it --------------- empty :

 

[ManyFeathers]

I've had to bug out for a couple of hurricanes.

I have a job box (Jobox) that I load in the back of my truck with chain tie downs and padlocks for the chains. It's the wide one that's long enough for shotguns. I can't remember the exact size but it still fits in the back of my truck

All the valuables and guns go in there!

Gun safe stays in the house with the door open, just in case someone was to break in, they'd see the safe empty!

FWIW and YMMV

 

[Go Davy Go]

Depending on the amount of big-out-ness -- time / distance ---- if anyone can find it --------------- empty :

The trick is making it very hard to find..

 

[Mattsn]

If you were to set the house on fire, wouldn't that just expose the safe by all the wood that would be concealing it being burned away?

 

[Ricekila]

The trick is making it very hard to find..

If its your average thugs -- they might not find anything ?

If its your educated urbinites they might find it ?

If its the government -- they "will" find it !

( look up Canada flood or earth quake - I forgot which -- there was an evacuation ordered -- before they let the sheeple back to their homes -- they went door to door in the name of safety -- broke in and took every firearm they could find !

The last I heard -- some if not most didn't get them back

If they're not there -----

 

[ManyFeathers]

Not too many people steal empty gun safes!

For everything else, there's this stuff called insurance.

I'm "in good hands". You can figure out which company I'm referring to, I'm not promoting their business just throwing some advice out!

FWIW, the damage caused by those hurricanes, I made claims on my "in good hands" insurance, they paid off like clockwork and worked with me in getting the repairs made on my house.

Hurricane Ike hit and I had over 30K in damages

Checks were cut within two weeks.

Some things you don't go cheap on, do your research on insurance companies

 

[Ricekila]

Dont forget your NRA free insurance --

P/S -- you are a member -- and you do vote ?

 

[Hick Industries]

A friend of mine buys ammo by the crate and owns enough guns to fill a dozen gun safes. Last time I was there, he had four large safes full, and the extra guns leaning against the interior walls of an upstairs bedroom.

He may be an extreme example, but his dilemma motivated me to sell off and down size my own collection.

I can now store all my weapons and ammo in prepared cache tubes, and when I moved out of California, they all fit in a gun cabinet I bolted in the tack room of my horse trailer.

If you think you may be forced to bug out on foot (bad idea), and you own dozens of long guns, you should consider where and how to secure them. I recommend burrying enough 8" dia PVC pipes in the back yard to hide them all. Considering the cost of guns and ammo today, and their future value after a crisis, PVC pipe looks like cheap insurance.

 

[Ricekila]

my weapons

Weapons ?

 

[Grotius]

What do you plan on doing with your gun safe when/if you have to Bug out?

I'm not talking about leaving for a couple of days and then coming back, I'm talking about leaving and possibly not being able to return for years, if at all..

We keep as much as we can at our BOL but lets face it there is still a considerable amount of valuables in our home safe, things like jewelry, firearms, pictures, hard drives and records.. there is no way in a bug out situation to take all of these things. so what do you do?

My wife and I were discussing this today.. We came to two conclusions..

1. If there was no time constraint we would cut the floor out and place the safe into the crawl space and then cover the hole with a double layer of plywood and way too many wood screws..

2. Time is of the essence!! we cut the floor out from underneath the safe dropping it into the crawl space and set the house on fire..

the thought being that we might conceal it from marauders.
What are your guys' thoughts?

If it's truly a bug-out situation, you won't have time to be screwing around with your gunsafe. You'll have more vital things to do.

(Remember that in any evacuation scenario, the roads load up fast. The longer you screw around before leaving, the more accidents, fender-benders, overheated vehicles, and general pandemonium you're going to encounter on the roads. Study up on what happened when people tried to evacuate before Katrina hit New Orleans...)

Its going to be different for different people because everyone's circumstances are different, but in general most people have some portable container(s) they can take with them. One poster above mentioned a job box. Many guys I know have rifle cases and pelican cases they use to transport rifles to the range or hunting camp, etc. Their plan is to load up their firearms into cases and stow the cases in a truck or trailer with pre-planned space for them.

Don't forget your ammunition. Evacuations are why many people store ammunition in ammo cans - not only because they're sturdy, stackable, and airtight, but because they're man-portable when filled.

Anything you leave behind in an evacuation may not be there when you return. A quick perusal of the news out of California, with all the fires going on and mass evacuations, reveals destroyed houses and contents and charges of looting going on in homes that survived the fires. This is about as recent and relatable as it gets - hell, the fires are still burning. People are still sitting in evacuation centers.

Ensure you can take the contents of your safe when you evacuate, and don't worry about screwing with the safe itself. Your gun safe is the least of your worries...

 

[last1standing]

empty it out if you can..lock it and place a plastic hand inside showing the your #1 sign along with a time delay IED

 

[LordOpie]

... there is still a considerable amount of valuables in our home safe, things like jewelry, firearms, pictures, hard drives and records..

everything except guns and ammo should be in one bag to grab. All those things can't weigh more than a 12ga. If you have large external hard drives, transfer all that data to a flashdrive/memory card. I bet you could fit everything on a 64gb card and you could buy three of those for $50, then you have triple back ups.

for documents and photos, start taking pictures with your phone and transfer the to the memory cards. Take two of the three cards and put them in two different BOBs.

when you've done all this, all you need to do is grab the bag/box of jewelry in your safe.

 

[HBK]

Let me elaborate on Ricekilas weapons reminder. Many folks simply don't know.
In a nutshell, we don't refer to guns as weapons. I train with police and military and know old habits die hard. But please just call a gun, a gun. Lots of reasons, all perceived negative connotations. Firearm, pistol, rifle, all ok too.
Back to the safe question. Take your stuff! If it's important enough to be in the safe, it's important enough to take. If you must abandon, don't cut into your floor and burn your house. Take and then hide your stuff, bury it in pipes, whatever. And just leave the safe open.
But if you have 4 overflowing gun safes and guns stacked to the ceiling, I'm not sure what I'd do. Other than start liquidating so my kids don't have to.

 

[Ricekila]

Let me elaborate on Ricekilas weapons reminder.

Sit here on Uncle Gary's knee

Ya-ready ?

Weapon = only after its used to kill or do bodily harm

 

[Blueline]

I agree with other posters, if I bug out I leave the safe door open and it is empty. I have got to the point of consolidation where everyone has a MBR and a sidearm the extras go in the trunk, or the bed lockbox or worst case are dropped in sealed pvc in the garden. Never reached that point and hope I never have to, moving all the ammo out will require some serious Advil and icing of the back

 

[thataway]

You only need so many guns (so my wife tells me!)--so pre-determine what you will take with you. As Lord Opie--we put all of the other information on SD cards--may take a stack--but generally will be better than hard drives--and a lot of info on a 64 GB card. If you have to leave on foot--this will be very limited--in our case AR 15, Mossberg 500, Ruger 10/22, and several hand guns...would be the max we could take. Even if leaving by vehicle, you will be limited.

If you have a safe cast in concrete This may be the best way. You can pour the re-inforced concrete now under the floor, and have a lid fabricated for it. This can be under another plate of steel (dirt over that). The entrance to the "safe" in concrete, does not have to be large, even for rifles. If you want to have a thru the floor access for it--so be it.

There should be some padding--and the guns need to be adequately preserved with appropriate grease. Ammo in sealed ammo boxes--also in the concrete "safe"..

 

[netmerc]

Added fun for us Canadians:

While we CAN just grab our shotguns and rifles and bug out, our RESTRICTED firearms like handguns and AR15s require a permit to take anywhere.

Currently we have a permit attached to our licenses that allows transport to a gun smith, gun show, licensed range or a police officer/station.

If we want to transport our restricted firearms somewhere else then we have to call during business hours and get a permit. They CAN email it to you though.

So in a disaster where we have to bug out we are forced to make a decision, leave our property where it can be destroyed or WORSE looted (*see above post about RCMP looters) or we can take a chance and call the Chief Firearms Officer and ask for a permit (we call them an ATT Authorization To Transport) .

There is one loophole that you could exploit and that is to use your existing permit to go to a gun smith or range away from the disaster. If it's a gunsmith you know you could drop the restricteds off there for "maintenance" for a few days until the disaster passes.

If it's a range then legally you have to go straight back home after you are done at the range. You could call and get an ATT to go somewhere else such as to stay with family.

Lastly you can just take a chance you don't get caught but the jail time is pretty serious!



Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

 

[JoeKan]

I think you should avoid the rush and move your safe/valuables to your BOL now. Hide it and secure it so you won't have to worry about it when you're not there.

 

[LordOpie]

I think you should avoid the rush and move your safe/valuables to your BOL now. Hide it and secure it so you won't have to worry about it when you're not there.

but what if your BOL is the one under attack (eg. fire)?