Monthly Archives: July 2020

Link – On panic buying

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Friend Of The Blog ™ Tam, over at View From The Porch, comments on the gun buying situation before us:

This current panic has a different flavor to it than most, though. Available evidence shows that there are a large number of first-time buyers looking for something to defend home and hearth, rather than existing gun hobbyists adding a twelfth or thirteenth AR15 to an existing collection.

That there is some panic buying going on isn’t really news to anyone who knows how to work a trigger and the internet. But Tam makes an astute observation that while AR’s are proving out the demand-supply graph, the parts to build your own AR are still fairly static. This, she opines, suggests that there’s a lot of first-time AR buyers out there buying complete guns rather than ‘building’ (assembling, really) their own.

I concur. This is why when PSA had some super low prices I picked up a dozen guns. And I hope you did the same.  Tam doesn’t foresee tings approaching anything close to normal vis-a-vis gun pricing/availability until next year and she is 100% right. Between Kung Flu, Black/White/My Life Matters ‘demonstrations’, and the upcoming election, 2020 may prove out to be a) the worst time to buy a gun and b) the best time to sell a gun.

But, and this is important, don’t get tunnel vision – guns are important because they protect the things that are important to us. Things like our lives, naturally, but also things like food, fuel, money, shelter, and a host of other things that keep us alive. And it’s those other things you should also be working on acquiring.

Put another way: if you think the world is getting scary enough that you need to go out and buy your first AR “just in case”, then it’s also scary enough you need to be out there buying food storage, fuel, meds, and getting your financial poop in a group.

Weekend stuff

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I know for a fact that I did not eat anything weird last night, and yet…weird dreams.

I dreamt (hmm… spellcheck does not like that word) that I was in some sort of post-apocalyptic Spokane or Seattle and I was running around trying to avoid desperate scavengers. I was armed with only a .22 slamfire pipegun and a knife I’d carved out of a piece of polycarbonite. This was a dream where I literally would have been better off with a HiPoint and a Made In Pakistan folder from the fishbowl next to the register at Harbor Freight. Fortunately, I’ve spent more than half my life making sure that I don’t have to rely on a pipe gun and cheap folder.
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I had a discussion with someone last night that lead to this headscratcher: if dogs could talk, what would their political affiliation be? I figured that because they’re all about pleasing other people and making other people happy they would be democrats, and with the whole ‘pack’ nature perhaps a little socialist as well. But, another person opined that dogs are loyal, willing to protect their loved ones at all costs, and put their own group before others…therefore they might actually be conservatives. What say the internet? (Cats, I suspect, are simply amoral nihlists.)
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I’ve officially finished off pretty much everything on the Preponomicon that can be had at CostCo. Now it’s strictly Walmart stuff. The shelves are full, but there’s always room for more and no one really knows what the future looks like at this point.
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College classes here are supposed to start August 19 but I wonder if the university is going to do it. Fact is, they can’t afford to do this distance learning stuff. Their budgets are predicated on revenue from dorm lodgings, food service, providing athletic services, etc, etc. Campus is empty but they still gotta do maintenance on buildings, maintain infrastructure, pay staff, etc. But woe to the administrator that signs off on face-to-face classes, spreads the Wuhan Flu, and then has to face the ‘profits were more important than students health’ witch hunt. I’m very curious to see what happens.
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Premiums on silver have finally come down. They were an outrageous $3.50-$4 per ounce for generic rounds a few weeks back. Now we’re into a more reasonable, but still annoying, $2 premium. As an aside, I finally found ‘tubes’ for the 1 oz. silver bars. Every idiot sells the tubes for rounds, but finding the tubes for bars took a bit of time. The 1 oz. bars seem to get me a better price once in a while because, apparently, people don’t like the inconvenience of not having a way to store them neatly like you do with rounds. Whatever, man…1 oz. of silver is 1 oz. of silver no matter what shape it is. If I can get it cheaper as a bar than as a round, so be it.

 

Vulture II

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A while back I opined that the Current Situation may lead to opportunities as folks die off and opportunities arise as those estates are liquidated. Yeah, it’s a rather tacky thing to think about but it is nonetheless true. What I hadn’t given much thought to is that people don’t necessarily have to die for these opportunities to arise. Unemployment is at record highs, people with jobs are having hours cut back, and folks would really rather have cash in their hands than some ‘toys’ that they deem as non-essential. In short, in addition to opportunity from those poor souls passing there is also opportunity for those poor souls who are in desperate need of cash. That’s where I step in.

I’ve been cruising Armslist religiously for a couple months now. Nothing really jumps out at me since most people sell their guns at prices that are higher than my dealer cost on a new one. But, sometimes stuff comes through that I do jump on. Todays acquisitions:

A brand-new-in-box Magpul Backpacker stock (in my favorite OD). This is the foundation for what many people call the ‘Grail gun’ of 10/22’s: a stainless takedown 10/22 w/ threaded barrel and Magpul Backpacker stock. It’d be mighty hard to come up with a better bugout .22 rifle.

Also picked up an Outdoorsmans Butte 25 Hip Pack. I was unfamiliar with this product. I have an almost identical product made by Kifaru, their Scout pack, but it is long discontinued and I thought it would be nice to have something similar as a backup and to take some of the wear and tear off my Kifaru.

Price? Well, let’s just say retail is for suckers and I don’t buy unless I’m getting a deal. And the reason I was able to pounce on this deal? Because I’ve spent the last couple years clearing out the debt and tucking away money when I can. And, honestly, I anticipate a lot more deals like this before this pandemic is over.

The important takeaway here is that opportunities will arise from this pandemic. Whether you think taking advantage of them is wrong or not, they will arise. By having cleared the decks of debt, secured money in the bank for emergencies, and being careful with spending, I’ve created a position where I can, from time to time, pounce on these sorts of opportunities. If you’ve gotten your ducks in a row financially, I suggest you start cruising Craigslist and Armslist….there’s interesting stuff starting to turn up as people less prudent than you and I find themselves suddenly needing cash.

Ammo Security VI – Economics of reloading

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There’s not a lot of things I consider myself an expert on. But, one thing I genuinely do think of myself as an expert on is reloading ammunition. I’ve done it all from .22 Hornet to .50-140, using every brand of press, jacketed and lead bullets, cast my own bullets, reformed my own brass, etc, etc.

I am also a tightwad with a streak of money nerd. Is reloading cost effective? Well, when you reload the cost of your ammo goes down so you wind up shooting more…so, in that regard it’s mostly a wash. But, on terms of shooting the same amount of ammo, it’s a different story. What I mean is, if you buy a box of .300 Win. Mag and then you reload that box of .300 Win. Mag. one is going to be a buttload cheaper than the other. Cheap enough to make it worth it? Let’s find out.

Let’s go with one of the belted mags……300 Win, 7mm Rem, .338 Win, .257 Weatherby….whatever. They all track around $2-$4 a round. Let’s buy 20 pieces of new brass, 100 premium bullets, a brick of primers, and a pound of powder.

I’m just gonna run over to GunBroker and get some prices….

  • Federal .300 Win Mag 165 gr. Nosler Partition, 20 rounds for about $40
  • Nosler Partitions, .30 165 gr, 100 bullets is about $45
  • New brass from Winchester is about $30/50
  • And we’ll use a load of 70 grains of IMR 4350 (There are 7000 grains of powder per pound, so under “Qty” one pound would be ‘7000’)

Factory ammo is $2. We can reload it for $1.39. But, once we fire it off and re-use the brass our cost per round drops to $0.79.

What if you reload something really spendy like .338 Lapua.

  • Federal Premium 250 gr. Sierra MK 20 rounds for about $90
  • Hornady brass at $3 each
  • Sierra 250 MK at $40/50
  • 76 grains of powder

Factory ammo is $4.50. We can reload it for $4.16. But, once we fire it off and re-use the brass our cost per round drops to $1.16.

If you buy a good reloading kit, like RCBS RockChucker kit, thats about $400. You would have to reload 120 rounds of .338 Lapua for it to pay for itself. Or reload 329~ rounds of .300 Win Mag.

Seems like a good deal, right? It is…until you get into economies of scale. Federal cranks out a bazillion rounds of 5.56 every year for the military. As a result, they’ve got the whole thing dialed in…they’ve got their costs down, their equipment amortized, production streamlined…as a result they can make 5.56 so cheap that you almost don’t want to waste your time reloading. Let’s check out some 55 gr. FMJ Federal ammo:

  • Federal 820 rounds for about $350 (From Midway)
  • Hornady brass at $0.29 each
  • 55 gr. FMJ at $.0.13
  • 25 grains of powder

Admittedly, almost no one uses new commercial brass to load .223 since fired brass is available at virtually no cost. But, for consistency….

You’re at $0.56 per round for your first loading…thats actually more than what factory ammo costs. However, once you fire that off and reload it, you drop down by sixteen cents per round. Put another way, you paid Midway $350 but once you fire it off that ammo can be reloaded at around $227.

When you get into stuff like 9mm and .223 the savings really become negligible when you factor in your time and whatnot. However, when ammo isn’t available at any price, then the advantages become readily apparent.

If you want to play “what if”, I’ll give you a copy of the spreadsheet. Anything in green is a variable that you can tinker with. Crunch some numbers. You’ll see that if you’re a guy who shoots oddball calibers (Weatherby, Ultramag, Lapua, etc.) you can save some serious coin. Explore your options – what if you get a really good deal on powder? What if you use inexpensive cast bullets? What if you use cheap once-fired brass?

If you find this info useful….

 

Scenes from a gun shop

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Locus: Bob Wards & Son. Regional outdoors chain.
Me: Can I see that AR in the rack please?
Him: Here you go. [hands me carbine]
Me: [Looking at tag] I don’t see a price on this. How much is it?
Him: Hang on, I have to go back and ask. [Leaves and comes back]
Him: $2600*
Me: You guys don’t put the prices on there?
Him. We’re not putting prices on any of the tags right now.
Me: Because the prices are constantly changing?
Him: Well…Yeah.

I want you to roll that thought over in your mind for a second. Seriously…think about the possible (although possibly unlikely) implications of that sort of pricing. In retail, the price you charge is not always based on some factor of the price you paid…its based on the price to replace what you sell. If I bought an AR for $400 last year, and I normally sell for, say, 25% over, I sell that AR for $500. And when I sell it, I order the replacement for $400. Cut to today: I paid $400 a year ago, but replacing it will cost me $1000. So do I sell it for $500? No, of course not, I have to sell it with a price that reflects the fact the next one will cost me $1000. And if I don’t know, with reasonable certainty, what the next one will cost me…well…then I can’t really be sure what to charge. Saw this at the gold and silver shop earlier this year.

Reminds me of the hyperinflation stories where prices were changed every hour or so to reflect the devaluing currency. In this case, it’s to reflect perceived availability.

So what you’re seeing is a level of uncertainty that is so pronounced that a middlin’-sized retailer is willing to look like a jerk and not put prices on stuff. That should give you pause to think about what you need (or want) and how willing you are to do what it takes to get it (assuming you don’t already  have it).

Are ARs and ammo available? Of course they are. Everything is available to you for the right price. If you have enough money you can buy yourself a nuclear artillery shell and go hold a city hostage somewhere…with the proper amount of greenbacks there is nothing you can’t buy. Guns and ammo just aren’t available at prices you want to pay.

Between Covid, ‘race discussions’, and an upcoming election, this is the worst possible time in a long while to try and stock up on guns and ammo. This is why, since the begining of this blog those many years ago, I have always harped on you to buy the things that will be easiest to render scarce.

My point, if there is one, is that even in a relatively bucolic minimally-affected place like Montana, the fallout of ‘the Covid tax’ and it’s attendant effect on the various markets (food, guns, metals, etc) cannot be avoided. Succinctly, unless you are willing to part with a rather larger dose of cash than you normally would, you are not going to be getting your boogaloo guns & ammo anytime soon. So I hope you already had them.

* = Colt-made modern repro of XM177. This is why Colt is not a going concern, folks.

Link – RIP: Ol’ Remus and the Woodpile Report

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Unverified by me, but, hey, thats not my job……..

On July 8th we lost a legend in the online patriot community – Ol’ Remus. As you may recall, he had previously lost his wife in March of 2020 and had been posting intermittently after that. His blog had not be updated with a post since June 9th and people were starting to get concerned because, even after losing his wife, he was only disconnected for a couple of weeks. Over at Western Rifle Shooters, it was reported in a screenshot from the comments of this article at American Digest that Ol’ Remus succumbed to cancer on July 8th (he had been diagnosed only three weeks prior).

H/T to AmericanPartisan.org

I’d only started reading it in the last year or so, but I liked what I saw.

Sad story that the guy’s wife died but it’s a little less sad, IMHO, that he followed her so quickly. I’m sure the months after her passing must have been tough. It comes for us all…memento mori.

So, there’s the answer, it seems, to something more than one person asked me in comments.

Another weekend, another fifty bucks

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It’s the weekend, therefore it is time for me to spend another fifty bucks on getting the Preponomicon into the green. And, as more and more things are approaching the 100% level, it’s become greener and greener on that list. Today I rang the bell on dental floss, iced tea mix, spaghetti sauce, cleanser, and toothbrushes. Boring stuff, right? Well, yea, actually…it is. Seems unlikely that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina there were people sitting on the roof of their house saying “Thank science you had all that dental floss!”. But, it’s those mundane and boring things that often add to the quality of life. And, really, if the world has gone downhill badly enough that you need to get into your stockpile of emergency dental floss then it’s also bad enough that the last thing you need is dental problems. Plus, dental floss grows wild out here. That crap is everywhere.

So, the stockpiling continues… It’s worth pointing out that the stuff I’m stockpiling, in terms of foodstuffs, is all short- to -mid-term foods. The long-term stuff, like the #10 cans of freeze drieds, were purchased years ago and have been securely packaged and laid back for the Deep Sleep. Pretty much everything I’m stockpiling now is day-to-day stuff that I want to have a large enough quantity of so that if I’m unable to resupply for any reason I can go a long time before having to explore less attractive options.

The stockpiling has progressed to the point that of the 85 items (thus far) on the list, 60 of them are at 90% or better. There are 18 items below 50%. All in all….progress.

By the by, what goes on and off that list changes over time. Some stuff just doesn’t need to be kept ‘live’ in terms of updates to quantity. Stuff is always changing. One week I might find something and think it definitely needs to be added to the mix, and the next week I might determine that a item is superfluous and remove it. Adaptability.

Cruising through CostCo doesn’t seem to indicate any ‘second wave’ of panic buying yet. Yet. However, some items, like bleach wipes, are still a no-show whereas items that had previously vanished, like TP and rice, are plentiful. I’ve got plenty of both, so I can be a detached observer.

Other than dedicating about fifty bucks a weekend towards preps, I’m being rather tight-fisted with the greenbacks these days. There is just too much uncertainty in the air for me to feel comfortable letting go of the Ultimate Multitool (which is cash). Between a pandemic-ravaged economy and political turmoil, there is less certainty that things will ‘be okay’ fiscally and that naturally makes a fella wanna circle the financial wagons. So…no impulse buying, put the vacation on hold, drive the same car for another year, skip the new iPhone, and make the most of what you’ve got.

No one knows with certainty what the future is going to bring. That’s kinda obvious. But there are times when we’re comfortable with that uncertainty (“might rain, might not”) and there’s times we’re very uncomfortable with it (“Might lose my job today, might not…better hold off on the Harley”). Right now, it’s the latter kind of uncertainty…the kind with big consequences. For me, anyway. But, that’s cool because me is the person I’m most concerned about in all this.

So…progress. More food on the shelves, supplies in the bins, money in the bank, silver in the safe, and peace in the mind.

Annus horribilis

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(Not to be confused with anus horribilus, which is the Latin name for Nancy Pelosi.)

One thing about running around all the time yelling that the sky is falling is that, on a long enough timeline, eventually you’ll be right.

This year has been an unholy trifecta of factors that make the guns and ammo market a bit…challenging…right now.

  • Pandemic
  • Presidential election
  • Race riots

Other than an invasion by Communists or the election of a Democrat President (But I repeat myself), I don’t think you could do much more to generate demand.

I keep an eye on the gun and ammo markets and right now it’s readily apparent that prices and availability have changed dramatically from what they were at the beginning of the year. This is, pretty much, one of the worst times to get into guns and shooting in recent memory.

Remember the gun-glut hangover after Trump got elected? You could practically get an AR free with an oil change at most garages. Rather a different story now.

What I’ve seen so far is availability of guns, when they’re not out of stock, is light and prices are a solid 25-50% higher than what they were at the beginning of the year. Ammo is, especially, a bit difficult and pricey. The sweet deal on 9mm I got in January is now showing up at twice the price, when available, for the same ammo.

.22 ammo, which was starting to amke a bit of a comeback, is drifting back into unobtainium country.

But…after my years and years of non-stop Chicken Little-ing about looming gun bans, you’ve gotten your stuff squared away, right? You’ve got your thousands of rounds of pistol and carbine ammo, the couple dozen magazines, the spare and backup redundancy guns…right? Right?

I’ve been at this sort of thing for almost thirty years so I’ve had time to do it gradually…an AR here, a case of mags there, a couple cases of ammo here…that sort of thing. Stretch that out over thirty years and it isn’t difficult at all. But if you’re new to the game, or if you’ve been a tad lackadaisical in getting stocked up….well….you’ve got two choices right now and neither one is great: don’t buy it or buy it at higher prices.

“My VA check is late”, “I need new tires”, “The wife wants to go visit her sister”, “Rammstein is playing at the stadium”….whatever excuse you’ve used in the past to justify why you didn’t spend the $100 on mags, the $300 on ammo, the $750 on the AR…..they all seem a little small right now, don’t they?

Sure, life happens….hot water heaters fail, alternators crap out, plumbing does it’s thing….BT;DT…but those events eventually get resolved and you’re back to wandering around with an extra $20 in your pocket. And it’s those times when you’re caught up on bills, the truck is running, the job is secure, and all seems calm in your world when you think to yourself “Y’know, instead of buying that XM radio for the truck, I think I’d rather have a case of .223 in the basement.”

So, I hope all of you have, at some point, made the grown up choices to exercise a little restraint and hold off on the ‘fun’ purchases to fund the ‘just in case’ purchases. Right now, I can walk by the depleted ammo shelves at Cabela’s and the sparsely populated gun racks at Sportsmans Warehouse and be…unconcerned. And that feeling of being unconcerned makes the little sacrifices in the past worth it.

Harder Homes & Gardens – Hurricanes Destroy Beachside Homes, But Not This One

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Mexico Beach, which sits halfway between the two, saw three-quarters of its homes, municipal buildings, and businesses damaged. But one structure withstood the storm, despite its front step sitting only 150 yards from the wet and windy Gulf of Mexico. Christened the “Sand Palace” by its owners, the blocky beach home survived not by luck or magic, but good design, says Lance Watson, vice president of Southeastern Consulting Engineers and lead engineer on the project. Here’s how—with money and expertise—the crew outmaneuvered Michael, and made this home a model of resilient architecture.

If you build a home on a beach where everyone and the .gov knows there’s gonna be strong hurricanes, it seems that when your house blows away like something out of The Wizard of Oz you really have no one to blame but yourself. However, if you’ve got the resources, and the inclination, you can apparently throw in some engineering to make sure you have the last house standing.

I’ve covered my fascination with concrete dwellings in other posts (search for the HHG tag). But sheer strength isn’t all you need…you gotta have solidly engineered ideas, quality materials, and competent construction. In the example shown in the article, these folks were willing to make some tradeoffs and lose a battle (sacrificing the ground floor storage area) to win the war (keep the house standing).

It’s hard to find old construction that has all the features we wacky survivalists would like to have, and retrofitting an older place can be almost as expensive as building new. I’m inclined to go for a purpose-built place. When it’s time to break ground on Commander Zero’s Post-Nuclear Bunker O’ Love and Lingerie Proving Ground (also known as the Fortress of Derpitude) ypu can bet everything is going to be done with an eye towards surviving forest fire, gun fire, economic meltdown, and as many other forseeable events as possible. Won’t be cheap, I’m sure, but I’ll bet I’ll sleep real good when its all done.

Link – Germs on the Big Screen: 11 Infectious Movies

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News of a disease outbreak or possible pandemic may readily conjure up Hollywood fantasies of horrible disease symptoms, government crackdowns and mass death. The very notion of infection, or viruses and bacteria invisibly taking over the human body, creates a sense of both uncertainty and helplessness that can lend itself to thoughts of doomsday. Movies have not hesitated to play out those worst-case scenarios time and again.

An interesting list, to be sure. However, one that was neglected but, in my opinion, worthy of a watch, is “Carriers”. (Featuring the smoking hot Emily Can Camp). Most notably for the ride into grittiness and ruthlessness as the characters start facing harder and harder choices.

But, really, who needs to watch stuff like this when it’s happening, to a slightly lesser degree, in real life?

The media is telling us that a ‘second wave’ is on the way, or that reported infection rates are increasing (keyword: reported…by whom? Reported how?), and that we should expect worse times to come.

Well, yeah….is there anyone who really thought this was over? Even if they came up with a vaccine tomorrow it will still be months, if not years, before the consequences of this thing are behind us. Even if you snapped your fingers and it disappeared tomorrow, the effects will still be here…the economic, social, and political fallout will linger even after the Kung Flu is considered ‘no longer a threat’.

You and I, we’ve been expecting something like this for a while…some sort of event that makes us start locking our doors more often, keeping a wary eye open, and start circling the wagons. Now it’s here and it’s time to see if we’ve been making smart choices these last few years (or decades).

If this really is an escalation of the current situation, it’s been a quiet one. I haven’t seen an increase in panic buying at the supermarket. However,  guns and ammo are still virtually unobtainable without paying ‘the Covid tax’. Fortunately, for many of us, guns and ammo were the first thing we stockpiled when we were a fresh wet-behind-the-ears newly minted survivalist.

Anyway, there you have it…a list of movies to download and watch in a darkened room while patting yourself on the back for your foresight and planning. You did stockpile popcorn, right?

 

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There’s a link at the top of the column on the right hand of your screen. I think what I’ll probably do is, on an experimental basis for now, post a footer in a random post once a week with a quick link. We’ll see if that doesn’t come across as too crass and self-serving.