Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Speaking of Gov. Christie………

Not a pardon but still a lot more than what you’d normally expect coming outta NJ. I’m likin’ this Christie guy.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

In fact, UCP will not be among the baseline patterns used in the forthcoming tests. Instead, the Army will use the Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern, or OCP, Woodland and Desert MARPAT (Marine Pattern), and AOR 1 and 2, which resemble the Marine desert and woodland digital patterns but are specially treated to reduce the wearer’s infrared signature.

The final nail in UCP’s coffin likely came by way of a Sept. 21 report that details how and why the Army selected the OEF Camouflage Pattern, commonly called MultiCam. That process started when senior enlisted personnel deployed to Afghanistan expressed “serious concerns … regarding UCP’s camouflage effectiveness during combat operations,” according to the eight-page report, which was compiled by the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center in Massachusetts.

Apparently, no one else likes that digital camo either. If you like it, though, it looks like youre going to have a great opportunity to stock up on it soon.

Personally, I like Multicam. I also like the german flectar varaiants (which are uncomfortably close to the patterns the Nazis used). However, Ive never had to hide from people shooting at me (not yet, anyway) so my opinion counts for very little.

Be interesting to see how this turns out.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Fascinating piece about the various states and municipalities spiraling into a financial abyss. What is amazing is the incredible candor of Gov. Christie of NJ. I dont cut NJ any respect but, geez louise, this guy says it like it is and so far hasnt been afraid to swing the axe. He says that the service cuts, funding cuts, state payroll cuts and similar ‘de-funding’ isn’t going to be anything unique to NJ…its gonna hit everywhere, some places even worse, and that his actions are simply the vanguard of what every state is going to have to do. Very much worth watching, I think.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I’m looking for some wool shirts. If anyone has a link, preferably to some affordable milsurp ones, I wouldnt mind hearing about it. I was pricing new commercial wool shirts (not Merino, or any other wool variant but regular wool) and the prices were, to put it mildly, a bit off-putting. I mean, I like Pendleton as much as the next guy but if Im paying more than $100 for a shirt it better be delivered by hookers and have the pockets stuffed with blow.
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I have a buddy in the precious metals business. Obviously, in a crunch, his inventory can become his own personal stash. He may be the most uniquely prepared individual I know of in this economy, except possibly for some Class III dealers. I’ve read a lot about the years before and after World War II and how economies fared and how the people survived (or didnt) as their economies underwent massive changes and scarcity of resources became the norm. Plenty of stories about people picking up cigarette butts from the gutter to get a few puffs out of them, living on potatoes for months at a time, burning furniture for warmth, that sort of thing. One thing that is consistent throughout is that there are a handful of businesses/industries/skills that, regardless of country, put the practitioner in a position of tremendous advantage over most other folks. Those were: food, medicine, sex, entertainment and weapons. I suppose ‘energy’ would be a category as well in contemporary times, but in what I read, which covers mostly the 1930’s to the 1950’s, those were the five catgeories that seemed to serve everyone quite well.

Nowadays Id say that list is still pretty close to accurate…entertainment may not be so important when the average person can entertain themselves indefinitely with a supply of DVD and .mpgs in their laptop. However the guy who can provide medical treatment, food (and booze), armaments or strippers is probably not going to suffer in the economy, no matter how bad it gets, as much as the next guy who isnt in that line of work.
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As the year comes to a close I usually take stock of what did and did not get used up from our stockpiles. I think this year we were exceptionally easy on the ammo supply. If I had to guess, I’d say that, at most, we burned up maybe four bricks of .22, a couple hundred 9mm, less than a hundred .38/.357, no .45, no 7.62×39, about 300 rounds of .308, and amaybe a hundred rounds of .223. :::shrug::: just didnt get out much this year. Managed to swap out about half the stored gasoline, didnt use any of the stored kerosene or propane, and added a gas grill to the alternative cooking checklist…so theres now a 20# barbecue bomb sitting outside.

I normally only keep a running inventory of food but I think thats gonna change this year. I think I’ll expand it to include toiletries, batteries, cleaning supplies and a couple other things. Normalyy I dont inventory them because they are used at a slower rate than food and tend to last longer. Howver, this months episode of getting caught woefully short on dish detergent has me thinking it might be time to change the policies on what gets inventoried and what doesnt.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

The professional goons at ATFE appear to be at it again….

Most folks are unaware of it, but if you buy more than one pistol from a dealer within the span of five business days, the dealer is supposed to send in a special form with all your data about the sale to the thugs at ATFE. It appears that those same thugs are now looking at making a similar mandate about long guns, or at least a particular class of long guns. But, really, you think theyre only gonna limit it to AR’s?

The Carter II Obama administration has been avoiding the whole ‘gun thing’ pretty intently for the last couple years. It looks like that may be coming to an end.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I hate the holster-snagging undercut front sight on the Ruger Mk II pistol. Anyone know a source for a replacement front sight that isnt a fiber optic? Something like a Baughman ramp, perhaps?

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

L.A. dry run shows urban nuke attack ‘a survivable event’

“This is a survivable event,” says Brendan Applegate, of the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Asymmetric Warfare, who helped design and carry out the exercise. “L.A. isn’t going to fall into the ocean and be gone forever. It will be a really bad day, but we need everyone to show up to work and save lives.”

Quite so. Even the bombings in Japan had survivors who were very close to the epicenters. In his remarkable book, Nuclear War Survival Skills (freely available on line), Kearny covers the amount of basic protection that would be needed to increase survivability by several magnitudes.

The notion that nuclear detonations are unsurvivable events seems to be untrue in the face of research and anecdotal evidence. In short, as long as youre not directly under the missle when it hits, and you can put several feet of earth or concrete between you and the blast, you’ll probably survive. (At this point the sheep start bleating “But who would want to survive after such a disaster!”..frankly, I would. Ignoring the motivational imperative to survive that is hardwired into our brain. I would want to survive just to be able to take part in the recovery and reformation of our civilization. A chance to start from a ‘clean slate’, as it were.)

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Man, bad enough thta scraping together the cash for Christmas gifts will be a challenge, one of these became available. Fella I know may sell it to me…he let me take it to the range to shoot and I was very pleased. I already have a CZ 550 in .308 so I know that CZ makes an excellent product. A buddy of mine has their youth model….a no-frills scaled down .22 meant for kids. For giggles we put a good piece of glass on it and, surprisingly, shot dime-sized groups all day. Hmmmm…if thats what the low-end kid gun does……..

So I took it to the range, tinkered with the sights and have decided that I must have this gun. I have several Ruger 10/22 guns and theyre good carbines for what they are, but I’ve wanted a quality, stylish .22 bolt gun for quite a while. I was originally thinking of something fairly high-end like an Anschutz but I think the CZ is going to be my choice. It’s purpose? Well, it would just be a nice rifle to have and with equal sights or equal glass I think it’ll be more accurate than the Ruger. It might make a nice Kwanzaa/Hanukah/Ramadan/Christmas/Solstice gift to myself.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Wow, this is a treasure trove of classic gun literature. Book are available online and as .pdf files for download. Some classic stuff in there…Mann’s book alone is a masterpiece worthy of the tremendous effort it must have taken to scan all those pages.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

What would YOU pay for a pair of Steiner 7×50 M22 binoculars with reticle and LPF?

I only ask because..well…there was a pair at the gun show.