Storage of Antique Longrifles

[Breadhead]

How do you store your antique longrifles?  In a climate controlled space?  Do you adhere to strict temperature and humidity thresholds?  Do you monitor this?  If you use a safe, what models and brands have you found to be tall enough?  Do you have a vault door installed on a reinforced closet?
Just looking for ideas and your solutions to storage of guns that push close to six feet in length.

[Habu]

I've sometimes thought the preferred method is to store them in the attic til you forget about them.  After all, everyone gets so excited when a rifle shows up in "attic condition"! 

Most of the collectors I know only have a few rifles or muskets; they are typically stored in a safe with some attempts at controlling temp and humidity.  All but one of those fellows also has at least one rifle displayed on a wall in the den/office/family room.  The few I know who have extensive collections seem to rely on either a custom safe/vault/gunroom, or use the "stand 'em in a corner" method. 

For large numbers of guns--the man who collects US muskets and rifles, for example, or another who collects fowling pieces--the vault seems the best option for storage.  The best time to build such a vault is during original construction, or when doing an addition.  Retro-fitting a vault, or converting a room, can often cost as much or more as adding a room to a house. 

Another fellow converted his garage to a vault/den.  He managed to acquire a vault door and frame from a small-town bank that had closed, and made the rest of the vault from reinforced concrete.   

[T*O*F]

I store most of mine in a non-climate controlled gun room, as well has various drawers, closets and other nefarious hiding places.  I have no problems with rust, only dust.  I figure the 20 or fewer years that I will have them will have no effect on their condition that the past 200 years already have.  However, I have no high 4 figure or above guns.

[WKevinD]

I was recently invited into a collectors gun collection his longrifle room was filled with over 150 pcs. all stored in racks but all with muzzle down. I asked him about it and dust was the reason.  Beautiful collection but the inverted storage was a bit unsettling.

[Keb]

I store all mine muzzle down. Think about it. A heavy barrel baring down on a 1 1/4" diameter curly maple wrist looks like a disaster waiting to happen to me. Ever wonder how so many of those old guns got busted wrists? I'd guess they had been leaning in a corner a couple hundred years.

[JTR]

I store the few old rat trap clunkers I have muzzle down as well.
First, like Keb said, it takes the weight off the wrist. And it also makes it easier to separate the butt stocks from one another while in the safe.
For climate control, just a small heat strip in the floor of the safe, and it keeps the interior around 70-75 degrees, and dry inside.

If I had a big buck collection, I might do it differently.
           
John

[JCKelly]

Mine just hang horizontally on the wall, on 3/6" brass pins. Yup, they get dusty. Have an understanding with The Lady not to clean anything in my room.

I would NOT leave them in the hot attic. Wood shrinks, and have had one percussion rifle crack where a lock bolt restrained the wood from shrinkage. Heat destroys leather, by the way.

Can't add photos anymore, the New Photoshop, well I can not even figure out where to begin.

[JCKelly]

My Kentucky rifles as of a few years ago are all hung on 3/16" dia brass rods pounded into (a drilled hole) a stud behind the plaster.

Dust but no rust, temperature livable as in rest of house

Wife & I have an agreement (I hope), she needn't dust or otherwise clean up my den.

[JCKelly]

One of these is a flint conversion Deringer made, I believe, for the Indian trade. Bought in the late 1960's from the late Cecil Keyser at Ohio Gun Collectors during the Nixon administration. Been doing just fine ever since, hung horizontally on one or another type of peg.

[WElliott]

Most of mine are horizontal on wonderful racks my friends Henry Bishop and Phil Lucas designed, in a temperature and 40-50% humidity controlled environment. They did not lead such pampered lives during their working period.  But at age 200, give or take a couple of decades, they deserve to be cared for as best I am able during my tenure as custodian. 

[Breadhead]

Please tell me more about these horizontal racks?  Could you post a picture?

[WElliott]

I am not where I can photograph them today but will attempt a description. They are very simple.   Two parrallel wooden 1x2 strips with sides beveled, painted to complement the wall color.  Insert 3" lenghts of stainless steel rods every 8 inches or so up the strips. Angle the rods slightly upwardbto make the rifles more secure  Cut lengths of clear plastic tubing and slide over the rods to protect gun surface. Floor to ceiling rack will hold 12 rifles.

[jdm]

 If you live in a earthquake  zone the horizontal racks might not be the best idea. Long rifles don't bounce well. There may be a way to secure them ,perhaps cord tied threw the trigger guards. I don't know if that would work just throwing it out there.

[Artificer]

If you live in a earthquake  zone the horizontal racks might not be the best idea. Long rifles don't bounce well. There may be a way to secure them ,perhaps cord tied threw the trigger guards. I don't know if that would work just throwing it out there.

I lived in Riverside County in California back during the earthquakes of the late 80s/ early 90's that did so much damage to LA and up in the High Desert.   We were very close to the center of one quake and it shook the devil out of the house for a little over a minute.  All sorts of items were shaken off the walls and shelves, but not my guns stored horizontally.   I had 6" long 3/8" diameter wooden pegs holding the guns and they were at a 45 degree from vertical.  The guns moved a bit, but did not fall off. 
Gus

[wildcatter]

I hang mine like JCKelly but I'm picturing the racks that Mark spoke about and maybe I will try to make those. Mark hopefully when you can get to a computer you can post a picture. Would love to see your racks.

[sloe bear]

The attic is no place for storing a firearm of any style, a properly ventilated attic should be the same temp as the outside , that's why the insulation is on the floor of the attic not in the rafters. I guess it also depends on the attic some old houses have a walk in attic that has bee made for storage.  that said if it's 100' out side the interior of the attic could be 110' then winter and maybe 20' or lower , this is just not the place to store your guns

[Mark Elliott]

I store my long guns hung horizontally on wall racks.   The kind with two vertical strips and pegs set in at an angle.   In my office, they are walnut strips with oak pegs.   In my shop they are pine strips and poplar pegs, all painted white to match the trim.    I do it this way because it is the cheapest in terms of materials and floor space.    Also,  there is less stress on the stock and I believe it is more secure.   

I have seen museums do it two ways; stored vertically in racks in the normal orientation, and laid horizontally in large drawers.    I like the drawers the best, but it is the most expensive in terms of the cost of the storage equipment and the floor space that it uses.   The Smithsonian has all its guns stored vertically in the normal orientation in metal racks stacked about 20 feet high.    If D.C. was ever hit with a bad earthquake,  the gun room would be too sad for words as there is nothing to keep all the guns from toppling up to 20 feet to their destruction.   It isn't much better than that as it is. 

[Bill Paton]

Like Mark Elliott, I store mine horizontally on my secure den walls using two vertical stringers per row of guns. The stringers are fastened to the heavy molding strip at the top of the wall and are screwed deeply into the top plate of the frame construction. Each stringer is 2" x 3/4" and as long (tall) as needed, are oak, and have diagonal rows of pilot holes drilled at 1/2" horizontal spacing and 1/4" vertical spacing and at an angle so the screws supporting the rifles are angled upward.  (JTR will post photos for me soon so you can see what I mean.) The screws are placed appropriately to level each rifle, and are sheathed  with soft plastic tubes to avoid scratching the guns. Because I live in an earthquake zone, I fasten each gun with bungee cords (as are sold for fastening tarps), and also screw the bottom of the stringers to the wall. Since each stringer is set away from the wall by 3/4", there is room behind the guns for other flat display items if desired (like my Navajo rugs or pelts, etc.). The screws can be repositioned when I want to change guns, and the walls don't suffer at all from multiple extraneous screw holes.

The multiple stringer holes can be drilled using a drill press and a guide clamped to the angled table to keep each vertical row in perfect alignment. Laying out the vertical and angled lines with pencil and then center punching helps. Since I have quite a few racks, however, I made a drill-block jig out of 3/4" steel and sequentially drill about 30 holes at a time in perfect alignment using a hand held battery drill. This display rack system is safe for the guns and the walls, and allows me to enjoy the collection fully. The bungees are tight, but slip off the  screw heads without difficulty when I want to fondle the guns. This system has been very satisfactory for my collection. 

[Mark Elliott]

Bill,   What size and type of screws do you use to support the rifles?

[JTR]

Here's Bill's pictures,
Nice bunch of guns there!

[Bill Paton]

Mark,  I chose "Screw Products, Inc" screws from our local fastener specialty store. They are beefy, attractive, and a bit on the expensive side. "Star Drive" Exterior Wood Screws , "Bronze Star", #10 work very well and look good.  Most regular Kentuckys take  2 1/2" length at lock and barrel, but Military locks want 3" or 3 1/2", and a couple of wide FL double fowlers actually use 4" screws. Of course, the screws at the top of the stringers should be long enough to bite into at least an inch of the top plate inside the wall. For the "peg" screws on which the rifles hang, my personal feeling is that the standard yellow #8 carpenter screws from Lowe's or HD are not stiff enough to trust with a heavy rifle.

John, Thanks for posting the photos.   Bill Paton, Anchorage, Alaska