Trivia: I met Randy Weaver at the Kalispell gun show back in the late 90’s. Seemed like a nice enough guy.
Monthly Archives: February 2022
Lily gilding
Ok, I don’t need another one, but I wanted another one.
And my vendor finally had one in stock after almost eight months.
And it’s only gonna be more expensive later.
And…and….and….
Well, dang it…I’m a survivalist, I don’t have to justify it. Gaze upon the latest addition to the Absurdly Redundant Gun Collection:
The real reason is because I kinda like the G3 platform for the .308. No gas system to worry about, excellent accuracy, reliability that is hard to beat, good aftermarket support, and most importantly…the previous negatives about the G3 platform have been addressed. And to go even further, the ‘modernization’ of the G3 has made it into virtually a completely different gun.
Unfortunately, about half my collection of PTR’s pre-date the improvements (paddle release, rail, muzzle threading) that were made a few years ago. So, I can live without a rail and with metric threads on the muzzle….but that paddle release is a big freakin’ deal. Fortunately, there’s a guy out there who does ATF-approved paddle conversions. (Long story short: unless done a particular way, installing the hole necessary for the paddle mag release also allows installation of full-auto parts. This is why the original HK91’s were imported without paddle release.) It’s about $200 to have the paddle release done, but with new PTR’s going for over a grand, it makes sense to spend the money and convert my $400-$600 PTR’s that were purchased long ago.
This PTR was ordered brand new and shot very nicely right out of the box. SOP is, according to HK, to sight in at 30 meters which puts you on at 200m.
Out of the box the thing shot about 3″ low at 30m but windage was spot-on. Fortunately, I have the necessary HK sight adjustment tool and was able to adjust the sight drum accordingly. Pro: once set you will never accidentally screw up the zero on your gun. Con: the reason you won’t accidentally screw it up is because it takes an obscure and expensive sight tool to adjust the sight. (Yes, you can use snap ring pliers…with all the attendant scratching and scuffing that will subsequently occur. Buy the sight tool.)
If I were not already committed to the G3 platform, I probably would go with the AR-10. Ergonomics and modularity are the biggest selling points of the AR-10 platform, along with a small degree of commonality with AR15 stuff. However, at this point it makes no sense to change over since I’ve gotten the G3 logistics of mags, parts, etc, fairly nailed down.
Used to be the PTR and 100 mags would cost you less than an M1A and a dozen mags. Times have changed. You can still find G3 mags for less than $5-$10 ea, but dealer on the PTR’s are now about $1050…about 10-15% higher than what they were a year or two ago. And thats dealer price. Still, for creeping around the post apocalyptic landscape it’s pretty hard to find something as relatively bulletproof as that HK platform.
Goalkeeping II
Annnd..99.89% on my goal of silver for the year. I’m gonna call that 100%.
I was gonna hold off and buy the remaining silver over the next couple weeks but I’ve no idea where the prices are going and I’d rather err on the side of caution and buy it now. I asked a buddy of mine where he thought silver would be on December 31’st and he said “Thirty bucks”. Thing is, will silver have climbed to $30 or will it have dropped to $30. And, no doubt, there’s many an opinion that $30 is a way, way underestimate.
Nonetheless:
- Emergency Fund goal for 2022 – complete
- Silver goal for 2022 – complete
- HSA goal for 2022 – complete
Remaining:
- Roth goal for 2022 – 55.75% complete
- Gold goal for 2022 – 75.89% complete
- Land goal for 2022 – 43.18% complete
How are yours coming?
How does it affect me
I can’t speak for the entire community of people who self-identify as survivalists, but I think it’s a reasonable assumption to say that no one ever went through the annoyances, expense, time, and effort of being a survivalist because their one overriding concern was everybody but themselves. Most people, in my experience, get into preparedness (or survivalism, if you prefer) because their #1 concern is either themselves or people they care about (spouse, kids, family, etc.)
So, it isn’t really offensive, in my opinion, to say that survivalism is about protecting you…your life, your family, your property, your interests. Sure, if your neighbors, your country, your fellow citizens survive thats great…but you didnt stock away all those freeze drieds and ammo to save them. You did if for you and yours. And thats perfectly reasonable.
The reason I mention this is because as I was watching the news I find it very difficult to avoid asking myself, as a survivalist, what I think is a very basic and obvious question: how will this affect me?
“What! People are dying, nations are at war, refugees are being created and you’re sitting in your heated home, eating hot food, watching the internet and you want to know how this will affect YOU?!?!?!”, says the woke and self-appointed self-righteous guardians of outrage-by-proxy
Uhm…yes. I want to know how this affects me. Know why? Because while I am saddened at the thought of people in far and distant lands having their lives destroyed I am more concerned about my own life. Because…well…I’m living my life, not theirs.
So, yeah, maybe its selfish, maybe its thoughtless, maybe its insensitive. But, my first priority is me. My second priority is those I care about. You and everyone else are a distant third. I make absolutely no apologies for this. And I expect that from where youre standing, its the same thing towards me. And…thats cool.
So how does (or will) this Ukraine/Russia thing affect me, other than perhaps slowing down the Eastern European mail-order bride spam? Well, first of all, I don’t think I know a single person in real life who didn’t hustle to the gas station and fill their vehicle today. Me included. (By the way, two years ago, when there were Mean Tweets, if I bought $50 worth of gas it would have filled my fuel tank and half the bed of my truck. Nowadays..no.) And gas cans? Murdoch’s is, unsurprisingly, out of them. Fancy that.
My buddy at the gold/silver store was doing brisk business not seen since the early days of Wuhan Flu.
And although I didn’t do any grocery trips today, I’m willing to bet that the food storage corner at WinCo was a little lighter.
So how will the current situation affect me? Indirectly, mostly. The turmoil in the markets, oil prices, and the off chance of ‘bad actors’ all stand to cause collateral damage. I’m pretty well insulated from the worst of it, but you never know what sort of threats are looming.
I feel bad for the folks in Ukraine but as much as I wish them luck in re-enacting the ending of ‘300’, my main focus, in the midst of pandemic, inflation, and war, is myself and those I care about. I see nothing wrong with that and hope that you don’t either.
It’s wild world we live in these days.
Pretty cold
I’m an advocate of ‘stay with the vehicle’ for those times when you wind up, for whatever reason, unable to proceed any further…could be snow, vehicle malfunction, bad gas, whatever…if you’re in the middle of nowhere and your vehicle cannot proceed the thing to do is stay with the vehicle. Don’t believe me? Search the blog using the tag ‘strandings’ and read what comes up.
Staying with the vehicle is easier if you have the necessary gear, and I like to think I keep the vehicle stocked with the necessary gear. So, when its 0-degrees out and the wind is howling, is that surplus military sleeping bag really going to keep you from losing toes, ears, fingers , and nose to frostbite? Assuming you survive?
Let’s find out.
I keep a military sleep system in the vehicle year-round. Its an okay system and the price is right – free at most military standdowns. I have a half dozen in storage. Are they actually warm down to 0 degrees? Well, last night was at zero so I decided to test it out. I rolled out the GI sleeping mat, laid out the sleep system..inner bag, out bag, bivvy sack…stripped down to socks, shorts and a t-shirt, and climbed in. First off all, that transition of several seconds from ‘fully dressed while standing outside in 0 degree weather’ to ‘partially dressed but huddled in a sleeping bag’ was…intense. Once in the bag it was huddle in a ball until things warmed up. And then….not bad. I basically cinched everything up so my nose and mouth poked through the hood of the bag and left it at that. I’m not going to say it was toasty, but it was warm enough I could fall asleep and it was, without a doubt, warm enough that I wouldnt lose body parts to frostbite.
While I was cocooned in the bag, I used my phone to entertain myself and see what the official weather was.. -1 with winds around 12-15mph. And there were gusts that I could feel rippling across the bivvy sack, which did a nice job of being windproof.
I suspected that the military sleep system would be adequate and it was. This was laying on the ground in an unprotected and open area. Used in a vehicle, which would offer some material benefits in terms of protection from the weather, the MSS should be pretty much ideal. Better bags out there? Absolutely..but the MSS come out cheap enough that you can have a couple in a vehicle and not break the bank.
Drawbacks? A tad snug. Bulky as hell, but since it’s just sitting in the truckbox that isn’t really an issue. but, more importantly, experiments like these give me faith in a piece of gear and thats got quite a value all on its own.
So, if all you keep in your rig is a couple blankets, or, worse, a ‘space blanket’, I invite you to wait for a nice, clear, bitterly cold night and try them out for a few hours. Its the kinds of experiment that costs nothing but can pay off some big dividends…especially next time you get stuck in your vehicle in the dead of winter.
“Nice AK”, the officer said…………
Scene: driving into Polson MT. Flashing rear lights in the mirror. Pull over and wait for the cop to walk up to the car. Keep in mind, at this point there’s the Glock on my hip, one in my bag, a Ruger 9mm under the seat and…a drum-mag’d AK sitting on the passenger seat, with the butt and pistol grip conveniently angled towards me.
“I’m Officer [XXX] with the Polson PD. I pulled you over because you were doing 55 down the hill, its a 45 zone.”
“Sorry, man.”, I said, and when he asked why I was driving ‘so fast’ I gave him the Universally Accepted Reason For Any Guy Doing Something Stupid.
He shines his flashlight into the back of the truck and then into the footwell of the passenger side of the front seat.
“Nice AK”, he says.
“Thats my travel AK. Don’t leave home without it. I have a nicer Arsenal one at home, this is just a WASR”
“Don’t leave home without it”, he murmurs, clearly amused. “I have a friend up in Kalispell whose built a few AK’s. He folds the flats and does the rivetting….”, he says.
We chat for a few minutes about 7.62×39 vs. 5.45×39. He takes my ID and says “Am I gonna find any warrants on you when I run this?”
“Nope. Should be clean as a whistle.”
He comes back and says “Ok, Im giving you a warning. Slow down.”
And me and my passneger-seated-and-drum-magazine’d WASR-10 continued on our merry way.
See, thats one of the things I like about MT. No muss, no fuss. Lotta places the minute he sees the rifle on the passenger seat it would turn into an ‘incident’. But, hey, I didnt reach for my gun, he didnt reach for his gun, so we can all be civilized and chat about guns for a couple minutes.
And, before anyone asks, yes in Montana you can have a loaded rifle in the vehicle. Heck, you can have a loaded anything. And no, you don’t have to inform the cop if youre carrying a gun. And you don’t need a permit to carry it openly..or concealed..or to buy it. It’s almost like living in a free country.
Three day weekend
I had almost forgotten that, on some levels, this is a three-day weekend due to Presidents Day. For those of you over a certain age, you may recall that Presidents Day is the holiday that supplanted Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday as federal holidays. Then. naturally, the good idea fairy showed up and it was decided that we needed Monday holidays to give more three-day weekends.
Regardless, its an opportunity for me to catch up on some things. Most notably, I really need to rotate some things out of food storage. For instance, since CostCo has the canned roast beef back in stock I plan on moving a bunch of my older stuff into the kitchen for use and replacing it with more recent production stock.
And, speaking of CostCo, I got my rebate bonus from them yesterday. I was toying with the idea of getting another freezer but I’m really not sure where I’d put it. Not only do i have to find a location for it, I have to make sure it gets plugged into a circuit that is separate from the current freezer since I’d prefer not to have the issue of both freezer’s compressors going at the same time and creating a draw that overloads things. But, more pressing, I just cant find the room.
So, it’ll be clipboard-in-hand for a few hours late tonight in the basement, Bluetooth speaker playing podcasts, while I make sure I’m up-to-date with the preponomicon. Not an exceptionally fun way to spend an extra day off, but, for me, a pretty satisfying one.
More goal tending……
79.66% of the way to the 2022 silver goal. Once that’s knocked off the list I can wrap up the gold goal for the year and then its balls-deep into getting the land fund fully funded.
And I have to do that in the midst of an inflationary cycle, during a pandemic, during an international crisis, while juggling all my usual responsibilities. But..If I pull it off….well!
Shutting off the flow of money, eh.
The Chief Cultural Appropriator in Canaduh* has initiated some ’emergency measures’ to stamp out terrorists who have been…committing parking violations. Whatever. Yet another reason no one takes Canada seriously.
But, what is interesting about all this is that amongst the powers that the Canuckistan government is giving itself is the power to shut down various financial activities that it thinks go against The Canadian Way and might benefit those evil double parkers.
We’re back to the old dictatorship-by-proxy that we see in this country every so often. Government can’t do a particular thing because of the Constitution or some other legal restraint….but it can encourage a non-government actor to perform the same function. An example would be when .gov leaned on banks and credit card companies not to do business with firearms businesses. Can’t really shut down the gun market but we can certainly make it so they can’t do business.
What happens when you get on The List and the bank is ‘nudged’ into freezing your accounts? Are you going to be left standing at an ATM with a dead bank card, $32 in cash, and no access to your money? Gotta think about these things, man. Yet another reasonable cause for having a buncha cash (or cash-like instruments) in a secure place. When .gov finally rolls out it’s own cryptocurrency (guaranteed to have a catchy-souding patriotic name like LibertyBucks, or BitEagle, or something) you watch how fast they’ll tie up that ‘money’ when they decide its going somewhere, or being used by someone, they don’t like.
What’s really fascinating is that Candians have this reputation as a perpetually-apologizing group of people who are just so gosh darned nice. Watching Trudeau ret to act like an in-control leader is like watching a toddler running around the house in dad’s cowboy boots and hat.
But, the moral of the story here is that this is an example of even more reasons not to put all your eggs in one basket..errr…bank. And, not that I would ever recommend such a thing, but it’s also a nice example why having banking under other names might be handy.
* = Ever notice how all those Socialistic and Draconian places start with ‘C’ and end in ‘A’? China, Cuba, California, Canada, etc.
Goalkeeping
Well, I finally unloaded (ha!) the last of that ammo I picked up a few weeks back. So..what to do with the lump of cash that resulted from it? Well, I have goals. I finished my Emergency Fund goal 11 months early and it looks like I just finished my HSA goal ten months early. (By the way, according to journalism standards you write zero to ten as words but any number over 11 can be represented in numerals. Check your AP style guide.)
So, when the Emergency Fund hit its 2022 goals I was able to redirect the planned monthly allocation elsewhere. And now that the HSA is topped off for the year I can re-allocate that funding elsewhere. Most notably into more silver. Goals remaining for year: silver, gold, Roth, and land purchase fund. Probably in that order. Even after capping the HSA for the year I still have enough left over to pick up another five of these, which will go a good ways towards lowering my required monthly purchases to reach my goal.
Fortunately, I’ve spent the last twenty years buying food, guns, ammo, etc, etc, so there really isn’t much else for me to buy in regards to preparedness….except, of course, for that Big Chunk O’ Nowhere. Still working on that.
I may have mentioned it, but my basic goalsetting paradigm is to increase whatever it is .. gold holdings, silver holdings, HSA balance, Roth balance, Emergency Fund balance, etc…by 50% from the previous year. In the last year or two, that’s become a tall order, obviously, as those balances increase. But, in the last year or two I’ve also been making more money…so I’ve been able to keep up with my rather unreasonable goals. In a few years, though, I’ll probably have to start stepping it down in order to keep things realistic. Maybe shave off 5% every year…increase things by 45% next year, 40% after that, 35% after that, etc. We’ll see.
I’m fortunate in that I’ve paid off the vehicle, house, debts, etc, and pretty much have no debt load to suck down money that would otherwise be free to use elsewhere. Also, I’m pretty cheap. As a result, I can chunk a rather large percentage of my income into things like metals and mutual funds. Part of it is just dumb luck and part of it is living a life of priorities. But, the final result is all the same… a bit better financial security than almost half of the population.
It’s often overlooked, but preparedness is about more than being prepared for a big crisis. Its also about being prepared for when there isn’t a crisis.
