Tag Archives: gear

Flashlight holster

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So its been a couple weeks since I picked up the flashlight I posted about a while back. Thus far, I’ve been extraordinarily pleased with it. It’s just a tad bigger than what I’d want to carry around in my pocket for everyday use (that need is far better served with the Fenix E12), but for a flashlight to keep in my Bag O’ Tricks (TM) or on a belt….wonderful choice.

The belt thing, however…..

Like pretty much every high(er)-end flashlight you buy these days, this thing came with a nylon belt pouch. Nothing wrong with that. But I want something a little more durable and a bit more resilient. Fortunately, the internet is not lacking in ways to spend money. Specifically, this little piece o’ gear.

Mounted on my new Viking Tactical belt, it fits just fine and remains out of the way but handy. Recommended.

What? The Viking Tactical belt? Oh..ok….more about that later.

 

Snowfall means winter is here

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Had our first real bit of snow yesterday which means it is time to make sure any seasonal preps have been attended to. For me, that mostly means putting sand and a shovel in the back of the truck, putting the Winter Module into my Bag O’ Tricks(tm), and making double-sure the generator is ready to roll.

I live in an extremely urban part of Montana, so the power rarely goes out here and when it does it is usually in the winter, it is very localized, and is almost always back in a few hours. So, there’s not really a huge risk of damage there…but whose to say the next outage won’t be region-wide? Or larger?

The part of Montana I live in is also, weirdly, the warmest part of Montana. When Billings and Great Falls are -20, it’s 5 degrees here. This valley, for some reason, seems to just stay warm. Probably a volcano down there somewhere that no one has paid attention to.

Regardless, it’s time to switch modes from warm-weather to cold-weather. And, that means making sure your vehicle is ready for whatever winter brings. I had a whole series of posts on that sort of thing. There’s nothing heroic or glamourous about freezing to death by the side of the road because you thought one of those foil mylar blankets and a few handwarmers were going to be all you needed to get through a cold night in your car. No one is going to hand out awards to people who made it through a crisis with the least amount of gear…grab a sleeping bag or two, shove them in a Home Depot orange bucket, hammer a lid onto it, and – presto- a watertight, dustproof, dirtproof, protective container for your sleeping bag.

In addition to car stuff, go make sure you’ve got everything you need in case a pipe pops somewhere. Make sure nothing is obstructing the water shutoffs, have material handy (clamps, sheets of gasket material, etc.) to at least jury-rig something to keep things relatively dry.

And , of course, carry extra warm clothing. I dont mean “Extra warm” clothing, I mean extra “warm clothing”….because there is always someone, usually a Gyno-American, who underdressed for weather because the warm goosdown parka was ‘the wrong color’ or was ‘ugly’ and instead thinks wearing fleece tights and a ‘cute’ fleece jacket will suffice. And the hat will ‘mess up’ her hair. Carry extras, guys.

WInter is here, time to shift gears.

Fenix PD35

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Man, I remember in the very fledgling days of my survivalist existence the flashlight to have was the MagLite. The bigger the better, and MagLite made some of those things in as many as, I believe, 6 D-cells which was alot like carrying a baseball bat. And, of course, that was the idea behind it. MagLite’s unspoken-yet-obvious big selling point was that you could beat someone to death with it if you needed to. And, back in those days, you had a Krypton bulb that threw out a decent bit of light compared to the flashlights of the day. But if you dropped your MagLite there was a good chance the filament in the bulb would break, so they came with a spare bulb nestled in the tailcap.

Now it’s thirty years later and technology has actually delivered on its promise, at least as far as flashlight are concerned. Thanks to LED’s we get ten times the battery life and about that much times the brightness.

I mention this because I sent a pocket flashlight to someone as a gift and got one for myself on a whim. And I am astounded at the light output in it’s maximum mode. The light in question is the Fenix PD35 v3.0 1700 Lumen Tactical Flashlight with Two ARB-L18-2600Us and LumenTac Organizer.

For the last several years I have been carrying a Fenix E11/12   which has proven to be an outstanding choice for an everyday pocket light. Bright enough for most operations without getting into the overly tactical realm. It’s small, runs on one AA batt, and fits in your pocket quite nicely.Its a good everyday carry kind of item and I recommend it highly for that.

But…sometimes you want something in the same (or similar) size and form factor but you want to up the firepower. So, after examining the one I got as a gift for someone I decided I very much needed this thing in my repertoire.

It runs off an included rechargeable battery. The battery charges off of USB cable so you can pretty much charge it anywhere. Probably even off a Goal0 solar panel that’s designe for charging USB appliances. And, since it is USB, you can charge it off of anything that is meant to charge your phone…like those portable little battery banks. But, in a crunch, it’ll also run just as nicely on a couple of those CR123 batteries you’re using in your Surefire weapon lights. So..dual fuel.

The biggest attraction , to me, is this retina-scorching maximum setting on this thing. Hit the button on the tailcap to on/off. Once on, there’s a small button at the front bezel that you can click through the five power settings. Lowest setting will give you a nice ‘work light’ output for finding things close at hand in the dark, highest setting will look like an aircraft landing light. Hold down the selector button for a few seconds and you get a wildly disorienting strobe on maximum setting. Pretty sure it’ll induce an epileptic seizure on pretty much anyone…epileptic or not. It remembers what setting you had it on when you last used it, so if you turn it off on low, it’ll be on low when you turn it back on. Turn it off on maximum, and when you turn it back on…maximum.

Runtime, according to the paperwork, is something like 200+ hours on the low setting and about five hours on max. Battery recharge is about fifteen minutes and the battery has a red/green LED indicator on it to let you know when its charging/charged.

Price? Not cheap. About a hundred bucks which, even with Bidenflation, still seems like a bit of a bitter pill. But…cheap bastard that I am, I’m telling you that you’ll get what you pay for with this thing.

It’s about the size of your average Surefire light, but still of a size that would fit in a pocket. Theres a belt clip and lanyard for keeping things handy and from getting lost. If you do things like take the dog out at midnight, or walk home from work late at night, this is the last word in pocket handheld illumination.

Do I think it’s worth a hundred bucks? Hmmm. I think so. I’ve never had an occasion where I wished my flashlight had less power, but I’ve been in plenty of situations where I wished it threw a beam further or brighter.

So…thumbs up from your buddy Zero.

Wire cutters

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These were on sale a ways back and although the new price is not as good as the old price, for ten bucks these are a very good deal. I tested these out on chain link and barbed wire fencing and the work beautifully. I keep a pair in my truck box in case I need to make an exit off the interstate where these is none. Link.

Now, objectively, you are better off with a set of bolt cutters since they will cut padlocks as well whereas these surplus cutters will not. However, for the money, these are a fine tool to keep in your BOV, truck, or wherever for when getting through some fencing may be all that stands between you and something unpleasant.

I bought three sets last time. I keep one in the vehicle at all times because you never know when you might need to suddenly create your own exit off the roadway.

Tableware

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‘Twas my birthday last weekend. I received a couple gifts…a nice BK&T camp knife, and a very expensive, very Japanese, mechanical pencil set. (In my line of work, mechanical pencils are far handier than the usual yellow #2 variety.)

As I was admiring my loot, I was reminded of an article I saw a while back about the gear that soldiers have carried throughout the centuries. This isn’t the same article, but it’s close to it. The original article, which I can’t find, noted that even in the most underequipped armies, across the span of time, there has been one piece of equipment that nearly all soldiers or combatants carried. Surprisingly, it’s not a knife. It’s a pice of ‘field gear’ that is about as innocuous and undeadly as you can get. But…every soldier since the Romans carries one in some form or another.

A spoon.

If you think about it, it makes sense. There’s nothing you can eat with a fork that you can’t eat with your hands. But a spoon…..a spoon makes soups and stews possible to eat. A spoon makes forkable food faster to eat. A spoon is pretty much the one eating utensil to have. Knife? You already have one on your belt or attached to the tip of your rifle. Fork? Anything forkable is fingerable. But a spoon is a completely different story.

Not content to let things lay after a couple thousand years of fine tuning, mankind tried the two-fer of the spork. While I appreciate the intent, I have found that, again, anything I can eat with a fork I can eat with my fingers. So why compromise the efficacy of my spoon?

Having said that, there is a certain appeal to the spork that is not a spork…the ‘reversible grip’ eating implement. This is what I use when I’m afield. Actually, thats not true. Because I’m an evil yuppie survivalist, I spent the extra coin and got the titanium version because titanium.

It actually rides in my pack when I’m traveling, along with a couple freeze dried meals, a canteen cup, esbit stove, and a bottle or two of water. Does the titanium version do anything the plastic version does not? Mostly no, but I like the notion of a tool that is wildly overbuilt for its intended purpose. Gotta say, it is delightfully lightweight, though.

And while I love imagining what sort of ‘load out’ I’ll need for Der Tag, the simple truth is that even in the best of times a man’s gotta eat… so even when the zombies are shamblin’ about, I’ll still probably be needing to eat more than I need to shoot. So, I give some thought to my eatin’ irons and think the reverse-grip sppon/fork combo is the way to go.

I know, I know…nothing sexy about a spoon. Hard to imagine a survivalist getting worked up over tableware when there’s guns and knives to get excited about. But…the amateurs talk tactics, the professionals talk logistics. And nothing is more logistical than figuring out how the hell youre gonna eat soup after the apocalypse when you don’t have a spoon.

Scenes from CostCo

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Hmmm. A package of four Lifestraws for $35. That’s..uhm…carry the one….$8.75 ea. Thats not a terrible deal for something that you should have in your truck, go-bag, hunting pack, and elsewhere. My local CostCo also had some Goal0 stuff, but I was more interested in the deal on the LifeStraws. If I didnt already have a dozen of these I might pick up a package of these to use as Paratus gifts.

Mill arrival

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Almost five weeks after I ordered it, the grain mill I ordered finally arrived. NGL, I was starting to think it wasn’t going to ship at all. And, in the intervening time, the price rose almost 25% as availability shrank. But..it’s here.

Impressions? Definitely a product that is built to last. But…I ordered the spare parts nonetheless. My biggest problem was that I simply don’t have the counter space, nor the sturdiness of construction, that this thing will require. So, I gave it some thought and came up with something that seems to work.

First consideration was space. I cant just go buy or build a sturdy little bench and bolt this thing to it. I just don’t have room for that. Secondly, whatever I bolt it to has to be able to resist the forces exerted on the mill. In other word, if I start really leaning into this thing I need the mill and its mounting surface to not walk around or wobble.

Solution? Black and Decker Workmate WM225.

I mounted the mill to some scrap lumber, and then c-clamp that to the bench. The bench folds flat like a folding chair when not in use, so the footprint is minimal. And, thanks to physics, if I stand on the bench’s step while turning the mill handle I cannot lift the mill or the bench….for the same reason you cant stand in a bucket and lift yourself up in it. So…that works.

The mill itself looks like it’ll last a lifetime. I tried grinding up some hard white wheat and the result was a very fine flour. Changed out a few parts, threw in a handful of dried corn, and experimented with several different grades of fineness.

I will say that I can see why some people motorize these things. But, I picked up the extension handle for it so the extra leverage makes a big difference.

I haven’t done much, if any, baking in a while so I’ll have to see how the taste of fresh ground flour and cornmeal compares to what I’m used to.

Also, I can see where it might make sense for me to go pick up another 16-gallon ‘blue barrel’ and dump another hundred pounds of wheat or corn into it… just in case. A couple hundred pounds of each should last for quite a while.

Yeah, the mill was a major hit to the wallet but over the rest of my anticipated life span that knocks it down to something like a dime a day for a tool that will last forever and help keep me and the people I care about fed.

 

Stock options

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The Magpul backpacker stock for the Ruger PC9 showed up today.

I compared it side by side with the backpacker stock for the 10/22 and its is almost exactly the same size.

The stock is pretty much exactly the same as the Backpacker 10/22 stock, but the compartment in the stock that would normally hold a handful of 10/22 mags is now designed to fit one Magpul 21-rd 9mm magazine. Handy. Interestingly, ulike the 10/22 version, it came with a second cover for the stock compartment. This other cover acts like a riser to, presumably, give you a higher cheek weld for use with optics. Other than that..same stock, basically.

Like the 10/22 version, there’s no provision for a sling unless you order up some Magpul QD sockets. Annoying, but I suppose I can see why they went that way.

And, since TPIWWP:

Before….

…and after.

Buttstock offers a compartment with enough room to store a Magpul 21-rd Glock mag.

G17 for size comparison. This is almost the exact same size as the 10/22 version of the Backpacker stock.

The stock was about $150 from Brownells, but it’s a much better choice, IMHO, than that original Ruger stock. The QD swivel points are useful, the onboard mag storage is a major plus, the color is practical, and the way the barrel assembly locks to the stock to keep everything together in one unit is a really nice feature.

So, worth the money? In my opinion yes. I’ll take it out this weekend and do some shooting with it, but I expect it to perform just fine. Magpul has a pretty good reputation for doing stuff right.

Lifestraw video

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This is rather interesting, if true:

Again, I have no idea if this is true or not. But if it is, then it seems to suggest the LifeStraw is living up to it’s advertising.

These things come up on sale at Amazon once in a while and I always keep one in my bag when I’m out in the woods. While it’s true you can “last three days without water” you’ll really, really wish you died on that first one when you drink bad water. Being in a ‘survival situation’ is already fraught with hazards…why add ‘dying of a terminal case of the runs’ to it?

Advertised as being good for 1000 gallons of water, that would mean you could drink about 2.75 gallons a day for a year outta this thing. But, be real…most emergencies that require this sort of device are going to be of much shorter duration…a few days or a week. At which time, with a replacement cost of less than twenty bucks, toss it and get a new one.

As I said, I’ve seen these come up for sale on Amazon every so often and I think they’re a piece of gear thats worth having around in quantity. For real convenience, they make a water bottle with the filter built in…which means when youre on the run you just scoop your bottle through the creek or river, cap it up, and start drinking. I can see that as being a very handy thing.

I usually wait for a sale on Amazon but, geez, with the way things are going these days you have to juggle ‘supply chain issues’ (Read: shortages) against saving a few bucks.

 

 

Concrete Lego

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I freakin’ love the idea of these.

Of course, I could see a couple problems. First, unless you’ve got some lovely earthmoving equipment at your disposal, moving these things by yourself or with just one or two trusted friends is going to be difficult. Then there’s the matter of having enough concrete on hand….a wheelbarrow and shovel, or a portable mixer from the tool rental place, ain’t gonna do it. And then theres the matter of time…if you can only afford one mould, its going to take..what? days…for one block to dry and cure. And when you may need hundreds of blocks…well, thats a lot of time.

I suppose you could buy the mould and make a deal with a local concrete supplier. Give him the mould(s) and as him to make you as many blocks as you need. But, then you’re still locked into the transport and privacy issues.

A smaller version of these might make more sense. I sure do like the idea, though, of concrete Lego. Just the things for building outbuildings and that sort of thing. And probably make excellent anti-vehicle barriers for the perimeter of the property.

Cool idea, lotsa potential. Logistics is a bit tricky though.