There is a big debate online and offline about gun control and about what a citizen can do to hide a gun. About what any of us can do to avoid being left without firepower in a time of need. It is certain that bad guys will always find a way to get their hands on some reliable guns, even if a gun control policy is in effect. However, the question remains…what about the good guys?
Before you start looking for places where you can hide your guns, you should learn first where not to hide a gun. You should never hide a gun around your home unless you’ve figured out ways of to make it undetectable. Otherwise, you may just as well wrap it up nicely for any opportunist burglars or some ‘authorities’ that use metal detectors, surface penetrating radars or even sniffing dogs.
There are three familiar places that you can exploit to hide your guns. Use them when all the other guns are gone or when government agencies come knocking. These sites are: underground, above eye level and right in plain sight, but disguised so nobody can see what you’ve hidden.
Try to hide a gun underground
This is probably one of the most popular and secure places to hide a gun. Even though it is durable, it can become tricky. Once you’ve prepared your weapon by sealing it inside a PVC pipe, complete with ammo, tools, and desiccants, it is time to do some prospecting. If you plan to cache your survival supplies, you will need to find a spot where you can’t be spotted by noisy neighbors or spying eyes.
This place should stay undisturbed for years and only you should know about it. Ideally, the place you chose should have landmarks you can recognize, now and five years from now. If there are old metal objects scattered around is even better, and an abandoned junkyard is a perfect spot to hide a gun.
The hardiness of the soil also plays an essential role in finding the perfect spot. Although disturbed soil is recommended, that’s not always an option. You should pick a location where you can dig, preferably where frost won’t make soil impenetrable. Some people will cache their guns in the woods while others will look for disused factories or abandoned warehouses. You can even hide it on a property belonging to a law-abiding relative, someone less likely to come under scrutiny than you and your property.
Recommended reading: How to cache supplies for harsh times
If you found the perfect spot to hide your gun, some digging needs to take place, and you have to make up your mind about how is going to take place. When burying your rifle, you have two choices: vertical and horizontal. If you insert your gun into a PVC tube and decide to bury it into the ground vertically, it will create a much less gun-like signature for metal detectors.
Although this is a good practice, it’s also much harder to dig a deep enough hole without a mechanical auger or any other type of tools. The situation can get even more complicated since your container should go entirely below the frost line. In some places, this can be as deep as three or four feet. If you bury your container too shallowly, the frost can crack your container or eventually thrust it to the surface.
Digging up vertically buried containers can also become a problem. Some tools will be needed to get your stash out of the ground. If you manage to uncover the first foot or so of the tube, the ground is going to cling hard. You will need a lot of force to haul your stash out of the ground. If you have a lot of metal debris in the vicinity of your hiding spot you can opt for horizontal methods. Regardless of the burying method you chose, make sure to cover the spot with leaves, bark or any other material native to the environment.
Try to hide a gun above eye level
In today’s world, people don’t look up, and they barely pay attention to their environment. They are being distracted by their phones or any other subjects that are right in front of their eyes. A good suggestion would be to hide a gun in a tree or rafters. In rough neighborhoods, people often hide their guns in the clerestory of an old factory or warehouse. You can also hide a gun in the trim at the top of a building. People are installing false gutters on their house just to have a right hiding spot.
People must be really determined to find your guns, but the reality is that most of them never look up. Somehow, it feels unnatural to look for items that are out of reach. If you decide to hide a gun in a tree or an abandoned building, you would need to go back frequently and check if the tree or the building is still standing.
For example, whenever I go out to check on my stash in an abandoned warehouse I take my camera with me and take pictures so that it looks like I’m a photography enthusiast. This is a good practice to avoid compromising the security of the stash. When using such places as your hiding spot, make sure you use camouflage techniques to make your cache blend in with the environment.
Try to hide a gun in plain sight
Hiding a gun in plain sight is a common practice, and there are a lot of stories coming from U.S. soldiers that took part in various war theaters around the world. It wasn’t uncommon for soldiers to find rifles in heaps of junk. It took weeks and even months before they realized that the guns were hidden in piles of garbage near their patrolling routes. Bear in mind, that you probably do not want to use actual garbage to hide it in. It is almost certain that it will get moved and found out.
Most of the guns were found because the garbage was disturbed. Either by stray dogs or by locals scavenging for useful items. When I’m talking about hiding a gun in plain sight, it doesn’t necessarily mean your guns should be right out there, and I’m talking more about misdirection. You can take a gun apart and hide it in a deep shelf behind rusty old tools, and people won’t notice it. You could hide it under a rusted truck or in a broken car that hasn’t left the property in years.
Having an untidy storage area, such as a shed or garage would be a perfect hiding space for pieces of guns. If it is untidy enough, it is unlikely that any “authorities” are going to go through all of the individual items that you have in that area to see if they can see small parts of a weapon. Although you may think that it is a good idea to wrap the parts in cloth, it is only a wise idea if you have may other items wrapped in the same way. Only having three or four items wrapped is going to actually draw attention to them.
One other great idea, however, is to use vehicle parts to hide them in. Cutting open some old parts, placing a gun in it, and welding it up again is a great deterrent. Just be aware, that if that part shouldn’t rattle, then it will draw attention if it does. In cases like these, inserting them into airtight bags, and surrounding it with sand will stop it rattling, and still allow you to weld it back up.
Suggested article: Bugging out without leaving a trail
Hide your gun parts at the bottoms of toolboxes or in junk drawers. They will lie there undetected for years. Take advantage of the environment you live in and use lonely ponds and hollow stumps. These are great hiding places if your container is waterproof. A quick tip: you can use a household vacuum to waterproof your guns and ammo. Your local geography provides a lot of places that could become ideal for hiding a gun or two. Use your imagination, and you will find out how easy it is to hide a gun in plain sight.
There are thousands of possible places where you can hide a gun, and you need to know your area well. Once you stashed it away, you need to find I again. That can become a problem if you don’t use landmarks. Regardless of where you hide your guns, remember to use moisture-proof containers, desiccants and plenty of gun oil.
With all that is going on in this country and seeing how certain people are determined to take our guns away, hiding a gun as a precautionary method will become a harsh necessity for some of us.
Other Useful Resources:
SPEC OPS Shooting (A Green Beret’s guide to combat and shooting and active shooter defense)
The LOST WAYS (The vital self-sufficiency lessons our great grand-fathers left us)
Survival MD (Knowledge to survive any medical crisis)
Drought USA (Secure unlimited fresh, clean water)
The opening picture, is the from “American Sniper”?
I don’t have to worry about this now, I got hurt at work in 2011 had to have surgery to put my shoulder back, while off for that I came down with thyroid cancer, extreme vertigo, and a knee replaced, for 3 years surgery one after another, no income, I had to sell most every gun I had to eat and pay rent, and for a divorce at once, sounds like a country song! I know, but only have 2 old rusty muzzle loaders, a bolt gun for deer hunting, and 2 single shots left! The bolt gun is the only one that can be of use if SHTF does happen and ain’t going to bury cause I want to use it for deer till then. Maybe now with disability benifits coming In I’ll try to buy some replacements, but SSI ain’t much for doing this and living too!
Just an FYI to anyone wondering. You can lube up your AR-15 and vacuum seal it with a standard vacuum sealer using the bag material on a roll. I was concerned about sharp corners penetrating the bag, so I tried one as a test. It has now been sealed for over two years with no leaks.
Regarding burying firearms, you mentioned vertical and horizontal, but with the caveat that a horizontal placement creates the potential for a larger signature from a metal detector. Since retrieval is far easier when it is horizontal, one option is to bury the PCV tube horizontally into the side of a steep bank. Obviously, soil conditions are a factor with any type of hole that you dig, and good drainage is an important consideration; you don’t want to place the tube in a location that is perpetually soggy or that does not carry runoff away quickly.
One idea that I have yet to experiment with is to insert sheet metal (air conditioning duct work) after digging a hole. It seems to me that it would create an additional barrier to the build up of moisture. The advantage (it seems) is that it would be very easy to retrieve the entire storage tube once you have cleared dirt from the opening.
in a PVC pipe and in the hot water heater.
In the movie RED the guy had his guns stashed in the concrete floor and then used a sledge hammer to access the weapons. How you ask? While it may mean some new construction (i.e. a new set of steps or concrete pad) you use a thin cover plate over the hole and use ”concrete leveler”. It’s a watery mix that can be purchased at Lowe’s that is used to level uneven surfaces to lay tile or other flooring. Very easy to hide and easy to access as the leveler is no more than 1/2” to 1” thick.
We live in Australia and of course the government took all our guns years ago when the mass shooting took place in Tasmania I know we can have a gun if we live out on a farm and the other way is to join a gun club but many times your gun has to held at the club itself, to be able to have enough guns to be able to defend your family is a problem especially since we know that the criminal elements already have guns that leaves most of us buying compound bows and stock pilling arrows shangis with ball bearings and going back to slings with ball bearings which takes many many hours of practice just to be able to fling a ball bearing in the right direction so we are looking at other ways to help defend ourselves so if you have ideas please let us know
Thanks Charlie
Underneath your concrete patio slab, if you have one. The slab protects the surrounding soil from water, particularly if you have a covered patio. Just make sure that you have good drainage.
When you feel it’s tme to hide your guns, it’s time to dig them up.
I was looking for a place to hide my pistols if I needed to. I have a large shop vac in my garage and my wife suggested that you could hide them in the vac and no one would think to look there.