Monthly Archives: April 2026

Patriots Day = Range Day

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Today is Patriots Day. A day that is the perfect reason to go to the range and practice with your favorite freedom-securing device. As our buddy Heinlein said, the price of freedom is “the willingness to do sudden battle, anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness”. What does that mean? Let’s ask the AI:

“Robert A. Heinlein famously defined the price of freedom as “the willingness to do sudden battle, anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness”. This recurring theme in his work, notably in The Puppet Masters (1951), emphasizes that liberty requires active, often violent defense, rather than being an unalienable right.

Key aspects of this philosophy include:

  • Active Defense: Freedom is not free; it is paid for with the willingness to fight.
  • Individual Responsibility: True freedom involves being personally responsible for one’s actions, often requiring hard choices and vigilance.
  • TANSTAAFL: Popularized in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch” implies that everything, including freedom, has a cost.
  • Vigilance: It mirrors the sentiment that liberty is maintained only through constant vigilance.

Heinlein’s stories, such as Starship Troopers, often tied the right to vote to the willingness to serve and sacrifice for society.”

Sounds legit.

So, let’s hit the range today and put some metal in the air.

I used to know someone who would buy a new gun, stick it in his safe, and go for months, or even years, without shooting it. I used to tease him about it and now I have become that person. I have a small mountain of guns here that I need to take to the range and get set up. Todays range trip was a CZ .22, the Marlin .45-70, and a pair of Rugers.

The Rugers were a pair of PC 9mm guns. The first was a takedown PC Carbine I picked up a few weeks back and rehoused into a new Magpul Backpacker stock. The other gun was a factory SBR’d PC Carbine from Ruger. Just recently Ruger has started offering a few SBR’d guns that are coming straight from the factory as SBR’s.

I dropped an AR-180-style folder on it, a tri-lug adapter to allow me to drop one of my Obsidian 9 cans on it, and tried out the new Olight Osight.

For me, the attraction of these two firearms is that they can be broken down into compact packages that stow away nicely for when you need some firepower but space is limited…..bugout bags, caches, vehicles, etc.


When you take the SBR and break it down into it’s smallest configuration, it isn’t much larger than my Glock 17.

The SBR literally fits in the bottom drawer of my desk at work. No substitute for an M4 or similar carbine, but better than just a pistol.

One of the other guns I shot today was the Marlin .45-70 I picked up in an estate a few months back. The gun came with a bunch of reloaded ammo which I figured Id use to get on paper and build up a supply of empty cases to reload. I had forgotten how thumpy a rifle can be when you’re launching a 400 grain bullet. Ow.

I had removed the barrel-mounted sight, which was a Rem 700 sight someone had bolted on there, and replaced it with a receiver sight. At 25 yards it was shooting almost two feet low. Adjusting the rear sight accordingly was a bit of a stretch and left the rear sight sitting rather high above the receiver. Clearly a replacement front sight, with a lower profile, is called for. I ordered a few replacement front sights with different heights and I’ll swap them out as necessary until things are where I want them. I’d like to use some hardcast bullets for their penetrative properties, and I have some gas-checked RCBS 300- and 400-grain FN gas-checked bullets to use.

And the CZ? Shot wonderfully. I know everyone has their favorite bolt .22, but I genuinely think that you can spend a lot of money and not gain any advantage over one of the nicer CZ bolt .22’s. I have two of these guns and I really, really like them.

So…nice day to go shoot.

Article – In Trump era, fearful left-leaning Americans turn to guns

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The semi-automatic weapon in the 38-year-old’s hand is the first he has ever owned.

He is one of many left-leaning Americans who are embracing guns because of their fears about President Donald Trump’s administration — upending conventional wisdom about who owns firearms in the United States.

“I feel a lot more threatened by my government than the citizens around me,” said Collin, who asked to be only identified by his first name for privacy concerns.

Change a couple words in here…..’left’ to ‘right’, ‘Donald Trump’ to ‘Barack Obama’, and you have pretty much the situation from almost twenty years ago. And you were called a right-wing, racist, militia-wannabe.

When you do it, it’s ‘reactionary’ and ‘paranoid’….but when the other side does it, it’s a different story.

Here’s the money shot: both sides said the exact same thing – I’m doing this because I don’t trust my government and I want to be able to protect myself from them.

Funny, you’d think that sort of thing would be something that could unite, or at least bridge some differences between, the two sides. The irony is pretty pronounced.

Long strange road

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ETA: And I just noticed that ,Rawles posted on his SurvivalBlog that  “Today, April 15, 2026, is the 23rd Blogiversary of my buddy Commander Zero’s Notes From The Bunker blog. Congratulations!”) Glad he, and a few other folks, remembered because…I didn’t. Too much Beta Site on my brain.

I was reminded by someone in the comments that today is the 23’rd anniversary of the blog. Thats a long time to be rehashing the same subjects over and over…yet here we are.

It would not be a blog anniversary post without me gently needling Friend Of The Blog ™ ,Rawles over at SurvivalBlog that I predate him by about three years. But, giving credit where its due, he posts far more frequently than I do so while I’ve got him in terms of years, he’s got me in terms of quantity (and views).

A lot has changed in those years. Notably me. Those grey hairs come fast, man. But I’m still in reasonably good health and temper. Among other things, the hand-to-mouth nature of those early days has changed. I’ve a lot more money to do what  I want with than when I started this adventure.

If you roll back far enough in the blog, you can see the first mentions of the Beta Site. Took a bit of time to finally acquire it, but acquire it I did. Hopefully it won’t take another twenty years to get the place appointed the way I’d like.

It’s tough to rechew the same topics over and over for twenty years. One of the things I’m going to enjoy about the Beta Site is that it’ll give me some new adventures to document and ideas to expand upon.

So there you go, kids. Twentythree years of brain droppings. If you’ve enjoyed any of it, feel free to swing by Patreon and put a few bucks into the Beta Site Development Fund…the barbed wire and sentry guns ain’t gonna pay for themselves.

Weekend trip

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Well, I did, in fact, make it out there yesterday. And, being the kind of person who is trying to learn from his mistakes, I did not get stuck out there. Yay me.

The roads were good about 80% of the way, including that treacherous switchback that has foiled me before. However, up at the top, we were still at the point of there being snowy rutted conditions that my little truck would have found challenging.

The SxS made it up there just fine and its looking like buying the thing may not have been the worst idea I ever had.

As I had mentioned previously, my priorities for this trip were additional game cams, feeders, and drop off a MonoVault full of supplies.

So, rolled up to the entryway/driveway into the property and I figured walking in from that point was the way to go. Naturally, it is all uphill. So, I patted myself for bringing a sled to carry it all. On the other hand, I severely misjudged the amount of weight and the amount of effort involved. I made it work, of course, but I was an exhausted person when it was done.

One thing I noted was that the creek that runs through the property was in full force. It was rather nice to look at it moving all that water, hearing it, and thinking “Hmm. Thats mine.” I need to contrast that against the water flow in the summer season.

I almost never host video on here due to bandwidth concerns, so this video will probably come down shortly.

Anyway….

Made it to the top of the road and setup one additional camera and one game feeder. I stashed the MonoVault somewhere for final positioning on my next trip.

And since this is kinda middle of nowhere territory, I brought Best Millimeter and my favorite AK for the adventure. Riding around in the SxS kicks up a lot of dust. My AK looks like a souvenir outta Khost. I mean, yeah, this sort of thing means nothing to an AK but I still feel a compulsion to clean it up.

By the way, the dead baby moose that was there two weeks ago apparently has been gnawed on by the local fauna. I expect that next trip there won’t be much there except some bones and maybe some tufts of fur.

All in all, a good trip…no major difficulties. Didnt get to use the chainsaw, but I did get to use the Silky saw a bit and that thing is absolutely worth every penny. Biggest thing to note was that the cargo capacity of the SxS is limited so , short of a small trailer for it, hauling large quantities of stuff into the Beta Site will be restricted to the warmer months….so, probably around June or July, the big caching excursions will start,, as well as the construction of a small shelter to give me four walls and a roof over my head when Im up there working on bigger things.

I will say, this is getting to be an expensive habit….renting a trailer to drag the SxS out there is almost $80. And driving back and forth is almost 3/4 of a tank of gas. Thats about $120~ per trip. Yes, purchase of a trailer is in the cards, but for now there’s other priorities.

So, not a bad trip by any stretch. Still shoulda brought the snowshoes but didnt because I was running out of room and also figured the snow would be down enough to not need them. Mistake. Got some stuff done, took pictures and video, and got out of town…which is nice.

 

 

Maybe tomorrow

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Well, the plan is to head up to the Beta Site tomorrow. Weather has been good all week, gamecam doesn’t show new snow, and if the weather tomorrow is decent…..it’s a go. Its entirely possible that things have melted enough that I can simply get in there with my truck, but I’ll start with the SxS this trip and if it looks good I’ll make subsequent trips in the truck.

Goals:

  • Install new gamecams
  • Drop off a cache of gear for future use
  • Install and load game feeders
  • Do a bit of walking around and exploring
  • Take lotsa pics

Another goal is to not make the same mistakes as last time. Knowing me, I’ll simply create new mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes, I really need to work on the tunnel vision I have regarding the Beta Site. I am overlooking and ignoring various current events that, really, I should be on top of and wargaming against. I could intellectualize it and say that devoting my self to the Beta Site is getting ready against current events but thats terribly shortsighted. Its going to be at least a year or two befote the Beta Site is ready for anything close to ‘full time use’…so in the meantime I need to make the most of where Im at now and that means shifting focus a bit. One of the biggest things I need to do is get the small loan I have paid off so I can divert funds into replenishing my precious metals stash and getting financially ready for some big-ticket upgrades at the Beta Site.

ETA: And one of the guys from receiving just dropped this on my desk. So, electric chainsaw for the casual small stuff has been achieved. Gas saw next.

 

I saw that

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A friend of mine turned me on to the Silky saw a while back and I was very impressed. It’s basically a gigantic folding knife that has a saw blade instead of a knife blade. But it cuts wood like a beaver on meth and takes up a minimum of space in a back.

When it comes to saws, or any other hand tool, really, there’s all sortsa options. I mean, just in saws you’ve got chain saws, pole saws, bow saws, etc, etc. Fold in other wood cutting things like axes and hatchets and you can easily wind up getting overloaded with inpuit from ‘experts’, boffins, and nerds. (And theres nothing wrong with being a subject-matter nerd. Just understand that you are still, in fact, a nerd nonetheless.)

My intended use is for trimming branches around the Beta Site…especially around the overgrown ‘road’ that goes into the place. My friend brought one of these along on one of my first trips up there and I was immediately hit with a case of the “I Gotta Have That”. Sp, I trundled off to Amazon and picked one up.

Expensive? Holy Drokk, yes.  But in the limited use I’ve had with it, I’ve been quite pleased with its performance. It’s compactness and aggressive cutting are also pretty sweet.

The road that goes into the Beta Site has been neglected for, oh, decades I’d imagine. There are more than a few small saplings growing up in the middle of it, and in some places the branches from the trees along the side of the road reach right into the middle of it. This guy, along with a pair of loppers, do a nice job of getting things tidied up a little.

And before you say it, yes, a chainsaw is on The List Of Things To Buy. But until I get to that part of the list, this handsaw is going to get plenty of use on all the downed limbs that are littering the place. There’s a goodly amount of fallen lodgepole pines, including some that have fallen across the wire fence that separates my dirt from the BLM dirt. And since good fences build good free fire zones neighbors, getting the treese off the fence is a bit of a priority.

Nope

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The weather Saturday was actually quite nice and wolud have been ideal, at least weather-wise, for a trip to the Beta Site. But, dang it, I just didnt have all my ducks in a row in terms of having my gear together and ready for the trip. The biggest thing is that I have no idea what the conditions up there are like because, man, they can change fast. For example, this was Thursday:
And this was yesterday:

Which seems to support that the conditions up there can change and change fast. So, I’ll get my gear lined up and ready for next weekend, and if the weather is as nice during the week I am hoping that the conditions will be better.

I welcome the bit of extra time because on the next trip, in addition to the long-delayed deployment of additional cameras, I’ll be laying out the first of what will probably at least two or three stashes of gear and supplies.

Getting stuck up there last week and having to spend the night up there wouldn’t have been the end of the world since I made sure to bring a certain amount of gear with me ‘just in case’. However, one of the whole points of the Beta Site was to have enough gear up there to allow me to show up with basically just the clothes on my back, in virtually any weather condition, and be able to be safe and secure. Turns out, thats not an inconsequential amount of gear. And, most importantly, packaging it for long-term hiding in a container that is impervious to the environment….well, thats some work.

Naturally, there’s an argument that “Well, you don’t need to store away all that stuff…you won’t be coming up there empty handed.” Really? You know that for a fact? If I ever have to run for my life and my salvation is my hideyhole, I will, of course, try to bring as much gear as I can but ‘best case scenarios’ are not part of my planning. I mean, yeah, it would be awesome if I was able to have the luxury of loading up all my gear at my leisure and hit the road. But I can’t be certain of that…no one can. So…prepare for the worst case.

In this particular scenario, I work off the ‘worst case’ situation which is me showing up with just the clothes on my back in the middle of the night in the worst weather conditions possible. And in that circumstance I want to be able to open up my bomb-proof storage container,  pull out a change of clothes, a tent to shelter in, a coldweather sleepingbag to crawl into, and a stash of food to get myself back to an even keel. After that, its addressing all the other little issues…medical, communications, weapons, fuel, water, tools, navigation, and all the other little details.

Is there a high likelihood that will ever happen…that such a desperate and hopeless circumstance will befall me? Nope. But is there a more-than-zero-percent chance it might? Well..yes. And, if there’s that possibility, then clearly its to my advantage to prepare against it.

So, I’ll use this coming week to get everything together for next weekend. So, next trip’s agenda:

  • Install additional cameras
  • Add solar panel for one camera as a test platform
  • Stash some gear
  • Walk the property a bit and take pictures of winter(ish) conditions

To sum up – not this weekend, unfortunately. But if the weather is as good next weekend as it was this weekend, then yes.

Maybe this weekend

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Waiting on the weather to see if I’m gonna head up to the Beta Site this weekend. There’s plenty of things for me to do if I wind up staying in town, but I really really wanna get out there and set up the other gamecams.

As I was strolling the internet, I came across this:

There’s more than a little truth in there. I’d say my circle of friends, not acquaintances, is probably halfway between ’40s’ and ‘now’. On the bright side, though, those friends are closer than any of the friends from my younger days.

I suppose, for me, one of my litmus tests is whom I take up to the Beta Site. At the moment, the number of people I’ve taken up there can be counted on one hand of a high school woodshop teacher…and I don’t really plan on that changing. Might have a family member or two come out, but thats about it. I didn’t buy it for other people, I didnt buy it for entertaining, and I didn’t buy it for investment purposes…I bought it for me.

I’m hoping the weather is cooperative this weekend, but we’ll see. Gamecam pic from yesterday showed a buncha snow had fallen but maybe not enough to dissuade me. If it is, I will, of course, let you guys know and post pictures.

Packages arriving

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So that happened:


A set of recovery boards for Next Time. Not shown is the bracket set that arrived yesterday as well to allow me to mount the HiLift jack to roll bars on the cage of the SxS. On the way are the shovel bracket and a saw. Still to be purchased is a 12v portable hitch-mounted winch for the ass-end of the SxS.

One other things I’m working on for next trip is a preliminary stash of gear so that if something happens like last time, and I wind up having to stay put, I can do so in safety and security. There’ll be a post about that later.

Nothing modifies behavior (and empties the wallet) like having a Close Call and not wanting to repeat the experience.

And, yesterday I paid off the second third of the money I borrowed to help finance the Beta Site. Or, in other words, I’ve got $9649.63 to go, which I should have paid off either next month or the month after….which would be some thirty months ahead of schedule. Once thats done, the $1000/week that I’ve been throwing at the debt gets diverted into Beta Site Development, Equipage and Stockpiling Fund.