Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Know what gives me satisfaction? Seeing that the gallon jar I use to hold my ‘immediate use’ rice in is running low so I crack open the GammaSeal on one of my five gallon buckets and behold the joy, peace, and security that comes from seeing pounds and pounds of yummy rice…quietly waiting its turn to be consumed. I can pull a can of chicken broth out of storage, add a cup of rice, a can of crushed tomatoes, some remaindered bargain meat out of the freezer, a few select spices and have enough food to feed several people in hearty proportions. And I can do that anytime I want. All the ingredients are right here and will last for years. I genuinely never need to really worry about where the next meal is coming from.
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In addition to the fabulous deal on the G3 mags, a buddy and I picked up another 150 AR mags. The availability and pricing seems to be coming back to earth. In fact, I daresay that I think we are in a lull where now may be the time to buy such things. I think many people who wanted to stock up have and the demand has been somewhat sated. However, all it takes is one idiot shooting up a WalMart somewhere and the Attorney General getting on television saying that “reasonable restrictions on firearms need to be introduced” and the panic buying starts all over again. I’m seeing magazine and, to a lesser degree, ammo availability improve but reloading components, especially primers, are still in short supply. I did some assessment the other day of our own stock of primers and while we’re in good shape, we could always use more. However, forty bucks a brick is just freakin’ insane.
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Wen’t out shooting last weekend with some friends. One of the guns we shot was the Steyr AUG clone made by Microtech – the STG556. The AUG platform is interesting. Its biggest feature is that by being of the bullpup design you can have a 16″ barrel in a gun that is as short as legally possible. The gun features a piston gas system, plenty of rails, a forward handgrip, quick-change barrels and the ability to be made left-hand friendly. But how does it shoot? It shot well enough but being so used to ‘traditional’ (non-bullpup) rifles it takes some getting used to. It handles very, very nicely…holding and shooting an AR one-handed can be tricy..not for the STG556. We shot it at steel gongs so it was hard to gauge accuracy but it hit them every time. The gun I shot was mounted with an EOTech, which Im not sure I like, but overall I think if I spent more time with the gun I might like it more. Reliability was fine and it seemed a solid enough shooter.

Further shooting was done with AR’s and PTR-91 HKlones using .22 conversion kits. It was nice to practice shoot-n-move drills. At this point in time, even with the sometimes difficult availability of bulk Federal .22, the .22 conversion kits are absolutely worth whatever you pay for one.