Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I’d been dragging my feet about it but I finally pulled the Dillon RL1050 out of the closet, set it up and started loading 9mm ammo today. Even at the healthy clip of one box of 50 rounds every 2:20 minutes its still tedious. However, it does pay off. Since I always save my brass and pick up whatever range scrounge I can, I figure my cost for cases is $0.00. Factor in primers at $0.019 ea, bullets at $0.057 ea, and powder at $0.011 per charge that makes one round of 115 gr. FMJ 9mm for $0.087 ea, or $4.35 per box of 50…or $87 per thousand, if you prefer.

I have a 5 gallon bucket of empty brass, about 6000 bullets (which cost about 40% more than they did last year), a keg of AA#5, and a matching amount of primers….everything I need to stock up what the girlfriend and I have shot off over the last few months.

I currently have a Dillon 550 and the Super 1050. In the past I have used the RCBS and Lee progressive presses and found them wanting. If you want to get your production up and not futz around, get the Dillon.

I do, of course, keep the good ‘ol Rockchucker press around for loading my .308 target ammo. I just like the meticulous, ritual-like motions of loading a box of 50. What do I load? Lapua brass (excellent stuff, get it before the dollar collapses further and the price is outrageous), Fed. Gold Medal primers, Varget powder and Hornady AMax 168 gr. bullets. The results satisfy me. Less-than-MOA is typical….usually around .7 MOA although there are times I’ve shot much better and dumped ‘em into .5 or .4 MOA.

So, I have a cardboard box here filled to the top with nice, shiny 9mm ammo ready to be boxed up in plastic ammo boxes, stacked in ammo cans, and put away for the uncertain future. (Generally half of everything I reload gets socked away, the other half gets shot for practice.)

In addition to the 9mm, I also have the setup to run the Dillon in .40, .45, .38/.357, .308 and .223. Lucked out and found a set of carbide .308 dies for $50, and I still have my .223 carbide dies from years ago. Yes, you do have to lube the cases with carbide rifle dies but the cases won’t get scratched nor will the die if the cases are dirty.

With the price of ammo being what it is these days you really dont have an excuse, other than being fabulously well off, to not reload.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I was at the bank the other day and the teller commented to me that they had a new program with accounts that offered a whopping 1.75% interest. Now, assuming that inflation is running at a rate higher than 1.75%, which it assuredly is, the only possible thing this savings account can offer is a slightly offset level of devaluation. In short, if I stick $100 in my safe, at the end of the year it’s worth $96. In the aforementioned account it may be worth $98. (Or something similar, my math skills….not so good.)

If I actually had any money, I’d be putting it into durable goods and into a form that would hold its value against an inflation of currency. The Weimar Strategy, I suppose.

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‘Tis spring here in western Montana. Sure, it still gets cold and theres the infrequent snow squall but, by and large, winter is pretty much a done deal. Time for spring cleaning, getting the yard neatened up, looking for seasonal sales on things and generally getting things in order.

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Its worth noting that the newswires are reporting cases of human-to-human transmission of bird flu. (Remember bird flu? Was all the rage a few years ago.) The articles Ive read so far state that In China, which is having ‘regular’ outbreaks, cases are reported of family members infecting other family members. The article suggests that thus far its human-to-human when both humans have similar genetic makeup (siblings to siblings, parents to children, etc.) Im sure from there its just a matter of random mutation until it jumps from infected stranger to infected stranger. My personal perception of it as a threat to us? Pretty low. Somewhere above ‘Yellowstone volcano’ but below ‘new Depression’. Certainly, an outbreak in someplace like NY or Chicago or Vancouver would have some repercussions here but I don’t believe they’d be anything like the photos you see from the old 1918 influenza days with police in surgical masks, public gatherings prohibited and quarantine notices tacked on buildings. ‘Omega Man’ it wont be. Not in my neck of the woods anyway….you guys in the major population centers are on your own.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

As ,Rawles pointed out over at SurivivalBlog the NY Times (”Pravda On The Hudson”) had an article about the ‘new’ survivalism. The consensus on the various discussion boards seems to be that it was a decent article with only a few jabs thrown in at the more…..elaborately….prepared amongst us.

Hey, more prepared people means less 5.56 ammo I need to keep around. Good on ya.

It reminded me of another article from New York magazine a few years back about NYC survivalists. This one has a much higher tinfoil-hat quotient, but its still a fascinating read.

J. has crossed paths with at least 60 others like him in the city — nouveau survivalists who are equal parts urban and apocalyptic, methodically preparing for a future that was unthinkable to most of us before last September. “I’ve met them, all races, all sizes, even women,” J. says. “Some of them are very extreme. I feel like I’m in the middle. They’re fucking paranoid.”

With that, he stands up: “I’ve got to meet someone.” I shake his hand and start to walk away, but he calls me back.

“After today, if I see you on the street, I don’t know you, you don’t know me. And don’t call me anymore. It has to be that way.”

A very interesting read. The article came out post-9/11 but pre-Katrina so it would be interesting to see someone do a follow up. And, hey, Grace Jones is into preparedness??????
Article in its entirety.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Theres pretty much two kinds of posts a person can make and still be on-topic as far as preparedness goes – you can either post about things you are are going to do/doing/have/want to have or you can post about ‘theory’ which is mostly things like “When the zombies invade, you should….”

I tend to stick close to the former. This is mostly because theres very little you can opine about that hasn’t been beaten to death elsewhere. However, knowing this still doesn’t keep me from throwing my two cents in every once in a while. You’ve been warned.

Stayed up until about 1:30 yesterday mrning setting up what should, ideally, be the finally set of shelves in the bunker. Now that its (for the most part) all done, its time to actually re-arrange and inventory whats there. All the foodstuffs on one shelf, all the sleeping gear on another, etc, etc. Part of me is looking forward to it and another part of me is cringing at the thought of meticulously going through all this stuff and moving it around. On the bright side, it may free up more space if things are stored more efficiently. A casual glance shows that at least 40% of the available space down there is taken up with long-term food. MRE’s, freezedrieds, barrels of rice, etc, etc. Then theres the 2×4 rack holding all the ammo cans of ammo. I need to go through those as well and inventory them too. Life as Commander Zero is not all sunshine and stun grenades…sometimes theres a bothersome amount of ‘housekeeping’ involved.

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At work, I have a copy of Mel Tappan’s ‘Tappan On Survival’ as a text file on my desktop. I browse it when I have nothing better to do. Here’s some interesting paragraphs about government and monetary policy that Tappan wrote over twentyfive years ago:

Read the rest of this entry »

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Been a little busy in my ‘civillian’ life so I haven’t had the chance to post. But, fear not, I’ve a handful of posts sitting on a USB drive here to upload.

First and foremost, I got the order of Gamma Seal bucket lids the other week. I’ve pulled out what I need for myself and the local LMI’s so the remaining lids are available if anyone is interested. Colors available are white, black, red and blue. Price is $7.75 ea. Unfortunately, they wont fit in a flat-rate box (actually, three of them will but its not worth it in terms of product:shipping ratio). However, they’ll ship just fine parcel post, the cheapest method available. (IF you want them by another method, say Priority Mail, then calculate the rate using that price schedule and be sure to let me know that’s how you want them shipped.) Shipping will be actual instead of the usual flat rate.

So, if you’re interested, they weigh approx. 1.5 pounds each and shipping would be from zip code 59801. Head over the USPS website and calculate shipping weight and price and use that data to calculate your shipping. Payments can go to PayPal zero@commanderzero.com If you’re the really lazy type, you can email me and say “Hey Zero, how much to send 5 to my zip code of XXXXX?” and I’ll do the legwork.

Heres whats available after the me and the locals pulled out what we wanted:

• Gamma Seal lid, WHITE – 12 9 6
• Gamma Seal lid, BLACK – 12 9
• Gamma Seal lid, RED – 8 6
• Gamma Seal lid, BLUE – 10 8

I’ll update this list as things go on, so check back here if you want to order anything.

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Found an article on one of the news wires about the ‘food inflation’ that’s going on. Uniformly, fuel prices
are blamed, among other reasons, for the increases. The high price of fuel increases shipping costs and makes corn more valuable as a fuel rather than a feed. I saw this coming a mile away when the ethanol solution was raised a couple years ago. Succinctly, if you burn your food what are you going to eat?

I know Ive said it before but its true – you don’t have to spend huge amounts of money to eat well. When Im feeling extremely cheap I’ll make a huge bowl of chicken fried rice and it costs about, oh, I’d say four bucks for enough to feed three people or two really hungry people…if I omit the chicken it drops down to about a buck and a half. Breakfast is cheaper with bulk oatmeal, eggs, potatoes and pancakes. If you can get a minimum wage job and work, say, twenty hours a week, you can eat pretty damn well. Theres literally no way you can be too poor to eat in this country. If you have $5, access to a stove and a supermarket then you can eat pretty damn well. Feeding a family of four may be a trick, but if all you’re qualified for is a minimum wage job then what did you get married and have kids for?

Food inflation affects people who are buying heat-n-eat meatloaf and mashed potato dinners, rotisserie chicken and other ‘convenience’ foods. Yeah, if you’re used to picking up Boston Market five times a week you’re going to see your food dollar take a pounding. But if , like me, you usually buy staples and know how to cook the increased costs are going to have much less impact.

Learn. To. Cook.

You don’t have to be Alton Brown. But take a little pride in yourself and move past the ‘put a can of beans in the microwave’ stage of culinary development. I remember perusing one of the preparedness forums and there was a thread about being able to cook and guys were taking pride in their inability to cook because, as many joked, ‘only homos get into all that’ cooking stuff. :::shakes head sadly::: I throw up my hands at people like that….starve to death, Im gonna learn how to make chicken cacciatore from canned tomatoes, freeze dried chicken and dehydrated onions. If you think that makes me gay then you go ahead and think that. I’ll wave at you while you’re on line at the FEMA food line.

If you know how to cook, theres some staples that will let you make all sorts of combinations. I go long on canned chicken broth, canned tomatoes, rice, soup mixes, pasta, canned corn, tuna, and other long-life shelf-stable ingredients. The world doesn’t have to end to appreciate having a large amount of food on hand. I am far more concerned about a lengthy bout of unemployment than I am about a nuclear bomb going off. Both are Bad Things, but one seems more likely than the other to me. Knowing that we’d be able to maximize our financial resources by not having to worry about groceries is a huge load off my mind.

Summary:

Learn to cook
Learn to cook using things that store well
Stock up on things that store well that you know how to cook
Enjoy peace of mind and significant financial savings

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I notice that CZ is offering a ‘tactical’ (ahem) .338 Lapua Magnum rifle this year. Price? About the same as a decent single-shot .50 BMG. Interestingly, my catalogs show that Remington is offering a .338 Lapua ‘police’ rifle. Dealer is around $950 making it, as far as I know, the cheapest .338 Lapua rifle out there. If you cant afford a .50, that Lapua is pretty much the next best thing.