Over at TSLRF there was a little blurb about how the definition of an optimist is a guy carrying a snubby revolver and a speedstrip. I was somewhat amused by this because it happens that particular day was so hot that rather than try and conceal my usual G19, I just dropped a S&W 640 and a speedstrip in my pocket. Undergunned? Maybe. Definitely not ungunned, though..which was the whole point. We all know the best gun for a ‘violent encounter’ is the one you have with you versus the one you left at home in the safe, right?
Do those little five-shot snubbies really have a place in a world of Betamagged AR’s, Glocks with ‘happy sticks’ and drum-fed Saiga-12s? It would be easy to argue that if a five-shot revolver has a place in the grand scheme of things, then a two-shot derringer does as well, and if a two-shot derringer then why not a single-shot derringer?
The simple truth is, given the choice between no gun and a derringer, I’ll take the derringer. Between the derringer and the five-shot snubby, I’ll take the snubby. Between the snubby and the Glock, I’ll take the Glock. But, I really didnt have a choice between the snubby and the Glock that day, it was between the snubby and a mousegun (or no gun at all) so I went with the biggest with the mostest in that circumstance.
When you’re slogging through the muck and mess of a Katrina-esque aftermath, running like hell from the fast zombies, or scavenging through the mildly-radioactive ruins of your city, is there a place for the little five-shot snubby? I think so..but certainly not as your primary pistol (unless the circumstance is such that anything bigger would be impossible to have with you at that moment….like when youre in line at the back of a National Guard deuce-and-a-half being handed rations and water.) To me, the snubby is either for when you can’t carry anything larger or as a hideout/backup for your larger gun. Massad Ayoob tells a story about being unarmed on a ridealong with some cop and when they got into a tight situation the cop pulled out his backup gun and handed it to Ayoob. In this case the snubby becomes a force multiplier…you hand it off to your buddy and suddenly you go from being a guy with a gun to two guys with guns. Plus, part of being prepared for the end of the world is also being prepared for everything up to the end of the world…and that includes mundane things like walking three blocks to the grocery for a quart of milk at 9pm. For those quick trips down the block or around the corner, the little snubbies are quick to drop in a pocket as you grab your keys and head out the door.
What do I like in a snubby? Well, I like the stainless .357. Why .357 over .38? The .357 framed guns are a tad bigger than the .38’s, but the ability to shoot two different kinds of ammo makes it worth it, IMHO. Although both cartridges are widely available, why not put yourself in the position of being able to take advantage of the availability of both? What about the other calibers? The .22LR are certainly easy to feed, but if you need to use your hideout gun you probably want as much ‘oomph’ as you can stuff in it. The .44 or .45 snubbies? Big enough that you lose the size advantage that makes them a hideout gun. (Notable exception is the .44 Spl. Bulldog but then you’re back into ammo logistics issues.) The 9mm snubbies? Love the logistics, but moon clips are prone to headspace issues if they get bent or damaged, and not using them makes reloading the gun a pain. The .32 cartridges give you one more shot than a similar-size .38/357 but don’t expect to find ammo as easily. Stick to the .38/.357 unless you have a really compelling reason to go off the beaten path.
While hammerless guns are nice, I really prefer the ‘humpback’ design of the old S&W Bodyguard line…snag-free but still with just enough hammer exposed that you can single-action a shot if you have to. However, I have to think long-term, end-of-the-world, no-gunsmith-or-parts-resupply when it comes to this sort of thing and as much as I love me some S&W I would probably wind up with a buncha Ruger SP101’s. The Ruger just seems to have the durability thing going for it. Although capable of shooting .357 I tend to stick with .38 +p rounds for controlability but I like to have the option of stepping up to the fireballs and muzzlewhip of the .357 if it comes to that.
And those speedstrips? I like them a lot. They arent as fast as a speedloader, but, and this is important to me, they are a ‘universal’ speedloader - they’ll work on just about any .38/.357 revolver regardless of the size of the cylinder. You know how speedloaders have to be specific to the gun so that they cartridges line up with the chambers? J-frame guns use J-frame speedloaders, L-frame guns use L-frame speedloaders, Pythons use Python speedloaders, etc, etc….doesn’t matter with the speedstrips. Same strip will load a tiny J-frame .38 or my N-frame .357. That’s some streamlined logistics right there. (Although, to be fair, I do keep speedloaders and they are my first choice for reloading my revolvers…however, a bin full of loaded speedstrips is nice because as I walk out the door I can tuck two or three in my pocket without giving a second thought to whether they are ‘correct’ for te revolver I’m carrying. In reality, they make a nice secondary or tertiary level of reloading backup after a speedlaoder or two.)
To be totally candid, though….if it’s too hot for me to conceal the Glock and I have to go with the snubby, I’ll usually just wear a Hawaiin shirt and conceal the Glock under that.
Silver continues to sit below $30. I have been quietly trying to buy as much as my meager resources allow. Will it fall further? Maybe. Maybe it’ll drop to below $25. Will I then feel I was foolish buying it at $28? Nope. Not at all. I’m in it for the long haul. I mostly only care about the price of silver from the standpoint of how much can I buy at this moment with the cash available to me. I feel this way because when the time comes to sell or trade it, the purchase price, no matter what it was, will be nothing compared to whats going on when it comes time to sell. Or, put another way, I don’t care how much a parachute costs today because when the time comes that I need it, things will be bad enough that it’ll seem like it was a bargain no matter the price.
One of those days where I didn’t plan on doing some wheeling and dealing….it just sorta happened.
Lemme ask you something, when you go hunting and you’re looking for game do you use your riflescope to glass the hillside? Lots of folks do, but, as you can imagine, that’s a violation of gun safety because wherever you’re pointing that scope is also where you’re pointing that rifle. Think about it…if you’re glassing the hillside and you see another hunter a couple hundred yards away, then you have your rifle pointed right at him. Bad juju,man.
Now, having said that, I will admit to having done this quite frequently when hunting in my early years. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve made the very conscious decision to not randomly glass the woods with my riflescope and to use my binoculars instead. Here’s the issue, though - if your binoculars are not the same magnification as your scope then switching between the two can be a bit confusing…you see an elk a couple hundred yards away through your 10x binoculars and then switch to your 4x scope…well, it can be a bit difficult to reacquire that target quickly.
A local gun shop had a pair of Steiner military armored 10×50 binoculars (used) for sale. Since the scope on my.308 is a 10×56, these seemed to be a good match. Lanyarded lens caps, armored, subdued color and…most importantly…about 1/2 the price of a new set. The Steiner binoculars are good, and I don’t really have any reservations about them, but they aren’t perfect. No, my first choice, if I had the money, is a set of 10×50 binoculars from IOR Valdada..the guys who made my scope..and the binoculars come with the same reticle as used in my scope…so what I see in the binoculars would be exactly how it would appear in my scope. Unfortunately, those particular binoculars apparently aren’t made any more. I’ll have to hunt a used pair. However, as it turns out, Steiner makes a pair of 10×50 with their own mil reticle…of course, the price on that is close to a grand. That’s a lot of money.
Unfortunately, as I learned when I started putting together a ‘precision rifle’ package, it turns out that the rifle is usually the cheapest part of the equation. The optics and support gear is where the real money goes. Heck, the scope cost more than the bloody gun. Then there’s the reloading dies, expensive Lapua brass, bullets, powder, spare parts, spare mags, etc, etc. There is a payoff, though….I shot a 5-shot group at 200 yards that measured .512″. Thats about 1/4 MOA…I can live with that. I just wish it wasnt so expensive a lifestyle.
Anyway, new-to-me binoculars that’ll go in the ’support bag’ for my CZ. Didnt really cost me anything out-of-pocket since I traded a buncha stuff I wasnt using anyway. Now I just need to load up the CZ and spend some time at the range……
Some folks are knife snobs. It’s got to be a mastadon-handled, damascus-bladed, acid-etched knife that costs about $350 and comes with a sheath made from the lining of baby seal tear ducts. I can’t do that. I appreciate a high-quality, aesthetically pleasing, custom made knife as much as the next guy…I really do. ANd if you can afford such things, more power to you…no class envy from me. But when I’m off hunting or fishing, I don’t want something that I have to worry about losing. I want something I can bang around, hammer with a rock, use to dig holes, and just generally abuse the snot out of it. For the money, I’ve found the Glock knives to meet those needs. However, as I said, I’m not a snob…I’ve a few others I like as well. About the only thing I won’t carry is some Made In China/Pakistan piece of crap. Some Japanese knives are quite nice, and I don’t have many reservations about buying them….however, when I can, I try to buy American. If I’m not using the Glock knife, I carry one of the Becker Knife & Tool (BK&T) knives. I like them, they seem sturdy as heck, but they come with utterly craptacular sheaths. I was told this was purposeful…the company figured you were going to go buy an aftermarket sheath anyway, so they send along a crappy sheath so your purchase price is mostly about the knife rather than the sheath.
I’ve been having a tough time finding a sheath I liked for these knives. The fuys at SpecOps make a sheath that looks very good and that I’d like to try, their Combat Master series of sheaths. They look pretty good but I was hoping to find something in Kydex, which I’ve started to come to prefer for most situations where things get wet and dirty. Hadn’t really seen anything that looked promising until I stumbled across this outfit. They already have most of the BK&T knives on -hand to use as templates for sheaths, so I can just tell ‘em I need a couple sheaths for my BK-7’s and that’ll be that. As soon as I can scratch up some coin I’ll be ordering a sheath and posting about it. However, if anyone else knows a good source for ready-made Kydex sheaths for the BK&T series of knives, I’d like to hear about it.
Well, the first sign that it’s promising to be an interesting day was getting to the shop and finding a shopping bag hanging from the handle of the door. Hmmm. Contents? MRE components….poundcake, applesauce, apple butter, crackers, entrees, etc. I figured it could only be from a couple of folks and, dure enough, it was the first one I called. Apparently he’s doing some tidying up around his house and these foud their way to me. Awesome.
The other day I was in the hardware store when I ran into another LMI. He’s a recent (in the last two years) convert who is making up for lost time in a big way. He works in a business that is indirectly related to preparedness so he’s a good person to know. Anyway, we stood there in the paint aisle and got caught up. We both wound up lamenting how hard it is to stay focused and how easy it is to get complacent. He said he looks at all his stored food and stuff in his basement and it reduces his anxiety but reduces it enough to take some of the urgency out of his activities…as a result, he winds up getting a little complacent. I agreed. I noticed this years ago. It’s hard to stay focused and concentrate on being prepared every single day. Now, don’t get me wrong..being prepared every single day is easy; thats just a matter of keeping your gear handy and your eyes and ears open. It’s actively thinking about being prepared and being open to new opportunities to become even further prepared that is difficult. What do I mean by that? It means that it’s difficult to, every day, keep your eyes open for good deals related to preparedness, evaluate new risks and new potential problems, compare everything you see with the mental lists in your head of what need to be done, etc, etc, etc. We both agreed that if we can do just one thing per day, big or small, towards our preparedness goals and plans it would be enough to keep us on track.
That’s actually easier than it sounds if you’ve been doing this sort of thing for a while. Yesterday was my technical day off. I moved some ammo around in storage, topped off some immediate-use magazines, checked food prices at the supermarket, did some reading on ham radio topics, daydreamed about a few things, and put a few things away into long-term storage. Mickey Mouse things, when taken individually…but small strokes fell giant oaks. A little attention to things every day, on top of the occasional* burst of intense activity, is really all it takes.
* = I have never been able to remember how to spell ‘occasionally’. Whenever you see me use words like ‘infrequently’ or ’sometimes’ or ‘oftentimes’ it is because I can’t remember how to spell the damn thing and am too lazy to spell check.
Well, it’s been tried before on network TV, but it looks like despite the bad track record of such series there will be a new post-apocalyptic series on NBC. Funny, you’d think they would have learned their lesson after ‘Jericho’.
What we’re getting this time is something that looks like a cross between Stirling’s SCA-saves-the-world nerdfest “Dies The Fire” series and a touch of “One Second After”/”Lights Out”. Trailer? Sure, here ya go:
I’ll be the first to say that JJ Abrams comes out with some interesting stuff, but selling the post-apocalyptic genre on network television has never really gone over well. Oh, sure…I’ll watch it, I never turn down a chance to watch this sort of thing, but if I were an actor on the show I’d keep polishing my resume and keeping my options open. I’m guessing Lennie James was unavailable to sign on for yet another end-of-the-world role.
I must be living right or something. My precious metals pimp came by and flipped me a silver round, telling me that someone from the blog ordered up a buncha silver and said to push an ounce in my direction. Anonymously, of course. So, again, when the end of the world is old news and I’m down at the Thunderdome bartering for a desperate, hungry, yet still….buoyant….Christina Hendricks to be my new housekeeper and bed warmer, I will look back fondly and with great appreciation at the anonymous benefactor who made such a thing possible.
A few posts back I mentioned a product called ‘Gear Pods’ that was based out of Polson MT. I linked to the company’s webpage and wondered out loud about their product. Gotta be careful what you say out loud on the internet because a couple days later the fella running the company sent me an email thanking me for the linkage and offering me the opportunity to try out his products and review them. Sure! Count me in! (I’m tellin’ ya, folks….this is the one of the very, very, very few perks of writing a blog.)
Before I get started, let’s go over what Gear Pods are. They are a modular, cylindrical container system for storing gear. The ‘modular’ part is the attention grabbing aspect of this product. (In addition to the Gear Pods themselves, the company also produces some specialized equipment to fit inside the Gear Pods…more on that later.) Roaming around their website shows the range of different lengths the Gear Pods come in. Each segment or piece can be capped at either end to make a standalone container, or they can be connected together to form longer containers, or the individual sealed containers can be joined together to keep them in one convenient package.
The segments themselves come in four different lengths…1.5”, 3”, 4.5”, and 6”. The internal diameter of the Gear Pods is 2-3/4″. The individual segments are available in four different lengths. With enough connectors you could probably assemble some sort of Bangalore torpedo of gear but that would be, to put it mildly, a bit impractical. Cool, though. The segments are a semi-transparent smoky color that allows some recognition of what is inside the Gear Pod segment, but the Gear Pods also come with adhesive labels for more detailed identification. The threaded connectors and caps that go on the end of the segments are available in several colors so you could, if you were so inclined, add another method of rapid identification by color-coding each segment.
Normally, I keep a minimalist survival kit with me whenever I’m out fishing or hunting. I keep it one of these pouches. It’s an assortment of odds-n-ends like firestarters, bivvy sack, Leatherman tool, flares, paracord, whistle, etc, etc. My goal was a small and compact package of stuff. The footprint of the pouch is 9.5×6.5×2.25 [139" cu.] If I tuck it all into one of the Gear Pods its footprint is 3.25×6 [49.79" cu.]. (3.25×11 [91.29" cu.] if I add a segment to give me enough length for the hand flare.) In the Gear Pod it tucks nicely into whatever bag I’m carrying. The Rigid nature of the Gear Pod means that things that may be susceptible to crushing or punctures are protected. For example, I’ve a fairly expensive rain jacket that I keep in my bag. Considering all the other crap thats in my bag, the likelihood of it getting torn or punctured by something is fairly high…but if I roll up the rain jacket into a tight little bundle and slide it into the proper size Gear Pod it’s protected, kept clean and dry, and I can throw all sortsa junk in my bag without worry.
The modular aspect of the Gear Pods, though, is their hook..their selling point..what makes them unique. Rather than stuffing everything into one space you can split up your gear and keep it organized and separate from other gear at the expense of overall length of the finished kit.
The Gear Pod segments are made of plastic and threaded at each end. There are three options for what to put on the end of the Gear Pod - you can either screw on an end cap to cap off that end of the tube or you can screw on a connector that allows you to join one segment to another with or without a seal between them. So, if you wanted to join two segments together to split up two different items you could do that, or if the items were too long to fit in one segment you could join two (or more) together with a pass-through connector and increase the useable length of the segment.
I had some questions about Gear Pods and asked the owner about them. The two biggest questions I had were 1) why are Gear Pods the diameter that they are and 2) were there any plans to make them in a different diameter? The owner of the company (and the brains behind it) told me that the Gear Pods are of a diameter that makes them conducive to packing anywhere you would fit a water bottle…most notably bicycle water bottle holders and that sort of thing. That made sense since the market for this product isn’t just limited to gun-toting end-of-the-world-types like myself. If you think about the gamut of outdoor activities…hunting, fishing, hiking, biking, geocaching, etc…one thing they all have in common is the carrying of a water bottle. So, if you have room for a water bottle you have room for one of these Gear Pods.
I asked if there were any plans to bring out a larger diameter version of the Gear Pods…something that could accommodate bigger items. Not in the cards, I was told. Right now they’re wanting to focus on what they’re already producing and expanding that line with additional components and additional features.
Gear Pods are, to oversimplify things, a segment of plastic tube with threaded ends to accommodate three different types of endcaps. You stuff your gear into the segments and join them together as needed to provide length or to organize them by keeping like items together.
So what actually fits in these things? Interesting question. In the 6” section I managed to fit:
Matches
Firesteel (I like the Swedish Firesteel - Army Model, although if you don’t mind the price, this is the most compact and well designed one I’ve ever seen.)
It was a snug fit, no lie….but there was still enough room for a small Photon-style LED light and an Esbit fuel tab or two. Normally I’d stuff some paracord in there but it occurred to me that it would make more sense to simply wind the paracord around the outside of the Gear Pod. It wouldn’t be a night at the Ritz but after getting stuck on the wrong side of the river when fishing or getting too far from the truck at sunset while hunting it’s pretty much all you’d need to spend the night outside in the summer. However, this is kinda where the attraction of this system comes in handy - if you wanted to, you could take another segment and fill it with, say, just firestarting materials (fuel tabs, tinder, matches, magnesium bar, military fuel gel, etc, etc) and thread it onto the end of this segment, giving you more options. Or, I suppose, you could just join the two sections together with one of their pass-through connectors and make one longer container. Thats a large part of the attraction to this system…the modularity.
In addition to the Gear Pods themselves the company offers products specifically designed to fit within the dimensional envelope of the Gear Pod. One of the more interesting items was their stove. The stove is similar to the ‘Tommy cooker” or “Esbit” style stoves - a small stamped steel device that unfolds to create a platform to hold a canteen cup or similar container over a fuel source. In the case of the Gear Pod, the fuel source is alcohol in a small burner, or if you prefer, a military-style fuel tab or paste. A very clever bit of engineering, the stove comes with a small stamped steel cup for the alcohol burner, a windscreen, and a small cup with lid that fits atop the unit. The whole thing nests together and fits in the 6″ Gear Pod. The cup holds a bit over 8 oz. of liquid so theres at least enough volume there for a solid cup of coffee or tea in the field. I prefer using fuel tabs rather than carrying liquid fuels for small, ’survival kit’-type stoves, so I’d probably wind up using this with an Esbit tab.
Of course, this sort of system isn’t limited to creating a place to house your survival kits. There’s plenty of other things that this system would be ideal for…repair kits for biking, carrying fishing gear, protecting small electronics, etc, etc.I’d love to see a segment about 18″ long to house a pack rod. Then I could add tackle to a smaller Gear Pod, screw it onto the end of the longer one, and have all my fishing stuff in one place.
After playing around with the Gear Pods for a couple weeks I’ve come to appreciate the handiness of them. I like being able to keep all my small, useful objects in one place rather than have them roaming around the inside of my bag and I very much like the ability to mate a couple of the Gear Pods together to keep like items in a group for quick use or transport. The Gear Pods also came with a handy tubular carry bag for carrying them around. Honestly, I didnt use it much. I found it much easier to slip some paracord around the body of the Gear Pod, form a couple loops, and just clip it to my bag or bicycle cargo rack. My ‘just in case’ kit for when I go fishing or hunting will definitely wind up in one these….makes things much easier to tuck away into my bag when I’m afield and, with a spool of paracord wrapped around it, should prove ideal for that task.
Anything to dislike? Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing some larger diameter Gear Pods to allow for larger items, but I can understand the manufacturer having his hands full at the moment with just the one diameter. Other than that, I didn’t see anything I didn’t like. Construction was good, everything seemed well made, and the fella running the operation was great at responding to my emails. Seems like a great product and I hope they do well with it.
The problem with finding a piece of gear you like is that, invariably, when you want more of it you discover that it was discontinued by the manufacturer. Case in point: I have a couple of the Blackhawk 3-Day Accessory Pouches that I use for keeping all of my cold-weather gear in one place in my bag. It’s been an amazingly handy way to store things…when spring comes, I simply remove the pouch from my bag and replace it in the fall. Everything kept neat, in one place, and safe.
Now I discover that Blackhawk discontinued the damn things. So, time to find an alternative. If you look at the illustration of the Blackhawk product you see it is a long zippered pouch with a couple compression/attachment straps going around it. Pretty simple. Those straps let me mount the pouch on the exterior of a pack, which was kinda handy. What I’m looking for is a replacement that has about the same functionality. Don’t suggest some sort of camping compression stuff sack…they aren’t nearly as rugged as this thing.
Some quick hunting online shows some vendors offering it, but virtually all of them list it as discontinued or out of stock. My first thought was to check with Maxpedition, but they don’t make anything like it. Nor does SpecOps. Closest thing I’ve found is this from Kifaru. But, honestly, while I love their gear I really would like to spend a bit less.
Anyone have anything to recommend? Preferably with a link?
There you go. Silver back below thirty. I see it as a ‘buy’ time, but, true, it may go even further and not get above thirty for a long time to come……..
And we may have a global economy that doesn’t shoot it’s own legs off, unemployment at record lows, a roaring national economic recovery, inflation kept in check, and fiscal responsibility as the norm.
When you’re slogging through the muck and mess of a Katrina-esque aftermath, running like hell from the fast zombies, or scavenging through the mildly-radioactive ruins of your city, is there a place for the little five-shot snubby? I think so..but certainly not as your primary pistol (unless the circumstance is such that anything bigger would be impossible to have with you at that moment….like when youre in line at the back of a National Guard deuce-and-a-half being handed rations and water.) To me, the snubby is either for when you can’t carry anything larger or as a hideout/backup for your larger gun. Massad Ayoob tells a story about being unarmed on a ridealong with some cop and when they got into a tight situation the cop pulled out his backup gun and handed it to Ayoob. In this case the snubby becomes a force multiplier…you hand it off to your buddy and suddenly you go from being a guy with a gun to two guys with guns. Plus, part of being prepared for the end of the world is also being prepared for everything up to the end of the world…and that includes mundane things like walking three blocks to the grocery for a quart of milk at 9pm. For those quick trips down the block or around the corner, the little snubbies are quick to drop in a pocket as you grab your keys and head out the door.
And those speedstrips? I like them a lot. They arent as fast as a speedloader, but, and this is important to me, they are a ‘universal’ speedloader - they’ll work on just about any .38/.357 revolver regardless of the size of the cylinder. You know how speedloaders have to be specific to the gun so that they cartridges line up with the chambers? J-frame guns use J-frame speedloaders, L-frame guns use L-frame speedloaders, Pythons use Python speedloaders, etc, etc….doesn’t matter with the speedstrips. Same strip will load a tiny J-frame .38 or my N-frame .357. That’s some streamlined logistics right there. (Although, to be fair, I do keep speedloaders and they are my first choice for reloading my revolvers…however, a bin full of loaded speedstrips is nice because as I walk out the door I can tuck two or three in my pocket without giving a second thought to whether they are ‘correct’ for te revolver I’m carrying. In reality, they make a nice secondary or tertiary level of reloading backup after a speedlaoder or two.)
series of sheaths. They look pretty good but I was hoping to find something in Kydex, which I’ve started to come to prefer for most situations where things get wet and dirty. Hadn’t really seen anything that looked promising until I stumbled across
, although if you don’t mind the price, 
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model around when I’m afield)
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