Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

More fun and excitement. Would I be interested in a few of these, he asks?

How much? $150. Lvl III-A. Bad news is that it isnt a spring chicken. These are from the Clinton era (first term). As we all know, armour does degrade after a while. Not worth $150 to me, but might be worth $100. The panels are not removable from the carrier unless I feel like splitting the seams. I knew these were old when I saw the lack of MOLLE webbing.

Might buy one just for fun and take it to the range and see what happens.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Anyone want to contribute their two cents to a project I want to do?

I want to rewire an ordinary table lamp, much like the kind you would find sitting on an end table, to run on 12v and use LEDs. I was thinking the easiest way would be to head to an automotive store and buy an LED trouble light and use that for the guts of the thing and replace the bulb with an LED bulb meant for regular threaded sockets.

Opinions? Ideas?

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I’m not sure what to make of this:

LA Porn Studio Begins Construction On ‘Post-Apocalyptic’ Underground Bunker

It’ll be interesting to imagine what exactly they’ll stock the bunker with and, even more interesting, whom. (Or is who?)
Hmmm..the world ends and I’m locked in a bunker with porn stars. Where do I sign up?

As a sidenote, the folks at Kink.com in San Francisco probably have one of the cooler bunkers all to themselves. They bought the San Francisco Armory years ago and from all appearances it is an amazing facility. Many large cities had armories like this way back in the day and many still stand, in various states of disrepair.

(And before anyone chimes in about me linking, even peripherally, to a site that has something to do with porn. Well….too bad. Folks have sex and some folks have really weird sex. That’s just how some folks roll.)

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Had one of those impromptu meetings with a potential like-minded individual the other day. I was at the bank and as I was exiting the building I saw that the armored car making deliveries had parked next to the truck. I start to get into the truck and I hear a voice..”Sir? Excuse me, sir?” And its the underpaid security guard, who, incidentally, was carrying a Hi-Point in his holster, trying to get my attention. (I didn’t see what his partner had but I was willing to bet once they were outside of their tin can I’d have had them outgunned to several orders of magnitude.) He wanted to ask me about the 120mm ammo tube that was sitting in the bed of the truck. I told him I’d picked it up in my travels and he said it looked like an excellent choice for ‘burying stuff’. Hmmm. What kinda stuff, I asked. ‘Seeds, guns, that sort of thing.’ ‘I like the way you think’, I said as I pulled the tube from he back of the truck to show him. He also expressed interest in the gas and water cans locked up behind the cab of the truck. We chatted for a couple minutes about the merits of various fuel, water and ammo cans and about where to purchase them locally. I told him to swing by the shop and I might have some more water cans to sell him.

And thats pretty much how you meet other like-minded individuals….it just happens organically and on it’s own. Serendipity, man.

Speaking of random encounters, someone actually bitched at me in the comments a post or two back because I didn’t post some sort of grief-porn about 9-11. Uhm…did you need a reminder or something? I make posts regarding remembrances like Patriots Day (the real one), Pearl Harbor day, and one or two others but thats mostly because they are overlooked these days. Somehow I dont think the 9-11 episode got overlooked this year. So there.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

A few months back, there was a post over at ,Rawles’ SurvivalBlog about a unique shotgun ammo pouch from an outfit called Omega Zombie. It looked interesting and I thought I should order one to check it out. However, I figured after getting a mention by ,Rawles they would probably be sold out for a little while. No big deal, I can wait. So it arrived the other day and I have mixed feelings.

The design is clever and I like it. Quality is okay, nothing to write home about, but worth twenty bucks. My only real complaint is the ‘Made In China’ label. I understand that there is bloody little web gear you can buy for a couple sawbucks that won’t be made overseas but I was kinda hoping…. The Chinese have virtually no regard for copyright, patent and trademark so I think it would be nice to see a US manufacturer copy the design and market it. Of course, it’ll cost a bit more but if the quality is there I think they’ll do okay in the $35~ range.

Anyway, setting aside the Made In China issue, it seems lie a good way to carry a pile of shotgun shells around without looking like Pancho Villa with bandoleers strapped across your chest. It’s an improvement over the Maxpedition shotgun ammo pouch which is nice, but doesnt leave any room for your fingers to get between shells to get a grip on them. (The Maxpedition stuff is made in Taiwan…a slightly better choice than China, but marginally so.)

Is the pouch from Omega Zombie worth twenty bucks? Seems to be. It’s an interesting design..while I might not carry it around on my belt, it would be a handy accessory for a grab-n-go bag of shotgun supplies.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Nothing puts the steam back in your sails and gets your focus back on track like a good old-fashioned zombie dream. Had one last night and today I’m back to getting food and other gear squared away.

Went and picked up another rack of wire shelving the other day at CostCo. What can I say, I need the storage. Although we have a good amount of stuff on hand there is always that little nagging voice in the back of the head that says “Maybe just a little more…” and that little bit more has gotta go somewhere. I don’t mind giving up a bit more space for preps because..y’know…priorities.

The missus will be outta town for a week or two, starting this weekend, so Im going to try and use it as an opportunity to go through a bunch of gear and do some sorting. Why does it require her to be away? Probably because it means a lot of gear and supplies will be laid out in the living room and stacked on every available flat surface for inspection. And that might will take a few days. I am especially motivated to reconcile my spreadsheet of stored food with what is actually in inventory. I try to keep it as tight as possible but sometimes if you can find he clipboard with the list on it you just grab something off the shelf and figure “eh, I’ll make a note of it later”. Yeah, thats gotta stop.

I remember reading something years ago in a magazine about how the biggest threat to your supplies is from looters but the likelihood is that the looters will be yourself or your immediate family that you share space with…grabbing something out of storage because it’s convenient and not replacing it, that sort of thing. I try very hard not to do that but sometimes………….

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

When i was a kid, and I’m talking about, oh, eight or ten years old, I remember having a GI anglehead flashlight to play with. (Hey, when youre a kid a flashlight is a damn cool toy.) I remember thinking how lame it was and why would anyone make a flashlight that was bent at an angle like that? It never occurred to me that the reason the flashlight was bent 90 degrees was so you could hang it on your gear and it would shine a beam directly in front of you. No, that sort of tactical thinking didnt come until much later.

Years ago I was looking for an LED light that could be clipped to a shoulder strap on a backpack or vest to provide forward-pointing illumination. Ideally, I wanted something that would offer the usual bright white light but also some red lights and maybe a few other features. At the time (and we’re talking about, oh, eight or ten years ago) the only thing I could find that came close was the Inova 24/7. On it’s face it seemed to have a lot going for it…it had eight different light functions, ran on the CR123 batt, had a clip to attach it to gear, and came in a nice olive drab color. So, I dropped the coin and bought one. I’ve never been happy with it. Selecting what mode you want the light to be in is accomplished by turning the bezel of the light to one of eight positions. Problem was, the bezel was a bit loose and if i tucked the light in my bag it was entirely possible for the bezel to get moved, thus turning on the light while it was in my bag and using up the battery. Not good. Additionally the spring clip on the back never was tight enough to keep the light from sliding off the straps. Also…not waterproof. In short, I was not pleased but it was the only option at the time that seemed to meet my needs.

Time goes by and eventually my attention is drawn to the Streamlight Sidewinder series of lights. Specifically the Compact version. Four different LEDs (white, red, blue, IR) with a strobe option and four levels of brightness for each color. Thats about 20 different functions. Also, waterproof. Best part is the on/off and mode selector switch are extremely resistant to accidental manipulation. I wound up ordering one last week and it showed up today. I am mightily impressed. This thing looks like it will accomplish everything I originally wanted that the 24/7 was uanble to. I’m also thinking about getting the larger non-compact version that runs on AA batts.

Purpose? Well, it certainly would work for the situations where I need my hands free but still need to see what I’m doing. A headlamp would probably do the trick but finding a headlamp that has regular white LEDs and red ones and takes AA batts is a tough find. Oh, theres a few out there but theyre a lot bulkier than these two Streamlight products. Anyway, I’ll be playing with this one for a while and we’ll see how it works out.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Fuel rotation today. It’s like an annual holiday where you smell like gasoline and have $50 less in your pocket.

I keep a dozen NATO-style fuel cans filled with stabilized gas. Just in case. In a worst case scenario, I multiply (gallons*mpg)/2 to come up with the minimum range we can get out of here and go somewhere else if we have to. Why the conservative 50% cut in mileage? Because everyone else is going to be thinking the same thing and there’s going to be detours, idle time, and other problems that turn what would otherwise be a straight line from Point A to Point B to something resembling the Jews wandering the desert for 40 years.

So…truck has about a third of a tank so I pull two cans of the oldest gas and dump ‘em in the truck. I have the spout attachment for the cans but i’ve never been satisfied with them. I went to WallyWorld, found some automotive funnels for $2 each and paracorded one to each gas can. Just works better for me. After the cans are empty I dose ‘em with some PRI-G and fill ‘em up at the local station. The gas I put in the truck today was a lovely vintage from June 2010. heady, with just a hint of refinery, it went down smooth and had a vapory finish. I haven’t had any problems using treated gas that was a year or two old but to play it safe I usually ‘cut it’ 50/50 with new gas….meaning I put old gas in the tank and then top off with fresh.

You look at any disaster and while we like to think guns and ammo are the new currency the evidence shows that the thing people will really want in a big way is fuel. You cant get outta Dodge if you don’t have gas in your Dodge, y’know? Fuel represents a chance to get the frak outta wherever you are. After that, it’s also what runs your generators to keep your little island of civilization afloat. And if you are running something that is critical like a pump to keep your house dry, there is virtually no price you aren’t willing to pay. So…it’s a good idea to have some fuel set back.

Fifty bucks lighter in my pocket today but I feel better knowing we’ve got more fuel rotated and there if we need it.

A few previous posts on the subject:
Gas Rotation
Rotating Fuel
Daily McGyver-ism – Fuel ID tag

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

The next ‘major holiday’, from a marketing standpoint, is Halloween. Expect that in the next few weeks there’ll be the usual endcaps and displays at the big box stores. This is a good time to pick up Cyalume-type lightsitcks. If you’re lucky, the day after Halloween might be an even better choice when they’re marked down. They do have a shelflife, so its usually a good idea to replace/rotate your stock of them every so often. I have some that are over five years old that seem to work reliably but I try to keep them rotated anyway…just in case.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

New magazine follower arrived. Swapped it. Problem remained..and then didnt.

Here’s what I think has happened:

As you may know, on Remington shotguns you add capacity by unscrewing the cap off the end of the magazine and then screwing an extension onto the magazine. Simple stuff. If you examine a magazine extension closely (mine is an OEM Rem product) you’ll see that the extension is a section of magtube with a coupler threaded onto it…once you thread the magazine tube onto the magazine, you should have a fairly seamless extension. Ah, but things are never that easy. I have one of these on my shotgun. It slips over the mag tube and is held in place between the mag tube and the extension…sandwiched between the two, essentially. Look at the image of the sling attachment..notice that theres a small stainless detent? There is a small dimple on the barrel ring of the 870 where this part would line up. Heres the interesting thing – I had the sling attachment backwards so the sling would lay on the other side of the shotgun. This meant that there was no corresponding dimple for the detent on the sling adapter. I switched the sling adapter over to the other side and, interestingly, the problem seemed to go away. Hypothesis: without the corresponding dimple for the detent to rest in, it canted the magazine extension slightly but enough to cause the follower to bind when I tightened down the magazine extension. I need to experiment more, but I think thats exactly what happened.
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In other news, the SOB buttpacks I ordered up arrived. (Free shipping, by the way!) Excellent product. One of the LMI asked me to sell him one so I’ll do that. The others will wind up being tasked with one of the myriad duties a handy, well-built, tough carrybag can be tasked with.