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Watergun: The triumphant return of the Watergun

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Ok, for those of you who missed the backstory, you can do a quick trip down memory lane. 

The short version is this: a P35 from the bottom of Lake Michigan came into my hands. It was a shoebox full of parts, and although there was severe pitting everything seemed functional. I replaced three or four small parts and, surprise, the thing ran just fine. Only trouble was, the finish, such as it was, looked ‘like a topographical map of Utah’. At the gun show a couple weeks ago I met some folks who were local, had some very impressive samples of their coating work, and seemed to have some very good prices. So…why not? To recap:

And, as you’ve been waiting for:

And for full effect:

Work was done by these guys:

Now, let’s address an elephant in the room…yes, you can still see the deep pitting under the coating. Well duh. I didnt expect the coating to fill in potholes like those. Much like how there isn’t enough Bondo and tequila to make Hilllary Clinton look like Jennifer Lawrence, it would take a 50# bag of ceramic mix (or whatever they use) to smooth out this P35. But I wasn’t after ‘make it look like new’..I was after ‘make it look nice and protect the bare metal’. And…seems legit. Price? Well, the gave me a nice discount which I very much appreciated. You can see their prices on the website. I’ve no complaints.

I’ll be sending a couple guns out for coating, I think. Most notably an AR and PTR to get bit of Danish M84 on ’em.

So there you have it, gang. The Watergun is now pretty much done. Since it is in no way a ‘safe queen’ candidate, it is pretty much a ‘truck gun’ in terms of being babied. Can’t really ruin any value on it since my basis is darn near zero and any collector value sailed about the same time the gun did.No, this might just get tucked into my Avenger holster and start carrying the P35 again.

 

A couple CostCo finds

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CostCo, once in a while, winds up selling something worthy of catching the interest of those of us who share our rarefied interest. Notably, their canned pork and canned beef, which are surprisingly good. Todays discovery was that the Idahoan potatoes, which, according to the blog, I came to love about 16 years ago(!) are now being sold by CostCo in ten-packs.

And, much more interestingly, we have powdered eggs now.

Six 6-oz. packages per box, $6.97/box

That was a real eye-opener. You don’t normally see large-ish quantities of this sort of thing for sale pretty much anywhere except maybe restaurant supply stores. The Deb-El show up in supermarkets, but its a small quantity for a large price. My original experience with powdered eggs was way back in 2004. Interesting to note that fifteen years later the CostCo product is actually cheaper than the 2004 product. However, to be fair, the 2004 product was purchased at REI… a place not known for being a bargain hunters paradise.

I already have several cases of #10 cans of powdered eggs from Mountain House and Augason Farms. And, in fact, I still have a 5-gallon bucket of vacuum sealed powdered eggs from that initial 2004 encounter. (I should crack one of those open and see how it held up.)

Powdered eggs are 13g of protein per ounce. For comparison meat, like, say, canned beef, is about 5g per ounce. A nice option over shooting your dog and eating it. But, of course, if protein is all youre after you could probably just store some protein powder from the gym-shop…but it wouldnt make scrambled eggs, omelets, french toast, or any of the other foody things that you can do with eggs.

Anyway, for those who are interested, you may wanna hit your local CostCo and see if they’re carrying these. I’ll be trying them out over the next few days so I’ll let you know how they cook up but based on my previous experiences I expect nothing but positive results.

Link – Study Finds Rise In ‘Doomsday Prepping’ Due To Mainstream American ‘Culture Of Fear’

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CANTERBURY, England — “Doomsday prepping” or stockpiling food, medicine, weapons and other supplies in case of an apocalyptic scenario has long been considered peculiar behavior only exhibited by conspiracy theorists and other extremists in the United States. However, such prepping has actually been steadily on the rise in the U.S. over the past decade. So, what’s causing this surge in stockpiled rice packets and underground bunkers? One group of researchers say it is an ever growing sense of impending doom in American culture.

First of all, England is a nation of cucks who have gone from ruling an empire that was 1/4 of the planet to ruling an island the size of Michigan. Their opinions on anything ‘Murican really don’t matter. But….

I am flummoxed when some self-righteous moron, when told of someone stockpiling food or somesuch, loudly proclaims “I won’t live my life in fear!” Clearly, they don’t realize how stupid that sentence is. Let’s examine it:

  • They have homeowners insurance because they are scared of their house burning down
  • They have auto insurance because they are scared of being in an accident
  • They have health insurance because they are scared of getting sick
  • They have life insurance because they are scared of dying
  • They have retirement plans because they are scared of being old and poor
  • They have pepper spray on their keychain because they are scared of being mugged

So, really, they are already living a life of fear. However, if you point that out to them they will declare “That’s not living in fear! Thats taking reasonable precautions! Thats just commonsense!”

And they will never realize the irony of that statement.

So, you and I, in our food-laden, heavily-armed, well-fueled, economically-prepared homes are always going to be seen as the wierdos…right up until the quake happens, the riots start, the tornadoes hit, or the economy splatters…..then we’re going to be everyone’s brand-new best friend. (And, holy crap, are the unprepared in for a surprise when it turns out that the people they pointed at and made fun of turn out to not be terribly enthused about sharing their food and have the resources to make that “No” stick.)

Preparedness is not a uniquely American thing…to Europeans I’m sure it looks that way because preparedness is about the individual taking responsibility for themselves. And in pretty much every country that sort of individualistic character trait has been stamped out in favor of various forms of IngSoc-style thinking. But the desire to trake care of ones self and ones own is a rather universal trait, it’s just that we Americans aren’t terribly embarrassed about it and don’t really feel the need to apologize for it. At least, I don’t.

 

Video – 10 Things That Would Happen if the United States Went Bankrupt

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In the book “The Mandibles: A Family , 2029-2047“, the US defaults on it’s national debt and all sorts of Bad Stuff happens. Its a very good book, in my opinion, except for the somewhat out-of-character ending.

Could the US actually default on it’s debt? What would happen? Well, here’s one limey’s interpretation:

The notion that a bankruptcy would kick off some type of Purge-like orgy of violence seems a bit dramatic. Crime go up? Sure. But unlike every other country that has gone through that sort of thing, there are enough people with guns in this country that a large part of the population would be quite a bit safer than the rest.  The problem with this sort of thing, as seen in places like Venezuela and similar venues, is that only the bad guys have guns. In ‘Murica, it’s a different story. I’m not saying its going to be all sunshine and stun grenades, but stuff like you see on the news in those Third World places? Mmmmm…not so much. Except for our own little pockets of Third World-like places such as New Orleans, any major California city, Detroit, etc.

Could the US go bankrupt? I don’t know enough about economics to say. But I do know this – when the US catches a cold, every other country sneezes. Just from a self-interest standpoint, it would be in the best interest of a lot of the planet to make sure the US doesn’t have something like that happen. That might mean a degree of debt forgiveness, renegotiation of terms, loans from the World Bank, etc, etc. I’m fairly confident what it won’t mean is hyperinflating our way out of it.

But…one never knows, does one? Which is why Zero had food, guns, and silver. And, really, probably why you should too.

 

Love letters from ATFE

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“This is an important message from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. ATF recognizes the essential role that FFLs perform in keeping the public safe, and we greatly value your cooperation. If you encounter indications of unlawful activity, please report it to your local ATF field office and or local law enforcement. A listing of all ATF field offices can be found at www.atf.gov. You may also contact ATF to report suspicious activity any time at 1-800-ATF-GUNS or online at www.reportit.com and select ATF Anonymous Tip Line. Thank you.”

The circumstances under which I would voluntarily engage with those morons is a very short list. This smacks of ATFE getting their ducks in a row for something.

The circus comes to town..but it never really left – Redux

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“…and somewhere at Cheaper Than Dirt headquarters, they are readying the pricing algorithms on the website for $100 Pmags.”

CTD is notorious for used GI aluminum mags for $100 each during the last panic, PMAGs weren’t far behind.

Well, not yet. CTD still seems to have AR mags at ‘normal’ prices listed on their website. I suspect that they’ve simply not gotten around to jacking ’em up by several hundred percent yet because it’s a weekend.

I give CTD a ration of crap because they really should have had a much more long-term outlook on what this sort of thing would do to them. But maybe they did…they are still in business after all, and it seems theres no shortage of customers for their wares.

How does a $99 PMAG happen?  Actually, its pretty simple. As the supply of inventory dwindles, the software keeps raising the price to slow down the sales so they never go out of stock. This normally works because most items are a) replaced in inventory fairly quickly and b) most items aren’t suddenly flying off the shelves like they’re free gold bars.  So, a couple hundred thousand people hit the website looking for PMAGs and maybe CTD has a few thousand in stock. The things are flying off the shelf at a furious clip (heh,,see what I did there?) and any potential resupply is an unknown. So, with no anticipated restock date, a limited inventory, a metric buttload of customers, and a software-driven mandate to not let things get out of stock….the price automatically goes up to apply the brakes. But demand is so high that the software has to stand on those brakes like a pilot landing on a tennis court. Result? Price changes that keep going up, up, up. And finally someone at CTD takes a moment from checking their Facebook account to see that social media is excoriating CTD and someone runs into the IT department and says “Fix this!”

But CTD should have dropped human intervention in there long before people screencapped the outrageous prices and saved them for posterity.

I’ve been to this dance before.

Watergun: coating

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You guys remember the Watergun?

Found some folks at the gun show who do cerroko…cerok..cerrocoa..cer…screw it….they ceramic coat firearms. Their prices were very reasonable and the examples of their work looked pretty good. So…I left the Watergun with them and in a few weeks we will see what it looks like. For those who don’t recall, the Watergun is a HiPower brought up from the bottom of Lake Michigan. I purchased it as a box of parts and was surprised to find 90% of the parts were present and usable. Shoots fine, looks hideous. SO…in a couple weeks, we’ll do a grand unveiling. Stay tuned.

Lights out

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So, as I mentioned, the gun show is being held in the ballroom (for lack of a better term) at the Hilton here in town. Ballroom. No windows. Large room. And i’m standing there chatting with a vendor when the lights go out. Now, the emergency lights did not come on, so that tells me the lights going out was not a function of a power outage or other unexpected event. Rather, someone simply must have turned the wrong switches down in the basement. Here’s the interesting part….as several hundred people are standing around in the dark, a handful had the presence of mind to use the flashlight function on their phones. But a very, very small handful of people had personal flashlights on them…myself included. Thus, it was easy to see who was drinking the same flavor of Kool-Aid as me and who wasn’t.

It was…amusing.