Run day

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Its Generator Run Day. It’s also Snowblower Run Day. Because those are two items that get used infrequently, I try to run them once a month so nothing gums up, goes bad, dried out, goes dead, or otherwise malfunctions.

Interestingly, it’s also Battery Inspection day in a another week. Same reason.

Yeah, it’s kind of a pain the butt to spend an hour checking batteries in a dozen devices and running a couple engines for no practical reason. BUT… what’s the alternative? The alternative is a power outage and me wandering around with dead flashlights, a generator that won’t start, radios that don’t work, and that sort of thing. And while I am the laziest person you will ever meet, I am in no hurry to self-demote myself to Sheeple by failing to inspect my gear periodically.

Not to tell you what to do, but…… those expensive bits of preparedness gear that you bought but never use? Take ’em out, wind ’em up, make sure they run. And do that every other month or so.

I spent about a grand on the EU2000 and its money well spent IF it works when I need it. Otherwise its just taking up space and wasting money. And I am too cheap to let a $1000 generator turn into a $200 you-fix-it garage sale special.

Its not just generators though….radios, flashlights, camp stoves, electric anything, etc, etc. At some point you realize that there are things that just cannot be put away and forgotten about…you have to exercise them, or at least inspect them, once in a while or you amy as well not have them at all because when you need them they ain’t gonna work.

So…take advantage of the nice June weather this weekend and go fire up the generator for a half hour.

Scope blues

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Hmmm. I’m trying to find a scope for the big Ruger .338 and I’m hitting walls.

I’m looking for a fixed-power scope somewhere between 15x and 20x, with as big an objective as I can find.

Closest thing I can find is the IOR Valdada 16x-56mm which is pretty much exactly what I’m looking for. Problem is, no one has it in stock. They also make a 16x-42mm but why would I get that when I could get a 56mm?

I prefer a fixed-power scope for the long range stuff because, to me, it’s one less thing to worry about. Yes, I’m sure the so-n-so brand of variable scopes are 100% repeatable and all that. But…I want fixed-power.  Having said that, I’ll get fifteen comments to this post – two will tell me where there is a scope in stock somewhere, the other 13 will be people trying to tell me to get a variable scope. No means no, dude. No variable.

I cant find any other major manufacturer who makes a scope in that 15-20x range, fixed power, with a large objective. I can find a few fixed 10x scopes, and plenty of fixed 25x, 40x, 50x scopes but thats too much magnification. Leupold, Nikokn, Zeiss, etc… nada.

So, it looks like I’m on a unicorn hunt until I find this 16x-56mm. I’m not married to that particular scope, its just that so far I can’t find anything similar.

I can see its gonna be a while before I get this .338 up and shooting.

 

ATFE Weirdness

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I’ve been selling guns on and off for almost thirty years. Just when I think there’s not much out there to surprise me, something comes along I havent seen before.

Today, I got the following email in my box:

ATF.FFL.Alert@usdoj.gov <ATF.FFL.Alert@usdoj.gov>
Jun 6 at 10:27 AM

This is an important message from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A suspicious individual attempted to purchase a “precision rifle” firearm that “could make a 1000 yard shot in order to shoot children, then adults” from an FFL in Broadwater county, MT. The suspect is described as a white male, mid to late 50’s, 5’10”, 180-200 lbs., brown/grey hair, brown eyes, wearing a long sleeve orange t-shirt (“Staff”/”Support”?) dark jeans, green hat. See photo below. The suspect was driving a dark sedan (possibly a Buick/Ford) late 1990’s-2000, Montana plate beginning with “4”. If you come into contact with this individual, please contact the Broadwater County Sheriff’s Office at (406) 266-3441 or ATF Helena at (406) 441-3140.

Ok, thats a bit odd. Here’s where it gets really weird. About five minutes after I got that email, my phone rings and I get a robocall from ATFE with the exact same message. I have never heard of ATFE sending out BOLO robocalls before. Also, I suspect that with all this effort being made by ATFE there is more to this story than meets the eye.

But…first time I ever got a robocall about something suspicious from the goons at F Troop.

Background.

Poll – Should I stay or should I go?

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Not a minor event, like a hurricane or power outage….but The Big Deal. You know, the scenario where the cities are in flames, the escaped convicts are running loose, the supermarkets are stripped bare, the communications are out, and it’s like every bad survivalist novel come to life. THAT sort of scenario. Stay where you are or head to the hills?

[yop_poll id=”19″]

Article – Outlaw Country

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A fascinating article about someone who, admittedly a ‘hard luck case’, moves to ‘survivalist country’ and winds up in the sort of situation that has no good resolution.

The takeaway here, as I see it, is that while we like the idea of a place out in the middle of nowhere, that middle of nowhere also appeals to another subset of people that we may not particularly want to share oxygen with. In short, the ‘wide open spaces’ and ‘lack of oversight’ that make a place appealing to you and I also appeal to some less savory types who might be your neighbors. And, sometimes, it can turn ugly in a big way.

Whatever terms he initially plugged into Google or Facebook or YouTube, he was soon frequenting websites promoting far-right conspiracy theories, watching videos predicting imminent social collapse, and reading how-to guides on survival preparedness. Over a few months in late 2012, the content of Taylor’s Facebook posts shifted from topics like trucks and music to videos from the hacktivist group Anonymous and posts about pandemic disease, the threat of GMO foods, the rise of Islam, and the Obama administration’s purported plans to confiscate everyone’s guns. Taylor devoured TV shows like Doomsday Preppers, Survivor Man, Live Free or Die, and Man, Woman, Wild. The notion of living off the land allowed him to imagine ways he might escape the wage economy and finally make something of himself.

RTWT.

Wayback Machine: Ruger/Smith ad flamewar

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I was talking to someone about Ruger revolvers today and it reminded me of one of the more direct in-your-face advertising tit-for-tats that Ruger and Smith and Wesson have back in the late 80’s/early90’s. Ruger had some print ads out stating that their guns were more stout that the Smiths and you could tell this immediately because the Rugers were thicker, beefier guns.

S&W didn’t take this laying down and came up with an awesome drop-the-mic without using Ruger by name, but those grips left no doubt who the ad was pointed at.

Smith goes on to call out the ‘bulkier’ competitor revolvers and their porous castings. Honestly, I hadn’t seen a flamewar between two bigtime gunmakers like this since then.

And, you can really tell how old this ad is by the fact that it’s two big name manufacturers defending revolvers.

Ah, those were the days.

Moar Ruger

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Annnnd…that happened:

A Ruger SP101 in..wait for it….9mm.

Why? Well, thats a case of numbers trumping tradition. I have a couple 5-shot snubbie Smith and Wessons in .38 Spl and they are, no two ways about it, fine guns. But the Ruger product, while just s tad bulkier, is substantially more rugged. And, when I buy guns for the long haul, ruggedness, durability, and survivability are what I’m after. Love or hate Ruger, the fact is they make extremely durable products.

I’d been wanting to up my snubbie game and was thinking an SP101 in .357 Mag would give me some nice options. But then I started reading and it appears, as I read it, that when you get into stubby barrels and cylinder gaps you wind up losing so much energy that a cartridge like the .38 Spl actually gives worse performance than the 9mm. Head on over to Ballistics By The Inch and you can look at the numbers.

What about .357? Surprisingly, not much difference when fired from the 2″ barrel. The 9mm and the .357 wind up being close enough, in some loadings, as to be virtually identical. However, .357 does it at the expense of significantly more muzzle flash and recoil.

So, since my handgun choices are predicated around 9mm and .38/.357 it seemed to make ballistic sense to go with the 9mm. As an aside, it appears I can also shoot .380 ACP as well using the moon clips. Why I would want to is a bit of a mystery but, hey, the option is there. What I would really love, love, love to see is a ‘convertible’ SP101…something where Ruger sells the gun and a spare cylinder so you can do .38/.357 and 9mm. They used to do it in their single actions, and even a few convertible .30/9mm autos.

Taurus was supposed to have the ‘Triad’ years ago that would shoot 9/38/357 interchangeably but it appears to have been vaporware. Colt experimented with the Survivor which eventually wound up as the Medusa…(or maybe it was the other way around)…and went nowhere. And, of course, Smith experimented with a 9mm (the Model 547) that did not need moon clips to eject. It was supposed to be the vanguard of a line of revolvers meant for rimless cartridges but, again, it never materialized. The relative small run of 547’s that did get made bring crazy prices now. Interesting to note that years later at least two gun companies, Ruger and S&W, brought out revolvers for the rimless 10mm cartridge. (And, come to think of it, while Im not 100% sure I think Taurus or Charter had a .40 snubbie at some point.)

Also, I believe Ruger was supposed to be coming out with a DA revolver that took .45Colt/ACP interchangeably. Not sure where they landed on that one.

Oh, and Charter also experimented with the ‘9mm Federal’ which was basically ‘9mm AutoRim’….a rimmed version of the 9mm cartridge, identical in all respects except for having a rim to facilitate use in revolvers. Why haven’t we heard more about it? Because it would fit and chamber in ancient .38 S&W break open revolvers and turn them into hand grenades when you pulled the trigger. (.38 S&W vs. 9mm = 14,500 psi vs 35,000 psi max pressure) [Similar to the problem with .375 Winchester being dropped into old .38-55 guns.]

The SP101 is also available in .327 Federal, which, ballistically speaking, is quite the cartridge. However, I own nothing in .327 Federal whereas I have a metric buttload of .38, .357, and 9mm handguns. So….no .327 Federal, thanks for asking.

This gun can shoot the 9mm cartridges without the moon clips if necessary, you just have to eject them with a stick. I’ll pick up a dozen more clips just for the sake of future availability. This is a gun that you really don’t anticipate reloading, although I’ll keep a spare clip handy just in case. Which reminds me, it is darn tough finding someone who makes a belt carrier of the non-competition style for 9mm clips.

Off to the range tomorrow to test fire and then go shopping for a holster.

 

Bag O’ Tricks – AM/FMradio

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Every so often I go through my Bag O’ Tricks and think about each item that’s there and whether it’s utility and likelihood of use warrants it’s inclusion.

One item that I keep that I never question is the classic palm sized little AM/FM battery radio. In an era where, literally, the entire collected knowledge of humanity is sitting in my pocket on an internet-enabled smartphone there is still a need for the simple ‘transistor radio’. (Although, to be fair, pocket radios have evolved tremendously.)

A reasonable question to ask would be “Zero, I have the internet in front of me, a smartphone in my pocket, there’s a TV in the breakroom, and my office plays XM radio all day. Why would I need a tinny little radio to hump around in my already overcrowded EDC bag?”

Electricity. Power goes out and your office loses its XM, internet, and TV. If its a widespread outage you lose your cellphone too. (Because although those cell towers are supposed to have back up generators and batteries.. well…they were meaning to get around to that preventative maintenance but got busy.) Or, if its a big enough emergency, the phone system will be way overloaded.

So what just happened? Why’d the power go out? How widespread? Is it the result of some bad actors? Is it just a squirrel immolating himself on a transformer? Don’t know, right? So…you reach into your bag, pull out your little AA-batt radio, and start roaming up and down the dial listening for news.

This isn’t theory, I’ve had that exact situation. I’ve been sitting at my desk, theres a snapping noise, and all the power in the building goes out. A small battery radio tells me a lot when I start dialing through the frequencies…if theyre all just static or quiet, then I know its a widespread outage. If they’re carrying on like nothing happened, then I know its pretty localized. Of course, in addition to a little AM/FM/SW radio I also carry the ICOM R6 (highly recommend) so I can keep tabs on the local cop/fire response.

The folks at CountyComm have an interesting little radio that seems ideal for the task. It’s not a $12.99 WalMart radio, but then again when the power is out and I’m wondering what all the sirens are about, I suspect I’ll be glad I spent the extra money on something like that.

And, of course, since this thing gets carried around in the Bag O’ Tricks it has to be compatible with the battery logistics for the other electronic devices (and spare batts) I carry. So…AA batts.

(l.) Icom R6…tiny enough for carrying around but has tons of features. (r.) Discontinued pocket AM/FM/SW AA-batt radio from CountyComm w/ earpiece. Always pack earphones…less battery usage using earphones. Both radios fir in the Pelican 1010 case.

Like the Icom R6, the AM/FM/SW radio sits in a little Pelican case to protect it from the rough and tumble life of being in a bag that gets thrown around a lot. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can just wrap a radio in some bubble wrap and cardboard and it’ll be okay. False economy there. No one hands out awards to the person who made it through a crisis using the cheapest gear… spend the money.

And, as always, periodically inspect your gear! Check those batteries!

 

 

 

Link – Police surplus….M249S?

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Before anyone gets their panties in a bunch and starts chest-beating about how police departments have no need for a semi-auto M249, it is worth noting that this is advertised as new condition and never been unboxed. Likely some department ordered these at the 11th hour to use up their budget so it wouldn’t get cut the following year.

But, if you have $7k to spend….although dealer on a new one is $7700 so its really only a 10% discount.

However, it is also worth pointing out that some departments actually use the M240…most notably, some Texicans.