Caching With PVC

PVC is one of those things no survivalist or prospective guerrilla should be without. It’s one of the most versatile items you can have around a retreat, being used for everything and anything including hydroponics, water routing and storage, shelter frames and even in one case from a student in the RTO Course, a ladder rack on his truck. It was really cool- and really well done. But one of the most common uses I have for PVC tubing is making caches for anything from weapons, ammunition and communications support items to basic sustainment items like extra knives, fire making tools, ponchos and tarps or medical items. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do it though, and it’s not as simple is stuffing things in a tube.

One of the big advantages of using PVC is its simplicity. With a larger diameter pipe, a rounded end cap and a screw-in cleanout cap you’ve got a basic water resistant tube that can virtually disappear anywhere. You can find the smaller sizes at any Lowe’s, Home Depot, or ACE Hardware, but the larger diameters you’ll need to hit up the local plumbing supply store.

But with that said, caching with PVC in the long term is a little more complicated than it looks. Storage of anything for extended periods requires some care and a little more work than just stuffing things in a tube. And while we’re talking about DIY canisters, I follow the same rules for any cache container.

Waterproofing

PVC tube placed within a hollow log.

Caches do us no good if they can’t seal out the elements. With PVC tubes the first thing you’ll need is glue to seal the caps. The more, the better. It’ll create a permanent bond while being watertight. The next item you’ll need is plumber’s tape. This is used on the screw threads of the cleanout cap. Like the PVC glue, liberally apply the tape to the threads to form a watertight seal.

Just because you’ve sealed up the outsides from water intrusion doesn’t mean the internals are safe from mold, mildew and rust. Residual humidity inside the container will cause condensation over time and ruin the items you’re caching. This is especially true for ammunition. The last thing you want is to dig up a cache years later to find that your ammo is corroded and your primers are dead from not knowing what you don’t know.

Steel Case AK ammo double sealed in ziploc bags along with silica gel packets. This keeps any residual moisture from threatening the ammo.

PVC has a tendency to seriously collect moisture on the inside. One rule of thumb I use when making caches is to seal each item individually in its own sub-container. Ziploc bags work well, as does vacuum sealers to starve residual oxygen out of the container. Another thing I always make sure to include is a few silica gel packets to soak up any remaining moisture, just to be on the safe side. If its ammo or anything metal or electronic, its just a good idea from a redundancy standpoint. A little insurance for down the road never hurts. Plus it keeps everything neatly organized inside the tube.

If you’re planning on caching weapons, it’s wise to invest in cosmoline as a protectant. Cosmoline is that nasty goo you’ve spent so much time scrubbing off com-bloc surplus, and for a good reason- they apply it as a preservative to much of their military equipment for long term storage. Your stuff will not rust but you will need a solvent or degreaser to clean your equipment once you’ve dug it back up. If you’ve cleaned cosmoline you know exactly what I’m referencing.

Cache tube, up close and placed around a junk pile on the farm. With a little more work and some aging, it would blend in fine.

Concealment and Recovery

Concealing PVC is really simple. How often do you see PVC? Its everywhere. Think outside of the box and make it look like where a pipe might go, and it’ll likely go unnoticed. But if you’re carrying it into areas where it might be discovered, a better bet is painting it up in a hasty camo pattern and sticking it in the ground, off the beaten path with some way of marking it.

Most often we think of caches as being hidden in the ground, buried somewhere to be recovered at a later time. Caches can serve multiple purposes, from long term storage of items in non-permissive environments to, more often for guerrillas, clandestine resupply. While there’s no hard and fast rules for them, you have to know how they’re marked and how to relay that information to friendlies.  In the RTO Course we use the UNDER Report for caches to standardize how we relay that information. What you do is up to you- as long as those in your group know how to recover it, you’ve done your job.

Cache site from a distance.

It All Hinges On Thinking Outside The Box

With a few considerations, PVC is an almost idiot-proof way of caching supplies in non-permissive environments. It’s cheap, rugged and plentiful. And while its hard to go wrong, as long as you’re not that guy burying metal Russian spam cans, you’ll be good to go. Make plenty of them, practice often to build that working knowledge, and remember that your greatest asset is unconventional thinking.

 

 

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25 Comments

  1. James May 6, 2019 at 07:57

    hmmm…..,I see that”Russian” ammo we were recently discussing,pre trade war or inside connections?!As for thinking outside the box,I think in ways to try and never be in a box,carpentry and improvising on the job have taught me many ways to do the basics while not being in a box mentally(hopefully).PVC tis a great multi use product,keep in mind you stash with a screw cap you will need a good pipe wrench/large channel locks ect. to open.

  2. Anonymous May 6, 2019 at 08:08

    5

  3. JohnyMac May 6, 2019 at 08:52

    Fun family project NC Scout.

    A few things that I have “heard” folks do is…Not only use Teflon tape on the threads of the clean out cap is to also use plumbers paste too. Teflon tape plus plumbers paste provides a perfect reversible seal. I have also “heard” that folks attach a cheapo Chinese wrench that matches up to the nut of the clean out cap zip tied to the outside of the PVC tube. Of course the wrench is packed in grease, in a vacuum sealed or zip lock bag.

    Last, I have “heard” my friends who cache things in PVC piping is they include a treat in a zip lock or vacuum sealed bag, packed with silica gel packets of course too. Tobacco, candy, a small bottle of hooch, etc. The list is endless.

    Peace Brother.

    • anonymous May 7, 2019 at 06:14

      That tool may be the item that gets the attention of the metal detector so place it far enough way to make sure the operator doesn’t do a nearby search. Packed in grease and inside a protected package guarantees that this wasn’t just a lost tool.

      Maybe a nearby tree on other fixed object that won’t disappear any time soon.

      • Dimplewidget May 12, 2019 at 13:00

        If the contents are metallic the point is moot. if not perhaps making a PVC tool or even chemically treated wood

    • johnymac May 8, 2019 at 10:11

      True enough Anonymous. However if you burying anything like ammo a metal detector will ping your cache too.

      As NC Scout wrote later, the secret to caching any thing is where you hide it. One thought is to not putting under tera ferma or in a waterway. Maybe a friends house would be more appropriate. Mix it up. ;-)

      • The_One May 12, 2019 at 15:48

        No need to grease the wrench. Even a rusty one will work. The steel is so thick it won’t rust away in your lifetime. As far as metal detectors go… Seed the ground for a few acres around your cache with old nuts n bolts, pipes, junk etc… They will get tired of digging up tens of thousand of crap scrap soon enough.

  4. Matt in Oklahoma May 6, 2019 at 09:09

    Good stuff
    There are rubber sealers that go inside the tube that use a nut to tighten against the sides. We use those and the cap for extra security.
    When I bury them I now do it horizontally because I did one vertically and almost couldn’t find it after several years.
    I like to check the site from time to time because I once had an armadillo dig one up exposing it to view.
    I also do electronic locators now because a tornado came through once and changed the landscape enough that finding it would have been impossible.

    • James May 6, 2019 at 15:26

      Armadillos/tornadoes,damn Matt,they are not making it easy for you out there!Would the dillo crack unit open if thought was of good effort spent?

      • Matt in Oklahoma May 8, 2019 at 08:22

        Tornados and fires are a better reason to do a cache than others.
        If my place is wiped out then I can still access ammo immediately. I’m always wearing my handgun and I always try to take an AR into the shelter. If I’m not at home then they are with me but I’ll have a limited supply.
        The Dillo was looking for soft ground after the thaw. We had placed that particular cache in on a winter day and it was the softest ground after the thaw. It stopped at the PVC. I didn’t paint that particular unit so the white was just a shining. I’ll take the extra time on future ones to paint a brown.

  5. panhandlerancher May 6, 2019 at 10:49

    PVC is available in 12″ diameter from irrigation pipe suppliers Fully loaded even a 3′ length is heavy but the diameter supports storage of larger diameter items. PR

  6. Alaska Paul May 6, 2019 at 19:46

    One thing I was thinking about was metallic objects such as ammo, weapons, tools, parts in the pvc pipe underground. They would be subject to metal detectors. LEOs could do a search. I would think that burying lots of decoys could be helpful, but I can see this as a secondary problem. Any comments?

    • NC Scout May 6, 2019 at 20:35

      They would be. If you’re doing it right, you’re placing them where people won’t think to look.

    • James May 7, 2019 at 06:49

      Paul,as am in construction I am always scrapping metal/taking stuff others wont use,have a pile under tarp.I have some truck leaf springs for reuse(knives someday?)/plate and beam steel chunks/iron and copper/brass ect.I feel they are determined enough do be doing ground sweeps(who ever they are)you probably do not want to be there or even come back until things have changed dramatically.I do like the rotted tree ect. but guess more importantly is caches not even near your property but feel comfortable using.I do have some investment grade metals stashed and one person I trust well knows were it is besides me,homeowners insurance will not cover em in a full house down fire and do not trust em in a safe deposit box.

    • Nobody May 7, 2019 at 11:09

      One piece of property where I might cache something was a bit of a dump 50+ years ago. It’s not obvious looking at the property, but there are old cans and other scrap everywhere just under the surface. Good luck with a metal detector.

    • Decoys are not useful. You’re just proving you have something hidden, pissing them off and they will continue to search. Any OPFOR on a search is going to probably be well trained so don’t think you’re going to outsmart them or try something crafty and new that no one has thought of and get away with anything.. Not placing shit on your property or close by is the first ting you need to think about.

  7. Ainokea May 9, 2019 at 18:26

    Pvc cache

  8. Ainokea May 9, 2019 at 18:43

    Use ammonia on your vessel during and after burial. Spritzer bottle. Dogs can sniff a cache. Lay an old rusty pipe or equal 6” or so above the vessel and just below the ground surface. Use some old rusty nails(at least 2) in the side of the root crown of nearby trees and measure to your cache. Scatter some cheap magnets around as decoys. Old chicken wire or cyclone fencing make a great mask. Nothing new. Something rusted. Innovate, innovate, innovate.

    • Homer May 10, 2019 at 20:42

      Sometimes finding the exact location for recovery can be the most difficult part of a cache. Unfortunately I speak from experience. Be sure to mark it well and remember that seemingly permanent landmarks can change.

      • John May 12, 2019 at 11:15

        Be a good idea to purge all the oxygen from the pipe before sealing, using nitrogen. No oxygen…no rust…

  9. Dean M Drews May 12, 2019 at 10:12

    Since I have discovered CorrosionX I no longer rely on grease or cosmoline for long term firearm storage. No huge cleaning project to return the firearm to service.

  10. Steady Steve May 12, 2019 at 17:13

    Just plumbers tape is not enough. Figure out the depth of the screw cap and where it bottoms out apply a good quality RTV silicone sealant before screwing it in. The idea is to create a seal under the cap. Apply another bead around and into the gap at the top when the cap is fully seated. The best long term option is to glue on a solid cap at both ends. The downside being that you will need a saw to open it.

  11. Anonymous May 12, 2019 at 22:42

    4.5

  12. Lots of comments here about metal detectors and dogs sniffing things out. That’s mostly Hogans Hero’s internet stuff so stop worrying about it. One never gives a reason to the OPFOR to search a particular area where your junk is stashed. You NEVER go there unless it is to retrieve your supplies or checking them every 6-8 months. Whats more is you never caches in your own immediate area. Never at your home/property or up to 5 miles of your home or operations are whether that be a farm house or small town. The farther away the farther suspicion will be if its discovered. If you stash closely a determined OPFOR will find what they came to your place looking for or simply haul you away to cure the issue-but don’t stash on your land or close by or give them a reason to come looking.

  13. […] NC Scout’s recent article on Caching with PVC as a guide, inside a PVC cache for 6 months and 12 months (meaning I will have to dig up and reseal […]

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