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10/22 mag prefs

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If you had to pick one .22 rifle as ‘the survivalists .22 rifle’ it would be highly unlikely that anyone would strongly disagree with the choice of the Ruger 10/22. Having been around for around fifty years, pretty much everyone makes accessories for the gun and if there’s a gun shop out there that doesn’t carry 10/22 rifles or accessories, I haven’t seen it.

Problem is,as with just about any semiauto, some mags are good and some are crap. My experiences have been that there are a handful of good magazines out there and plenty of bad ones.

For an amazing amount of time, Ruger only offered the 10-rd mag for the 10/22. Thats fine, theyre really really good mags. But, they are limited to ten rounds and sometimes you just dont feel like swapping mags all the time. Ruger eventually introduced some 25-round factory mags but, interestingly, they have a mixed reputation….a very rare case of a factory mag not being as good as the aftermarket mag.

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If your needs can be met with a 10-rd mag, the factory Ruger 10/22 mag is pretty much the best and only way to go. These mags are several years old.

For aftermarket Ruger 10/22 mags its pretty hard to go bad with the Butler Creek stuff. Sure, your mileage may vary, but my experience has been almost uniformly positive. The Butler Creek mags come in two flavors: Hot Lips and Steel Lips. The Hot Lips are mags with plastic feed lips and the Steel Lips are the mags with…well, you can figure out.

Back in ’94 I grabbed as many Hot Lip mags as  I could and used them for the next ten years, as Slick Willie’s repulsive ‘Assault Weapons Ban’ made making new mags holding ten rounds a crime (unless, of course, those mags were for the cops or military…in which case they had to be marked as such.)

So, for ten years I had about a dozen Hot Lips mags to use. They held up quite well but they eventually started having problems. But, it was a good opportunity to learn just how much life you could get out of a $15 magazine before it needed replacement. The answer, it seems, is about ten years.

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Ca. pre-1994 Butler Creek Hot Lips mag on left, new Butler Creek Steel Lip mag on right. Note the plastic feedlips on the Hot Lips mag showing wear and fraying from years of use.

The Steel Lips magazines, obviously, were a good bit more durable in the feed lip department than the Hot Lips mags. They charge a bit more for the Steel Lips magazines but I’m of the opinion that it is very much worth it. I still sock away the Hot Lips mags, but if I come across a good deal on the Steel Lips I’ll go ahead and get as many of them as I can.

Now that Ruger has re-introduced their Charger 10/22, and brought out the American Rimfire, both of which take the 10/22 magazine so it’s really not a bad idea to get the most durable mag possible. Ten years of regular usage showed that the plastic Hot Lips mags could serve well, but I think in the future I’ll be socking away the Steel Lips more than the Hot Lips.

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New BC Steel Lip mag (L.), pre-1994 Hot Lips mag on right shows signs of wear and age from being used frequently during 1994-2004. Mag still functions but it best saved for ‘range use’ or non-critical usage. A replacement is about eight bucks….for now.

The only other aftermarket non-BC mag for the 10/22 I’ve found that was any good are the Eagle brand mags. These are also a plastic-lip mag but they can usually be found in bulk at bargain prices…sometimes around $5-6 ea. They’re good for using at the range and otherwise taking the pressure off of your stash of Butler Creek mags…but for packing away a rifle, case of ammo, and a dozen mags, I’ll stick with the Butler Creek mags.

The best sources I’ve found for deals on the BC mags are either CDNN, MGE, or GAS. You 9or your dealer) will have to subscribe for their email specials but usually once or twice a year they’ll have specials on the 10/22 mags. When they do, don’t cheap out and buy five….get as many as you can afford. They’ll always have a good value and if there’s another magazineban they’ll really be worth their weight in silver.

For carrying magazines, there’s a couple outfits that make single-pouch mags that ride on your belt and, if you don’t mind looking a little like Carl Spackler, there are some chest rigs out there as well. When the gophers are about to overrun your position, and the haze is too thick for air support, a rig like that might save you from being pounded into the dust by thousands of tiny feet.

“License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit – ever. They’re like the Viet Cong – Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that’s all she wrote…” -Carl Spackler

So, just my two cents worth, but if you’re gonna go with the 10/22 for most of your .22 rifle needs you’d be doing the smart thing to go heavy on the Butler Creek mags.

Signage

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Remember a few posts back I saw a sign in the window of a local shop? Well, someone thought I shouldn’t be without, and this little gem showed up in the mailbox the other day:

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I’ll be giving it a prominent place in the shop window for the world to see. Much thanks!

 

2014 in review

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Well, 2014 hits its end in another few days. How did 2014 fare in terms of preparedness? Lets see…

It was a gun heavy year. At least four or five rifles and shotguns, and no less than a half dozen handguns. It wasn’t so much that I had any more money than usual, it was that I took advantage of some deals that came along.

Ammo was still a big deal with .22 ammo going from being ‘virtually unobtainable’ to simply ‘still overpriced’. The availability is there, if you’re willing to pony up about ten cents a round. I shot very little .22 this years, and with the acquisition of my Sparrow I now need to get a goodly stash of subsonic .22 as well.

In the centerfires I put back a little bit more .223 which is always good. I didn’t shoot very much centerfire ammo at all this year…probably less than 500 rounds total. Virtually all of that was used in function testing new guns.

Food levels remained pretty much the same. Went through one package of freeze drieds during hunting season and thats about it. Towards February we’ll pick up half a beef and restock the freezer. In short, the level of food around here stayed pretty constant.

Rotated some fuels during the year with fresher stuff. Again, zero-sum game. Fairly even amount of fuel as what the year started with.

A quick bit of math in Excel shows that the average cost, with premium, for silver acquisitions this year was $19.50 per ounce. Since the premiums can run anywhere between $1 and $3, depending on the form of silver, that would mean the spot price of silver purchased during the year was between $16.50-18.50.

Any consumables used during the year – batteries, toilet paper, soap, etc – were all replaced so we’re on an even keel there.

We did add fairly heavily to the supplies of first aid gear. That was the result of a lethal combination of eBay, a PayPal account, and late-night boredom. On the bright side 4,800 bandaids should last us a good while.

No major turmoil in the family, no job losses, dog is in good health, still married, truck still runs, house is still standing, so all in all I’d say that while 2014 wasn’t any remarkable advancement there weren’t any real losses…so I call that a win. Yay for homeostasis. Actually, thats not true…as I (poorly) proofread this, it occurs to me that we used a windfall to knock down almost 16% of our mortgage in one stroke. That shaved 2.5 years off the 15-year mortgage and really felt good.

There were no power outages or infrastructure failures that affected us this year, so it looks like the ‘fragile infrastructure’ that threatens to throw us into ‘grid down chaos’ at any moment might be a bit more resilient than we thought. Or, more likely, the appropriate challenge simply hasnt occurred yet. There was a little ebola buzz around here what with out local hospital being one of the handful of designated ‘ebola-ready’ hospitals. They are now backing away from that status and I suspect its because theyve discovered that all it takes is treating one ebola patient to bring a hospital to its knees in terms of function, readiness, and fiscal health.

I’m hoping 2015 will be a year of advancement. I’d like to make some progress on the mortgage towards paying it down early, I’d like to do some production-capacity upgrades at the shop, and a few other things. I dont do ‘resolutions’…I figure if something is a good enough idea, why wait until New Years to implement it? But I think 2015 will be a year with a focus on that ‘ol filthy lucre …. say what you will, money is the most concentrated form of energy available to the average joe and things go a lot easier with it than without.

Just some ramblings

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Im fascinated at the notion of the North Koreans determining what movies we can and cannot watch. I have a conspiracy theory that the .gov paid Sony to pull the movie and compensate them for their loss in order to avoid the threatened ‘events’ that would take place at theaters in the US that showed the movie. But…thats all conspiracy theory. On the other hand, you can bet right now that industry underwriters are changing their policies to specifically exempt this sort of blackmail in future studio insurance policies.

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For a guy who fancies himself as being somewhat above-average in preparedness and thinking ahead, you wouldn’t think I’d be this far behind on Christmas shopping. And, oddly, its like this every year.

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Ryan linked to an excellent land nav post over at Max Velocity. Great reading and very informative. A worthy read for everyone, even those of us who know our way around a map and compass can use some reminders every once in a while.

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In local news, that was-it-or-wasnt-it ‘self defense’ shooting turned out to be a ‘wasnt’. The kid shouldnt have snuck into the guys garage, but the guy shouldn’t have gone around town telling everyone he was setting up a trap and that he was staying up nights to “kill some f***in’ kid”. No winners in this thing, but its the best hand out of what was dealt.

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I’m looking forward to hearing about everybody’s AAR on their gifts this holiday season. (There are several gift-giving-themed holidays going on this month, so rather than list specific ones I just go with the general catach-all of ‘holiday season’.) And if anyone comes up with some holiday sales on things that are germane to our shared interests, I’d like to hear about ’em.

 

Old, old man

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Well, it was mandated that we return to CrossFit. After a hiatus of a couple years and much pizza.

The notion of climbing stairs or trying to get out of a chair fills me with dread right now. Im so sore. But….its gotta be done. I am not gonna be one of those fat gun guys you see at the range.

But, oy, the pain. I am an old, old man.

I was checking my list of ‘personal records’ from when i was last at CrossFit and that was three years ago. I’d be amazed if I could lift half the weight I used to.

Unfortunately, when the apocalypse gets here the folks who can run faster and longer, carry heavier loads, climb objects faster, and not pass out anytime they have to run a few blocks, will have the advantage over…well…this current version of me. So…back to the pain factory.

Link – 100 Amazing How-To sites

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So this has been sitting in my browser tabs for a while:

http://earthweareone.com/100-amazing-how-to-sites-to-teach-yourself-anything/

Man’s primary tool of survival is his mind, we are told. Makes sense to me. No reason not to keep learning. The A-Team and McGyver didn’t succeed on strength of arms, but rather on ingenuity.

Heinlein’s famous quote about “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.” comes to mind.

This is, apparently, a literary device….the ‘competent man‘….if you’re old enough to remember Aherns uber-survivalist, J. Rourke, you pretty much know what a ‘competent man’ in the literary sense is.

While we may not have our gear with us or about us all the time, we usually take our brain everywhere we go so we may as well stock it with useful stuff.

Paratus – The holiday for, by, and of preparedness

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I bounced this idea around in my head for a while and I think I’m just gonna run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.

You guys are familiar with Festivus? (“A Festivus for the rest of us!”) Its the holiday from Seinfeld that was invented when one of the characters got tired of all the Christmas hype. It has its own rules, its own traditions, and, apparently, it’s own adherents.

Made-up holidays aren’t anything new. Kwanzaa is an amalgam of ‘traditional African holidays and festivals’ cleaned up and marketed to empower black people. Presidents Day is a  holiday created by bumping Washingtons Birthday and Lincolns Birthday into a combined holiday. (To keep the number of federal holidays constant, thereby ‘freeing up’ a day For Martin King Day). So why not a fabricated holiday for those of us who believe in preparedness, and it’s virtues and lessons?

WIthout further ado:

The Paratus FAQ v1.0

What is Paratus?

Paratus (from the Latin ‘prepared’) is a one-day ‘holiday’ that basically exists to give an excuse for like-minded folks to exchange appropriate gifts, get together in a social setting, and, perhaps, share some ideas on the subject. It is intended to be a secular holiday but, reflecting the individualistic nature of it’s practitioners, can incorporate a religious element if the practitioner wants. However, the ‘true’ Paratus is strictly secular, non-denominational, genderless, mostly apolitical, and thus available to every demographic that wants to participate.

When is Paratus?

Third Friday of September. September, because there’s kind of a lack of holidays around that time, on Friday so you can have the weekend to play with your new gear, and the third Friday so you don’t have too close a followup to any 9/11 events.

Are there Paratus colors?

St. Patricks day got green, Christmas gets red and green, Halloween gets brown and orange…the colors of Paratus are subdued earth tones suitable for camouflage, as well as camouflage patterns themselves. Woodland, multicam, digicam, even that crappy ACU all count towards being the ‘Official Color Of Paratus’.

How does the gift giving work for Paratus?

Paratus closely follows the Christmas model – as Christmas traditionally dictates an empty stocking hung by the chimney with care for Santa Claus to fill with gifts, Paratus calls for an empty backpack to be left by the preferred primary exit of the dwelling. Your Paratus gifts are placed in the backpack by the giver. Or, if you prefer the ‘Santa Claus’-type mythos, the backpack will then be filled by the elite Paratus Long-Range Recon Gift Squad. It is advised to wait until a child is in their teens before breaking to them the harsh news that the Paratus Long-Range Recon Gift Squad is really just mom and dad filling their backpack with freeze-drieds once the kid has gone to bed.

Gift giving is not based on behavior (‘naughty or nice’) but based on either need, or revenge gift-giving obligation. Get your intended recipient either something they need or something that will force them to get you something equally as awesome. Win-win for everyone. All gifts should be able to pass the test of “if the world ended tomorrow, would this be really useful?” It is considered perfectly acceptable to leave cash, although in the spirit of preparedness precious metals are preferred over cash. Unreciprocated gift giving is acceptable if the recipient makes a tremendous expression of gratitude and makes a self-deprecating remark about their own lack of generosity. The giver then agrees with the recipient about their lack of generosity, injects a level of snark or good-natured mild condemnation, and the obligation is then discharged. Here’s an example:

A: Hey, man…thanks for the cool Swiss Army knife.
B: You’re welcome. So..uhm..where’s my gift?
A: Yeah…about that…things are a little tight but I promise I’ll get you something even more awesome next Paratus. Plus..Im cheap..I’m  so cheap I watch porn movies backwards because I like watching the hooker give the money back!
B: Yes. Yes you are. You’re so cheap you won’t even tip your hat! But…Happy Paratus anyway.

And everyone can still be friends!

What are the traditional Paratus foods?

Paratus is a gastronomically flexible holiday. You can either do a ‘real’ dinner with your fellow  celebrants where the cuisine is whatever you want – pizza, Chinese take-out, home-cooked turkey, whatever – but the more orthodox celebrants will enjoy meals that are exclusively comprised of long-term food and/or homegrown/harvested foods cooked using a non-grid-connected cooking device. Whereas Halloween has candy corn, St Patricks Day has corned beef and cabbage, and Thanksgiving has turkey as traditional food, Paratus supports the notion of ‘do what you can with what you have’. However, anything freeze dried would probably be considered a ‘traditional’ Paratus food. The little marshmallows in Lucky Charms do not count.

What are the traditional Paratus activities?

Shooting, naturally. Anything that promotes the idea of preparedness. This can include, but is not limited to, watching traditional Paratus movies (“Red Dawn”, “The Omega Man”, “Threads”, zombie movies, or any other movie with a ‘survival’ theme), trading books on related subjects, going shooting, hunting, fishing, or just sitting around discussing current events and strategies against them.

What are the traditional Paratus greetings?

“Happy Paratus” seems to work best. “Joyous Paratus” sounds odd, “Merry Paratus” sounds like a Greek actress, and “Good Paratus” sounds like a medical diagnosis.

Is there a Paratus mascot?

Well, there are leprechauns for St Patty Day, witches and ghosts for Halloween, Santa Claus for Christmas, Cupid for Valentines day……the Paratus Development Committee is still on the fence about this one. A heavily armed, and slightly scarred, Felix the Cat is in the lead since the notion of “Whenever he gets into a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks” has some merit as well as cats having nine lives. However, at the moment, there is no official Paratus mascot.

Are there any Paratus carols or music?

Paratus is discouraged from having a specific musical theme in order to prevent people from playing it a month-and-a-half before the actual holiday. Additionally, retailers are discouraged from starting their “Paratus Season” sales more than 30 days before the holiday. However, after-Paratus sales are highly encouraged.

Again, reflecting the individualistic nature of adherents and participants of Paratus, some folks may concoct their own Paratus playlists. Commonly encountered tunes might be “Opening Theme” from the Red Dawn soundtrack, “Silent Running” by Mike + The Mechanics, “A Country Boy Can Survive” by Hank Williams Jr., and similar arrangements.

Anything else to know about Paratus?

At the moment, no. Go forth, have a Happy Paratus, and be sheeple no more!

Fun with eggs

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Have you ever actually eaten powdered eggs? I know theres all sortsa stories from military folk talking about the horrors of such tings, but those stories are also usually pretty dated. Food preservation (and fabrication) technology has changed a bit.

Being an unapologetic bargain hunter, I always peruse the ‘marked down’ shopping carts in the back of the store where my local supermarket dumps the stuff it wants to sell now. Usually it’s things no one wants like sugar-free cake frosting, squirrel-flavored olive oil, dill pickle flavored barbecue sauce, and other ‘food’ items that are obviously not moving and taking up valuable shelf real estate.

So, the other day as I was sifting through the cart I found this:

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My history with powdered eggs is a long one. I originally wanted some back in the late ’90s but had no idea for a source. I found this particular brand, Deb El, but found out they did not offer any larger quantity of them than these cans and some industrial-sized 50# bags that I was in no position to repackage. A few years later I discovered ‘Wakefield’ powdered eggs (an excellent product) but its availability was spotty since it was basically manufacturer overruns from .gov contracts (they can sometimes be found through REI). Finally, I found that Mountain House offered #10 cans of eggs and I picked up a few cases of that. Later on I found that Augason Farms offers whole eggs in the far more convenient #2 size cans…and scrambled egg mix in the larger #10 cans. I got a buncha those as well.

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The first time I used powdered eggs I was extremely skeptical… the powder, when mixed with water, made this foul-smelling, orange-colored, pancake-batter-consistency mix that looked amazingly unappetizing. but, after a couple minutes in a frying pan with some butter it was like some sort of culinary magic trick – the orange turned into that lovely scrambled-egg-yellow that we all know and love, the smell was just like regular scrambled eggs, and the texture, while quite uniform, was also very similar. In fact, the giveaway that fresh eggs were not used came from the even coloring of the eggs….’real’ scrambled eggs have random flecks of white among the yellow. These were an even yellow across the board. But….absolutely delicious and indistinguishable, taste wise, from fresh eggs.

The powdered eggs are a bit more orange-y colored that fresh eggs, but in the half-light of your average apocalypse-induced power failure you probably won’t notice the difference. However, here’s a comparison of the powdered egs [first photo] cooking versus the fresh eggs cooking [second photo]:

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Takes about two  minutes to cook. Powdered:

IMG_1928Fresh: IMG_1931

Side by side on a plate you can see the color difference. (Too be fair, I used much more butter with the powdered eggs and virtually none with the fresh, so that may contribute to the color difference.) However texture is identical:

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The powdered eggs come out looking not as good as the bright-yellow fresh eggs, but they have a far greater shelf life and lend themselves to mass feeding. Ever go to a hotel that has a breakfast bar and you can get all the omelettes you want? Notice the cook often has a juice bottle or container full of egg mix he pours or dips from? Yeah. Thats powdered egg (or liquid egg mix from powder) that he’s using.

So what good is this stuff? Well, for starters, if your breakfast includes scrambled eggs, french toast, or anything that requires an egg….well, heres your egg. No refrigeration necessary (although refrigerating eggs is, I am told, a mostly American notion. In Europe eggs are left at room temperature.) When Hurricane Sandy knocks out the power and the morning promises a long day of grunt work it’d be nice to be able to have scrambled eggs to go with the canned bacon, canned hash, or other breakfast fare. (According to my research, a post apocalyptic breakfast can be pretty impressive – scrambled eggs, hash, bacon, breakfast cereal with milk, oatmeal, canned fruit, orange drink, and coffee….a better breakfast than I have now.) And, of course, anything that requires egg like pasta dough, breaded foods, etc, etc, are going to be needing this stuff as well.

So…for those of you who may be curious about powdered eggs but don’t feel like cracking open a $40 #10 can of them for an experiment…well, I risked $4 to show you what to expect:

My suggestion to you? Buy the long term eggs in the smaller cans (because once you open a can of powdered eggs it’ll start drawing moisture and if you dont use it soon it’ll cake solid). Don’t expect it to taste/look exactly like fresh eggs, but don’t be terrified about it either. Its about the same quality as fastfood/breakfast bar/college cafeteria eggs.

 

Gear – ‘Seek’ thermal camera attachment.

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Ok, this is, like, ten shades of cool. Here’s a few articles for background:

Heat seeker: Meet the thermal-imaging camera you can afford

The Seek Thermal Infrared Camera for iPhone and Android

Seek Thermal, a $199 Thermal Imaging Camera for Your Phone

Short version: for $200 you can see in the dark if there’s bad guys, warm car engines, animals, or other heat sources lurjing around your AO. This really is one of those products that is ‘limited only by your imagination’. Pour hot water down a clogged pipe to find the clog, see how much propane is in a tank, see if the dog was sleeping on your couch, see if the cars in the driveway/parking lot have been used recently, where is the deer you shot just before sundown, is that a SWAT team hiding in the bushes, which beer in the fridge is the coldest, and, possibly, is that gal across the room really into you or not.

For the survivalist I can see this thing having all sorts of uses…seeing if something is out there in the dark, checking the ground for heat sources from recently extinguished fires, seeing what guns in the rack may have been handled/fired recently, etc, etc.

I’m tellin’ ya, man….we’re living in a Star Trek world more and more everyday. And while the technology is interesting enough on its own, it isnt that new since its been around a while. Whats new is dropping it down to the price of HiPoint pistol and a box of ammo.

I think I may have to get one of these.

End of the world practical joke

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Rather clever. Succinctly, they take a superduper HD 82″ television and set it up in an office environment to replace a window. As people sit for the interview, they see the ‘window’ behind the interviewer showing a calm city scene…until the giant flaming meteor starts streaking across the sky….and they…respond.

Once in a blue moon, my end-of-the-world dreams look a lot like that….sudden brightness in the sky and then that agonizingly slow-looking descent of a fireball. The Russians got the real thing a few years back:

Scary stuff, right? I see something like that as I’m driving to work, guess what? I’m turning the car around and getting back the house…pronto!

One of the best pieces of survivalist fiction out there, Lucifer’s Hammer, revolves around comet fragments hitting the earth and doing terrific destruction. Movies like “Deep Impact” also cover the subject.

This is definitely one of those scenarios that you really just can’t prepare for. If it hits on the other side of the planet you’d be okay, although your life will definitely never be the same. And if it’s an ocean strike and you live anywhere near a coastline you might have a bad day. But if you lived in, say, Colorado, and it struck in Spain you’d probably be fine.

Likelihood? Not even something on my personal List of Things To Worry About. It’s right there with Xenu returning, the Rapture, Vogon constructor fleets and Mayan calendar failures.

But…I’ve been wrong before. Which is why we keep a basement full of freeze drieds.

I like to think that in that interview video if it had been me, I’d have quickly tood up, moved away from the window into an inner hallway and waited for the impact and shock wave. But, you never know.

As an aside, I bet that TV looks great.