Category Archives: Uncategorized

Is it illegal to bury survival items?

i can’t begin to count how many times I’ve come across the following phrase in search engines… “Help FEMA catch lawbreakers burying survival items” and it always amuses me that there is always at least one reply agreeing with or supporting the article. Most people seem to understand that the entire concept is bullshit but just for kicks i just spent the better part of an hour searching for any type of federal law regarding this. Yeah, i came up with zilch.

Let’s examine this. Imagine that my girlfriend and I have a spare house-key and a mini-maglite buried in our garden. Technically these two items could constitute “survival items” since we placed them there in the event we locked ourselves out of the house at night. Now before everyone traces my ip address and rushes over here with a metal detector, please realize that I am not dumb enough to open a website named http://www.howtoburyyourstuff.com with anything at all buried on our own property.

For all of you non-preppers, a large percentage of “survival items” consists of food and what most would consider camping equipment; not armloads of rocket launchers and machine guns like I’m sure some of you are probably imagining.

So just to ease all of you survivalists and preppers anxieties, no it is NOT illegal to bury anything (unless the items you are burying are illegal to begin with) and if that’s the case then just for the record I hope you get busted.

I’m not advocating any criminal behavior, only preparedness when considering the state of our world.

How to bury your guns

Leave a reply

f you haven’t read it yet, I recommend reading my General Tips page before burying firearms or ammunition.

When burying firearms and ammunition, the key is to prevent moisture from damaging either steel or gunpowder. Obviously they need to be waterproofed completely so as to not allow contact with rainwater. Unfortunately, air also contains water and it’s going to be tough to absolutely isolate an entire firearm or a box of cartridges from any and all air.

Keeping desiccant with your ammunition can be a lifesaver, but after sealing your desiccant and ammo together, you’ll also want a temperature buffer. Use dead air like a beer cooler to insulate against condensation or wrap your sealed ammo up in a cotton towel. Drop the wrapped up towel into an ammo can or Tupperware container; when using Tupperware, I always seal the lid with silicone.

Using desiccant with actual firearms isn’t as critical, I always instruct people to just “over oil” the weapon, wrap it in an oily rag and then wrap it in plastic before sealing it inside a watertight container. It is however, more popular to grease your firearm thoroughly. Before doing so, remove anything made of wood (stock, grip or forearm), unload it and make sure that you dry-fire your weapon, you won’t want to leave the hammer-spring under tension. Ensure that your magazines are unloaded and your firearm’s action or slide is forward.

Want to learn more?…check out http://www.howtoburyyourstuff.com