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

Well, I’ve done about all the damage I can do at the gun show. Did a little wheeling and dealing with Johnny Trochmann. Wound up with a backpack full of the Israeli combat dressings in three different sizes. What were some of the interesting things at the show?

Well, I saw my very first Kel-Tec RFB in the wild. Also one of the somewhat rare Sabre Defense Steyr AUG carbines. Saw a few used complete uppers that I thought about picking up to finish off the bucket of lowers I have. Other than that, not much else jumped out at me. All things considered I was a pretty good boy and spent very little. Well, except for the 1911, but I’ve got a buyer lined up for that and I’ll make enough off of it to cover the stuff I did pick up at the show.

Very little ammo at this show, although AR’s, AKs and magazines were well represented. Saw no FALs, which was a bit unusual.

So, that was the biggest show in Montana (and the oldest…56 years theyve been doing that one) and now i can look forward to the smaller shows that will be coming up through the fall and winter. All in all, I had a pretty good time and I’m very pleased I didnt see anything i wanted bad enough to compel me to do something stupid.

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

I tried to go the gun show and not buy anything. I tried. I really did.

But, as I was walking down the aisle with a buddy I just casually glanced at the various guns we passed until I saw something that made me stop in my tracks.

Colt Series 70 1911 .45 ACP. Price? Well, low enough that red flags and alarm bells started going off in my head. Something has gotta be wrong with this gun for that price. Turns out the guy was selling it for a friend, whom he called over. The friend explained he had swung a deal, the Cot was part of the deal, and it was supposed to be marked up 20% more than it was…his buddy, supposedly, goofed the pricing. No problem, I said, I don’t want to see you get hurt. If you don’t want to sell it for the rpice marked on it, thats perfectly cool with me. (Secretly, I wanted a reason to NOT buy this thing…for the price there had to be something wrong. Something!) He said, no, if you want it at that price we can do that.

Ugh.

So, out came the cash and the Colt Series 70 1911 with no paperwork went into my bag. And we immediately went to the range to make sure I hadnt just bought a very expensive cigarette lighter or hand grenade. The 185 gr. wadcutters gave a few hiccups in feeding (usually do in a gun that hasn’t been worked over for them), but the 230 gr. truncated cones fed fine. Gun shot where pointed, nothing flew off, and I had all my fingers when we were done. I might have gotten an actual good deal. Gun has four glaring deviations from factory: aftermarket extended slide release, aftermarket extended mag release, aftermarket grips, barrel bushing has been replaced with a fingered ‘Commander style’ bushing. Other than that, it all seems original. Condition? Pretty good. Big drawback? I’m not a 1911 fanboy. However, I could easily(!!) trade this thing for a NIB G17 if I wanted to.

Man, I was trying NOT to spend money today…………

ETA: Serial range puts it around 1983 making it the last of the Series 70 guns.
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Next up was UPS dropping off a box that I was told had a birthday gift in it for me. I got the package and darned if it doesnt look like the kind of box a short rifle would come in. Open the outerbox and theres a sleek, black cardboard box with the Stag Arms logo and name on it. And the heft seems about right for an M4-type carbine. I’m thinking “Wow, did I really just get an M4 for my birthday?”

No, I did not.

What I got was one of these, which had the proper length and distribution of weight to make that Stag Arms box seem like it contained the real thing. I’m not disappointed, though. I’ve been wanting one of these for a while to keep in the truck with my emergency gear just in case something ugly happens that requires the prompt destruction or disassembly of something. There was also a copy of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ on DVD in the box as well. Some folks just can’t do something nice and leave it at that……….

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

Well, as much as I’d like to put it off, my 44th birthday is this weekend. (August 7th, actually.) Coincidentally, it is also the same weekend as the largest gun show in the state…which is, conveniently, just down the street. Most places here will give you a free drink on your birthday, I wonder if I can get vendors to cut me some slack if I show proof its my birthday?

The missus asked what I wanted for my birthday. After being told a threesome was not likely, my second choice is Amazon.com gift cards so I can whittle down my wish list of gear for the upcoming Recession/Depression/Revolution/Insurgency/Apocalypse.

If anyone is feeling generous or wants to wish me a happy birthday, the email is zero@commanderzero.com…or send a card to POB 1893 Missoula MT 59806.

was plodding around the blogosphere and got into a little thread about catalog shopping.

Where do we get most of our cool toys from? If you think about it, many of the things we need in our quest for preparedness have a certain military quality to them. Not necessarily because we’re militaristic or gun-centric, but simply because most military gear is built to be rugged, reliable, mass produced, durable and tough enough to withstand the abuses of a buncha tired and careless troops.

First off, eBay. Yes, it’s run by anti-gun, panty-wearing, Obama-loving, Volvo-driving, green-weenies outta California. And they’re in bed with equally liberal anti-gun PayPal. But, sometimes you gotta bite the bullet and deal with the devil. eBay has been my go-to source for things like TM & FM series of military manuals (the ones that arent available as .pdf’s, anyway), commo wire, field phones, Hardigg & Pelican cases, seismic intrusion systems, medical gear, camping gear, fastex stuff, surplus field gear, oddball surplus, etc, etc. There are several surplus vendors on there who have some amazing selections of goodies. The trick is to have excellent search engine skills. Searching for a TA-312 will bring them up, but not everyone knows what a TA-312 is..they might have listed their auction as ‘field phones’, ‘army phones’ or even ‘handcrank phone’….so be broad in your search terms and refine them in each subsequent search. When you find a vendor with cool stuff, bookmark that vendors auction list so you can check back and scroll through their offerings every so often..I find the coolest stuff that I didnt even know I was looking for that way.

Sportsmans Guide HQ catalog (the website has stuff from all of their catalogs, there is no specific site for the HQ stuff) – this is the surplus side of Sportsmans Guide. They get some great stuff through there from time to time. Many times it is of limited quantity so if you want to jump on it, you gotta jump fast. They have pretty good customer service and on the few times I’ve been unhappy with something, they’ve squared it up nicely. Be sure to note that ‘mil spec’, ‘mil style’ and ‘mil type’ are not the same as ‘mil surp’. When they say mil -spec, -style, or -type it means a made in China knock off of the genuine article. They only call the real things surplus. Be aware of that. SG also has a Shooters catalog which is, naturally, more gun oriented. Of the three catalogs, I find the HQ Surplus catalog to be the one I drool over most. Always read it, cover to cover, there are some great deals hidden in there.

Cheaper Than Dirt – I dont normally order from them too much since they seldom have anything I want, but as of late they are my #1 source for G3/HK91/PTR-91 stuff. I purchased over 500 magazines from them, a dozen stock sets, cleaning kits and slings. Things arent always in as good a condition as advertised, but thats made up for by the low prices. For example, out of 500 magazines, 6% were rejects. Thats 30 mags out of 500…since the mags were only ninety seven cents each, that bumped my final cost to $1.03 each. I can live with that. I always order at least 20%-50% more than I need, just in case theres a lemon in there.

Old Grouch – This is a new one I found on arfcom a while back. What was important about this one was that they have a fairly active Facebook page that lists new items and specials. This is important because sometimes they get something that is amazingly cool but also amazingly limited in terms of quantity. The Hardigg 12-rifle case I got a few months back for $75 was an example of that. They sold out of those in about a day, I think. Theyve got some nice stuff, customer service is good, and theyre online presence is entertaining.

Coleman’s Surplus – These guys I found through eBay. They have a presence there as well as a website. Another place with a better-than-average selection of military surplus stuff.

Then there’s the specialty stuff. If there’s an accessory or part I need for the HKlones, RTG is my first choice (once Im sure CTD doesn’t have it cheaper). For our Glocks, the guys over at Lone Wolf are usually our first stop. It’s expensive stuff, but its really good quality stuff..when I’m needing a bombproof pack or bag I usually head for Kifaru.

Everything else is usually sourced out locally or purchased as the opportunity arises. For example, I get my hard-to-find steel wire shelving accessories from Global but I get the actual shelving itself from local sources, garage sales, and office supply surplus stores.

Who do I not do business with any more? Major Surplus used to have great stuff but it seems 90% of their stuff is made in China/Taiwan knockoffs with marginal utility. But they used to be a great source. Century Arms is okay for the infrequent piece of surplus gear (like fuel and water cans) but stay the heck away from any gun they put together.

Sometimes the vendor is less important than the product. For example, I like Hardigg/Pelican cases so, really, the only question there is finding a vendor who is efficient and cheap.

Do this sort of thing long enough and you start learning which vendors and sources are good and which ones arent. Which is good, because gearing up for TEOTWAWKI can get pretty gear-intensive sometimes.

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

Went to CostCo today. Either America has developed a taste for Mexican food in previously unknown quantities or the natives are restless and stocking up…that is, if the amount of toilet paper being purchased was anything to go buy. A pack o’ CostCo TP is 36 rolls…thats gonna last quite a while (unless, of course, there are Gyno-Americans in your household). Everyone who was buying the stuff was buying it two cases at a time…and, no, it wasnt on sale. It’s funny, you’d think that in a crisis people would be eating less and therefore the toilet paper requirements would correspondingly be less. Unless, of course, the TP is to be used as new currency…in which case the current currency will become TP.

But seriously…walking through CostCo just puts me in mind that theres no reasonably intelligent reason that I can fathom to NOT stock up on anything and everything that you’ll use regularly and keeps well. Like what? Oh, just off the top of my head…soap, shampoo, toilet paper, paper towels, dish soap, laundry detergent, toothpaste, dental floss, toothbrushes, socks, underwear, shoes, clothes, motor oil, cookware, bedding, eyeglasses, sponges, brooms, light bulbs, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, ziploc baggies, etc, etc, etc. Pretty much anything you would normally use and/or replace within a year or so. Why? ‘Cause it ain’t gonna get cheaper, assuming its even available.

Everyone in Washington is patting themselves on the back and congratulating themselves for dodging a bullet (except for Rep. Giffords, of course) and, really, if you look at what was actually done all thats happened is the can has been kicked down the road. From what I read the only real way to deal with this debt issue, assuming that they want to deal with it at all, is to inflate their way out of it. And while a rising tide lifts all boats, an inflated currency won’t screw over just the people that are holding the debts based in that currency. As the dollar is inflated to pay off the debts, it will also do some ugly things to whatever dollar denominated savings you have. Or, at least, thats how I see it with my minimal background in economics.

I’m reminded of a story/joke I read somewhere. A guy goes into suspended animation. He’s re-animated 500 years later. As he’s being debriefed, he asks how his investments had done. He had planned carefully and threw all his money into long term investments. The guy debriefing him tells him that over the course of 500 years there were, of course, fluctuations in the market..some years his investments lost money and some years they did amazingly well. As it stands, his investments have matured to the point where he has $900 million in the bank. The guy is flustered. He never thought he’d do that well. He says he wants to celebrate and could the man debriefing him recommend a place for a celebratory meal? He says ’sure’…theres a great steakhouse around the corner and you can get a New York strip and baked potato for only $300 million, $500 million with a nice wine.

That sums up how it works as best as I can describe it.

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

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

Went fishing yesterday. nice thing about living here is that you can hop on your mountain bike, pedal across town and be waist deep in primo fishing waters in about twenty minutes. Usually when I’m doing that sort of thing I take one of the Glocks and tuck it into a UM84 holster and attach it to my belt with a pistol lanyard. This way, if I slip on the slick river rocks and take a swim, I dont lose my gun. Which, actually, is exactly what happened. As I was trying to wade back to the shore, the current (which was rather strong) pushed me off balance and I was up to my neck in the river. Not a big deal, I can swim and the water wasnt deep. But…everything from the neck down was soaked. Thats the nice thing about the Glock…it gets completely submerged under water and all you have to do is shake the water out of it, tuck it back in the wet holster, and it’ll be fine. I’d say ‘Try that with your 1911 some time’ but most folks would blanch at the thought of dunking their 1911 under wtaer and then leaving it in a wet holster for a few hours.

No worries, mate…it’s a Glock.

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

The other side of the sign says:

ARE YOU PREPARED
WTSHTF

I’ve been in there and its a pretty good little surplus place run by a True Believer. How true a believer? Well, he’ll take payment in pre-65 coinage as well as any interesting trades that will give him a leg up on the apocalypse. Nice guy with some cool stuff.

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

The topic of .22 conversion kits still seems to be bouncing around, so lets explore that some more.

Pretty much any military arm, at some point, had a .22 caliber training version. Sometimes a dedicated gun, sometimes a conversion kit, but the reasons were always the same – economy and ease of training.

Nowadays, with .308 being around $0.45 per round, .223 not far behind it, and even 9mm being around $0.25, the notion of being able to practice at $0.05 per round seems pretty attractive. This isnt going to be an all-encompassing list, and it will surely have some personal bias in it, so, as always, your mileage may vary.

Seems like everyone has an AR of some type these days so lets start there. The earliest AR conversions that Ive found were the military (Air Force, I think) conversion kits (M231). I’ve no experience with them, and I’ve only seen a few out in the wild. Colt made a very nice conversion kit back in the 80’s and 90’s but it was hampered by a 10-round magazine. Much, much later, aftermarket mags would become available that held more rounds. Ciener conversions seem to be the style that is most popular. Everyone seems to have copied Ciener’s design but, unlike Ciener’s actual product, everyone else’s seems to work just fine. Ciener has something of a reputation, deserved or undeserved I cannot say, for a bad product and worse customer service. Maybe he’s a standup guy with bad people skills..beats me. However, I have had 2 of his kits that I purchased used that never worked right, and the local PD has a kit they use that is also hit-n-miss. I’ve had some people tell me their Ciener kits work great, and I’ve had others tell me otherwise. I’ll err on the side of caution and give Ciener a pass. What you do is entirely up to you. What .22 kit do I recommend for the AR? If you can find a Colt one and a couple higher-cap mags, that’d be a great choice. Otherwise, I have a CMMG conversion that I like a lot. I shoot mostly Federal bulk out of it and it works great. Im sure there are some other kits out there (Spike’s, etc) that are just as good, but I can only tell you what I’ve shot and my experience with it.

Note that the bullet diameter of a .22 LR and a .223 isnt identical. The .22 LR is going to rattle down your bore a bit. This means your accuracy is going to be pretty sketchy. I use .22 kits for gun handling practice, so accuracy is very relative. When I’m practicing with the AR mu aim is to bring the gun up, get a sight picture, flip the safety off, and get a round off where the sights are pointed in as brief a time as possible. Or I’ll be practicing transitioning to weak-side and doing the same. Or shooting from different positions. My target is usually a steel plate about the size of a cafeteria tray at 50 yards so pinpoint accuracy isnt really needed. If you want the most accurate .22 kit possible for your AR you’ll need to get a dedicated .22 upper. Its a nice way to go, but for my needs a conversion kit is just fine.

For .308, we have the PTR-91 series of HK clones. HK made a .22 conversion kit for the semiauto HK91 and the full auto G3. The G3 conversion kits are easier to find and can be found at places like Cheaper Than Dirt. The bad news is theyre about $500. The good news is they are genuine HK, work great, and are worth the money in the long run. Spare mags for the conversion kits were a bit tough to locate but aftermarket plastic ones are now available. The HK kit uses a replacement bolt, mags and a barrel liner. There are some minor functional differences when you use the G3 kit in a semi-auto, but they are easily mitigated. With the high cost of .308 these days, shooting .22 makes the $500 kit pay for itself pretty quickly. And the quality? Oy vey! It comes in a lovely fitted wooden case…HK may suck, and they may hate you, but they do make some really cool stuff from time to time.

For the Glocks, we just got the Tactical Solutions .22 conversion. You can read about it a few posts back. So far, we’re pretty pleased with it. There are a couple other conversions for the Glock out there these days and after researching them, the missus proclaimed that this was the one we were going to get. Looks like she picked a winner. We had a heck of a wait to get one from a dealer since demand is so darn high, but after about five months one finally came through. Again, not cheap, but worth it for affordable practice and keeping perishable skills up to date.

We dont have conversions for the 1911’s because, frankly, they’re a tertiary level of handgun for us. We shoot, and will carry, the 9mm probably more than we will the 1911 .45’s so we dont really need a .22 kit for them. However, if youre a 1911 dinosaur fan there are kits out there as well. Probably, and im just guessing here, the best would be the Colt kits that were made decades ago. The nice thing about them is that they used the ‘floating chamber’ system to approximate .45 recoil. And it worked…sorta. Ruger makes their 22/45 which, while having no resemblance to a 1911 in any way does mimic the grip angle and control location/functions so that may be a viable way to practice.

Other conversions? Well, if you choose to walk in harms way with the AK or the Mini-14 there are conversion kits available for you too…bad news is that theyre made by Ciener. However, if you shoot the AK or Sig, there are .22 caliber version of those rifles to be had. Uzi made a .22 kit for their carbines. CZ has a conversion kit for their excellent CZ-75 series of pistols.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no readily available conversion kits or .22 trainers for the FAL, M1A, Garand (although why you’d show up to the apocalypse with one is beyond me), HK 93, HK 94, Valmet, or AR-180. Interestingly, there are conversions for the 98 Mauser that turn up from time to time as well as full size .22LR Mauser rifles. There were, naturally, .22 conversion for the SMLE, Mosin, Springfield, etc, but they are rare enough to be collectors items…

Since Ruger is trying to be responsive to customer needs these days, you’d think someone in their R&D department would come up with a .22 conversion kit for their Mini-14. Or perhaps a conversion for their P-series of doorstops pistols. (I kid, I kid…I actually have a grudging respect for those P-series…about as robust and durable as a granite boulder.)

When you cant get a conversion, you can get a .22 trainer version of your gun. There are .22 AR’s, AK’s, Sig’s, 1911’s, etc, etc. Keep in mind that almost universally they will not be the same size and weight as ‘the real thing’. This means your handling experience may not be as authentic compared to if you were using a kit.

There you have it. Less-than-everything you wanted to know about conversions. In a nutshell:
CMMG or Colt for your AR
Avoid Ciener
Tactical Solution for your Glock
HK for your HK/PTR-91

One last thing, always check..some kits prefer certain types of ammo. If it prefers filet mignon ammo you may be better off with the kit that prefers ground round ammo. Happy shooting.