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

Department of Redundancy Department:

Another Browning P35 rescued from a life of belonging to someone who isn’t me. T-series serial number putting it as made in the mid/late 1960’s….gun is as old as I am, apparently. It appears to have weathered the years a bit better than me, though. Came with four mags, Pachmyers, buncha ammo, a low end leather pancake holster, a Safariland doublemag pouch, a surplus canvas mag pouch, and a set of Redding dies (steel, unfortunately…carbide woulda been too much to hope for.) Price? $400. And I kicked back $20 to the guy that turned me on to the widow who didn’t have the upper body strength/coordination to work the slide and thus wanted to sell her deceased husbands Browning to get a .357. (The guy in question who turned me onto this deal also gets his own freakishly weird deals too…like guy two weeks ago who brought in a keg of ‘gunpowder’ he found in his grandfathers garage. Turned out to be a 25# keg of DuPont blasting powder. Some guys have all the luck.)

What number HiPower is this? Uhm…well, lets just say we passed the tertiary level of backup a while ago. The Browning is a ‘secondary standard’ handgun for the LMI and, honestly, I’ve always liked them. This one will probably go into the safe for The Long Sleep, but you never know…might trade it out for another Glock at some point. Seriously, who wouldn’t buy a high-quality paperless semiautomatic handgun these days when given the opportunity?

So…I had my outrageous impulse purchase of the day and, if I were smart, would have quit while I was ahead. Then I made the exceedingly poor tactical decision to stop in at a local gun shop to say hi to the fella behind the counter. And found this:

Ruger MkII bull barrel .22 LR. Not the newer, and in my opinion less desirable Mk III, but the older MkII. Gun came with 2 mags. (Picked up a few extras while I was there.) I’ve been wanting a heavy barrel MkII for a while now but havent been able to find one. What I really wanted was a stainless, slab-sided MkII Target model but figured it might be a while till I can find one and have the cash at the same time. So…half a loaf being better than none, I picked up this one. Price? $225. I have hit my threshold for gun purchases for a while…I need to lay off them until my wallet heals. However, I am pleased…the MkII was a hole in my gun wishlist and it is now filled. I need to pick up about a dozen more mags and I’ll be set. Oh, and I’m gonna try to find a nice aftermarket Baughman ramp to replace that holster-destroying undercut Patridge sight. And maybe get it threaded for a supressor.

In the meantime, we really really really need to get another gun safe.

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

From the USAToday website:

When the economy started to squeeze the Wojtowicz family, they gave up vacation cruises, restaurant meals, new clothes and high-tech toys to become 21st-century homesteaders.

Now Patrick Wojtowicz, 36, his wife Melissa, 37, and daughter Gabrielle, 15, raise pigs and chickens for food on 40 acres near Alma, Mich. They’re planning a garden and installing a wood furnace. They disconnected the satellite TV and radio, ditched their dishwasher and a big truck and started buying clothes at resale shops.

Fascinating, isnt it? What me and, hopefully, you would call ‘common sense’ during these times is considered noteworthy. From the article it sounds like what these people have done is to rework their lifestyle so they a) live within their means and b) take more responsibility for their own well-being. Live on less than you earn…a novel concept, no?

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

The problem with stockpiling guns, ammo and food is that if for any reason the cops show up at your house, you get painted as whacko. Case in point. ‘Self inflicted’..maybe accidental, maybe not. Either way, its a little disturbing that the cops who, presumably, are supposed to know the law so they can uphold it can’t determine if this poor bastards guns are legit or not so they bring in the fedgoons.

This is why someday I’m going to make it a point to keep at least half of everything offsite at a secondary (or even tertiary) location – so that when some idiot seizes all my stuff because its scary looking I’ll have a couple completely redundant sets of backups to fall back upon.

I’d love to see a followup to this story and find out if any of this guy’s stuff was verboten or not.

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

Got a phone call last week from a gal who was handling the estate of her recently deceased brother. There were a bunch of guns and could I come by, look ‘em over and give her an idea of what they were and what theyre worth? Suuuuuuuuuuuure.

Went there today. As almost always happens in the case of an estate sale, once the other family members heard someone might actually be coming by to buy the goodies they all suddenly start clamoring about stuff they want. More than once I’ve tried to buy an estate, had the money in hand, and had a Suburban full of relatives show up at the last minute and leave me holding an empty gun case. Apparently, that was the case in this one. By the time the relatives got through there were only a handful of items left. Out of what was left only two things interested me. A new Rem 870 Magnum (extra 870’s are always nice) and a Contender package deal. The Contender package is pretty sweet: frame, wooden pistol grip, wooden rifle stock, 16″ 45-70 bbl., 10″ 44 Mag. bbl., 10″ .357 Mag. bbl., and a 14″ .223 bbl. I already have a 14″ .44 barrel, and the .45-70 barrel does nothing for me, but the rest of it has some attraction. All new in box, too. Made ‘em an offer and we’ll see what happens.

Only other gun of interest, to me, was a Winchester Garand. Had import marks but was otherwise nice. Trouble is, it fits nowhere into my plans. I think the Garand is a less than good choice as a semi-auto rifle for anyone unless theyre stuck in someplace like California with its ‘assault weapon’ nonsense. Told her it was worth upwards of $600 and that she should see if maybe someone in the family doesnt want it after all.

While the 870 fits into the scheme of things here, the Contender is a bit esoteric. I was thinking of having the .357 barrel threaded for use with a suppressor, which would make for a slick little package. What I’ll probably do is part out the barrels I dont want and use the money for other acquisitions.
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My tomatoes and peppers have sprouted. I have a little box in the window full of tiny seedlings that, hopefully, will get transplanted outside next month and start the long journey towards my pressure canner. I picked up some heirloom seeds from Victory Seed Co. and was interested especially in some of their offerings for the colder climes like Montana. We have summers that are nice enough for growing but at night the temperatures can drop thirty degrees or more and thats a bit much for some plants. Someday I’ll have a nice glass-block greenhouse to allow me to grow stuff year round but until then Im stuck with the usual assortment of garden vegetables…but someday…Montana-grown okra.

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

As you know I wanted a .22 option for my AR. I picked up a couple used Ciener kits last year and had nothing but utter, total and epic fail with them. To be fair, they were used so perhaps the fault isnt with the manufacturer.  Regardless, it left me soured on the whole thing. I was at the Kalispell show last week and came across the CMMG conversion which appears to be an exact copy of the Ciener. The conversation at the show was almost verbatim to this:

Me: I have a couple Ciener kits and the damn things never work right.
Vendor: AR or M16 kit?
Both.
Hmm…I hear if Ciener gets a kit that works they mark it for the M16 and the ones that dont get marked for the AR-15.
Whaddya know about these CMMG kits?
Sold a bunch today. I use ‘em and they work fine.
I got a bunch of Black Dog Magazines (BDM) for the Cieners, will they work with the CMMG.
Yeah.
Alright. Look,  you know me, you know my wife, we see you all the time at these shows. If this thing doesnt work I can bring it back, right?
Absolutely.
Ok. Wrap it up.

So, a trip to the range for a quick evaluation. Test platform is a Bushy Dissipator. Ammo is Rem. bulk and CCI Blazer. Three BDM mags.

Put five rounds of Rem. in each mag and fired em all. No problems. Repeat. At round #17 the bolt started to no fully go into battery. A little nudge on the bolt with a finger would be enoughu to close the bolt to allow it to fire but I was concerned. However, lets eliminate some variables. Pulled the mag, swapped out all the ammo for CCI Blazer. No hiccups. Took the conversion out of the gun and made sure to lube it thoroughly with LSA and replaced it in the gun. Fired another 50 rounds of CCI Blazer with no hiccups at all. The instructions recommend Federal bulk, which is what I stockpile, but I didnt bring any with me because I was too cheap to want to open a fresh package. However, the el cheapo CCI Blazer did a sterling job.

The BDM mags are highly recommended and I say that if you want to get the CMMG conversion, which I am going to give a tentative recommendation to, start getting some mags now even if the conversion isnt in your immediate future. The mags are a bit longer than a normal AR mag so they will be too long for most closed-top mag pouches.

Speaking of CMMG, head to their website. Holy crap have they got some cool stuff. Tactical bacon! .308 AR lowers that take HK91 mags (brilliant!). Buncha other cool stuff too. I may have found a new place to waste my money.

TPIWWP, so here we go:

Now I just need a .22 conversion for the Glock and I’ll be able to practice handling techniques and shooting drills on my limited budget.

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

This is the shelf at my local Sportsman’s Warehouse where, normally, all the bullets for reloading would be. Only calibers there are .30 <125 gr., .303, 8mm, and some .405 Win. Total of maybe 30 boxes all together. I have more bullets than this on my reloading bench at this moment. Those powder containers on the top of the shelf are for display…all empty. When will they restock? No one knows.

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

“If you cant take a little bloody nose maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under the bed. Its not safe out here, its wondrous with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but its not for the timid.” – Q

I’m guessing that I don’t need to tell you that the world isn’t a safe place. That isn’t necessarily a bad or good thing, it’s just the way things are. Most folks, like me, who live in a quiet world of doing the same things every day, seeing the same people, and dealing with the same problems, get pretty insulated from the rest of the world.

Other folks, like military, police, paramedics, firemen, etc., go the other way. The typical day for them puts them dealing with the things that are exceptional and completely out-of-the-ordinary to folks like myself.

My point is that its easy to get complacent and forget that there really are people out there who don’t care about your safety, don’t care about your rights, and do see you as an opportunity for some personal gain (or entertainment) at the expense of your safety and security. In short, sometimes we forget there really are bad people out there.

These are, to be sure, stressful times. That’s not just good old-fashioned survivalist paranoia talking, either….this is fact. And it’s looking like more folks are reacting to stress in a bad way. In the latest cases, by shooting up places, killing total strangers, and then killing themsleves (or getting themselves killed.)

In Starship Troopers, theres this quote about people who go nuts and commit horrible violence, “I suppose he was one of those pathological personalities that you read about – no way to spot them. Well, if there was no way to keep it from happening once, there was only one sure way to keep it from happening twice. Which we had used.”

A lot of times you can’t tell whose gonna go sideways and shoot up the schoolyard but you can make darn sure they don’t do it a second time. Of course, a minimum amount of equipment is required along with a maximal amount of determination and fortitude. Talent and skill would go a long way too. But more than anything else, being armed is the biggest thing.(“Why do you carry a pistol?” “ Because carrying an AK all day is awkward and makes driving difficult.” )

Running and locking yourself in a basement or hiding under a desk is certainly a better option than getting shot down, no matter how you look at the equation. Certainly the best, easiest and safest option when someone comes through the front door flinging bullets is to simply go out the back door and let your tax dollars take care of the problem. After all, isn’t the whole point of being a survivalist to survive? But most people, myself included, would probably have some issues with just saving our own skins and letting defenseless others get killed if we had the means to respond aggressively and decisively. “Aggressively and decisively” is gunspeak for “draw your gun and shoot the bad guy”.

My point is, as things are getting weird around us with the economy making a lot of people nervous theres going to be more cases of disgruntled people taking things out on their families, ex-employers and us innocent bystanders. Folks are scared and uncertain, who can blame ‘em? Guys are going home to a wife and three kids trying to explain that theres no work to be had and it might be time to go live with the in-laws until things get better. Some folks cant handle that. They think somehow the better alternative is to drown the kids in the tub, shoot mom and then themselves. I suppose once you commit yourself to a course of action like that its pretty easy to think “Heck, in for a penny in for a pound…might as well head back to the office and shoot that damn manager and supervisor too.” Next thing you know, its on CNN.

Some folks just can’t handle the stress…some feel that they’ve been ‘unfairly’ singled out and persecuted…some are just gonna be downright pissed and not care anymore. Either way, its apparent that things are becoming simply more and more unstable out there and leaving the house in the morning with the trusty sidearm and a spare mag may not be the ‘paranoid thinking’ that youre friends tease you about. Its a more dangerous world out there today than it was yesterday. Tomorrow it’ll probably be more dangerous. So….be prepared.

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

(NOTE: this actually isnt a true ‘minimal’ amount. You could achieve everything listed here with some even smaller, older, long-discontinued tools [like the old Ideal series that had dies, bullet sizer and mould all built into the same set of handles] however, anyone who has a goodly number of years experience reloading will tell you that whats shown below is pretty minimal and using less than the stuff here would be an even bigger pain in the ass.)

Remember I said that you could get pretty much everything you need to reload ammo for a particular gun for less than a hundred bucks and it would all fit into an ammo can? Well, I was perusing the Kalispell gun show and thought I’d put my money where my blog was and see how it went. As always, it was an eye-opening (and, sadly, wallet-opening) experience.

First up, the classic Lee Loader. This little collection of tools will reload .38 Special cartridges. The kit comes with a powder scoop that will hold a predetermined amount of powder. This works fine as long as you stay within the range of bullet weights and powders supported by this particular measure. You could increase the versatility by buying a reloading scale but that’s more expense and space than this experiment calls for. You could, however, pick up a few extra different size scoops out of a Lee Powder Measure Kit and check them against a reloading manual to see if they’d work with your particular bullet/powder combination. These Lee Loaders are slow and tedious to use. They also, generally, will not full length resize a case. However, they are cheap with an MSRP of around $24. Used they run a lot less because, quite simply, no one uses them. This one was $15 but the guy took $10 for it. Cost thus far: $10 (Alternatives: Lyman 310 tool with dies)

Next up, a Lee bullet mould. Single cavity with integral handles. Its an aluminum mould so it’ll cast well but you gotta be careful not to damage it. Design is the ever popular 150~ gr. SWC. MSRP $20. This one was used but never used. Pulled it out of someones junk box. Very few people cast for .38’s because you can usually buy bullets cheaply. Additionally, when they do cast they use a 2-,4-,6- or 8-cavity mould. Hence, the lack of popularity of a single-cavity mould. Price used: $10. Total costs so far: $20

So you have a mould, now what? Well, you need a small pot to melt lead in. Any small metal pot will do. Lee used to make one but I don’t see it in the current catalog. You can scrounge a small heavy metal pot from almost anywhere. I found this one from Lee, along with a Lee Lead Ladle, for $10. Even came with a bunch of lead already in it. You’ll have to provide your own heat source though. Lead? Well, a pair of vice grips and a parking lot will provide plenty of wheelweights to melt down. (Make sure they aren’t zinc.) Spent so far: $30

So you’ve got your lead pot sitting on a fire. You take your ladle and pour some molten lead into your mould, let it cool, and crack it open. Out drops your bullet. Lather, rinse, repeat. Once you have a pile of bullets made you’ll need to size and lube them. A nice luber sizer as made by Lyman or RCBS will set you back over $150. As always, Lee has a tedious, but cheap, way of doing it. This is an older version of their ‘pan lube’ method. You stand the bullets upright in the provided metal pan and pour melted bullet lube into the pan until it covers the grooves of the bullets. Once the wax hardens you remove the bullets with a ‘cookie cutter’ device. The lubed bullet is then pushed through the provided sizing die..in this case .358. This older style of lubing has been replaced by Lee’s new Lube and Sizing Kit which is designed to be used on a press but can be used handheld as needed. MSRP is $16.98. Got the older style kit for $10 used, but new old stock. Spent $40 up to this point.

So you have bullets to reload and you have your little loading kit. What next? Primers and powder. There are no discounts on this stuff these days so youre looking at around $25 per 1000 primers and $20 per pound of powder. We’ll get over 1000 reloads from the pound of powder. You have been saving your fired brass for reloading, right? We’ll chalk that up as zero cost. Powder and primer is $45 bringing our total so far to $85.

Throw in 2 50-round ammo boxes to give you 100 pieces of brass to reload, and you’re pretty much good to go. Personally, I’d prefer closer to 250 pieces of brass, but I could only fit 100 in the regular size .50 can. Bummer. Tose 100 cases, by the way, should last a pretty long time. .38 isnt exactly a high pressure cartridge and lead bullet loads tend to be pretty easy on your brass. Getting ten reloads out of each piece shouldnt be a problem.

Will it all fit into a .50 caliber can? Lets find out.

Fits in the .50 can with no real room to spare. Oh, sure, you could throw in some loose brass to fill the nooks and crannys…but thats splitting hairs. However, that can on the left is what we in the biz call a ‘tall .50′. Its just like the other .50 but..well…it’s taller. Enough room for a BoreSnake cleaning kit and a K-frame pistol in a holster. Seal this baby up and you are good to go. Tucked away someplace safe, cool and dry this stuff will get your gun up and running for at least 1000 rounds and last pretty much forever.

Some of you may think this was an interesting experiment and will rush out to put such a package of your own together. Don’t do it. Here’s why – this was to show you the cheapest way to put together the minimum you would need to keep your gun fed during lean times. It’s the cheapest but it isn’t the best. If youre that concerned about your future and your ability to feed your favorite pistol (or rifle since these will work nicely out of my .357 lever action) then don’t buy cheapest, buy best. Theres much better gear that will increase versatility and quality of your ammo, to say nothing of being easier to use. I can guarantee you that it will cost more than the $85 we spent here and it’ll take up more space, but it will be far easier to use, provide better ammo, and reload a more diverse collection of cartridges.

I’d also like to take a moment to discuss the overwhelming amount of Lee products in this experiment. Lee manufactures brilliantly designed products using second-rate materials. They are great for making innovative and affordable products but its usually at the expense of quality. Theres an old saying that “Quantity has a quality all its own”..that means that while I may only get 3000 rounds of bullets out of a Lee mould before it needs replacing, it doesn’t matter since the moulds are so cheap to start with. When it comes to spending the least amount of money, you go to Lee. Lee does make a few products that are hard to beat, like their carbide dies, but for durability and longevity (which is paramount if youre planning for that uncertain future) I recommend RCBS. All the reloading equipment manufacturers offer lifetime warranties on their products, but that’s cold comfort when youre miles from the nearest post office or gun shop and don’t want to tip your hand about what youre doing. RCBS isn’t the best either (that title, in my opinion, goes to Redding) but you’ll be able to find RCBS parts and accessories in any gun shop that sells reloading gear. If youre going to put together a package of reloading gear and plan on spending what it takes, get the RCBS gear and reloading packages.RCBS quality is excellent and their customer support is unbeatable in the industry.

So, there you have it. You can put together a total reloading package for less than a hundred bucks and have it all be very portable. Use a slightly larger ammo can and store some extra powder and primers and a package like this might be very valuable someday. Realistically, though, this is more of a ‘just in case’ package for someone who wants to have the option of reloading someday but just doesn’t have the money to spend right now for the top of the line gear. The gear shown above will keep you in ammo when everyone else is scratching their head wondering where their next box of HydraShocks is coming from.

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

Kalispell gun show today. Where to start, where to start…. no AR’s for less than $1200. I did see one fella selling stripped Stag lowers for $165 – cheapest I’ve seen in a while.  Magazines were well represented with several betamags floating around $269-$369. Almost no ammo to speak of. No large quantities of reloading components either…sure, a box of bullets here and there but not boxes of 1000 bullets, boxes of 500 cases and no primers whatsoever.

John Trochman wasnt there, oddly, so I have no idea how his ’survivalist’/’militia’ stuff was selling.

The show itself was pretty crowded…it was hot and humid from the massive crowd that was shuffling through. The tables with muzzleloaders and hunting rifles were almost like an oasis in the crowd…the major focus was on ‘black guns’ and thats where the crowds were. A sellers market.

Yeah, I picked up a few odds and ends for myself. I’ll report on that tomorrow.

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

Well this is kind of interesting:

A bill being considered in the Montana Legislature blasts the Federal Reserve’s role in America’s money policy and permits the state to conduct business in gold and silver instead of the Fed’s legal tender notes.

I doubt this will get any traction , these sorts of things rarely do….but its a nice shot at the current situation. While I’d be amused at tossing a couple 1 oz. gold coins onto the counter at the propety tax  desk I can forsee all sortsa problems with this sort of thing. For example, the person that comes to court and wants to pay their fines in 14k gold chains or some such crap. Will every government office have to have an assayer in it? I suppose you could make it so that payment had to be in a form of metal that was at least 90% pure, allowing folks to pay with their old silver dimes and quarters but not with other coins that have only trace amounts of silver/gold in them.

The article is a tiny bit misleading in that US minted gold/silver coins are already legal tender…they’re stamped right on them with their value (”Five Dollars”, “Twenty Dollars”, etc) but their value is dwarfed by the value of the metal the coin is composed of. You could pay your taxes with gold coins perfectly legally you’d be, in effect, spending $1000 to pay with a $20 coin.

Like I said, it’s an interesting idea but really more of just a political statement than anything else. I do like the fact that it’s coming from my home state, though.