This is in regards to project I call "Ralph." Ralph for Ralph Northam, Governor of Virginia. In his honor and in an attempt to rid the world of an evil black rifle, I've taken it upon myself to bury a specimen along with ammunition where no one will find it. I think if everyone did what I'm doing this whole silly gun control issue would go away. After all, why fight about confiscation if they're all buried underground? No muss, no fuss, problem solved. Right?

I've decided that y'all were right. 500 Rounds is too little for this project. I need to bury more. My question is the best/cheapest choice?

I think I understand the difference between 5.56 and .223 Rem. However, when it comes to picking something that I might buy 1000 rounds of, what should I be considering besides price and how it shoots in my particular firearm?

I'd wait until confiscation is imminent to bury it.

What good is a firearm if you can't shoot it ?? I'm not sure confiscation is eminent .

On the other hand I think we should all remember the Volstead Act . A lot more people drank than owned firearms and they outlawed the manufacture , transportation and possession of alcohol . Then hired a lot of law enforcement to enforce it .

It was successful , look at the lack of alcoholics we have , not to mention the strong foundation it gave to organized crime .

Happy Presidents day .

Soup

Just asking, but what gunfight does anybody think they will live through a thousand expended rounds?

For sale or barter perhaps, but I don't think anybody makes it out of that kind of gun slinging.

I saw a quote awhile ago that went something like "If you have to bury your guns, isn't that when you should be using them?".

Exactly. One or two mags and it's decided, one way or the other.

I guess my thoughts to having multiple mags and a good stash of ammo isn't so individualistic. When the neighbor up the street is surrounded by the alphabet boys and pops off his two mags, are you and your other neighbors just gonna sit back and watch? Then what? Sit back and pretend Tyranny is okay as long as it happens to someone else?



Slipstream

I'm guessing that would be your thought process if you had never been in combat. But it really doesn't work that way. In fact, all great plans go to hell as soon as the first bullet cracks over your head.

Having lots of ammo is good, don't get me wrong, but whom are you going to shoot and what is the plan that leads up to that shooting.

You seem to think that a mass of troops is going to come marching down the street, and you are going hide behind a few pieces of sheetrock and defend your neighbors.

Communications and planning are much more important.

I think the general plan for insurgencies is to set up ambushes against key weak targets, pop off a couple rounds each time and run like hell.
Rinse & repeat.

So 1,000 rounds may or may not be enough.

Methinks the more salient question is how are you going to bury the gun and ammo? How do you plan on prepping the gun and protecting all from moisture?

In the wake of the whole Virginia hoo-haw, it occurred to me that all the saber-rattling wasn't getting anyone anywhere. The more vitriolic and incendiary the rhetoric, the more likely it is to be red-flagged. On the other hand, if we give in to the notion that all black rifles are bad, then what better way to express our feelings than to go out and bury one of these naughty guns will it will do no one any harm?

Nobody has to pass any laws.
Nobody has to confiscate.
Nobody has to send jack-booted thugs to our houses.

We've taken care of the problem ourselves. Ralph and his ilk can go howl at the moon. If everyone buries a black rifle somewhere, then what's the big deal. Ralph and his buddies can go back to what they're really good at (graft, fomenting racism and infanticide) and leave us be.

As to where and how I plan to bury mine, I think I should keep it a secret. There are plenty of people offering up unsolicited advice. I should be able to figure out what works best.

In regards to my neighbors. I've given this description of my neighbors before. They're like that big fish that lives in the back of your fish tank. You never see him, but if you put a bag of little fish in the tank and turn off the lights, they disappear by morning. My BOL is far enough out that I struggled to get mail service-- still don't have it. If the power goes out, it may not come back on for 6 weeks. I live on a dead end road that gets maybe a car a month down it-- and whoever it is, they are most likely lost. From my place onward, the road is abandoned. It used to connect two towns together, but one town was abandoned in the 1880's, and fell off the map by 1910. I'm fairly certain my neighbors will take care of whatever comes into this end of the county long before it gets to me.

I go back to my original question:


My son says 5.56 in 62 grain M855 is preferable, because it is capable of penetrating light armor.

Why do you need to penetrate light armor?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/17/us/st-louis-county-ferguson-officer-shot-walmart/index.html

Don't care where, but the 'how' part of the question is relevant to your inquiry.

I don't need or want Ralph today. If things change my mind I'll take one from the nearest azzhole.

I dunno. I guess some days you feel like a nut. . . some days you don't.

That was just the advice I got from my youngest son. He's got a buddy who was special forces in Afghanistan and listens to him for advice on such matters. Me? I'm just a schlub with an itch to bury a nasty black rifle.

I have a Marine friend who went to 'Nam, and he's in the process of a similar project. His method was to do homebrew cosmoline and bury his nasty black rifle in a sealed PVC pipe with Nitrogen pumped in. I'm still evaluating my options.

Me? If I told you the 'how' part, it would give away the 'where.'

Your Jarhead friend tells you true. If you can purchase ammo in sealed cans, likewise treated with cosmoline and in sealed PVC you'll do fine. Won't hurt to wrap the gun in a towel before putting it in the tube.

You wake up some day and feel the need to dig Ralph up you might find other applications besides plinking [bleep]. What kills people kills game. People wearing "light armor" are poorly protected from a reasonably placed shot regardless of the cartridge or bullet style. Forget Hollywood, shoot them in the head, neck, legs, arms or crotch any they are not going to give much if any grief. This is particularly true of high velocity bullets.

I've begun to question the burying thing. Literally into the ground, under dirt.

If you are outside, photos from a satellite can tell it's operator what color socks you're wearing.

If you are inside, there is equipment, that mostly the government has, that can image each individual behind the walls, plus the size & number of pets.

Keeping those two items in mid, how good is the metal detector gonna be that any gov't agency with intent to confiscate, will have with them.

Advancements in detection devices have me rethinking a lot of old school hidey hole type stuff. Thoughts?

Slip it in pvc pipe and you can bury it anywhere, even on your property. A posthole digger doesn't disturb enough earth to show up. They'd have to use ground penetrating radar/metal detector across every square foot of your property to find it.

Metal detectors are our worst enemy. I'm thinking Tennessee Arms and some polymer lowers buried in a similar fashion. The anarchists will just out law uppers as well. They will be tougher to hide.

kwg

I still don't understand the burying thing? If someone is coming to confiscate them, wouldn't that be the time you'd want them in your hands? What happens when you get old and feeble (60+ seems to be the average age around here) and you die or can't remember where you buried it?

I'll bet it would take about 5 years with a metal detector to find a gun randomly hidden on 20 acres.

Well, imagine this: AR's are outlawed but other guns aren't. Time might come when somebody's ass needs to get salted. The future is uncertain. If someone red flags you and they come to take them away, one or two outcomes await. The complaint will be verified and you lose, or found w/o merit and you get them back. Some days you get to pick the way you check out; don't do it because you think it will feel good. Live to fight another day.

I think one of the common misconceptions about this stuff is fueled by Hollywood BS. One person cannot prevail against a large well armed force in a set piece engagement unless there has been a helluva lot of preparation (mines & booby traps) and even then there be about a dozen wild cards in the deck. If you ever go over to the dark side you need to plan on nibbling on your enemy one little bite at a time.

Old timers used to hide things in holler corner posts.

Just saying...

Even longer if you started salting that 20 acres with shallow buried scrap metal.

You're not burying all of them.

What makes you think you will know when they are coming?

When is the best time to fight? Might be nice to have some options, such as resources in reserve that can provide you with additional options and choose the time and battle space.

Salting the area is an interesting, possibly effective diversion. But thinking a 5 year search thing is a bit exaggerated, even for one person. How long does it take to walk 20 acres in a grid anyway. If they want you, they won't be using metal detectors from the dollar store. Nor will there be one of them, more likely 40.

But just covering a point. I've been following this kind of stuff since Mel Tappans survival articles in Guns & Ammo magazine in the mid 1970's. And thinking just today that I've pondered the notion many times, but I've yet to bury a gun. A very convoluted idea. Thinking it just depends on you attitude at the time.

All respect for police has been lost there...

I'm beginning to wonder if y'all aren't getting the joke.

It is serious. However, the point here is not to go out today and bury your rifle collection. The point here is letting gun control folks know the impossibility of their actions.

1) Oh, that assault weapon. I traded that for cash to my now-dead brother-in-law's friend of a friend.
2) Oh, THAT assault weapon. I lost it fishing a few years ago. I can show you where I lost it. It was near the dam.
3) . . .

Me? I really don't mind burying an AR. I'm a deer hunter. I have a closet full of deer rifles. I don't like AR platforms and I generally don't like hunting with semi-automatics anymore. I have a closet full of other stuff too. My sons like AR, because they are easy to accessorize and they all have friends that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and they get free tips and lessons.

The punchline to this joke is this: All it takes is 6" PVC pipe and fittings and the will to do it, and gun confiscation legislation is useless. They want to disarm us for a reason, and it ain't for public safety. All I have to do when these bastards come around is stand on my front porch (from which you can see 4 counties) and wave my hand and say, "They're out there somewhere. Have fun."

You want another joke? How about this one. Everybody go out and buy one inexpensive AR platform. Everybody meet at the gun show, bring a checkbook and a wad of cash. Everybody sell their AR to somebody else and then play swappies until you're happy. You may come home with your own rifle. You may come home with a better one. Bottom line, the whole idea of tracing weapons becomes moot. I went to the gun show with two of my sons last weekend. They brought a half-dozen of their friends. Both my sons had guns to trade. Both came home with different guns. Confiscation my ass!

I had an interesting conversation with a Ukrainian friend of mine the other day. He couldn't wrap his head around how loose the government is with allowing firearms in the hands of people. He's not anti-gun at all. He just can't see how we "get away with it." I think his original question was something like "who do you have to notify when you modify a firearm like that?" The conversation was about putting a new stock on a RAR. My answer was simple. In this country, the government is what we say it is. We choose. We start at the basic principle of the sanctity of the individual and work up from there. The government is there to serve us and not the other way around. I think I finally got my point across. He still thinks we're pulling a fast one on somebody, but he's starting to get the joke.

Now, back to my original question: 5.56 or .223? 55 grain or 62? What would you bury?

Bury? Liberals of course.

Good news. I had my Project Ralph rifle out to the farm over the weekend with my first experimental 55 grain handloads, and I managed to ding the 16 inch gong at 200 yards with the first shot. I had a 2 MOA Aimpoint on it. I'll probably swap that out for something more conventional before I commit Ralph to burial.

Dang! AR's 'r fun! I might keep this one above ground for a bit!



More pics and story here:
Return to Camp 2020

burial... waste of a good AR... LOL.

As to not hunting with semis of any flavor, one comment, though I don't hunt that often with em either, when you need a single shot and you have a Ruger 1, you are golden. When you need that super fast follow up you have an AR etc... you are golden. When you need a single shot and have an AR etc... you are STILL golden....

Burying a gun is a bad idea, you know, unless it's a Keltec or Taurus or the like. Then, why waste the energy when you can just throw it in the river?