Nice thing about the TiVo is that I can ignore the TV for a week or two and then catch up on everything in one sitting. For example, I missed several episodes of ‘Jericho’ but now that they are being rebroadcast the TiVo kindly collected them for me as they came. So, I got to see some stuff I’d been missing. In case you’ve been under a rock, the show was cancelled and then brought back for a several episode order on the strength of a viewer campaign to bring it back. As I’ve said before, Im amused by this because across the board the preparedness forums almost universally were critical of it for too much drama, not enough gunplay, etc, etc, etc….yet when it gets cancelled theyre up in arms, so to speak, to get it back.
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Im cleaning out a buddy’s house since he’s now in a nursing home and am sifting through his library of books. A lot of historical stuff but a lot of preparedness/gun stuff too. Theres a couple really good books in there and as I come across them I’ll mention them in case you want a copy.
Pretty much all of us have a copy of ‘Where There Is no Doctor’ which is an excellent book. For me, its greatest value is in the back ¼ for the book where the drug information is. If youre out there looting a Walgreens its always good to know which pills are the ones you want.
Anyway, another excellent medical book I came across is ‘Medicine For The Outdoors’ (Auerbach, Lyons Press, #1-55821-723-1) In this case, ‘outodoors’ means ‘where youre not gonna have access to 911, EMS or anything close to a real doctor’ which is the situation we are likely to be in when [insert your particular flavor of TEOTWAWKI] occurs. 500 pages, plenty of illustrations, and good detail on drug names, usage, etc. Not a ‘one book for all occasions’ but it seems to be a worthy addition to the home library.
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The first step is admitting you have a problem. So..(deep breath)..Im a Glockaholic. Sure, it started easy enough..a used police trade-in G19 here, a bargain 2nd gen. G17 there. And then two days ago I …I…went for the hard stuff – brand new 3rd Gen G17.
Okay, enough kidding around…this is the first factory new handgun I’ve bought in probably ten years. I tend to buy used stuff because its cheaper but this one..well, the stars lined up for me to be able to get it.
Anyway, without mentioning specific numbers, this is a redundant Glock but having levels of redundancy is what being prepared is all about. So, this one will get a few hundred rounds through it to make sure it works, get cleaned, and get tucked into the safe ‘just in case’. It’ll be nice to have if I need a loaner for a friend, something happens to one of my other Glock 9mms, or if I need to stash an extra somewhere.
I took this occasion to re-read the big Glock book and reacquaint myself with the Glock disassemblys and whatnot. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, I will say that they are excellent examples of mass-production engineering. Except for the big parts like barrels and whatnot all spare parts are less than five bucks, theres 34 parts versus who knows how many for other pistols, all the parts can be removed..nothing is staked on except the front sight (and even that is removable without special tools), and nothing requires fitting. Drawbacks? Well, they’ve got no soul or personality. Theyre like Bic lighters versus Zippo lighters, one carried more style and history but may not be nearly as convenient, reliable and durable as the other. On the other hand, if it goes bang every single time I pull the trigger that’s really all that matters.
I see the 1911 guys going on about how anything since 1912 is a step down in handgun development. I wonder if they also say that switching from the .45-70 to the .30 calibers was a mistake. After all, that ‘big heavy .45 bullet’ always ‘knocked em down’ whereas those pipsqueak ‘minor caliber’ .30’s required high magazine capacity (5 rounds vs. 1 round) to make up for the lack of stopping power.
I appreciate tradition and ‘classics’ as much as anyone else, but at the same time I’m not going to let that stand in the way of recognizing improvements in design.
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Speaking of guns and ammo…the .40S&W conversion for the big Dillon arrived the other day. I was examining the dies and conversion and discovered that Dillon shipped me a .40 S&W carbide sizer die that was missing the carbide sizer ring. Ooops. A quick call to them got me the customer service theyre famous for. They’d send another die right out…no need to send back the other die. Keep it for spare parts or something. Good outfit to do business with, those Dillon guys.
The Dillon RL1050, by the way, Was. Not. Cheap. However, it does crank out 1000 rounds an hour without much fuss. Since factory ammo is so expensive these days, and reloading a thousand rounds on a single-stage press is a major time sink, this thing does start to pay for itself fairly quickly in terms of time and money saved. (And since this is the ‘super’ 1050 it’ll do .223, .308, .30-06, etc, etc. as well…..good to know since the South African .308 has dried up and gone through the roof when you can find it.)
Speaking of ammo, I saw a link to a news piece about how the military has started reducing its orders for small arms ammo. Read into that what you will. The practical result is that those facilities will have been tooled for producing huge amounts of .223 and they’ll need work. So….possibly expect to see availability increase and prices decrease in the future. Don’t bet on it, but don’t be surprised if it happens.
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Elections are still ahead of us and the prognosis, as far as Im concerned, is not good. I can understand if you take everything I say with a grain of salt since Im basically a faceless stranger to you…I can accept that. But if you decide to not value my opinions on anything else, accept and act upon my opinion that if you do not start stocking up on spare guns and especially magazines very soon you are going to be kicking yourself after the elections. You don’t have to go nuts and sell the jet ski, just get some spare mags for your rifles and pistols. How many? By the dozen. Buy the dozen.
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Need a Titan complex? its sorta telling that theres no photos of any of the underground portions of the 57-acre complex. Probably flooded. Who can say? Cough up $10 grand and get a tour.
The eBay auction
The website
