Author Archives: Commander Zero

It tolls for thee

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One of the blogs I read daily is The Field Lab. Basically, a guy in Texas moved to the middle of the desert and lives his life the way he likes…flying drones, building stuff, and doing life on his terms. (Basically, a  more theistic version of Joel over at TUAK.)

Right up until a tumor shows up in his pancreas. As you know, a pancreatic cancer diagnosis is pretty much a one way trip to the forever box. This guy, in less than a month, has gone from “Waitasec Doc, youre telling me….” to checking in to hospice. It happens that fast apparently.

While I am all for doing whatever it takes to preserve my comfort and life in a world that shows ironclad disregard for both, I am very cognizant that, eventually, the music stops. Its easy to forget that, but sometimes stories like this remind us to memento mori.

:::shrug::: Can’t fight it…sooner or later, you gonna dance wit da reaper.

I had planned on mentioning this last week, but I got sidetracked: don’t get so focused on the future (and preparing against it) that you don’t enjoy the moments in the present. Walking through the snow at night, watching stars twinkle, enjoying every sandwich, etc. The day will come when you won’t have the chance to do those things again, so appreciate them when you can.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled apocalypse…….

Article – Michigan sheriff Dar Leaf offers ‘militia course’

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Michigan Sheriff Dar Leaf is offering a “militia course” to residents, according to a Friday Facebook post.

The constitutionalist sheriff posted a graphic for enrollment to “learn a militiaman’s duty” for “potential jurors, homeschoolers, ladies & gentlemen.”

This goes one of two ways: either a) he’s a True Believer and this is something he’s doing in good faith, or, b) this is how you get a list of names and addresses for future roundups and surveillance.

I knew lots of ‘militia types’ back in the 90’s. Heck, I’ve chatted with Johnny Trochman dozens of times at gun shows, met Randy Weaver and Bo Gritz, and been to a few ‘concerned citizens meetings’. By and large it’s all been beer-bellied armchair warriors who would probably not pick up a rifle in ‘defense of liberty’ until the battle was 99% over and there was no risk to their retirements, jobs, mortgages, and dualies. On the other hand, I’ve also met some True Believers and often they were even more sketch because you got the feeling that they weren’t going to support a revolution, rather they were gonna start one. Again, stay away.

If you and four buddies want to take your preparedness to the next level and form a ‘mutual ad group’ or some sort of semi-organized club where you all look out for each other in anticipation of tough times, that is awesome. More people need to do that. And if it incorporates going to gun schools, medical training, finance classes, welding school, extension classes, backpacking weekends, and a touch of small group tactics….good on ya. But for the love of Crom, don’t give your group a name and fancy velcro patch to slap on your cammies. All the badges are gonna be extremely wary of those ‘Paul Revere Militia’ guys that they see tromping through the national forest every weekend in their cammies, and they’re gonna be a lot less curious about the four or five guys with binoculars and bird books they see tromping through that same forest every weekend.

Five Gulf War/GWOT vets getting together on weekends to hike the woods and look for morel mushrooms is a lot less attention catching than those same five guys hiking the woods in multicam and toting rifles. Use your head.

Would I go to a meeting like the one described in the opening paragraph? Probably not. But I wold darn sure find someone who did go and ask them to tell me all about it and share any materials that were offered just so I could evaluate it for myself.

 

YouTube videos re: canned meats and canned food

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Following a link from ,Rawles’ SurvivalBlog led me to this channel.

There is no shortage of preparedness-minded folks sharing their opinions and experiences on things like guns. Thats easy, low-hanging fruit that is always good for views. But preparedness is about a lot more than boomtoys. And, if you think about it, while you don’t need to shoot something three times a day, we all usually eat three times a day. So….food is kind of a somewhat bigger deal than guns when it comes to preparedness. Its just not as sexy.

So, I’m perusing this fella’s YouTube channel and while I may not be interested in everything he has to say, or even agree with it, I gotta give him credit for doing the work.

Food taste is very subjective. What you think tastes great might not taste great to me, and vice-versa. But it’s still good to at least see the options that are out there and let someone else take the financial hit of opening a dozen different cans of food, dumping them on a plate, and taking video.

BBQ/Hero Gun – Part II

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Well, what have we here….Ah, thats right…its the decorative gunleather I had made for the equally decorative BBQ gun. Well, let’s open the box and see what an embarrassingly large amount of money gets you:

Not gonna lie, I opened the box, pulled away the packing papers, and literally exclaimed “Wow!”. It’s a nice bit of work, I gotta say.

Only needs two things now: custom grips, and an occasion where I can wear this thing.

Samson Manufacturing Swivel Stud QD Adapter

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If you look at most newer ‘evil black rifles’ you’ll see that they often have a small hole at various points on them to accommodate quick detach (QD) rifle slings. These slings are actually, in my experience, pretty hand since they tend to have features that make them quite handy for even non-tactical rifles. Some older gun designs predate the current QD methods and therefore are not usable with something like a Magpul QD sling. Thats where Samson Manufacturing comes in.

I have a Ruger Mini-14 that I fitted with a Samson copy of the original Ruger folding stock:

Because the rifle was not originally kitted out with the folder stock, it’s sling is mounted on the bottom of the forend rather than on the side as it was mounted on original GB models. As it turned out, Samson also makes a replacement gas block to accommodate a side mounted sling, making the gun a more faithful repro.

Here’s the thing, the original GB had just regular normal sling swivel mounts. You can’t use the modern QD sling attachment points. Or can you? Check these out:

It’s a very nice, well-made adapter that lets you use modern QD sling attachments on guns that have just a simple swivel stud. While your typical Uncle Mikes QD swivels are fine for most hunting rifle applications, I like being able to just swap slings and have them fit all the attachment points on all my guns.

By the way, one nice feature of the Magpul sling is that you can switch it from a 2-point to a single-point if youre in a situation where the gun just hanging by your side is a handy thing.

Glock Redux

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Kings Firearms Online was having a sale on some LE trade-in Gen 4 G17’s. Well, heck, for $300 apiece, why not? I prefer Gen3 Glocks for various reasons but these should be quite easy to flip for $350-375 to someone wanting a Christmas gift to themselves or a friend.While I have a big ‘ol stack of Ruger P95DCs sitting around, I have an almost as large pile of Glock 9mms. I’m kinda wishing I’d picked up more than just these three. Theyre in typical copgun condition: bluing wear, grips nicked and scratched from years of being a ghetto referee, but mechanically fine. Face it, copguns just don’t get shot that much. They get banged around a heck of a lot, but mechanically theyre almost always like new.

Its been a long time since I’ve seen police trade-in Glocks in 9mm for sale but when it happens, I try to go deep.

Making a mark

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I read somewhere that your fifties is the period in your life when you will make the most money. For me, that was a pretty low bar to clear, but, it’s proven true for me.

Having a paid for house, vehicle, and no debt frees up a good bit of cash. As a result, it’s only in about the last five years I’ve been able to buy myself the toys and gear I’ve always wanted. And, also, I’ve been able to be a generous friend to people…which I really enjoy.

So, one thing I’d always wanted was something from Zombie Tools. They are just a few minutes drive from where I work, but I’d never been there…although I had always wanted to go. Just never seemed to find the time. Until earlier this week.

I’d decided I was going to get myself a blade and, feeling generous, I’d get one for someone else. Naturally, I couldn’t be satisfied with just the off-the-rack stuff. I needed to be a wee bit bespoke. So, since I wantd to thoroughly explain what I wanted, as well as examine the goods in person, I made the trip to ZT on my lunch break. By the time I finished explaining what I wanted in terms of finish, handles, scabbard, etc. it had climbed to a pretty penny. But…buy once, cry once. I wanted to add some engraving. Turns out ZT has a laser engraving subsidiary. And they do guns. And I have guns. And I have a logo* representation of Commander Zero. So, lets drop the logo into a .jpg and pass it to the engraver guy and see what we get:

Pretty cunning, don’tcha think?

I was actually quite pleased with how it turned out. How pleased? Uhm..this pleased:

As it turns out, they can also do this sort of thing to leather, wood, and other materials. Which means my BBQ gun is definitely getting some custom grips on it. I’ll be bringing by a few rifles and knives after the new year. Pricing? Extremely reasonable. I had four pistols done and with the setup charge it came to about $120, including tip. The guy was very easy to work with and stayed late after normal business hours to accommodate my schedule (hence the tip).

So this is yet another thing to check off my list…a little personalization of some favorite guns. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out and I am equally pleased at the notion of getting a few more things personalized.

* = Logo wasnt the exact word. Sigil might have made sense but for the mystic connotation. Pictograph wasn’t quite right. Symbol was a little vague. I needed a word to describe a picture or design that is used to convey an identity or name. I’m sure there’s a precise word, I just have to find it.

Article – The Guns Were Said to Be Destroyed. Instead, They Were Reborn.

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Remember, kids…when the other side doesn’t like something that our side does that is perfectly legal..well..thats a “loophole”.

When Flint, Michigan, announced in September that 68 assault weapons collected in a gun buyback would be incinerated, the city cited its policy of never reselling firearms.

“Gun violence continues to cause enormous grief and trauma,” Mayor Sheldon Neeley said. “I will not allow our city government to profit from our community’s pain by reselling weapons that can be turned against Flint residents.”

But Flint’s guns were not going to be melted down. Instead, they made their way to a private company that has collected millions of dollars taking firearms from police agencies, destroying a single piece of each weapon stamped with the serial number and selling the rest as nearly complete gun kits. Buyers online can easily replace what’s missing and reconstitute the weapon.

This is interesting because I’ve done a bunch of business with Gunbusters on GunBroker. Theyre an excellent source for getting spare parts for a gun ‘just in case’. The pearl-clutching in this article is priceless. If recycling gun parts is somehow a safety problem for the public, then by extension the purchase of spare parts through other channels should be just as much of a (non)problem. That is, of course, the direction this will eventually go to as more and more parts will be considered controlled or, more likely, prohibited from distribution through various means….social pressure on carriers, advertisers, etc.

The culture war never stopped, guys…sometimes it just quiets a bit as folks reposition themselves in their trenches.