....and so How's Your Luck Holding?

[muffett.2008]

I've been collecting Firearms for a very long time, I started a Rest of World Collection, branched into Mausers, these days Enfields.
As a Collector/Dealer, I passed a lot of fine rifles on, my Mauser collection or part thereof, went to flesh out an old Army mates collection.
He lived in the Blue Mountains, subject to regular Bushfires, and....you guessed it, lost the lot.

Well as I was downsizing my lot, I fleshed him out again....only to have him lose that lot in another fire about ten years later.
He finally got smart and retired to the mid north coast area, so I sourced another lot for him, things looked pretty good, but I did say to him "next time it happens, I'm writing you up"
well you guessed it, done again.....bloody loser, maybe if he'd collected the winning sides firearms he might have had better luck.

Now my Mauser Collection is down to about twenty five, some very valuable bits among them and guess who's pressuring me again, he knows I'm thinking of downsizing again due to being bloody old....do you know how long it takes to clean a couple of hundred rifles?

I'm thinking no, unless he buys a large houseboat and parks it in the middle of a bloody big lake....no and definitely no.

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[pisco]

hi with luck like that i would not go near him
that is a shame the fires have been terrible

[30Three]

Sound's like he's jinxed! That is some seriously bad luck!

[CINDERS]

I have often commented to my wife whilst living in the hills and densely forested areas is really nice and tranquil you really have to have a solid plan to ensure your not going to be over run by a bush fire we in our part of the world suffer horrendous bush fires that defy description as they end up being fire storms.
An ember attack can be 20-30 klm's from the flame front and a crown top fire will toast you because it moves so fast you cannot out run it, we like similar countries have lost fire crews being over run as part of my ERT fire officer training and we watched a film where in Australia Eastern states a father lost his son and other members of a crew to a fast moving flame front.
Such was the radiant heat from that fire front the father's O.P was 1 klm from that fire and the leaves were crisping up and dropping off the trees where he was stationed, his son and crew were in a valley below where a bogged ute cut off their escape route even with HALO system, heat curtains and woolen blankets they all perished.

After a fire has gone through we call the area left behind the dead zone because nothing can survive in that area for an hour or more due to latent heat in the earth and whats left of the scrub our Eucalyptus trees are extremely oily and burn like nothing else and our grass plants (Formally Black Boys) go up like a blow torch.
I live in suburbia in a quaint country town but always ensure leaves from the trees (Park across the road) etc are cleaned up and the gutters are clean as well, no fire prone areas are not a place where I would live I like you all her have pictures of family long gone that cannot be replaced along with other stuff why risk it thats what I reckon.

Double the prices Muffet or even triple them that way at least your legacy of Mausers may survive if he buys them, but me I would look for another luckier (Or wiser) buyer.........

[David TS]

He's not that unlucky, he's survived potentially being vapourised three times!

[Aragorn243]

Has he never heard of gun safes with fire ratings?

[muffett.2008]

No fire rated safe helps over here.
The heat is so intense, fueled by Eucalyptus and pine trees.. the oils in the timber begin to create vapor and when it ignites, blows the door off the safe.(haven't you watched that video?)
Probably why powder containers have weak doors so they vent instead of exploding.

Over a certain amount of firearms, different storage is required, Phil's last was an external vault(maybe he should have put it underground) steel and cement...didn't help, the heat is just too great, once the timber started to burn..... The big problem is even if you could restock the firearms, the heat damage to the metal is an unknown, they'd never be original and you probably wouldn't like to fire them.

[30Three]

You would probably need an underground safe room at a reasonable depth and maybe a CO2 extinguisher system to assist.

How are things in Australia now? The fires were all over the news a coupl of weeks ago. Are they all out yet? Not seen any updates recently.

[muffett.2008]

No Zed, still burning, half the eastern seaboard is on fire.....well give or take a few inches

[Gil Boyd]

So sorry for you guys and can't imagine the speed of it, when even animals lose out big time like the sloath and Koala's and roos of course!