What size Pelican case is that? I never thought to store them that way-makes a lot o sense

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Forum consigliere

That's a great idea and a lot cheaper than those Pelican Cases
One thing-DO NOT store a gun in a holster or a case as it WILL rust. Gun socks-regular socks or Crown Royal bags are definitely the way to go.

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Forum consigliere

Ref the Pelican cases...look up Cases4Less. Bought a few cases there a few yrs back...best prices I could find on the net.

I transport mine to the range that way. Have to say i'm a bit afraid to store them that way though. The chemical smell from the foam scares me as well as any trapped moisture.

FN in MT

I purchased some Manabout racks based on a recommendation on this forum.

They are beautiful, functional and allow circulation to help prevent rust formation.

Highly recommended, but then again I'm in the 20 something handgun range...........might be a bit expensive for those of you with "massive" collections.

All pistols and rifles are cleaned, lightly oiled with EEZOX, placed in Borestores and then stored in the gun safe.

Those in the photo are the Pelican 1500 case. I found a couple places on the net that have them at decent prices but Fry's just right down the road from me sells them for $99 each and they keep the yellow and black. I also use them to transport to the range and have a separate one for ammo.

Max

Where can one get this rust preventative paper?

Big J, you can order the factory paper directly from the factory, at like 20 or 30 cents a sheet. Call the parts dept.

Bin Boxes.

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20 years Mil, 18 yrs Sac P.D.

Great thread.
Got me to thinking. I, too have stacks of revolvers in Bore-Stores. Tried marking them with a Sharpie, and, have some black Midway versions, too. No marking for those.
And, I tend to trade and change things around.
Then it ocurred to me - removable nametags. Had some sew-on white velcro in the shop. The hooks stick perfectly to the fleece.
Just label the "hook" side with a Sharpie, and voila! Instant, removable nametags:

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-jwk-
US Army '72-'95

Either in an empty Crown Royal bag in the safe, or in an old canvas Webley holster inside my bedroom closet hanging from a coat hook if I think I need to keep it close by. The gun is wiped down with a thin coat of either CLP or GI gun oil, so I'm not worried about rusting.

Typical gun safe interiors are poorly designed for handgun storage. There are usually just a few shelves as if the average gun owner has 20 rifles and shotguns, but only five or six handguns. You can usually add more shelves, but they have to be spaced far enough apart to be able to reach to the back and there's a lot of wasted space.

I've tried most of the things suggested in this thread - socks, gun rugs, in the box, racks, etc. Most of them have the drawback of not being able to see your guns, and that's one of the pleasures of ownership. Most of these schemes also make it difficult to locate and get to any given individual gun.

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and build a safe interior just for handgun storage. (I now have a separate safe for my long guns, and more handgun storage in the future - if I need it!) I gutted my old safe and built an interior with drawers on heavy duty, full-extension ball bearing slides, and actually just got finished with it this evening. I haven't lined the drawers or arranged my guns in it yet, but I did fill up one drawer just to take a picture. There is essentially zero space between the drawer fronts and the inside of the safe door when it's closed, nor any space behind the drawers. I had to spend a couple of hours tweaking the drawer slides to get the door to shut without forcing it.













Each drawer's interior dimensions are 18" deep by 19-3/8" wide, and about two inches tall. One drawback is that the drawers can't be any wider than the door opening (or course!). Gun safes are always made with a wide lip on each side so there's a fair amount of wasted volume on each side of the stack. It's a tradeoff.

Now I'll actually be able to see what I've got, and get to them easily when I want to go shooting. I'll number the drawers and stick an index on the inside of the safe door. All I have to figure out now is how to categorize them....

I like the Hyskore modular foam racks as well. The nice thing about them is that you can take them apart and with long threaded rods put them back together in the length and variety that you need. I have one that runs the entire length of the top shelf of my safe and a few singles/doubles where I can fit them on the lower half. Also handy are the Handgun Hangers, they significantly increased my safe's handgun capacity.

Loaded and at hand 24/7

Very Nice TomK! I like that.
Now, where do you put all the ammo for those guns? Right now, I've been putting ammo in the bottom of my gun safe but I'm running out of room quick.

I carry all of the handguns that I shoot. After I clean them I place it back in the safe OR in my hostler if I am going to carry it soon. Both my snub nose and my M&P9c stay inside their pocket holsters.

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Don't look, reload and shoot!

Addendum - I now have the drawers lined with some nice green velvet. I wanted something classier than shelf paper and I had a roll of this on hand. I didn't want to stick it directly to the drawer bottoms (in case it got stained, or I got tired of the color or whatever). So, I cut out pieces of 1/8" thick hard fiberboard that just fit the bottom of the drawers and coated them with spray adhesive. Then I laid them on the velvet, and cut around the edges with a utility knife.

Result, a nice removable bottom layer. It's actually a bit nicer looking in real life than it shows in the picture. Probably about as close as I'm ever going to get to having a Victorian style "gun room".







Now if I decide to redo some of the drawers in S&W blue it'll be easy to change.



Ammo goes in my very old, original Treadlock gun safe. It's just heavy gauge sheet metal with no fire protection or other lining.

One thing I did do was line the inside of the door surround of the ammo safe with LED rope lights. It provides a nice soft and even illumination so that I can see what I'm looking for without having to resort to a flashlight or such.

You, sir, are a genius! I just picked up a this gun safe for my modest collection of long guns and hand guns. I'm no where near the level of collector as the majority on this board, in either quantity or value. So I don't need near the space as most of you do. I put my most common shooters out in the open on a shelf. My other handguns are stored in their original cases at the bottom of the safe. After I filled her up (note I don't have everything in at the time of this picture), I immediately noticed the wasted space/limited access issue. You're post has my hamster spinning the wheel to overload. I'm thinking I could install something similar on a smaller scale (i.e. a lower quadrant of my safe). I think I'll be making a trip to the hardware store a little for some supplies.

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Sack-ups for my handguns.

Tom K.

Brillant and some great craftmanship in the construction of the drawers. Definately some food for though concerning any future acquisitions I may have.

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Semper Paratus

Tom, tell us more, I like that setup alot. What are the drawer rails attached to and how? Is that a plywood frame inside the safe and how is it built to handle the weight? questions, question.

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Sure you did

I kind of did it the hard way. Because I wanted to use absolutely every bit of volume available in the safe, I precut the pieces that make up the outside of the cabinet and assembled them inside the safe. That way the sides are farther apart than the width of the door opening, and the drawers are wide enough to just clear. Same way with the height – the bottom drawer just clears the bottom lip of the safe and the top drawer likewise, with the top and bottom of the framework inside the upper and lower lips of the opening. It frustrates me that there is wasted volume on each side of the assembly that I can’t use, but I just couldn’t figure out any way to make that space accessible.

The framework is ¾” particle board spray painted dark gray and the drawers are ½” birch plywood, with 1/8” birch plywood bottoms. The drawers are all screwed and glued, edges routed, sanded, stained and sealed. I pre-assembled the drawer slide pieces to the framework sides before I put them in the safe so that I could lay them down flat to work on them. The slides are held by three screws each. There’s a brace piece I added in the middle just to make sure that the sides wouldn’t bow out, but that was probably unnecessary overkill. All the framework parts are held together with simple L brackets, and the sides are attached to the back of the safe with L brackets for stability.

This could be done more simply than I did it, if a person were to just build a cabinet of drawers that would fit through the safe door opening. Any reasonably skilled person or custom cabinet maker could put something like that together without much trouble. Just measure the door opening and depth of the inside of the safe (accounting for the door thickness!), make the outside dimensions of your cabinet ¼” or so less, and work from there. When it’s all built, lay in some boards in the bottom of the safe to match the height of the bottom of the door opening, and slide it in. Done. BUT, you would not be maximizing use of the available volume as I did. As with most things, it’s a tradeoff.

I made another set of drawers for the bottom of my other safe that holds my long guns. It’s six feet tall and consequently much taller than needed for rifles and shotguns. I measured my longest guns and figured I could fill the bottom 16” or so with seven more drawers. The long guns simply sit on top of the drawer cabinet. I made the top out of ¾” plywood which I feel is more robust than particle board, and put carpet on it to protect the gun butts.

Same here. Silicone socks and gun rugs.

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John

Thanks, looks like you did a great job. I like the sliding drawer concept much better than just piling guns on top of one another(like I do, with Bore Stores ), makes access and finding what you want easier.

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Sure you did

Bore-Stores for all the pistols, long guns, and some mags.

I use a variety of storage racks. I once had them stored in gun socks, and stacked on the shelves, but to hard to find what you are looking for. Stored in the racks, easy access. Before storing they are cleaned and Ren Waxed. Heat Rod and some dessicant in all my safes. Put a Humidity Gauge in the safes and keep 45-55%.

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SWCA #2601

Anyone have any plans for the racks like they use at S&W? It looks like 5 of these racks fit on each shelf of the cart. It is hard to tell, but it looks like each rack may hold up to 8 or 10 revolvers. If you have sufficient space, storage in this standing position seems to make good sense.

Here is a picture from this forum.

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My thoughts exactly. I use those cases for transportation but would never use them for long-term storage. The potential for the foam retaining moisture is moderately high and I have read of damage to bluing from being in contact with that kind of foam. As many others have recommended, I use EEZOX and Bore-Stores for long-term storage.

Clean "holy" cotton socks mostly. Some in the door panel holder (all loaded and ready to go) and the lucky guns in Borestores. The ones I am actually shooting are just thrown in nekkid on top of the socks.

All of mine get a wipe with lambs wool and a shot of G96 on it. Then they go into Boyt canvas cases with the cushioned lined interiors. They stay nice too.

Thare are a lot of nice options here too.

For years and years I let my revolvers stay in the holsters that were bought for them. While this is not a good idea in many areas, in the areas where I lived it was not a problem. I now do not store my handguns in their holsters. I store my revolvers and pistols in my dresser drawer lying on t-shirts/socks. I give them a look/see about every week, wipe them down, etc. The 21-4 and 66-2 are handled just about every day or so. A RIA 1911-A1 sits on the nightstand. It goes under the pillow during the day when the bed is made up. At night it is returned to the nightstand.

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I keep mine in a plastic gun case that has soft padding inside of it. Since i can't afford a proper gun safe this is the only way i can store my guns for now anyways.

The ONLY gun of mine that ever rusted was stored in a foam lined plastic case. Gun rugs in the safe. Long guns get socks in the safe.

from walmart

Grayline 40213 Panacea Plate Rack Organizer, White: Kitchen & Dining : Walmart.com

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ASA/NSA 67-71
NRA Benefactor

Once cleaned from the range in Ballistol, they are placed inside Case-Gard Pistol boxes, with a dehydrator pouch, locked, and placed inside a footlocker, inside a closet, locked. Then all the "Fibber McGee" stuff goes back on top of footlocker, to complete the scenario.

First, I was inspired by Tom K's safe set up with the drawers so I followed suit and thought I'd post here and share a little.
Well after a month or so and many many measurements and thinking, I have finally completed my safe retrofit with drawers. Overall they came out really nice and am very happy I did it. It was my winter project, so I didn't mind doing it although it took some time. I'm going to really enjoy pulling a piece out without having to remove boxes, bumping other guns etc...This is a pain in the rear for me and often didn't shoot a gun due to it's location in the safe and the main factor for the retrofit. Plus now I get to drool over them and wipe down with ease. I have 20 drawers. I don't have much for wood working tools so I did purchase the drawers from Barkerdoors online and they did a really good job, I was surprised from packaging to fit and finish. The drawers cost about $300 shipped, I modified the bottoms to increase spacing/clearances between drawers. I also put the drawers together and finished them to save a little coin. In addition to that I made the frame similar to Tom K's. It was a pain in rear to install the frame and get the pieces mounted, I think I misjudged this and should have done a mock up first, drilling holes, etc prior to working in the cramped safe.

Here's a couple pictures. Thanks again Tom K,

I made a rack in my safe using 3/16 steel rod and heat shrink tubing and slide my pistols over the rods stickong out from the underneath the shelf

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Great job Fatboy and love the S&W 3rd gen drawer!

This is their resting place when they're not out having fun, my wife told me the other day that I have a problem, I confirmed with her and told her I think we need a larger safe.
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[IMG][/IMG]

I only have one so far, a 629-6 w/4" barrel.

I get them stuffed into my safe anyway I can. Some in their original boxes Ren waxed, Some on the rubberized racks, some on those hanging thingys that slip over the shelf and some on the door. And some in Gun rugs inside silicon socks (my best ones) on the floor. I moved all the long guns to a different storage area. That makes the safe a lot more bigger. I used to store them all in silicon socks and gun rugs but it was so hard to know what was in there. I like to be able to see every gun or the box label. After seeing others safes I guess I need to get more organized. At least I have them all on a spreadsheet so I know what I own and what I paid for them.

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John 1:17
NRA Life Benefactor

Tom you might want to rethink that WD-40.
Many years ago I went out of the gun hobby- I know, but it was only temporary insanity - any way I sprayed all of my guns liberally with WD-40 and didn`t touch them for about 7 years.

When I recovered my senses and got out my guns to go shooting, I found the WD-40 had gotten hard and thickened to a set up mess like cured varnish.

The bolt on my Remington 1100 could not be opened -it was glued shut!

I had to soak everything in kerosene to get the bad stuff off.
No more WD-40 on my guns. There are much better products out there.
I thought I`d share my experience for what it`s worth.

PSSMAN .....that is one sick collection...congrats!!!!

I store mine just like gscrasher & Sportsterguy.

Jerry

Each to his own but never been a fan of ANYTHING coming to contact with the surface. I keep them standing up and sleep better.

I keep one on my side of the bed; one in the pantry in my kitchen; one in the console of my truck; and the extra one in the safe. Thinking I need more after looking at all these collections! However, I'll probably have to buy my own safe (as in "hers") - our main safe is pretty full of Dan Wessons! Had to get a spare safe for the long guns.

Same here, I take the end off one, and can fit two side by side in a document safe purchased from Office Max (not the fireproof kind, which can present humidity problems) which takes care of six, plus there is a shelf above. I have two of these, when they fill up it is time to get rid of something. Silicone cloth wipedown after handling, and a golden rod inside the safe. The neoprene/foam is non-reactive, no contact spots, whereas laying a revolver on its side on bare wood can result in a contact spot on the cylinder (don't ask me how I know this). Storing in a leather holster or a cloth case is the worst, just a big moisture magnet.

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Ed

Mine are All a Safe Most are in Gun Socks with the Exception of My Model 60-7 when I am not carring it it is stored in a smaller safe Loaded & in My Desantis IWB Holster (Kids in The House) All My CCW Guns Sre stored in a smaller Safe Loaded & Most are in their Holsters,None of the Guns in other locations are kept loaded.

Where do you get empty Crown Royal bags????

What if you don't like Crown Royal?

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Ed

I really like these stands, where did you find them?
Also looks like you have different types?