I really don’t like making too many posts that are firearms-related because, nominally, this blog isn’t about firearms but rather about preparedness. And while firearms are certainly a part of that, they are but a small part. Unfortunately, the free ice cream machine is clogged today and firearms posts are sort of a low-hanging fruit.
As years come on apace I am slowly moving forward in terms of firearms technology. I’ve put red dots on a couple carbines and I’ve decided I want to try out a red dot pistol. To that end, I’ve decided to assemble a moderately tweaked out G17 (or G34….haven’t decided yet). The reason for the red dot is simply for speed and increased accuracy.
I’ve learned, at some expense, that the world does throw the odd curve ball every once in a while and that when that pitch leaves the mound youre gonna want every advantage you can get. For me, that means fast(er) and (more) accurate shooting.
I’m looking at getting a Trijicon RMR. I’ve talked to several people and gotten some mixed messages regarding slides with optic cuts. Glock makes their optic-ready MOS series and my initial thought was just to pick up a 17MOS or 34MOS (which, sadly, are not available as Gen3 versions.) However, I’ve had a couple people tell me that the MOS mounting system leaves a bit to be desired and that I would be better serviced to send a regular Glock slide off and have the optics cut milled out specifically for the RMR, rather than using adaptor plates.
Another alternative, which is rapidly gaining favor with me, is to buy an aftermarket slide that is already cut for the RMR. In this manner I can have a Gen3 pistol with the optics. (It’s a personal preference thing…the Gen3, to me, is the more comfortable and reliable of all the Glock generations. Fuddlore perhaps, but I have the money to get what I want so …why not?)
Once that optic issue is in the rearview mirror the rest is simple. A quality threaded barrel, a nice trigger, suppressor-height night sites, light, and a good holster. And then loads of practice.
But, for now, the bugaboo is the optics mounting issue….after that everything else seems simple.
Im simply going to state that I did my taxes this weekend. I’m not going to bother talking about how much I hate paying those taxes because I think we can all agree that paying taxes sucks.
The only nice thing is that there’s a refund on the way. As you know, if you could adjust your withholdings perfectly you would owe nothing and have no refund. Unfortunately, that is a virtual impossibility. So…Im getting a bit of a refund. And, please do not forget – tax refunds aren’t (usually) ‘free money’. It just means you handed over too much money to Uncle Sam and he’s returning it.
And what really annoys me is that there is someone, somewhere, who is thinking I’m not paying enough in taxes. You know, not paying my ‘fair share’. Keep in mind that I pay more in taxes, and use less government services, than the ‘victims of inequity’ who, literally, pay no taxes at all and use the most services. Their ‘fair share’ is zero? That doesn’t seem fair.
And then people like Fake Indian Woman want people to pay taxes on money that they haven’t actually gotten yet (unrealized gains), and even a percentage of your annual worth (wealth tax). But it’s okay because we all know that the government will manage that additional tax revenue wisely, frugally, and efficiently. Oh, and by the way the national debt is around $34 trillion dollars.
The more centrist-lefty minded will say something like “Don’t you like having a police and fire department? Don’t you like having roads to drive on? Don’t you like having infrastructure?” Why, yes…yes, I do. But Stuff like that makes up a tiny percentage of my taxes. The rest is stuff of questionable utility to me. It’s easy to jump on the government for the classic $900 toilet seats, but its more than that. I would say that .gov spend money like drunken sailors, but a) thats an unfair comparison to sailors everywhere and b) drunken sailors at least have the decency to spend their own money.
Whats the solution? Honestly, there isn’t one. Everyone is happy to tax someone as long as it isn’t them. “Free” health care, college education, housing, and that sort of ting isn’t ‘free’ by any stretch of the imagination. If you think it’s free then ask yourself how the teachers, doctors, and other people are getting paid. They don’t work for nothing, right?
“Oh, we’ll tax the rich!” Yeah, sure you will. Anyone remember when Clinton promised that he’d only raise taxes on ‘the rich’ and said that if you made less than $XXX,XXX per year your taxes wouldn’t change? And then what happened? Why, they lowered the dollar threshold lower and lower until all of a sudden almost everyone was considered ‘rich’…and then taxed ‘the rich’.
I’m trying not to be bitter, but I have enough business, accounting, and finance classes under my belt to know that there is a tremendously strong case for a) cash businesses and b) converting that cash to cash-like instruments (gold, silver, land, etc.)
And here’s a head scratcher….remember when the .gov was talking about a trillion dollar coin? If .gov can just mint a coin to give themselves a trillion dollars to beat a budget restriction, then why do they need to collect taxes at all? Why not just ‘print money’ like they already do? Don’t use the argument that doing so will cause inflation…no one seemed too worried about that when they were bandying the idea about.
I’ll leave you with what Will Rogers said about the difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.
Glaringly absent is anything about whether you’ll be able to actually walk into a Zim bank (which I imagine as being like a cross between a bank and a 7-11 in a bad neighborhood) and redeem that paper for actual gold. Because…if you can’t, then you’re right back to a faith-based currency.
I’ve actually stopped buying gold and silver for right now because I just don’t wanna spend that kind of money. But, Im both delighted and terrified to see how the metals I have are increasing in value. (Or, more accurately, how the value of the metals is staying the same and the value of the currency is declining.)
I took the last two days off from work because I caught some bug (not Wuhan Flu) and didn’t want to wind up knocking out half the people at work by giving it to them. I very seldom take Paid Time Off (PTO) so I’ve accrued a hundred or so hours of PTO that I can use. And I accrue another five hours every pay period. SO…taking yesterday and today off.
One of the things I did with the time was update my personal finance stuff. I’ve been using the same budget and spending plan since 2017. Hey, if it works, it works. But I needed to clean it up and streamline it a bit to reflect that I earn a bit more money now than I did seven years ago.
Succinctly, I live on about 45% of my income. The rest is immediately whisked off to various little hides. 15% goes into retirement investing, %15 goes into savings, %10 goes into an emergency fund, 10% goes into land fund, and %5 goes into my HSA. I very much understand that this is quite a departure from how most people live. Because of the way I live, I have a pretty small amount of living expenses. I don’t have a house payment, car payment, student loan payment, credit card payment, kids, or anything like that. My property rental covers my property taxes and insurance. My actual out-of-pocket living expenses are about $675 a month. That 45% of my paycheck covers that nut pretty quickly and leaves me a bunch left over for pretty much whatever I want. I don’t have the latest and greatest, and I’m using a ten year old computer (mostly for sentimental reasons), but ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ was never a thing with me.
What’s interesting, though, is that I have learned (the hard way) what the expression ‘pay yourself first’ means. I know most of us here are old-timers who have made way, way too many trips around the sun but for the younger crowd who maybe never had someone explain it to them, now might be a good time.
When I was younger, I had always heard the expression ‘pay yourself first’ when it came to money. I had no idea what that meant. I just got my paycheck, doesn’t that mean I got paid? Pay myself what?
You are the main character in your life’s story. No one, and nothing, is more important than you. Ford financing, the electric company, Krogers, the local ISP, and the kid who mows your lawn are not more important than you. When you get your paycheck (or any other income…be it lottery winnings, a gift, or $20 found in your winter coat pocket) the first person on the list of ‘where does this money go’ is you. You pull out the money that is earmarked for your savings, your investment, your ‘just in case’. Once that money is pulled out and safely stowed, then everyone else gets paid. That’s it.
Why is it so important? Because, as I have repeatedly hammered into the blogosphere, you will need $50 bills far more often in life than you will need .50 BMG. You will have job losses, personal losses, medical issues, sick kids, bad transmissions, leaky water heaters, broken pipes, emergency travel needs, desperate loved ones, and a million other emergencies that will magically be downgraded to ‘inconveniences’ because you were able to just Write. A. Check.
It doesn’t matter how much you earn…calculate a dollar value or a percentage value and that’s the amount you take off the top, first thing, every time. Large amount or small amount, doesn’t matter as long as its something. To paraphrase Shepherd Book: “I don’t care how much you save, just save it.”
Ten years ago I made so little money it was ridiculous, and that lack of earning wound up costing me a lot . When my head cleared, I looked for a career path that would provide better for me, I worked my way though the necessary education, and now I do okay for myself. I’m not rich, and I still make less than many people, (but my net worth, on the other hand….) but at the end of the month I have money in the bank, a roof over my head, food in the fridge, hot water in the pipes, and the security of knowing I have the financial resources to cover emergencies.
Part of preparedness includes being prepared in case the world doesn’t end. That starts with paying yourself first.
I’ve been to a couple classes at gun school, many years ago, and I have had forays into competitive shooting also many years ago. But any acquired skill can be easily unacquired by lack of usage or lack of repetition. And as I’ve gotten older, instead of having no money but lotsa time, it’s gone the other way. I can afford the toys, I just don’t have the time to shoot them. Thats gotta change.
A friend of mine reminded me that the difference between an amateur and a professional is that an amateur practices until they get it right, a professional practices until he can’t get it wrong. I have no desire to be a ‘professional’, whatever that means, in terms of pistolero. But what I do want is a heightened/sharpened skillset that will help me when things are in a panic and rational thought has left the room. What’s that expression about how ‘you will default to your level of training’?
The world is not getting to be a brighter, warmer, friendlier place. I would prefer, given my druthers, that if it ever comes down to some brief-but-intense moment where a pistol is what stands between the safety of those I care about and the violent intentions of some whacko, I have the muscle memory and presence of mind to perform up to the task. I don’t need to be the fastest, I don’t need the briefest split times, I don’t need to be Best In Overall finish. I just need to be able to draw my pistol and get bullets on the target in the most expeditious and efficient way possible without shooting myself or anyone else. The only person I need to compete against is me. I do not want to rely on luck.
So, I’m working on adopting the habit of getting out to the range once a week to work on my pistol and carbine skills. Not to plink, not to target shoot, not to screw around, but to actually practice repeatable drills, get metrics on performance, track those metrics, and instill some habits and behaviors that will, ideally, work in my favor if that need ever arises.
How to do that? Well, as Flannel Daddy says “Talk is cheap and ammo is expensive”. First thing is dry fire practice. Drawing a pistol from the holster smoothly, getting a clear sight picture, and keeping the gun on target as the trigger is pulled. That’s an easy enough thing to practice at home…I spent the money for the Mantis laser dry fire and I can’t say enough good things about it. I get to use my carry pistol, the holster I normally wear, the light I normally use, etc, etc. And I can do this sort of practice whenever I want and not have to leave my living room. Can’t recommend it enough.
So, part of my intended practice plan is a healthy dose of dry fire. At some point, it’s time to head to the range and put some actual metal into the air. Still, 9mm isnt as cheap as I’d like it to be, so there’s also a good bit of .22 practice going on. A while back I bought a Glock 44 specifically for this sort of thing. While dry firing absolutely has merit and utility, the feedback of a bullet hitting the metal plate sure gives some nice positive reinforcement. Yeah, there are conversion kits out there for the Glock but I have a bit of experience with them and was never all that impressed with them. I have more confidence in a .22 trainer built by the guys who also built the real thing. Your mileage may vary, of course…and I know there will be posts in the comments about how someone’s conversion kit has functioned flawlessly blah, blah, blah. Great, man, I’m happy for you…Im just telling you what my experience has been and what it’s led me to do. You do you.
And, of course, from there its another step forward and time to shoot actual 9mm. Cheap ball is around $0.25 per round today and if you think you can reload it for less than that, then you havent bought primers lately:
At eight cents per primer, youre still looking at about four or five cents for powder, and at least a dime for a bullet. I’m assuming you’re using scrounged (‘free’) brass. That puts you at around $0.23 per round. Screw that, I’ll pay the extra $20 for 1000 rounds I didnt spend all weekend reloading.
If you have to use a carbine for self-defense, things really have kinda gone off the rails but thats the world we’re living in today. As a result, I have a CMMG .22 conversion kit and I don’t really have a bad thing to say about it. As I type this, Arms Unlimited is selling the CCMG kit and 13 magazines for $205. You’re missing out if you don’t jump on that deal. I’ve bought three of those packages as gifts for friends of mine so they can join me in some casual competition. My experience has been that the Federal bulk box .22 is the preferred ammo. When youre done using the kit, fire a round or two of.223 out of it to clean the .22 gunk outta your gas system.
Next up is a shot timer. Not because I’m interested in being the fastest gun out there, but because I want to measure my own progress. There are apps you can download for your phone that provide very good shot timer functions, but I really don’t want to half-ass any of this process and I can afford a purpose-built shot timer. On Tam‘s recommendation* I purchased a shot timer off Amazon. I must say, last time I did anything that required a shot timer we did not have the fancy Bluetooth connection that you kids have today. And if you go waaaaaay back, Cooper and his gang started this whole trend with just a stopwatch and a fast thumb.
Targets are, for me , the steel plates hanging at the range, so I bring along a can of spraypaint to clean them up. I’ll probably sign up for the Big Sky Practical Pistol Club membership so I can use their stands and plates. But I’ll also swing by Scheels and pick up some target stands and go online and order up a pile of the IPSC/USPSA torso targets to use.
About the only thing left to do, logistics-wise, is research what shooting drills I want to incorporate into a routine and which ones i think will provide me the skills I foresee needing. Obviously I want something that does a draw-from-concealment, some weak-hand stuff, some close-in drill, and then whatever else looks like it may lead to a useful skillset to have tucked away for that Bad Day. The odds of ever needing those sorts of skills are pretty strong against it…but I’ve had the odds thrown out the window before.
But, for now, I’ve got most of the gear details ironed out. Now its time to draw up the schedule and regimen and get to it…which is, as we all know, the toughest part. Talking is easy, doing…not so much.
* = I should point out that when I have a question regarding gun schools and competition, Tam has been very generous in taking the time to answer my dumb questions with patience and promptness. So…h/t.
Typical government BS….theyl’ll let municipalities and individuals bring huge lawsuits against ammo companies because, well, because…but then when some outside company wants to buy that same ammo company all of a sudden its a national defense issue.
This started, I think, with Macnamara back in the 60’s/70’s who felt that closing down government owned facilities and farming it out to private industry made more sense. I have boxes of Springfield Armory and Rock Island Armory primers and bullets from the 1940’s. Yes youngsters, there was a time Uncle Sam made his boomtoys himself. Sure, some of it got farmed out too (Rockola M1 Carbines, Winchester 1903’s, etc.) but it used to be the US had government facilites for churning out this sort of thing.
I am extremely opposed to the nationalization of any industrial concern, but I’m not opposed to government building its own production facility to meet its needs. And, really, if Uncle Sam is really that concerned about this issue, they can reach into their bottomless pockets and just buy the whole business lock, stock, and barrel making facility.
I also find it interesting that Janet Yellen, she of ‘temporary inflation’ fame, is sounding the call on this issue.
The solution to the jungle encroaching on civilization is to grab a machete and beat the jungle back, not spread out fertilizer and water.
From the NotSoGreatWhiteNorth:
To protect yourself from a home invasion that is oriented at stealing your vehicle, the Toronto cops say to leave your keys prominently by the front door so the bad guys don’t have to come after you once they kick in your front door. I was going to say “You can’t make this stuff up”, but it’s Canada so it actually seems pretty legit.
Look, I know that Canada is, essentially, an entire country made of Nerf and that whatever national reserve of BFYTW was exhausted long before this weasel minced into power, but this is just plain embarrassing. I have no doubt there are individuals up there in Canuckistan who are aghast at this sort of pandering and are more than happy to light someone up who tries to kick in their front door for a set of car keys…I just wish they got some air time. This isn’t a good look for you, Neville Chamberlain Canada.
Someone comes through your front door like a homicidal KoolAid man, the solution is not appeasement but rather ‘sudden battle … with utter recklessness’, as Heinlein might say. This devolution of society, where things like appeasing illegal aliens, squatters, and home invaders are going from bad ideas to actual policy, continues because we let it. There’ll be a tipping point eventually, and when it happens it won’t stop there. Those will be some interesting times.
A few weeks back I received a little ‘cashback bonus’ check from CostCo. I’d been thinking that I would use it to pick up a second freezer for the basement. Of course, thats a pretty simplistic goal because nothing ever goes easy.
I figured I did not want two freezers on the same circuit. If their compressors both came on at the same time, it seemed like that would be a recipe for popping a fuse. The solution, assuming that I was right and that having two frezers on the same circuit was a problem, is to have each freezer on a different circuit. Well…yeah but.
When I moved into the house, it had an electric stove. I threw that thing away, had a gas line run to the kitchen, and put in a gas stove. So, I have a 220 circuit that is completely unused. Could I not have it made to run a 110 freezer? Short answer: with enough money anything is possible.
I asked several people and they all gave me some variation of ‘drop one leg off the 220 outlet and use that’. Look, maybe I could have done it with enough time on YouTube how-to videos, but then when I was done I’d have to call in a pro to unscrew whatever I screwed up. And when you screw up with electricity you either die or your house goes up in smoke. Why not just save a step and go straight to the pro?
So, gal at work has a husband who is an electrician. I shanghai’d him into coming by and looking at my ancient, ancient panel. He remarked it was older than him. And 75 amp service. He said the normal standard these days is 200 amp. But putting in a new panel would require all sortsa contortions to meet the rather annoying codes in this town.
What we wound up doing was running the 220 down into a new itty bitty subpanel and then running the new outlet offa that panel. Whatever, just get it done.
So, finally got my #2 freezer up and running. My plan is to use it as my ‘everyday’ freezer and use #1 as my ‘storage’ freezer. Y’know, rotate stuff outta freezer #1 into freezer #2 for use…that sorta thing. I like having the extra freezer space..not gonna deny it. I’m actually quite excited about getting to have a much better organized freezer space than what I have now.
So..thats the weekend right there. The wiring took a couple hours, cost me a few hundred bucks, but the real PITA was having to move 60 large ammo cans to the other side of the basement to make room for things. THAT was what really wiped me out.
But, hey, I’ve room for lots more bargain meats now.
Lovely days lately here in western Montana. Time to dust off the mountain bike and get ready for warmer-weather activities.
More than anything else, I need to start an actual training regime at the range. I’ve gone through the trouble and expense of acquiring .22 conversion kits for my rifles, and picking up a .22 Glock 44 to practice my pistol handling skills….now I just need to adopt a plan of shooting drills and exercises, to be performed on a regular basis, to make sure I’m staying competent on decay-susceptible skills.
(And, by the way, the Mantis system I purchased a while back is excellent and I highly recommend it for those times when getting to the range just ain’t gonna happen.)
While Im at it, I need to get back to some form of weight and mobility training. Its been too long since I sat on the floor, did stretches, and moves a bunch of weigh around.
With the end of the world (in some fashion) seemingly just around the corner, I’d like to have a headstart on being able to competently place in the top slots in the upcoming Shoot-n-Scoot Olympics.
There is no shortage of gun drills out there….the Mozambique (later renamed to Failure Drill) is probably the best known…but there’s others out there. I’m curious – if you were going to establish, say, a weekly routine of basic shooting skill drills for rifle and pistol, which ones would you do? Please link to a description/video.
There’s just never a shortage of things to spend money on these days. Usually, based on my previous history, when an election year rolls around I wind up spending a fair amount of coin on things like AR lowers and standard-capacity magazines. Having done this for several election cycles now, I’m reasonably comfortable with what I have in terms of those items that I no longer feel the need to panic-buy more…although I want to.
But, the world is, hands down, a more dangerous place these days. I know that, for myself, my level of concern for my safety and security has been elevated for the last couple years. We see it on the news all the time — stuffs gettin’ weird. That weirdness can be distant, like Russia/Ukraine/Hamas/Israel…or it can be local, like homeless camps, home invasions, and impending layoffs. Pick your apocalypse, there’s plenty to choose from.
So, rather than just picking up the phone and ordering another couple cases of Magpuls, I’m trying to be more targeted and discrete in my approach. Take, for example, my recent purchase of a light-compatible holster… It’s something I’ve been wanting for a while but it was always a case of “someday’. Yeah, well, someday is now because it’s a weird world out there we’re in. So I’m really just filling all sorts of gaps in logistical, tactical, and strategic quarters. What does that look like? Well, I’ve got a dry erase board up on my fridge with a list that reads like this: Glock armorers tools, Glock threaded barrel, Glock night sights, ACOG TA-44, propane bottles, 10mm dies, part #121G, Magpul sights, Beretta G conversion, MP5 mag clamps, (more) .223 ammo, etc, etc. It’s a bit of a list. But its a plan..and without a plan you wind up throwing resources around in a very inefficient manner.
And, of course, there’s still that little bugaboo that has been dogging me for years – a chunk of dirt. (Still haven’t seen the perfect place within my price range yet…but I’m being patient and adding to the war chest.)
It’s not an economically easy thing, this whole being a survivalist thing… but, I suppose I’d rather have these things (and their related expense) when I need them rather than the alternative.
