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

A twofer….

Something seems fishy in this story, but I’ll go ahead and link it anyway:

And a shorter episode….

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

A buddy of mine sent me an awesome gift that arrived yesterday. He’d pointed this vendor out to me a couple months ago and I remember saying that if he wanted to get me something for Festivus he could get me this. Sure enough, that’s what arrived in the mail yesterday. How does this thing differ from, say, the Gerber Strike Force or the Swedish Firesteel? Glad you asked, because since I have both of those products I’ll be doing a simple comparison of them later.

Then, today, as I’m minding my own business at the shop listening to Adam Sandler’s ‘Hanukah Song’ on YouTube (William Shatner? Really?), the FedEx truck shows up with box from Amazon. What could it be, I wonder. Why, it’s a spare parts kit for the Hi-Lift jack. That’s two goodies for that wonderful piece of gear that have shown up this week. I’m a big fan of having spare parts for equipment and this little packet o’ parts will fit perfectly into the recovery kit that I’m putting together. The very thoughtful sentiment sent with it said, among other things, “…I hope you never need this, but now you have it if needed.” Wow, isn’t that pretty much the sentiment behind everything we do in the name of being prepared? Hope we don’t need it, but if we do………… So, thank you, sir. I appreciate the gift and I really appreciate the sentiment. Merry Christmas to you as well.

Man, what a rabbit hole I got dropped into. Ever do one of those things where you look up one item on the internet and it leads to information about a related item and then to another and before long your ten degrees of separation from your original topic? Yeah. That happened to me.

How have I never hear of Multi-Purpose Food? This is the sort of thing that, I would think, would be common history among people who are interested in the history of preparedness.

I’ll give you some links in a moment, but let me tell you how I found this stuff. In a quest for some other info, I came across someone’s blog where they posted about a bomb shelter in their grandparents backyard that they finally got access to. Essentially a time capsule from the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, there were pictures of the things that were found. (Post 1 and post 2 about the bomb shelter) One of the things that fascinated me was the pre-packaged kit of survival food and canned water. See, back then, much like today, enterprising folks set up businesses to cater to the sudden demand for suitable provisions to carry you through the nuclear holocaust that seemed imminent. What was in the kit? Well, in the one that was shown there were 14 cans of water and a can of “Multi-Purpose Food”.

What is MPF? Apparently, one 2-ounce serving met 1/3 of your daily protein and nutritional requirements. So, three 2-oz. servings per day would, in theory, keep you from starving to death.

MPF was the brainchild of Clifford Clinton, a guy who saw starvation up close and decided to do something about it. His restaurant in California would give free meals to those who couldn’t pay. But Clifton wanted to help a much larger population. To do that, he needed the right food. He contacted a biochemist with his parameters:

“This is what I want. This is what I must have – a product that will provide one-third of a day’s full nutrition in each two ounces. It must not offend any religious dietary law and must make no significant drain on supplies of accustomed food. Production costs should make it available to people having little or no income (under 5 cents a meal). It must have a long shelf life, require no refrigeration and be palatable whether served hot or cold”

And…it worked. Tons of this stuff was made up and shipped to the post-war world to relieve famines and hunger. As the ’60s rolled around, General Mills started making this stuff up for use in provisioning bomb shelters. And thats where I found information on it.

Nowdays we have freeze dried, vacuum sealed, foods that last pretty much as long as the container holding them will last. Content-wise, I’m sure that there are similar MPF-type food products out there…lifeboat rations spring to mind. But anyway, it’s an interesting little bit of history that segues nicely into our interest in preparedness.

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

Coolness! FedEx just dropped of an unexpected package. Someone (haven’t figured out who..there was no notation on the packing slip) sent me a little something off my Amazon wish list. A Christmas present, I’m sure. What was it, you ask? A nice heavy-duty 3/4″ shackle (or clevis, I suppose) that will come in quite handy when used with my Hi-Lift jack….which is exactly why I added it to my wish list.

I’m sure that whoever (or is it ‘whomever’?) sent it will either out themselves in email to me or in the comments so I can thank them appropriately but in case theyre the shy kind and are going to just lurk, well, then I take this moment to say ‘thank you very much’. This will go in the little kit that I’m putting together to go with the jack so that when the need arises little ol’ me will have the resources to move far more weight and mass than I could without them. Mucho thanks!

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

Most of us don’t buy gold and silver as an investment (in the traditional sense) but rather as a hedge against inflation or currency devaluation. However, the lesson learned from these folks who invested is the same – if you buy precious metals but don’t actually have physical possession of them, well, you bought something but I don’t know what.

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

Whenever I buy, well, pretty much anything, one of the qualities I look for is durability. If I have to pay $25 for something that is available in a lesser quality at half the price, I expect that difference in price to reflect a pretty hefty increase in useful life of that product. Or, to rephrase it, if I’m going to pay $200 for a flashlight it better last me a good twenty years.

This quality is referred to as ‘durability’….how durable something is. What is durability? It’s how long something will last in it’s expected work capacity. I expect a flashlight to work for ‘x’ amount of time as long as it is used as a flashlight. Used as a hammer, it’s durable work life may be somewhat shortened.

I also like gear that can take the occasional flying drop kick to the jaw and come out smiling. Previously, I associated this quality with durability but as I read more I discover that the term for this is, actually, survivability. What is the difference between the two? And are they exclusive to each other? Can gear have high durability and low survivability? Vice versa?

Survivability is the ability of a system (the term was originally used to describe systems, not items) to survive damage, attacks or failures and still retain a required degree of performance ability. In other words, it has to take a licking and keep on ticking. The best example of survivability is sitting in front of you right this second – the internet. As you know, back when they started flinging electrons around on this thing, the internet (which went under the name of ARPANET, among others) was designed to provide a communications network that would still function even if chunks of it became radioactive debris. It was designed for survivability.

Much of your critical military weapon systems are designed around survivability. Look at some of the armored vehicles and aircraft that come limping home to their bases overseas…helicopters with no oil left in them, humvees running with holes in the block, etc, etc. These are systems that are built with the notion that ‘worst case scenarios’ can’t be allowed to stop you, only slow you down.

So survivability, as it pertains to things like gear and equipment, is the ability of that item to take an amount of abuse, damage, neglect, or wear that is ‘out of the box’ from what the gear was designed to do and still function acceptably. Is survivability directly related to durability? I don’t think so. Durability is about the anticipated wear and tear of a product used the way it was intended. Survivability is about that some product going ‘above and beyond’ and coming out okay. Let’s use tires as an example. You get, what?, 30k miles? 40k? But if you swerve off the pavement and start driving down a dirt road covered in gravel, debris and who knows what else you get significantly shorter life.  And, as Leo Getz reminds us in Lethal Weapon 3, “Bullets aren’t covered under normal road hazards”.  A bullet-resistant tire has great survivability, but you’re probably not going to get the 40k miles out of it. Survivability good, durability …not so much.

So, yes, there’s a difference between survivability and durability. A Venn diagram with one circle showing durability and the other showing survivability would show us that we want that yummy subset where the two overlap…survivability and durability…two great tastes that taste great together. Are such things achievable? Sure…just not always in the things we want at prices we can afford. Simple systems, things like packs and clothing, can be modified to increase survivability and durability (although these are excellent examples of products that embody both) whereas more complex systems…things like electronics, vehicles, etc,…are pretty difficult to make major gains to without being darn near a certified technician in that field.

My point is, when I shop for gear I was confusing survivability with durability and conflating the two…a way of thinking that diminishes the value of each of those qualities. Now that I’m aware of it I need to look at the acquisition of gear and other items from the two standpoints, rather than the previously-conflated one. It’s the difference between buying a radio and asking “How well will this stand up over time” versus “How well will this stand up to being bounced around in a vehicle, hauled over distances, fed fluctuating voltages, knocked off of its stand, and exposed to the elements”.

Interesting way to re-think the value of things.

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

I received a package from someone the other week. He had emailed me that he had some goodies for me to try out and that I should be on the lookout for them. The box arrived at the post office and inside were several of these:

Thermold stripper clip guide for HK91 magazines.

My initial thought was “Man, I bet these are only gonna work with the Thermold magazines.” And, truly, that would be the suckage. Surprisingly, the stripper clip guide ( or charger, if you prefer) slips right on top of the surplus aluminum and steel G3 magazines that I have laying around. Okay, so far so good…but as far as I know there are no HK stripper clips, so what kinda stripper clips to use? Good question. A quick look around the junk bin in my reloading area turned up a coffee can full of stripper clips for .308/.30-06. I couldn’t tell you what country, I couldnt tell you what caliber, I couldnt tell you what era….but they worked.  (Most likely they were a mix of Mauser and 1903 clips.) The Thermold guide doesnt use the ‘bumps’ on the side of the stripper clip as a stop like most other stripper clip guides do. Rather, the clip simply binds up at the bottom of the clip guide and although the clip stops, the cartridges keep going….right into your magazine. So, it appears that pretty much any .308/.30-06 stripper clip might work.

Some advice: when you use stripper clips, you want your thumb (which is pushing down on the stack of cartridges) as close to the rear of the cartridge as possible. Otherwise, you wind up levering the cartridge against the clip and causing it to bind. If, like me, you’re pulling a handful of clips out of a coffee can you found sitting under your reloading bench, take the time to inspect and examine each clip. I discovered that some clips were cruddy with dried grease and it made getting the cartridges out of the clips extremely difficult….ruining what would otherwise have been an excellent speed record for loading a twenty-round magazine. Word to the wise: try each clip several times before planning on using them to store your ammo.

If, like me, you’ve been around the world of evil black rifles a few years, you may be thinking to yourself “hey, that looks alot like an FAL stripper clip guide“. Indeed it does. And, having procured a FAL clip guide for comparison, I can tell you the resemblence is strictly skin deep. The HK mags, with their double-layer of metal on the feed portion of the mag, are too wide to fit the FAL guide….close, though.

HK did used to make a magazine loader/unloader but it was a one-at-a-time affair…much like the LULA brand devices. To the best of my limited knowledge, I’ve never seen, nor come across, an HK G3 stripper clip or stripper clip guide. Maybe theyre out there….but if they are then they are so rare that, for my needs, they may as well not exist at all.

The Thermold product works quite well. My only reservation is that it is plastic and therefore may not last as long, or handle the rough and tumble lifestyle, the way a metal product would. (Also, for the money, you’d think you’d get two of them at that price.)  Realistically, my use for this thing is mostly for at the range. Running around with a bandoleer of .308 clips and a charger seems a bit less useful than just simply carrying extra loaded mags…esp. when the aluminum mags are so lightweight and I’ve got over 500 of them.

Conclusion: its a good product, as I’ve experienced it so far. I’d also like to thank the generous person who sent me these to try out – much thanks.

Speaking of a guide to clips about strippers, here’s the most awesome stripper pole move I’ve seen in a while. (Chicks are wearing workout clothes, so if you think there is something NSFW or ‘crude’ in this video you need to get your head out of the Middle Ages.) [ETA: And, to be fair, here’s a guy doing a similar move…uphill]

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

An opinion piece from the Washington Times about the threat of EMP usage.

Certainly, EMP warfare has some very attractive features to the user…it preserves much of the infrastructure in terms of buildings, bridges, roadways, etc…it cripples response systems and unprotected military systems…and it doesnt leave a nasty fallout footprint. On a very, very small scale you can achieve an EMP pulse without resorting to cracking atoms. I read an article about a guy that made an EMP “gun” that he could cripple a computer across the room with. The military, Im sure, has some small EMP generators to fry various electrical systems. The notion of a big airburst over Kansas would shut out the lights from coast to coast? I dunno…that’s mostly theory, I think. No one has actually done it on a scale that big, as far as I know.

Of course, that’s a misleading scenario to begin with….it would be more likely that multiple events would occur rather than one big single one. Regardless, it’s a technology that be attractive to those who can’t afford a surplus SS-24 or build one on their own.

There’s more than a few books out there that turn EMP into the new boogeyman, the most well-known would be “One Second After”, which was pretty entertaining although quite derivative of Lucifer’s Hammer. It does, though, a good job of illustrating what life in a complete infrastructure failure would be like.

Is it enough to make me go trade in my Motorola radios for a couple of heliographs? Nope.

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

Hmmm….my friendly ‘precious metals’ dealer just walked into the shop with a Liberty Dollar for me. As we chatted it came to my attention that, as of this moment, silver is below $30 for the first time in quite a while. Not sure why, not sure for how long, not sure if this is the beginning of a long slide, not sure if it’ll be ever north of $30 again….but what I am sure about is that I need to get more of it. I mean, really, given all the crap going on how can it not go up?

ETA: it dropped almost another dollar as I was typing this

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

Uber RKBA-supporter and family friend, Oleg Volk, has a nice little commentary over at CTD about stocking stuffers. Oleg knows his stuff, so when he blogs, smart folks read.