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

When I was at the Mormon cannery yesterday the fella in charge asked me how my food storage was coming along. (I think this is the standard Mormon conversational ice-breaker…”Steve! Meet my friend Bill!” “Hi Bill. Nice to meet you. Hows the food storage?”) I thought about it a minute and said that between the freeze drieds, the MRE’s, the drums of wheat, rice and corn, and all the ‘normal’ food that’s in storage as well as in the cupboards we’d probably have about ten months to a years worth. More if we don’t mind some repetitive and boring meals.

So, really, the food storage part of the equation is pretty much squared. While its always nice to have more, I think we’re at the stage where we can add to it when its convenient for us, or when something is on sale, or when we discover something that fits our food storage needs very nicely. Focus can be shifted now.

What next? Interesting question. We’re good for food, pretty good on ammo, decent level of stored fuels,…I suppose the next step is to continue preparing for the economic rough times that are ahead. For us, that means getting a cash emergency fund, eliminating as much debt as possible, and making bloody sure the expenses are a good deal less than income. Might also be nice to stockpile some of the normal everyday items so that if things do get majorly ugly we can spend what meager financial resources we have on critical things (like mortgage and power) and not have to worry about buying laundry soap, paper towels and socks. Plus, given the significant price savings when buying in bulk, its just a good idea to have the frequent-use stuff stockpiled anyway.

How do you prepare for a recession or depression? I have no idea, really. But I can try to think it through. The consequences of a recession or depression are higher unemployment and lower personal spending. So, I want to be covered in case of job loss and if I make a living off other people being consumers I may want to develop a different income stream, or at least be prepared (minimal debt, etc) for that income stream to become a trickle. After all, if someone is worried about whether theyre going to have a job or not in a few weeks, theyre probably quite likely to curb their spending as much as they can.

Unemployment is my big concern. Not so much the unemployment of others, although that does have a place in my List O’ Things To Worry About, as much as I worry about us being unemployed. Fortunately, we have a pretty low mortgage (although any mortgage is too much when your income is slashed by 100%), close to no debt, and no car payments, student loan payments, credit card payments, or anything like that. If we can keep current on the mortgage we could ‘get by’ indefinitely. It wouldn’t be in grand style, but it would sure as heck beat living in a cardboard box.

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Skipping the economy, which is pretty tough to ignore these days, North Korea announced that they’ve ‘weaponized’ a pile o’ uranium, Bird Flu is popping up in the usual places and, oddly, the .gov is warning of a collapse of the Mexican economy. (Sooo…they self-demote to a Fourth World country?) And, come to think of it, the transition of administrations would be a good time to try getting away with something. So it just ain’t the economy that we gotta worry about these days…the usual suspects are still out there.

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

Another trip to the Mormon cannery today. I think they prefer to be called ‘LDS’ rather than Mormon but Im not sure I see it as being a big deal and I really dont feel like having to answer the inevitable comments about “What does LDS stand for?”. Mormon cannery it is.

I went, basically, to just round off some odd numbers of items I had. Since a box holds six cans it made sense to round up to a number divisible by six so i could have complete cases in storage. Other than me and the fell I went with, only one other person showed up. On the other hand, the place was filled to the rafters with food. Apparently they are getting more shipments these days because their welfare program has been seeing unprecedented use.

Im not a terribly social critter, and I really dont have much use for human social groupings, but you have to admit: those Mormons take care of their own in some fine admirable style.

Anyway, it was a good trip, nice to hang around people who think similar thoughts about the state of affairs the world is in, and picked up a dozen more cans of wheat, sugar, and other goodies. All at very reasonable prices. If you have a cannery near you (or even if you have to drive a little bit) you should give ‘em a visit. Ask pretty much any Mormon for the info or visit their website: http://www.providentliving.org/location/map/0,12566,2026-1-4,00.html

If youre the type that can’t handle any religion other than your own, you’ll be pleased to know that, in my experience, they dont try to convert you or otherwise bring you into the fold. You can keep your Jesus and they’ll keep theirs. Talk about baseball instead.

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I am told that Stag Arms is now six months out on AR orders. You didnt wait until after the election to get yours did you? I ordered a couple rifles for some customers back in November with the idea theyd be delivered around February. At the last minute I told the sales guy to add two more M4 carbines to the order. Figured I had till February to figure out a way to pay for them. Glad I did that…

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Speaking of purchases, I still have several dozen cases of Mountain House cans and pouches for those who want to take some of the sting out of the upcoming economic donkey punch. While the rest of the world is eating soup made out of Fritos and salt packets you can be having pork chops, rice pilaf and beef stew. Thirty year shelf life…gets you through this depression and the next one.

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

A polymer revolver??????

I believe I speak on behalf of Elmer Keith, Skeeter Skelton, Bill Jordan and Ed McGivern when I say “WTF?!”

Apparently the engineering department at Ruger has been let off the leash since the old man died.

As the dogmatic and hidebound proclaimed guru once espoused about another type of handgun, its “an answer in search of a problem.”

I really do have to get my hands on one of these things and examine it. in typical Ruger fashion Im sure I’ll get one after the first or second factory recall.

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

I wonder if this is what it felt like a week before the Russian revolution? After all, in about a week we are supposed to be getting an unprecedented ‘change’ which promises us all no solidly defined policies except ‘hope’.

The forecast is for….1978.
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Went to WalMart again the other day. No bulk .22 of any flavor. No 9mm. No .38 or .357. Some .40 and .45 ACP. As we headed down the aisle away from the gun counter I remarked to the missus that I was feeling a little smug that every time we come to WallyWorld we usually pick up two bricks of ammo. So while WallyWorld is outta .22, we’ve got a pretty healthy amount….enough to see us through any shortage. Of course, no supply of anything lasts forever so when bulk .22 is available again we will, naturally, continue to acquire it. But, its an excellent example of self-fulfilling prophecy.

We rush out to stock up on ammo because we think Obama will make it unobtainable. As a result the shelves are bare and the ammo is, ironically, unobtainable. So the concern that ammo would become scarce actually made the ammo scarce. Youre seeing the same things with Evil Black Rifles at the moment.

For the Johnny-come-lately types this is a heck of a time to try and find an AR or some ammo. But you and I, because we look past the immediate, saw this coming miles away and have been stocking up, right?

It isn’t over, by the way. As Ive been saying, this panic buying is going to come in four waves:
1) When he’s elected
2) When he’s inaugurated
3) When new anti-gun legislation is proposed
4) When that legislation is voted into law

So, yes, I think after January 20 there’ll be a slight slump in demand. That might be a window to get your last minute purchases, but once new legislation is proposed you can expect an even more intense flurry of panic buying.

I had a customer come in the other day with, I kid you not, $7000 in cash. He was looking to buy AR mags and rifles. He was prepared to pay around $1300 for any NIB AR he could find. Six months ago I could have sold him as many as he wanted for $900 ea. And still made a good profit. But because someone decided to wait until late in the game, theyre gonna be on the hook for several hundred dollars more per gun and probably about $10 more per magazine. And that’s without a ban being debated and voted upon yet…imagine what its going to be like when that political jockeying starts.
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While I was tooling around in WallyWorld I noticed that the price of canning jars went up a little. I had a little canning frenzy last week and did a couple dozen pints of soups so I needed to have a few extra jars and lids. The jars, naturally, are re-usable…the lids are not. Fortunately the lids are cheap enough that, like .22 ammo, they’ve become an item that I just automatically pick up a couple boxes of everytime Im at the store. There are some food preservation forums where people say that the lids have enough adhesive on them that they can, if you remove them carefully, be reused. Maybe. That’s definitely a last-ditch thing for me though. Why take chances with the nastiness of botulism and other food-borne baddies when I can get a dozen brand new lids for six bits?

The canning stuff, though, is starting to take up a bit more space than I’d like it to. Jars need no special storage requirements other than protecting them from breakage. I do leave the bands screwed onto the empty jars in order to protect the mouths of the jars from damage. (Any chips, nicks or damage to the mouth of the jar can preclude the lids sealing properly. Lids that don’t seal properly are Bad News.) Fortunately, I have an extra wire shelving rack that I can dedicate to the canning stuff. I need to order some spare parts for the canner and I wouldn’t mind another dozen cases of jars. For the canner, Im going to order a spare guage, extra parts for the locking matches, a couple extra safety release plugs, an extra handle or two and that should be about it. The darn thing is only made up of ten parts anyway. The particular canner I have doesn’t use a gasketed seal so I don’t need spares of that. The canner I have (An All American) was mighty expensive compared to something like a Mirro but I do believe it more than makes up for it in terms of ruggedness, quality and just plain brute construction – it looks darn near bombproof.
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Speaking of canning, I have a trip to the Mormon cannery this week. I’ll just round out some of the less-than-whole cases of stuff I have and I think I’ll be pretty much done with the things that they offer. That isn’t to say I wont go anymore, just that I’ll pretty much have hit my saturation point on wheat, rice, dried apples, potato pearls, and drink mix. However, they do have a portable canning unit that they let people check out so I may get the chance to can some items that they do not offer up there…things like dried corn, barley, certain legumes, etc, etc.
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And to continue the food storage theme, my local Sportsmans Warehouse is selling 5-gallon buckets. The buckets, unfortunately, are stamped with the SW logo on them but theyre $5 ea. And, more importantly, are of the much-preferred .090 mil thickness. Since Im trying to pinch pennies these days, I’ll wind up getting a few of these things and using them to add to the stored stuff we have. Should probably check and see if maybe they have a better deal on the 15-gallon blue barrels…I find them to be pretty much the optimum size ofr storing grains and water while still being small enough to be handled by one person. (Although 15 gallons of water cloks in at around 120#, so you’ve got your work cut out for you on that one.)
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And Mountain House, purveyor of freeze dried yummies, has now increased the size an order must be to get free shipping. Whereas a $3000 would get you free shipping the new magic number is $10,000. My contact there said this was due to fuel issues. Result? Group buys will have to be bigger to take advantage of the shipping.

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

I am, regrettably, still convinced that this economic…downturn…we’re experiencing is not done. Economy aside there are still ‘old’ threats still out there…Muslim terrorists, bird flu, natural disasters, etc, etc.

I hope 2009 isnt going to be worse than 2008 but I don;t see how it can’t be. I can’t believe anyone would really think that the Carter II administration is somehow going to pull us out of this. I saw a cover of Time magazine that had Obama caricatured as the new FDR. Lets not forget a couple things about FDR – he is, hands down, the father of the .gov nannystate…so much so that he threatened to stack the Supreme Court if his New Deal programs continued to be assailed as ‘unconstitutional’..and that FDR didn’t end the Depression. FDR never presided over anything except a Depression economy or a wartime economy. Make no mistake…WW2 ended the Depression (some may argue FDR got us into WW2 for that very reason). To imagine Obama as a new FDR means that the person making the comparison is either ignorant of history or acutely aware of it.

I think 2009 will be a tough year. I have no intention of this being the year we get a new house, new car, new television or cruise through the Med. This will be a year of looking over one’s shoulder while stuffing money into the mattress. However, when all this turns around…and it will eventually turn around…I plan on us being there to see it. Ideally, in much the same situation we are now…safely rooted in our house, with cabinets full of food, a safe full of guns, enough cash to handle a crisis, and ourselves steeled against the uncertain.

I suppose my point, if I have one at all here, is that you shouldn’t be lulled into a sense of security that things are getting better…that a rebound is right around the corner…that ‘hope’ and ‘change’ are coming…it would be foolish to think the clouds have broken and that its okay to drop $4200 on a bigscreen HDTV only to have your job eliminated the week after you start making the payments.

What will be the signs that things are ‘back to the way they used to be’? Not sure. I do know what those signs won’t be though….most of the ones we’re seeing now.

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

Went to Wally World the other day and, mostly out of curiousity, I stopped by the gun department for our usual two bricks o’ Federal. No Federal. No Remington. No .22 at all. That, my friends, is some disturbing stuff right there, I tell ya. The natives are restless.

Speaking of .22, I went out to the range today to take part in a little experiment. We all know that if you shot a propane tank with a bullet it will usually not explode. The gas jetting out will send the tank careening around like a spastic pinball, but no boom. So…what if we incorporate the boom into the bullet? To wit – armour-piercing incendiary bullets. Unfortunately, the range was just a little too crowded for engaging in rule-breaking, membership-voidng pyrotechnic experiments so that little frontier of science will have to wait until another day. Heres the background: Full 1# bottle of propane, 100 yards, .30 API, 2700 fps, temps. between 10-30 degrees f.

Im betting nothing fireball-ish happens.

I comforted myself with playing with the PTR and the .22lr conversion kit.

ptr22

(Yes, my finger is in the triggerguard before I was ready to shoot. Those mitts are so thick that I wanted to get my finger in the triggerguard before there was a round in the chamber. I didnt chamber a round until I was at the firing line, though.)

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Stayed up far too late into the wee hours of the morning doing some canning. The missus and I made about 40 pints of various soups we like and when possible I’d rather have them canned then frozen. Its more convenient to not have to thaw something, and if the power goes it I dont have to worry about temperature regulation. I discoverd, while I was at the aforementioned WallyWord, that pint jars we’re up 10% in price although lids dropped about 15%. Go figure. I’m careful to treat the jars carefully, keep bands on them when not in use to protect against chips, and carefully inspect each one before use….so I should be able to get plenty of life out of them. Spending all that time parked in my kitchen keeping an eye on my pressure canner makes me appreciate the quality of the new pressure canner I got. I have to admit, there is a certain warm fuzzy that results from seeing all those little jars lined up on the counter cooling.

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

A couple interesting products I found today. Actually I need to distinguish between practical and interesting.

In the interesting category is The Wall Of Life. This thing has Hollywood written all over it. An instant chem/bio shelter that normally looks like part of the wall but in a crisis can be transformed into a self-contained environment to protect a user from airborne threats. I cant imagine they sell many of these but its definitely some clever engineering on someone’s part.

I am, however, more taken with this gadget: Breath Of Life Emergency Escape Mask.  Smoke hoods have been around for a number of years and if I worked in an office building or similar environ I’d bloody well have a couple of these in my desk (along with rappelling gear and a couple hundred feet of rope).  Nowadays I have a stack of these lovelies sitting in the bunker, but for compact and convenient ‘just in case’ carry these things would be awful nice. Just the ticket for getting out of a smokey subway tunnel, office building or similar deathtrap.

I do like the TacPac pocket emergency kits, though.  If I were stuck working or commuting in big city that was ripe for some sort of terrorist action I’d have a couple of these and the smoke hood in my bag at all times.

One final product from these same people is this fireproof poncho. (The “[noun] of life” naming convention apparently didnt extend to this thing.) Kinda reminds me of the Dorest Service emergency fire shelters (”shake n bakes”) that are issued to firefighters here. Im not sure how much I would trust something like that but I suppose it beats being trapped behind a wall of flame and heat.

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

I must have lead either an amazingly dull or amazingly lucky life in that I’ve never really seriously injured myself. Never broke any bones, never needed a ride in an ambulance, never damaged myself to the point that someone else had to bundle me into the back of a car and drive me to a hospital. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, it just means it hasnt happened yet.

Wars and violent confrontations are terrible events but there is one ‘good’ side effect – new developments in trauma treatment that eventually trickle down to the civilian world. One of the more interesting developments in the last few years has been the introduction and development of clotting agents for field use. These products, the most popular being QuickClot (although there are, naturally, other brands) , are applied to a wound to staunch bleeding until the person can get to medical aid. A very important development. A guy who just got shot in the leg can pour some of this stuff into the wound, tie a compress bandage around it and stop the blood loss until such time as he can be extracted. How is that not an amazingly useful development?

Well, theres apparently some issues in the military about whether the cure is worse than the disease.

WASHINGTON — Until more testing can be done, Army medics are being told to stop using a new product just sent to the war front to help control bleeding among wounded troops.

Officials were in the process of distributing some 17,000 packets of WoundStat, granules that are poured into wounds when special bandages, tourniquets or other efforts won’t work. But a recent study showed that, if used directly on injured blood vessels, the granules may lead to harmful blood clots, officials said Tuesday.

At issue seems to be a concern that the loose granules of clotting agent may cause ‘bad’ clots…the kind that cause strokes and embolysms, it seems. The clotting products usually come in two forms – a powder that is poured into the open wound and bandages that are treated with the clotting product. The concern seems to stem from the powder version. I’m guessing the concern is some of this material getting into the bloodstream and clogging up things in a lung or brain. A shame, since these types of products seem to be doing far more harm than good. I have both the powder and the bandages and it ranks right up in my list of things I genuinely hope I never need.

The Russians, naturally, are a more pragmatic people. Theres the story of how when the space race was in its infancy NASA spent thousands of dollars to develop a pen that could write in zero gravity, the Russians simply used pencils.  KaiserVonTexas has a post, with pictures and links, to the Soviet version of QuickClot – the tourniquet. An outstanding photo showing the troops with tourniquets wrapped around their rifle stocks. Also a link to a seller on eBay of the genuine article.

Tourniquets are a mixed blessing. As you know they do indeed shut off the flow of blood to a wound. They also shut off the flow of blood to the rest of that limb which can lead to some very ugly results and amputations. However, it does usually beat being dead. I recall reading somewhere that tourniquets are discouraged in most situations unless its an absolute last resort and even then theres careful instructions to loosen it every so often, etc.

I’m a pragmatist so I have all three – the clotting powder, the treated dressing/bandage, and the barbarous tourniquet. I am more likely to go for the bandage first though. However if theres a nice arterial fountain shooting  out of my thigh I may worry less about a loose clot giving me a stroke and worry more about not dyiing in the next five minutes.

Several companies sell ‘blowout kits’ or specialized kits for treating gunshot type wounds. These kits are almost always a small MOLLE pouch with gauze, compress bandage, clotting agent, sucking chest wound materials and a few other sundries. Its deisgned for one purpose – treating a heavily bleeding wound. Its not bandaids and bactine and it isnt priced like it either. However these kits are probably a good idea to have if theres even the small chance of some very traumatic injury (gunshot , stabbing, penetrating wound, etc).

I keep a packet or two of QuickClot in the first aid kit I carry in my Tactical Tailor bag. I’ll probably swap out one of those packets for one of the treated dressing/bandage units.

Anyway, I thought that the article about the military halting issue of the clotting product may be of interest to some and worth mentioning.

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

First, Im all out of the #1120 Pelican cases. They were a good deal and they shall not come this way again. However, still got plenty of the #1010 cases..they’ll fit cell phones, MP3 palyers, most small digital cameras, emergency spare parts kits for guns, backpack stove parts, etc, etc. Theyre $12.50 each prepaid postage right to your bunker. When they gone, they gone.

Cool! Gimme one!

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Right now probably the biggest and most active topic on the forums are the ‘predictions for 2009′ threads. If I had any precognitive ability whatsoever I’d be sitting on the porch of my 1500-acre parcel shooting icicles off of trees with a AI AW sniper gun. However, since I don’t have any precognitive abilities that will allow me to win Powerball, break the bank in Vegas, shut down the race track and nail Angelina Jolie after an all-night strip poker game anything I predict will be worthless.

All Im willing to say is that, for almost everyone, 2008 was quite the year. I think 2009 will be more of the same with the added thrill of the Carter II administration making it worse. It is, in my humble and thoroughly discredited opinion, time to circle the wagons and hold onto every cent you have. It will get worse before it gets better. And though it will indeed get better, you gotta make it through the bad parts first.

Regardless, depsite my own feelings of doom and gloom regarding the next spin around the sun, I hope that everyone has a safe, warm, well-fed, financially-secure 2009.

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

I likes me Pelican cases. Crushproof, waterproof, airtight and always up for taking some rough usage….all the qualities I look for in a gal right there. One of my vendors was closing out some gen-u-ine Pelican cases that had been contract-made for Nikon. Turns out theyre Pelican cases with Nikon stickers on ‘em. Oh they still say Pelican on ‘em, it’s just an annoying yellow sticker next to the Pelican logo. Fortunately, that sticker peels right off. Best part, the #1120 cases are my favorite olive drab..I mean..sage…er…whatever the new term is these days.

Picked up a few and I have some extras for those that are interested. Theres two sizes:

The 1120 which will fit a G19 and a couple mags, most snubbie .38/.357’s, and would make an uber-sweet first aid kit container.

The 1010 which will hold a cellphone, iPod Nano, rifle/pistol spare parts, and many small digital cameras. Very handy.

The 1120 has a foam insert that was pre-cut for whatever Nikon was selling. Digital camera, Im guessing. You can buy replacement foam or just throw the foam away and maximize your usable space. Color is the lovely OD/sage. Takes a beating and keeps on …well..something, I guess that rhymes with beating.

The 1010 is solid black, non-transparent, has a lanyard, comes with a foam insert that is uncut and may be cut to accomodate whatever you want.

#1010 $12.50 postage paid.

#1120 $22.00 plus whatever shipping is. Weight is two pounds so cheapest is USPS from zip 59801…anywhere between $4.80-$8.25.

Both types of cases are brand new, never used. Just overruns, Im guessing. Only have about a dozen of each so when theyre gone, theyre gone. Excellent containers for storing stuff that absoultely must be protected. Ideal for critical electronic gear like GPS, camera and radios. Email if youre interested: zero@commanderzero.com

Pictures? Ok: