I try to avoid potential problems when I can. I try to use factory mags whenever possible.However, in some cases, a non-factory or non-OEM mag can work just as well. A good example would be contract AR-15 GI mags. By and large, every Okay magazine is…well, okay. On the other hand, some non-facotry mags are outrageous failures – like USA Brand magazines. When the election was a-brewing, and I was planning on President Hillary, it seemed prudent to stock up on more happysticks. Now, Glock mags were about $30, and the MagPuls, though cheaper, were not available yet. I wanted to stock up on some happysticks for speculative purposes and I wanted ’em cheap(ish).

Cruising over at Tams blog, I noticed the ETS magazines. Now, I don’t normally mess with non-factory mags for pistols…but…these aren’t for me. These are strictly for tucking away for resale after the next ban. So, at a sale price of about $12.95 ea. (and after asking Tam about her opinion on them) I went ahead and bought ‘a bunch’. And this is where we segue….

Customer service, man. Those geeks at Palmetto State Armory took their sweet time. I ordered these things on the 28th of November, they didn’t even ship ’em until December 5th, and the bloody things didn’t even get here until the 13th. Annoying.

Back to topic……

I really prefer metal feed lips in magazines. The reason is that I feel that if I leave a magazine loaded for a length of time, the constant pressure against the non-metal-reinforced feedlips will eventually splay them out a bit and cause problems. Glock has metal liners in their mags and this is the main reason that all of my kept-loaded-and-waiting magazines are Glock factory mags. However, Magpul’s mags seem pretty dang good even without the metal liner. But Magpul uses some pretty solid plastic..it doesn’t have as much give as other plastic mags. These ETS mags, which are transparent..a fun novelty, seem to be of a thinner, less rigid plastic. This has me curious about the feed lips. But…not really my problem since these are for Deep Sleep and eventual resale. I suppose f I were going to use them in practice or competition, where I would load them at the range, shoot em off, and then leave them unloaded in storage, it wouldnt make a difference.

But…this is all speculation. For all I know these things will store loaded just fine. I’ll pull a couple out, load em up, and let ’em sit for a few weeks or months and then mike ’em out against their unloaded brethren.

A few post sback I was talking about how with winter here it was time to swap out the gear that’s kept in the vehicle. A couple people asked how you keep water from freezing in the winter. Short answer: you don’t. What you do is figure out a way around the problem.

Get a 5-gallon jerrycan full of water and let it freeze. Now get a cup of water and let it freeze. Put both frozen containers of water side by side in a warm room and wait. Which one is going to completely thaw first? The cup of water, right?  The smaller the size of the frozen mass of water, the faster it will thaw. To that end, I store those little 4-oz. “lifeboat rations” of drinking water in the vehicle during the winter. They’re about the size, shape, and thickness of a Pop-Tart. As a result, they thaw quickly if you just sit on them or hold them between your hands for any length of time. And, yes, four ounces of water isn’t much..that’s why you pack a couple dozen in your emergency box. What would you normally carry…two gallons? Thas 256 ounces. To get the same effect, you’d need 64 pouches.

I usually just grab mine off eBay or Amazon for convenience’s sake but you can sometimes get better deals at gun shows. If you really want to be a clever lad, you’d buy a case of pocket warmers and a couple insulative foil bags. Throw the heaters in the bag with a couple pouches of water and you can keep a steady rotation of thawed water available during whatever roadside mishap you wind up in.

The pouches are just as good for the summer, but I usually just go with 20 oz. plastic bottles during the warmer weather.

If you’ve never been to Montana, you’d probably think that once winter sets in we get 6′ of snow and everything comes to a halt. Not true. The eastern part of the state, flat as a cookie sheet, gets bone-numbing cold and some amazing snow…the mountains on the western side also get a goodly amount of snow. But, this little valley Im in is, for some reason, one of the warmest parts of Montana. We refer to it as The Banana Belt. This area gets the least snowfall of anywhere in the state. That’s not to say we don”t get any, it means that when Helena, Kalispell, and Butte are getting 15″ of snow we get 5″.

Today was the first “major” snowfall of the season, with about 2″ piling up. This is barely enough to break out the snow shovels, although in the redneck states this wolud be considered an apocalyptic amount of snow. But, it does mean that winter is pretty much here.

Being a survivalist in the winter is a lot different than being a survivalist in the summer. The biggest problem in winter is simply not having power. If the electricity goes out you lose lighting (which isn’t that big a deal), refrigeration (which is no deal at all when you can just put your freezer’s contents on the porch and they’ll stay frozen), and heating/circulation (which is a big deal).

Around this household, the goal for emergency heating is simple: keep the house warm enough so the pipes don’t freeze. Now, yes, you could eliminate that threat by draining the pipes but I really don’t relish living through a crisis without flush toilets or showers. So, I’ve a kerosene heater for the basement, and one for the main floor of the house. Additionally, I’ve a few small propane heaters as well to be moved around as necessary for ‘spot heating’. In the time I’ve lived in this house, there’s only been one or two winter power failures and they’ve never gone more than five or six hours. But…thats no guarantee that a big one won’t happen. If I lived out of town or out in the hills…well, at that point it’s almost a certainty that at some point you’re going to get a power outage measured in days (or weeks). Last years windstorm knocked out power here in town for almost ten hours, but The Metals Pimp was out for a couple days. Folks further down the valley in the smaller towns and out in the hills were without for weeks.

Needless to say, winter also seriously changes the gear loadout for the vehicle. The big Pelican Case O’ Survival Gear comes out of storage and goes in the vehicle. I don’t want to get into a long list, but right off the bat theres an extreme cold weather bag in there, blankets, candles, water pouches, a complete change of clothes, spare winter outerwear, and a host of other things to let me stay with the vehicle. (A couple thick books are a good idea.) Sure it takes up a bit of space in the vehicle, but I’d rather deal with that than deal with losing a few fingers and toes because my failure to plan put me in touch with my inner Jim Kim.

Come to think of it, I could use some low-hanging fruit in terms of blog fodder…maybe I’ll crack open the Pelican case and do a little show and tell. Anyone wanna link a picture of their winter gear?

Man, it’s cold out here today. But, if I thought there was a nip in the air today….well….75 years ago it was even worse.

The attack on Pearl Harbor is interesting because I really can’t think of any event since then that was so abrupt and world-changing. At least, up until 9/11. Think about it…you wake up one morning, everything is normal, and by dinner that evening you’re in a global war that would change the political landscape for the the next hundred years. All with (supposedly) no warning. (And, yes, I think FDR knew.)

Point being, world-altering stuff can happen without warning and with unbelievable consequences. Best you can do is be as ready as you can be. Could be Japanese torpedo bombers over Hawaii, could be a nuclear artillery shell in the backseat of a Cessna detonated over the Pentagon, could be The Big One that creates Nevada beachfront property….you never know. But it can happen and it can happen like that :::snaps fingers:::.

Pearl Harbor Day is a great day to remember the sacrifices and bravery of World War Two, but it’s also an excellent reminder that big stuff happens, and it can happen so fast you won’t know what hit you.

Fidel Castro died the other day and I didn’t really have anything to say about it.

What’s to say? The guy played the US wonderfully when he overthrew Batista and got to die somewhat peacefully despite giving the Soviets the opportunity to put nuclear missles closer to the US than some people drive to CostCo. I suspect that Cuban relations will be very different in a year or so.

I should be getting my invite to the Alpha 66 celebratory barbecue any day now…….

Most interesting thing I’ve found so far – complate Magpul’s lower with stock for $150.

That’s worth picking up two or three if you have the coin. No one ever complained about having too many complete lower halves.