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Your Favorite Container


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Aside from the most talked about containers--ammo cans, Lock 'n' Locks, match safes--what containers work the best for you? I was poking around earlier and saw everything from lockable phone safes to dry survivor boxes. I'd love to hear success stories as well as failures. And yeah, I know that containers for specific purposes come up in the forums fairly often, but a good this works, this doesn't might be helpful.

 

For example, my Pelican boxes are very waterproof, but the latch gets really stiff after a year or two, and can be hard to open. My Plano plastic fake ammo can has been great, but it's in a somewhat protected area under a bridge and the thin plastic at the top around the seal makes me wonder how it would do in the full force of the weather. I recently learned about Gamma Seals for five gallon buckets, and they are the best things ever.

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I've used wide-mouth water bottles with success. They're pretty cheap at thrift stores. I use a band saw to cut composition books into wide, very short log books that fit nicely into a 1-quart wide-mouth water bottle. Even with the wide-mouth ones, the opening is still narrower than the body of the bottle, so don't use a log or cache note or anything else that needs to roll up to fit in the opening, otherwise it will be hard to get back out of the bottle.

 

There are some straight-sided Nalgene jars sold for backpacking that would work nicely too, but they're more expensive than the water bottles I use.

 

I've used high-quality beach safes with success, too. The cheap ones leak and don't last, but the good ones work well. The ones I used were about the size of a decon container, but were much easier for finders to reclose correctly.

 

Based on caches I've found, I also like genuine Bison tubes (from Bison Designs) or high-quality knock-offs. The cheap knock-offs aren't as good. Regardless of which ones you get, you should buy your own replacement O-rings locally.

 

The Mighty Mega Cache Container is nice too, although a bit expensive. They're like giant Bison tubes.

 

Preforms are good too, although some sources ship them with lids that don't have a soft plastic gasket inside the lid. Either buy them from a source that sells them with lids that have gaskets, or salvage such lids from 2-liter bottles of water, club soda, seltzer water, etc. I'd avoid lids from bottles of anything that has a food scent that might attract animals.

 

And of course, the ones you mentioned are good too.

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I'm partial to ammo cans, but I happened across one of these at a local Fleet Farm:

 

http://store.coleman...images/4510.gif

 

I bought one to try out and so far, it's held up very well. I especially like the pre-drilled holes for a lock on the handle. Early in the caches life, someone had taken a rock and tried to smash the padlock I had on there and when that didn't work, they tried breaking the container. A few scratches but that's about it. They're pricey but I'd be willing to use them again.

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I'm partial to ammo cans, but I happened across one of these at a local Fleet Farm:

 

http://store.coleman...images/4510.gif

 

I bought one to try out and so far, it's held up very well. I especially like the pre-drilled holes for a lock on the handle. Early in the caches life, someone had taken a rock and tried to smash the padlock I had on there and when that didn't work, they tried breaking the container. A few scratches but that's about it. They're pricey but I'd be willing to use them again.

 

Those are the Plano ammo cans I mentioned. Cost less than a real ammo can, and they do take paint quite well with no prep.

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I've not used any, but I've been impressed with preforms. Stapling the log to a straw cut to fit makes log extraction easy. They seem to hold up well.

 

Pelican boxes are very waterproof, but the latch gets really stiff after a year or two

 

I've been gifted two Pelican cases, one from the Groundspeak store, the other a small case, would fit a flip phone. Nice looking containers.

 

Neither worked well, both were soggy shortly. The larger of the two has a tiny indent in the seal, I assume from a bit of swag being caught.

the little guy looks okay, but doesn't actually stay dry outside - not a heavy leak, but enough passage of humid air by the seal that the interior gets soggy by late summer. Just not enough pressure against that seal, the sealing material seems soft.

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I'll second niraD om wide mouth water bottles. I'll also cut down logbooks so they are easy to remove. I've encountered full size logbooks in water bottles that were a chore to get out and replace.

 

Ive also had good luck with Nalegene straight jars. They are cheap and watertight. For micros, Nalgene cryo tubes are great if you can find them.

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I've not used any, but I've been impressed with preforms. Stapling the log to a straw cut to fit makes log extraction easy. They seem to hold up well.

 

For my preforms, I make a log out of strips of cardstock or Write-In-Rain paper (~3/4"x5") and staple them on the short end (for a long logbook). Since the log is not rolled up, the logbook just slips right out.

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Great replies--thanks. I seem to be teaching a lot of Boy and Girl Scout geocaching badge workshops lately. The more good examples I can show them that aren't super expensive, the better. I like the look of the Nalgene jars I saw on Amazon; I like a small container that can fit a trackable, and I agree that a screw-on lid is a better guarantee that it will be closed properly.

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I find a lot of good containers with soggy inards because the ziplock bag is too big for the container and ends up being trapped in the seal. Make sure the container you use easily accommodates the ziplock bag without the need for folding, squishing or pushing it in.

Edited by Roman!
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I find a lot of good containers with soggy inards because the ziplock bag is too big for the container and ends up being trapped in the seal. Make sure the container you use easily accommodates the ziplock bag without the need for folding, squishing or pushing it in.

 

That's the thing. I have come across multitudes of caches where the owner placed a log/logbook along with baggie that was too big for the container. He or she may have put it in a baggie but the squeezing of it all into the container immediately wrecks havoc on both the baggie and the log. I just don't understand why cache owners don't think about this. I know it's hard to idiot proof a cache but common sense tells me that sizing the log and baggie to the container is an easy way to help keep my cache healthy.

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I find a lot of good containers with soggy inards because the ziplock bag is too big for the container and ends up being trapped in the seal. Make sure the container you use easily accommodates the ziplock bag without the need for folding, squishing or pushing it in.

 

I admit I will often switch out a baggie for a more appropriate size, and not mention anything about it in the log. I hate gallon ziplocks stuffed into a small container, often with a separate one of the same size for swag. Plain sandwich bags are not great. Good to mention.

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