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

One of the AR’s that I ordered in late November arrived today. Finally.

The price on the invoice? $740 for this particular gun. As I told the lucky bastard that ordered it, I could sell it today for almost twice that. In fact, I was hoping he had developed some sort of financial crisis and would be unable to take delivery…but, no, he came and picked up his new toy. Oh well…next batch has two of ‘em in there just for me…one complete flattop like the onle above, the other is a flattop but with a sight tower on the front. However, this little goody did show up with the rifle and its all mine:

This little guy goes into the gun safe ‘just in case’. Price? When I ordered it back in November, $85. They routinely sell for over $200 at gun shows around here. I have three more of them on the way for myself.

So…that was about 16 weeks. And that was before they started telling everyone ’six months’. Fortunately, the rest of the parts to put the lowers together, and the uppers themselves, are unrestricted (at the moment) and won’t require anything more complicated than a phone call and a credit card.

How many rifles does that give us? Well, more than Sarah Brady but less than Ted Nugent. Leave it at that.

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

“But always—do not forget this Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” – 1984, Orwell

Regardless of how you feel about .gov bailouts and ‘obscene’ executive bonuses (bonii?), theres a very important lesson to be learned from observing the current hullaboo. That lesson is that .gov, when it thinks it can get away with it, will target the tiniest demographic if it serves their needs. Additionally, much like those German guys back in ’39, if you vilify a particular demographic, or ‘chosen people’ perhaps, public opinion will be far less damaging when the hammer does finally drop.

Our friends at .gov have come out and quite plainly said that their goal is to pass a fast law to remove as much as 90% of the money these people were contracted to receive. (Keep in mind that even before this nonsense, they would have already been forking over almost 50% in taxes.) All it takes now is to focus public opinion on another demographic…gun owners? Conservatives? Home schoolers?…get public opinion on their side and then whip out the narrowly-aimed legislation. Don’t think so? Come on … you know better. Your cabin out in the hills? That’s a ‘compound’, buddy. Your friends who come by to drink beer and talk about politics? Co-conspirators. Your Mini-14? Assault weapon. The two bricks of Federal .22 ammo? ‘Thousands of rounds’ of ammo. Of course the public will be relieved when .gov steps in and ‘takes action’ against those ‘dangerous radicals’.

Seriously…this is an amazing example of .gov targeting a small group, lining up the court of public opinion in .gov’s favor, and then pulling the trigger. Expect to see this sort of thing happen more and more in the next few years. Alert the public to a threat, vilify the perpetrators, propose action, claim righteousness in the name of ‘fairness’, bask in public adoration. Lather, rinse, repeat.

As the economy sours more and more people are going to be easy to inflame against the ‘haves’ by the ‘have nots’. There is nothing wrong with being poor. There is nothing wrong with being rich. Pick which one you want to be and run with it. Personally, I’d rather be rich. Failing that, I’d happily settle for ‘not poor’.

Whats this got to do with bunkers and band aids? Economic balkanization is just as dangerous as ethinc or racial balkanization. When someone somewhere determines that what you have, what you’ve earned, and what you do is somehow unfair, exploitive, or ‘too profitable’ they are usually about to intrude into your existence in a major way. Screwing with a persons way of supporting themselves is no different than running a bulldozer through their greenhouse, shooting at their livestock or poisoning their well.

This vilification of greed (which will become synonymous with ‘ambition’ or ‘drive’) is going to be the first of a long line of ‘correct thinking’ that we’re going to see. The notion of sticking your neck out, working to build your own little empire and then enjoying its sweet rewards will become an example of ‘selfish’, ‘greedy’ or ‘anti social’ behavior. The well-read among us will recognize some certain parallels to Ayn Rands magnum opus.

Some people will watch the TV and gloat, saying “Yeah! Screw the rich! They should take all their money!” without realizing that once that’s done there’ll be another group, another demographic, another crowd, another faction for the .gov to focus its sights on. Hopefully you wont be that new target but with the proper media vilification, like we’re seeing now, it wont matter…public opinion will be against you and .gov will have a free hand.

Moral? If youre going to make more than $250k a year try to do it as low-profile as possible. I’d never suggest you duck your tax responsibilities by getting paid in cash, starting sideline cash businesses, obtaining alternate ID to work without tax consequences, or anything like that. That would be wrong. Don’t do it.

But right now youre seeing a perfect example of .gov going after a selcet group of individuals who have literally broken no laws, haven’t committed any crimes that Im aware of, and are getting pilloried. And .gov paints them as greedy, manipulative, elitist snobs who deserve to be ‘taxed into the Stone Age’. A chilling example of .gov strategies to manipulate public opinion in favor of targetting a particular group of people. Watch closely, youre seeing the future.

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

“One is none, two is one”.

I would edit that to add “A bunch is a few”.

Couldnt help myself. Picked up a secondary tertiary quadriary pentary another ‘extra’ Glock.

Who could resist? New in box Glock 17 with two mags. I have absolutely no qualms about purchasing it because, dammit, I went through this crap the first time they pulled this stunt in 1994. Swore I wasnt gonna get caught flat footed again and, Crom as my witness, I ain’t.

Sell the jet ski, skip lunch, cancel the fishing trip. Take the money. Guns and magazines. You won’t regret it.

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

I started to walk to the shop this morning and got about 100 yards before I thought “You know, it’s a nice day. Lets get the bike out.” So, unless the temperatures dip back into the low 30’s, we’re back into bicycle season. Although there didn’t seem to be any problems, I replaced both tubes today with Slime’d tubes. Always good to have a little extra something in your favor. Ninetynine percent of my bije riding is in town and the next time I have a flat due to nails or broken glass won’t be the first.

I paid what I thought at the time was an outrageous sum for my mountain bike about five years ago but as I’ve discovered in most things, I got what I paid for. The bike has held up exceptionally well over the years and has suited my needs quite well. I work close enough to where I live that theres really no practical reason to drive between the two unless its craptacular weather or I have a bunch of stuff to haul. If you haven’t gotten yourself a decent mountain bike, I highly advise getting one. The one I have now could use some tweaking…a nice matte OD finish, for example….but its been an excellent purchase. Im no enviroweenie or Peak Oil doomist but if I can save a few bucks by riding instead of driving, hey that’s more money to spend on other goodies.

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Theres a bit more in the mainstream news about ammo shortages. Is there anyone at all who didn’t see this coming? Anyone? I get calls from people wanting to stock up on .223 or AR’s and they say something like “I figured I better stock up while I can” and these retards are surprised when I tell them “Good luck.” You don’t decide to buy your parachute after the #2 engine fails. I’ve been predicting all along that there would be 4 waves of panic buying: election, inauguration, proposed legislation, signing of legislation. We’re done with the first two and are creeping into the third. If you don’t have what you want now does this mean you’ll never have it? No, of course not. Despite the administrations obvious disdain for free-market principles this is still a somewhat capitalist society. You’ll always be able to get what you want. Always. You just have to be willing to pay the price. You can buy AR’s and ammo all day long right now…if youre willing to pay the outrageous prices. I decided a few weeks ago that I was done helping other people stock up on their AR’s and the like. Anyone who comes up to me today and says “I was thinking maybe I should get an AR and some magazines” is a Johnny-Come-Lately of the worst order. Go away, you’re triaged with the rest of the sheep. I’m only interested in working with those with a better sense of self-preservation.

As an aside, the shortage of reloading components and ammo has also extended to reloading gear. I’ve been having a difficult (but not impossible…yet) time getting in reloading dies for the usual calibers (223, 308, .30-06. 45ACP, etc). Had to jump through several vendors before finding what I needed. Interesting times we live in, eh?

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Speaking of self-preservation. The economy is continuing its decline recovery decline recovery. The economy will recover, theres no doubt about that, the only question is whats left standing when it does recover….a bloated centrally planned Soviet-style economy, a laissez-faire capitalist system, a ‘somewhat regulated’ system or some bastard hybrid of all that.

Add to the economic situation and you have our old competitors, the Soviet Russians, making noises about establishing air bases off of Cuba. Ignoring for a minute why you would even need an air base in Cuba when you’ve got ballistic submarines and ICBM’s, is there anyone who thinks this would have even been an issue a year ago? Last time the Russians tried stuffing Cuba full of that sort of crap Jack Kennedy zipped up his pants long enough to take us all to the brink of World War Three. (And lest you think that the Cuban Missile Crisis was an unequivocal success for JFK, keep in mind that those missiles left Cuba only after we agreed to pull ours out of, I believe, Turkey and a few other places.) Additionally, Raoul Castro, in my opinion, is a lot more tractable than his brother and is probably not eager to get into a North Korean-style pissing contest with the US and the UN. He seems more interested in gradually thawing things, not making them worse. Whats more interesting here is the notion that our current administration is seen as the kind that would tolerate such saber rattling from second raters like the Russians.

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The missus and I were discussing the attitude changes that come with gun ownership. Not the casual I-have-a-.22-in-the-closet ownership. More like the I-have-a-Sig220-with-a-Surefire type of ownership. She opined that when you develop the confidence to be less scared of the bad things in the world around you the bad things are more likely to leave you alone. I agree. Mike Tyson probably doesn’t worry about getting mugged, Alton Brown probably never worries about getting hungry and Angelina Jolie probably never worries about getting laid. People who own defensive guns and practice with them regularly probably don’t worry too much about the random home invasion or violent encounter nearly as much as the terrified unarmed city dweller. In our case theres probably some sort of subconsciously recognized aura of confidence or competence that makes potential predators want to move on to more sheepish prey. Fine with me. The less conflict in my life the better. If I live to be a hundred and never shoot at anything other than Bambi, I’ll be pleased.

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Cannery trip next week. Always nice to spend some time with Those People. I just need to round out some odd numbers of stuff and then there wont be any real reason for me to go there except possibly entertainment and, I hate using this word, ‘fellowship’. Not the bible-thumping-bow-our-heads-and-pray type of fellowship but more of the hanging-out-with-people-who-think-like-me fellowship. That’s always nice.

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

Im sure many of you are familiar with the Sportsmans Warehouse chain of sporting goods stores. We have one here that I visit every so often. Like almost all gun shops they are hit-or-miss in terms of bullets, primer, powder anda mmo availability these days due to the obvious high demand. What made things curious was that the non-consumable stuff was in short supply as well…for example, reloading presses, dies, holsters, etc, etc, were practically gone. Now, I know that the demand for reloading stuff is high and its hard to keep bullets on the shelves. However, I hadnt heard anything about Lee or Lyman or RCBS being backordered by months for things like presses and reloading scales. Had to be something else. I had heard a rumour that SW’s vendors were no longer doing business with them on anything other than a COD/cash basis.  Hmmmm. As I was prowling the store today I overheard the department manager talking to a former employer of his about why things were so bare. I listened as best I could and then when he was done talking went over and asked him exactly why the shelves were bare of things like tumbling media and other items.

Now, this is what he told me…might be accurate, might be total BS…but sift through it and take away what you will.

He said that SW was looking at being purchased by a Canadian outfit, AFU. It was hoped that this purchase would give SW the influx of capital it needs to restock the shelves. Since the company was in the ‘due diligence’ stage of possibly being purchased, re-ordering of stock was being put on hold. After all, if someone is going to buy your shop why would you fill it full of goods for them on your own dime? He said that since UFA is a Canadian outfit theyre focus would be on the stores close to the Canadian border. He also said that they closed a dozen stores this week and that if the purchase goes through some stores will remain as SW and some will be re-branded. A november 2008 press release confirms that UFA is interested in SW, but it appears that the process is dragging and may not go through. The department manager told me that if the purchase does not occur, SW may have to file for some sort of reorganizational protection and close more stores.

So, there you have it. The reasons SW has no bullets, powder or primers is because of the current panic buying and military situation. The reason for it not having alot of other stuff is, if this is to be believed, because they need a white knight.

I asked if the merchandise that was in the closed stores would be redistributed to other stores to fill inventory holes and was told that, no, it was all liquidated. So…if youre local SW goes under there might be an opportunity there.

And there you have it…rumour? Maybe. Makes sense though.

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

A trip to WalMart today. As expected, no bulk .22 LR. Every time me and the missus go to Wally World we pick up two bricks of .22 ammo. Always. Without fail. This is why we look at each other and say “Huh…thats wierd.” when everyone says theres no bulk .22 to be had. We can shrug and not worry about it because we have zillions of rounds of the stuff.

But….todays trip. Lets pretend that you dont reload your own ammo, and that you need just one box of .38…or one box of 9mm….or one box of .40. Here’s the entire pistol ammo selection at my local SuperWalMart an hour ago:

Lee Anniversary Kit if youre on a budget, RCBS Supreme kit if you dont mind spending the bucks. Either one will spare you the angst that the photo you see above would generate in someone who needs ammo and doesnt reload.

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

Picked this up from elsewhere, its a link to a visual representation of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.

When proffessional career scumbags like Charles Schumer and company start talking a bout a trillion dollars like its nothing think about this image. Then think about all the money you could possibly earn over the span of your entire life and how it wont even make a dent in that pile.

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

I walk it as I talk it……….

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

Montana is an interesting state. Other than our total lack of ocean frontage, you can find pretty much every sort of climatological and environmental element in this state. We got ‘em all…deserts, rain forest, heavy timber, prairie, wind-blasted rock, mountains, valleys, plains, glaciers, tundra, and eveyting else you can imagine. Camouflage is, naturally, a tricky call. I am very taken with the Crye multicam camo pattern…it seems perfect for just about anything in Montana. However, like anything that is new and really cool it is also, for now, fairly expensive…since it was never, as far as I know, adopted officially by any military there arent millions of cheap surplus clothes, gear and tents available in multicam.

What other pattern works well? I’ve been a fan of the flectarn pattern which seems to work pretty well here in my region. (To be fair, simple, basic, unpretentious and dirt cheap OD also works quite well.) The flectarn (also spelled flecktarn and flectar) pattern traces its German roots back a little further than most modenr German military folks would care to admit.Too bad because despite that whole crimes against humanity thing, the Nazi’s had some pretty advanced (for the day) field gear.

Anyway, I like the flectarn pattern and Im also pretty pleased with most W. German military surplus gear so that works out well for me. I was flipping through Sportsmans Guide’s HQ catalog (their military surplus catalog) last week and saw that they had a few goodies I wanted and nothin’ says lovin’ like something from the Bund. First and foremost, there was a package deal of five surplus .308 cleaning kits and five G3 leather slings for a lousy $15. Well…thats a definite buy. I just happen to have a couple PTR-91 HKlones that’ll love having new slings and a few extra cleaning kits.

What caught my after that was these babies. Five flectar shelter halves for $22. This was interesting because I was hoping that the Germans would have thrown political correctness aside in favor of functionality and these would be the zeltbahns. (And zeltbahns are an entirely different post. Those things are probably the most useful and versatile piece of kit you can have. I’d love to have several made of modern materials.)

So..I ordered ‘em up and they arrived today. Man, I love that musty surplus smell. Anyway, turns out the shelter halves are not of the ze;tbahn variety but, I believe, simply knockoffs of the US pattern shelter halves. There are, apparently, some provisions for wearing it as a poncho and that puts it a step ahead of the US shelter half.

So…shelter halves. How the bloody hell do you use them? The internet was not as forthcoming as I would have preferred but perhaps my Google-fu is weak. I did come up with this interesting link to a .pdf that shows pretty clearly how to do what to whom.  The flectarn shelter halves are of the same diamond-ish pattern and should join together in the same way. Thus, the two-halves shelter should look pretty much just like the one in the .pdf. I need to experiment and try setting this thing up.

Why did I get them? A couple reasons. They would make excellent groundcloths and I wanted some sort of camouflage for covering things up in the boonies. If I wanted to stash something in the woods for the short term, maybe ditch my pack for a few hours so I could go fishing or something, hiding it in a well camouflaged pile goes a long way towards keeping it secure. Also, I wanted some flectar-pattern fabric for any future tailoring endeavours. I may take this down to a seamstress in town along with the dimensions and pattern for an orginal zeltbahn and have one made up.

As an aside, the cleaning kits, slings, and shelter halves were in excellent shape and if you feel the need to have such items I can say that the ones I got from SG:HQ were not lacking in any regard. I’ll be experimenting with the shelter halves in one way or another here shortly and if anyting interesting comes up I’ll try to post it.

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

Its so hard to stay focussed on the day-to-day nuts-n-bolts of preparedness when I get distracted by the latest schemes, scams and outright outrageousness that oozes out of Washington. But, its exactly because of those weasels and their fellow travelers that the missus and me need to have our ducks in a row.

Did a cursory inventory of primers the other night. We’re good on pistol but light on rifle. Okay on powder, but could be better. If youre like me and wanna be able to reload for everything with minimal headaches, pick up some IMR 3031 and some Unique. With IMR 3031 you’ll be able to reload, for the most part, any rifle cartridge you may need. Same for Unique – it’ll work in just about any handgun cartridge. Are there better powders? Absolutely. Are there any with that amazing versatility? Not many. An 8# keg of 3031 and an 8# keg of Unique will let you reload almost any cartridge you come across.

Don’t reload your own ammo? Then, my friend, you are a fool. I don’t take namecalling lightly but if, in this time of uncertainty, you havent bothered to take the steps to secure your ammo supply then youre just being foolish. The money you would save alone makes it worth it. Example: I have customers that shoot weird stuff like .378 Weatherby or .416 Remington Mag. This is stuff that’ll set you back $70 for a box of 20 cartridges. Or, put another way, more than $3 per cartridge. Now, assuming you saved your brass, all you need is powder, primer and bullet. Fifteen cents worth of powder, four cents worth of primer, and maybe forty cents of bullet. That $70 box of cartridges now costs $12.00. Take the $58 you saved and buy more reloading components.

I have in front of me catalogs from the major manufacturers. All of them sell kits that provide you all the equipment you need, less dies, to reload. Some are cheaper than others, some are more expensive, some are better quality, some are lower quality, all will do the trick.

Lee Challenger Press Kit, with dies – $53

Lee Anniversary Reloading Kit – $120

RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme Kit – $407 (total BS..I sell them all the time for $300)

Lyman, Redding and a couple other outfits all offer similar kits.

I tell customers, if youre not sure if you want to get into reloading and don’t wanna spend a lot of money just to find out youre not into it, buy the Lee kit. If you don’t like reloading, youre not out a lot of money; if you do enjoy it and plan to stick with it, get yourself the RCBS kit.

Lets say youre someone who just wants to be prepared ‘just in case’. You own a couple 1911’s and a .357. You want to have the fixin’s to make your own ammo in case someday ‘they’ say you cant have any more. Here’s your shopping list:

Lee Challenger Kit with Lee dies in .45 ACP and .38/.357

A powder suitable to both cartridges…Unique will work in both. You’ll get about 1000 rounds per pound.

Large pistol primers for the .45, small pistol magnum primers for the .357. At least 1000 of each.

Lee bullet mould for .45 ACP and .357, with handles

Lee bullet sizer for .452” and .358”

Lee bullet lube

Lee lead furnace, dipper, ingot mould

Cartridge cases, .45 ACP , 500 pieces

Cartridge cases, .38 Spl or .357 Mag, 500 pieces

All of this will fit into a milsurp rocket case…a container about half the size of a dorm fridge. With a setup like this you could keep your pistols fed for as long as your primers and powder last. (Yes, you could make your own black powder and possibly re-use your primers…but thats alot more work than I’d wanna do.) Bullets are easily made from scrounged lead (wheelweights, linotype, old lead pipes, etc). This is the absolute cheapest setup that would work without getting into the super-cheap Lee Loader or Ideal 310 tools. The quality of the equipment is okay, but if youre on a budget this is the way to go. If money isn’t an issue swap the Lee gear for RCBS. 1000 primers and 1# of powder is a bare minimum. A ‘case’ of primers is 5000, and a ‘keg’ of powder is usually 8#….thats enough primer and powder to provide you with a lot of pistol ammo. And this doesn’t take into account the possibility of what you may scavenge from odd ammo that you cant use.

That is, in my opinion, the least amount that would give the most result. Even then it’s still a couple hundred bucks. But whats it worth to you to be able to have ammo for your guns in five years? Or fifty years? Stored properly this stuff will last a long, long time. I routinely use powder and primers ten or twenty years old. I’ve used primers as old as I am and never had a hiccup.

Now, ignoring the tinfoil-hat-quotient of the above paragraphs, here’s another reason for you to reload: economy. Assuming you’ve saved your brass or picked some up off the ground at the range (or scrounged through the garbage cans there like I do) your brass costs $0.00 after the first firing. If I load for my .38 Special and I just use a cheap lead bullet, Im at about $6 a box of 50 to reload for it. Want to do the math on your own? Here’s your factors:

Brass – After firing it once, its cost becomes $0.00

Powder – Divide price of powder per pound by 7000 to get cost per grain of powder ($20/7000 = $0.002 per grain…10 grains of powder = two cents)

Primer – Bought by the thousand, around $0.03 @

Bullet – Cheap lead bullets for as little as six cents apiece, all the way up to high performance jacketed stuff at twenty cents each.

Figure youre going to save at least 50% off the price of factory ammo. Or, put another way, you can have twice the ammo you would normally be able to purchase.

Safety issues? Sure…use the wrong powder or use too much and you’ll wreck your precious firearm. So RTFM and double check your data and you’ll be fine.

I started reloading when I was 19. I loved guns and had no money for ammo so the only way I could afford to shoot was to reload. In that time I have seen powder go from $13/# to $20/#, primers go from $12/m to $25/m, and bullets go from as low as $.05/@ to $.20@ and it is STILL cheaper to reload them all.

So…get yourself a reloading kit, find a buddy who reloads to show you the ropes, and start saving some money and securing your ammo supply.