Monthly Archives: January 2019

The dream is always the same

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Man, I hate these end-of-the-world dreams. They’re never as entertaining as you would think, and they can often be pretty terrifying.

First dream was that there was some sort of weird natural event occurring..sheets and sheets of lightning were coming down and just hitting everything. I remember thinking that retreating to my house would make no difference since houses were being blown apart left and right by lightning, and I wished I’d built a nice, simple, underground concrete box big enough to hold myself and a some supplies. At that point I woke up, groaned out loud because I knew I was in for a night of bad dreams, and just resigned myself to my fate.

Second dream was a bit more average… I can’t recall the gist of it, but I was huddled at the bottom of a stairwell in some dingy alleyway, hiding under some newspaper and cardboard, hoping to remain undiscovered by Bad Guys. Of course, such is not to be. I hear voices getting closer and closer, and a voice saying they should look over in my direction. Again, wake up.

What can you do but try not to eat spicy food before bed?
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On the other hand, you can always try and tilt the odds in your favor with more magazines.

 

The cold season

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Winter seems to have decided to stick around for a while. Its been genuinely cold the last few days and the evenings have been pretty darn nippy. Its times like these I like to wargame in my head what I would do if the power (and heat) went out. See, if you lose power in the summer, it’s an inconvenience, but ny and large it won’t kill you. Oh, you’ll sweat at night without air conditioning, and you’ll have to toss out your freezer, but otherwise it’s just not a big deal. Winter, on the other hand, will mess you up, homie.

The biggest worry I have isn’t freezing to death. A buncha food and a good stack of blankets will prevent that. My concern is damage to my humble abode. Biggest danger is the pipes freezing and bursting. The obvious solution would be to turn off the main supply, open the basement tap, open the tap at the high point of the house, and let everything drain. Some folks pour antifreeze or other non-freeze liquids down the drains to keep the residual liquids in the traps from freezing.

Me, I’m more inclined to just keep the house at a balmy 50-degrees or so. Not too hard with a couple kerosene heaters. Craigslist is a boon for finding $20 new-in-box kerosene heaters in the summer. Between a couple heaters, all the kerosene I’ve stored, and isolating various parts of the house, I think I could keep things going for a few weeks. Any longer than that and there are bigger problems going on than just frozen pipes.

Not sure how Pex responds to getting frozen. It seems like it might be more resilient to the problem than traditional pipes would be. Certainly it has a bunch of other tings going for it, I wonder if a heightened resistance to freeze-induced bursting is one of them.

Anyway, its probably ten degrees out right now and I’m quite pleased to be sitting in my warm house. But, I know nothing lasts forever and that something you like can change like that *snaps fingers*…so, kerosene….lots of it.

Next house, though….its gonna be wood heat, oil heat, propane heat….cover all the bases.

Bargain background blathering

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Last of the AR mags went out in todays post. Everyone should have theirs within a few days.

In case anyone is curious, what’s the criteria for these sorts of infrequent offers I put out there? Pretty simple – it has to be an item that I need for myself, that can be discounted if bought in a large enough quantity, small enough to ship Priority Flat Rate, and inexpensive enough that I can be okay with getting stuck with keeping it all for myself.

You’d be surprised how many vendors change their tune about their pricing when you ask about buying 500 magazines rather than 50 magazines. But…to get that sort of discount, I need to find a buncha folks who are willing to take a buncha mags off my hands to make the discount happen. Thats where you folks come in.

Remember the 10/22 deal last year? I moved a couple thousand magazines in that episode. When you dial up the guys at Mags-R-Us and ask if they’d do a little better on a thousand magazines…well…numbers start shifting. As a result, I get to buy mags for myself at a good price and pass the savings on to you, as they say.

The drawbacks? Well, its a lot of work. There are always people who make it difficult. They say they want thirty mags and then -poof- they never pony up. Or they order mags and think Im going to ship them overseas. Or they want to pay me when their next unemployment/disability/VA check shows up. Or they just send cash in the mail without telling me (which is fine, but I need to know its on the way so I know to set some mags back…which carries back to Problem Person Number One in this list). And then pack stuff up, labels printed, hauling dozens of boxes to the PO, etc, etc. Its a bit of work.

But, so far, it’s been somewhat worthwhile. I usually wind up with a few extras for my own stash at a good price, and you guys wind up getting what I hope is a good deal. Everyone wins…which is the best situation you can get in a business transaction.

Future bargain buys? If I can get a good deal on Glock 9mm mags or Mini-14 mags, that might come to pass. Before you start jabbering in comments with “Hey, if you can get a deal on .45 Smith and Wesson M&P mags…..” No. It doesn’t work like that. Its stuff that I need for myself, and that Im okay with keeping if it doesn’t sell. If I dont have a Smith, Steyr, or Valmet, then the odds are pretty good Im not going to be looking to fabricate some Smith, Steyr, or Valmet deals. Makes sense, right?

As I said, at the moment the only good deals I’d be interested in putting together (gunwise) are ones that fit my needs. Other stuff turns up once in a rare while…micro Pelican cases, Esbit stoves, etc, etc. But so far the magazines get the best response and thus get the best discount.

So thats how it works, guys. It’s all self-interest. By selling you guys stuff at a good price, I get a quantity discount that lets me fill my own stockpiles. Everyone wins.

 

Battery storage stuff

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So the general consensus, it seems, is that leaving non-lithium batteries in a device for any appreciable length of time is a recipe for trouble. As I mentioned earlier, on the devices that I do leave batteries in, I’m instituting a periodic inspection schedule to make sure things don’t spiral out of control.

But, really, the solution is to not have batteries in the device until such time as that device is needed. Makes sense, right? The problem is that anytime you have two items that need to be combined together to be effective, and you keep those two items separate from each other, you introduce a potential point of failure. The very easy example is keeping a loaded magazine separate from the gun.

So, to my way of thinking, the solution is to keep the batteries separate from the device to avoid damage, but near enough to the device as to be available for immediate use. So, with that in mind….

What we have here are, essentially, shotgun-shell holders for batteries. Here’s the link to the manufacturers information, and, of course, I just snagged ’em offa Amazon:

The shotgun shell analogy is pretty accurate. There are two tabs, such as youd fend at the end of a magazine tube, that hold the batteries in place. They’re quite secure. The more astute of you will notice that this thing doesn’t provide any environmental protection…that is true. But what it does do is give you a secure storage for batteries that can be lanyarded to your device of choice.

You could argue, I suppose, that you simply keep the lantern and the batteries in the same box in storage and that obviates the need for this sort of thing. True, but preparedness is about removing or mitigating as many potential problem points as possible. For me, having the batteries lanyarded to the device gives me the virtually the same benefit of the batteries being left in the deivce but without the attendant risk.

No doubt the poverty-preppers will say that the same effect could be achieved with a small plastic bottle scrounged from the kitchen garbage and a little duct tape. May be. But my career goals have hit the point where I can insulate myself from future risk without resorting to using garbage. When its oh-dark-thirty and the power goes out in a blizzard, I don’t mind having spent ten bucks for the security of having the batteries where I need them when I need them. :::shrug::: Your choice.

If you really wanna go full Burt Gummer, the guys over at County Comm have battery safes that will do the PERFECT job but be prepared to pay a bit more than what you might feel comfortable with. I actually use the County Comm ones to keep two lithium AA-batts in my Bag O’ Tricks.

Anyway, thats the direction I’ve decided to go in in regards to not keeping batteries in devices while still keeping the batteries close at hand. YMMV, but to me it seems a good solution.

Gov shutdown and TSA

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I see the grepos at TSA are in the news this week. Apparently, they aren’t getting paid because of the government shutdown and theyre just one step away from being homeless.

First off, I have no sympathies for anyone at the TSA. When the revolution gets here and they’re handing out blindfolds and lining people up against the wall, I will happily reload the rifles.

Prior to the nationalization of airport security, airport screeners were minimum-wage flunkies similar to what you’d see doing security guard jobs at the mall. When the .gov nationalized them, they all became federal employees with federal payscales and federal benefits…but they kept the uneducated, lower-class mindset that originally had doomed them to minimum wage obscurity.

As a result, while every other ‘non essential’ government worker seems to be muddling through, the savages at TSA are flirting with homelessness.

Here’s my point: this little shutdown is three weeks old. Three weeks. These …people…did not have the foresight to have enough money in the bank to cover them in case of emergencies. They make federal money, with federal holidays, bonuses and overtime, and no one thought to put some away for a rainy day. And these short-sighted mofos are the ones who are touted as our ‘first line of defense’ in airline safety.

Also, this whole ‘non esential’ thing…if they’re ‘non essential’ why do we have them at all?

Worth noting, ATF and their related asshattery are not included in this shutdown. Neither is the NICS system for doing background checks. But I wouldn’t put it past a future administration to dump NICS into ‘non essential’ as a way to punish those evil gun-loving republicans.

Me, I love political gridlock. The government that governs least governs best. If there are hardships being experienced by people because of this shutdown it seems to me that means that those services shouldn’t be gov’s responsibility to begin with, or people shouldnt be depending on gov for them.

Anyway…thats my two cents worth.

ETA: Im less annoyed at the people who shut the gov down than I am at the ones that turn it back on.

Upcoming year

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Just an FYI… at the moment, I have 6 5 4 3 2 bundles of AR mags left, and 3 of AK mags.

Still wondering what 2019 holds. Since I’m a firm believer in ‘better safe than at at ballistic disadvantage’ I’m sending a chunk of those recently acquired magazines into the Deep Sleep. At the rate you people are buying them, it appears there’s some groupthink going on.

But, preparedness isn’t all glamour and guns. Being early January, now is the time to start some seeds indoors so theyre ready for the outdoors around May. Nothing fancy, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, that sorta thing. Don’t know why, but its always a bit satisfying.

As I’ve said, I’m going to try like heck to get the house paid off this year, and keep the gun purchases to a minimum (which, ideally, will be one grossly overscoped Ruger .338 Lapua Precision Rifle).

Other unsexy stuff for the year: better radio equipment, update/upgrade the video security, indoor hose bib for indoor firefighting, a big ol IBC in the yard for catching rainwater and a 12v pump to move it around, some solar panels if I can get a deal on them, more shelving for the basement, a couple extra propane tanks, and a few other geegaws.

But, always an eye on those idiots in Washington…theyre as big a potential problem as any supervolcano or EMP.

 

$100 Mag Deal

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Ok, lets do this……

  • What you get: 10 aluminum AR mags, black in color, dry lube finish, anti-tilt follower, delivered to your door/bunker/rallypoint
  • What you pay: $100.00
  • How you pay: Email me. I’ll send you a link you can pay at with a debit/credit card.
  • When you get: They’ll ship Priority Mail in the second half of next week

Paying online is, Im afraid, the only option. Every time I do one of these I get people who say to set some aside for them and that they’ll mail payment. And then Im left with unsold product when that payment never shows up. In the meantime, I turned away potential purchasers because I was outta stock except for the stuff I was holding back for those folks. Every time. Every. Time.

Exception: If youre local, we can arrange pickup.

Police Trade-In Guns

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Gotta be careful with that hyphen , otherwise ‘police trade-in guns’ becomes something else completely. (Although sometimes that happens too.)

I’m always on the lookout for bargain priced 9mm Glocks. It used to be that every few years police departments would slough off their old pistols for new ones, and those older pistols would work their way onto the market. Ask any cop and he’ll tell you that they guns look pretty worn, what with all the holster wear and whatnot, but they get fired very little. They are, basically, the used car from that little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays.

Thing is, just about every police agency in the country migrated to the .40 S&W back in the day and have stayed there up until recently when the 9mm has been making a move back into the cop market. All this to say, while finding police trade-in 9mm Glocks is a bigfoot hunt these days, there is a metric buttload of surplus .40 Glocks out there at stupid prices.

If youre plans revolve around the .40, you can get all sortsa flavors of Glock for $250. Ditto for S&W M&P‘s. A friend of mine just scored a used .45 M&P, with night sights and spare  mags, for around $275 as police trade-in. The deals are out there.

But, as I said, my plans revolve around 9mm so Im kinda left out in the cold. But, if you’re a .40 guy this is going to be a golden era for you to get cheap big-name .40’s.

It reminds me of ‘back in the day’ when the big revolver-to-auto transitions were taking place and the market was awash in Smith Model 10’s and 15’s. I still have a couple of those sitting in the safe.

Anyway, I was trotting through the usual vendor websites and noticed that theres a plethora of .40’s on the market these days andthought Id point it out.
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In other news, a couple cases of AR mags shipped to me yesterday so it looks like we can go ahead and start getting people matched up for those AR mags. You know the drill.