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

Someone sent me a link to this. To be honest, I haven’t watched very much of it at all, but I get the general impression of what its about and perhaps some of you might find it interesting.

Dirty Bomb Diaries on YouTube

I should also like to point out that YouTube has a huge number of videos on topics relating to preparedness. Some may be incorrect, and some may carry some…unsavory…political or racial themes, but regardless theres quite a bit of info for the LMI out there.

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

Submitted with no comment:
Mo. survivalist convicted on 2 weapons charges

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

In more pleasant news, Marlin has introduced their .357 levergun in stainless steel. I’m gonna need one of those. While my blued Marlin will last me a lifetime with proper care, I would rather have something for those times when improper care will be the order of the day…snow, mud, water, dirt, blood, and all the other things that a lifetime of bumping around in the outdoors can bring will eventually turn even the best blue job into rust and freckling. Stainless steel isn’t exactly impervious to everything but it’s a better choice in terms of vulnerabilities than blued.
While Im on the subject of .357s, two things I’d very much like to see are a Ruger semiauto carbine in .357, just like their .44; and a ‘convertible’ DA-revolver in 38/357/9mm. Ruger has done convertibles in their single action guns (38-40/10mm, 32 H&R/.32-20, .45 Colt/ACP, 357/9mm, and .22 LR/Mag) and even made a few in their autos (9mm/30 Luger). But a convertible DA would be nice for guys like me that want to hedge their bets on where their ammo is coming from.
I suppose I could always have an extra cylinder made up and mated to a GP100 or something, but it would be nicer if it came from the factory.
I like the .357 guns because of their versatility. Obviously, the biggest attraction is that they’ll shoot the common .38 Special round as well as the .357. Someone might say that since the .44 Magnum will also shoot the .44 Special round, it is equally as versatile and since the .44 Magnum is more powerful it’s a better choice than the .357. Problem with that argument though is that youre supposing that .44 Special ammo is as frequently found as .38 Special, which Im pretty certain is not the case. (And don’t get me wrong, Im a huge fan of the .44 Special.)
In terms of ballistics the .357 has enough power to do what you usually ask a self-defense pistol to do, although on the big furry things with claws it will take a backseat to the .44 Mag. But, thus far, I haven’t run across much that the .357 wouldn’t kill just as dead as long as one was careful with their shooting.
There was a time when I was able to buy police trade-in Smith & Wessons for about $150 each and I picked up a bunch. I figured they’d make excellent pistols for tucking away in nightstands or leaving under the seat of the truck….reliable, relatively cheap, and ultimately disposable. Of course, they also make excellent trading stock and are great candidates for loaning to friends.
I remember reading somewhere about the notion that if you lived somewhere that had a ban on ‘assault weapons’ (or had to visit such a place) a combination like that would be a good one to have in case things took a turn for the apocalyptic. Its an interesting notion but I think its flawed – if the wheels fly off civilization to the point that you need a rifle and pistol I think things have degraded to a point where no one is going to care if the gun youre shooting zombies with is prohibited in that state.
Any discussion like this usually starts up the “Do pistol caliber carbines have any place in your plans” thread. The argument is that pistol caliber carbines (and this includes things like Uzis, Thompson guns, HK94s, Marlin Camp Carbines, etc, etc.) are, by virtue of their pistol calibers, not as powerful as a regular carbine (AK, AR, etc) and since youre carrying a carbine-sized gun why not have it be in a more powerful cartridge? Surely carrying two different kinds of ammo isn’t that much hardship, right? A handful of AK mags and a couple Glock mags are no big deal.
Im not sure how to respond to that. I’m reminded of the reason for the .30 Carbine and current crop of PDWs – for occasions where more firepower is needed than a regular pistol, but a full size carbine is not likely to be needed. As the story goes, the .30 Carbine was developed as a replacement for the handgun in use by troops that normally were not expected to be in combat. For example, document couriers, motorpool, tank mechanics, etc,…anyone who it wasn’t expected would have to do any fighting but just might get caught up in some anyway. No point in the toting around a 10# Garand that they’d almost never use, but if they did get caught they’d need something with more range and firepower than a 1911. So, the M1 Carbine came to be. Sure, it was an anemic cartridge but it wasn’t designed to replace the Garand, it was designed to replace the 1911.
Nowadays though, we have carbines that aren’t much heavier than the M1 Carbine but are considerably more powerful, so is there a need for the pistol caliber carbine? I’m not sure. They’re certainly handy guns…if a guns longevity were determined solely by ballistics the .30-30 would have disappeared about seventy years ago. But because the guns chambered in it were light, handy and well-suited of for the task they have endured and kept .30-3o around when it should have been relegated to the section of Cartridges Of The World pertaining to obsolete cartridges.
Pistol caliber carbines are, by and large, cheaper to shoot, cheaper to reload for, have less penetration (if that sort of thing is a concern), have less recoil, and in the case of semiautos can put out much more lead in a shorter time with more accuracy than a comparable handgun would. Other than that, there don’t seem to ba many advantages.
One advantage, though, is that a pistol caliber carbine is far easier to suppress than a more powerful carbine. And a suppressed carbine will be steadier to aim and probably a little more accurate at range than a suppressed handgun. I’ve often thought of having the end of my Marlin threaded for a suppressor and shooting 200 gr. .38 Specials out of it. Subsonic but still enough weight to make an impression.
So, I guess Im not sure if pistol-caliber carbines have a place. I still like my little Marlin, and I’d like very much to pick up an Uzi somewhere. But as to whether they offer any real advantage over an AK or AR carbine, Im not sure.

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

As I mentioned, one of our local sporting goods stores is shuttering up after several decades in the biz. Soooooo….I went and looked for bargains.

Platypus 1.0 liter bottle – Was $7, marked down to $3.50…bought all they had
Platypus Big Zip SL – Was $25, marked down to $12.50…bought four
Platypus Hoser 1.0L – Was $16, marked down to $8…got a half dozen

I have a few Camelbaks and use them often when out in the boonies, but they arent cheap. When I was up in Alaska a couple years ago one of the guides at the glacier had the 1.0L bottle and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. You couuld squeeze out the air so it wouldnt slosh and make noise, and when it was empty you could roll it up to fit in a pocket of your bag. I immediately purchased one, tried it out, read the reviews, and became convinced this seemed like a good product. So, when its on sale at 50% off wouldnt you buy a bunch too? Priced cheaply enough that they’d be excellent candidates for secondary-location caches and everyday usage.

I’ll probably pick up a few extras to hand out as gifts this year. At that price I could probably afford to do some destructive testing but I’m already pretty convinced theyre what Im looking for. For now, I’ll inspect them, repack them, and tuck them away in the bunker. I do believe I am utterly finished with anything having to do with personal hydration….I’ve got a couple dozen surplus Swiss water bottles with NBC adapters, CamelBaks, Nalgene bottles and now these. Yeah, I’m done.

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

Feb. 13, 2009 is the post where I listed some of the Glock parts I ordered for spares, if anyone is interested.

As I said, the two parts Ive personally seen are the recoil spring assembly and the trigger return spring. So, naturally, I have a half dozen of each,

I’d get spares of every spring, every part small enough to be lost, a couple extra sights, and maybe one barrel and extractor for every two or three guns. Those last two parts will be the most expensive.

In addition to the parts, buy the book. The Complete Glock Reference Guide is the best book I’ve seen. The amusing, but unecessary, torture tests at the back of the book are worth the price of admission.

For our needs, we shoot the 9mm Glocks and all three sizes (full, compact and mini) take, mostly, the same parts. Some parts do interchange between the carious calibers but when you do that youre looking at two different size frames (9/40 and 10/45) which will have many parts that wont swap between large-frame and small-frame.

I appreciate people asking my opinion on the spare parts but I cant really give a detailed list because no one is going to agree with it….its sort of a personal thing. But, as I said, I went with a an extra of every spring, recoil assemblies, extra sights, mag release, a couple slide releases and that sort of thing. Contact the guys at Lone Wolf and get their opinion, they probably have more experience on this topic than a lot of people.

So youre in the kitchen, minding your own business, and a couple of ‘yutes’ sneak into your yard and try to break into your shed. You yell at them and wave your kitchen knife at them. No big deal, right? Ah, but when the cops show up they admonish you and tell you that youve no right to do such things even in your own home. Amazing, innit? Fortunately there are at least some folks who think that, darn it, maybe being able to smack a burglar with a baseball bat isnt a bad thing after all.

At issue is the notion of ‘proportionate’ versus ‘disproportionate’ response to the threat.
:::sigh:::
Self-defense and protection of property isnt a sporting event where you want a level playing field for the sake of a fine, challenging contest. When someone kicks in the door at 3am I want all the disproportionate force available to me that the law allows, which in the case of this household stops just short of crew-served weapons.

Now, Im of the mind that someone running down the street with my computer doesnt deserve to get shot in the back. Thats just not worth a human life to me, no matter how much an utter waste of skin the bad guy in question might be. But, the minute I reasonably believe theres bodily harm headed in my direction, all bets are off. The distinction?
Come home and see guy jump out window and run down street with laptop = don’t shoot.
Enter home and bad guy jumps out, brandishes knife and says “Gimme the goods or else” = bullet party.

The notion, however, that even in your own home you can’t rough up a bad guy is just contrary to everything I believe in. I mean, its your home for crying out loud. If I find someone I don’t know in my house and I have no good reason to think theyre supposed to be there its absolutely time for difficult questions, commanding voice, and the words “…where I can see them!”.

( I recall the time I came home, found a fella standing in my living room who said he was the electrician and my girlfriend was nowhere in sight. I told him I hoped for all our sakes he could tell me the difference between an amp and a volt. And, yeah, he was legit.)
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The local PD is having a Glock armorers course and, oddly, it has been made available to the non-cops. No idea why. If I had to guess, Id say that there was a requirement for ‘x’ amount of paying students and the number of cops going was short that. But that’s just a guess. Regardless, I need to investigate this and see if it’s something I can go to. Quite honestly, if you get The Complete Glock Reference Guide I suspect you will be just about as qualified as if you took any course…the book is that good. However, the guys who do this for a living may have some tricks up their sleeves and I’m always up for learning new tricks. Additionally, it may provide a tangible credential tha can come in handy at a later date.

The Glocks, in my experience, are just about the easiest things in the world to maintain and repair. Really, you don’t even repair them..you just swap parts. I haven’t encountered anything that required fitting and most parts are $5 or less. No barrel links to polish, no lugs to mate, no bushings to hone, no parts to stake…just get your part and swap-n-drop. While the Glocks are stone cold reliable out of the box I have encountered (very, very rarely) broken parts. In those experiences, though, the parts breakage was such that the gun would still function. A very extensive spare parts kit for the Glock can be put together for less than $150.

I like to think I know my way around the guts of a Glock pretty well. (And truth be told, there aint that much guts to wade through…it has a lot less parts than most other pistols.) However, you don’t know how much you don’t know until you take a course. Be nice if they had an AR armorers course as well.
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A longtime local sporting goods store is calling it quits after around 45 years. Theyre having a big sale and everything has gotta go. This place was easily the most expensive place in town so knocking 20% off everything takes the prices to what everyone else normally charges. However, there are a few things that aren’t priced outrageously. I’m picking up some Lodge cast iron cookware (I am developing a new respect for cast iron, although I like the LeCreuset stuff better but, good grief, the prices) and some Platypus accessories to go with the Platypus water carriers I’ve come to like. Also, they carry all the spare parts for Coleman lanterns and stoves so I’ll pick up some extra mantles, generators, etc, etc.

There’s a lesson in here somewhere and I think it is that although the economy is cutting down businesses with a broad swath, there is opportunity in there as well. Im sure I don’t need to tell you that the circle of life involves a lot of death and as long as that death isn’t your own…..

In short, now is a good time to get thingsyouve been wanting at bargain prices if you can find a seller who is closing up. On first blush, it smacks of opportunism or even grave-robbing but it isn’t. Fortunately for me, I didn’t particularly like the business in question or its owner so even if I normally would have felt weird taking advantage of this sale, I’m not.
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I don’t know if I mentioned it, but the missus was kind enough to download season 1 of ‘Jericho’ for me and I have it on the computer at the shop. (Season one just barely fits onto a USB drive.) So, when its quiet and I feel like a little entertainment I wind up watching a few favorite episodes. Kind of a shame they cancelled the show, I think it had promise after the first season. The rushed second season was obviously written the way it was to wrap up everything in a short time span…if they knew they were going to have a full second (and even third) season I think they would have done things quite differently. A lot of folks whined about it being unrealistic but why is that a surprise? It’s a tv show…it has to appeal to an audience or no one is going to watch it and sponsors won’t pony up towards it. So, yeah, youre not gonna see cholera, dysentery, gang rapes, rickets, starving children, people eating dogs, radiation induced diarrhea, gangrenous stumps, rats chewing on corpses, and the other scenarios that one might expect after a solid nuking.

But, still, I enjoyed watching the show and am sorry it got such short shrift.

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

This week shall be the big purchase of chicken from CostCo. I was going through the deepfreeze and although theres still plenty of meat in there, it’s a little light on chicken and, well, me likes my chicken. So, I’ll head up to CostCo and get a case. For my needs, chicken is pretty much the most versatile meat..I make rice and chicken, broiled chicken, fried chicken, chicken parmesan, chicken soup, chicken with ginger, etc, etc. Plus, and this makes no sense, I think Im going to feel much more at ease when I see the freezer stocked up. Go figure.
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Speaking of chicken, I need to cook up a huge pot of the wife’s favorite soup. I could freeze the soup and store it that way but I like the satisfaction (and practice) of using the pressure canner. Its nice to think that I can take food that I prepare, can it, and it can sit quietly on a shelf for a year and still be good to eat. Freezing the soup really does make more sense from a labor standpoint, but it does, naturally, mean in case of power failure we’re going to have problems.

If you haven’t tried home canning, I do recommend it. It’s a useful skill and , assuming you follow directions, pretty safe. I’ve made several posts in the past on this subject, with recommendations on books and equipment. If yore interested you might want to read the older posts.

While we’re on the subject of food, I am still not quite 100% where I want to be on the stuff I’ve picked up from thos fun-lovin’ Mormons at the cannery. See, the boxes hold six cans per box so ideally I want a quantity of item that is divisible by six…that way every box is full of the same item. At the moment, I have some odd numbers that I need to add to in order to make a complete box. So, I need to head out there and see if I can fill out the gaps in those boxes.

The folks at the cannery also have a portable canner that they loan out. You buy a bunch of #10 cans and lids, fill them with whatever you want, and seal them up with the canner. This is nice because the cannery only lets you can items that they have on premises. If you showed up with, say, a 50# bag of dried corn you couldn’t use their facility to can it. Rules are rules. However, you can buy some cans, lids and take the canner home. I need to investigate that since theres some dried corn, pasta, and other dried goodies that I’d like to have in #10 cans. If youre the sneaky Secret Squirrel type you could also drop a baby Glock, a holster, some ammo and a cleaning kit in one, seal it up, pull the label off a can of tomatoes and make a very convincing and unsuspecting hiding place for your boomtoy.
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Although the book was utterly bleak , depressing and (in my opinion) a bit murky in terms of purpose, I am still looking forward to seeing “The Road”. Problem is, nearest theater showing it is around 150 miles from here. It seems like this movie isn’t getting quite the distribution that Ive come to expect from most movies. Sure, I expect it to be bleak and pointless, like the book, but I’d still like to get to see it. Maybe over the next few weeks it’ll turn up here but if not…well, it wont be long before theres a decent copy to be downloaded, Im sure.

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

Seems most folks are posting about their New years resolutions. I figure if something is a good enough idea that you want to incorporate it into your life, or come to think that changing some aspect of your life is important, why wait until the begining of the year? Sure, it looks neater on paper but if its really a good idea, just get going with it already.

To stay on topic, if theres anything regarding preparedness that I want to be different in 2010 than 2009 its probably pretty simple stuff..,more time in the boonies, make more money, pick up a few odds and ends. Nothing major. Mostly because Im fairly content with where things are now in terms of our level of preparedness. There’s always room for improvement, sure….but overall I think that if the zombies showed up tomorrow, I would be your king in pretty short order.
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I see the TSA (”Making America safer one stripsearched grandmother at a time”) has gotten their nuts in the wringer again. I hated flying back when this was a free country, I hate it even more now. If it has gotten to the stage that I cant read a book or listen to my iPod while on a flight then I’m pretty much going to give up flying and just drive. At least, until they start the internal passport system.

Folks’ll squawk and there’ll be all sortsa complaints but in the end the ‘if it saves just one life’ crowd will win and we’ll all be flying naked, strapped down and shackled like a planeload of Guantanamo recruits.

The notion of giving up a little essential liberty for temporary safety is truly getting out of hand. It’s a dangerous world out there and I realize that but I’m willing to accept certain risks. I dont want to live in a world made of Nerf and I certainly dont want .gov asking “Your papers, please” in the name of ’safety’. Someone might say “If you had a loved one who died in the 9/11 attacks you would feel different”. Actually, no. I do not have a single friend who would want their deaths to result in the encroaching police state. I can tolerate metal detectors and showing ID at the airport…barely. I’ll go along with that. But if someone passes through a metal detector, an explosives detector, is x-rayed, has his luggage rifled through, and is ‘behaviorally profiled’ and is allowed onto the plane then what the heck difference does it make if he keeps his paperback in his lap during the last hour of the flight? Heck, why wouldnt they just do their dirty deed during the first hour of the flight instead?

I could rant against the TSA for hours, flecks of floam spraying from my mouth, hands clenching and unclenching….real berserker stuff. But what good will that do me? Instead, I choose to just not have anything to do with them. If one walked into my shop and wanted to buy something I’d tell him to leave. He gets a different job where he’s not part of a thuggish .gov agency, he’s welcome to come by. I might call an ambulance if I saw one having a heart attack on the pavement, and I might even help him because, despite his hideous career choice he’s still a human being, but when he gets out of the hospital and asks if he can buy me a beer I’ll tell him that Id rather he rethink his line of work.

Anyway, part of me is slightly pleased to see TSA looking bad these days.
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When its ten degrees out and everything is frozen its an excellent time to order seeds for the spring planting. These are the guys I’ve been ordering from lately: Victory Seeds. I was quite please with the tomato and pepper seeds I got from them and planted last year. This year will be more of the same, although I think Ill start them indoors a little earlier this year.

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

Happy holidays.

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

Was cruising through the ‘second hand/junk/antique’ shops the other day with a buddy and while most of the stuff in those places is useless crap I did come across a couple goodies. In addition to the cheesey decorative oil lamps I found a pair pf Aladdin lamps..a Model C and a Model 12. $45 each, but I’ve no doubt I could shave a few bucks off them if I took the pair.

I have a couple of the Aladdin kerosene lamps and I’ve been pleased with them. They don’t put out as much light as a conventional 60-watt bulb but they put out far more light than those ribbon-wick decorative lamps you see out there. A nice side bonus, at least during the winter months, is that they produce a healthy amount of heat as well.

For my needs, the Aladdin lamps work best with a lampshade to diffuse the light. It’s the difference between a bare bulb hanging from a ceiling and a normal light fixture. One is much more stark and harsh, the other more pleasant and even.

There are brighter lamps out there, mostly the pressurized ones. But I find them noisy and they require more attention than the simple non-pressurized lamps. Kerosene, a terrific fuel for storage, is the obvious choice for us since we have the lamps, heaters and stoves.

Although I really appreciate the kerosene lamps that I have, they really may not be the most efficient alternative to normal lighting. The advances in LED technology really make LED’s the first choice for simple indoor emergency lighting. Aladdin sells a conversion unti that screws into the oil lamps to let them use electricity and a bulb. I wonder how hard it would be to convert one of those to a few high output LED’s and rechargeable D-batts. If I could get a comparable amount of light and runtime (one D-batt equaling one filled tank of kerosene or some similar ratio) then it would make sense to head in that direction.
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The current suicide charge by the Obama administration towards universal health care reminds me of a WW2 movie where fanatic Japanese run up the hill into machine gun fire. Troops fall away until theres only a handful of guys at the top of the hill, the original formidable force reduced to a handful of survivors who have no chance now that their numbers have been thinned. Same thing here…theyre stripping away parts of their plan and patching in others in a desperate attempt to get it passed. The final version wont look anything like what it started out as. And the notion that congress is holding it up to get gimme’s for their votes is, to me, reprehensible. Someone who voted against it initially suddenly changes his tune when $200 million in highway finds gets funneled to his state. That is just blatantly corrupt. If you thought it was a bad idea on first face, why would you suddenly think it’s a good idea after getting a load of cash parachuted into your state?

Fact is, though, the administration has hung their hat on this issue and if they don’t pass it they’ve squandered a huge amount of political capital. Thus, it has to pass at all costs. Will it? I hope it won’t, but I think it will. I’m sure that there are briefs being prepared as we speak to challenge all sorts of things in this plan if it passes.

What does this have to do with the price of Glocks in Montana, you may ask? Don’t look at the health care plan itself. Look at how it’s being ramrodded through, instead. They have the ability and the determination to make this legislation into law and they are willing to do anything to make it happen. Theyre cutting back room deals, handing out taxpayer money, granting favors, making threats, and adopting an ‘at any cost’ attitude. Now, imagine if the bill wasn’t about health care but about, say, reclassifying your AR as a destructive device…or a nationwide handgun registration scheme…or national ID card…or mandatory DNA recordkeeping…or a national sales tax…or any other issue that you and I feel strongly about. Theyre showing that if they feel strongly enough on an issue they will do whatever it takes, throw whoever they need to under the bus, spend as much money as they want, demonize whoever they need to, to make it happen. Imagine that same energy and ruthlessness directed towards an issue you feel strongly about. Scary stuff.
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I read an article today about a trucking company that vanished. Drivers were hauling loads and suddenly found their gas cards cut off and messages telling them to turn their rigs in at the nearest terminal or dealership where they would be given a bus ticket home. It had a very “Atlas Shrugged” feel to it. Im sort of unsurprised, I’ve seen local businesses that folded in the same abrupt manner – employees show up at work on Monday morning and find a note on the door saying that the business is closed for good. I cant even begin to imagine what goes through someones head at a moment like that. We’re all familiar with the oft-touted statement that the average American is only two paychecks away from living in a cardboard box. So here you are, thinking you have a job, you don’t have any real savings, you have a car payment due and you need to get groceries…and when you arrive at your place of work you find the lights off, the furnishings gone and the phone disconnected. Now what? A sign of the times.

The current economic situation is a sad thing, to be sure. Folks are losing their jobs and businesses are going under. But, like new growth after a forest fire, when the economy turns around I think you’ll see tremendous opportunity and potential. Retail space will be a buyers market, the number of businesses vying for sales in many markets will have thinned, new businesses will generate new business, quality employees will be available and eager to work, etc. The trick, of course, is to still be standing once the battle is over so you can take advantage of the ‘new era’ that will follow. That’s going to be the big challenge.

It won’t all roses and light, though. I think everyone is going to be amazingly cautious. Like death camp survivors who spend the rest of their lives never wasting food, I think that once the current economic crisis is over everyone, people and businesses, will be extremely cautious in their spending. It’s to be expected, I think. A business survives by the skin of its teeth so theyre not going to be in any hurry to suddenly take on new loads of debt…in fact, I’d think they’d try to keep their debt load as low as possible while stockpiling as much cash as possible to keep them afloat in case things go south again. Contrarily, some businesses (and individuals) may see the end of the crisis as a perfect opportunity to snatch up things at bargains…businesses, real estate, overhead, inventories, etc, etc.