Went to the Hamilton gun show this last weekend. Didn’t really see much that jumped out at me. Really, I’ve got everything I need and most of what I want. At this point, it’s just gilding the lily to pick up another AR or Glock. And, honestly, I’d rather take that $400 and drop it into something that’ll generate a consistent return down the line.
Prices were fairly reasonable at the show. Primers were in the $75/brick range whcih, to my pre-Covd mind, is still an amazing ripoff. Plenty of ARs and AKs out there, as well as mags and ammo. There were the usual tables of ‘survival gear’ but, sadly, no Johnny Trochman. I guess if you go to a gun show and don’t see him it means were going to have another six weeks of nuclear winter.
I also swung by Trader Bros. on the way back to see how their massive storage food acquisition is going. It had definitely been whittled a bit, but any sales were offset by additional pallets (yes, wrapped pallets of buckets of food) that had been added since my last visit. Apparently they hit the PPE part of this guys stash because there were N95 masks, Tyvek suits, goggles, and gloves aplenty. I gotta hand it to the deceased survivalist….he definitely was walking it like he was talking it. I didn’t pick up anything because, honestly, I’m pretty squared away and don’t really have room for more.
Speaking of space, I’m still looking for that chunk o’dirt. I found a place that ticks off a great many of my little tickyboxes except…it’s too bloody far away. But, oh, its got some sweet features…biggest of which is that it butts up against BLM/state land which, in turn, butts up against a million acres of national forest. If only it wasnt so bloody far from here. So, the search continues on that front.
May one ask how far away this plot of land is? Just curious.
Several hours of drive, I haven’t ruled it out 100% yet, so I need to be a tad vague.
Two hours is nothing. It’s not like you are commuting to work every day from your retreat.
Where did you get 2 hours from?
IIRC, you mentioned it as a criteria several posts back.
Personally, I agree with it – anything further away is hard to be regularly present at, and could be hard to get to when things fall apart
“Several hours of drive, I haven’t ruled it out 100% yet, so I need to be a tad vague”
Several = “more than two but not many.”
The good buy right now seems to be 90% silver dimes, halves and quarters. The local coin store sees me coming they automatically pull out their stash. Inch and a quarter PVC makes a good storage container.
My LCS sells 90% at melt. I liberate as much as I can every week.
Remote land.
What do you gain?
Of course, I do not know where you live now- inner city? Go.
But there are a lot of places where one is safer with people around-
Humans formed villages for a reason. Then towns and city-states.
What stands out is that remote farms and retreats are easy targets for hostiles.
Because they will find you.
Elbow room is good, but a neighbor with a 30/06 within a few hundred yards is very reassuring.
Anon. here with another note- Public land can be a curse as well as a blessing- there is no control over it that you or neighbors can exact.
It can be overrun with homeless camps, or serve as a transient passage, or burn due to lack of forest management.
A analogy- we have a semi rural location, at the end of a dead end road. We put in a gate. The gate won’t stop anyone really intent on bad behavior. But what it does do, is to remove ambiguous intent-
if some stranger is past the gate, they have defined themselves as suspicious. There is no longer a “I was looking for Suzie’s house” excuse. Same with public land- no excuse needed. A friend went through a home invasion-burglary (he was asleep)the intruders used public space AKA a green belt/walking path to approach- nobody needs to explain themselves on a public path. So like everything, there are plus’s, and minus’s. I still like to have my support network within range.
That depends on who the neighbor is. Generally speaking, the one that would be useful with an ‘06, is the type of person ona big price of land in the middle of nowhere. Just my $.02.
“Really, I’ve got everything I need and most of what I want….”
Ummm, yeah, gonna say NO to that one….
I *know* you, because I know ME.
PPE does have an expiration date – and needs it. Especially gloves and N95 masks
Dude, we were wearing trash bags and re-using one time disposable masks for a week at a time in the First Wave. Thats why half my patients moved on to the Eternal Care Unit!
When the elastic on the masks is toast, it’s not working at all. Same with gloves. Although I’ve found that surgical gloves vac-sealed last quite a long time, much much longer (years) than they do on the shelf; likely because the volatiles don’t off-gas once the limited air in the bag reaches equilibrium with the glove pack
CZ, Don’t you follow the rule of “Better to leave/depart a day early than 10 minutes too
late.” Besides practice runs are good training……..
I agree with the sentiment. The really tricky part is if youre TOO early you may wind up causing some problems. For example, if you see mushroom clouds on the horizon, you can pretty much be certain that leaving your job at the moment won’t have any real negative consequences….but if you hear some saber-rattling, quit your job thinking “This is it!”, and it ISN’T….well, thats a problem. And its pretty subjective….when I think its time to throw away the job and head for the hills may not be the same time as someone else thinks. Tricky business.
I personally know of two families that bugged out when the 2nd plane hit the twin towers. They left for their ‘bugout cabins’/summer cabins. Family A – a week later returned to find that they both lost their jobs and had to find new ones. Family B – he divorced her roughly 5 months later because she couldn’t walk past a stranger and tell them how much of a idiot her husband was, demeaning him every chance she had. That he packed up the family and hid at their summer place for a week thinking it was the end of the world.
I really like his new wife he has today.
CZ if you are seeing mushroom clouds on the horizon; you’re already “F”, best try to shelter in place. Here in FL gives one the
proper perspective timing with hurricanes. June is when you start
your preps by checking if everything is in place and working.
It takes three days to install all my hurricane window and door shutters. Thus, one doesn’t wait until you get the 24 hour notice.
At my advanced age, shelter in place is my only sane choice.
The roads quickly turn into total gridlock and a public shelter is
insanity. As for your “job” the stomach virus phone call to work will always give you a 72 hour window.
Very definitely difficult to decide exactly ‘when’ is the best time to leave. It was that – not to mention the thought of the other 8+ million people in the metroplex – that led us to just move overall, rather than trying to maintain two domiciles. Plus husband was rightfully concerned about maintenance and security of home/supplies when we weren’t in residence.
Of course none of it would have happened if his employer hadn’t switched to the option of working remotely (which husband did not do for the first two years). Plus we had the perfect property show up. Still need to offload the raw land we bought first, but now doesn’t seem to be the time and we have no other debt, so it will wait.
Well. Once again Jamie Diamond was correct about stocking up on ammo. Just saw an article that orders have gone out from the Pentagon office of Procurement. They want all contractors to increase production to wartime levels starting immediately.