Category Archives: Uncategorized

Water and canteens

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In storage I have a couple of milk crates that hold nothing but various water containers. Some of these things go a ways back. Over thirty years of being a survivlist has given me the opportunity to try all sortsa things…some worked, some didn’t; some lasted; some didn’t.

I distinctly recall, as a young and wildly stupid lad of 14 or so, when the first hydration bladder (“CamelBak”) hit the market. I can’t recall the brand name but it was the most novel and bizarre contraption. It looked like something you’d find in an emergency room rather than in a back pack. (Trivia: hydration bladders got their start from repurposed IV bags and tubing.)

Of course, starting in the 80’s, everyone’s go-to was the ubiquitous military canteen which had just been transitioned to plastic.They were somewhat inexpensive, seemed to work, worked with the ALICE gear which was all the rage at the time, and were widely available. Drawbacks? The die-hards never quit wailing about how because it was plastic you would melt it when you mated it with your canteen cup if your canteen cup was still hot from boiling up some water. Also, they tended to smell rather strongly of plastic. Nalgene makes a version that I have tried and can endorse, although they don’t fit quite right in a military canteen cup and cover.

Moving forward, Nalgene bottles started migrating from something that was almost exclusively a backpackers piece of gear to something a bit more mainstream. They were capacious, modular, and very durable. Drawbacks? The BPA scare that caused people to turn towards stainless bottles and forced bottle makers to reformulate their plastic with, according to some people, a decrease in durability. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the Nalgene bottles. There are all sorts of aftermarket accessories and pouches available for them and I will often use them when I need a ‘hard’ water container.

Continuing along the evolutionary highway, the hydration bladders showed up and these pretty much still dominate the hydration-on-the-go market. Eventually the military caught on and started issuing them. Their biggest advantage has been the ‘hands-free’ usage of them, the ability to carry a large quantity of water, and the reduced bulk since as they empty they can be compressed. Drawbacks are that theyre sometimes tough to keep clean and, depending on circumstances and manufacture, they can suffer damage.

A nice byproduct of the evolution of the hydration bladder was the collapsible water bottle. I remember exactly when I first became aware of these. I was in Alaska visiting some glacier and the park ranger was drinking from one of these. I was immediately fascinated and asked her if I could examine the product. It was, as I recall, a Platypus of some kind. I had no idea such things existed but I knew I was seeing the future of on-the-go water carriage. These things are my go to for carrying water when out in the sticks. The biggest attraction is that as you drink, you can squeeze the air out of the ‘bottle’ so that there is no noise from water ‘sloshing’ around. This was always a headache with rigid canteens and water bottles. And, when empty, you can roll the thing up and tuck it way where it takes up no room. I keep two of them in my Bag O’ Tricks so that in a crisis I can load up on water and take it with me. In an emergency, when you’re on your feet and moving, you may not know when and where you’re next opportunity to get water may arise. It’s nice to have extra containers along, that take up no room when empty, so that when you do find that hose bib or lawn sprinkler that works you can load up. (Tangent: I have always hated those scenes in movies where someone is stranded somewhere, they drink the last drop of water, and then they look at their empty canteen in disgust and throw it away. Idiot! If you find another water supply how are you going to carry the water????)

And, interestingly, there’s a rather neat hybrid system that I’ve found extremely useful. Made by Source, this kit turns your Nalgene water bottle (or other water bottle) into a tube-feed hydration system. Highly recommend. (The Source ‘tactical’ line is probably one of the more survivalist-oriented lines of these types of products.) Nalgene makes water bottles in larger sizes that still use the same diameter cap, so you can have a nice big jug of water in your pack or in the seat pocket behind you and plenty of water. The Source products also feature modular attachment points for bite valves and bladder connectors, which allow you to fill you reservoir without taking it out of the pack. Good stuff.

And finally, for ease of use, disposability, and all around convenience, a couple cases of cheap bottled water are handy. Shove a couple in your pack or in the trunk of your vehicle and leave ’em there. I’ve had them go through dozens of thaw/freeze cycles and never had one fail.

When Im out on my bike or running around tow, I usually just have a Nalgene bottle with me…I can abuse it and know it’ll be just fine. When I’m out in the woods, I have some sort of hydration system like the Platypus to keep things quiet and compact. And for just general hand-out-to-the-unprepared I have plenty of surplus military canteens floating around.

By the by, the Nalgene and Platypus product freeze quite well. In hot summers like we are having now, I usually fill them 1/4 with my preferred beverage and let them freeze solid. Then fill the remaing 3/4 with whatever I plan on drinking. Keeps things cold all day…especially if you’re dropping that hydration reservoir into an insulated pouch.

Anyway…if you’re still rocking the OD plastic canteen from 1985, more power to you. But, you may wanna examine some of the newer options out there.

Migration

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Life continues in the time of the great plague…

I was reading an article, and then confirmed it by checking real estate listings, that says people are fleeing the major population centers in droves and purchasing property in out-of-the-way locales like Montana. This is my surprised face. /s

Two things keep everyone from moving to Montana: economics and the weather. We have some nasty and long winters, and that tends to keep some people away. The bigger factor was economics: jobs don’t grow on trees here (although it used to be you could get jobs cutting trees down). But if there is one thing that the Kung Flu has taught us, it is that all those jobs that we were told could not be done from home can, surprise!, be done from home. As a result, there’s a lot of people who are discovering that they can keep their Chicago, L.A., or Dallas salary while living in a remote place like Montana.

This happened before in the id 1980’s…Montana became the place to be. it tapered off a little, hit the map again when the Y2k thing came up, and then sorta died down a bit. But, make no mistake, the notion that you can move to Montana and buy a couple miles of beautiful land for a few dollars is pure fantasy.  Oh, there’s parts of the state, eastern mostly, where you can buy some big chunks of land for a few thousand dollars an acre but you’re talking flat-as-a-cookie-sheet, middle of nowhere, no water, no utilities, might-as-well-be-on-the-moon types of parcels. And, for some people, thats ideal. Most folks though want something with, you know, water. And septic. And electricity.

If you think you’ll move to one of the larger cities in Montana be prepared to pay dang near as much as if you were living in NY or Seattle. The median house price in this college town is around $250k, and most houses are north of that going as high as half a million.

And, unfortunately, the problem with people from NYC, L.A., and Chicago moving out here is that they bring their attitudes (and voting records) with them and wind up turning the new place into the place they just left. There was a time in this state when having a California license plate on your car was a recipe for getting some major attitude and bad vibes from the locals. Still is in some places.

It’s going to be a reverse Grapes Of Wrath… instead of poor rural dwellers heading to the promised land of big cities it’s going to be affluent urbanites heading to the bucolic idyll of the country.

I suppose it was inevitable that eventually the telecommuting promise that we were made thirty years ago would finally come to pass.

So, this will be another consequence of the Kung Flu…a surge in population in my beloved Treasure State. And a lot of that surge being people coming in from states that I’d just as soon build a fence around and lock the gate.

For those of you who continue to live in more urban locales, perhaps it’ll be a buying opportunity as motivated sellers try to get out ‘to the country’. For those of us already here…well…it’s gonna kinda suck.

Power tool

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I had to buy a cordless power drill today. I’ve used a corded power drill forever but I really wanted the convenience of a cordless. Anyway, the package I bought came with, among other things, this little tool bag:

Now, that tool bag is about one foot wide, eight inches deep, and about eight inches tall. It’s a small bag…really about the size of a lunch box. I was looking at it and started wondering…..hmmm. Let’s see if this will work.

It’s been a long day of being in the office and as 6pm rolls around you hear the zombie hordes marching down the street, with their black hoodies and baseball bats. You reach into the bottom desk drawer and next to the bottle of Old Grandad you have this little tool bag that you unzip. And….

Remove the contents….

And you’re position on the food chain just shifted upwards in a dramatic way….

And there’s still room in the bag, but barely, for two 50-rd boxes of ammo, a good light, and a couple more mags.

I like that little Ruger PC Charger a lot. I’ve wanted a little packaway carbine for years and the Uzi was the first iteration of it, the PC Carbine was the second, but this little charge absolutely takes the prize for compactness. Not my first choice for Omega Man-ing my way out of a tight spot, but a far, far, better choice than just a pistol. And it fits in a tiny little gear bag. How adorable is that?

If you run the Glock 9mm (or .40 as Ruger seems to be bringing out a .40 version soon) you really need to look into getting one of these guns. Right now they’re about as hard to find as an honest politician, but very worth it IMHO. Figure close to $600-650 for the gun and another $200 for the wrist brace.

It’s funny…every time I pull the PC Charger out of its storage container and assemble it I have this scene from the old “Lost In Space” movie play, unbidden, in my head.

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If you find this entertaining, please consider ….

A sign of the times

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So just how hard is it to get guns from vendors? RSR is a pretty big distributor. Here’s the results when I told it to show me all the handguns the list in their inventory:

And then when I said to show me only the ones that are actually in stock:

2,670 items normally carried, 55 in stock. In other words, they are about 98% out of stock on varieties of handguns.

That’s just one vendor. You can’t really draw any conclusions from a sample size of one. However…it’s not far from the same situation at most other larger wholesalers and distributors.

Glad you bought when you did, right?

Equanamity

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Feeling a little burned out because of the constant, unyielding barrage of news about how no one knows when, of if, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Now, personally, I don’t really mind riding through an apocalypse, what I mind is not knowing how long it is to the off ramp.

But, one good thing to come out of this is that I have stepped up my prep game by several orders of magnitude. However, I am, honestly, getting a little tired of it. To be fair though, I’ve been going at it 110% for the last few months. I suppose I could dial it back a tad and still get things done without the burnout.

Perspective, I suspect, is the big thing for me to keep in mind. I’m really not that concerned about getting sick from the Kung Flu. I’m far^5 (thats the same as far, far, far, far, far) more worried about the consequences of the flu….the shortages, the price hikes, the inconveniences…but especially the economic impact. Look, you may avoid contracting this thing entirely. And if you do contract it, the odds are you’ll live through it. But there’s virtually no avoiding the economic fallout. It could be something fairly indirect, like your IRA not being anywhere near where it was 12/31/19, or it could be more direct as when your boss says “Don’t bother taking off your coat”. There’s not going to be any avoiding the economic fallout, the best you’re going to be able to do is mitigate it. The key word is resilience.

At the moment, I’m spending a few minutes each night, long after the sun goes down, sitting on my front steps, appreciating the overall quiet and placidity of the end of the day. I try not to think about anything other than that particular moment. Not think about tomorrow, not think about what needs to be done, not think about what may (or may not) be coming down the pike. Just enjoy the moment of sitting on the steps, on a summer evening, enjoying the calm and quiet. Kinda give myself five minutes where there’s nothing to think about, and just experience five minutes of sitting in the breeze, smelling the night air, and feeling good about that instant.

Of course, after that it’s back to checklists, expiration dates,  spots and premiums, 30-rounders, 4473’s, rates of return, and due dates….the things that make up a life.

What about you? Getting a little burned out at the constant ‘under the gun’ feeling of this crisis? The ambiguous and often conflicting statements about severity and duration? The constant little voice in the back of your head that urges you to ‘do something’ even though you know you’re doing exactly what you should be doing? Whatcha doing about it?

 

Link – On panic buying

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Friend Of The Blog ™ Tam, over at View From The Porch, comments on the gun buying situation before us:

This current panic has a different flavor to it than most, though. Available evidence shows that there are a large number of first-time buyers looking for something to defend home and hearth, rather than existing gun hobbyists adding a twelfth or thirteenth AR15 to an existing collection.

That there is some panic buying going on isn’t really news to anyone who knows how to work a trigger and the internet. But Tam makes an astute observation that while AR’s are proving out the demand-supply graph, the parts to build your own AR are still fairly static. This, she opines, suggests that there’s a lot of first-time AR buyers out there buying complete guns rather than ‘building’ (assembling, really) their own.

I concur. This is why when PSA had some super low prices I picked up a dozen guns. And I hope you did the same.  Tam doesn’t foresee tings approaching anything close to normal vis-a-vis gun pricing/availability until next year and she is 100% right. Between Kung Flu, Black/White/My Life Matters ‘demonstrations’, and the upcoming election, 2020 may prove out to be a) the worst time to buy a gun and b) the best time to sell a gun.

But, and this is important, don’t get tunnel vision – guns are important because they protect the things that are important to us. Things like our lives, naturally, but also things like food, fuel, money, shelter, and a host of other things that keep us alive. And it’s those other things you should also be working on acquiring.

Put another way: if you think the world is getting scary enough that you need to go out and buy your first AR “just in case”, then it’s also scary enough you need to be out there buying food storage, fuel, meds, and getting your financial poop in a group.

Weekend stuff

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I know for a fact that I did not eat anything weird last night, and yet…weird dreams.

I dreamt (hmm… spellcheck does not like that word) that I was in some sort of post-apocalyptic Spokane or Seattle and I was running around trying to avoid desperate scavengers. I was armed with only a .22 slamfire pipegun and a knife I’d carved out of a piece of polycarbonite. This was a dream where I literally would have been better off with a HiPoint and a Made In Pakistan folder from the fishbowl next to the register at Harbor Freight. Fortunately, I’ve spent more than half my life making sure that I don’t have to rely on a pipe gun and cheap folder.
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I had a discussion with someone last night that lead to this headscratcher: if dogs could talk, what would their political affiliation be? I figured that because they’re all about pleasing other people and making other people happy they would be democrats, and with the whole ‘pack’ nature perhaps a little socialist as well. But, another person opined that dogs are loyal, willing to protect their loved ones at all costs, and put their own group before others…therefore they might actually be conservatives. What say the internet? (Cats, I suspect, are simply amoral nihlists.)
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I’ve officially finished off pretty much everything on the Preponomicon that can be had at CostCo. Now it’s strictly Walmart stuff. The shelves are full, but there’s always room for more and no one really knows what the future looks like at this point.
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College classes here are supposed to start August 19 but I wonder if the university is going to do it. Fact is, they can’t afford to do this distance learning stuff. Their budgets are predicated on revenue from dorm lodgings, food service, providing athletic services, etc, etc. Campus is empty but they still gotta do maintenance on buildings, maintain infrastructure, pay staff, etc. But woe to the administrator that signs off on face-to-face classes, spreads the Wuhan Flu, and then has to face the ‘profits were more important than students health’ witch hunt. I’m very curious to see what happens.
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Premiums on silver have finally come down. They were an outrageous $3.50-$4 per ounce for generic rounds a few weeks back. Now we’re into a more reasonable, but still annoying, $2 premium. As an aside, I finally found ‘tubes’ for the 1 oz. silver bars. Every idiot sells the tubes for rounds, but finding the tubes for bars took a bit of time. The 1 oz. bars seem to get me a better price once in a while because, apparently, people don’t like the inconvenience of not having a way to store them neatly like you do with rounds. Whatever, man…1 oz. of silver is 1 oz. of silver no matter what shape it is. If I can get it cheaper as a bar than as a round, so be it.

 

Vulture II

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A while back I opined that the Current Situation may lead to opportunities as folks die off and opportunities arise as those estates are liquidated. Yeah, it’s a rather tacky thing to think about but it is nonetheless true. What I hadn’t given much thought to is that people don’t necessarily have to die for these opportunities to arise. Unemployment is at record highs, people with jobs are having hours cut back, and folks would really rather have cash in their hands than some ‘toys’ that they deem as non-essential. In short, in addition to opportunity from those poor souls passing there is also opportunity for those poor souls who are in desperate need of cash. That’s where I step in.

I’ve been cruising Armslist religiously for a couple months now. Nothing really jumps out at me since most people sell their guns at prices that are higher than my dealer cost on a new one. But, sometimes stuff comes through that I do jump on. Todays acquisitions:

A brand-new-in-box Magpul Backpacker stock (in my favorite OD). This is the foundation for what many people call the ‘Grail gun’ of 10/22’s: a stainless takedown 10/22 w/ threaded barrel and Magpul Backpacker stock. It’d be mighty hard to come up with a better bugout .22 rifle.

Also picked up an Outdoorsmans Butte 25 Hip Pack. I was unfamiliar with this product. I have an almost identical product made by Kifaru, their Scout pack, but it is long discontinued and I thought it would be nice to have something similar as a backup and to take some of the wear and tear off my Kifaru.

Price? Well, let’s just say retail is for suckers and I don’t buy unless I’m getting a deal. And the reason I was able to pounce on this deal? Because I’ve spent the last couple years clearing out the debt and tucking away money when I can. And, honestly, I anticipate a lot more deals like this before this pandemic is over.

The important takeaway here is that opportunities will arise from this pandemic. Whether you think taking advantage of them is wrong or not, they will arise. By having cleared the decks of debt, secured money in the bank for emergencies, and being careful with spending, I’ve created a position where I can, from time to time, pounce on these sorts of opportunities. If you’ve gotten your ducks in a row financially, I suggest you start cruising Craigslist and Armslist….there’s interesting stuff starting to turn up as people less prudent than you and I find themselves suddenly needing cash.

Ammo Security VI – Economics of reloading

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There’s not a lot of things I consider myself an expert on. But, one thing I genuinely do think of myself as an expert on is reloading ammunition. I’ve done it all from .22 Hornet to .50-140, using every brand of press, jacketed and lead bullets, cast my own bullets, reformed my own brass, etc, etc.

I am also a tightwad with a streak of money nerd. Is reloading cost effective? Well, when you reload the cost of your ammo goes down so you wind up shooting more…so, in that regard it’s mostly a wash. But, on terms of shooting the same amount of ammo, it’s a different story. What I mean is, if you buy a box of .300 Win. Mag and then you reload that box of .300 Win. Mag. one is going to be a buttload cheaper than the other. Cheap enough to make it worth it? Let’s find out.

Let’s go with one of the belted mags……300 Win, 7mm Rem, .338 Win, .257 Weatherby….whatever. They all track around $2-$4 a round. Let’s buy 20 pieces of new brass, 100 premium bullets, a brick of primers, and a pound of powder.

I’m just gonna run over to GunBroker and get some prices….

  • Federal .300 Win Mag 165 gr. Nosler Partition, 20 rounds for about $40
  • Nosler Partitions, .30 165 gr, 100 bullets is about $45
  • New brass from Winchester is about $30/50
  • And we’ll use a load of 70 grains of IMR 4350 (There are 7000 grains of powder per pound, so under “Qty” one pound would be ‘7000’)

Factory ammo is $2. We can reload it for $1.39. But, once we fire it off and re-use the brass our cost per round drops to $0.79.

What if you reload something really spendy like .338 Lapua.

  • Federal Premium 250 gr. Sierra MK 20 rounds for about $90
  • Hornady brass at $3 each
  • Sierra 250 MK at $40/50
  • 76 grains of powder

Factory ammo is $4.50. We can reload it for $4.16. But, once we fire it off and re-use the brass our cost per round drops to $1.16.

If you buy a good reloading kit, like RCBS RockChucker kit, thats about $400. You would have to reload 120 rounds of .338 Lapua for it to pay for itself. Or reload 329~ rounds of .300 Win Mag.

Seems like a good deal, right? It is…until you get into economies of scale. Federal cranks out a bazillion rounds of 5.56 every year for the military. As a result, they’ve got the whole thing dialed in…they’ve got their costs down, their equipment amortized, production streamlined…as a result they can make 5.56 so cheap that you almost don’t want to waste your time reloading. Let’s check out some 55 gr. FMJ Federal ammo:

  • Federal 820 rounds for about $350 (From Midway)
  • Hornady brass at $0.29 each
  • 55 gr. FMJ at $.0.13
  • 25 grains of powder

Admittedly, almost no one uses new commercial brass to load .223 since fired brass is available at virtually no cost. But, for consistency….

You’re at $0.56 per round for your first loading…thats actually more than what factory ammo costs. However, once you fire that off and reload it, you drop down by sixteen cents per round. Put another way, you paid Midway $350 but once you fire it off that ammo can be reloaded at around $227.

When you get into stuff like 9mm and .223 the savings really become negligible when you factor in your time and whatnot. However, when ammo isn’t available at any price, then the advantages become readily apparent.

If you want to play “what if”, I’ll give you a copy of the spreadsheet. Anything in green is a variable that you can tinker with. Crunch some numbers. You’ll see that if you’re a guy who shoots oddball calibers (Weatherby, Ultramag, Lapua, etc.) you can save some serious coin. Explore your options – what if you get a really good deal on powder? What if you use inexpensive cast bullets? What if you use cheap once-fired brass?

If you find this info useful….

 

Scenes from a gun shop

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Locus: Bob Wards & Son. Regional outdoors chain.
Me: Can I see that AR in the rack please?
Him: Here you go. [hands me carbine]
Me: [Looking at tag] I don’t see a price on this. How much is it?
Him: Hang on, I have to go back and ask. [Leaves and comes back]
Him: $2600*
Me: You guys don’t put the prices on there?
Him. We’re not putting prices on any of the tags right now.
Me: Because the prices are constantly changing?
Him: Well…Yeah.

I want you to roll that thought over in your mind for a second. Seriously…think about the possible (although possibly unlikely) implications of that sort of pricing. In retail, the price you charge is not always based on some factor of the price you paid…its based on the price to replace what you sell. If I bought an AR for $400 last year, and I normally sell for, say, 25% over, I sell that AR for $500. And when I sell it, I order the replacement for $400. Cut to today: I paid $400 a year ago, but replacing it will cost me $1000. So do I sell it for $500? No, of course not, I have to sell it with a price that reflects the fact the next one will cost me $1000. And if I don’t know, with reasonable certainty, what the next one will cost me…well…then I can’t really be sure what to charge. Saw this at the gold and silver shop earlier this year.

Reminds me of the hyperinflation stories where prices were changed every hour or so to reflect the devaluing currency. In this case, it’s to reflect perceived availability.

So what you’re seeing is a level of uncertainty that is so pronounced that a middlin’-sized retailer is willing to look like a jerk and not put prices on stuff. That should give you pause to think about what you need (or want) and how willing you are to do what it takes to get it (assuming you don’t already  have it).

Are ARs and ammo available? Of course they are. Everything is available to you for the right price. If you have enough money you can buy yourself a nuclear artillery shell and go hold a city hostage somewhere…with the proper amount of greenbacks there is nothing you can’t buy. Guns and ammo just aren’t available at prices you want to pay.

Between Covid, ‘race discussions’, and an upcoming election, this is the worst possible time in a long while to try and stock up on guns and ammo. This is why, since the begining of this blog those many years ago, I have always harped on you to buy the things that will be easiest to render scarce.

My point, if there is one, is that even in a relatively bucolic minimally-affected place like Montana, the fallout of ‘the Covid tax’ and it’s attendant effect on the various markets (food, guns, metals, etc) cannot be avoided. Succinctly, unless you are willing to part with a rather larger dose of cash than you normally would, you are not going to be getting your boogaloo guns & ammo anytime soon. So I hope you already had them.

* = Colt-made modern repro of XM177. This is why Colt is not a going concern, folks.