Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
You never read about cats doing this sort of thing…….
Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
I love some of the new camo patterns that are coming out these days. I was quite taken with Multicam but as of late I’m starting to take a real shine to A-tacs patterns as well. Obviously, the best camo, for whatever reason you think you need something camouflaged, is the pattern that blends into as much of your anticipated AO as possible, right? So, obviously some patterns are going to be more conducive to some environments than others.
A buddy of mine emailed me a link to a very interesting camouflage used in Norway. The pattern seems ideal for places with lotsa rocks and moss. Not exactly a great choice here in my dry mountains but elsewhere it might be just the ticket.
In a related note, from the same source, comes a link to the new snow camo now being available.
As the US military starts moving away from the failed digital patterns, expect to see a lot of manufacturers dumping their now-outdated products on the clearance racks.
A post like this kinda-sorta opens the door to the question of why the need for camouflage at all? Am I planning on creeping around undetected after the apocalypse, sniping at invading UN troops and hordes of cannibal bikers? Well, certainly, thats not ‘Plan A’..
No, simple truth is that sometimes you don’t want folks finding your stuff. If, for whatever reason, I have to ditch my pack and hide it under a log or some such it would be nice if that gear blended in enough so that when I came back to retrieve it it was still there.
Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
Ever read the book version of the second Rambo movie? They’re gearing up Rambo to drop into the Vietnam jungle and they give him some razoo night-opticed, suppressed, select fire, machine pistol (In the movie, an MP5SD with an early laser sight) and say how it’s the latest and greatest. Rambo says “Thats really nice, sir, but what I really would like is an AK-47.” The guy equipping him snorts and says “An AK-47? Hell, every twelve-year-old in Vietnam has one of those!” “Exactly.”
See the line of reasoning there?
Ever hear the expression ‘legacy weapon’? Or ‘legacy gear’? It means a system of something (weapon, computer, whatever) that has been in use and around a particular place so long that it has become organic to the environment. A good example would be the Airtronic RPG. Since RPG rockets abound over in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, why not make a well-made launcher to take advantage of the latest in materials and technology so you can use the plentiful legacy ammo? Kinda like making AR’s that take AK mags and shoot AK ammo.
I mention this because, if you’re into preparedness for any amount of time, you eventually wind up with legacy gear. An good example would be the old ALICE gear. Back in the 80′s and even the 90′s this was the most modern stuff available on the surplus market and many of us wound up with plenty of gear that used this system. Nowadays the technology, designs and materials have changed and our older gear is not only out-of-date but may not be at all compatible or useful with the new gear. (To take advantage of ALICE legacy gear, some outfits make rucksacks that mount onto the old ALICE frames….smart.)
One of the gifts I got for my birthday was the Nalgene Canteen
So, let’s get down to the job at hand. How are these things vs. the standard OD plastic GI canteen we’ve all got banging around in our piles of gear?
First, a side by side comparison.
(L.) Nalgene Canteen, (R.) USGI Canteen
Does it fit in the usual canteen cover? Yes.
Does it fit in the canteen cup? Sorta. It’s a snug fit and does not fit as well as the GI canteen. The result is that a cup/canteen combo using the Nalgene may not fit into the legacy canteen cover. However, there are several new style canteen covers out there that it will fit into…although then we’ve gone from new gear/legacy combo to new gear/new gear combo.
Not a great fit with the USGI canteen cup unless you use a newer, looser fit canteen cover.
Capacity is the same as pretty much everything else. US GI canteen = US GI 1 liter canteen = Nalgene canteen = Nalgene bottle. No matter how you slice it, youre getting at least 32 ounces of water.
(L. – R.) Standard Nalgene bottle, USGI 1-liter square canteen, Nalgene Canteen
Surprisngly, the Nalgene is actually 8% heavier than the USGI canteen. The Nalgene clocks in around 4.65 oz. and the GI canteen comes in around 4 oz. I’ts a bit surprising since the GI canteen seemd to be a bit…thicker….but apparently the Nalgene is packing a little bit of extra weight somewhere. From a durability standpoint I’d say both are about as indestructible a piece of gear as you can make for carrying water.
Preferences? Well, I rather like the round wide-mouth Nalgene bottle for it’s incredible durability, excellent aftermarket accessories and the wide-mouth. But, the Nalgene canteen lets me use most of my existing gear that accomodates the GI canteen. Additionally, I like the transparent nature of the Nalgene compared to the USGI since it lets me know how much liquid remains and if anything is growing in the canteen.
I’ll probably wind up phasing out the GI canteens and replacing them with either the Nalgene bottles or the Nalgene canteens. The USGI ones will get bumped down to secondary or tertiary level backups. All in all, though, the Nalgene canteen seems to be a good choice to replace the GI canteen and still have the advantage of most of the GI canteen accessories.
Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
The hobby is best known for creating colorful toys and trinkets, but some enthusiasts are working on design files that would allow anyone to print a working gun. These don’t exist yet, but some believe it’s only a matter of time.
Why would a 3D-printed gun be appealing? For one, it could potentially be cheap. You can buy a preassembled 3D printer for about $500. A spool of ABS plastic to print with goes for $50. Depending on where you shop, you can buy .38 Special ammunition for 30 cents a round. The plans will undoubted be distributed free like so many MP3s.
Building an AR receiver isn’t exactly rocket science. And since there’s virtually no stresses in the lower, you can make it out of almost any rigid material. I saw some post somewhere where a guy built one out of that white plastic they use for cutting boards.
This is an interesting article but it tells us nothing we dont already know – yeah, it’s perfectly legal to make a gun for your own use as long as it’s not a Title II full auto or similar.
The folks that are going to get their panties in a twist about this are the same folks who probably don’t realize that nay yahoo with a credit card and a quick trip to Home Depot can buy enough materials and tools to fab up receivers all day long. Let’s face it – some gun designs just ain’t much of a challenge. Heck, some gun designs were developed specifically to be suitable for ‘cottage production’… Stens and that sorta thing.
The sinister thing here is that this could be used to argue that more parts of a firearm should be regulated. If you have an AR lower you can buy uppers all day long with no regulation, right? And since the AR lower is easy to fab up, it’s the barreled upper that would be the real bottleneck. In some countries, thats actually how it plays out…go look at your Glock sometime…notice the frame, barrel and slide are serial numbered…thats because in some countries those individual parts are the ‘controlled parts’. In the use, the controlled part is the receiver…in some European countries, its the barrel….in others, the slide.
3D printing definitely opens up some interesting avenues, I gotta admit. I’m just not sure it’s going to revolutionize gun manufacturing although I can see it revolutionizing gun designing.
Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
Gun Sales Surge: An Obama Bounce?
This happens every election year. It goes in four stages:
Guys, this is as predictable as a Kennedy wife being cheated on. It happens every election, no matter who wins. Heck, if you’re the type who likes to speculate on markets, load up on guns, ammo and magazines and unload them right before the next presidential election…gold mine.
You and me, though….we’re all squared away so panic-buying urges don’t affect us, right? Right?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Speaking of guns, I saw this monster on the way to the shop this morning:
Me and Nuke were taking our usual route down the alleys and this deer just made me stop in my tracks. They were a bit concerned about Nuke but he was pretty okay with them. Of course, I didnt get too close with the dog …that would be asking for trouble. Notice that he broke off one tine on his left side….that would have been 7 points on that side. Big rack on that sucker.
How come I never see these guys during hunting season when I’m prowling the woods with my PTR-91????
Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
WASHINGTON – “The zombies are coming!” the Homeland Security Department says.
You know, I first posted about this about four years ago how zombies were becoming the metaphor for preparing against the end of the world. When you you push that cart with six cases of canned tuna through the checkout at CostCo and folks give you that weird look you somehow get more miles out of replying with “I’m preparing for the zombie apocalypse” rather than “Im preparing for the eventual economic collapse of this country”. Strange but true…it’s more acceptable to prepare for the zombies than it is for the ‘real’ disasters.
Additionally, I don’t think .gov is really thinking this through. If a person isn’t motivated to prepare for the real threats that are out there what makes .gov think that they’ll prepare for the imaginary threats? Do they really think that the folks in New Orleans who can’t be bothered to prepare for hurricanes will bother to prepare for zombies?
If .gov really wants folks to prepare then , by Crom, let them show some real willingness to help….open up the military bases to allow civillians to purchase surplus clothes and gear at rock bottom prices, donate unused military bases to state governments as emergency command centers, promote tax-free purchases on survival related gear, etc, etc, etc. Tell you what, man…if I were president (or even governor of my happy little state) I’d be all over that stuff….
Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
Seems to be the season for ‘em….here’s a somewhat local story about a guy that got caught out in the boonies when a forest fire blew up and cut off his avenue of escape. Note that he made some interesting and very specific decisions. He paced himself so he wouldnt tire out and be left exhausted and helpless, he kept his gear instead of ditching it, and he remained constantly aware of his surroundings and planned ahead where he would go.
“I was tired and I had potato salad waiting for me in the fridge at home,” he said.
Instead, he spotted the Pine Creek fire.
Another excellent example of how keeping your head together, thinking ahead, and not panicking gives you a tremendous advantage in a bad situation.
Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
You guys remember this post about charging the smartphone off the solar panel using the USB battery as a regulator of sorts? So that was about two weeks ago and I’ve been charging the phone that way exclusively since then. No problems, no hiccups, and no lack of charge. So, based on my two weeks of charging the phone this way, I say that this is indeed a viable method of keeping the phone going in a situation where there might not be another method of charging available. Of course, this is summer when sunlight is plentiful. We’ll have to run this little experiment again around January when it’s cold and overcast all the time. But..so far..seems to work just fine.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I was chitchatting with someone the other day and the conversation turned to preparedness, which isnt that surprising, but then we went deeper into what flavor of apocalypse was this person preparing against i found that his concerns mirror mine pretty closely. Me, I’m not the kinda guy who buys the notion that we’re all gonna be shooting at UN troops marching down main street while dying of Bird Flu as comets and asteroids slam into the planet exacerbating a pole shift and creating Peak Oil as the rapture occurs. I’m more of a ‘gradual decline into Third World / Soviet-era lifestyle’..you know – lines for toilet paper, rolling brownouts, chronic unemployment, understocked stores, etc, etc….sort of a nationwide Detroit. (Hmm..I may have to start using ‘Detroit’ as a verb and an adjective. “Hey, did you see that earthquake Detroited Haiti?” or “It’s been seven years since Katrina and parts of New Orleans are still Detroity”.) Anyway, the discussion reinforced that I officially know no one locally who is not, in some way or another, gearing up against the uncertain future…this includes friends, customers, police, vendors, and pretty much anyone I say more than ten words to on a normal basis.
=-=-=-=-=-
Went out shooting the other day and I’ve been playing with the Uzi since I mounted the vertical foregrip and I gotta say it makes a huge difference. It’s a heavy gun, and 9mm isn’t exactly a recoil powerhouse, so bringing the thing up to the shoulder and doing fast double taps at multiple targets is easy. Which reminds me, I need to get one of those BattleComp muzzle devices on the AR and see how easy the same courses of fire are in terms of fast target-to-target hits. As I said, my interpretation of the apocalypse doesn’t really anticipate running gun battles and multiple-target scenarios but…if I’m wrong..well…better to be prepared on all fronts, no?
Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
Biiiig balls. A compound leg fracture is major bad news. Just the mental image of looking down and seeing a jagged chunk of bone sticking out of the skin is enough to make my stomach do flip flops.
A couple things I’m curious about. First, why didnt anyone miss this guy for four days? One of the first rules of going somewhere is to let folks know where you’ll be, when you’ll be back, and at what point to start worrying. Second, he had no food and water for four days? So where was his pack? Did he lose it in the fall? Did he even have one?
I can understand the cell phone being useless…there are plenty of places I can go out here where signal is absolutely nil. This is why when I go hunting I usually take the cellphone and a couple aerial flares. But, I also tell people where the heck I’m going and when to expect me back and, more importantly, when to call the SAR guys. (“I’ll be in hunting area 282, I’ll wrap it up around 4pm, if you don’t hear from me by 9pm start panicking.”) This is also why I keep pen and paper in my hunting kit…so I can leave a note at the truck in case I have to change plans.
Hope this guy keeps his leg (at least he didnt have to cut it off himself like that guy that lost his arm a few years back). I’d like more info on what happened to his gear, though. And, hey, you’ve always got gear in your pack for this kinda situation, right? Right?
Technically, not a stranding…but I’ll use that tag for convenience.
Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
As many of you know, the recent re-make of ‘Red Dawn’ was tweaked ‘slightly’ in post-production. The original bad guys were changed from Chinese to North Korean. Nevermind that those two countries have a vastly different level of military capability. The change was, ostensibly, to make the movie more marketable in the lucrative Chinese market. The more likely reason is that when the original outfit that made this movie went under, it was bailed out by another outfit that had some close financial ties to the Chinese. In short, they didn’t wanna offend the new owners.
Anyway……
I was reminded of a book with a very similar premise – ‘Invasion
Like a lot of books I found fun to read, this one is outta print but used copies abound. If you want something to read to warmup to the new Red Dawn remake, this would be an excellent choice.