Reynolds Handi-Vac

With the looming threat of food shortages and in an effort to extend the life and better secure bulk items like rice, flour, ammo and other "stuff" We decided to try the Reynolds Hand-Vac® for storage of many items.

The Handi-Vac itself was $8.99 FRN and Qt size bags were $3.79 FRN (14 bags per box) They have gallon size bags as well. I didn't get a box of those.

The vacume comes with batteries. Beware it takes 6 AA's when they need changed.

We took a qt size bag and put a cup of uncooked rice in it. Just lay it on the counter flat and put the vacume to the little hole. Suck out the air and voila! It deffinately took air out as the package had become rigid and surprisingly hard.

The next test was to see how well it kept air in and moisture out. I filled a very large mixing bowl with water and placed the bag with rice in it. It floated but not to awful well so I weighted it with a full water jug to keep it submerged completely. 2hours later it shows no sign of any air escaping or water getting in. The total test is for 6 hours so later on I'll divulge the results of the completed test.

So far I'm pretty happy with it and it seems to do what's promised. Next will try some ammo and other items to vacume seal

Reynolds Handi-Vac Website

Continuation - The six hours underwater did nothing to the contents. I should point out I didn't let it just sit there and frequently pulled it out to inspect and wasn't exactly gentle with it to try and replicate some rough handling/transporting. Not exactly a scientific approach, but it would have to do.

The rice as it looked out of the water, and exactly the same as it went in


The rice as it came out. As dry as could be.



It seems more than four is pushing it to get it to close. But it sealed tightly around everything and even pretty much drew itself into a very tight and neat package



opening is as easy as pulling open the top like any zip lok bag. They claim one time use on these bags but I don't see why you couldn't try to use them again.

I'm thinking about getting me one of those :p

I wonder how you could pack ammo in a way to get rid of those sharp corners on the box, without exposing the sharp ammo.

The edges of those boxes look like they could potentially cause a puncture if dropped or slid across a rough surface.

take it out of the box lay the ammo out in the bag and then put something of a filler like styrofoam peanuts or fine sawdust or sand..

Great idea... Total Resistance (book) actually recommends ammo be stored in a crate with saw dust because it absorbs moisture. That is another bonus besides the less risk of tearing.

UPDATE

Out of five bags of rice 4 are soft, one still hard. I don't know if this is because of air int he rice itself or if the bags are total crap.

Any idea?

Suck the air out again.... any air in the rice has probably been released now (I guess) so taking the air out again might let it stay down this time.
Just a thought.

I'm thinking that may be what it is. I've taken two bags of ammo and they are still nice and tight.

I'll try again today and see what the results are

I have one of the tillia units that uses rolls of bags. I've put complet rifles in them and just let them lay in the corner of the basement. My HK91 lasted about 1-1/2 years before a couple of pinholes started leaking air.

I wrap anything with sharp corners in old socks. I heat the socks up to just about 200* hoping that will remove any mosture. I can fit s1 or 2 magazines into a sock.

I put away a pair of BDU's about 10 years ago with some pine needles in the bag. I just opened the pants 2 weeks ago. They seem none the worse for the length of time. They did shrink a couple of sizes though :p

Sharp edges and rough handling seem to be the major problems with rigid items. Clothes are just a no brainer.