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

Glock spare parts showed up the other day. Money is tight so I only ordered half of what was on my wish list. For the curious, here’s what came in:

• Glock connector, 5#
• Glock Extractor Depressor Plunger
• Glock Firing Pin Spring
• Glock Magazine Catch
• Glock Recoil Spring Assembly, G19
• Glock Recoil Spring Assembly, G17
• Glock Triger Spring, 5#

Ordered enough so I’d have about a half dozen of each. Total? $120.

Historically, the only parts we’ve had fail were the trigger spring and the recoil spring assembly. Both failures didn’t keep the gun from shooting, but did require extra manipulation (manually pushing the trigger forward after each shot) to keep the gun shooting. Now, across a half dozen Glocks and thousands of rounds of ammo, that’s 2 non-critical failures…a very decent MTBF (mean time between failure).

One more order of parts will put the finishing touches on our ‘support package’ for our Glocks. We’ve already got plenty of spare parts for the AR’s, and the AK’s don’t exactly call for much in the way of spares. Ditto for the HKlones although I do have some spares for them anyway.

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I was wondering if you have such an interest in preparedness, and such a … practical…view of the rest of the world, as we do does that make you an optimist (because you believe you can handle the worst) or a pessimist (because youre expecting the worst)? Glass half empty or half full? I’m leaning towards neither optimist or pessimist, but more of a pragmatist…something Microsoft Word defines as ‘practical person’. Not sure about practical, since the definition of practical is open to some interpretation. Regardless, I don’t think that any particular term fills the bill.

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Tomorrow, it seems, once the tax refunds (such as they are) arrive we will be out of debt save for the mortgage. That means we next start socking money into our emergency fund so that when something does go terribly wrong (like a transmission imploding, refrigerator dying, or quick trip for family emergency) we can do what needs doing without cutting our financial throats. How much? Good question. The goal isn’t to replace income, the goal is to replace expenses. That is to say, whatever you normally spend in a month is your expenses…mortgage, food, utilities, etc. If the rug were yanked out from under you how much would you need to survive on without incurring debt or letting current debt grow? That’s the amount of expenses per month. Ideally, we’d like to have six months of expenses tucked away. It is hoped that six months is long enough to get back on top of things. Of course, heaven forefend, should we wind up having to live off of an emergency fund like that we would, naturally, cut as much fat and luxury as we could and that would certainly go towards stretching out our ‘margin of safety’.

Personal history has shown me that long before TSHTF in a cataclysmic, biblical, Mad Max, zombierific way there’ll be plenty of small scale ‘personal SHTF’ moments….job losses, broken limbs, faulty transmissions, clogged pipes, broken furnaces, uncovered medical treatments, and that sort of thing. The sorts of situations that cant be fixed with an AK47, solar panels and a case of MRE’s. So…being pragmatic….we prepare for those ‘minor’ emergencies as well.

It follows, naturally, that if we’re not plunking down several hundred dollars a month to service debt then we’ve freed up that money to do other things…things we want to do rather than have to do. So…yeah, minimizing debt may definitely open up a few doors.

At this point theres a couple of you saying “Hey…paying off debt, emergency fund…this sound familiar from somewhere.” Yup, the missus and I read the Dave Ramsey book and listen to the radio show when we can. I am the last person in the world to drink self-help koolaid but I can appreciate and exploit a workable plan as much as the next guy. While the book (“The Total Money Makeover”) gives instructions and plans for getting your financial act together, the more powerful effect is that , for me anyway, it makes you think about money and debt in a different way and, like any other change in your life, once you start thinking differently about something your behavior changes as well. So, if you get a chance, listen to the show or read the book.

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

Weather here is pleasant for February, we have plenty of food in the house, theres bright sunlight to keep moods high. Just the sort of combination to lull someone into a sense of complacency before getting kicked in the nads by reality. Moral of the story: don’t let your guard down.

Honestly, I’ve been lax lately. I need to do some grocery shopping/hoarding. I need to get seeds started for this years gardening adventure. I need to load up some practice and plinking ammo. All sortsa things I need to do and its just seductively easy to not do them and goof off. Staying focussed is always a trick.

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I try to keep politics outta this blog, I really do. But, good grief, is there anyone who thinks that this ’stimulus’ package, which seems to have enough pork to practically squeal, is a good idea? If your business (or business sector) needs a ‘bailout’ then perhaps your business or industry has outlived its natural life and should be left to thrive or fail on its own merit. Do you suppose that a hundred years ago the Municipal Gaslamp Lighters Local 101 demanded .gov bail out for the gaslamp lighters industry because otherwise those newfangled electric streetlights would wipe out their ‘too big to fail’ industry? Evolve or die.

Regardless, the amount of money being bandied about is so mind bogglingly huge that its truly incomprehensible. We can relate to a thousand dollars. We can kinda relate to a million dollars. A billion? Thats almost the same as elevnteenjillion in terms of being able to relate to the number. A trillion? Thats a million people with a million dollars each. Or, put another way, if that Jesus guy spent a million bucks everyday since his birth he’d still have another 700 years of spending in front of him. If you have a 75 year life span, you’d have to spend around $35 million a day, every day. I can’t spend that kinda money every single day, but then again Im not a Democrat.

I was going to say that this seems like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic but its more like blowing holes in the good parts of the hull to let out all the water that came into the ship through the damaged part of the hull.

This cannot end well. How could it? Perhaps theres some sort of economic law or theory that Im unaware of that will actually make all this work and bring back ‘Morning in America’ but I just can’t see how. So…I say prepare for the epic fail.

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

Annnnnnnnd…25 32-rd Uzi magazines later, we’re pretty much done with Uzi magazine supplies. A few spare parts and a threaded barrel are pretty much all that we need to round it off and put this baby away for Der Tag.

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Its about that time of the year to start seedlings indoors here in Montana. Don’t blink or you might miss our growing season. I’ve been looking at seeds at this place for a few months. I just noticed they have a little survivalist seed package that is carefully devoid of any survivalist impressions.

I like to cook (actually, I hate cooking..I love eating) and I dream about having everything I need for my own salsa and pasta sauces growing right out in my yard. So I’ll be trying to do tomatoes, chilis, basil, oregano, cilantro, and a few other plants. In a perfect world I’ll be canning a couple dozen pints of tomato sauce and salsa later this year.

Perhaps this year I’ll photoblog the development of the greenery as it comes up.

Here’s a link to making seed-starting pots from newspaper. Mighty clever, and deliciously frugal.

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A few links to websites and blogs Ive been perusing lately:

Hip Chick Digs – Blog of urban food raising

$5 Dinners – Just what it sounds like

How To Cook Like Your Grandmother

And now Im hungry……..

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

The more I watch the faltering and hemming of the new administration, the less faith I have that they can actually do anything to change what’s going on. One thing about developing an interest in being prepared – it usually makes you far less confident the abilities of organizations (governments or ‘public services’) to actually make a beneficial difference.

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Apparently, even I am not immune to the “must buy a black gun while I can!” hysteria sweeping the nation. In a fit of less-than-clearheadedness I talked myself into buying this:

See, I’ve been wanting a 9mm carbine for quite a while now. My choices were, by and large, limited to the AR, Uzi, HK, Marlin, KelTec, Feather, and a few other esoteric ones. My criteria was pretty simple – I wanted something that was durable, reliable, had tons of parts and mag support, could be made compact for travel, and an excellent reputation overall. The AR platforms would have been great but even broken in half it won’t stow in my Tactical Tailor bag. Same for the HK94 with its non-removable barrel (not planning on SBR’ing anything at the moment). The Marlin is a fine gun but again the compactness issue and the non-standard mags were a problem (really, who even uses S&W 9mms these days?) The Feather has the compactness and mag issues going for it but, like the KelTec, its a bit lightly constructed for my tastes. That left, pretty much, the Uzi.

Now, I’ve been wanting one for a while. Instead of thinking about wanting one, I should have thought about why I wanted one. Succinctly, what does it do that my Glock 17 with a 33-rd mag does not do? The only answer I can come up with is that by virtue of its shoulder stock and 16″ barrel it is more accurate at longer ranges. However, at that point an M4 or AK would be just as useful. So, really, unless you have the 10″ barrrel and/or the full-auto capability, there just isnt a compelling reason to get the Uzi. Unfortunately, that kind of logic didnt enter into the equation until a day or two later when the buyers remorse kicked in.

I made, in my opinion, a good deal on it. It comes in the box with all the standard goodies and is in excellent condition. These things havent been imported in almost twenty years and this one is like new. It also came with a genuine OEM .22 LR conversion kit with 3-20 rd. mags.

So, yeah, its a sweetheart and in six-months it’ll be worth twice what I paid for it. But…it really was a dumb purchase. What would have been a smart purchase? More Glocks (never enough handguns), another PTR-91 (never too many rifles), a few thousand rounds of ammo, couple cases of primers, a few kegs of powder, etc, etc. Really, the last thing I should have bought was a 9mm Uzi. So…Imma gonna sell it.

Moral of the story: even the level-headed can get swept up in the moment by a ‘gun Ive always wanted’.

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

Being President is, in a few ways, much like being a survivalist. For this discussion, Im going to focus on one particular way in that the two are similar. Being President requires an enormous amount of expertise on a myriad of diverse topics. We can agree on that, yes? Knowledge of economics, foreign relations, geography, various cultures, historical precedence, international law, labor relations, etc, etc. It really is a rather lengthy list. Same thing for survivalists…ideally, we want to know as much as we can and be practically experts in food preservation, cooking, medicine, tactics, carpentry, electronics, plumbing, animal husbandry, farming, gardening, self-defense, auto repair, personal finance, etc, etc.

Both people, Presidents and survivalists, quite likely, are never going to master every single one of these disciplines that they need to know, even though it would be desperately useful if they could. So…what is the next recourse? You surround yourself, or make available to you, people who are experts. You have foreign policy experts, economic experts, etc. When its decision making time you pick their brains because they are the expert that you cannot be.

Same applies for survivalists. In this case, its the economy. I know a tiny bit about economics. Very tiny. I can have a grasp of fundamentals and maybe even connect the names to the policies, but thats about as far as it goes. What I do have, however, are friends who are far more savvy on the subject and whom I trust to give me good information. (The problem with bringing in an outside expert is always that you never know if theyre right or not…after all, how would you know? Youre not the expert, right? Solution? More than one expert.) So in the course of my day-to-day interactions I’ll say “What do you think about [economic headline]” and then listen carefully to the answer.

In addition to close friends who are knowledgeable on this subject I can also observe what goes on around me and scan the internet for more information. I may not understand why all the business are boarded up and the job centers are full of unemployed people, but I can certainly use that to gauge that, indeed, ’something is up’.

My opinion, which I freely admit is worth exactly what you paid for it today, is that things are, as they say, doubleplus ungood.

Our .gov is manufacturing money on a scale that is literally unprecedented in the history of this country. You know how we’ve been tsk-tsk’ing over the antics in Zimbabwe where they have something like 89.7 sextillion (10²¹) percent inflation? Our .gov is doing the same thing, just not on as blatantly a wholesale basis. As I understand it, its pretty simple: more money means that money is worth less. When one piece of green paper equals a loaf of bread, suddenly doubling the amount of green paper means each piece is now worth half a loaf of bread. (Or, if you prefer, a loaf of bread is now worth two pieces of green paper instead of one.) Thats inflation – an increase in the amount of money in circulation.

So, in the last couple months, our .gov has been creating more of this stuff at an amazing rate. According to economic theory that means that as they keep making more of it, each piece of it is worth less and less. When .gov says theyre going to spend a trillion bucks on ‘infrastructure’ and ‘creating jobs’ where does that money come from? You think you can raise a trillion dollars in taxes during a time like this? Nah…you simply create the trillion dollars with the stroke of a few keys and the support of the political establishment.

Thats all great, but whats that got to do with the price of tea in China? (or ammo in WalMart?)

It means that inflation is a real likelihood. The kind of inflation where the $600-every-two-weeks that used to pay your mortgage and groceries will now only pay your mortgage. It means that the $5000 you scrimped to save because that would cover you for a couple months of unemployment will now only cover you for a couple of weeks. It means that you are working 40 hours, getting the same money, and that money buys less than it used to…you are, in effect, taking a pay cut.

Now, lets couple this with you losing your job. You’ve been nervous about that so you’ve stuck $5000 in the bank. Yeah it only draws 1.1% interest, and with inflation running several times that you actually lose money by having it in the bank, but you feel safer knowing that when you log in to your online banking theres that magic “$5000″ staring back at you from the balance line. One day the boss tells you not to bother taking off your coat…plant is closed, heres a weeks salary and good luck. Youre concerned but not panicked…you’ve got $5000 in cash if you need it. But…milk moved up twenty cents a half gallon. Gas is up twentyfive cents a gallon. Utilities are up also. And wasn’t ground beef and chicken cheaper last month? Suddenly that $5000 umbrella is covering less and less. Your dollar is buying less and less…and you don’t have nearly enough dollars.

Two thoughts on this subject:

First, this is the scenario that seems to favor the ‘precious metals’ (PM) devotees. Thats right…you can’t eat gold, you can’t burn it as fuel, and it won’t grow into food. Therefore it is worthless, say the detractors. And, if you were living amongst the bushmen of the Calahari, they would be, mostly, correct. But, we arent talking about living in the Mad Max world. We’re talking about living in the world that comes right before the total collapse of society. The world of hyperinflation, wheelbarrows of cash, economic desperation moves, IMF emergency meetings and market turmoil. When you have lost your job and that $5000 in the bank will only buy you the safety that previously cost $3500, well, thats when that PM starts looking mighty good. If I could afford it, I’d have a nice little stack of gold and silver in the safe. As an investment? No. As a way to buy the things I need when the green paper in my pocket becomes worth less and less.

Secondly, after being reminded about it over at TSLRF, Im reading ‘The Alpha Strategy’ by Pugsley. (Free online). Part of what is advocated in the book is something I’ve been saying all along – stock up while things are relatively cheap and available. You know those guys that have 200 rolls of toilet paper in their basement? The case of 50 toothbrushes? The 55-gallon drum of laundry detergent? Theyre following that game plan whether they know it or not. You know that youre going to use ‘x’. You know ‘x’ will cost more later. ‘x’ will keep indefinitely in storage. Therefor, wouldnt it make sense to buy as much ‘x’ as you think you’ll need while you can still get it affordably? (Odds are youre doing it right now with ‘high capacity’ rifle magazines.)

I’m the most self-deprecating paranoid survivalist you’ll ever meet. I’ve no illusions about my ability to understand, much less forecast, the maelstrom that currently is swirling around our economy. Maybe I’m just one of the millions of people who get caught up in media-driven hysteria and fear and things just aren’t really as bad as they seem. Maybe Im a lemming who parrots the media and is easily manipulated. So…I won’t tell you “Hey, we’re in deep doggy doo…here’s what you need to do”. Instead I will respectfully urge you to take, say, an hour and do some investigating online. You dont even have to get out of your chair. Get a cup of coffee, turn off the radio, and open your mind. Go do as much research as you can on what the results are of this uncharted territory that we’re in regarding this sudden generation of ‘money’. Check out what has happened historically when someone fires up the printing press and starts running the stuff off in the figures we’ve been told. Check out what inflation will do to the ‘buying power’ of what you have socked away ‘for emergencies’. Play ‘what if?’ and put yourself into various scenarios. If you do that and you are convinced that youre going to be okay, then Im happy for you. I hope youre right. Maybe you’ll decide that perhaps a bit of caution is called for ‘just in case’. Maybe you’ll spend this weekend buying blue barrels and filling them with wheat and rice. But I urge you to find out for yourself. I think that we’re heading for some interesting times and I think that if you look at the information thats out there you’ll agree.

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

Technically, its not a gun show acquisition since I picked it up the day after the show. I stopped in at one of the better gun stores in town and since the GunPimp was busy with a customer I wandered around. No AR’s, a hlaf dozen PTR-91’s (which shows how foolish the crowds are…they should snap those babies up!), and my eye drifted over to the optics. Hey! Is that….? It looks like….! Why, yes it is! An IOR M2.

Who could resist? Not I. He had it for $299, we agreed to $275. This baby has illuminated reitcle, bullet drop compensator and takes abuse like a trailerpark housewife. I have the 10×56 IOR mounted on my dear CZ550 .308 and I have been quite pleased with these scopes. Outstanding values. Nothing fancy about ‘em. Theyre not military scopes that someone tries to pretty up to appeal to the sporting market. These things make no bones about themselves – they are military/tactical scopes through and through.

I’ll be dropping this on one of my flattop 20″ Bushies as soon as i figure out mounting options.

Ok, I *did* get something at the Kalispell show but I feel tremendously guilty about it. I might post about it in a few days. We’ll see. Don’t ask, i won’t tell you. It is, however, cool.

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

Kalispell gun show was today. A little different than the normal local shows I usually go to. Battle packs of .308 were around $95 a pack of 140.  AR’s were present but in reduced number. Mostly off-brands. I saw more FAL’s than I have seen in a long time. Lotsa guns built from parts kits..all hovering in the $1600 range. Very few Glocks. Couple of Uzi’s. AR mags were around $20-25. Saw a few 9mm Calico’s which I havent seen in a long time. Here’s something that you dont see every day:

Go ahead, click. Its a Ruger .44 auto made into a bullpup. How bizarre!

Also saw a paperless Barrett M82A1 w/ Swarovski scope, 5 mags and a hundred rounds of ammo for $10k…but no paperwork. Thats got some attraction, eh?

The vendors told me that the show was packed and that sales were brisk…I believe it. I picked up a few things for myself, crossed ‘em off my list and started thinking about how I was going to pay for whatever I bought.

All in all, a better show than many of the ones Ive been to lately.

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

Interesting last couple of days…

Was woken up a little before 6am the other day to the sound of my furnace blower motor eating itself. Apparently one of the pulleys that drives the squirelcage blower fractured and threw the whole mess off balance. Keep in mind it was -2 outside and this meant no heat until about 9am when stores opened. House dipped to about 49 before I finally said screw it and broke out the auxillary heat. One kerosene heater later and we were back up to about 57 which is on 6 degrees off from where I usually keep the thermostat anyway. So, got the furnace blower taken care of and all was back to normal. However, it was nice to have the kerosene heater and an ample supply of kerosene on hand to keep the pipes from freezing.

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Then my Glock parts showed up today. Im pushing very had for as complete and plentiful a spare parts kit as I can make it. I.m going for a half dozen of the parts that arent prone to breakage and a dozen of the parts that have something of a history of breakage. Today the recoil assemblies (G17 and G19) arrived along with firing pin springs, magazine catches, trigger springs, connectors, etc. About $120 of parts. I need to place one more order and then I’ll be done with the spare parts aspect of the Glocks.

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And in other bright spots, I had my freakin’ wisdom teeth out today. Not as bad as it could have been, Im sure. But its still a major drag. In his book, Tappan recommends getting your wisdom teeth out preemptively so that sometday youre not sitting around a campfire with an xacto knife, a pair of vise grips and a bottle of Jim Beam practicing DIY dentistry. I am not that hardcore…I had them out because I was having some other dental work done and as long as theyre rooting around in there with a hammer and chisel I may as well get it all done at once.

All in all, just a few days of annoyances. Im hoping to get out this week and take the new G17 for a spin, play with the PTR-91 with the .22 kit, update a few inventory spreadsheets, order more Glock parts, play with some new products I plan on evaluating and generally doing stuff that I enjoy. We’ll see how that goes.

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

First off, happy birthday to John M. Browning. Easily this countries most prolific firearms genius.

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Couple people have asked me about what spares Im getting for the Glock (or GLOCK if you prefer, which I don’t.)

First off, I try to err on the side of caution. I have had 100 year old guns that never skipped a beat and still had their all original parts. I’ve also had some stuff that was made in the last twenty years that came apart like a Whitewater alibi. Some parts or more prone to breakage than others. Some parts are more prone to getting lost than others. I try to keep all this in mind.

I haven’t broken anything on my Glock yet but, interestingly, the missus has. The trigger springs seem to be the most common thing to break when a part decides to go south. The gun will still function, you’ll just have to push the trigger forward with your finger to reset it for the next shot. I hear that if you swap out the standard coil spring for one of the heavy “NY trigger” units you’ll never have a problem since the NY units are nigh indestructible. She has also managed to break a recoil spring assembly. Again, gun continues to function, just makes disassembly a bit trickier since the spring is no longer captive. Gun Breaking Juju is one reason I try not to let her shoot my stuff and insist she have her own. She even managed to break the magazine release on her Kimber 1911. Right in half. But I digress….

I order all my Glock stuff from the folks at Lone Wolf Distributing. If its gotta do with a Glock, these guys have it. OEM and aftermarket parts, as well as some very cool accessories. Theyre in Idaho so you know they take the whole gun thing seriously. I also recommend The Complete Glock Reference Guide as the best resource Ive found so far. Tells you everything you need to know about your Glock and has very valuable info like parts interchangeability between models and lists of what parts are or are not common to all pistols. Its a tremendous aid in deciding what parts to keep on hand. I cannot overemphasize how valuable this book is if you plan on riding out Ragnarok with your Glock. Detailed disassembly directions, parts diagrams, part interchangeability charts, a very interesting torture test section (they shot it out of a cannon…try that with your 1911), serial data, technical data, tool recommendations, troubleshooting guide, inspection guidelines, etc, etc. Seriously…get the book, I promise you won’t regret it.

At the moment, Im trying to keep at least a half dozen of each part that I feel we need. We have enough Glocks that if we were not able to get any more tomorrow we’d need at least a half dozen copies of a part to last indefinitely across our stable of Glocks.

Parts currently inventoried include: Firing Pin Springs, Trigger Springs, Magazine Catch Springs, Depressor Plunger Spring…hell, every spring thats in the gun really. Channel Liners, safety plungers, slide lock springs, recoil spring assy., connectors, trigger housing with ejector, etc, etc. Most of these parts are less than $5 ea. All parts are stored in small ziptop plastic bags with their name, part # and quantity clearly written on them. The whole pile is then stored in a Pelican case with a couple xerox sheets of parts diagrams, part lists, and that sort of thing.

Basically, other than a frame, slide, barrel and extractor, all the other parts cheap and easy to stockpile affordably. I wont pick up a half dozen extra slides or barrels but I may get two extra barrels (threaded and with cut rifling).

While I love my P35 and my Smith & Wessons, no gun is easier to maintain and keep running than the Glock. If theres anything on it that can’t be replaced by simply ‘dropping in’ the correct part with no fitting whatsoever..well, I dont know what it would be. Sure, it has absolutely no personality, charm or soul. Compare a Bic lighter to a Zippo, or a Bic pen to a Waterman….one has character, history, charm and personality…a soul. The other has nothing except raw utility value and uncommon reliability and convenience. I have some beautiful HiPowers that I love to shoot…but I would never dream of letting one sit wet in a holster for a few days, drop it on a concrete floor to test its resistance to damage, or let it bang around in a backpack full of assorted gear. The Glock, however, like the Bic pen or lighter, gets the rough treatment without a second thought from me about ‘collector value’, ‘old world bluing’, ‘case colors’ or ’smooth walnut’. Its a tool in the most literal sense.

Anyway, they are the AK47 of the handgun world. Hate ‘em if you want, but have one anyway.