It occurred to me today that when youve been a survivalist long enough, its easy to lose track of whats available out there to improve your situation. Let me give you an example: Twenty years ago you decided to go deep and stock on high quality flashlights. You figured you’d buy the best, tuck ’em away, and then you’d be done with the flashlight component of your preps. Seems reasonable, right? So you go out and spend your money on a dozen top of the line MagLights with the bright Krypton bulbs (and spares). You tuck them away and figure “Thats that. I’m done.”
Here’s where the problem comes in. Because you think you’ve sewed up the flashlight side of things you now stop even thinking about them. After all, you have a dozen of the best flashlights available tucked away…so why bother thinking about them anymore? Fast forward twenty years to today…and whats the standard in flashlights? LEDs. Flashlights that give three times the brightness, for 2/3 the cost, and 10x the battery life. And, because you stopped thinking about flashlights twenty years ago, you have no idea such things even exist. So, while you were cutting edge for 1999, you are now hopelessly fourth-tier for 2019.
Other examples might include newer and better magazines, optics, radio gear, battery management devices, knife sharpeners, etc, etc. The trap is in thinking that because you are all squared away with ‘X’ that you don’t have to keep track of changes and improvements in ‘X’ developments. It’s like tucking away your old-school XM177 CAR-15 in 1985 and never discovering it had evolved to the M4.
I’m guilty of this sort of lack of thinking from time to time. For example, I’ve a Leatherman Wave that I’ve had for over ten years now and I’ve been pleased with it. So pleased, in fact, that in never occurred to me to see if they had come out with better, more useful, versions since then. And, of course, they have. So while I was happy with what I had, I was lacking the the efficiency of the newer tool. You might ask, since you were happy with the older one, and you were unaware of the newer one, were you not then, in fact, not really missing anything? You are correct, I was not aware of what I was missing. But that doesn’t mean I may not have been better served with the newer tool.
Survivalism is about being able to improve your chances and lower your risks (threats) in a bad situation. You don’t necessarily need the ‘latest and greatest’ to do that, but many times the latest and greatest are improvements over the older. There will be no award after the apocalypse for the guy who achieved the most using the least amount of gear. If you want to ride out the apocalypse in travel trailer on a piece of junk land, eating beans and rice stored in 2-liter pop bottles, and shooting jackrabbits with your HiPoint carbine…..have at it. But given a choice, I’ll go for the higher end of the price charts… not beause I’m a snob, but because ‘good enough’ is not the adjective I want for crap that might someday have to be relied on to keep me safe and alive.
So, moral of the story: even if you think you have so many of something that you don’t need to think about them anymore…..think about them.
The old stuff is as good as it ever was. If we’re talking about something where good enough is good enough, probably no need to update.
But the probelm is you dont KNOW if there is something better because youve stopped keeping track of the developments in regard to that particular item.
If things went bad and your Maglites were good as new, would you be OK? Or would better be life changing? If better would be life changing, better go for better.
I would get some LED upgrade bulbs for those Maglites, and call it good, because I have needs that aren’t quite met at the good enough level. In fact, I did exactly that a few years back.
What I’m trying to get across is that you probably know where the weak spots are in your preps, where you said: that’s the best I can do, and I wish I could do a lot better. Those are the areas where you shouldn’t stop thinking.
The place you might get blindsided is something like night vision. Twenty years ago you might have decided that it’s so crazy expensive that no potential opponents would have it, so you could be miles ahead of everyone with some near worthless Russian surplus. It’s cheaper now, and neighbors might have third gen night scopes. Here is an area where better could be life changing, or life extending.
Exactly. 20 years ago cheap Russian 1st gen NV was crazy expensive…these days, combined II/Thermal is very but not crazy expensive….and far better…
Same with medical: anti-coagulant bandages are far better today, so are tourniquets…
And radios? Digital vs. analog, digital modes, etc..
My 2000 GPS (Garmin E-trex) isn’t quite as good as my current GPS (Garmin 64) but still gets the job done.
Glad I don’t have to face the Zombie Hoards with a Maglite and a Marlin 336. It could work and they were both part of my original kit, but I have much better gear now.
Why would anyone hoard zombies.
Good question!
Homonymphobic
Actually, I have a fear of two single men in a Winnebago..so, Im actually mobilhomophobic.
Not a big fan of Spaceballs I take it.
I tend not to “go deep” on much. Not going deep on stuff is partly because things go bad/degrade, partly because new versions of things make older versions obsolete, and partly because I just don’t like having a lot of stuff hanging around. And I like to be able to update things every couple of years.
I have enough stuff to get me though any likely Really Bad Thing that could happen and enough that it would be a huge help in case a less likely event that an Even Worse Thing happens.
I used to have an eBay store where I would sell off stored stuff that I was going to replace with newer/better things so that I could recoup some of the value but, after a couple years of that I found it to be a pain. Now, mostly, just give the older stuff away. I like knowing that my nieces and nephews and my friends kids have some nice bits of kit laying around that I gifted them, just in case they ever really need it.
It’s good that you’re equipping family, that’s an excellent use for oldies but goodies. Another excellent use is to relegate them to second string, backup use.
Just don’t tell the family that they’re getting anything other than cool gadgets and extra hiking stuff…
There is a fine line between sticking with the old stuff far past it’s prime and endless gear/ gun churning.
To me the benefit of the new piece of kit has to be sufficient to merit the expense of its acquisition. That usually means a significant improvement over the current thing.
One idea is to just replace stuff through its natural cycle. Buy the new flashlight when the old one dies kind of thing.
Ryan, totally agree about that fine line.
Keeping an open mind and ‘thinking’ can help navigate that area.
Probably why we read pages like this…
Hipoint carbine? I will be shooting jackrabbits with a savage rascal, living in my van down by the river. You need to brush up on low cost firearms. Break open single shot is the way to go.
Yes..of course…that explains why militaries, police agencies, and professional hunters all over the world have made the switch to $99.99 H&R Toppers.
A buddy had one of those in 30-30. He was very successful at killing caribou with it. It had an ejector, and he could get off a second shot as fast as I could with my bolt action. That’s a shockingly effective weapon in practiced hands.
Hey I HAVE a HiPoint .45 carbine – Love that thing – never jammed on me once either with the pistol mags or the extended ones. Good keep in the truck gun for checking fence in brushy areas with lots of hog hiding in it. Also fought 2 shoot em ups (and shot at least one) with my old GAU 5 back in the Air Commandos (SPECIAL Warfare now… Hate that term…) it did just fine. Older isn’t bad as long as it does its job in an efficient, reliable, and cost effective way… Starting to feel like a dinosaur here! 😀
Regards
I was thinking about a short story in which a guy who hasn’t carried a gun since the days of Starsky and Hutch decides to strap on the old stuff from the box in the closet.
Twin Ruger Speed Sixes in a custom Bianchi rig, speed loaders, a Buck 110, a Bucheimer Texas slapjack…they’ll all work fine, even though the young people are carrying Glocks, Microtechs, and ASPs.
But the flashlight is just awful.