Monthly Archives: November 2018

Poll results

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I gotta say, I was kinda surprised by the numbers in the last poll. 46% of the people responding had been into preparedness for 15 years or less. Put another way, I  had been blogging about preparedness for they even got into it.

Another thing that surprised me was largest group was people who had only been prepping since Obama was President – 6-10 years.

Honestly, I was expecting a fairly even distribution across the board. But, I should probably also consider the age component… most people here are probably in their 30’s…not grey old geezers like myself.

But, now that I think about it, lets address that as well…….

[yop_poll id=”15″]

P-series mag stockpile

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Fella on GunBroker had an auction for a half-dozen Ruger factory mags for the 9mm P-series. My ‘buy’ threshold is $15 ea. Any more than that and I’ll just wait for a better deal. Turns out I won the auction. As Im emailing the guy to coordinate the purchase he says “Oh, we found another ten mags in the shop. Ten bucks apiece?” Uhm..ok. And then another guy on GB was trying to unload a bunch(!) of ban-era Mil/LE-only marked factory mags. His state had gone to 10-rd mags and he had to sell his 15-rd mags. I told him I’d trade him for the 10-rd mags I have sitting here.

So…I have more than neatly sewed up the magazine needs for the dozen or so guns I have here that take the P-series mags.

Speaking of P series, Tam over at View From The Porch is doing a 2,000 round shoot-it-till-it-dies test on a P89. She’s mentioned that the sights are a challenge, the grip is bleah, and the trigger belongs on a staplegun. There’s a bit of truth to that. So why do I love the P95 (the next stop on the evolutionary highway of the P-series) so much? Easy. Because unless you come across someone selling a Glock or a Sig for $200, there is no better 9mm handgun that you can buy for two hundred bucks.

If you’re patient, you can land a P95 off gun broker, with shipping, for $200. Now, there are NO new handguns you can buy for $200 that I’d feel comfortable going into Katrina-ville with. And the ‘good” guns like Sig, Glock, Beretta, and Smith seldom show up used for a mere pair of Franklins. Sure, maybe your HiPoint or TokaMakarov has been reliable as a sunrise…but I’ll take the 15-round capacity of the Ruger.

So, while the P95 isn’t a great gun, it is the best 9mm you can buy for $200 unless you know some meth addict selling a G34 in an alleyway somewhere. And for my intended use of the P95, which is as a, basically, disposable handgun for truck/cache/cabin/loaner… well, you cannot do better at that price.

I wish Tam were testing the P95 rather than the P89… the P95 had some refinements that made it a better shooter, IMHO, than the P89. However, I’ll be curious to see how the 2,000-rd shoot turns out.

As I was looking through her blog at all the other 2,000-rd tests one thing becomes clear: virtually any handgun from a reputable large manufacturer, using quality ammo, is darn near 100% reliable. Many of the failures that do occur in the tests that she writes about involve Wolf ammo, or bargain ammo of questionable pedigree. Not all, but enough to let me form an opinion about the ammo. The point being that if you buy a new, modern manufactured handgun in 9mm (that isn’t a Remington R51) and feed it quality (not high grade, just ‘quality’) ammo, you will probably achieve monotonous reliability.

Anyway, unless I pick up another P95 or three…which I really am going to hope I don’t….I think I’ve got the magazine angle covered. So much so, in fact, that it might be time to package a couple of the P95’s for the Deep Sleep with a half dozen mags, some ammo, and the usual accoutrements.

When didja get started?

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I was trading “How did YOU get started in preparedness?” stories with someone the other day and did some walking down memory lane.

I remember that like, I believe, 99% of survivalists, my acquiring started with the guns. Or knives. But definitely with the more ‘sexy’ aspects of preparedness. Nowadays though…gun purchases are just as good opportunities present themselves, the focus is on day-to-day stuff, food, and money.

I’ve said it before, but I really think it’s true – when you hit the stage where you spend more time, effort, thought, and money on non-weapony stuff than you do on weapony stuff, you’ve stepped into a new stage of preparedness. Sort of a ‘later season’ or maturation of your life as a survivalist.

I know that right now my focus is very much on finances, putting away day-to-day stuff and food, and positioning myself to be in a position to be more resilient and adaptable. Giving myself options, I suppose, is what it’s all about.

Something about having a huge amount of food in reserve just makes me feel calmer. Ditto for money in the bank, although that’s always a challenge given how there’s always a gun somewhere in the world that needs to be brought into my life.

Let’s do a poll:

[yop_poll id=”14″]

 

Gobble gobble

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There is a LOT of turkey,  Butterballs marked down 50%, going into the freezer this week. I actually had to do some shuffling around to fit them all in there. Vacuum sealer is getting a workout. Yay turkey!

And thats just the first trip to the store…..

Nudge to pick up an E12

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I’ve given away a couple of the Fenix E12 flashlights and have recommended them to a few people who actually took me at face value and went and purchased one. To a man, every person who got one from me or bought one on my recommendation has been extremely pleased.

I was reminded just how freaking handy these things are the other day when the power was out. Since the E12 is so small, taking only one AA batt, it’s small enough to carry in your pocket without losing much pocket real estate. But disproportionately big performance.

I love SureFire for their stuff, and even Streamlight makes a couple things I like, but these things are the absolute shiznits. About $20-25 at most places, but absolutely worth it. I have several that I keep scattered about. Drop in a lithium AA, leave it in the console of the rig, and you will be extremely happy someday when it’s the middle of the night, the weather has turned to crap, and you need to exit your vehicle to investigate something. Lanyard one to the inside of you EDC bag. Or just carry it religiously in the pocket of your jeans like I do. But….handiest flashlight ever.

This is one of those items that when I recommend it to a friend I tell them “Look, this is an excellent piece of gear. Buy it and if you don’t agree I’ll buy it from you.” That, mi amigos y amigas, is a ringing endorsement.

Local outage

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Hmmm. Woke up to the sound of the backup power supplies beeping. Hmmm.

A look out the window shows a couple inches of snow, but it’s the heavy wet kind.

A quick look outside shows it’s not citywide, but localized to my neighborhood.

Must be a line down somewhere nearby.

Well, I needed to run the generator anyway.

0715…annnnnd we’re back.
——————
Followup:

So as is normal for here in town, the outage only lasted an hour. But, there was some interesting observations. You guys remember this? Totally worth it. So much so, in fact, that I’m heading up to CostCo to pick up another one today. Why? Efficiency.

I have a very nice Aladdin kerosen lamp sitting on the sideboard. Long glass chimney, paper shade, nickel finish. A very nice, very useful item. I also have about a hundred gallons of kerosene on hand. Now, some math – one fillup of kero gives me about 8 hours of light, or 32 hours per gallon. The battery/lamp combo gives me over 168 hours of light. And that light is significantly brighter and more useful. Charging the battery back to full? About two hours of generator time. That generator time is less than a gallon of fuel. So, to put it in perspective, the Aladdin mantle lamp gives me 32 hours of light per gallon, the battery/LED combo gives me five times that and gives a light that is probably five times brighter.

So, from a practical standpoint, it makes more sense to have the battery/LED combo for emergency lighting than the Aladdin lamp.

Does that mean Im phasing out the Aladdin lamp? Heck no. But it’s not going to be my primary alternative source of light. Oh, it has other benefits…it’s a warmer light, generates some heat, doesn’t require keeping an eye on off-use battery levels, that sort of thing. But to think that it is a better choice than the LED/battery combo…well…maybe not so much. Of course, if something happened to the generator I would be left with only the charge in the battery and no way to recharge it, whereas with the lamp I have plenty of kerosene on hand. But those sorts of ‘what if’s are we why don’t put all the eggs in that one basket.

So…another jump pack from CostCo and another LED light to setup.

Aren’t those traffic lights supposed to be…yknow…lit?

Long term turkey dinner

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Hmm.. the turkey was from November 2016, the box of stuffing was from 2013, the can of corn was from 2017, and the instant spuds were from 2008. And…it all tasted (and digested) just fine. I was tempted to break out some of the freeze dried blueberry cheesecake from 1999 but was too lazy.

The take away? You can do a fairly appropriate Thanksgiving meal out of food storage and the deep freeze.

And today? Post Thanksgiving turkey bargains, m’friend.

ETA:

I have a $25 gift card to purchase Butterball products.
My local Albertsons has Butterballs marked down to $0.99/#

Mathematically, it is within my ability to purchase a 25# turkey with absolutely no out-of-pocket cost to me. And I just checked…they have a bunch that are close to that weight.

Turkey soup, turkey chili, turkey sandwiches, turkey gumbo.
It’s about to happen.