Monthly Archives: January 2013

When bellyguns go bad……..

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

So I’m sitting in front of the missus’ Mac, watching a movie (Dredd…way bloodier than I expected), and I see her little KelTec 32 sitting next to the keyboard. I pick it up and examine it. Pull the mag, rack the slide to eject the cartridge and…hey..is that a spot of rust on the breechface? Hmmmm. I stop the movie, Google up some disassembly directions and….

photo-31Someone is going to get a spanking. And not the fun-Friday-night kind. And it ain’t gonna be me and it ain’t gonna be Nuke.

A half hour later I’ve cleaned it up and mitigated as much damage as I can. Mostly cosmetic but…some barrel pitting. How does this happen? Well, really, a maintenance routine would be nice. (Like, maybe every time we switch to/from Daylight Savings Time we should detail strip our carry guns?) But, mouseguns like these are especially prone to this sort of thing.

Here’s a S&W 36 that I carry sometimes when I’m just too lazy to carry the Glock. Please observe it from two sides:

IMG_0608

Not a bad little gun. It’s a former NYPD gun that I got for a good deal years ago. Why so good? Well, lets flip it over and see…….:

IMG_0609Oh! Thats..thats not right! I know, I know…I probably should have warned the weak-stomached S&W fans that there was some gun-gore coming. In my defense, this is how I got the damn thing. I take much better care of my thundertoys than to have that sort of thing happen. As an aside, the Smith works flawlessly…it’s just damn ugly on that one side.

Here’s the skinny – mouseguns and other hideout firearms are usually carried in a manner that is not terrbily conducive towards gun health. Take the case of the Smith shown above…why is all the pitting and funk on one side of the gun? Heck, even only one side of the cylinder has it. The reason is simple – the cop who carried it carried it with the pitted side facing his body. Moisture and corrosive sweat, combined with typical cop gun maintenance, slowly started defacing that side of the gun over time. The other side, which was free to ‘breathe’ didnt suffer as bad. Same story on the KelTec..she carries it in the ‘appendix carry‘ style, which puts it close to her…uhm…well, let’s just say that I bet I could get a lot of money from her fans for that KelTec. But seriously folks….when you carry any small gun tightly against your body you are asking for this sort of trouble. That doesn’t mean you shouldnt do it, it just means you need to have an accelerated rmaintenance shedule for these and other guns that are in the ‘elevated risk’ category.

I carry a Glock, normally, which is fairly difficult to damage. Oh, you can do it, but it’ll take damage that would kill lesser guns. I usually fully disassemble and clean my EDC gun every other month or so. My little pocket guns, like my 640 or 21A, get cleaned and oiled more frequently.

Don’t think that stainless steel is going to get you off the hook, either. It’s stainless..not rustless. I use TetraLube on most of my guns and I’ll wipe it on with my fingers, getting it into every nook and cranny on the gun, and then wipe it all off with a paper towel. This leaves plenty of lube behind but doesn’t leave a gooey mess that can attract pocket lint and become gun-jamming sludge. Use whatever lube you want, but use your head in the selection and application.

Moral of the story: even with the use of a holster (especially with the use of a holster, since if you just leave the gun in it all the time youre leaving it in there trapped with whatever moisture and body funk youve generated) you need to take these things and air ‘em out and clean ‘em once in a while. To quote Michael Ironside from the unfathomably bad ‘Highlander II’ sequel: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if you dont take it out and use it, it’s going to rust”.

 

 

Link – Guide to Military Survival Kits

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I thought this link was rather interesting. It’s educational to see how the contents of the kits, as well as the materials used, have changed over the years. It’s kind of hard to think that there are places in war zones where you could be stranded long enough that you’d have to worry about things like fishing for food, but then again sometimes you wind up stranded in wartime in some places where no one will ever find you.

Given the technology and materials available nowadays, I would think you could put together some amazingly compact and effective kits. Pencil flares, small radios, water purification…all that stuff has come a long ways.

The ban list

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Here it is – Feinsteins targeted gun list.

Ruger’s AR is on there but the Mini-14 isnt. Neither is my PTR’s although the HK’s are mentioned by name. No doubt they’ll fall under the part that bans them by a list of features.

Apparently stuff gets grandfathered in but a national registry is created for them.

This should prove to be highly contentious. We shall see.

Voting

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

The current gun (and accessory) panic buying is keeping me busy in my ‘civilian life’, but sometimes something happens that you just gotta make time for. Like today’s interesting forray into small government: I received a notice from the election administration saying that since I did not vote in the last federal election, I would have to re-register.

:::headdesk:::

Me not vote in a presidential election? You better damn well believe I voted in the last two and I’m not ashamed to tell you who I voted against. So now I’m wondering if my vote was even counted. Down to the courthouse I go. The gal at the counter asks if she can help me. I wave the card at her and say Im a wee bit concerned about this and could she check it out. She gets the sign-in book from the polling place and flips through it. “There!”, I triumphantly point when I see my signature. Sure enough, I voted. She assures me that my vote was counted and that when they had to enter all the signatures and their associated reference numbers into the computer thats where the error occurred. Hmm..okay, if you say so. I do remember checking the count on the scanning machine when I slid my ballot into it and making sure it changed over by one number when my ballot went in. I know that it registered. I’m fairly confident my vote counted. But to imagine that they had no record of me voting??? Damn well better believe I was gonna make time to get that straightened out.

The “if voting changed anything they would make it illegal” crowd will disparage all this but, screw em. I think it makes a difference and I don’t take kindly to the notion of the election people telling me I didnt vote when I know I did.

Anyway…..an interesting day so far.

Review – CR123 Waterproof Delrin® Battery Locker from CountyComm

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If you’ve never been there, Countycomm.com has an odd and eclectic mix of goodies that definitely have some merit for those who share our rarefied interests. I’ve never ordered from them before but I finally got around to picking up a few things and thought I’d mention at least one of ‘em here.

From their website:

 

We have a limited overrun of “waterproof Delrin® battery lockers”. The battery locker fits CR123 batteries perfectly. Brand new, never used overrun from government contract. Possible uses include: geo-caching, pet identification, emergency cash stash, water purification tablets, pill storage.

  • Delrin® is a lightweight, extremely stable space age polymer.

  • Overall length: 47.50 mm or 1.87″

  • External diameter: 21.10 mm or .83″

  • Internal opening: 16.80 mm or .66″

  • Internal depth: 33.30 mm or 1.30″

  • Weight 10.20 grams

  • Lid is secured via flange to cap seal internal o-ring)

  • U.S. Made / U.S. Issue Item

 

I dunno about you, but too much of my gear takes the CR123 batteries. Usually these batteries are limited to things like SureFire flashlights and weaponlights, but those are pretty much the high-end pieces of gear that you do not want to have crapping out on you when you need them.

Ideally, I want a battery carrier that is bombproof. Something that keeps things dry, protected, and free from accidental shorting. SureFire makes a Spares Carrier that is quite nice, but a bit bulky for some of my needs. There was, to me, a need for a method to carry just one or two CR123 batts in an absolutely secure manner. So, I ordered up a few of these battery carriers and figured I’d give my impression.

They’re pretty much exactly what I wanted. They are knurled at one end for a solid grip as you grasp the other end and unscrew them. Once open you can see the o-ring in the cap that contributes to the waterproof seal. A CR123 battery fits in there quite nicely with minimal room to rattle. I’ll wind up stuffing a tiny piece of gasket material or something into the bottom of the container to completely eliminate any noise. The cap the container is not captive, so there is a chance you could lose it. There’s a hole in the cap for a lanyard and I’ll wind up putting two of these on a loop of paracord and keeping them with my support gear for my 870, since I got the new SureFire forend for it and want to keep spare batts handy.

Construction is from hard plastic and short of stomping on one they look like they’d hold up quite nicely to the rough-n-tumble of being bounced around in my bag. These things are offered in AAA and AA batt size and I’ll be picking up a few of the AA sized ones as well.

Biggest drawback is that these things are about nine bucks a throw. There just isnt any way a plastic geegaw from a military contract overrun should cost that much. But…if it does what I want then I guess price isn’t worth complaining about.

A very good question to ask would be “Why do you need one of these?”. I don’t know about you, but my bag is loaded with all sortsa gear…lotsa little odds and ends that might come in handy. Things like zip ties, large paper clips (sometimes a small piece of wire is exactly what you need), spare ammo, pocket knives, lanyards, radios, etc, etc, etc. Throw a handful of AA or CR123 batts into that mix and at some point theyre going to contact something and short themselves..in the case of the CR123, possibly in a conflagatory way. Most of the time I segregate my batteries in the Maxpedition battery carrier (MAXPEDITION VOLTA Battery Pouch). As much as I like the Maxpedition carrier, it isn’t 100% waterproof and airtight. For stuff that is ‘mission critical’ (GPS and radio spring to mind) you absolutely do not want even the slightest chance of having you spare batteries being crapped out when you need them. So, most of the time my spares are in the Maxpedition carrier, but in my little survival kit that I take with me hunting and fishing, the extra batts go in these battery lockers from CC.

Too expensive for all-around use, but for those pieces of gear that absolutely, positively need to have the spare batteries kept in perfect condition these things would be hard to beat.

Link – NY Democrat pleads with Republican not to share document proposing confiscation of guns

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

The State of New York this week passed some of the strictest gun control laws in the United States, effectively outlawing ‘assault weapons’ and limiting the size of magazines.

But if Republican Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin is to be believed, the New York State Democrats would have gone further if they could have. Much, much further.

In a video posted to his Facebook page, McLaughlin has shared the information of a ‘secret’ Democrat proposal not simply to make the purchasing of the crudely monikered ‘assault weapons’ illegal in New York, but also to engage in a mass confiscation programme, removing Americans’ weapons from their possession.

 

Now, before anyone gets all Alex-Jonesy here, keep in mind that this was proposed legislation that was shot down. Its entirely possibly, and even likely, that the folks that proposed it knew it wouldn’t go anywhere and simply put it forth to ‘send a message’. Having said that, don’t doubt that there were probably plenty of individuals in that room who thought this would have been a great idea.

I might have mentioned this in the past, but it’s a story that, while I get tired of typing it in, I never get tired of telling: many years ago, when I lived in Brooklyn (Chuck Schumers district, actually) I dutifully got my NYC Long Gun permit and, at the age of 18, acquired a nice collection of goodies. Among that collection were an HK93, an AR, AK, Mini-14, etc. Very soon after I got my permit, Ii moved to Montana. Never bothered to tell the folks at the “Firearms Control Bureau” because, well, screw them. So as far as they knew, I still lived at the address on file in Brooklyn. Some time goes by and one day a relative still living in NYC forwarded me a latter that was mailed to me at my old NY address. It was a note from the FCB telling me I was now in possession of those nasty ‘assault weapons’ and I had to either get ‘em out of the city or turn ‘em over to the cops. Now, I had been living in Montana for a couple years at this point and had no intention of moving back, so I scrawled in big letters “YOU WANT EM, COME AND GET EM” across the letter and mailed it back. (Yes, I was ‘Molon Labe’ before it was cool.) Some time goes by and I get a phone call from a relative saying “Hey, remember the house you used to live at? The new owner told me that the cops showed up there the other day looking for you and your guns.”

The moral of the story is that the only possible reason to register firearms is so they know where they are when it’s time to take ‘em. The folks in NY wouldn’t know where to go to seize those guns if they didn’t have a list of where they were…thats what registration winds up being used for, even if they say it’ll never come to that. Ask the folks in California how that worked out.

As an aside, I’m getting very tired of making posts about the recent gun issue. That isn’t what this blog is about, and there are plenty of blogs out there dedicated to the noble fight against those statist weasels. But…sometimes I just can’t help but feel I have to tell somebody about what’s going on in case they missed it. It wasnt the job of the guy waving the baton at the orchestra on the Titanic to warn of icebergs, but I guess he wouldve if he had the chance.

Purchasing priorities

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It’s easy to get distracted by the goings on these days about guns. Firearms are, of course, a large part of preparedness but they aren’t all of it. There’s still plenty of other details to be hashed out, geegaws to be purchased, food to be stockpiled, fuel to be put back, electronics to be gotten , tools to be acquired, etc, etc. But…with a few exceptions, firearms are the most heavily regulated (and thus susceptible to elimination) items we could purchase.

I don’t know about you, but from time to time I read about people who, in their great scheme to acquire everything they need (or think they’ll need), make lists and set priorities for getting the things on that list. While I appreciate that, I think that when prioritizing you need to consider the potentially ephemeral nature of some of the things we want, and plan accordingly.

Let me give you an example. A fella was in the shop the other day and we were chatting about, naturally, the current state of gun buying. He said that he really felt he needed more magazines and at least two more AR’s, but he also needed more food and water storage. I asked him what he was going to do. He said that he had enough money to do one or the other at the moment, but not both. However, in six months he’d have enough to do whichever one he didn’t do now. He figured that he would buy the food and water storage now and then in six months get the AR’s, figuring that the prices might be lower after the hysteria dies down. Not an unreasonable course of action but while it would make sense with just about any other product, it doesnt make sense with guns. Look at it from this perspective…lets say his choice was storage food/water versus new tires for his BOV. To me, thats sort of an apples-to-apples situation…I’d get the food/water and then in six months, when my wallet has healed, get the tires. But guns are different…no one is proposing to neuter, ban, register, confiscate or prohibit tires. The odds are quite good that in six months, heck even six years, you’ll be able to buy those same tires. Not so with guns.

In six months the laws may (or may not) change to the point where what you have right now is all youre allowed to own. Back to his choice of food/water versus another AR and mags – which one is more likely to be just as readily available in six months? The food and water, of course. So while the food/water may be a higher priority, it’s fairly certain future availability makes it take second place to the possibly (or not) unobtainable-in-six-months guns and ammo.

Of course, things could go the other way as well. Tomorrow there may be a terroristic threat to the national food supply and distribution chain and the price/availability of food/water is completely blown away from what it is now. But which is more likely?

I have a ton of more crap that I feel we need around here. More food. More batteries. More clothes. More gold. More silver. More medical supplies. More dog food. More fuel. And…more ammo, guns and mags. But everything on that list is, I am certain, going to be just as available in six months, a year, eighteen months, as it is now…I cannot say the same for the guns and ammo. So…the items most likely to become unavailable get bumped up on the priority list.

Some  folks have been asking me what I think is ‘going to happen’ vis-a-vis new gun regs. Dude, if I had any ability to accurately predict the future I would be in Las Vegas right now working up to owning a casino. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen specifically, but I can make some sweeping generalizations: the adminstartion needs to get its ‘pound of flesh’ from the gun lobby. I suspect that will be in the form of a magazine ban. It’ll be the guy kicked out of the sled to slow down the wolves. The administration can point to it’s 23 executive orders and say they did plenty to show the gun lobby who’s boss, and when further regs fail they’ll be able to blame that on Republicans and say they ‘did all they could’.

Of course, I could be wrong…I often am. But…the assault weapon ban ended over eight years ago so if you havent gotten most of what you need by now, eight years later, you may want to examine just how seriously flawed your purchasing priorities might be.

 

Article – Sen. Chuck Schumer Says the NRA Is an Extreme ‘Fringe Group’

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

This isn’t surprising coming from the mouth of career weasel Chuck Schumer. What is surprising is this sentence:

He continued: “They are a very extreme group.  They don’t even represent average gun holders.”

Not gun owners, but gun holders. As in the holder of something that is not owned by them, but rather ‘owned’ (or ‘granted’) by the state…the state is just letting you hold it.

Orwell taught us that control of the language is essential to advance political goals. For example, they don’t want gun control..they just want reasonable gun control. Implying, of course, that if you oppose it youre being unreasonable. Who could be against something reasonable?

It’s a culture war, folks. No doubt about it. ‘Ol Chuckie just happen to make a grammatical slip that plainly shows how he views gun ownership: as a a custodianship of firearms to be revoked at any time by the state..because you don’t own them, you  just hold them.

Article – A backyard nuclear shelter? Yes, paranoia does sell

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

The usual article about a shelter manufacturer with comments about the customer demographic being ‘scared and nervous’ people.

One sterling quality of American businesses is that they’ll try to make money from anything.

Paranoia, for instance. So say hello to Ron Hubbard, the owner of Montebello-based Atlas Survival Shelters, which converts huge corrugated metal tubes up to 50 feet long into fully equipped, all-the-comforts-of-home underground shelters at a price of up to about $78,000 each, not including shipping and interment.

You may have spotted the Atlas shop from the 5 Freeway as you’re heading into downtown. There’s a corrugated tube out front, painted bright yellow and looking like a tipped-over corn silo. High on the exterior wall facing the road is a banner declaring that the shelters offer protection from nuclear blasts, nuclear fallout, EMP (that’s electromagnetic pulses, which can foul electrical systems), solar flares, mobs, looters, earthquakes and chemical warfare. If there’s anything left off that list, it’s probably not worth worrying about.

I take issue with the term ‘paranoia’ being tossed about. Being worried about civil disorder or WWIII isn’t any more paranoid than being worried about a house fire or a car accident. It’s simply another form of insurance against those things.

Gun day

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Here’s a picture of a fella purchasing an AR-15 for silver. The fella owning the hands on the left is counting out ounces of silver to trade to the hands on the right, who is calculating the value of the various weights.

IMG_0594

This fella bought this silver over the years when it was cheaper than it was now. He’s getting $31.70 per ounce towards his new AR-15. Since he almost certainly paid less for that silver than $31.70 a couple years ago, he’s actually paying less for the gun than if he pulled out greenbacks today. Don’t let anyone tell you that stockpiling gold or silver is a dumb idea.

Speaking of acquisitions, this wound up in my hands:

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You can never have too many paperless Glocks with spare mags. Especially for the price I paid for it. Unfortunately, this particular G is of the 23 flavor, and while the G23 is a fine pistol I am a 9mm kinda guy and just dont have room in the safe for a .40 caliber. So….this being a sellers market, I shopped it around and sold it a few hours later. The guy I sold it to got a good deal since I like him and want to see him have the tools he needs for facing the challenge of the current slide into dystopia. If this thing was 9mm, though…It’d be in the safe with the others. Ah well.

Spoke with a buddy of mine in the NYPD this evening who tells me that at roll call some folks actually announced that the cops needed to bring in their mags to be traded in for 7-shot mags. NY, as you know, passed a law that limits guns to magazines that hold no more than seven rounds. Trouble was, they forgot to add in the usual exemption for The Only Ones. Embarassing, that.