Monthly Archives: December 2024

The closing of the year

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Ah 2024….we hardly knew ye.

Well, 2024 in revue..lets hit it.

World didn’t come to an end. Didn’t have to use my AK. Or Glock. Thats a victory.

Election went better than I had hoped, but its just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic at this point. Still have a job and even snagged a little raise. The people I care about are doing well. Still have a house. Did well in the market this year, especially in November, so I’m positioned to buy property far better than I was positioned at the beginning of the year…just gotta keep my eyes open.

About the only thing I can really complain about is that I didn’t find the property I want yet. Other than that, I really have nothing to complain about.

Forecast for ’25: Ukraine winds up having to come to the table as war fatigue sets in. Inflation is above 2% but nothing like what it was under Biden. Bidenistas become the Japanese hold outs of the political world, staying behind in government to crap in Trumps punch bowl every chance they get. At least one more assassination attempt is made/thwarted. Gas prices drop to lowest prices in four years. Markets are shaky, but ultimately trend upward. Wall does not get built. China continues to be the biggest threat to…everything. Alec Baldwin does not move to France. Cubs don’t win Series.

I want to think 2025 will be a better time under a better administration, but with the level of political balkanization out there…well, even the most well-intentioned executive will have trouble getting meaningful things done. Years that are divisible by five have always been rough ones for me so I’m going into this new year with my eyes open.

But, 2024 leaves, 2025 arrives, and I’m still here. Calling that a win. Good luck.

Article – Trouble in ‘prepper’ paradise: Bunker residents raise financial, safety concerns

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IGLOO, S.D. – A former military munitions site with concrete bunkers now used as residences has become the source of numerous lawsuits, several complaints to the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office, a near-fatal shooting and now an FBI inquiry, a News Watch investigation has found.

The former Black Hills Army Depot munitions storage facility was developed in 2016 into the Vivos xPoint bunker complex that is now a residential community marketed largely to so-called preppers.

I have posted before about these ‘tactical timeshares’…the notion that you write a check and ‘reserve your room’ at some grandly appointed ‘safe location’. Perhaps they can be made to work, but I think it’s just a case of “if he didnt want them fleeced, he wouldn’t have made them sheep.”

I’m too tired to rewrite my own words, so I’m just gonna crib them right from the post:

Here’s something to think about – if you’re going to be a member of a ‘survival group’ or organization, membership should be based on something other than money – race, religion, political leaning, ethnicity, familial relation, shared history, etc, etc. If the only membership requirement to get in is to write a check, then in my opinion you are making a mistake.

Whether you know it or not, you’re probably already part of a very informal survival group. You, your spouse, your neighbor who you go shooting with, the guy at work you share books about prepping with, the brother in law who splits a beef with you once a year….shutdown the power grid, roll those people together, and you’ve pretty much got your own ad-hoc ‘survival group’ that would probably be a lot more cohesive than a half dozen families whose only common denominator was the ability to write a check.

Should you have a fortified bunker somewhere? Sure, why not? Should it be in a compound with a hundred other bunkers, each one housing people who are total strangers to you? I don’t think so.

When the situation gets downright horrific, humans turn tribal. And tribe is founded on certain common traits…race, religion, family, etc…. that tribe will be stronger and more cohesive than one that is just ten strangers you met in an elevator.

Im sure that the people who signed up for Vivos’ tactical timeshare thought they were doing something smart. Unless I am missing something , though, I think that they would have been far better off spending that money on either hardening and fortifying their present location, or getting together with other trusted people (family, etc.) and buying a piece of dirt somewhere and building their own retreat environment.

Vivos pops up from time to time on my radar with articles about their business and the people who utilize it. I have said from the beginning that these kinds of places (and there are several others out there) just seem like projects that are doomed to collapse under their own mismanagement, infighting, lack of cohesion, and unworkability.

I’ll drop the money, buy a chink of dirt, build my retreat, and populate it with my own tribe, if they want to join me, and I think it would be more successful, long term, than these snake-oily-sounding project. How did Ignatius Piazza not get into this business?

 

h/t the thoughtful reader who sent me an email pointing this article out to me.

 

Article – Armed for survival: How Oct 7 Hamas massacre transformed gun culture in Israel

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Interesting piece about the change in ‘gun culture’ in Israel.

For decades, firearm ownership in Israel was uncommon. Although military service ensured that many Israelis were trained with weapons, personal firearms were seen as more of a liability than a necessity. The strict licensing process deterred many, and Israelis trusted the state and its defense forces to protect them from terror threats, which took precedence over Israel’s low crime rates.

First, welcome to the party.

This article is interesting because, while you and I might support the idea of the more people discreetly arming themselves against unforeseen violence, there’s a cultural difference clearly in evidence here that is worth noting.

Gozlan is unnerved by what he sees as inadequate oversight in the licensing process. “At the range, I saw people who had never held a gun in their life, barely hitting their targets. It’s frightening to think these people are now walking around with firearms.”

Catch that “inadequate oversight in the licensing process”? The article continues with concerns that, while no one is saying that the citizens shouldn’t be able to have guns, the possibility that they are ‘untrained’ or lacking in skill poses a, to them, legitimate concern.

This almost feels like a setup for a testing scheme. In this country, broadly speaking, if where you live requires a license you’re application is mostly theoretical…few places require you to go to the range and shoot a particular score to qualify. Some do, yes, but most do not. A right, predicated on a test, is not a right. And that’s the crux of what I’m getting at.

‘Reaonable” and ‘common sense’ regulations that support this sort of testing are backdoor schemes to restrict access and ownership. Let’s say a municipality or state wants to restrict firearms ownership and access. First thing you do is create a licensing scheme with requirements. Now, make it impossible to meet those requirements. For example, you may need eight hours of classroom time with a qualified instructor….and then you make the classrooms unavailable, set the qualifications for instructor to be unobtainable, and you have, by default, created a roadblock even though on paper you have a clearly instructed process to follow.

You can add all sorts of roadblocks…the licensing office is only open on every other Thursday for two hours, you have to apply in person, you need to bring documents that are awkward or difficult to obtain, funding reductions reduce staff available for processing forms, etc, etc. This isn’t just theory….in places like California and New York it’s business as usual.

I bring this up because people will read the article above and nod their heads sagely that, yes, everyone should have the right to own a gun but…there needs to be training an competency standards. And those standards, naturally, are set by people who have a keen interest in people not owning guns.

So, before anyone asks how you could possibly be against a “safety measure” like competency and handling exams, remember that these mechanisms are easily jiggered to promote making ownership of guns so onerous as to be impossible.

Should you have competency and skill in handling your boomtoys? Absolutely. You should regularly practice for safety and accuracy. Should it be a requirement administered by .gov, under .gov guidelines and rules, as a condition of ownership? Absolutely not.

Hopefully the Israelis will not fall for that trick.

Ruger RXM

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The Ruger RXM I ordered last week arrived on Christmas Eve…like some sort of anti-Hallmark Christmas moment.

First impressions are that, other than lacking finger groves, this thing is about as Glock as you can get without an IP lawsuit. First thing I did was swap out barrels, slides, etc, off of my genuine Glock Gen3 guns and everything fit just fine.

Other than the removable fire control unit (FCU) this thing is a G19 that had a few tiny mods. The texturing is very nice…aggressive enough without feeling like youre grabbing sandpaper. The lack of finger grooves on the grip is really a personal pref thing…I don’t care either way, although I kinda prefer the grooves but don’t care if theyre not present. The magazine release seems a little more pronounced making for more economic motions when releasing the mag. Slide release was about as Glock as you could get. Sights, from the the factory, are metal, tall, and with a tritium front and serrated back…thats a big upgrade over what your basic Glock comes with. The slide is serrated fore and aft, which I like. The frame is a blue-grey color that, in my opinion, seems a bit weird…it addresses no need except perhaps to help Magpul use up all the Grey #2209 polymer pellets. The trigger….uhhhh….it’s the oddest trigger I’ve ever felt on a semiauto pistol. It feels like a long double-action on a tuned revolver. It seems to stack all the way to the break with the last bit of travel very reminiscent, to me, of a DA revolver. The only complaint that I can see immediately about this gun will be the trigger. For guys who shoot a lot, you can make it work…but you’ll be conscious and deliberate about your pull and followthrough in a way i don’t think you would with a regular Glock trigger. The slide is cut for an optic and, from what I’ve read, the Ruger is better than the Glock in terms of ability to mount an optic. Can’t speak to that since I havent tried it yet.

Does it fit Glock holsters? Fit all of mine, including leather ones, just fine. And of course it takes Glock mags.

So, lets say that it is, for the sake of argument, in all respects a Glock 19. What, if any, is the advantage to getting one over a G19 from a survivalists point of view? Well, let’s look at a few things starting with price.

To keep this an apples-vs-apples discussion I’m going to use my dealer pricing since that’ll  be pretty close to what most dealers will buy them at. Final retail prices can vary wildly depending on region and market. The Gen3 Glock is not available with an optics cut, so right off the bat, if you’re a red dot guy you are getting an advantage with the Ruger. My dealer shows a Gen3 G19 at $440 and the RMX at $340.

  • Ruger: Optics cut – Glock: No optic cut
  • Ruger: One Pmag – Glock: Two Glock factory mags
  • Ruger: Metal night sight – Glock: Three dot plastic sight

From a cost perspective, you get one extra mag with the Glock (a $20 value) for your $100. With the Ruger, you’re short one mag, but you gain an optic cut and a night sight made of metal for $100 less.

So why would someone choose the Ruger over the Glock. I think the answer to that is going to boil back down to the removable FCU.

Like the Sig 320, the shotgun-shell-sized metal FCU is the serial numbered part…its the ‘firearm’. This means that all the other parts…the barrel. slide, and frame, are completely unregulated. This means you can order those parts through the mail straight to your shipping address. Why is this significant?

Let’s say that, being a smart survivalist, you know that one size does not fit all. You like the Gen3 Glock platform for its reliability but you want your gun to have different sights..maybe even a red dot. And you’d like a more tactical color. And you might want a G17 size frame but with a G19 sized slide. Or you may want competition sights. Or a threaded barrel. To get all that on a G19 you would have to send your slide out for milling a red dot cut, throw away the plastic sights and replace with the sights you want, etc, etc.

Or, you buy an RXM FCU and then start shopping third-party. You order a stripped slide, your sights, a threaded barrel, a frame in the size and color you want, and you slap it all together. On the one hand, you now have your semi-bespoke RMX and no leftover parts, and on the other hand you have your semi-bespoke G19 with a few extra parts that you paid for and didnt use, and a bill for slide machining.

That modularity is about the only real advantage I see at this point.I am hoping that Ruger will bring out a full-size G17 version of the RXM soon, as well as MagPul offering up some different colors.

If you already have a rack full of G19’s or G17’s, is there a reason to get this gun? Probably not unless you want the satisfaction of just buying an FCU and ‘building’ exactly what you want from the ground up. If you don’t have any Glocks but have wanted to get into them, this might be a better choice. The price difference between the two is not insignificant.

What about mixing them both into your logistics? For the most part, it probably wont hurt anything. The FCU and a couple of its related parts are obviously proprietary to Ruger, but just about everything else is interchangeable with the Glock, so if you have a shoebox full of Glock spare parts you’re probably going to be well supplied for the RXM as well.

I think that for the survivalist, the biggest attraction of this gun will be the ability to just buy an FCU and then customize it from the ground up to be exactly what you want. This is a feature that is not unique to the Ruger (see the Sig P320) but the advantage to the Ruger is that once you put together your ideal gun you can then support it with dirt-common Glock parts. Also, I suspect the third-party market is already gearing up quickly for things like Flux Raider chasis, different color frames, different size frames, etc, etc.

When Ruger finally does make the FCU available by itself, I’ll probably get one just to play around in the aftermarket parts arena and put together something that fit my ideals.

Of course, all bets are off if I take this thing to the range and it doesn’t shoot well…but so far, I like what I see.

 

Chrismahanukwanzakah….and Festivus!

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It’s that time of year when all the gift-giving holidays occur. Hanukah, Christmas, Festivus, Kwanza (although I really have my doubts this thing has legs), Festivus (which I bet has more observants than Kwanza), Boxing Day for the limeys and their fellow travelers, and a couple others that I’m forgetting.

Regardless, whatever holiday occurs this month that matters to you…have a happy one of it. Thank you to all who sent cards or gifts these last couple weeks…its always fun to find something in the mailbox.

Me, I’m going out to dinner with some cow orkers this evening, and then I plan on sleeping late tomorrow and getting in some range time.

Next week will have the obligatory end of year post, which I am working on now. 2025 is absolutely guaranteed to be more interesting than 2024. Should be highly entertaining. Say what you will about the apocalypse, its guaranteed not to be boring.

Movie – Homestead

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Ok, first, to set the mood in regards to expectations, let me throw the trailer up here:

A couple things to note that are going to give you an idea of how this movie is going to shake out a) the studio that brought this to the screen is an outfit that specializes in religious-themed offerings, and b) Neal McDonough, the only ‘big name’ in this movie, is a very devout Catholic…devout enough to the point that he doesn’t do sex scenes or kiss people in movies. So, with those two bits of data, lets get into it.

The premise is absolutely nothing you haven’t seen in a hundred movies in this genre. The very short version is that Bad Event happens but theres a rich guy who has been preparing for it and needs a buncha ex-operators to keep the place safe from the unprepared and desperate survivors. Drama ensues.

Although the classic genre bad guys – the cannibal bikers – are absent, we do have a few tropes that are standard for the genre:

  • The security guy who wants to take it all over for himself
  • The government bureaucrat who wants to seize everything for redistribution
  • The we-have-to-help-everyone character oblivious to the risks
  • The person who thinks everything will be fine..the government will help us
  • The family that gets split up and has no idea where the others are

Into this mix, there’s a couple of subplots that are, presumably, addressed in subsequent episodes (yup, this thing apparently is available as a series)…there’s the two teenagers from different backgrounds who have a chaste budding romance, a kid who may or may not be prescient, other ‘survivalists’ with a camp nearby, and a couple other little subplots that aren’t explored at this point in the movie/series.

I starts out fairly strong. Typical ‘evacuate the city’ scene with traffic, cars out of gas, fist fights at supermarkets, casual violence, etc. Once people arrive at the fortified hillside compound we start in with the scenes that, again, we’ve seen in every movie in this genre: people demanding to be let in, rationing, people in charge butting heads, et, etc.

And, of course, there’s the religious messaging. Now, in some ways it makes sense – its the end of the world, some people are going to be more devout than others and it’s not unreasonable to think that theyre going to say that everyone needs to turn to faith to see them through things. Thats not unrealistic. However the last ten minutes of the movie is where it really drives it home. I’m gonna be a nice guy and give you a spoiler cut. Eject now if you don’t want spoilage.

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