Monthly Archives: January 2023

Cleanup Pt. I of probably too many

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When I moved into my current house, back in the 90’s, I finally had some space to step up my preparedness game. Originally, one room in my basement was dedicated to my preparedness stuff. It has, sadly, over time morphed into my entire basement. And, in fact, it has started migrating into some other rooms as well.

So, whats a survivalist supposed to do? Well, time to cleanup and, possibly, throw out a few things. There are some bins that I havent looked inside in over ten years. And there’s some long term food that is dang near close to the end of that term. So…it’s time to clean up the stuff that ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’ and replace it with ‘best that I can afford’ now that my life has finally hit a more grownup phase.

For example, the 20-year-old MRE entrees sitting in boxes on the shelf. Meatloaf With Gravy and some Chili Mac. These were purchased from Major Surplus back in, probably, the late 90’s or the early 2000’s. What this means is that they are at least 20 years old. Sure, MRE’s have a lngthy shelf life, and I know there’s plenty of guys on YouTube eating MRE’s from the Civil War, but why would I continue to store 20-year-old MRE’s when I can easily afford newer and better product. Especially when each additional year I keep those MRE’s I am getting less and less viability than I would with newer production?

Now, having said that, did I try them? Sorta. I tossed both pouches into a pan of hot water and let them heat all the way through. The Chili Mac smelled okay, looked okay, and the texture was…okay. The meatloaf smelled a tad odd but, hey, it’s an MRE…its not gonna smell like it’s supposed to. The texture was rather spongy and the taste was rather bland. A single bite from each one was enough to tell me that there was no really legitimate reason to not replace these with current production items.

But, as this cleanout continues, I’m coming across things that are fifteen, twenty, twenty five years old. A good opportunity to see how time and storage affects things. It’s also an opportunity to observe the evolution of products…for example, I have a couple of old MagLites that still use the Krypton bulbs and eat D-cell batteries like Pac Man. Compare with the newer LED lights that give ten times the battery life and twice the light.

There’s also a good bit of milsurp in there from when I couldnt afford Kifaru but I could afford Kosovo. There’s some Eastern Bloc stuff down there, for sure.

There was a time I was a poor, struggling, underemployed, wildly irresponsible kid who had no money-smarts. As a result, I’d buy whatever was cheapest that met whatever need I felt was being presented. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate items of better quality, rather, it was that I was unable to afford items of better quality. Fortunately, that has changed. Before anyone jumps into the comments and starts telling me how some surplus stuff is just as good or better than some modern commercial stuff…yes, you are correct. Some stuff is just awesome. But a lot is simply adequate, heavy, bulky, and difficult to find accessories for.

Ideally, I’m doing this cleanup to free up some space and get rid of some things that, really, have been supplanted by better gear. Save it for backup or for remote locations? Probably not…whatever supplanted is probably in storage here in enough quantity that even the backups would be a better quality.

It would be nice to get this done over the course of a week, but unfortunately ny life has hit the point where it seems like I never have spare time to do the things I want to do. But, on the other hand, it’s that evolution into a time-constrained life that has allowed me the resources to replace twenty year old gear.

Even a broken calendar is right once a year

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Inflation is still at levels not seen in generations, the Drums Of Ban are beating louder after some shootings in California, and that darn Chinese-caused pandemic keeps hanging in there. Just another day here in clownworld.

I need to do a detailed inventory of magazines. I know how much I have recorded in the Preponomicon, but every so often I pick up a case or two of Glock or AR mags and just heave the box on top of the pile and forget about it. The spreadsheets say I have several hundred mags but it’s probably off by two or three hundred mags.

In addition to the whole will-they-or-wont-they regarding magazines and ”assault weapons’, I need to pick up a couple spare sets of armour. For some reason, the colossal idiots that come up with these gun bans tend to lump body armour into the mix. It’s only a matter of time before the ability to own things like body armour becomes known as ‘a loophole’ that needs to be closed with ‘reasonable’ and ‘common sense’ ‘safety laws’.

Isn’t it fascinating how the language is evolving in this highly politicized environment we’re living in. A gun ban/prohibition is a ‘gun safety’ issue. And it’s always described as ‘reasonable’ and ‘common sense’. Thus, if this ‘gun safety’ law is reasonable and common sense, opposition to it is unreasonable and nonsensical. The fact that you were allowed to own these items isn’t because there was no law preventing it, but rather because there was a ”loophole’ in the law that didn’t keep you from it.

Words have meaning. When you control the narrative…the terms and definitions…you can craft the narrative to favor your cause (or disfavor someone elses). This is why those two buzzwords ‘common sense’ and ‘reasonable’ are always thrown into any sound bite about new legislation.

If you’ve read the blog for any amount of time, you know that I’ve been predicting a new ‘assault weapons’ ban practically since the last one expired. I genuinely believe it’s coming, but on a long enough timeline every prediction has a 100% fulfilment rate.

Still… I very seldom feel foolish buying ‘extra’ mags or ‘extra’ guns.

Bass stacatto

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Remember these guys? It was a larger budget unofficial sequel to Robert Rodriguez’ “El Mariachi”. Note the Hollywood-style guitar cases that have a somewhat starring role in this scene.

I mention it because in addition to snapping up every $200 Ruger P95DC (or P89DC, actually), I also snag every $300 3rd Gen 9mm Glock I can find on Gunbroker. Very rarely do I make that score. But sometimes someone will miscategorize, mislabel, or misidentify their listing and it doesnt get the traffic it normally would. As a result, I can sometimes score. And, in a lightning-strikes-twice fashion, I actually did score a pair of Glocks for a tad over $300 each with shipping.

G17 and a New York reload.

So, it’s not like I need a reason to pick up extra Glocks at discount prices. But in this case, I did have a reason. Specifically, because for Christmas I received this:

And, of course, nothing is as it seems. I don’t play any musical instruments. (Well, not true…I’ve been known to play the Fallopian tuba.) But, crack this baby open and:

Not gonna like. Once in a while, the ‘James Bond’ parts of being a survivalist can be pretty cool.

A Ruger PC9 carbine, a G26, a G17, and enough magazines to make for a busy day in Katrinaville.

I needed the two ‘new’ Glocks to fill up the two empty spots in the case. (By the way, the tea-ball looking doohickey behind the buttstock is, in fact, basically a tea-ball. You fill it with dessicant.)

What’s a case like this useful for? Good question. When I transport or store guns, I use a Pelican or Hardigg case. But, a Pelican or Hardigg case looks exactly like a gun case. You can walk down the street with a Pelican 1760 and not have people be unaware of whats probably in it. This package, in theory, gives you a little ‘grey man’ for when you need to move some hardware around discreetly….and I can see situations where that has some value.

By the by, that MagPul Backpacker stock for the Ruger is a huge recommend.

Spec-Ops Gear mag pouch closeout

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Okay, the deal with bargains is usually that once I get what I need, I tell you guys about it. Thats not being mean, that’s just looking our for Number One…or, I suppose, Number Zero.

Anyway, the folks at Spec-Ops Brand are having a closeout on .308 double mag pouches. Looks like that the only ones left are multicam but that works perfect for me. $8.75 ea and Made in ‘Murica. I’ve got something like a thousand G3 mags so…I picked up a bunch.

They apparently have a buncha stuff on sale, ending today. Warm up the credit card and gear up.

SHOT show

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I can’t believe that anyone doesn’t know what SHOT show is, but it is basically a huge industry trade show for guns and related materials. This is the venue where, every year, manufacturers trot out their latest and greatest to ys to show the public. (Although, to be fair, some vendors drop a new product with little fanfare and don’t wait until SHOT.)

The various firearms blogs cover SHOT because its a sweet way to find content without having to do any actual work. There’s dozens of new guns and accessories, so you can just pick something click-baitable and run with it.

I like looking at the SHOT show reviews because there’s usually something in there that appeals to my survivalist nature.

SHOT show this year has a slew of interesting stuff, but one thing I find interesting is the folks at Henry Arms, the guys who make the lever action guns, have a semi-auto 9mm rifle that, like Ruger, takes interchangeable magazine wells to allow all sorts of pistol/rifle combos. And, interrestingly, the gun looks very innocuous and innocent. No evil black rifle look, no pistol grip, no folding stock. In fact, it looks like a little Browning BAR. For those of you living behind enemy lines, this might be a handly little carbine. Naturally the argument will be “What good is a carbine that shoots 9mm”. I’ll leave that up to the short-sighted to discuss.

Savage, who make a fine .22 rifle, have a takedown .22 out but I think it’s going to appeal mostly to Savage fanboys since, in my opinion, the market for a takedown .22 semiauto has been thoroughly commandeeered by Ruger.

Smith and Wesson has a 22-shot 5.7mm version of the M&P pistol which is…interesting. I haven’tbeen sold on the 5.7mm cartridge but part f that is due to it being ridiculously expensive. But, that high price reflected that, at the time, there were basically just two guns on the market for it – the PS() and the FN57. Now with Ruger and KelTec having an offering, perhaps the prices will come down as more ammo is produced. Ruger doubled-down and introduced a carbing in 5.7 that takes their 5.7 pistol mags and if I were a 5.7 guy, that would probably be the direction I’d go just for the sake of logistics. But, for me, the 5.7 is right up there with 6.8SPC and .300 Blackout….a niche cartridge thats just too exotic to add to my TO&E. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

I’ve spent the last thirty years as some form of survivalist. By now I’ve pretty much gotten set in my ways regarding my preference for certain gear, but I do enjoy seeing the new stuff that the manufacturers bring out each year. I’m usre as SHOT continues there will be more “Hey, check this out” coming along. Did you see anything that got you excited?

Scientia potentia est

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Man, it’s hard not to read the news without incurring a a feeling of dread. No doubt someone in the comments will say something like “I don’t even watch the news anymore”, which in my opinion is like saying “I don’t keep my eyes open when I’m driving”. Sure, the news is almost uniformly gloomy, and rather depressing, but…so what? The whole point of news is to let you know about things that might impact you in a big way. Yeah, I feel a little helpless and hopeless reading the news, but I read it every single morning because, as a survivalist, I need every advantage I can get and knowing whats going on around me and around the world, even if its gloomy, is information that can give me an advantage.

Personally, while I think that we can objectively agree that the news is pretty often bad, my attitude is made better by knowing that once I know what the problem is, I can prepare against it. Still, it can be a bit of a downer to read the depressing news day after day.

The most…agitating…things in the news these days? The plethora of articles, seemingly at random, about ‘assault weapons’. It seems like every news outlet has a bunch of articles about an assault weapons ban. Were I the suspicious type, I’d say its part of a scheme to ‘normalize’ the idea….”Ban assault weapons? Why, everyone knows thats a good idea!” they’ll say…because it’s all theyve been fed as of late.

The other depressing news? With inflation running at levels unheard of since the days of eight-track, the current administration is wanting to spend more money it doesn’t have. You have to admire the optimism, if not the common sense, of the person who doubles down on a bad hand.

Resilience is the name of the game. And to be resilient against something you need to know what that something is. So, for me, yeah the news is a drag but so is being caught unprepared.

And, by the way, ingest news intelligently….remember, there’s three sides to every story: yours, theirs, and the truth (or facts). Don’t get all your news from just one (or even two or three) sources. These days forewarned really can wind up being forearmed.

CostCo canned beef…from pre-Trump days

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On todays episode of “Will It Digest” we have some of the Kirkland canned roast beef from CostCo. As far as canned meats go, I’m a big fan of this stuff and recommend it highly. Todays test subject was ‘Best By’ back when MAGA hats were just being introduced:

So…’Best By’ was six years ago. Shall we crack it open and see what happens? Well, the first thing that happens is that no matter what it is..beef, chicken, turkey, whatever…it always smells like cat food the minute you pierce that can. But, I know from experience that once you put the heat to the meat the smells start changing drastically.

Looks unappetizing, smells worse, but….as we bring it to temperature, the fats melt and mix with the meat, and after about ten minutes…..

Dumped it back in the pan with some spices, grabed some onion, cilantro, taco sauce, sour cream, outta the fridge, and…..

The point of this post isn’t to point out my half-assed attempts at cooking. But rather that some canned goods, especially a low-acid product like meat, kept in the classic ‘cool, dry place’, can be quite satisfactory long after the ‘Best By’ date. Ok, sure, it’s early and I really should wait eight hours and then make this post, but I’ve done this sort of thing before and I can tell you with empirical first-hand evidence that quality canned meats (meaning not something from some cannery in Samoa or Venezuela) can be useful a number of years after the date stamped on them.

And as far as the CostCo brand goes, if you have it in stock at your local CostCo (because it does tend to come and go) it is very much an excellent choice for stocking up. I normally find canned meats a bit repulsive, but I have to admit that once you get this thing in a pan and get some heat under it, it’s quite good.

Article – New rule on pistol attachments to boost gun safety, U.S. Justice Department says

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And so it begins….

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department announced on Friday a new rule targeting pistol attachments known as “stabilizing braces,” implementing a key move in the Biden administration’s efforts to beef up gun control regulations.

A stabilizing brace is an attachment to a pistol that functionally turns it into a short-barreled rifle, similar to a sawed-off shotgun. Such weapons are considered particularly deadly as they offer the power of a traditional rifle, but are much easier to conceal.

For decades, short-barreled rifles have been subject to strict regulations, including a law known as the National Rifle Act, which requires additional taxation and background checks for private transfers, among other provisions.

The new rule clarifies that pistols modified by a stabilizing brace are subject to those additional requirements, department officials said.

“This rule enhances public safety and prevents people from circumventing the laws Congress passed almost a century ago. In the days of Al Capone, Congress said back then that short-barreled rifles and sawed-off shotguns should be subjected to greater legal requirements than most other guns,” said Steven Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Last year, President Joe Biden and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced they were planning measures to tackle stabilizing braces as well as “ghost guns” – a type of firearm that is assembled by users and practically untraceable.

While Democrats in Congress have pushed aggressively for new regulations of stabilizing braces, most Republicans have opposed such measures, portraying them as an infringement on Americans’ constitutional gun rights.

The new rule gives owners, manufacturers and distributors 120 days to report their stabilizing braces to the ATF tax-free. They may also remove the stabilizing brace or turn in any pistol modified by a stabilizing brace to the ATF.

It goes into effect once it is published in the Federal Register, likely next week, department officials said.

The perfect scenario?

ATF lets you register your arm-braced guns to SBR’s for free

Arm brace ruling gets struck down

Enjoy your new tax-free SBR’d guns AND enjoy your arm braced stuff.

The official story

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It isn’t that I’m necessarily prone to conspiracy theories…but I am prone to being suspicious of the ‘official story’. Just for kicks, though…what if….you’re a government that became aware of an impending and immediate threat to, or involving, commercial aircraft? And you need time to get your assets in place to control the situation (or the people involved). Wouldn’t you just…ground all air traffic on a believable pretext, a computer error perhaps, and then take the opportunity to neutralize the threat while the planes are still on the ground?

Or, maybe, it really was just a computer hiccup.

In other news, I see the folks in Illinois now have to put up with another ‘do it for the children’/’If it saves just one life’ assault weapons ban. Anyone who lives in Illinois will tell you that Illinois didn’t vote for this thing…Chicago did. Regardless, I’ve no doubt this will be trumpeted as a ‘victory for commonsense reasonable gun safety advocates’. I’m telling you, guys…this sorta ting is creeping closer and closer to a national level. Buy your stuff now and don’t spare the purse.

Watching the news is always a good way for me to get my blood pressure up a few notches. Nice to see todays events didn’t disappoint.

Living on 55%

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Every month I have a budget that I use. It doesn’t really change from month to month in terms of who gets paid, but the amounts differ for some things. I pay the exact same amount for utilities every month, regardless of what the bill actually says, so i usually have a small credit balance with them. I like the predictability of knowing I’m paying the same thing every month. It makes planning a lot easier and builds up a little cushion in case things fly off the rails.

But…some things I pay a percentage, rather than a fixed amount. Every paycheck I put 10% into savings, 15% into my retirement, 5% into my HSA, 10% into my emergency fund, and 5% into my Piece O’ Nowhere fund. That means that 45% of my (after tax) paycheck is gone …whoosh!…before I even see the cash. Or, in other words, I’m living on 55% of what I make. And, trust me on this, I don’t make a lot. In fact, according to various sources on the interweb, I make well below the average median American income. Way below. So how can I live on 55% of my paycheck?

Well, it isn’t an existence of big-screens, $5 latte’s, new cars every four years, and trips abroad ‘because I deserve them’. I have a paid-for house, paid-for truck, no medical/student/creditcard debt, and I live within my means. I eat leftovers, I eat out once a week, I use the same computer for years at a time, I take the high deductibles on insurance, I shop around, and I am content with ‘good enough’ most of the time. The only luxuries I really indulge in are guns.

As a result of all this, I get to feel fairly secure. And it’s that feeling of security that makes it worth the effort. Althoguh, to be fair, after a while it doesn’t seem like an effort at all. I’ll walk through CostCo and, yeah, that 84″ high definition TV sure looks good…but then I ask myself which I would rather have when I break a leg or lose a job…the TV or the couple grand in cash? Then it becomes an easier choice and a small TV doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.

The economic craziness we’re in (thanks Joe!) is a lot easier to weather when you’ve got something set aside for just these sorts of emergencies. Can everyone do it? No…there are plenty of people who have come late to the financial responsibility party and are bringing in baggage….mortgages, car payments, student loan debt, etc. Its like starting a race with lead weights tied to your feet. But, you know what, even with lead weight tied to your feet you can still run faster than if you didnt try running at all.

I don’t like telling anyone what to do, youre a sovereign individual…you do you, buddy. But, I can only tell you what”s worked for me and you can decide if thats something that might work for you. I’ve been living on a budget, and not a very tight one, for almost twenty years and it’s made my life a lot easier than it would have been if I didn’t have it. You can go back in the blog and see where water heaters have puked and alternators have died and it never amounted to more than a minor hiccup in my life. Wasn’t always that way, I promise you.

I know, I know….this is a blog about preparedness, not personal finance. But the thing is, personal finance is part of preparedness. If youre the kinda guy (or gal) who keeps a spreadsheet of how much food, motor oil, and ammo they keep on hand then you shouldbe just as diligent about knowing where each dollar you make is going to go. Thats all a budget is…it’s a plan for what youre going to do with the resources you have. You make $3,000 per month? Write down how youre going to spend all $3,000 next month. Spend it all on paper until zero remains. Then stick to that budget as best you can. Next month, tweak it a bit. Next month, a bit more. Pretty soon you’ll know exactly what you need to allocate and where.

2023 promises to be no better than the last two years, so getting your ducks in a row regarding money…while you still have some….is probably not a terrible idea.