Monthly Archives: September 2007

New MH policy

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Got a letter from the folks at Mountain Housetoday. They say that in an effort to ‘protect the Mountain House brand’they are now setting up a policy where dealers cannot sell the #10 canproducts for an amount less than 80% of MSRP. In short, your MountainHouse dealer, if he wishes to remain a dealer, cant discount the stuffmore than 20%. So…if you havent gotten yours yet, you might wannahunt some down before the various vendors raise their prices.

The penalty? Mountain House says they’ll give a warning and then the dealer loses his dealer status.

Personally, I think once the product leaves MH’s facility its fair game, but thats just me.

ANyway, I mention this in case it winds up affecting those group buys you sometimes see bandied about on the various forums.

Moral: buy ’em now while you can get them at good prices.

Locavore?

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Living off the land..in Brooklyn NY.

Howard figured his farm could provide him enough food for amonth late in the summer and began preparing in March. He builta chicken coop, dug a drainage system to water his crops, spentthousands of dollars on topsoil to cover his yard’s lead-rich,nutrient-poor clay and bought rabbits, ducks and 25 chicks.

He soon learned it was hard work — seven days a week, sixto 16 hours a day, tending his farm nearly every day until theexperiment of eating his food began in mid-August.

When I grew up in Brooklyn you would be amazed how many families, esp. the Italian ones, had intensive gardens on tiny plots of backyard. Tomatoes were the big grower although I recall seing guys growing corn on the edges of parking lots. And tehres always stories of people raising chickens in apartments in the poorer neighborhoods.

Schrade knives

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Im reading the new Sportsmans Guide catalog and they have a cool Schrade ‘survival knife’. I think to myself “Hmmm, that’s odd. Schrade went out of business a year ago.” Then I see in the description that the knife is made in China. :::facepalm::: This is the same thing that happened to Grundig. A well respected brand disappears and the name is bought and used on cheap Chinese products. So: if youre buying a Schrade these days, make sure it is not a Chinese version.

Its sad, but it seems that the really good American knifemakers are falling by the wayside. Increased materials cost, union problems, overseas competition, etc, etc. Its gotta be tough.

Moving up from Fred Flintstone stone axes, the knife is your most basic tool. I own too many to keep track of and like guns no one tool does it all. Theres an old saying that you can use a big knife to do tasks suited for a little knife but not the other way around. Most of the time this is true but I’ve had occasions where there simply was no substitute for a smaller knife. (Cleaning brook trout, for example) On the other hand, you can almost never get a little knife to do the job of a big knife (splitting deer pelvis, prying things apart, hacking limbs from trees, digging firepits, etc, etc.)

It’s a personal preference thing so Im just gonna tell you what I like and why.

Multitool – I like the Leatherman Wave. For me, it fits the overwhelming majority of my needs. It has two blades, one serrated one not, and I use the serrated blade almost exclusively, keeping the regular blade in reserve for when I need a razor sharp edge for some delicate work.

Pocket folder – Since I carry the Leatherman I don’t usually carry a pocketknife. When I do, I like the small plastic handled Gerber folders. I find the Gerbers are easier to sharpen although it seems that the Buck holds an edge longer.

General Utility Sheath Knife – I like the Glock field knives. They are very inexpensive and very rugged. I find them to be an excellent all-around knife. For a little more money I also like the now-discontinued Becker Knife & Tool sheath knives. Brute ruggedness.

Others:
Most Kershaw knives…they just seem flimsy.
Cold Steel – decent product but I don’t care for Made In Japan much more than Made In China. Yeah, they have a great history of making swords, but unless its some wizened old Japanese man folding a bar of steel a thousand times to make my pocketknife rather than an industrial steel press, I’ll avoid them.
Spyderco – I like the knives but I am extremely hard on those belt clips. I do like their defensive knife with the terrifying S-shaped blade.
Ka-Bar – Seem like fine knives. I realize they went up Iwo Jima but that doesn’t mean better designs haven’t happened since then. Theyre an excellent knife for the money and I certainly wouldn’t turn one down as a gift, although I prefer the newer Kydex sheaths.

Whenever possible, I like half-serrated blades. Theyre harder to sharpen but I like that they cut smooth materials better than a non-serrated edge. (Wet nylon rope springs to mind.)

On the ‘specialty’ side of things, I have a lovely Anza hunting knife that I use for that purpose. For more bizarre adventures I have the BK&T ‘Tac Tool’.

To me, all gear is expendable. If the situation calls for it I’m willing to abandon, destroy or discard whatever is needed. Examples? Slip and fall during a river crossing and have to drop your pack or gun. That sort of thing. So, ideally, I like my gear to be good but affordable so I can have spares. While SureFire makes some really razoo folding knives I am not paying $350+ for a folding knife.

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Interesting link of the day

1000 words on handgun selection

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Someone asked my opinion on a gun for those Very Bad times in life. Unfortunately, its one of those questions that isn’t easily answered. Why? There’s many factors to consider –
Is the person familiar with the operation of automatics vs. revolvers?
Whats their level of skill? Weekend shooter? Competitor? Once a year?
What is the scenario under which they envision needing a gun?
Are there any other limiting factors?

If you [work with/sell/repair/recreate with/compete with/collect] guns, at some point someone will ask you to recommend a gun for them. Historically the answer is usually a 9mm of some type or a .38 revolver for the inexperienced. Theres some validity to this reasoning and I’ve often given it as an answer when pressed. But…and this is all my opinion so feel free to say Im fulla crap…heres a succinct and honest recommendation: buy the best quality firearm you can afford, that you are likely to practice with, in a caliber that you can shoot accurately, fast and comfortably.
“best quality firearm you can afford” – some will say buy the best quality firearm PERIOD. No, buy the best you can afford. If you put yourself in debt to buy a top-of-the-line BurglarBuster 2000 you wont have the money to afford practice ammo, defensive ammo, a holster and a cleaning kit. But more importantly, you wont be able to afford to practice and if you don’t practice than your gun is about as useful as a Roman candle. Buy a quality gun that you can afford and still be able to buy ammo and range time.

“that you are likely to practice with” – You plunk down money for that high quality affordable handgun and a box of ammo. You go to the range, determined to do your best and to become familiar with your new purchase, you load up, fire six rounds of .44 Mag and say “Im never doing that again!’. If you don’t enjoy shooting you won’t do it as often as you would if you enjoyed it. If a .45 is too much kick and blast and makes you flinch and cringe, get a .40. If that’s too much, get a 9mm. If the .357 Magnum terrifies you when it goes off, shoot .38 Specials. If you don’t enjoy shooting the gun, you won’t want to practice. Get a gun you’ll want to practice with. Get a gun that makes you say ‘Man, I hope I can get some time this weekend to go to the range’.

“that you can shoot accurately, fast and comfortably” – If your gun makes you flinch, twitch and jump when you shoot it you wont shoot comfortably, you wont be able to shoot it quickly, and it almost certainly wont be accurate. If youre not comfortable an automatic, get a revolver. If you cant shoot the revolver quickly, get an auto. Get what you feel most comfortable and perform best with.

For some people, heck for most people, this really will mean a 9mm or a .38 Special. For a few small people it might mean a .380 ACP and for some gorillas it might mean a 10mm. But anyone who can swing a golf club, knead bread dough, or do a couple chin ups can handle a 9mm or .38 Spl.

Whats your standard of marksmanship? One well-known writer on the subject said: “Set up a silhouette target or simply a twenty-four-inch wide by thirty-six-inch long sheet of wrapping paper at a measured twenty-five yards. Then with your friend timing you and blowing a start and stop signal on a loud whistle at five-second intervals, draw your pistol of choice (in a serious caliber) and fire five shots at the center of the target mass, within the allotted five seconds. Reload and repeat. If all of your shots can be contained within a ten-inch circle four times out of five, your survival index is probably adequate. If not, you need training.” (Tappan, “Survival Guns”)

My criteria is a bit more simple- staple a standard paper plate to a target board. Start at, say, 10 yards. Draw and shoot five rounds into the target area. Ideally, you want to do this as fast as you feel comfortable doing. If all your shots stay in the plate, move back another five yards. Repeat. Increase the distance. When you can no longer keep all your shots on that plate you’ve established the maximum distance you can shoot handgun effectively. Given that most handgun events seem to take place at relatively close distance, shooting in the ten to twentyfive yard range seems to be the area to concentrate on.

“Yeah, that’s all great theory but I’ve got a job, a mortgage to pay and barely time to go to the range. Whats gonna work best for me when the power goes out and 911 isnt answering the phone, huh?”

If you want something that youre only going to shoot once or twice a year, doesn’t have any tricky levers or buttons to remember, and can be had fairly cheap then I’d say get a police trade-in .38 or .357 ($250~) or a trade-in Glock 9mm or .40 ($400~). Buy some inexpensive ammo to practice with and become familiar with your gun. Buy a couple boxes of the expensive defensive ammo (usually a hollowpoint with a name like Gold Dot, Golden Sabre, HydraShock, XTP, SXT, etc) and shoot one or two boxes so you know exactly how the gun will perform with it. Load up the ‘good ammo’ and put your gun in a safe place for when you need it. (Storing it loaded vs. unloaded is up to you. Imagine the scenario you think most likely to require your gun..will you have time to load it? In the dark? When youre twitchy with adrenalin? Practice loading and unloading. Personally, I leave ‘the house gun’ loaded at all times.)

That’s 1000 words on handgun selection. I could use up another 1000 but it would just be rehashing the above.

Patriot Day, gas rotation and containers, misc. observations

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Other than my pet peeve about calling 9/11 ‘Patriot Day’, I have nothing much to say about 9/11 here. This is because this particular blog isn’t about beating to death various political events. When I do touch on politics here its usually in the context of elections and how the results of those elections will affect the Average Joe’s ability to buy or have access to The Things He Needs. A lot of times it doesn’t seem like it, but I do try to stay on-topic. (Tinfoil hats aside, I do follow the news a little more closely on days like this…y’know, just in case.)
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I’ve started rotating out the stored gas from last year. I usually try to add it to at least half a tank of fresh gas just in case the stored gas has any issues. However, thus far there seems to be no problems using gas that has been stored for the last year using PRI-G. Once I’m done rotating out the stored gas I will be getting rid of my current plastic Blitz cans in favor of the Euro-style Jerry cans. One of my vendors has a pretty good deal on some used ones so I’m getting in two dozen. (Its also worth noting that some US manufacturers have now come out with a similar can.) I’ll keep a half dozen for myself but the rest will be sold locally to the LMI, if theyre interested. (I’m getting a good deal on them but their weight makes them uneconomical to ship…unless you live somewhere where they aren’t available at any price.) These cans have a couple properties Im interested in – first off, theyre metal so they should be less prone to expansion/contraction issues. However, I think that if you fill the can to leave very little headspace the expansion/contraction issues will be reduced since it’s the vapor, rather than the fuel, that seems to do all the volumetric fluctuations.
The cans are self venting when used with the correct spout. However, I usually just para-cord a longneck funnel to each can and not worry about the spigot. I’ll be getting a couple anyway just to try out.
(Sidetrack: the funnels should be closed off with plastic or something at either end to keep bugs, dirt and general crap out of the funnel so that when its time to use it you don’t wind up washing all that crap into your gas tank.)
The cans are also designed so that the handles can be grasped by two people, allowing a fast ‘bucket brigade’ method of transport.
Finally, the interiors are treated/lined to prevent rusting.
Oh..and theyre also a nifty shade of OD.
They should be here next week and I’ll have a more detailed post about them then.
Heres everything you wanna know about the Euro style cans

Same vendor is also selling surplussed 5-gal military water containers. I’ve also got a couple dozen of them on the way. Pics will follow when they arrive.
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Still futzing with the new shelving I set up. I worked up a spreadsheet to keep track of the various foodstuffs that are now stored in the basement. Someone pointed out to me that once you have the basic shelves you can buy extra shelving or support legs ‘ala carte’ from restaurant supply stores and many times these shelves can be had from restaurants that are going out of business. Theres a restaurant supply store here in town and I may wander over and see what they have.
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Went shooting the other day. Really, it was more just standing around with a gun in my hand and gabbing with friends. Nine times out of ten, when I want to really ‘practice’ I go to the range by myself. Its just faster and easier to practice weakhand drills, move-n-shoot drills, etc, by myself. I get to do stuff at my own pace and not worry about anyone else. I have decided, however, that I very much need a .22 LR conversion for the AR so I can practice cheaply and use the pistol clubs steel plates (which are usually forbidden for rifle practice because of damage). I’d love to set up a bunch of plates and do a move-n-shoot scenario with the AR.
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The weather here has done its usual trick of going from one season to the next with no intermediate stage. The 102 degree days have given way to 65 degree days (and 50 degree nights) practically overnight. Its going to be time to start dragging my cold weather gear out of storage soon. (As well as put the winter emergency gear in the truck.)
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Was up at CostCo yesterday and saw a nice Honda (w/ Briggs & Stratton engine) 7100 watt genny for sale. $895~. I’d love to have a generator for the house but it’s a rather big ticket item. Realistically, I only need it to run the freezer and refrigerator. But it sure would be nice to have. I”d put one on the wedding registry but it would detract from the .50 caliber fund and Im pretty sure I’ll be able to find generators a lot more easily than I can find .50 cal. Rifles. If I cant get a .50, my next choice is a .338 Lapua but Im holding out for the .50.
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Its been about, mmmmm, a year or so since I got my Leatherman Wave multitool. I can say, after having carried it every day since I got it, that it is an excellent product and I can recommend it without reservation. I need to buy an extra one or two to keep in the bunker but other than their cost I cant find anything to fault them with. It is absolutely a piece of Everyday Gear.
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That reminds me, hunting season approaches. I very much want to go out this year. I need to start planning in that direction.

The faux Patriot Day

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Today is the sixth anniversary of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks. Im not gonna go into that, since w’ve all seen what has come after it. No, my point is that on many calendars this is being called ‘Patriot Day’.

There used to be, and in some places there still is, a holiday called ‘Patriots Day’ (note the Patriot/Patriots distinction). Patriots day is commonly celebrated on April 19th. It was to celebrate the patriotic spirit and remember those patriots who gave for their beliefs.

The current ‘Patriot Day’ is nothing like that. The current ‘Patriot Day’ is yet another example of how we’ve developed a need to memorialize every tragedy that occurs. If the powers that be feel this event warrants a special name and date, terrific..I dont agree but thats just me. However, I feel it detracts from a genuine and long-respected holiday. The original Patriots Day.

For the record, I celebrate Patriots Day every year in the finest fashion – going to the range and practicing my rifle skills.

So, look back on the events in 2001 and behave as you feel necessary. I recall watching the whole affair live on TV and all I could think was ‘There goes my liberty’…time has proven that I was correct. Call it whatever you wanna call it, but calling it ‘Patriot Day’ harkens a certain Orwellian recasting of history.

LED lightrs, Trasers

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Was up at CostCo the other day and found not one, not two but three different handcrank/dynamo flashlights for sale…including a four-pack of the things for $30. Naturally, they are all made in China but what interests me is how items like this are becoming more and more mainstream. What I was after while I was at CostCo was neat little ‘puck lights’. These are small hockeypuck sized battery operated LED lights meant for use in closets or cabinets. They run on 3AAA batts, have two intensity settings and were $12 for a pack of three. My purpose? When the power goes out it’ll be nice to illuminate a path to the bunker…cause once you get there all your lighting issues become a thing of the past. However, navigating stairs and accessways is a bit difficult in the dark. And if youre going to be relaying boxes of goodies out of there it’d be nice to have some hands free lighting. So, I’ll mount them on the ceiling or wall at the most useful points and that way they’ll be there when I need them. Turned all the lights out last night and tried them out at various points in the house to see where they’d offer the most assistance. They definitely throw out enough light to navigate stairs and hallways.

I actually had similar lights but they were incandescent types which don’t put out nearly as much light with the minimal power requirements afforded by LED’s. It used to be widely advocated that fluorescent lighting was the way to go for emergency lighting because of its lower power consumption. LED technology has pretty much supplanted that. LED bulbs (such as they are) really never burn out (for all practical purposes Im calling 10,000+ hour use life ‘never’), are far less susceptible to shock and impact than the alternatives, and most importantly the power consumption rate is magnificently small…an important factor if you don’t know when the lights are coming back on.

Thus, Im leaning towards LED’s for most of my emergency lighting needs. However, there is still indeed a place for the 1,000,000 candlepower handheld floodlights and the wonderful SureFire lights. But for stumbling through the dark garages, checking through the cabinets and lighting a path down the hallway the LED’s are the way to go.

I did pick up one of the LED D-cell MagLites a while back and I like it. The biggest drawback Ive experienced so far has been ‘range’. That is to say, you cant light up a distant object with the LED MagLite like you can with the non-LED one but for every other use I find it to be a terrific choice. For example, I dropped the stupid thing the other day onto the concrete floor and it worked just fine…whereas, IMHO, a regular bulb would have had its filament rattling around leaving me with a dead flashlight.

Since I try to stick to the AA and D size batts, I leave lithium batts in the LED lights. This way they are good to go with literally no attention for many years. Leave ‘em in the car, in the bag, in the desk and they’ll work just fine in five or ten years.

Although I hate the price of lithium batts, they are the way to go for the critical gear. I can find AA and AAA batts without difficutly. I can even find 9v lithium (sold at Lowes/Home Depot for smoke detector use) but I’m having a hellacious time finding lithium D batts locally. Gonna have to hunt them down online I guess.

Speaking of LED vs. non-LED I have been very taken with SureFire’s ‘Aviator’ line of lights. A hybrid light utilizing both Xenon and LED lamps, the Aviator with red LED’s and bright white Xenon lamp seem like the best of both worlds. Pressing the switch halfway in gives you the LED lamp and pressing it all the way in gives you the blinding Xenon lamp. I very much need one of these things.

However, before anyone gets the wrong idea, theres a lot to be said for flashlights that don’t cost two hundred bucks. My big D-cell MagLites can be had for $20 at CostCo and that includes batteries and a little AA MiniMag as well. Theres no shortage of cheap, durable, quality plastic flashlights out there (Streamlight makes some very nice one) I like the brutal ruggedness of the MagLite. And its ability to double as an impact weapon certainly has some appeal as well.

I currently carry the Streamlight 4AA LED light in my everyday bag along with a MiniMag with LED conversion. (Two is one, one is none ……..) [I also took an Altoids tin, lined it with bubble wrap and it makes excellent storage for 6 spare AA batts. The bubble wrap insulates from the metal case and also keeps the batts from rattling around. A rubber band made from a piece of bicycle tube keeps the lid from opening in my bag.]

For around the house I have the 3D MagLite, a SureFire 6P hanging on a lanyard on the bedpost, a weaponlight on the nightstand Glock, and another Streamlight on top of the gun safe. It’s a personal thing but unless you’ve got a battery powered light in your gun safe it makes loads of sense to keep a dedicated ‘gun safe flashlight’ on top of your safe. Even when the power is on its still dark in there. Add a power outage, noises at 3am, and a white-on-black combination lock dial and you’ll be glad you always leave a flashlight on your gun safe.

Last thing I wanted to mention – Trasers. These are small vials of tritium such as we use in our night sights. These keychain-trinket-sized goodies are used as fobs on gear you want to find in the dark. Extremely handy…unfortunately in this country its considered a frivolous use of radioactive material and thy are usually unavailable. There are some sources online but almost all are in the UK. The US sources I’ve found are expensive. However……I am trying to put together a deal for some and if I can swing it I’ll make them available as part of a group buy or something. I did manage to procure a bunch of tritium safety markers and they are very much worth the $..they are, broadly, directional whereas the Trasers are omnidirectional.. The Trasers are perfect for affixing to backpacks, containers, or other gear that you want to be able to find in the dark. Hopefully this deal will come through and I’ll get some at a decent price. Hell, just being able to find your car keys in the dark would make them worth the bucks.

Four Corners saga comes to an end

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For reasons that Ive never understood, I have always been fascinated by the story of the ‘Four Corners “surivivalists”‘ who got into a shootout with the cops and then disappeared ten years ago into the desert. One by one their remains turned up in the desert over the years. Someone stumbles across a pile of bones and a mound of rusted gear and the nex tthing you know the FBI is crossing a name off the list. The final guy, JasonWayne McVean, apparently fared no better than his comrades…cowboys found his gear and remains a few months back. Note the rusted topfolder AK in the picture of his gear.

The manhunt for these guys was remarkable for the way they simply disappeared as well as for the surprising amount of stuff the search parties encountered…including a hidden bunker belonging to an uninvolved citizen. Its a fascinating story and worth reading.