Next Friday is Paratus…get your shopping done now and avoid the rush!
I’ll be dropping cards/gifts in the mail next Monday. As always, if you want to get your buddy Zero a little something for the holiday you can find the details here.
One other thing I’m exceptionally excited about: Gun shows! There are finally some gun shows going on around here. First ones since March. I’ll be up in Kalispell this weekend getting my fix.
Every so often you read about people who let their dogs run loose and those dogs start terrorizing neighborhoods and chasing down deer. These are, for the most part, “good dogs” who, once they start hanging out in groups, tend to let the pack mentality make them do things they otherwise would not. I suspect rioters are the same way. Put twenty college kids, who would normally shrink from violence, into a group and watch them egg each other on to things that they never woulda had the cajones to do on their own.
Thats why any group of people is more dangerous than a single person. Not because of the numbers, but because with others encouraging or ‘backing him up’ someone is more likely to behave in a manner that they would not have before. A rioting mob is an example of the ‘herd’ mentality at its worst. A person is smart, people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals…and you know it.
I’d be curious to see if the election, regardless of how it turns out, convinces a lot of otherwise peaceful people to be less-than-peaceful because ‘everyone is with me on this’.
I have a lovely stainless GP-100 that I consider to be my ‘primary’ .357. That is to say, of the half a dozen in the safe it is the one I take with me nine times out of ten when I need a .357. I got it from Caleb years ago after he stopped using it for competition. Its been slicked up a bit and shoots rather nicely. (Trivia: serial number ends in 1337 so…its my Leet gun)
A few weeks ago I stumbled into a decent deal on 2600 158gr. JHP bullets. Before I load up 2600 rounds of .357 I’d like to find a load that shoots well in my gun. So, off to the range today to try out a few loads. Best results? 8.0 grains of the old favorite, Unique. On a side note, I find Unique to be the most versatile powder for reloading…if you have a can of Unique you can load pretty much any pistol cartridge.
Anyway, the 8.0 of Unique shot controlably , ejected cases cleanly, and shot a lovely group in the 2″ orange sticker at 25 yards. Seems like a winner. So…next step is to set up the DIllon RL1050, run some brass through the tumbler, fill up a buncha primer pickup tubes, and get ready to crank out an apocalypse worth of .357.
I stuff fifty rounds into some cardboard boxes I got from repackbox.com. Theyre smaller than the usual plastic boxes which lets me pack more into an ammo can. I have them for pistol calibers and rifle calibers…pretty handy.
Oh, and why .357? After all, I have a lovely (and, it appears, rare) Ruger .44 Mag. Well, the .44 Mag is for when I’m out wandering the boonies and am worried about the four-legged. A .44 Mag is a bit of overkill for the two-legged and I really prefer the controlability of the .357 vs the .44 for fast DA shooting. And I doubt very highly that there are any two-legged that would fall to a .44 that wouldn’t fall just as DRT to a .357. ( I know, some retired badge will chime in about how when he was a rookie they encountered some drugged up monster that took five 12 ga. slugs to the head and they finally had to put him down with a Carl Gustaf.) But for normal day-to-day situations, I think the .357 is about as good as you can get in a revolver cartridge for when you’re carrying a full-size pistol.
,Rawles’ latest book was on sale at CostCo. I suspect that given the Current Situation the book will sell pretty briskly.
Man, I have a talent for understatement. Historically, years divisible by five have been really bad ones for me. While 2020 has (so far) been annoying on a bunch of levels I like to think I have (thus far) weathered it better than many folks. ‘Course, the year ain’t over yet….
Two weeks from today (Sept. 18, 2020) is Paratus! The holiday of, for, and by survivalists.
Everything you wanted to know about Paratus is here in the glorious Paratus FAQ.
Got a business that’s running a Paratus sale? Lemme know and I’ll post a link. Let’s drive some traffic and get this holiday off the ground!
As for me, well…..I’m easy to shop for. Which reminds me, if you’ve signed up to support the blog on Patreon, send me an email with the email address you used to sign up and your mailing address if you would like to receive one of this year’s Paratus cards.
Taken from the Reddit Gundeals community.
Looks like Lowes is closing out SureFire branded CR123. Someone beat me to the punch but I still managed to get a buncha 2-packs for $1.89.
Check your local Lowes and hope youre the first one to read this.
As I mentioned previously, I ordered up some burn jel. Arrived:
The bottle and dressings will go in the big first aid kit, the smaller single use ‘ketchup packets’ will get distributed across the various small first aid kits.
This stuff is awesome for those (somewhat) minor burns. When you’ve got the kind ofburn that gives you an ache right down to the bone, this stuff really seems to put a damper on it. As I’ve mentioned, I once burned my hand so bad that the only way I could sleep was clutching a cold, wet washcloth or a bag of ice. This stuff, though, took the pain away so I could finally sleep.
Good product and I heartily recommend it. Skip a couple lattes today, spend the money at Amazon, and get some of this stuff. Next time you grab the wrong part of your Dutch oven, try to pick up a hot lawnmower by the exhaust, or parboil yourself by opening the wrong end of the lid on your pressure cooker you will be so glad you have this stuff.
The election is almost two months away. Ah, how it seems like only yesterday we were watching Hillary admit that, once again, her ‘turn’ would be denied to her…again. Good times, good times.
You know, one of the things we used to pride ourselves on as a nation was that, unlike many other countries, when our government changed hands it was usually not accompanied by civil disturbances and gunfire. Funny how times change.
It’s a safe bet that no matter who wins, there’s going to be some ugliness. And, whoever doesn’t win will see their ‘side’ even more energized, galvanized, incentivized, and polarized than before.
Whats going to happen in two months and a couple days? Beats me. But I’d expect that there’s going to be a bit more of these ‘demonstrations’/’rallys’ where someone initiates a bullet party and the hand-wringing reaches epic levels.
Hats and bats. The latest in election year fashions.
This is about the point in the post where I’d say something like “Be ready for some sort of civil disorder”, “Get your magazines and AR lowers now”, or “Be ready for the market to drop like a rock”. But, I’m not going to say that. Honestly, if you haven’t come to those conclusions on your own by now you probably deserve whats going to happen to you. The greatest likelihood is that there will be a few ‘demonstrations’ cough*riots*cough with a few severe beatings and deaths, the market will yo-yo a bit, and you still won’t be able to buy .223 with a handful of hundred dollar bills. That’s the likely outcome. But, as survivalists, we try to prepare for the alternative outcomes. Only you know what you need to do between now and November; go out and do it.
As I mentioned earlier, one of my regrets is that I didn’t take my FAK with me on my trip to Venus Jr. I was wondering if, in fact, I had in that FAK the items I would have needed for that particular episode…specifically, a non-adhesive dressing of some type, some rolled gauze, and some tape. Turns out, yes, I had all that in there. Cool. But then I figured I better double-check what might be lacking. As it turns out, I seem to have never gotten around to distributing burn jel into that particular kit. So, off to Amazon for Burn Jel…both the ‘ketchup packets’ of the stuff, individual dressings, and a bottle of the stuff. I’ve used this product in the past for some kitchen accidents and it works wonderfully. In fact, I’ve had some burns bad enough to keep me awake at night and this stuff has made it so I can sleep.
This little episode of gear-inspection was also driven by the need for me to review, update, replenish, and re-gear my in-vehicle supplies. In the winter I try to keep a big ol’ Pelican case of winter survival gear in the vehicle ‘just in case’. But, during the summer-ish times there’s not as much need for that much bulk and mass taking up space. Since the summer stuff doesn’t require as much bulky clothing and sleepgear as winter, I use a medium size pack. Its the well-made and highly-recommended SpecOps Brand Recon Ruck. Don’t let that MSRP fool you, they can be had for a lot less. I think I got mine on sale somewhere for around $80..but, that was a while ago. Anyway, the nice thing about it is that it can be used as a non-frame pack (like a Med. ALICE pack) but can also be used in conjunction with an ALICE frame, which are pretty ubiquitous and affordable. Yeah, the ALICE was supplanted by the MOLLE packs but this isn’t for humping the boonies, its for just keeping my gear in one place. Anyway, highly recommend.
The only real difference between the winter and summer gear is, as I said, bulky sleeping gear and extra clothing. I don’t carry extra water because SOP is to have a 5-gallon jerry can of the stuff on hand.
I live in one of the more densely populated parts of Montana, so sitting on a road somewhere and not seeing a soul for days at a time is fairly unheard of. However, I don’t plan to never stray from this part of Montana. Sometimes I like to go to gun shows in far and distant lands..like Kalispell, Butte, Helena, Billings, etc. And then there’s a much greater possibility that a vehicle issue might put you in a position to twiddle your thumbs for quite a while. But, between the standard vehicle gear and my Bag O’ Tricks, I like my odds.
And, of course, no matter the season the prevailing wisdom is Stay With The Vehicle. Or Else.
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