Guns, ammo storage

[mr.72]

Reading the "how many rounds of .223" thread made me want to post this, but not wanting to hijack the thread...

How do you guys store your guns and ammo at home?

I originally just had a small pistol safe and a makeshift range bag, ammo in the range bag in the garage and pistols in the safe. But now I have three or more air guns, two pistols, and need more ammo. I have a couple more guns on my wish list that may find their way here before new year's. So I need a better solution.

Do you guys figure a regular gun cabinet is fine furniture (would never work in my home)? Do you have a gun safe that stores all of this stuff (also would not work out in my house)? Just wonderin'

[WillieD]

Most of my guns are locked up in my safe, and a couple are in my bedside GunVault.

I would like to get a better storage setup for my ammo, but for now it occupies a few shelves on a big book shelf in my office.

[mr.72]

After I wrote that post, I thought of how I should have re-worded it.

I am interested in seeing what creative methods you guys have used to store guns & ammo. This is, apart from the normal gun safe or furniture-style gun cabinet.

I am considering a place to store mostly a couple of long guns (which would not be stored loaded, likely stored with trigger locks), BB and pellet rifles, ammo for all of my guns, my range bag, targets, holsters and other shooting supplies, etc. Maybe pistols or revolvers (unloaded, trigger locks) on a shelf one of these days. Probably move my pistol safe into this cabinet. This is the kind of thing that would go in our living room or entry hall, that is, it would need to look like normal furniture and not something bought from a sporting goods store. "Gun furniture" would look extremely out of place at my house.

Some ideas I have considered:

- some kind of non-gun cabinet with the guts modified to hold guns, like an armoire or wardrobe type of cabinet. Something that matches the look of the rest of our furniture, which is of the kind of Bombay style.

- maybe some kind of storage bench, fitted with hooks or racks to hold long guns and bins for ammo and accessories.

- a low dresser, console or buffet-style cabinet with drawers long enough to store long guns (at least one drawer like this). We have a spot in the entry hall where I could put something like this. One big long drawer for the long guns, and then other drawers for ammo, holsters, range bag, pistols, etc.

- add custom shelves to the entry hall closet. Problem here is that this closet ends up being a dumping ground for all kinds of stuff, and sometimes guests put coats in there.

- I even considered buying a triple or double set of full height school lockers to store guns and ammo. This is quirky enough to fit in with our home decor but I think my wife would choke me if I brought something like that home.

Any other ideas?

[WildBill]

Prior to purchasing a gun safe, I used a large cedar chest to store many gun related items.

[bdickens]

The operative words are "cool and dry" for anywhere you will want to store ammo.

[Levand16]

You could build a cabinet around a gun safe! Or and old armior may be able to fit a small long gun safe inside, that way from the outside it would look like a gun safe but your guns will still be some what locked up

[mr.72]

I am not worried about locking up the guns.

[M9FAN]

As a single guy with no children around, my handguns are loaded and stored in various rooms of the house (for easy access in the event of an emergency), my HD shotgun is loaded and kept next to my bed, and my AR-15 (along with 4 loaded 15-rd. magazines) is hidden in one of my closets. As for the ammo, I also have it stored in one of my closets.

[killerfly128]

^^^

thats about what i do ... My wife and i have a spare closet in our office. I pulled the door knob off of it and replaced it with a deadbolt

[Rex B]

That's a pretty good idea. My gunsafe is inside the hall closet.
It's a 10-gun safe with 25 guns in it.
I could use a 2nd safe but nowhere to put it.
My ammo is in my closet, and I'm worried about the strength of the shelf! I weighed all the boxes and came up over 300 lbs.

I have an old gray 5-compartment gym locker at the shop that I intend to bring home for ammo storage.
that will let me move most of it out of the house to my storage shed.

As for furniture store, have you thought about under-bed drawers? Any cabinet shop can make a set to either attach to your existing bed or just set under it, recessed a few inches. A long drawer on one side, two drawers on the other. Should be able to match what you already have.

[stevie_d_64]

I'm obviously with the "cool and dry" community, but I also counsel folks to consider "high" as well...

If you live in a flood zone, even in a 500 year flood zone, consider altitude as a factor in where you store your ammunition...And for tha matter anything of a gun related component...Spare parts, replacement springs, pins, uppers, lowers etc etc etc...

Watch out were you put stuff in a garage or other space like that...I found out before I re-routed our clothes-dryer vent...It had previously vented directly into the open garage, and the humidity just about killed a lot of stuff in there, before I rigged a flexible ducts from the wall to the outside...Just some food for thought...

I like the metal storage cabinets w/doors to secure ammo and other "parts" to support my addiction...Obviously no functioning firearms are stowed in there, even though it is locked and relatively secure for those items...

I didn't spend a lot of moolah on the cabinets, as I found a pair in very good condition at a local flea-market off of Telephone Road here in South Houston area...

Just my dos centavos...

[Liberty]

I'm obviously with the "cool and dry" community, but I also counsel folks to consider "high" as well...

If you live in a flood zone, even in a 500 year flood zone, consider altitude as a factor in where you store your ammunition...And for tha matter anything of a gun related component...Spare parts, replacement springs, pins, uppers, lowers etc etc etc...

Watch out were you put stuff in a garage or other space like that...I found out before I re-routed our clothes-dryer vent...It had previously vented directly into the open garage, and the humidity just about killed a lot of stuff in there, before I rigged a flexible ducts from the wall to the outside...Just some food for thought...

I like the metal storage cabinets w/doors to secure ammo and other "parts" to support my addiction...Obviously no functioning firearms are stowed in there, even though it is locked and relatively secure for those items...

I didn't spend a lot of moolah on the cabinets, as I found a pair in very good condition at a local flea-market off of Telephone Road here in South Houston area...

Just my dos centavos...

Ain't that the truth. I have a couple hundred rounds of green fuzzy ammo I don't quite know what to do with.

[Piney]

Greetings--

I store my ammo in 50 cal ammo cans (mil surplus). 9mm boxes fit well in some I've found. Other calibers and shotgun shell boxes fit so so. It keeps them away from the humidity as the cans have a rubber seal.

Some of them are in the garage on a shelf; others are inside in closets.

Years back, I found some 50 cal ammo cans that are hinged on the long side and open much easier that the ones with the latch and hinge on the short sides. I havent seen any at stores since, other than 12 pallets of them from a mil surplus auction house. I wasnt sure that many would go over well here

[atxgun]

Like m9fan, I'm also single with no children that come around my place so I'm not that worried for safety's sake. I have a small firesafe where i keep ammo and hand guns. I think that's a good bet incase there's a fire and they get ignited. The only thing I'm potentially worried about with my long guns is if my place gets robbed. But I have renter's insurance and keep all my paper work in the safe so I can report the serial numbers if they disappear. Here's to hoping they don't hypothetically walk out with the safe too.