CACHES

[zushwa]

Webster’s Definition:

a : a hiding place especially for concealing and preserving provisions or implements b : a secure place of storage

I’ve been thinking about this concept for a while and have some ideas of its usage. I didn’t see much discussion of it here so I’d like to hear some of your ideas and feedback.

I have a few ideas. First, pre staged items to help me get home or leave from the house. I’ve heard that the sealed 5 gallon buckets work well. I thought placing these on a pre planned route (or routes) to and from my house with some inexpensive necessities might be a good idea. Something with very little investment so if it were never used or compromised I wouldn’t be out much.

One other simple idea is friends and family. I have a buddy that lives half way between work and home that wouldn’t have a problem with me leaving a backpack in his garage.

Another idea we’ve been throwing around is having small storage units rented that we could stash items. We actually already have one close to the store that has some “extra” items in it. I had a discussion with an associate that was going to be TDY at school for 6 months and he thought of having a couple storage units along the way home just in case he ever had to get back to his family.

Lastly, we had discussed in a couple other threads about movement and speed, and if a long gun was a factor. I could see the potential to make a hasty cache and come back to it at another time.

So what do you guys think?? Anything here have merit? How would you implement any of the above?? Do you guys have any other suggestions for containers or locations of potential caches? The next obvious question is WHAT to cache. I’ve got some ideas on this too but I’d like to get the ball rolling first.

[Beat Trash]

To sum it up in a word, yes.

To save money, and more importantly, my sanity (what's left), I like to first define the problem, then look for the answer.

Where a cache would be useful, in my mind is for a fall back plan.

The first thought I had is if your BOV has to be abandoned.

If you have to bug out from point A, to point B, in a perfect world, it'd be no big deal. You would have everything you need in your BOV, and away you go. But if some unforeseen event causes you to have to abandon you vehicle and continue on foot, a pre-planned cache or two along the way would be nice to have. Even if it were something as simple as a 5 gal bucket some basic stuff. I would keep it simple as to the content, things like dry socks, food, matches, simple water filter, space blanket, a bit of ammo. A few of these along the route might make a huge difference in your outcome.

But what if you could not get to your bug out supplies? House burns down, gets blown away by a storm, chemical spill, what ever.

Having a cache located at trusted friends and/or relatives would be nice.

This could be a rubbermaid tote or one of those plastic lockable job boxes. I'd take this a little farther than the first cache. I'd add some extra cloths, maybe an old but serviceable pair of boots. Food, ammo, cleaning gear, mags, basically, a scaled down version of what you had planned on bringing anyway.

Currently I am working on this idea. I have put together 50 cal cans that contain a mix of 6 loaded AR mags, 4- 120 rd bandoleers of 5.56mm, and 200 rds of 9mm ammunition. The next step is some kind of tote or box to put a change of cloths, foot wear, a brick of 22lr (only because there is no room in my ammo can for it), knife, and what ever else I can think of. Step three will be to put together some long term storage food.

I plan on keeping the total package as small as possible. I also want at least two of these set up, in locations that are in different directions from my house. The idea being if forced to Bug Out, and the event is between me and one location, there is a fall back location in a different direction.

The hard part of doing this is that you must really trust the people who you are leaving your cache with. Just because someone is related to you, does not automatically mean they can be trusted. To prevent them from confiscating your cache during an emergency, they are going to have their own preps. It would go without saying that the ideal way to set this up would be to have a minimum of three people/families involved, to include you. Each forms part of a triangle. Each is welcome to go to the others home as a BO location.

The rental unit idea, in my mind is just taking the 5 gal bucket cache idea and expanding upon it. If I had to bug out from point A to point B, and the distance was interstate, or measured in hundreds of miles, then this is a great idea. I would look for storage units in smaller towns, on the outskirts. Would hate to count on those supplies only to find the riots have burned the building down.

This is where I might add some camping gear, and some treated gas.

I have been kicking these ideas around for a few years.

If using a storage unit, or the cache with relatives and friends, I have even thought of extra firearms. If going this route, then I would personally use guns I bought from a private source, with no paper trail. I would only do this in case the guns were to be stolen. This is where the trust factor really comes in to play. In the storage unit, you can just stash the guns in something that looks "un-gun like". The storage unit would look like any other storage unit, full of crap, vs. a cache of supplies.

Side note, I recently rented a storage unit for three months while moving out & separating from the wife. Among other things were over 50 labeled 50 cal. cans of ammo. I put these inside of those card board boxes that copy paper comes in (looks like those "banker boxes") . I wanted anyone walking by while the door might be open to think it looked like a yard sale at a trailer park. I did not want them to see the labeled ammo cans, and think, "Hmm".

Sorry if I was rather long winded, but I have been thinking about this since about 2004.

[Iraq Ninja]

Best place for a cache is in the ground. The more people who know about it, the greater the odds that it can become compromised. I would not trust any other friends with a cache. The cashe location needs to be a secure location, away from other people, so you can take time to dig it up if needed.

The IRA liked to use graves and crypts for their cache locations. Easy to get to, and not a lot of people in graveyards at night.

I once did a course at the NATO LRRP school, and part of the training was in cache placement. From what I remember, we dug a hole and lined the bottom with branches. This served to keep the ammo cans a bit dryer. Each can had a nylon rope tied to it. As you dug down, you found the rope at about a foot underground, and pulled the can up with the rope. Total depth was about four feet maybe. You want it deep enough that a vehicle can drive over it and not disturb it. Ammo cans were easy to pull out of the ground, than using one big container.

A cache for a single person should be no larger than a day pack. In fact, putting the cache in a day pack instead of ammo cans is a good idea. Just throw it on your back and go. One common problem is that people make the cache too big, and the supplies end up as a burden to transport.

The cans or the pack needs to be sealed in plastic and buried in sandy soil if possible.

Use a GPS and get a 10 digit grid. Take photos but don't make them obvious that you are photgraphing your cache. Instead, make it look like it is just a photo of your family hiking in the woods.

Don't become emotionally attached to your cached items. It is for emergency use. So, don't stick your favorite Noveske rifle in it. An AK is a great choice for a cached weapon.

[Outlander Systems]

I'll teach you guys a trick using azimuths and distances to locate your stash from a known location.

Say your cache is buried in the middle of a small field. On one end of the field is a well house. Elsewhere, in the field, is a fence post. Remember these two landmarks.

For this, you will need a compass and a cloth tape, or merely pace it if you're confident enough, or don't have access to a tape.

Bury your cache of supplies. Now, for relocation's sake, you will want to obtain a compass azimuth from the nearest corner of the well house to your cache. Jabbing a stick in the ground on your cache will make your azimuth more accurate. Next, walk over to the fence post. Obtain your second azimuth, from the fence post, to your cache.

Next up, log your distances from each landmark. You can do this with either the tape or roughly by pacing the distance, each stride being approximately one yard.

At the end, your journal, or log, should look as follows:

From SE Well House Corner, proceed on an azimuth of 115°32'02" a distance of 132.47'.

From broken fence post, encased in concrete, proceed on an azimuth of 204°18'51" a distance of 73.14'.

Though not perfect, this system can help maintain a means to hunt down a cache of items, where no one will know its location other than the person who set the cache, and whose recovery will not require the use of electronic devices.

In a "Get Home Situation" a mile-marker can be an excellent landmark for a cache, if you're traveling by highway.

[K.L. Davis]

I'll teach you guys a trick using azimuths and distances to locate your stash from a known location.

From experience, I would caution against relying solely on intersection references taken from such objects, especially things like fence posts... there is a very good chance that in 14.6 months, when you need the cache, the reference markers will be gone, or worse, replaced.

[perna]

From experience, I would caution against relying solely on intersection references taken from such objects, especially things like fence posts... there is a very good chance that in 14.6 months, when you need the cache, the reference markers will be gone, or worse, replaced.

Or there is a mini-mall built on top of it.

[Outlander Systems]

From experience, I would caution against relying solely on intersection references taken from such objects, especially things like fence posts... there is a very good chance that in 14.6 months, when you need the cache, the reference markers will be gone, or worse, replaced.

I agree that it is a risky option, and one must accept the possibility that the references may be disturbed/destroyed or missing when one returns.

That being said, I've seen ties and non-monumented property-corners (lone oak tree) that still can be used for reference that are over half-a-century old.

It's a give and take. Obviously, if one is going to use references one needs to pick objects with the least likelihood of being disturbed.

This is one of the only solutions I can come up with for locating/pinpointing a small area with no electronic devices, etc.

As Kino has pointed out, there are inherent risks in such a scenario, and one should most certainly use caution and common sense to choose which objects to reference your location to. The more difficult it would be for these objects to be relocated/moved/changed, the better.

[blade_68]

plant them like a body, grave yards don't normaly move. when you say good bye aintie may send her on the way with an AK? marked location, I say other thoughts of container PVC pipe with cap glue bottom on RTV other, need to get open, and keep dry with small back pack in side old alice pack with straps. done a few caches as a kid and in military, ammo cans rust.

[CKettler]

Guys, I'm a newbie to this topic but find it all very interesting. Thanks for the insight and keep the thread alive.

[PA PATRIOT]

I recently stored 500rds (250rds each) of Wolf 5.56 and 9mm inside a "Sealed" heavy thickness PVC tube and buried it 12"inches into the ground at my #1 bug-out location. Each box inside the tube is vac-sealed in heavy plastic wrap in case the tubes seals fail in some way allowing moisture inside. I"ll dig it up in the next year or two and see if anything negative happen to the ammo. I used Wolf because of price and that its 100% reliable in my BushMaster and Glock and that its primers and case necks are lacquered sealed for longer storage life. I didn't want to bury more then 12"inches because the ground maybe frozen when I decide to dig in up.

Maybe I'LL dig it up on 12-21-2012 because my family will be on a road trip at bug-out location #1 watching the sky