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

I started to walk to the shop this morning and got about 100 yards before I thought “You know, it’s a nice day. Lets get the bike out.” So, unless the temperatures dip back into the low 30’s, we’re back into bicycle season. Although there didn’t seem to be any problems, I replaced both tubes today with Slime’d tubes. Always good to have a little extra something in your favor. Ninetynine percent of my bije riding is in town and the next time I have a flat due to nails or broken glass won’t be the first.

I paid what I thought at the time was an outrageous sum for my mountain bike about five years ago but as I’ve discovered in most things, I got what I paid for. The bike has held up exceptionally well over the years and has suited my needs quite well. I work close enough to where I live that theres really no practical reason to drive between the two unless its craptacular weather or I have a bunch of stuff to haul. If you haven’t gotten yourself a decent mountain bike, I highly advise getting one. The one I have now could use some tweaking…a nice matte OD finish, for example….but its been an excellent purchase. Im no enviroweenie or Peak Oil doomist but if I can save a few bucks by riding instead of driving, hey that’s more money to spend on other goodies.

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Theres a bit more in the mainstream news about ammo shortages. Is there anyone at all who didn’t see this coming? Anyone? I get calls from people wanting to stock up on .223 or AR’s and they say something like “I figured I better stock up while I can” and these retards are surprised when I tell them “Good luck.” You don’t decide to buy your parachute after the #2 engine fails. I’ve been predicting all along that there would be 4 waves of panic buying: election, inauguration, proposed legislation, signing of legislation. We’re done with the first two and are creeping into the third. If you don’t have what you want now does this mean you’ll never have it? No, of course not. Despite the administrations obvious disdain for free-market principles this is still a somewhat capitalist society. You’ll always be able to get what you want. Always. You just have to be willing to pay the price. You can buy AR’s and ammo all day long right now…if youre willing to pay the outrageous prices. I decided a few weeks ago that I was done helping other people stock up on their AR’s and the like. Anyone who comes up to me today and says “I was thinking maybe I should get an AR and some magazines” is a Johnny-Come-Lately of the worst order. Go away, you’re triaged with the rest of the sheep. I’m only interested in working with those with a better sense of self-preservation.

As an aside, the shortage of reloading components and ammo has also extended to reloading gear. I’ve been having a difficult (but not impossible…yet) time getting in reloading dies for the usual calibers (223, 308, .30-06. 45ACP, etc). Had to jump through several vendors before finding what I needed. Interesting times we live in, eh?

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Speaking of self-preservation. The economy is continuing its decline recovery decline recovery. The economy will recover, theres no doubt about that, the only question is whats left standing when it does recover….a bloated centrally planned Soviet-style economy, a laissez-faire capitalist system, a ‘somewhat regulated’ system or some bastard hybrid of all that.

Add to the economic situation and you have our old competitors, the Soviet Russians, making noises about establishing air bases off of Cuba. Ignoring for a minute why you would even need an air base in Cuba when you’ve got ballistic submarines and ICBM’s, is there anyone who thinks this would have even been an issue a year ago? Last time the Russians tried stuffing Cuba full of that sort of crap Jack Kennedy zipped up his pants long enough to take us all to the brink of World War Three. (And lest you think that the Cuban Missile Crisis was an unequivocal success for JFK, keep in mind that those missiles left Cuba only after we agreed to pull ours out of, I believe, Turkey and a few other places.) Additionally, Raoul Castro, in my opinion, is a lot more tractable than his brother and is probably not eager to get into a North Korean-style pissing contest with the US and the UN. He seems more interested in gradually thawing things, not making them worse. Whats more interesting here is the notion that our current administration is seen as the kind that would tolerate such saber rattling from second raters like the Russians.

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The missus and I were discussing the attitude changes that come with gun ownership. Not the casual I-have-a-.22-in-the-closet ownership. More like the I-have-a-Sig220-with-a-Surefire type of ownership. She opined that when you develop the confidence to be less scared of the bad things in the world around you the bad things are more likely to leave you alone. I agree. Mike Tyson probably doesn’t worry about getting mugged, Alton Brown probably never worries about getting hungry and Angelina Jolie probably never worries about getting laid. People who own defensive guns and practice with them regularly probably don’t worry too much about the random home invasion or violent encounter nearly as much as the terrified unarmed city dweller. In our case theres probably some sort of subconsciously recognized aura of confidence or competence that makes potential predators want to move on to more sheepish prey. Fine with me. The less conflict in my life the better. If I live to be a hundred and never shoot at anything other than Bambi, I’ll be pleased.

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Cannery trip next week. Always nice to spend some time with Those People. I just need to round out some odd numbers of stuff and then there wont be any real reason for me to go there except possibly entertainment and, I hate using this word, ‘fellowship’. Not the bible-thumping-bow-our-heads-and-pray type of fellowship but more of the hanging-out-with-people-who-think-like-me fellowship. That’s always nice.

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

Im sure many of you are familiar with the Sportsmans Warehouse chain of sporting goods stores. We have one here that I visit every so often. Like almost all gun shops they are hit-or-miss in terms of bullets, primer, powder anda mmo availability these days due to the obvious high demand. What made things curious was that the non-consumable stuff was in short supply as well…for example, reloading presses, dies, holsters, etc, etc, were practically gone. Now, I know that the demand for reloading stuff is high and its hard to keep bullets on the shelves. However, I hadnt heard anything about Lee or Lyman or RCBS being backordered by months for things like presses and reloading scales. Had to be something else. I had heard a rumour that SW’s vendors were no longer doing business with them on anything other than a COD/cash basis.  Hmmmm. As I was prowling the store today I overheard the department manager talking to a former employer of his about why things were so bare. I listened as best I could and then when he was done talking went over and asked him exactly why the shelves were bare of things like tumbling media and other items.

Now, this is what he told me…might be accurate, might be total BS…but sift through it and take away what you will.

He said that SW was looking at being purchased by a Canadian outfit, AFU. It was hoped that this purchase would give SW the influx of capital it needs to restock the shelves. Since the company was in the ‘due diligence’ stage of possibly being purchased, re-ordering of stock was being put on hold. After all, if someone is going to buy your shop why would you fill it full of goods for them on your own dime? He said that since UFA is a Canadian outfit theyre focus would be on the stores close to the Canadian border. He also said that they closed a dozen stores this week and that if the purchase goes through some stores will remain as SW and some will be re-branded. A november 2008 press release confirms that UFA is interested in SW, but it appears that the process is dragging and may not go through. The department manager told me that if the purchase does not occur, SW may have to file for some sort of reorganizational protection and close more stores.

So, there you have it. The reasons SW has no bullets, powder or primers is because of the current panic buying and military situation. The reason for it not having alot of other stuff is, if this is to be believed, because they need a white knight.

I asked if the merchandise that was in the closed stores would be redistributed to other stores to fill inventory holes and was told that, no, it was all liquidated. So…if youre local SW goes under there might be an opportunity there.

And there you have it…rumour? Maybe. Makes sense though.

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

A trip to WalMart today. As expected, no bulk .22 LR. Every time me and the missus go to Wally World we pick up two bricks of .22 ammo. Always. Without fail. This is why we look at each other and say “Huh…thats wierd.” when everyone says theres no bulk .22 to be had. We can shrug and not worry about it because we have zillions of rounds of the stuff.

But….todays trip. Lets pretend that you dont reload your own ammo, and that you need just one box of .38…or one box of 9mm….or one box of .40. Here’s the entire pistol ammo selection at my local SuperWalMart an hour ago:

Lee Anniversary Kit if youre on a budget, RCBS Supreme kit if you dont mind spending the bucks. Either one will spare you the angst that the photo you see above would generate in someone who needs ammo and doesnt reload.

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

Picked this up from elsewhere, its a link to a visual representation of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.

When proffessional career scumbags like Charles Schumer and company start talking a bout a trillion dollars like its nothing think about this image. Then think about all the money you could possibly earn over the span of your entire life and how it wont even make a dent in that pile.

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

I walk it as I talk it……….

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

Montana is an interesting state. Other than our total lack of ocean frontage, you can find pretty much every sort of climatological and environmental element in this state. We got ‘em all…deserts, rain forest, heavy timber, prairie, wind-blasted rock, mountains, valleys, plains, glaciers, tundra, and eveyting else you can imagine. Camouflage is, naturally, a tricky call. I am very taken with the Crye multicam camo pattern…it seems perfect for just about anything in Montana. However, like anything that is new and really cool it is also, for now, fairly expensive…since it was never, as far as I know, adopted officially by any military there arent millions of cheap surplus clothes, gear and tents available in multicam.

What other pattern works well? I’ve been a fan of the flectarn pattern which seems to work pretty well here in my region. (To be fair, simple, basic, unpretentious and dirt cheap OD also works quite well.) The flectarn (also spelled flecktarn and flectar) pattern traces its German roots back a little further than most modenr German military folks would care to admit.Too bad because despite that whole crimes against humanity thing, the Nazi’s had some pretty advanced (for the day) field gear.

Anyway, I like the flectarn pattern and Im also pretty pleased with most W. German military surplus gear so that works out well for me. I was flipping through Sportsmans Guide’s HQ catalog (their military surplus catalog) last week and saw that they had a few goodies I wanted and nothin’ says lovin’ like something from the Bund. First and foremost, there was a package deal of five surplus .308 cleaning kits and five G3 leather slings for a lousy $15. Well…thats a definite buy. I just happen to have a couple PTR-91 HKlones that’ll love having new slings and a few extra cleaning kits.

What caught my after that was these babies. Five flectar shelter halves for $22. This was interesting because I was hoping that the Germans would have thrown political correctness aside in favor of functionality and these would be the zeltbahns. (And zeltbahns are an entirely different post. Those things are probably the most useful and versatile piece of kit you can have. I’d love to have several made of modern materials.)

So..I ordered ‘em up and they arrived today. Man, I love that musty surplus smell. Anyway, turns out the shelter halves are not of the ze;tbahn variety but, I believe, simply knockoffs of the US pattern shelter halves. There are, apparently, some provisions for wearing it as a poncho and that puts it a step ahead of the US shelter half.

So…shelter halves. How the bloody hell do you use them? The internet was not as forthcoming as I would have preferred but perhaps my Google-fu is weak. I did come up with this interesting link to a .pdf that shows pretty clearly how to do what to whom.  The flectarn shelter halves are of the same diamond-ish pattern and should join together in the same way. Thus, the two-halves shelter should look pretty much just like the one in the .pdf. I need to experiment and try setting this thing up.

Why did I get them? A couple reasons. They would make excellent groundcloths and I wanted some sort of camouflage for covering things up in the boonies. If I wanted to stash something in the woods for the short term, maybe ditch my pack for a few hours so I could go fishing or something, hiding it in a well camouflaged pile goes a long way towards keeping it secure. Also, I wanted some flectar-pattern fabric for any future tailoring endeavours. I may take this down to a seamstress in town along with the dimensions and pattern for an orginal zeltbahn and have one made up.

As an aside, the cleaning kits, slings, and shelter halves were in excellent shape and if you feel the need to have such items I can say that the ones I got from SG:HQ were not lacking in any regard. I’ll be experimenting with the shelter halves in one way or another here shortly and if anyting interesting comes up I’ll try to post it.

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

Its so hard to stay focussed on the day-to-day nuts-n-bolts of preparedness when I get distracted by the latest schemes, scams and outright outrageousness that oozes out of Washington. But, its exactly because of those weasels and their fellow travelers that the missus and me need to have our ducks in a row.

Did a cursory inventory of primers the other night. We’re good on pistol but light on rifle. Okay on powder, but could be better. If youre like me and wanna be able to reload for everything with minimal headaches, pick up some IMR 3031 and some Unique. With IMR 3031 you’ll be able to reload, for the most part, any rifle cartridge you may need. Same for Unique – it’ll work in just about any handgun cartridge. Are there better powders? Absolutely. Are there any with that amazing versatility? Not many. An 8# keg of 3031 and an 8# keg of Unique will let you reload almost any cartridge you come across.

Don’t reload your own ammo? Then, my friend, you are a fool. I don’t take namecalling lightly but if, in this time of uncertainty, you havent bothered to take the steps to secure your ammo supply then youre just being foolish. The money you would save alone makes it worth it. Example: I have customers that shoot weird stuff like .378 Weatherby or .416 Remington Mag. This is stuff that’ll set you back $70 for a box of 20 cartridges. Or, put another way, more than $3 per cartridge. Now, assuming you saved your brass, all you need is powder, primer and bullet. Fifteen cents worth of powder, four cents worth of primer, and maybe forty cents of bullet. That $70 box of cartridges now costs $12.00. Take the $58 you saved and buy more reloading components.

I have in front of me catalogs from the major manufacturers. All of them sell kits that provide you all the equipment you need, less dies, to reload. Some are cheaper than others, some are more expensive, some are better quality, some are lower quality, all will do the trick.

Lee Challenger Press Kit, with dies – $53

Lee Anniversary Reloading Kit – $120

RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme Kit – $407 (total BS..I sell them all the time for $300)

Lyman, Redding and a couple other outfits all offer similar kits.

I tell customers, if youre not sure if you want to get into reloading and don’t wanna spend a lot of money just to find out youre not into it, buy the Lee kit. If you don’t like reloading, youre not out a lot of money; if you do enjoy it and plan to stick with it, get yourself the RCBS kit.

Lets say youre someone who just wants to be prepared ‘just in case’. You own a couple 1911’s and a .357. You want to have the fixin’s to make your own ammo in case someday ‘they’ say you cant have any more. Here’s your shopping list:

Lee Challenger Kit with Lee dies in .45 ACP and .38/.357

A powder suitable to both cartridges…Unique will work in both. You’ll get about 1000 rounds per pound.

Large pistol primers for the .45, small pistol magnum primers for the .357. At least 1000 of each.

Lee bullet mould for .45 ACP and .357, with handles

Lee bullet sizer for .452” and .358”

Lee bullet lube

Lee lead furnace, dipper, ingot mould

Cartridge cases, .45 ACP , 500 pieces

Cartridge cases, .38 Spl or .357 Mag, 500 pieces

All of this will fit into a milsurp rocket case…a container about half the size of a dorm fridge. With a setup like this you could keep your pistols fed for as long as your primers and powder last. (Yes, you could make your own black powder and possibly re-use your primers…but thats alot more work than I’d wanna do.) Bullets are easily made from scrounged lead (wheelweights, linotype, old lead pipes, etc). This is the absolute cheapest setup that would work without getting into the super-cheap Lee Loader or Ideal 310 tools. The quality of the equipment is okay, but if youre on a budget this is the way to go. If money isn’t an issue swap the Lee gear for RCBS. 1000 primers and 1# of powder is a bare minimum. A ‘case’ of primers is 5000, and a ‘keg’ of powder is usually 8#….thats enough primer and powder to provide you with a lot of pistol ammo. And this doesn’t take into account the possibility of what you may scavenge from odd ammo that you cant use.

That is, in my opinion, the least amount that would give the most result. Even then it’s still a couple hundred bucks. But whats it worth to you to be able to have ammo for your guns in five years? Or fifty years? Stored properly this stuff will last a long, long time. I routinely use powder and primers ten or twenty years old. I’ve used primers as old as I am and never had a hiccup.

Now, ignoring the tinfoil-hat-quotient of the above paragraphs, here’s another reason for you to reload: economy. Assuming you’ve saved your brass or picked some up off the ground at the range (or scrounged through the garbage cans there like I do) your brass costs $0.00 after the first firing. If I load for my .38 Special and I just use a cheap lead bullet, Im at about $6 a box of 50 to reload for it. Want to do the math on your own? Here’s your factors:

Brass – After firing it once, its cost becomes $0.00

Powder – Divide price of powder per pound by 7000 to get cost per grain of powder ($20/7000 = $0.002 per grain…10 grains of powder = two cents)

Primer – Bought by the thousand, around $0.03 @

Bullet – Cheap lead bullets for as little as six cents apiece, all the way up to high performance jacketed stuff at twenty cents each.

Figure youre going to save at least 50% off the price of factory ammo. Or, put another way, you can have twice the ammo you would normally be able to purchase.

Safety issues? Sure…use the wrong powder or use too much and you’ll wreck your precious firearm. So RTFM and double check your data and you’ll be fine.

I started reloading when I was 19. I loved guns and had no money for ammo so the only way I could afford to shoot was to reload. In that time I have seen powder go from $13/# to $20/#, primers go from $12/m to $25/m, and bullets go from as low as $.05/@ to $.20@ and it is STILL cheaper to reload them all.

So…get yourself a reloading kit, find a buddy who reloads to show you the ropes, and start saving some money and securing your ammo supply.

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

For those keeping track of such things, about a year or so ago the stock market was twice what it was today. Or, to put it more accurately, its dropped by 50% since then. Whats it mean to me? Not much..I have almost nothing in the stock market. However, the blowback is totally different….I (and you) are affected indirectly as unemployment rises, people who were counting on the market to fund their retirements become broke, municipalities become money-starved, etc, etc, etc. Interesting times. But youre ready for it, right? Right?

So, we have an official definition of a recession…but what about a Depression? How do you tell when a recession becomes a depression?

Here’s an article speculating that we may be in one now.  The article goes on to state that we may not be in a depression. In short, a depression, it seems, is oneof those things that you dont know youve had one until youre past it. Its obvious though that even if this were a depression no one in power is wanting to be the one to slap the name on it. Its a recession, a prolonged recession, a severe recession, a lengthy recesssion…but its not a depression.

This sort of Orwellian newspeak is going to become more common here as things progress. The unemployed will be ‘underemployed’, the morons that bought $700,000 houses on $40,000 incomes will be ‘victims of greedy banks’, and people who, as Santelli says, “carry the water instead of drink the water” will be ‘the rich’….and we all know that the rich are evil, mean, nasty people who deserve to have 40% of their paycheck go straight to someone else.

Are we in a Depression? I dunno….The lefties and Clinton apologists are quick to point out that during Slick Willie’s administration things were just wonderful. Well, the stock market and unemployment numbers are pretty much where they were when he gave a state of the union address that called the nations situation good.

Whats this got to do with anything relevant to the usual topics? I suppose the important thing here is that it really doesnt matter what anyone calls it…recession, depression, stagflation, recovery, etc. What matters is the result it has. If the talking heads on the television said that we are ‘officially in recovery’ and that all economic indicators were pointing to a bull market just around the corner it would be meaningless if, the next day, you lost your job.  Don’t think that just because some pundits say things may get better towards the end of the year or next year that we’re out of the woods. Heck, Im pretty sure we’re not even as far in the woods as we’re gonna get.

So, no, its not a depression. Not yet. And we won’t know until its over. But in the meantime don’t be lulled into complacency because its ‘only a recession’. Personally, I can look around me and see the failing businesses, empty storefronts, banks with non-existent interest rates, lots full of new cars, and houses with ‘price reduced’ signs and get a far better indicator of the current economic situation than Ill ever get from official sources.

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

And, 10,000 primers later….we’re back.

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

Off to Hamilton for the gun show. Priority #1 is primers. Priority #2 is cartridge brass.