Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
The addition of another Glock to the stable means that the aggregate number of magazines takes a hit as well as the guns-to-parts ratio. Both need to be addressed as soon as possible.
For me, magazines work on a magazines:gun ratio. If I have three guns and 24 magazines, I see that as an 8:1 ratio. I really, really prefer a higher ratio than that. Something along the lines of 20:1. Someone will, naturally, say that they have five 1911’s and have thirty magazines and that’s plenty. Hey man, whatever works for you. When I buy magazines with an eye towards the future I think of it in terms of how many I may need to last me the rest of my life. Thirty years with no chance of resupply? Quite possible. So, theres no such thing as too much. If the old Assault Weapon ban becomes permanent then that collection of 33-rd G18 mags I have is gonna have to last me the next thirty years…and in a circumstance like that how many is too many?
When it comes to spare parts there is a school of thought that says the best spare parts collection is to have an entire extra gun. This has some merit but it’s a bad (I want to say ‘foolish’) assumption. Here’s why: you have a CZ-52 that you keep in the truck. You have an extra one you keep as a spare parts kit. At the moment you have two handguns. Firing bin breaks, as they do, on your CZ-52 so you take the one out of your other gun and now you have one gun and one pile of parts. That firing pin breaks (CZ52’s are notorious for this sort of thing…replace pin with an aftermarket one at your first opportunity) and now you have two parts kits and no guns. It would have made more sense to buy extras of the part that is known to be prone to breakage, then you have two usable pistols. For the want of a five dollar part you’ve turned a perfectly good handgun into a pile of parts. Buy the spare parts and but the extra handgun…even if you never use it as a parts gun its worth it on so many levels just to have as a ‘spare’.
Right now, our handgun focus is to lean towards the Glocks. (Or, as Glock insists on it, the GLOCKs…yes, all caps.) Specifically, 9mm Glocks. One of the things I love about the Glock is that the spare parts are cheap, cheap, cheap and, broadly, compatible across the entire platform in that caliber. That means that the firing pin for the 9mm full size will work in the 9mm compact and will work in the 9mm minigun. Same for many other important parts. Spare parts logistics is a freaking breeze. Its also highly affordable since the majority of small parts cost less than a few bucks. There are some high dollar parts like barrels and slides but I would bet you that you’ll go through a lot more springs, pins and small parts before you somehow break your barrel.
So…I need to come up with a new order for Lone Wolf and make a list of parts.
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For the last couple of years I have been promising myself to set up a small emergency power supply for running emergency lighting and communications. And, true to form, every year I wind up getting distracted and the whole thing gets shoved even further on the back burner. Bad habit to get into. Especially since my needs are so damn simple – emergency lighting and operation of radio gear – since what I want to use runs on DC current anyway I wont have to deal with an inverter and the subsequent power loss. LED lighting is low-draw stuff so there shouldn’t be a problem with battery capacity there. Radio gear is 80% listening and that uses less power than transmitting. To my way of thinking, one large solar panel, a couple batteries and maybe a charge controller should do the trick. I just need to research it and find exactly the right size for what I want to do. What really clinches this deal is that from where I sit I can look out my window and across the street is a Baterries Plus that sells all the batteries I would need and around the corner from where I am right now is an alternative energy store that would sell panels, controllers and everything else. So, yeah, really, no excuse.
