Monthly Archives: October 2015

AICS Pmags available

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This little bit of news from Jerking The Trigger has been a while in coming…

The PMAG 5 7.62 is an all polymer and extremely affordable alternative to metal AICS pattern magazines. It will work with the above Bolt Action Magazine Well or existing AICS bottom metal set ups. The capacity can be increased to 6 rounds with a simple follower modification.

The Ruger Scout Rifle, supposedly, uses an AICS-friendly magazine, so these should be a cheaper alternative to the godawfully expensive Ruger factory steel magazine, and a more reliable alternative to the affordable-but-questionably-reliable Ruger polymer magazine.

For those of you with the Ruger Scout, this might be an interesting compromise between the two choices of mag.

Pelican cases on Craigslist

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Just can’t pass ’em up when I sees ’em on Craigslist.

20151023_133702A pair of Pelican 1650‘s without foam. $150 for the pair. Not a bad deal. They are an excellent size for keeping winter gear for the vehicle, stashing a minimal cache at a buddy’s place, or a host of other uses.

Craigslist does turn up a ton of useless crap, but once in a while it does turn up some cool stuff. I’ll probably use one of these for winter vehicle gear, and keep the other as a spare.

Politics, unfortunately.

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Joe Biden announced that he isn’t going to run for President, which means that the choices in the Democrat camp are between Bernie Sanders (who I really hope gets the nomination) and Hillary Clinton. This is akin to choosing death by firing squad or death by hanging.

The Republicans, thus far, haven’t come up with anyone that sets the world afire, so I think the election will not be about voting for someone as much as it will be about voting against  someone.

In short, it’s panic buying season. I would be surprised if the Biden announcement, which seems to seal the deal for the Clinton camp, doesn’t tick the pricing algorithms at Cheaper Than Dirt and we see Pmags back at $50 per.

I could be wrong, of course, but if I am…so what? All that means is you bought a dozen Glock magazines this week instead of in three months like you planned. Best deal I’ve found today is Gun Accessory Supply selling OEM G17 mags for $19. I’ve found Magpul Glock mags for $12 but Im not willing to pull the trigger, so to speak, on them until I’ve had one to evaluate.

Scenes from Glacier

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Not the usual stuff I post, but its a nice reminder that if you go far enough out of your way in Montana you can come across some pretty cool organic protein sources.

CRW_2094 CRW_2083This particular critter had a radio collar on and was totally unconcerned about me being nearby. In other circumstances, this photo op would have ended with a 168 gr. BTSP.

Living in Montana has a lot going against it..what with the mediocre economic climate, and, to be honest, some backward thinking troglodytes, but where else can I get within spitting distance of critters like this?

Fear The Walking Dead – wrap up of S1

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The first seaon of ‘Fear The Walking Dead’, the spinoff series of ‘The Walking Dead’, came to a close the other week. I finally got around to watching the last several episodes.

The series is entertaining from the zombie-genre standpoint, but the characters are tremendously weak. There is literally no character about whom I care whether they live or die. The only interesting characters, for me, are the newly-introduced ‘Mr. Strand’, and the stereotypical immigrant-who-turns-out-to-have-shady-military-past, Salazar (played by the always entertaining Ruben Blades.)

However, I’m watching this series for it’s portrayal of the slow-to-fast descent into Detroit  Thunderdome. I’m fascinated at the progressive failures of infrastructure and critical systems, and how the characters react to those situations. So far, the only character I’m feeling any sympathy for is the schoolkid at the beginning of the show who kinda knew which way the wind was blowing. (I am, though, appreciating the unflappability of the Hawkins-like Mr. Strand.)

The most noteworthy thing about the final episode of the season was the decision undertaken by the family to leave the confines of the relatively secure neighborhood they were in. It was the classic bug-out scenario.

One character asks where they are going to go. The answer? “West”. That’s a direction, not a destination. But it does illustrate the classic survivalist dilemma – stay or go. But, if you’re going to go, you need to have an actual destination. Just leaving the dangers zone is always a great idea for the short term, but nothing good comes from wandering around in a crisis without a stable place to park yourself.

You would think that out of a group of a half dozen people, someone would have had a hunting cabin, relatives house, or other distant location to fall back to. As it stands, it appears they had nothing better than to drive blindly to the location suggested to them by the enigmatic and clearly self-serving Mr Strand.

But, the lesson in there is that if you’re really going to take this sort of thing seriously, you need to have another location in mind to relocate to. “Shelter in place” or “bug in” sounds great but it would be really, really nice to have a plan B.

Articles on shelters for the ‘elite’

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Two articles on ‘elite’ shelters on the same day. Makes me think their marketing people must have sent out press releases or something. I maintain that the Vivos thing is like buying a timeshare on Mars – it’s yours..on paper.

Anyway, my skepticism aside, heres the articles:

As we roll down US Highway 41 in Terre Haute, Indiana , my guide insists I give him my iPhone. Then he tosses me a satin blindfold. The terms of our trip were clear—I wasn’t to know where we were going or how we got there.That’s because we’re on our way to the undisclosed location of an underground bunker designed to survive the end of the world, whatever form that apocalypse takes.

And this one:

When the end of the world comes, even wealthy people will not be spared.

Unless, of course, they’ve managed to buy themselves a spot in a massive underground apocalypse bunker.

Whilst is handy, because the super rich have been invited to buy up a place in a five star shelter in Rothenstein, Germany, which is designed to allow them to live underground for a year and then emerge “when the worst is over”.

Just 34 “high worth” families will be welcomed into the European doomsday den, with prices only available on application.

If you can afford to, essentially, throw away that kind of money on a heavily-armored timeshare, you can afford to simply have your own built and maintain your privacy, safety, and control.

They’re nice to look at, but when the zombies are roaming the streets, the last thing I’m going to care about is if the floors are Italian marble or Brazilian zebrawood.

New season of The Walking Dead

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It looks like the guys at TWD are finally throwing in some tactics and strategy into the plans of our intrepid group of survivors. Two-way radios, backup plans, mobile scouts, etc, etc. Nice to see that someone finally gets the idea that you can’t just run around the apocalypse and meet things head-on without plans.

Things that still annoy me about The Walking Dead:

  • There are no consequences to horrible personal hygiene
  • Wheres all the gasoline coming from?
  • No .gov of any kind exists? Anywhere? At all?
  • The ‘rogue military’ scenario hasn’t really been fully explored, although the ‘rogue cop’ one was (at the hospital).
  • Guns go ‘click’ multiple times when empty
  • The way Rick holds his Python makes it clear this guy knows nothing about guns

Still, I’m very much enjoying the zombie genre. I still maintain that the fella with a suppressed 10/22 and a few bricks of ammo would go down in history as humanity’s greatest defender.

 

Article – Living in a steel box: are shipping containers really the future of housing?

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It takes time to adjust to living inside a steel box. Timothy Ader did not, initially, like the idea of staying at Wenckehof, a student village in Amsterdam made up of 1,000 recycled shipping containers. But three years after moving in, he has no regrets.

“My first impression of the containers was, ‘It’s ghetto stuff – I’m not living there,’” recalls the 24-year-old. “But I started visiting a friend of mine living here and started to like the place. Then I moved in and I realised how good it was. I’m really comfortable in my container and I have a lot of space of my own. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world right now.”

The notion of living in a converted (or unconverted) storage container is nothing new…you drop into various preparedness forums and you’ll see posts that go way back on the topic. You’ll also see posts from folks who have made their own habitable/storage spaces out of used shipping containers.

The biggest contention on the issue of shipping containers as survivalist retreats is that it seems lotsa folks want to bury them, a’la Terminator 2, and they just ain’t built for that sort of thing. Sure, they stack, but thats because they sit on the corners which are built for just that sort of thing.

I live in a somewhat cold envrion…by the time you pad a shipping container with insulation and the other goodies necessary to handle -20 weather you’re probably better of building a ‘real’ structure. But…I think that fo their original purpose they are ideal. I could see dropping one on a couple concrete piers, and then building up a concrete or forced earth berm on three sides to conceal it and using it as storage at a retreat location. I often wonder if it would make sense to just crib it with lumber and encase the whole thing in a few inches of concrete and rebar, using the container, basically, as a form.

There’s a place down the road from here that sells ‘retired’ containers. They also have the short 20′ ones and those look terribly useful. A fella could probably, with the help of his buddies and a few jacks/winches, manhandle one of those wherever he needs it on his property..in the barn under the hay, in the falling-apart garage under a tarp, or even out in the thick brush, concealed by netting, paint, and timber.

Someday, if I ever get a place in the stick, I’ll probably have a container or two tucked away in some hidden location where I can keep gear, a vehicle, etc. But, in the meantime, the developments in the ‘normal’ communities regarding the development of container-housing construction will come in handy later on. ‘Zon has no shortage of material on the subject….



But by the time you finish framing, cutting out metal, etc, etc, you’re pretty much where you would have been if you had started with a regular cabin built from scratch. Why re-invent the wheel? Check out the military CHU if you want to see what mass-production can do to make a container livable. As expected, Wikipedia has some info on the subject as well. As I read it, the huge amount of containers available is because we import more crap from overseas than we send out…so there are plenty of containers to go around. Since I don’t see that changing any time soon, it makes sense to think of them as a handy resource. If nothing else, they can build a hellaciously cool perimeter wall if you backfill them.

Link – The Ten Best Ways To Maintain Your Car In The Apocalypse

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In the apocalypse, it’s likely that resources will be scarce, mechanics will be long gone, and your car will be on its last legs. Stay prepared with these 10 steps!

It’s a bit misleading, because some of these steps have nothing to do with maintaining a car. But…it is a worthy subject to think about. My experience has been that anything mechanical cannot be trusted. If it’s got more than a couple moving parts to it, something can and will go wrong.

Best way to maintain your car in the apocalypse? Maintain your car before the apocalypse, and have the materials and information to continue that maintenance.

H/T: Thanks to the person who emailed me about this.