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

Man, bad enough thta scraping together the cash for Christmas gifts will be a challenge, one of these became available. Fella I know may sell it to me…he let me take it to the range to shoot and I was very pleased. I already have a CZ 550 in .308 so I know that CZ makes an excellent product. A buddy of mine has their youth model….a no-frills scaled down .22 meant for kids. For giggles we put a good piece of glass on it and, surprisingly, shot dime-sized groups all day. Hmmmm…if thats what the low-end kid gun does……..

So I took it to the range, tinkered with the sights and have decided that I must have this gun. I have several Ruger 10/22 guns and theyre good carbines for what they are, but I’ve wanted a quality, stylish .22 bolt gun for quite a while. I was originally thinking of something fairly high-end like an Anschutz but I think the CZ is going to be my choice. It’s purpose? Well, it would just be a nice rifle to have and with equal sights or equal glass I think it’ll be more accurate than the Ruger. It might make a nice Kwanzaa/Hanukah/Ramadan/Christmas/Solstice gift to myself.

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

Wow, this is a treasure trove of classic gun literature. Book are available online and as .pdf files for download. Some classic stuff in there…Mann’s book alone is a masterpiece worthy of the tremendous effort it must have taken to scan all those pages.

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

What would YOU pay for a pair of Steiner 7×50 M22 binoculars with reticle and LPF?

I only ask because..well…there was a pair at the gun show.

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

On top of the several inches of snow that accumulated last week, we now have…wait for it…rain. The potential for a weather-induced problem should be readily apparent. As this stuff freezes tonight the roads will turn into ice rinks. All it takes is frozen rain on the power lines to pull them down, or a car going outta control and slamming into a pole to knock out power to the area.

But, of course, I dont really care.

Why? because, mi amigos, we’re prepared for that sorta thing. Emergency lighting, emergency heating, emergency communications….we’re good to go. And, like some sort of talisman, because we’re ready for that sorta contingency that means it just won’t happen.

We actually had a tremendous ice storm here about, oh, ten or so years ago. It was amazingly dramatic. Ever hear when people say that the sounds of tree limbs snapping was like gunshots? Yeah, it was like that. The amount of deadfall was incredible. The local treeline is still full of gaps where there used to be nice old trees lining the streets. I went out for a walk that night to watch it happen and as I recall you could not walk more than ten or twenty feet before something would come falling outta the sky in front of or behind you. A rare event, but it does happen.

Id like to mention that for those times when the ground is slicker than a Clinton alibi and about as icy as Hillary’s soul I find that the Yak Trax are excellent performers. When not in use, they can be stuffed into a small package or clipped to a carabiner and attached to a pack. Excellent product that takes up little space in your gear. The missus got a pair a few years ago and after examining them I picked up a pair for myself. In typical fashion, I bought them only after I had taken some gymnastically spectacular falls on the ice one winter.

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

Im of a mixed mind on this WikiLeaks brouhaha. On the one hand, yeah it can be damaging. But, on the other hand, I think it shows (and confirms) that things really arent what we’ve come to believe they are. We really don’t have any allies, there really are nations that are doing things we see as a threat, and the people running the show arent the saintly personages they would have us think they are. This is news to some folks, but it isnt to many. Why would any nation subordinate its own interests to another? Why would we think for a minute that countries like Pakistan, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc, have anything but their own interests at the forefront of the decision making process? I suppose that, more than anything else, this dissemination of information underscores just who is and isnt our friends these days. And, unsurprisingly, it appears we have very few friends. I’d almost go so far as to say that we have only two categories to choose from – enemies and indifferent disinterested parties.
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One of the small joys in life. Recall this post. That deal has come to pass again. This means I can, in one fell swoop (whatever the hell a fell swoop is) rotate my entire stock of spaghetti sauce out. I’ll pick up a couple cases, put them in the bunker, and take whats in the bunker and move it to the high cabinets in the kitchen for normal usage. w00t for sales.
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I had, out of that box of goodies from SG, 31 pairs of gloves. 20 German mitts, 10 wool liners, and 1 pair of nice gloves. The German mitts were around $1 ea. The liners around $2 each. The nice gloves were $18. Of those 31 articles of clothing which one do you think the dog decided to turn into a chew toy? Yup. I am…annoyed. But..I have no one to blame but me. I suppose I shoulda put them somewhere outta his reach.
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This dog is steadily reinforcing my conviction that having kids is a baaaaaaad idea.

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

I took my own advice from the earlier post and decided to order a few things from the SG HQ catalog. Here’s what we got, and here’s my impression of them. (No, not ‘impression’ like Rich Little.)

LXM-190570X – German Military Insulated Gloves – These are rather nice. They are very much l ike the commercial ski gloves one would buy. Synthetic fleece lining inside, comfortable, protected palm and knuckles, wrist cinch, cuff cinch…I like them but they’re really too expensive to buy the several pairs I’d like to. On the other hand, if you want just one or two pairs, these are quite nice and they go along nicely with the flectar field jakets and liners.

LXM-182900X – German Trigger Finger Mitts – Absolutely brand new, 10 pairs to a bundle. Theyre definitely going to be at their best with a liner of some sort but for the money these are a great bargain. Cheap enough to stash a couple pairs in the truck, at the shop, etc, etc. They are, essentially, disposable. However, theyre of good quality and I tried pairing them with the next item….

LXM-182323 – Theyre wool, theyre in good shape, theyre cheap, and you really cant have too many of these. They had some wear in terms of the lettering being faded on them but condition-wise theyre great. Tried the size L in the German trigger mitts and it was a tiny bit snug but they seemed to work well together…so theres a synergistic pairing for ya. By themselves theyre nice for driving, walking the dog or what have you…couple them with a good outer mitt and youve got some nice warmth going on.

One other thing I picked up were these. About 5′ of webbing with a fastex-style buckle on the end. Just the ticket for rolling up sleeping bags, blankets, etc. At a buck each, another excellent value.

Im not trying to sound like a shill here…there have been times in the past that SG dropped the ball and I wasnt thrilled with the quality of what I got, but, to be fair, they have always tried their best to correct anything that seemed wrong.

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

Stop shopping.

Here’s the prefect Christmas gift for us liberty-minded individuals.

Underclothes That Display The 4th Amendment When X-Rayed by TSA

Of course I have no shame. My self-respect takes a back seat to getting geared for the upcoming apocalypse.

If those pansies at Amazon had Glocks on their list of available items my Wish List would look a lot different.

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

I used to be indifferent about the ‘thankful’ part of Thanksgiving. I figured that if I was not homeless, had food, and wasn’t looking down the barrel of an eviction it was all my own doing rather than happenstance, fate or the whim of some invisible man who lives in the sky. As a result, Thanksgiving was, at its core, about eating lotsa food and having a day off. And theres nothing wrong with that.

Fast forward a few years. Preparedness has gone from being theory to practice as the economy goes south, people lose jobs, prices go up, etc, etc. I dont actually feel thankful on Thanksgiving any more than I do the rest of the year. I often stop and muse to myself that “we have it pretty good”, despite the things going on right now. I am mostly thankful that the missus and I are able to live safe, warm, comfortably, well-fed and secure.

Some small segment views Thanksgiving as a day to blather on about how its just a holiday perpetuating the celebration of genocide over Indians Native Americans. QQ some moar. Every civilization is built on the bones of someone else. Technologically advanced Europeans curb-stomped Bronze Age natives. And, prior to that, those same ‘natives’ eradicated who ever was here before them and set up shop. Thats how it works in this universe. Its too bad it happened, it happened a long time ago, move on and thanks for Manhattan.

Our Thanksgiving was spent at the house of the parents of some friends of ours. Every year they put on a small but highly delicious spread. I’m pretty pedestrian in my tastes. I just want turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, apple pie and ice cream. They were very accommodating about that and I ate a couple plates worth of food.

No after-TDay big turkey sale to take advantage of but I did find a good deal on some other groceries, but thats a later post. Hunting season ended Sunday and I only got out a few times so no deer for me this year. Im cool with that, I had a great time nonetheless. As I was standing around in the snow I came to appreciate the glory that is military bunny boots. A post on that later, also.

Next major holiday approaching: Christmas. Since even I cant keep track of the goodies I want, I’ve redone my Amazon wish list so the family and friends can avoid that awkward moment of not knowing whether I want the compact or the fullsize.

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

Fella came by the shop the other day and expressed an interest in purchasing some freeze-drieds. He’s a rather hardcore hunting kinda guy so I expected he wanted a few of the pouches for his hunting trips. Nope, he was interested in a ‘years supply’ of the stuff. Now, I’d love to make a sale like that but FDs, although really handy and rather tasty, aren’t cheap. I’m pretty sure the guy in question doesnt have the budget for what would amount to around $5-7k in FD food. (Although maybe he does, who knows.) I gently tried to steer him towards the idea that the FDs would make a nice addition to a larder of more common, less expensive foods like rice, pasta, canned and jarred foods, etc. Not sure if he was warm to that idea. I think that he wanted something more ‘turn key’…write a check, check delivery, and mark ‘one years supply of food’ off his checklist.

I didnt ask him why he wanted a years supply of food. I would imagine it takes a little bit of gumption just to broach that idea with a relative stranger. I certainly didnt want to put him in an awkward situation or start a discussion about what his particular flavor of EOTWAWKI is. I gave him a price list, told him to look it over, and suggested a few websites and that sort of thing. I also mentioned that the LDS cannery here in town could go a long way towards filling in the pantry and keeping things on budget.

I told him to come by in a few days and I’d have some books on the subject I could loan him if he was interested. It wasnt until after he left that I realized that of all the food storage stuff I’ve seen out there, Ive seen very little that explains exactly why you would or would not want to go a particular way in establishing a stockpile of food. I’ve no doubt that there are people who figure “Ill just get a years worth of MREs and I’ll be good”. As folks in Afghanistan could tell you, MREs arent exactly something youd wanna base your diet on for a year. (Especially considering the…effects…a steady diet of MREs are reputed to wreak on one’s digestive system. Take a copy of ‘War & Peace’ with you when you head to the bathroom.)

Personally, I go with the four major food groups: freezedried, MRE, dehydrated and off-the-shelf stuff. Each one fills a particular niche and the combinatin of them gives me the flexibility to cover most situations I can anticipate. Considering that its fairly difficult to buy any canned/jarred/boxed food product in a supermarket that won’t last longer than a year in storage, just carefully modifying your current grocery shopping habit would be enough to provide you with a years worth of stuff. Canned vegetables, canned meats, packaged pasta, rice, canned/jarred soups & sauces, etc, etc. all keep for at least a year and arent anything special..theyre just regular off-the-shelf stuff you find in Albertson’s. (Sometimes someone will chip in with “But all those foods have high fat and high salt content! Theyre unhealthy!” Hey, so is starving to death. Given a choice between malnutrition and slow starvation vs. eating a Hungry Man frozen dinner and a can of Spaghetti-O’s every day guess which one I choose.)

Of course, if you want the ‘buy it and forget it’ model of food storage, then youre pretty much locked into freeze drieds with their 25+ year shelf life, or MRE’s with their 5-10 year span. But considering the difference in expense, I’d go with alot of off-the-shelf stuff and just use it up within a year and replace it as I go.