Estwing tomahawk

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Well, it took about six years but I finally came across one of those Estwing tomahawks in the wild. I could find one on eBay or Amazon, of course, but I was curious when I’d run across one at Lowes or Home Depot. The answer, it seems, was six years.

I am just underwhelmed with the whole tactical tomahawk niche. Yes, if your defending Alexandria from zombies it’s probably a decent tool. But, short of that, or doing some sort of heroic ‘last man standing’ in a Mogadishu hallway, they seem fairly useless. From a weapon standpoint, I kinda like those long-necked framing hammers.

I’m sure theyre useful for opening ammo crates, breaking windows, forcing entry, and that sort of thing…but so are a dozen other multitaskers. I realize that when youre diddybopping through downtown bazaars and narrow hallways in a ‘stan somewhere you’re going to want something to chop/pry open doors, bust windows, cut cable and wire, etc,etc. And I suppose the tomahawk does that…I just can’t imagine theres other stuff that doesnt do it better and more efficiently while still maintaining the high-speed-low-drag qualities we all know and love.

Nonetheless, it appears to be a solid little item that will stand up to whatever it is that is was designed to do…which still kinda escapes me.

For a general ‘multipurpse’ tear-stuff-up-tool…I have two. For when space and weight aren’t a big deal, one of these will pretty much get me out/in to whatever it is I’m trying to get in/out of, and when space is at a premium and your limited to something one-handed…I like this guy.

But, what do I know?, perhaps someday when I’m in a partially collapsed building or have to hack someone out of a car wreck I’ll think “Man, this would have gone a lot better with a tomahawk”. I doubt it, but could happen.

And ‘Tomahawk Axe’? WTF? That’s like having a ‘Pebble Boulder’ or some other equally diametrically opposed term.

Studying, Hawaii, goals

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I was re-re-reading Ben Franklin’s biography the other day and I read a snippet of a letter he wrote to his grandson who was, shall we say, a bit off the path towards a bright future. Franklin, encouraging him to focus on his schooling, said “…people who study hard live comfortably in good houses.” Leave it Franklin to come up with a summation to something that takes most people an entire chapter to instill.
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I see that Hawaii is getting ready for some inclement weather, and in typical fashion the people who live on the island(s) are panic-shopping for storm supplies. Why, oh why, wouldn’t they already have a footlocker or two full of the requisite flashlights, radios, batteries, and bottled water? Not only do they live on a place with active freaking volcanoes, but they also live someplace where, when the Bad Things happen, it takes days to get supplies there because of the location.

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With that in mind, I’ve been doing some minor upgrades here and there to my own level of preparedness. Mostly there’s been a gradual but sustained shift from ‘survive the end of the world’ to ‘survive an economic hardship’. Now, you might think that if you’re prepared for the former that will cover the latter. Mmm…some ways yes, some ways no. Mostly right now I’m working on getting money in the bank, money in the safe, paying off the house, and rewriting some budgets and other financial plans. (To say nothing of the continued adventure of increasing my value in the marketplace.)

So, yeah, plenty of ammo and freezedrieds in storage, but I feel even more prepared when all the bills are paid a month or two ahead, there’s cash in the safe, money in the bank, food in the fridge, a couple pairs of new shoes on the shelf, and a decent emergency fund. In the non-stop Blender O’ Despair that is my life, I’ve needed cash far more often than I’ve needed body armour…..

By the way, you wanna help ol’ Zero achieve the fulfillment of these worthy goals and do yourself a great service? Yeah, this.

Discreet communications

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Someone asked me a question in a private comment but left no way for me to contact them other than posting a message. So: yes, numbers are the same as listed on the page.

As an aside, folks, if you have something you want tell or ask me privately, feel free to send me an email. If you’re a big privacy fan, and who isn’t these days, there are plenty of anonymizers you can use to send me an email without compromising your ‘real’ email address.
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Just a reminder

Putting the goober in gubernatorial

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Our Democrat governor has come out in favor of the usual ‘assault weapons’ ban and is spewing the predictable balm of how he’s pro-Second-Amendment and he has a family history of hunting to back it up. Not sure that the one has anything to do with other but, hey, if I pose for a picture while wearing orange and holding an elks head that must mean I’m a foe of tyranny.

It’s so predictable…”I grew up around guns, BUT…….”, “My family has hunted for generations, BUT………”, “I’m a strong supporter of the right to bear arms, BUT………” and then it’s usually followed up with some inane free association exercise involving deer, AK-47’s, and the words “Don’t need” and “to hunt”.

Likely, this Quisling is posturing for some sort of potential political advancement come 2020. What he has done, though, is crap the sheets in his own electoral bed. I will personally make sure that this statist nonsense is not swept aside when the elections roll around.

Does he have a chance of making his dream come true in Montana? I doubt it. But the problem is that, like bedbugs and other vermin, he isn’t alone. You get enough political opportunists like him in one place and you get a synergistic form of stupidity that feeds on itself to be more than the stupid sum of its stupid parts. Scientists call it ‘critical mass’, most folks call it ‘Congress’.

And this, my fellow survivalists, is why you cannot let your guard down. There are always people like this who, while entitled to their opinions, believe their opinions need to become your opinions….whether you like it or not.

Vote early, vote often, and stock up just in case.

Shelf issues

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So I’m up at CostCo, minding my own business, and as I’m walking down the aisle I notice that the wire shelving I like for storage is marked down by about 30%. Well, that’s a pretty good deal, right? So I look at the shelving and the box is different than the one that normally comes with the shelving I’ve previously purchased. Hmmm. Let’s look at things a bit closer.

Take a good look at this unit of shelving:

Compare and contrast with this one:

Notice a difference? There’s no reinforcing rib running along the center underside of the shelf. This is a bad thing. For the amount of weight that you’re going to wind up putting on these things, you very much want that reinforcement. More importantly, if you just noticed the price change and thought “Wow! Discount!” and bought two or three units you’d have wound up with a buncha units that were not as good as the one you already had.

So…no more Costco shelves utill they bring back the good ones. In the meantime I’ll have to hit Lowes or Home Depot or Walmart and see if they carry the ‘good’ ones. So..caveat emptor, baby.

Betalight

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I was visiting with someone at the gun show a few weeks back and, as sometimes often happens when you’re hanging out with like-minded individuals, the conversation turned to gear. As the person I was with was going thruogh their bag I noticed something…

“Is that a BetaLight?”
“Yeah, I got it….”, and I heard how this person came into it.
“Cool. I’ve always wanted one of those but they can be a little tough to get.”
“Here. You can have it.”
“!!!!!!”

Some people are just too generous to describe in a way that does them justice. I try to be as generous with other LMI, but it’s pretty hard to top giving someone a BetaLight. (Although, it can be done….rarely)

So what is a BetaLight? Well, the easiest way to describe it this: you know how those glow-y tritium dots on your pistol are about the size of a pinhead? Imagine if they were the size of a quarter. It provides enough light that, when its dark and your eyes have adjusted to the low light level, provides enough light for close-in tasks. And, since the thing is powered by physics and not batteries, it lasts quite a while.. (12.3 years half life, so it’ll be half as bright in about 12 years.)

Although readily available in the UK, they are a tough thing to get your hands on in the US.

Advantages? No moving parts, no batteries, no electronics, waterproof, shockproof, dustproof, everything-proof. Produces a useful amount of light for close-in tasks without being strong enough to draw attention to you.

Disadvantages? Small amount of light limits utility for anything other than close-in tasks. Cancer if you eat it.

So, naturally, I have to play with it. In a dark room, after your eyes have adjusted to the light, it generates enough dim light to see the walls of the room, and definitely provides enough light to read instructions, check a gun, examine switches, operate combinatin locks, etc.

It’s a cool piece of gear that I’ve always been fascinated by. I am very grateful to the person who gifted it to me, and I hope I can return the favor someday.

Choate stuff

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Remember a few weeks back I picked up a bargain 590 that needed just a tad of work? Well, one of the things I wanted to do was replace the gimmicky M-4-style stock with a more solid stock suitable for casual abuse and percussive persuasion. My exact words, in fact, were “Need to contact the guys at Choate and see what they have for a replacement stock/forend.” Well, as it turns out, Choate contacted me.

Some background: I’ve been using various Choate stocks since the late 80’s when they were all the rage in the preparedness (called ‘survivalist’ back then) community. I still recall their ads in gun magazines. I had a stock for my Mini-14 (remember those?), and later came across a really wonderful stock for the Thompson Contender carbine. (I was told that those stocks were kind of an oddball from re-utilizing M1 carbine stocks. Regardless it is the best stock for the TC carbine I’ve ever used in terms of weight, durability, and handiness.)

Anyway. Choate made a shotgun stock that I liked for those times when a wooden stock wasn’t tactical enough or resilient enough. After I got the 590 I thought I’d head over to Choate’s website and pick one up. Turns out they aren’t on the website anymore. But, the fine folks (and fellow like-minded individuals) at Choate managed to score me a stock and forend. You know what was really cool though? The forend even came with the little tool you need to remove those stupid forend nut. Very thoughtful.

Now, you may wonder why I prefer the non-pistol-grip stock in this case. Well, it’s really an ergonomic thing – the tang safety on the Mossberg is a breeze to operate with a ‘traditional’ stock, but with a pistol-grip stock your hand has to do more gymnastics to get to the safety. On the Remington, the safety is easily manipulated with either type of stock, not so on the Mossberg.

By the way, I have no idea what the story is with the coated green barrel. It’s not spraypaint, it’s actually a tiny houndstooth pattern of two shades of green very professionally applied. I’m guessing the barrel was a takeoff from a different gun. I really don’t care, it’s just a little odd looking.

So I disassembled the 590 and slipped on the new stock and forend. Gone was the gimmicky M4 stock and cheesy corncob forend (that still had velcro from where bubba had mounted some NCStar ‘tactical’ Chinese crap) and in its place was some very nice, very durable, very black, and very brutal furniture from our friends at Choate.

Now, thats a happy enough ending to a long story about a Mossberg 590, but the folks at Choate didn’t stop there. You know they make other molded products too, right? Like these ice scrapers. Yeah..ice scrapers. Ok. :::wink wink:::

And then this….monster….

I would like to have been in the office at Choate the day the guys from design came in and said “Hey boss..you know those ice scrapers we make? Well, me and the boys were thinking….”. This baby is definitely going in the pocket of the vehicle door. Yeah, a $3 ice scraper from the plastic bowl next to the register at the local QwikeeMart will scrape ice too, but this BAMF takes it to a whole new level. And…it’s a multitasker. For very particular tasks. How can you not admire that sort of creativity?

Anyway, big thanks to Choate for coming to the rescue on the Mossberg 590.

ETA: Yes, I do..and yes, it is.

Last call on mags

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The MegaMagMania deal on 10/22 mags ends tomorrow at round 9am Mountain time. If you email me for mags after the countdown timer reaches zero, I’ll probably just ignore your email. So….you’ve got a little under 24 hours. After that , the page comes down, previous references get scrubbed, and the leftover inventory goes into my personal stash. Also, if you received an invoice for mags and haven’t paid it yet….those invoices will be cancelled after three days, so don’t forget.

Overall, the response was quite good…meaning either I underpriced these things tremendously, or readership has increased since the last one of these sales. Either way, its been an enormous amount of mags going out the door. I cannot tell you how many trips to the post office it’s been.

For those of you who took advantage of the deal (and several of you came back for seconds and thirds) I congratulate you on your long-range thinking.

Twenty-two hours and then it’s done.