Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Most folks are familiar with the Greenbrier…the superbunker built under a luxury hotel to house Washington VIPs in case of a nuclear attack. Various tours are available of the facility and if I ever find myself on that side of the country again I’d surely love a tour. However, uber bunkers like that aren’t just limited to First World countries. I’d read that over in Canuckistan they had the Diefenbunker…designed to protect the Canadian government from…uh..errr..well, I dunno what. Maybe they were worried the Quebecois might get the bomb or something. Anyway, I found that there is indeed a site for the facitlity. Most .gov bunkers have really cool names attached to them. I can only imagine what the codename was for the Canadian bunker…Fort Molson? Mooseheadquarters?
No doubt every nation, in some capacity, has such a facility. The Swiss are famous for their bunker-building exploits. The Germans uncover a new one everytime they extend a subway line. Former Soviet satellite states are dotted with them.
Anyway, I bring it up because I always find it interesting to see these things and observe how they design for various contingencies. Plus, theyre just so darn cool.
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After a hiatus of a few years, the missus has decided to get back into IDPA shooting. Previously she used a G17 that she tweaked out after taking a Glock armorers class. Now she’s deciding she wants to compete with the .40 cal. Turns out that the finger grooves on the 3rd gen Glocks wind up forcing her hand into an unnatural grip, so we had to hunt down a used 2nd gen .40 that didnt have the finger grooves. Zanders has a bunch of Detroit PD trade-ins so we got her one. First time I’ve had a Glock fail the slide-return-to-battery-while-pointed-at-the-ceiling test. Now, admittedly, this ‘test’ is not without some controversy as to whether it actually has any merit. However, none of my other used Glocks have ever failed it, so perhaps there is something going on here. Regardless, we were planning to swap out all the springs anyway. A few interesting things…the Detroit gun has DPD in the serial number, all the mags are marked DPD, the slide is marked PROPERTY OF DETROIT POLICE DEPARTMENT and theres one of those hideous NY trigger modules in there. First Glock Ive ever seen with actual police markings on it. I’ll detail strip and clean the thing tonight, replace the springs, and we have a competition trigger group on the way. For the money, a good platform to build up a competition-styled gun. Wish they had some 9mm trade-in Glocks, but most of those seem to have dried up.
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So, to date, I’ve tried the Kifaru Wooby and the Wiggy’s Insulated Poncho. Both have their good and bad points. Between the two, I liked the Kifaru better but its a bit more money than the Wiggy’s. Well, there’s now a third contender in this race. And, as Im starting to notice, as I get closer and closer to exactly what I want the price goes up exponentially. At $225 theres no way in hell Im getting one of these but Im liking the design. Exped Dreamwalker 250 – wearable as a poncho, has a drawstring hood, zips together to form a sleeping bag, highly compressible, down filled. Except for the amzingly hideous color it looks like it would be a virtually ideal candidate for something to stuff in a daypack for those ‘just in case’ moments.
