Author Archives: Commander Zero

Thunderboomers

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We had quite the blow yesterday. I was lounging in the yard on my laptop, trying to get some academic nonsense sorted, and enjoying the over cast weather. It got a bit windy and I saw those clouds. The kind that look like theyre cascading over each other like water. Either way, it was time to pack it up and head inside. Sure enough, fifteen minutes later the wind picks up and starts doing its thing.

We had a really nasty blow come through in August of 2015. This wasn’t as bad but I sat on the porchand watched the rain come down and could hear a couple transformers pop off in the distance. Fully expected the power to go out but it stayed on. At least, on my side of the street it did. The guy across the street had a tree come down in his yard and land on the powerline. That side of the street is without power until the power company works it’s chainsaw magic.

Me, I was content to listen to the police radio and watch the tree limbs come tumbling down. Why should I worry? Loss of electricity is only a minor inconvenience in this household. But thats what preparedness is about – being able to not be exposed to as much risk as might otherwise occur.

Tomorrow will be cleanup since there;s dead branches everywhere, but all in all, a quiet  little non-disaster. These summery thunderboomers sure leave a mess behind. Reminds me, I need to get the generator out and run it for a little while. It’s been several months since the last run so I really should get that taken care of.

Words have meanings

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Listening to late-night talk radio, especially some of the more…offbeat…programs (looking at you, Geo. Noory) can really mess with your head. On the one hand, the forecast is for economic depression or massive hyperinflation and if you don’t move your money out of currency and into metals you are doomed…doomed! And then there’s an upcoming global disaster that will lead to famine…unless you stock up on food now! But not before the powers that be decide to enact a scheme to repeal your second amendment rights….so get out here and buy guns and ammo!

I don’t know which is worse, the emotional whiplash or the financial whiplash.

I was having a discussion with a classmate today. He said that todays generation will be less successful than the previous one.  I said that without establishing a baseline of what ‘successful’ meant, the conversation was pointless. His grandfather fled the Nazis and got out of Europe with just the clothes on his bank and not a penny to his name. We both agreed that would probably, to him, qualify as ‘success’. The generation after that? Probably saw raising good kids and having a job as success. That led to the question – what did we think success was?

I can’t speak for anyone else but me….to me, success is safety and security. Having constructed a system , or series of systems, to minimize my exposure to risk and harm and having those systems in place and effective…thats success to me. What does that system look like? It looks like a life without debt, some marketable skills, a paid house, with cash in the bank, gold in the safe, guns on the wall, food in the pantry, fuel in the cans, heat in the winter, and good health. I would say I’m a success if I could stop what I’m doing right this second and not have to worry about any of my needs being met for a year.

It’s different for everybody, of course….folks with kids might say that success is raising your kids to adulthood and having them turn out to be fine adults. Or some folks (notably Gyno-Americans) might judge success by how their relationships with other people are. And, of course, a lot of folks figure success is measured by your bottom line.

I’m not saying any of that is true or not. I’m simply pointing out that when you say ‘success’ it’s pretty good odds that what you think of as ‘success’ may be different than someone (or everyone) else. Nothing wrong with that, though.

Speaking of words having meanings, we throw around terms like ‘collapse’ or ‘end of the world’ but we never really specify what constitutes that sort of thing. Here’s a very interesting piece on how we define ‘collapse’:

And that’s why I hate using the words “civil war” and “collapse”, because they’re not specific. Whenever I read the words “societal collapse” or “economic collapse”, I wonder: collapse to what level? 100% collapse? 50% collapse? (Even a 25% collapse in employment and living standards is going to cause significant problems.) One could argue that we’re witnessing a societal collapse right now — a collapse of established, normative sociopolitical behavior and attitudes. It might be more accurate and specific to say that we’ve entered into a period of societal decline, but it only goes to show just how vague the word “collapse” actually is.

RTWT, it’s quite interesting. Words have meanings, and when you talk to someone about something as important as preparedness it’s a good idea to make sure that you both know exactly what you mean when you say things like ‘collapse’.
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Fun ‘gotta share this’ .jpg for the day:

 

Watergun: parts arrival

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As best I can tell, the missing parts to get the gun ‘shootable’ were a sear, sear pin, and firing pin retaining plate. In other words, these:

I am not a gunsmith by any stretch of the imagination…thats one of the reasons I shoot Glocks – you don’t ‘smith them, you just swap parts. At this point it looks like nothing needs fitting, which is good. But..the proof is in the function. We’ll get to that later. Alright…lets grab a punch, YouTube some disassembly/assembly videos, and get crackin’.

And once thats done…lets hand-cycle it, check the safety and trigger, and just generally play with it. It may look like the slide is a bit stiff but whats actually happening is that I’m trying to rack the slide without moving the gun or my hands out of the frame. Think its easy? Try it sometime.

Yeah, that rear sight is flopping around like Obama on a foreign policy question….but that’s a low priority at the moment. Next step is to take it to the range, tie it down, put a string to the trigger, and shoot the bloody thing.

And the sharp eyed viewer will notice that someone took the magazine safety out. Well, not really….it appears someone welded it to the trigger to deactivate it. :::SMH::: Whatever. Shooting this weekend. Hopefully the slide won’t go sailing through my brainpan.

For those keeping track:

Assuming everything works, and nothing cracks/breaks/explodes/flies off, I’ll send it down the valley for a coating of some kind and then, as the years go by, slowly start replacing parts with premium parts. Kinda make a sweet custom gun with a crappy, but interesting, finish. I’m pleased with how quickly this is coming together. :::Knocksonwood:::

Watergun update

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Needs sear, sear pin, firing pin retaining plate, grips screw, rear sight spring, rear sight elevation screw.

That looks like about it. However, that does not mean some of the extant parts shouldn’t be replaced. The ejector should probably get replaced, and I should play it safe and replace all springs. Let’s see if we can just get the bloody thing assembled first. Interestingly, I can buy entire complete top ends for this thing for about $200 and just use the frame. But…I rather like the Been There Done That look.

So far I’ve got the plate, sear, and sear pin on the way for about $67 total so far.

In the meantime, the recoil assembly works, the magazine release works, the slide stop works, and the mainspring/hammer assembly work. Still looks like The Last Browning Out Of Pompeii though.

Article – Missing Oregon trucker emerges from wilderness after 4 days

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GPS = Gets People Stranded

LA GRANDE, Ore. — A trucker who was missing for four days in a snow-covered part of Oregon after his GPS mapping device sent him up the wrong road walked 36 miles (58 kilometers) and emerged safely Saturday from a remote and rugged region of the state.

Im an advocate of Stay With The Vehicle… especially when the vehicle has 48′ of pallets of junk food to keep you fed. But…this guy marched out on his own, without taking any of the potato chips he was hauling, makes it back to his freaking house, and is sitting on the couch relaxing when his wife comes home from the sheriffs office where theyre coordinating a search-and-rescue.

Glad it worked out for him, but I’ll stay with the vehicle.

 

Codename: Watergun

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A friend came by today to show me something interesting and slightly upsetting:

Ooohhh, thats not right! Nooo…..


It’s a Belgian P35 (or ‘Hipower’ to you), circa 1971, that was retrieved from the waters of Lake Michigan. The lake it is said, never gives up her dead….but guns are a totally different matter. Anyway..it’s mine now.

Condition is about what you’d expect but…the internal surfaces are surprisingly good. Barrel isn’t bad, and the deep pitting is mostly on non-critical surfaces. I think…I might try getting the missing the parts and getting this thing up and running. (And shooting it from a tire with a long string.)

First thing I need to do is make up a spreadhseet of all the parts necessary to make a P35 and then see what I have and what I’m going to have to find. Once thats done, if it proves safe to shoot, I’ll send it off and cerakote the holy crap out of it.

The story, I am told fourth-hand, is that this gun and the mags came out of a diving episode in Lake Michigan a few years ago. The gun ‘had the rust removed’ which, judging by the lack of wire brush marks and the thoroughness, must have been done using electrolysis. The gun was disassembled, apparently, for the process and some parts are clearly missing. I managed to put the recoil assembly together, get it into the slide and , after  applying a tablespoon of CLP to the whole mess, got it sliding on to the frame, and then it seemed to cycle by hand just fine. Promising.

It also came with three what-used-to-be magazines. Now, thats a bit odd. See, if someone dropped this thing over the side off the boat doesn’t it seem a bit odd that there’s two spare magazines that fell over with it and made it all the way to the bottom lying next to it? Way I see it, the mags come with the gun for only two reasons: they were all in the same backpack/duffel when it was lost/tossed over the side or it was all on the same Sam Browne of whatever poor schmuck decided to breathe water. The mags will, I think, with new springs and some beadblast be just fine.

So….interesting project that I anticipate will take a year or two to wrap up since I’m going to try and do this with used parts inexpensively sourced off GunBroker and eBay. If it works out, it’ll be a gun with a great story.

 

Stuff that you really don’t wanna DIY in the apocalypse

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There’s a scene in the novel “The Postman” where the main character mentions that there is a ranching community that rallies around it’s doctor and protects him at all costs. Since it’s the end of the world, that makes perfect sense. (and, yes, I’m aware of “Where there is no dentist”)

Having just spent the last three hours in a dental chair so I can eat food again, I hereby add ‘dentists’ to that list of People I Will Look Out For In The Apocalypse.

Hot dental hygienists are 50/50 depending on how we’re doing on food.

I hate going o the dentist, but it’s a necessary suffering. Some people seem to enjoy it though….

Fenix E11/E12

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A number of years ago I was in REI and, as I was waiting in line for the checkout, there was a bin of closeout merchandise. On a whim I picked up a small LED flashlight and have been mightily impressed with it ever since.

The flashlight, a Fenix E11, has been supplanted by the newer E12 model which features a tap switch on the tailcap to adjust brightness levels. In pretty much all other regards, its the same as the E11.

When I got started in survivalism, the go-to flashlight was the MagLite. Big, beefy, and built for cracking skulls it was pretty much everyone’s first choice. Time goes by and with the development of LED technology we now have pocket flashlights that put out more light using AA batteries than the old-style MagLites ever did with D batteries.

When you really go all in and decide to get some top of the line photon blasters you often wind up at SureFire (or, to a lesser degree, Streamlight). SureFire is great stuff and I have a bunch of their weaponlights….but they are spendy. On the other hand, if you want to go all ‘poverty prepper’ and grab a fistful of $1 LED flashlights from a plastic fishbowl in the checkout line at WalMart….well, thats great for looking for the keys you dropped behind your desk but durability might be an issue.

SO…middle of the road – durable and efficient enough to withstand use and abuse, cheap enough that if you lose it you’re not heartbroken, but not so cheap that when you need it there’s a 50/50 shot it won’t work. As I discovered, this little light fits the bill perfectly.

How much do I like and recommend? Well, putting my money where my mouth is:

I keep several of these things because theyre so dang handy. Let’s hit the high points:

Battery compatibility – my battery logistics call for only three batteries: AA, D, and CR123. This light takes one AA battery, making it compact and efficient. I’ve taken to using rechargeable Eneloops for devices I foresee changing batteries in regularly. I do this for economics…I’ll use the rechargeables and save the stored lithium AA’s for when it really counts. Battery life seems pretty good. I change the battery out every month just to keep things at maximum efficiency.

Output – Advertised is about 115 lumens. For indoor use I find it to be amazingly bright. Outdoors its pretty good for the immediate area but it’s not a long-distance light…thats where the LED 3D MagLite comes in handy. The older E11 has two brightness settings, toggled by twisting the head of the light. The lower setting is perfect for close-in work like reading notes, ro doing work with your hands as you hold the light in your mouth. The E12 uses a tap switch on the tailcap to go through a couple different brightness settings.

Size – Perfect size for keeping in your pants pocket. I carry one around as my ‘everyday carry’ pocket junk and do not find it to be the least bit obtrusive. (But I do find it amazingly handy.)

Survivability – It’s gone through the washing machine, been dropped on concrete, sat on, rolled off tables, and has not flickered once. Theres a small attachment point for a lanyard and I highly recommend using a lanyard to keep the light attached to your gear in such a way as to allow you to find it in a hurry. I  keep one in my pack with the lanyard attached to a little plastic carabiner so I can find it in total darkness.

If I had the money, I’d have a pocketful of SureFire but, in practice, I really haven’t felt ‘undergunned’ with this thing as far as pocket lights go. I would definitely take it over the AA MiniMag light or some discount bin special. For the particular niche that I bought these for (compact, pocket-size, affordable, personal light that I can carry everyday) they are darn near perfect. Highly recommended.