This evening we made a quick trip to the store. It was shortly after dinner and Wifey wanted a drumstick. So we headed to the store, pretty much in the comfortable at home clothes we had been wearing. I had a pair of shorts and a t shirt on with crocks on my feet. Wallet and keys were put into my shorts. I got to thinking about how I would be hosed if anything happened and maybe should grab a knife or something. Then I remembered that we have a pretty good set of stuff in our vehicle. We all have a change of good practical clothes and footwear. I have a good knife in the GHB as well as a bunch of other usefull stuff. Bliss washed over me and we went to the store for icecream.

I have had some serious good fortune to stumble into some quality cases lately such as a hardigg footlocker, and a genuine halliburton briefcase. The fundamental purpose of cases is, just like any sort of packaging, to contain and protect things. Different stuff has different needs. Ammunition and food need to be protected from moisture and oxygen. Ammo cans and big plastic buckets fill these needs nicely. Neither of these products are particularly vulnerable to impact or shock (like bouncing around the back of a truck, not electric) within reason.

However some items are and they require different sorts of containers. Of course you could say wrap an item in bubble wrap and stick it into an ammo can or pursue some other home solution. I can speak about pelican/ hardigg cases with some experience. These products are great but rather expensive. There are other companies like Otter that offer seemingly comparable products at slightly lower prices but I have not used them.

I look at containers as insurance for the items inside. As such it is worth paying attention to the costs involved. A $20 case to hold a couple hundred dollar camera makes sense, especially if the last camera and maybe one before that would still be alive if it had been in such a case. A couple hundred dollar case to protect a hundred dollar Mosin Nagant wouldn’t make sense like it would for say a Steyre SSG with a Night Force scope.

Like a lot of folks I have accumulated a few fairly expensive electronics. A GPS, some radios and a solar charger to be specific, as well as the usual camera, video camera, laptops, kindles, etc. Probably a few thousand dollars in stuff and we don’t have anything really cool like Gen 3 night vision, FLIR, etc (yet!). If we had to leave in a hurry during a nasty storm or whatever a big pelican case to put that stuff into would make the odds of our equipment surviving go up significantly. For small items that you want to use a lot like camera’s a little case is pretty darn handy. Also they are lockable and fairly secure which could be useful.

Personally most of my case needs are met for the time being. I would like a nice rifle case big enough to squeeze a pistol and just maybe a second long gun in. Being able to securely move around a couple guns and have them take some knocks with minimal risk of losing zero appeals to me.

Anyway you might want to put some consideration into how you will protect valuable and useful but relatively fragile stuff under less than optimal conditions. A few cases may be in order.