Cache and carry

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Spend any time in survivalism and you eventually get to the topic of caches. And, before I get too far down this particular rabbit hole, I just want to say that “cache” is pronounced “cash” as in “Johnny Cash”. If you pronounce it “Cash-ay” you come off sounding like an illiterate redneck. Moving on now.

Everyone at some point talks about hidden or buried caches. The notion being that someday, when your life has taken a profound and undeniable turn sideways, you will be on the run, find your hidden cache, and increase your odds of survival by replenishing and re-equipping yourself with what you prudently packed away those many years earlier.

What people decide to cache away is highly subjective. Some people might pack away everything but the kitchen sink. Some people might just tuck away some fake ID, a pistol, and a whole bunch of cash. And some people might go a bit further. What’s important, though, is that whatever you store for a later date has to be protected in such a way that the cache is impervious and invisible to the world around it. A good way to do that is to bury it. What do you bury it in? There’s a lot of chatter on that topic but many people like genuine military ammo cans. Get one big enough, with good seals, perhaps paint it with some sealant like roofing tar or somesuch, and pop it into a hole in the ground. Which brings us to this video from the, unfortunately, soon-to-be-departed Paul Harrell:

An excellent video showing what to expect. Those tall mortar cans can sometimes be had at gun shows, and can definitely be found online. Also Craigslist if you’re lucky.
One thing that is not touched on, and that I’m sure you’ll figure out on your own, is that while GPS is awesome for getting you back to “X marks the spot”, you have to plan on it not being available. Could be a buncha things….gov turns it off, degrades its accuracy (which used to be policy), satellites get knocked out by China, etc, etc. So, by all means, take GPS coords and save ’em, but also hide your stuff in such a manner that a simple hand drawn map and compass will work too. The guideline I personally would use is to do it in such a manner that I cold tell someone where it is, hand them a hand drawn map and a compass, and they’d have little trouble finding it.
Anyway, a good video on a topic that is something we’ve all thought about (and probably done) from time to time.

Article – I live in a bunker with no oven or windows, but it’s worth it to save $2,000 a month

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I knew that a friend of mine had purchased a house complete with a bomb shelter in its backyard about two years ago, and she wasn’t keen on maintaining the rear part of her property.

I met with her and suggested a solution: If she allowed me to rent the bomb shelter at a very discounted rate, I would ensure its upkeep.

Ok, lets ignore the first rule of Bunker Club for a moment….

If you had a bunker, wouldn’t you keep it quiet and empty for that time when you might actually need it, rather than rent it out as some sort of AirBnb? The level of PerSec violations here is pretty high. But, I suspect he person who bought the house probably thought the bunker was a quaint and silly remnant of a previous ‘paranoid’ owner.

However, the description of this persons experience living in the bunker is rather encouraging. Its quiet and temperate…nice qualities to have. As far as underground bunkers go, it looks rather appealing.

 

The mundane

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Its the start of what I am hoping will be a quiet weekend. People ask me what I do on weekends and the answer is resoundlingly boring…I do all the things that I was supposed to do during the week, but never got around to doing. Things like laundry, housekeeping, grocery shopping, banking, etc, etc. In fact, I get up earlier on weekends than I do on weekdays just so I can try and get it all in the 48 hour window of the weekend.

On top of that normal stuff, I need to do survivalist stuff….run the generator, read the news, see what needs to be purchased or rotated through, work on projects I’ve been wanting to do, find new projects, that sort of thing.

Im hoping that this weekend, if the weather stays nice, I can get out an do some bicycling. Its good exercise and a nice practice for when/if things go sideways and pushing pedals is my only way to get out to safety.

Since the warmer weather is here, and the snow is mostly gone, it’ll be time to go and actually view properties soon. I’ve seen a few that appeal to me, but theyre all a bit east of here. Closer to Great Falls than here. But its a nice excuse to drive along highway 200 and maybe bring a fishing rod along.

My other project, at the moment, is trying to see how many Form 1’s I can push through before my wallet explodes like a hand grenade. I’ve started the paperwork to SBR an Uzi, two MP5 copies, and I think up next will be a Ruger 10/22 Charger Takedown that I’ve kinda fallen in lust with.

So thats it…thats my anticipated weekend – laundry, housekeeping, groceries, and some survivalist stuff if I can fit it in.

Just once, I’d like to have a weekend where I can sleep in, do nothing, go to bed early, and just not to a bloody thing. But.time, tide, and TEOTWAWKI wait for no man. Even me. So, off I go to my chores…..

What about you? Anything going on this weekend?

Shorty

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My hatred of BATFE is something that is in my bones right down to the molecular level. BUT, I have to play by their rules because.

However, I have to admit that once in a while they can take an odious and unconstitutional process and make it a faster, simpler, unconstitutional process.

Apparently, most of BATFE’s Forms are online now. I can go to a website, fill out the Form 1 to ‘make’ a short barrelled rifle, pay the $200 extortion on line, and then just wait for the stamp and approval. It took me less than ten minutes to do.

I still think it’s absurd that if I want a 10″ barrel on my Uzi rather than a 16″ one I have to pay $200 and jump through a bunch of hoops, but, sadly, this is the world we’ve let develop.

I’ll have the engraving done over at Lone Sentinel Engraving, the engraving wing of Zombie Tools, since they’ve got experience at this sort of thing. After that, I’ll order up a 10″ barrel and have my Uzi looking like it was intended to.

Uzi does it

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There’s a nationally famous gun collector who lives a couple miles from me…Hayes Otoupalik. Hayes has stuff that when you look it up in a reference book it will say “Twelve known to exist” and Hayes will have four of them…he’s that kind of level of collector. Once, a million years ago, I asked him how he manages to find such good deals. He said something that always stuck with me. He said, “When you’ve been doing this long enough, you dont have to go looking for the deals…the good deals come looking for you.” And he was 100% correct.

Todays deal that I wasn’t looking for but came looking or me:

It’s a Vector Uzi with mag purse, a dozen magazines, sight tool, mag loader, wooden stock, sling, extra foregrip, and a few other bells and whistles. Previous owner cerokoted it desert tan. The punchline: $1000.

Last Uzi Ii got was a genuine Action Arms B model and I paid, I think $900 for it. And that was with only one mag and no other goodies. And that was fifteen years ago.

The Uzi is a heavy gun. In a world of polymer 9mm PCC’s this thing is a chunkyboy. But….its a proven design that is, literally, bomb-proof. This package of goodies could get stuffed in a 40mm ammo can, tucked away for twenty years, and when it finally sees the light of day again it would still be a somewhat viable choice for running-and-gunning through a zombie apocalypse.

Very tempted to do the paperwork and SBR it. Might just have to go that route. That 16″ barrel is just ten shades of derp.

Frens

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This is obviously a joke since I dont have that many friends. (Two observations: Lea Thompson can share my bunker any day. Swayze is rocking a sweet Valmet in that picture.)

It brings up an interesting question, though…how many friends (or family) would you feel comfortable riding out the apocalypse with as a trusted partner/teammember? Someone you could trust with the GPS locations of your cache, the password to the encrypted files, the directions to the BOL, the manifest of your hidden supplies, that sort of thing. For me, its probably…hmmm….three people.What about you?

Article – Multiple teens rescued from abandoned missile silo, one critically hurt

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Interesting article about a buncha kids that went into an abandoned missile silo and got more than they bargained for. Whats interesting to me is this part:

“We searched for a while,” Rich Solomon, fire chief for Sable Altura Fire Rescue, said during Sunday’s press conference. “It’s a maze of tunnels, twisted metal, an old railway that the military must have used,” he said while describing the silo, which has likely been abandoned since the 1960s.

Old railway, you say? I’m wondering if thats simply some sort of short range rail system for transporting parts from silo1 to silo2, or something a bit more elaborate.

Honestly, if I knew there was an abandoned missile silo nearby I’d probably be eager to explore it too….mostly as a precursor to buying it. I need to test my Google skills and see if I can learn more about this facility……..

Election years

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I have to remind myself that this year is an election year. As I’ve said in the past, election years are expensive. Invariably, as the elections roll closer, I get less and less confident in my supply of Uncertain Goods. According to the preponomicon, I’ve got something like a thousand assorted magazines in storage. (I know that sounds like a lot, but when you think about how they have to be distributed across many guns, and then have to last for the rest of your life, you start to see that perhaps it isn’t as much as you think.)

There are three things that rise to the top of my Be Concerned About This list during election years.

Potential gun legislation – this is a pretty simple one to wrap your head around. It’s most obvious manifestation was during the Clinton administration. Yes other presidents added their own twist, but the Assault Weapons Ban and Chinese Import Ban are the most visible examples of what I’m talking about.

Economic turmoil – “Tax them back to the stone age” seems to be the Democrats’ answer to everything. Or, as Reagan said, their policy is if “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

Social changes – This is subjective, but the it seems like when the Democrats have the reins there are more episodes of riots, mass crime, distrust, and political warfare.

The last four years have been good to me, but that wasnt because of anything Washington did but rather despite it. I don’t look to Washington for solutions to the problems in my life…heck, most of the time thats where the problems came from…and I hope you don’t either. I will say that for the things that are important to me, I prefer someone other than a Democrat at the helm of state.

It seems a forgone conclusion that its a Biden/Trump matchup this year and both candidates have enough stink on them that, under normal circumstances, they couldn’t win an election to be dog catcher. But, put them against each other and it becomes the political equivalent of two guys trapped in a closet dueling with hand grenades.

I voted for Trump in the last two elections, and I’ll vote for him again (if he’s on the ticket) no matter what the courts wind up doing to him. Not necessarily because I like him as a President (which I do), but rather because Biden is quite clearly an empty suit who mentally checked out a long, long time ago. Really, this election is Obama v. Trump.

Election years are always abnormal. The normal expectations and plans don’t apply. Unfortunately, that unpredictability means that there’s no reason to slack off on making sure my house is ‘in order’.

CR123, AA batts, and desert hermit logisitcs

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FriendOfTheBlog(tm), Joel, had himself a bump-in-the-night encounter a few weeks back that I mentioned here. I mentioned it because it underscores the utility of weapon-mounted lights and how, in some circumstances, they are just what the doctor ordered.

What I didn’t mention was that I gifted Joel one of these so that he could light something up without pointing a carbine at it, if he needed to. We all know the rules about not pointing a gun at anything you don’t want to destroy, so I figure that a high-capacity-intensity flashlight would be handy for when you’re not sure that whatever is out in the dark is something you want to be pointing a loaded gun at.

Anyway…

There was a comment in the post Joel made about how, given his hermit location, finding CR123 batteries for this light, in case its rechargeable batteries zonked out, would be a difficulty and he would be better serviced with the dirt-common alkaline AA-batts. I politely disagreed because, in my experience, every Home Depot, hardware store, gun store, and supermarket carries CR123 batts.  But..I’ve been wrong before, so I’m open to the possibility that perhaps my experience in the matter differs from what that experience would be if I lived in Joel’s neighborhood.

But the crux of the matter, really, is this: is a device that runs on CR123 batts a liability over a similar device that runs on AA-batts? In terms of price? In terms of availability?

One of the points brought up in the comment was that AA batts were cheaper than CR123. This is quite true. But, as I pointed out, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. AA alkaline batteries are cheaper than CR123 lithium batteries. But when you compare AA lithium batteries to CR123 lithium batteries, there is a niggling difference in price. A quick perusal of Amazon showed Energizer lithium AA’s and lithium CR123’s being pretty close to each other in bulk price.

The scarcity issue may have some merit, but CR123 batteries are easily ordered in bulk from Amazon during a time of non-apocalypse, and because of their lithium construction they can be stored longer than alkaline batteries with less self-discharge. (And, I am told, lithium batteries tend to puke all over themselves much less than the alkaline batteries do.)

The advantage to the AA-batt is that if you run out of lithium AA’s for your device you can, usually, still use the dirt-common AA alkalines….assuming its not eight years after the apocalypse when they’ve all self-discharged or leaked into a pile of crud.

All of this underscores that for your battery needs you need to think about things like this. I standardized a long time ago on three battery sizes – AA, D, CR123. Almost every device I could possibly need….headlamps, flashlight, gun sight, weaponlight, radio, freezer alarm, etc…can be had running off one of those types of batteries. Some devices, like a high-intensity weapon light, have power requirements that can’t be met with anything except a CR123. While there are weaponlights out there that will run on other battery sizes, it seems like they usually don’t have the same level of brightness intensity unless they make up for their non-CR123 power requirement by using a much larger quantity of batteries. (In other words, instead of using two CR123, it may need six or eight AA’s.)

Then there’s the matter of rechargeable devices. More and more stuff is of the USB-charger variety. The flashlight I sent Joel, for example, has its rechargeable battery charged through USB. I rather like this feature because it means in a pinch I can charge it from anything that would charge a cellphone….a small solar panel, a battery pack, etc, etc. But, as we all know, rechargeable batteries have a limited amount of duty cycled before the battery starts to no longer hold as much of a charge. This is mitigated a bit by the fact that the package I sent Joel has a spare battery and should, I would think, last probably the rest of his life. But even if the batteries died an ignoble death, the light can still run off CR123’s…which brings us back around to a few paragraphs earlier.

The person who commented on there being a disadvantage, in Joels case, to the CR123 batteries has a valid point – resupply is definitely a concern. But, in my opinion, that potential risk or failure point is mitigated by the the CR123 being able to be long-terms stored meaning that a supply of them purchased now should take care of things. Also, for what I was looking for – a compact, handheld light with tremendous brightness – wasn’t as readily available in a non-CR123 version while still meeting the compact requirements.

Anyway, some food for though there.

 

Dot Glock progress

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I had mentioned a while back that I was going to wind up setting up a Glock with a red dot. One of my biggest questions was do I get an MOS Glock and use the adapter plates to mount an optic, do I buy a third-party slide already cut for an optic, or do I send off my slide to get cut? Tough choice. No one seemed to have anything nice to say about the Glock MOS system, so that was the end of that. Aftermarket slides that were already cut were a bit north of $300. Heck, the whole damn gun didnt cost me that. Someone recommended Wager Machine and after reading more about them I decided to give them a shot. I had them do an RMR cut to my factory slide, cerokote the whole thing, and install the Trijicon suppressor-height sights I sent them. Total cost, soup to nuts, was $145.

Unfortunately, none of my vendors happen to have a Trijicon RCR in stock for me to fit on there to judge the quality of their machining. But, I can say the cerokote looks great and they seem to have installed he sights properly.

Only real thing left to do here is sight in the open sights, get the optic mounted, and perhaps put in a bit of a better trigger.

I don’t usually put this much….bespokeness….into a pistol, but I’d like to have at least one pistol that gives me just about every possible advantage available short of a giggle switch.

I’m very much looking forward to getting the RCR mounted and seeing how it works out.