3-gallon bucket/lids

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One of the problems of survivalism is that once you feel you’ve reached ‘prepvana’ (that nirvana-like level of enlightenment preparedness where you no longer feel the need to to continue with that particular prep item) you lose sight of potential improvements. Let me give you an example. Lets say that when you were preparing for Y2k you laid in a stock of top-of-the-line MagLites and SureFire flashlights. You tucked them away and patted yourself on the back. You have plenty, so now you’re done. And you move onto other projects that need your attention, the whole time thinking you’ve settled the flashlight issue. And, twenty years later, your Y2k flashlights, with their Xenon bulbs and battery-draining designs, are stone clubs compared to todays crop of LED flashlights that sip power from batteries by comparison. But…you wouldn’t have known about the potential benefits and upgrades because you had no reason to track flashlight developments….you’d settled the flashlight issue years ago.

Thats one of the risks of thinking youre ‘set’ on a particular prep and never revisiting it.

I’m sorta guilty of this. I was up at Winco when they first opened and, to my surprise, I noticed that not only did they sell 5-gallon buckets and GammaSeal lids in their food storage section, but they also sold 3-gallon buckets and matching GammaSeal lids. (Clarification: not actual GammaSeal brand but they appear to be identical and are made at what appears to be the same plant in the US.) I had no idea that such things existed for the smaller buckets.

The advantage? Well, it’s a heck of a lot easier for me to keep a smaller 3-gallon bucket of rice on my shelf ready to use than it is a 5-gallon bucket.

For comparison:

So the five-gallon buckets get stored away with the  other stuff and I now simply refill the 3-gallon buckets as needed and keep them in the kitchen where they’re a very handy thing.

And speaking of Winco, before the economy started it’s inflationary shenanigans, the bucket stash looked like this:

Not so much last weekend:

Fortunately, as I’ve mentioned, Home Depot not only selld food grade buckets, but the buckets are actually marked “Food Grade Container” So you know you’re getting the right ones.

 

Wealth

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It’s a lovely, warm, touchy-feely thing to say that the wealthiest man is the one that has love in his life…love of family, friends, etc.

Uhm..yeah. That and fifty cents will get you a round of .223. For now.

What does wealth look like at the moment? Well, for me, it looks like this:And this:

Because of this:

Ok, its actually a bit more complicated than that….the real damage hasn’t even started to show yet. But give it time…. this time next year $100 worth of groceries is gonna be a lot less bulky and heavy than you remember it being.

 

Not a HiPower

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This was brought to my attention and I am giddy over it. I hope they don’t screw it up.

It’s had many names in its century-old history and today, we reimagine this renowned design for modern use. Based on one of the most prolific and popular pistols in small arms history, the Springfield Armory® SA-35 gives today’s shooters a modern take on a revered design. Featuring subtle but significant upgrades to John Moses Browning’s original P-35, the 9mm SA-35 captures the appeal of the “wood and steel” era of arms making while offering the upgraded enhancements of today’s defensive pistols.

Made in the U.S.A., the SA-35 features rugged forged steel parts for strength and durability, improved ergonomics and enhanced controls, modern sights, an improved feed ramp design, and an increased 15-round capacity. Configured without a magazine disconnect for a drop free magazine the SA-35 features a factory-tuned trigger with a smooth pull and crisp, clean break.

Call it a legend, call it an icon, but whatever you do, don’t call it a classic.

IF it takes legacy magazines, and IF it takes legacy parts, and IF they keep the price comparable to new Glock…then Im in for five.

“They’re a high theft item”

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Did some running around today to pick up a few ‘nice to haves’ and to do some price checking. I was looking for 15-gallon blue barrels, NATO-style gas cans, and MagLites. Of those three items, you’d think the MagLites would have been the easiest. I mean, every Lowe’s and Home Depot would have them right? Well…you say that….

Turns out that Home Depot, Lowe’s, Murdoch’s, and a handful of other places that you would think would carry them…didn’t. I wonder if maybe MagLite did some sort of change to their pricing or distribution program and got dropped from the stores. Oh, sure…they’re available elsewhere but I really expected them in home Depot.

While I was at Murdoch’s the woman in line in front of me asked the clerk about canning jar lids. She said that their website reported they had three boxes of them in stock, she wanted them, but didnt see them on the shelf. The guy told her they keep them behind the counter because…”Theyre a high theft item.” Canning jar lids. High theft item. let that ferment in your brain for a minute. As someone opined to me after hearing that, “Youd think someone who would steal canning jar lids would be too lazy to can.”

As for the 15-gallon blue barrels I wanted…nada de suerte. Same for the gas cans. And, yes, they’re available online but I find it interesting that the local supply is picked over so thoroughly. Signs of the times, it seems.

In the course of my travels I also hit the restaurant supply place and while they had a pretty normal selection of stuff, some things were absent…certain cooking oils, large cuts of meat, etc.

For me, all the things Im after are just really gilding the preparedness lilly. I’ve got enough of pretty much anything that I’ll come out the other side of whatever happens just fine. But it’s interesting to see the evidence that theres a restlessness amongst the natives.

 

Interesting times

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The world continues apace.

It’s hard to know whats ‘real’ and what’s just clickbait-generating hype these days in regards to to ‘shortages’ and ‘supply chain disruptions’. Oh, there’s no doubt that there’s shortages going on with factories unable to get their materials, store shelves with big gaps in them, and that sort of thing. I’m just not 100% sure why we have them. We had Wuhan Flu and it’s restrictions for all of 2020 and we didn’t see this sort of thing. I suppose you could argue that there were already plenty of things ‘in the pipeline’ and that it’s only now that it’s catching up to us. Or perhaps it took this long for the disruption in Chinese manufacturing to take hold. Or maybe longshoreman and dockworker unions have decided this is the perfect time to hold up management for more money. Or…or…or…

The reasons, to me, are somewhat irrelevant. I don’t care which iceberg hit the Titanic, all I care about is getting my lifejacket on. I suppose the smart thing to do would be to go and buy an extra set of ..well…everything. Thus far my experiences in “whaddya mean you’re out of [XXXX]” have been limited to canning lids, ammo, certain guns, and satisfactory postal service. But I suppose its only a matter of time before a bearing in power turbine somewhere craps out and, surprise, the German company that made it can’t get parts…or a ship to carry it…or someone to unload that ship…or a truck driver to haul it from the docks. It doesn’t take a lot to throw a wrench into things…there’s plenty of potential failure points along the way.

Me, I’ve been kinda sorta  preparing for this thing for a long time. Longer than some of you have been around, actually. I’m expecting, for me, some direct inconveniences but nothing too dramatic. What I’m worried about is people who should know better clamoring for .gov to “do something” and, Crom help us, thos idiots actually do something.

At the moment, the current plan to ‘fix’ things involves spending more money than actually physically exists and creating a debt that is mathematically impossible to payoff unless you go Zimbabwe, have World War III, or literally just renounce the thing like a $50 credit card bill that’s followed you since college. It seems like for all intents and purposes the notion of national debt has become meaningless except as a scorecard to see what country is in the lead for the race to the bottom.

What to do? Same as always, man: keep cash, metals, land, food, guns, meds, fuel, and that sort of thing. The same thing you’ve been doing to get ready for the boogaloo, the Rapture, the UN invasion, Xenu’s arrival, or Great Depression Mk II. From a disaster preparedness standpoint, having precious metals, money, food, fuel, and guns never goes out of style. Being outta debt helps too.

I wish I had a good track record of predicting the future but, alas, I do not…that’s why I have a basement full of food and ammo. But, I think it doesn’t take a lot of foresight to figure that as society starts to fray around the edges there’s going to be more occasions of violence that come into our lives. Whether its increasing amounts of deranged homeless wretches wandering the street aggressively panhandling and doing opportunistic burglaries, or it’s mob violence as some disaffected-group-of-the-moment decides that your ‘privilege’ is an affront to their dignity, it seems reasonable to see things getting a good bit more dangerous out there.

Price increases, ridiculous taxes, consumer goods shortages, racial violence, a renewed push towards socialism, and who knows what else is on the horizon. Is it any wonder we’re buying canned goods and 9mm?

 

PSA goes into the ammo biz?

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So this came across one of the social media platforms and someone sent it to me:

Be nice if it was true, but who can say? A good question might be “Why would some Euro ammo maker team up with PSA when they could just bring their manufactory over and make ammo without PSA’s help?” Well, a good answer might be that PSA is taking some of the financial risk in exchange for something like exclusive distributor rights and, of course, they already have a network of dealers and wholesalers. Or this might all be BS. But the notion that you can make 5.45 and 7.62×39 as cheaply in this country  seems terribly unlikely. Unions,  higher material costs, greater regulatory processes, etc, will all conspire to make US-made steel-case AK ammo as expensive as Hornady/Rem/Win 7.62AK. But…mondo props for taking a chance.

The free market, like nature, abhors a vacuum. The only question is if it’ll work.

I have cases of 7.62×39 in the Deep Sleep but it was never a primary or even secondary choice. Until someone circumvents Empty Shelves Joe’s import ban, I’ll just stick to my .223 stuff. This is a good example, though, of things to consider when picking a caliber. With virtually no domestic 7.62×39 production in any meaningful quantity, you’re pretty much relegated to imports. And relying on unreliable imports is a recipe for fail.

 

Mora

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It’s a not-a-secret in the preparedness community that the ‘Mora’ knives are, it seems, quite the bang-for-the-buck. They’re a no-frills sheath knife of simple materials, simple construction, and they apparently do knife-tasks pretty well.

I was curious to examine one and form my own opinion since a) I had never gotten to handle one and b) I’m always looking for an excuse to buy gear (which, really, is pretty much why this blog exists). So, I trundled off to Amazon and ordered a couple. Specifically, these::

I mean, for eighteen bucks, why not? As an aside, the Glock knives that I like for their affordability and ruggedness are twice the price.

So whaddya get for eighteen bucks? Well, I wouldn’t call it a survival knife, although like any edged instrument it can certainly be pressed into that service…whatever service that may be. It’s not something for breaking windows, prying open door jambs, hacking through doors, or that sort of thing like my BK&T stuff. But 99% of the time, my knife needs are…cut stuff, slice things, poke holes in things. And this knife looks like a good choice for that. I’d call it a ‘sportsmans knife’. It’s quite well suited for cleaning out fish and deer, campsite chores, and that sort of thing.

The internet will show people ‘testing’ knives by ‘batoning’ them…where they put a knife on the edge of a log and then hammer it down through the log to split it for kindling. I suppose that’s a test of durability or something. I think the best test is to simply use it and abuse if for a season or two and see what shakes loose. I’ll take it out this hunting season and see if I can disassmble Bambi with it. If it turns out to be a good piece of gear I’ll pick up a half dozen for keeping in storage. And if not…hey, its only eighteen bucks.

 

Those hideout,bugout,cabin, last ditch, barn guns

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Theres a false economy, of sorts, in preparedness regarding ‘backup’, ‘bugout’, or ‘last ditch’ gear and guns. For example, someone will have some cool Tier 1 guns and gear for ‘the boogaloo’, and then they’ll say that at their supersecret bugout location they’ve got a couple HiPoints, a few Mosin Nagants with cases of 7.62x54R, and a few Maverick 88 shotguns as their ‘backup’ in case they have to leave home with nothing but the clothes on their back and the gear in their vehicle.

Now, let’s examine that thought for a second. What is the circumstance under which you would be forced to use that ‘backup’ gear? Well, reasonably, that circumstance would be one where you needed your top tier gear but it was, for whatever reasons, unavailable. Makes sense, right? So here’s the likely scenario…[Big Event] occurs that you’ve been preparing for..but it happens when you’re away from your tricked out 1911, super razoo Wilson AR15, and you’re thunderous Benneli M4. But, ‘no problem’, you think. You were smart and cached some backup guns just in case. So, you trunlde off to HideyHole Mk.I and retrieve your Bersa, Mosin Nagant, and Stevens 311. Now you’re ready to take on the apocalypse!

See, here’s the problem – if you have hit the stage of life where you need your Tier 1 stuff and don’t have it, then your life is, by definition, at a point where your backups should be at least as good as your Tier 1. Or, put another way, if the stuff youre putting away ‘just in case’ isn’t good enough to be your everyday Tier 1 stuff, then when youre forced to use it you’re going into the apocalypse riding a Hyundai.

If a Mosin Nagant wasnt your first choice for the zombie apocalypse, why would you stash one away as your backup 2nd choice? Because, follow me on this, if you don’t have access to your first choice gun, then that 2nd choice gun becomes your new first choice gun. And a Mosin Nagant is no one’s first choice.

Me, mt ‘run out the door gun’ would be, in all likelihood, and AR and a Glock…just like 90% of survivalists and police across the country. And the stuff I stick away in a secondary location as backup? An AR and a Glock. And that remote, probably-never-need-it tertiary backup? AR and a Glock. Because when it’s some stormy, dark, wretched night and I’ve spent three hours driving back roads to the Beta Site hoping no one followed me, and I unpack the Pelican case under the floorboards, the level of comfort, reassurance, and confidence I’ll get from those guns will be several orders of magnitude greater than what it would be if that case contained an SMLE and a Makarov.

This isnt exclusive to guns, by the way. Your day to day “go to” flashlight might be a $175 SureFire or Streamlight, and then you tuck a $20 MagLite at your cabin. Or you buy a $100 Ka-bar or BK&T knife for your EDC bag and stash some Made In China crap in your ’emergency supplies’ that you keep at your uncles ranch.

It can be expensive. A reasonably reliable AR from a known manufactuer (not a ‘custom’ gun built in your kitchen from a ‘Vic’sPlumbing And AR” lower) is probably gonna be around $700. Figure that it’s a gun youre sticking away in the rafters in your shed, or hiding under a floorboard at Uncle Steve’s ranch, it can be kinda painful to just basically stick $700 in a hole and leave it there for possible perpetuity. But, if the day comes that you ever need it….you’re gonna be real glad you sucked it up and spent the money.