Monthly Archives: August 2017

Ruger bolt gun that takes Mini-30 mags

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Ruger announced today that they will be adding a new chambering to their Ruger American Ranch line up – 7.62×39! The new Ruger American Rifle Ranch 7.62×39 will feature the same 16.12″ medium contour, threaded, hammer forged barrel found other American Rifle Ranch offerings. It feeds from Mini-30 magazines and weighs in at under 6 pounds.

This interests me on several levels. Even though the days of $100 cases of 7.62×39 are long gone, there’s still plenty of 7.62 AK ammo to be had. Ruger used to offer the 77 in this caliber and I really would like one, but a bolt fun that takes a (somewhat) readily available magazine? Yes please.

Purpose? Well, you can hunt with an AK or SKS, of course…I’ve seen it done. But a nice bolt action with a decent scope would probably serve better, and if you’re already stocking the AK round why not streamline logistics?

I’ll be getting one (or three) of these as soon as my vendors have them.

Sonny Landham of “Predator” fame passes at 76.

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I just found out that Sonny Landham died about a week or so ago.

Who, you ask? Why, ‘Billy’ from Predator. You know, the guy who “wouldn’t wish that on a broke dick dog” and “We’re all gonna die.”

Sonny Landham, the Native American actor who costarred in action films Predator and 48 Hrs., has died at the age of 76.

According to his sister, Landham died from congestive heart failure in a hospital in Lexington, KY, the AP reports.

Beginning his career in adult films and stunt work, Landham transitioned into acting work in the late 1970s, often drawing on his Cherokee and Seminole ancestry to portray characters of Native American descent.

His mainstream movie debut was a minor role as a subway policeman in Walter Hill’s 1979 film, The Warriors. Based on that performance, Hill cast him in his first major role as Billy Bear, one of the criminals being tracked by Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs. 

Landham’s most memorable role came opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, portraying another Billy — Billy Sole, the Native American tracker in Predator.

There’s a handful of action movies that are so over the top that they are classics. “Predator” was easily one of them.

Article – Bomb shelter business booms as Trump and North Korea posture

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The showdown that pits North Korea’s Kim Jong Un against Donald Trump has once again raised the specter of nuclear annihilation. And that has done wonders for the bomb shelter industry.

Sales and inquiries have spiked, according to several of the U.S. companies that make money from doomsday fears.

“The increase in demand is everywhere. We are getting hundreds of calls,” said Ron Hubbard, president of Atlas Survival Shelters, a firm based in Montebello, California. Inquiries have slowed down as tensions have eased over the last week, but Hubbard said he still expects to have a banner year, selling 1,000 shelters at an average price of $25,000 each.

Man, the guy that runs that shelter company gets interviewed on a regular basis every few years. it seems. Next up will be some ‘news’ article about old missile silos being repurposed or something about that Vivos outfit.

I Kinda like the cylindrical shelters, but if it were me I’d put them above ground, build a crib around it, and surround it with concrete…underground shelters just seem like a recipe for headaches with water and sanitation issues. I’d rather have an aboveground shelter, cage it in a couple feet of concrete, and then slap some earth over it to blend it into the landscape.

Katrina II?

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So there’s a hurricane beating on Texas that is sparking all sortsa comparisons to Katrina. Anyone remember that? I remember thinking that Katrina was going to be the paradigm by which disaster responses (and disasters themselves) were benchmarked by for the next few decades. And, so far, I’ve been right.

I expect the AAR’s from people to start showing up on the usual forums soon. I’m especially curious to see if local governments have learned anything since then regarding these huge events. To be fair, Texas actually has some pretty decent emergency management, and Louisiana isn’t exactly known for its ‘can do’ attitude.

Of course, there’ll also be the footage of people sitting on rooftops and being roped out of flooded cars as they ask why officials don’t “do something”.

Two kindsa people…the prepared and the unprepared. No surprise which camp will fare better in this thing.

Paratus reminder

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Don’t forget, guys…,.This year Paratus falls on September 15th. You’ve got about three weeks to get your gifts lined up.

Also, this is, I think, the third or fourth year of Paratus. Let’s get it some recognition. Ask your online vendors if they’re having Paratus Day sales. Mention it in your blog. Start nagging Hallmark to make cards. Get your friends (and me) something nice.

It’s a fine holiday, with noble intentions, in need of more acceptance among the masses.

Article – Hurricane Harvey Hysteria: Customers Fight as Stores Sell out of Water

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I can’t believe I’m linking to an Alex Jones article, but…

U.S. residents living on the Gulf Coast are hitting grocery stores searching for water and other essentials before a potentially life-threatening hurricane makes landfall.

The National Weather Service forecasts Tropical Storm Harvey will be upgraded to a major hurricane by Friday, “bringing life-threatening storm surge, rainfall, and wind hazards to portions of the Texas coast.”

A photo from a Sam’s Club in Corpus Christi depicts a long check-out line full of people, with a caption reading, “Waiting to buy water for #Harvey.“

Here’s the part Im having a hard time with: why are you buying water? Does the tap in your house no longer work? I mean, I recognize the convenience of 20-oz bottles of water, but whats the big deal if the stores are out of it? Fill some five-gallon jerry cans from your tap and call it good. Then fill your empty bottles from that if you need to.

And if you live in hurricane country why don’t you already have a large chunk of this taken care of?

At the moment, I’ve got something like 50 gallons of treated water set back, and a couple flats of bottled water. My need to go stand in line with the panicked creatures of WalMart? Zero.

Remaindered meat

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I’ve mentioned before that my local Albertson’s has what I have come to call “remaindered meat”. It’s when the meat is on its last day of “Use By” and the store has to sell it or dumpster it. Since half a (meat)loaf is better than none, they mark it down to either 30% or 50% off to try and blow it out the door. I’ve mentioned this before here , here, and here.

You have to remember, these little sales are, for the most part, completely unpredictable. I could go a week or two without finding something worth buying or I may wind up picking up forty pounds of meat in one week. It’s unpredictable. As a result, when the end of the month rolls around the freezer in my refrigerator might be more than a little full.

A few months back I instituted a policy where all the remaindered meat I pick up goes into the freezer in the refrigerator. At the end of the month, whatever meat is left in the freezer, half of it goes into the big freezer as ‘food insurance’. I’m finding that this little program is working very well for me. When the new month starts I usually have a huge amount of meat still left in the freezer, and my ‘just in case’ supply in the deep freezer keeps improving. As the month progresses, a few more remaindered meat sales wind up in the fridge freezer and at the end of the month half of whats left gets put back.

Today’s score? Bacon wrapped seasoned boneless pork chops, two per tray, in oven-safe foil trays….just remove the plastic and slide ’em into the oven…$5 each marked down 50%, so $2.50. Bought ’em all.

20170821_104729The nice thing is that since it’s all ‘remaindered’ meat, I’m not paying full price for anything. Even if there are no interesting sales for a week or two, there’s still at least that much worth of ‘remaindered’ meat in fridge freezer. As a result, I never have to pay $4.99/# for beef. This frees up money for other stuff, which is part of what survivalism is all about: efficient resource management. I know what you’re thinking “There’s nothing survival related about this! This is a post more fit for a mommy blog about coupon clipping!” No, not really. My point is that you have to eat. Now, you can eat as cheaply as possible by living on a diet of, literally, beans and rice which is exactly what many Third World denizens do. But you are not a Third Worlder. We are meat-eating, gun-toting, flag-waving, moon-landing, Japan-nuking, culture-dominating citizens of the premier First World country. Why live like a Third Worlder if you don’t have to? If you can procure $500 a month worth of food for $250, that frees up $250 to spend on ammo, gear, guns, books, radios, fuel, storage food, knives, gold, silver, etc. And that is most definitely survival-related.

Article – How Google is secretly recording YOU through your mobile…and storing the creepy audio files

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DID you know that Google has been recording you without your knowledge?

The technology giant has effectively turned millions of its users’ smartphones into listening devices that can capture intimate conversations – even when they aren’t in the room.

Just for the sake of curiosity, I followed the directions in this article to see if there was aything on me. Apparently, at some point I had turned of most of the tracking stuff. But not all. My YouTube viewing history was there. (Fortunately, it was my viewing history for only Youtube… IYKWIMAITYD)

I have met some people who gently insist that, when having conversations with them in person, the phones be disabled or left elsewhere. Perhaps there’s some merit to that.

Interesting article and very much worth reading from a privacy standpoint. You’d have to be insane to think that there aren’t .gov actors who take advantage of these sorts of things.