Fuel can blues, Texas evacuations, mag/ammo inventory, ingenuity, flectar,

The way I figure it, I want the steel jerrycans for long-term storage for their durability, impermeability, and convenience. For short-term storage and banging around in the back of the truck, I like the plastic gas cans. I am, however, not thrilled with the spout/cap device on the Blitz plastic cans. The nozzle is an L-shaped piece of plastic that, when not in use, is flipped over and inserted into the can. Convenient, yes. But if it isnt seated properly against the mouth of the opening its possible for a slow leak of gasoline to occur. This is, naturally, not good. Fortunately WalMart automotive sells, also by Blitz, replacement cap/nozzle assemblies that are alot simpler and, in appearance, more reliable. $1.78 ea. I’ll be trying them out later.
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Texas had the New Orleans model to work off of and their evacuations weren’t very much smoother. Its readily apparent that you simply cannot evacuate a large urban/metropolitan area with anything approaching timeliness or efficiancy. The bottleneck, it seems, isnt only the drivers (who somehow thought that they had enough gas in their vehicles even though any sane individual could have told them theyre going to spend hours idling in traffic.) but the government officials who didnt change the traffic flows to accomodate the exodus until late in the game. They do get points, however, for trying to bring fuel to stranded motorists.
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An ammo & magazine inventory is sorely needed. Summer shooting and various classes have taken a bite out of the stockpile and that needs to be refreshed. While I am perfectly content with the amount of 10/22 and FAL mags that are on hand, I am only mildly at ease with the amount of AR mags..they average around 13 mags per gun which is less than I’d like. Glock mags are fair…the G17 mags will fit in all flavors of Glock that we have. Doing okay on 1911 mags. P35 mags could be a little better. Big question is AK mags. Off the top of my head I think we’ve maybe a dozen or so and I’d really like to get that up into the 20-odd amount at least. Fortunately the AK mags are fairly cheap…$10 ea. in bulk. Additionally, I’ve started marking some magazines as strictly for ‘training’ or range use to avoid having a battered and heavily-used mag wind up in storage. For the Glocks, this was easy – blaze orange baseplates. For the AK and AR’s, equally easy – a band of blaze orange duct tape around the bottom of the mag.

Ammo is another story. I’d like to store factory ammo as a reserve and do practice/recreational shooting with reloads. Fortunately the standardization of calibers leaves us with only a handfull of calibers to keep on hand – .223, .308, 7.62×39, 9mm, .45, .38/.357, 12 ga. and .22 LR. We’re pretty good on .22 LR since its only $20 for a thousand rounds at any WalMart. 12 ga. is also pretty cheap and easy to keep. The other calibers…not so much. 7.62×39 has gone up almost 50% in the last year…thats interesting. Still, its the cheapest centerfire around. In other calibers Remingtons new ‘yellow box’ 250-round packages are a fair deal these days. If you buy the bulk Rem. yellowbox, repackage it into plastic 50-rd boxes or something. And dont forget to cahce a small sampling of various calibers in a box for your vehicle.

Anyway, some inventory tomorrow.
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Mad Zero props to for managing to keep updating on hurricane Rita through a blackout by running an inverter out of his vehicle to power his computer and cable modem. Most folks wouldn’t have thought of that. And the good Doctor Hamm also had the forethought to have a camp stove for cooking on during the outage. I like to think its my influence. But Sam, didja have any extra gasoline for all the idling you were doing?
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According to my math, I am responsible for no less than 11 flectar parkas being sold in the last week to various LJ people. Theyre good parkas and if youve been on the fence about getting one, you really should snap to it…theyre cheaper than ever and I bet every person on LJ who ordered one would have absolutely no qualms about the quality of them. Backtrack a post or two for a link to them. There may be a ‘Show Us Your Flectar’ thread later.
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“And god sent a rainbow as a sign…won’t be water, but fire next time.”

17 thoughts on “Fuel can blues, Texas evacuations, mag/ammo inventory, ingenuity, flectar,

  1. Make that 12 parkas, I ordered mine two days ago entirely on the good opinion of them from this community. If I really like ’em I’ll order a couple more. They’ll fill a niche requirement in my larder. I’m sure the parka will be good to go though, because they’re;

    I also ordered a new, 100% wool, Italian mil-surp blanket, which I’m really hoping is at least as good as the U.S. mil-surp. The Sportsman’s Guide is offering four packs of these for $50.00. I want more capability to provide warmth without fuel/battery powered devices. PACE in action.

  2. I have two WWII jerry cans, but unfortunately they’re rusted on the inside. Do you have any suggestions on dealing with pesky internal jerry can rust?

  3. You might try POR15’s products. They make a number of products used in automotive restoration, including some to rejuvenate old gas tanks. They might work on jerry cans.

  4. Which vendor are you getting the full size surplus Flectar from?

    Oh, yeah… Tell ABZ that there’s an issue with the home page of the company web site.

  5. Add another two flectar jackets to the total. I ordered one each for Marie and I last night.

    Btw, you should try to dig up info on “Sturm Surplus.” There a mil-surp distributer/wholesaler. I saw one of their dealer catalogs behind the counter at an Army/Navy store once. The price sheet wasn’t included, but the selection looked fantastic.

    They don’t have a web site that I could find. I did find contact info for them once by googling ” sturm” and “surplus”. The hit came up from a trade show (SHOT Show maybe?) where they were a exhibiter. They were on the exhibiter list and there phone number and address were listed. I don’t have the info any longer, but you might be able to find it.

    You should consider tracking them down. Considering how many jackets you sold for SMG, you might want to sell some mil-surp stuff yourself.

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