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The gift giving season

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Finally got a bit of real snow this evening. The heavy, wet, drags-down-the-power-lines kind of snow. So, I guess winter is officially here. It means driving more cautiously, keeping a shovel in the back of the truck, and, of course, getting out the winter survival gear.

The holiday gift-giving season approaches…Christmahanakwanzakah, Festivus, etc., are all this month. And as if you needed any further proof that it’s December – office Christmas parties have started. I went to mine last week. I am amazed at what an open bar does to people.

What’s on Zero’s wish list this Christmas? Well, I wouldn’t turn down an all-expenses paid vacation to Jennifer Lawrence. Other than that…I’m good. No, really. I mean, I look back at all my posts from previous years where I talk about things I want in the upcoming year and…by and large…I’ve gotten them. I wanted a 10mm Glock. Got it. Barrett? Got it. ICOM radio? Got it. BBQ gun? Got it. Armour? Got it. A few more Aladdin lamps? Got it. More fuel cans? Got it. Really, the only thing of any real weight left on my wish list is a chunk of land…and by hook or by crook I will have it within the next couple years. Sooner the better.

In fact, since I’ve gone and gotten myself pretty much everything I want, I’m gilding the lily a bit this week. I’m gonna have a few guns engraved. Nothing fancy, just a monogram (or logo, I suppose) on a couple of my fun guns. I’ve been back-n-forthing with the vendor and I think we’ve got it all hashed out. Pics when its done.

So..what about you? Whats on your holiday gift list? Anything preparedness related?

Keystone Beef

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My relationship with canned meats is akin to the experience of dating a fat chick: if youre not deterred by the appearance and smell, you might find that, if you give it a chance, you  actually like it.

To me, all canned meats, regardless of what they are (turkey, beef, pork, etc.) all smell exactly the same when you open them – like wet cat food. In fact, I have to hold my breath when opening a can of meat. But, as a survivalist, I know there are going to be times where shelf-stable meats that can go long-term are gonna be rather handy.

I discovered that the local WalMart is selling Keystone meats (chicken, beef, and ground beef) a few weeks back. Normally my canned meat needs are met by the Kirkland roast beef at CostCo, which I have been quite pleased with. Although, to be fair, the availability of the Kirkland beef has waned over the years with stretches of time where it was unavailable.

I had seen a good bit of information about the Keystone product on the internet, and reviews I’d seen on YouTube were pretty uniform in that it was a rather good product. Well, before I go and drop a buncha money on a case of this stuff, lets check it out.

This looks like what the investigator sees when he opens a 55-gallon drum that had a mob informant stuffed in it before being tossed into the lake. The white stuff is congealed fat and the liquid is the juices from the meat, since no water is added to this product. The meat is pressure cooked in the sealed can so any liquid in there came outta meat.

Dumped into a frying pan it still looks like an organ transplant that went horribly awry. But, let’s put some heat to the meat and see what happens.

As things melt, plenty of liquid ensues. So, we keep simmering until we get something a bit less soupy.

My standard practice for a fast, cheap, filling meal is to then mix in a buncha salsa and then mix with hot rice. The result:

Gotta say…it was good. And the meat was of very high quality. I recall trying some canned meat a few years back that had tremendous amounts of silverskin to the point it was like trying to chew gum. I think there was one small thumbnail size piece of silverskin in this, which  I plucked out, and the rest was all good striated muscle tissue. So, whats my story…recommend or no? It’s a recommend. At least for me it is. I can see this as being an excellent candidate for anything where tender cunks of beef are called for or where shredded beef is needed. Tacos, enchiladas, and that sort of thing seem like a natural for this. If youre a beef-with-noodles kinda guy this might be handy for a goulash or stroganoff. Shelf life is a couple years so it’s definitely a candidate for the long-term pantry.

Price was about $9 a can which isnt bad since theres definitely several days of meat in there. Obviously if you shop around you might do better than that. Overall, I’d say if you were on the fence about buying this stuff go ahead and purchase with confidence.

Redirecting resources

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Here’s an interesting thought for you to bounce around in your noggin: if you no longer had to direct any of your resources towards the firearms aspect of preparedness (that means guns, parts, optics, ammo,  holsters, etc.), where would you direct those resources and how would that impact your timetable of being prepared in those other fields?I ask because I may have hit the point where it’s just downright fiscally ridiculous to buy any more guns specifically for the sake of being prepared. I mean, I have, literally, dozens of AR-15’s, and the number of Glocks (and PSA clones) is right up there too. I mean, extra ammo is always a good idea, but realistically I can afford to shunt all the financial resources that have been directed on gunstuff into a new direction. I just need to examine what direction that should be.

Obviously the most glaring choice of a new target would be my land fund. Im getting older and I feel no closer to getting my Chunk Of Nowhere. But there’s also an appeal to beefing up the supply of gold and silver. Or, I suppose, a more resilient vehicle. Funny how theres never a shortage of things to spend money on, isn’t it?

Even when you factor in Primary, Auxiliary, Contingency, Extra, and Redundant levels of arms I’m still pegging the needle. Magazines? Literally in the thousands. Ammo? Well, the fire marshal would probably have nightmares if he knew.

Didn’t happen overnight, although it did pick up quite a bit in these last few years as my career path changed. But, still, I’ve got over thirty years of accumulating and accumulating to fall back on. With the addition of the Barrett I’ve pretty much checked all the boxes on the Post-Apocalypse Party Pak checklist.

I have some numbers in my head about what I’d like to have available to me in terms of precious metals and I can probably make that a reality in less than a year if I really throw everything at it. But at the same time, dang it, Zero wants that ground. I think what I’m gonna have to do is split it 50/50. Whatever I spend on PM’s, I put an equal amount in the land fund. And vice versa.

But the question remains: if you ‘finished off’ (although we all know youre never really finished) the gun aspect of your preperations, where would you refocus the resources and how would it change your timetable?

Amplifying the signal: Article – I’m an American spending Thanksgiving as a combat nurse under fire on the frontline in Ukraine

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This article was linked to by someone in comments a few posts back. H/T to them for bringing it to my attention. I thought it was worth sharing. Regardless of your stance on this war (or any war), there are objective facts in this story worth noting. Apparently those knockoff tourniquets really do cost lives in the field.

I saw some of our soldiers pass away after receiving Chinese replica tourniquets. Tourniquets are devices used to apply pressure to a limb or extremity in order to stop the flow of blood, and I am heavily reliant on them. If you have arterial bleeding, you can die in three minutes, and if that tourniquet breaks, there’s no chance for you. Statistically, three out of four wounded soldiers in this conflict can die from hemorrhagic blood loss. So, high-quality tourniquets became a really important topic for me.

So when I say that it’s worth the extra $ to make sure youre getting the real deal rather than a ‘close enough’ cheaper Chinese copy, it’s not just me.

Read the article, its short and a bit empty but if you Google the gal in the article there’s some interesting stuff about what she’s doing.

In the meantime, the moral of this story is: some stuff is not worth choosing based solely on cost.

Thanksgiving leftovers

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Now is the time to hit the supermarkets for remaindered turkey and associated foods. I hit my local Albertsons and bought way too many of these lovely bacon-wrapped turkey breasts for 1/2 price:

I’ll head to the other two local stores tomorrow and Monday to catch the rest of them as they get marked down. Fortunately I have just barely enough freezer space to get these guys tucked away for later consumption. I’ve eaten turkey out of the deep freeze that was over five years old, so I have absolutely no doubt these guys will get used up at some point.

Is it a bit of work to trot around town hitting all the supermarkets looking for leftovers? Well, a bit….but to me it’s worth it. As a survivalist I try to have everything I need for whatever calamitous event I anticipate. But over the course of a year I wind up using my stove a heck of a lot more than I use my Glock. What I’m saying is, I eat every day…I don’t shoot looters every day. Thus, some emphasis on food is warranted.

What with Bidenflation, it’s a pretty good bet that next years groceries are gonna be more expensive than this years groceries. So…why not stock up? Buy that extra freezer too, ’cause it sure won’t be cheaper next year either.

Survivalism is more than just guns and camo, guys… you know that. The most likely TEOTWAWKIs will be the intimate personal ones….job loss, illness, blizzards, hurricanes, that sorta thing…and when those happen (and they most assuredly will) the odds are pretty good you’ll use a lot more food than you will ammo. Have both, of course, but be realistic: you eat far more often than you shoot.

So, go stock up while there’s bargains to be had.

Nuke ’em till the glow

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Its always an interesting development when  package shows up with this curious label:No, it isn’t depleted uranium .308 rounds. (Those get hand delivered by guys who don’t like to use their real names.) Nah, its a very mundane and unexciting set of Trijicon HD night sights for my Glock 10mm.

Fiber optic is used alot for front sights these days and while they glow nicely in most light my experience has shown them to be fragile, prone to breaking or falling out, and susceptible to damage from gun cleaning solvents. I’d rather spend the hundred bucks and swap out for some heavy-duty steel sights with self-luminating dots than be surprised when I pull the gun from the holster and wonder where the orange glowy thing at the front went.

I’d shopped around a bit and looked at the various brands of night sights…Trijicon, Ameriglo, Glock, etc…and decided that for the difference in price I may as well go with the Trijicons. They are kinda the big name in radioactive glowy sights.

Are night sights really a necessity? Especially when every gun on the market these days usually comes with a rail to accommodate a light? Mmmmm….its subjective. For guns that I carry all the time, I definitely want the night sights. It’s dark half the time, right? And while I could buy a holster that would accommodate a mounted light, by the time you buy that particular specialized holster, and add a good light, you’ve spent what you would have spent on quality night sights.

Am I saying that night sights are a substitute for a mounted light? Heck no. I’m just saying that most of the time we don’t carry a mounted light on the gun we carry every day under out jackets and shirts…so having night sights is good idea.

One other thing I like is that for my nightstand gun (which does carry a mounted light) having night sights makes the gun easy to find in the dark.

Oh, and before I forget…..sight adjustment tools are very much worth the money to have. A hammer and punch is no way to sight in a pistol.

Thanksgiving sales

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Happy Thanksgiving. When you’re giving thanks don’t forget to take a moment and thank yourself. After all, you absolutely coudn’t have done it without you.

So, now that thats out of the way, lets talk Black Friday Friday Of Color sales. Your fastest and most prolific place to find them will be on Reddit. r/gundeals is where you’re gonna wanna spend your time (and money…youve been warned.)

However, here are two I wanna point out while I have your tryptophan-addled attention:

Palmetto is at it again with the deal on MP5 magazines.I bought ten of these last time and they were all MKE manufacture, which is apparently a good manufacture. (Yes, I know the history of MKE…the usual “build it for our military in our country and then when the contract is over we’ll take over the factory and make them ourselves”)I’ve got three MP5 clones so I can always use some quality mags, but I’ll be danged if I’m gonna buy a dozen OEM HK mags when they clock in at around $70@. They really do hate me and think I suck. So…ten more from this deal to put back in the Deep Sleep for Der Tag.

Next up: how does major manufacturer 9mm ammo sound for $190/1000 and free shipping? That catch your attention? Yeah, me too. Limit one per customer from the guys at Cheapammo.com . Same story on Fiocchi .223…$375/1000 with free shipping. Sale starts at 9am EST Friday. Snooze and you lose. They did a similar sale last Thanksgiving, as you may recall, and your buddy Zero made sure to get some. Glad I did because this stuff never goes down in price or down in demand. Can’t be too thin, to rich, or too well-stocked.

Friday of Color is, effectively, here and it’s time to be strategic. Remember: amateurs talk tactics, the pros talk logistics.