Keeping your guns Dry and SAFE on the Cheap

Tip from John in New Hampshire

Hello MD , my name is John from the Beautiful state of New Hampshire. I wanted to share a tip for you and your readers that I have been using in my gun safe(or a closet) for years, Quite Cheap and works wonderfully!! Up here we get quite humid summers and cold winters and I wanted to keep my guns/ammo in my safe dry/safe from humidity. We all know those little white packets that say “Silica Gel-Do Not Eat” that we find packaged in our electronics and other items we buy…(often see them in the bottom of the box).

After researching this wonderful little chemical item I discovered its amazing moisture grabbing qualities!! It literally pulls moisture right out of the air and “locks it up”. I thought to myself “What a great thing for my gun safe”…It was difficult to find cheaply though, there are many products for gun safes, but they were too pricey for me to justify, and some were electric powered safe de-humidifiers, not what us thrifty ‘off the gridders’ would want…

Then I discovered a Cat Litter-type product called ‘MIMI-LITTER’ , yes mimi-litter ! It is a 4 lb bag of Silica-Gel. I found it at Wal-Mart, in the Pet section for about $4.38 per bag-(Great for the Cats too, Locks up odors as well and lasts 10 days with our 2 indoor Cats). I simply cut up some of my girlfriends nylon stockings, (No, she was not wearing them at the time!) and tied a knot in them, filled with 3 cups of mimi-litter, then tied off the top and hung them in my gun safe. I put 1 of them on the floor and hung 2 of them from the top shelf. It works wonderfully!

My safe is in a room that is not heated, and in the winter I will sometimes spend some time with my beloved toys, and notice the condensation that can form on the guns when the safe door is open, when I do expose that room to heat in the winter months. I was always concerned when I had to lock the safe when I was done. So, after using this Litter method, I have not had any issues that I previously had! It absorbs all the moisture and my guns are fine…4 years now without an issue.!

I am also currently trying this on a larger scale (bigger bags) in my damp/musty basement and am happy to report it is better than it was last year. If you are very thrifty you can re-use/re-energize the product as well. Simply place it in a shallow baking pan, bake at 200* for 10 minutes and it is dried sufficiently to re-use. I don’t generally bother doing that though, because it is cheap enough to make many, many bags out of the 4lb sack and a few pairs of nylons! I also put this litter in my ‘ammo-paks’ that I make with my Food-Saver, simply throw in a handful and vacuum-seal…works great! I’m sure there are 100′s of other uses your readers will think of as well.

Here is the website I found listed on the back of the bag. Sorry, it is made in China, but if it keeps my valuables safe, I’m ok with it, here; www.silica-gel.com.

 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

 

Via: thesurvivalistblog


Save pagePDF pageEmail pagePrint page

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *