Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Man, I’ve been busy lately. It’s just non-stop work, work, work lately. These sorts of episodes of high-demand don’t happen very often (thankfully) but when they do you have to strike while the iron is hot. So..this is why I haven’t been around much lately. however, that doesnt mean that there arent things going on…….

I picked up one of these the other day to go along with the marker panel from the same outfit. It’s made of glass (albeit thick glass) so it may not be as unbreakable as other signal mirrors out there but its hard to beat the reflectivity of a good glass mirror. I’d been shopping around for a signal mirror to put in my little survival kit for when Im hunting/fishing and I just wasnt finding anything that I really thought was any good. I picked up a few of the non-glass mirrors from countycomm and while they would probably do the job, I have a hard time finding anything thats as good as old-fashioned breakable glass.

I need to do some empirical research and see just how visible these mirror flashes are at a distance. next time the wife takes the dog for a run up the nearby mountain I’ll have her call me from the top and tell me if she can spot the flashes from up there. I would imagine reflected sunlight must be rather highly visible at range since the military used to use heliographs for communications.

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

The usual article about a shelter manufacturer with comments about the customer demographic being ‘scared and nervous’ people.

I take issue with the term ‘paranoia’ being tossed about. Being worried about civil disorder or WWIII isn’t any more paranoid than being worried about a house fire or a car accident. It’s simply another form of insurance against those things.

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

For Chrismahanakwanzakah I received, among other things, a nice down jacket. I’d been wanting something that I could compress down to about the size of a Foster’s can and tuck away in my bag. I was up at REI looking to buy some sort of stuff sack for it and stumbled into a closeout sale. I really wasnt looking for anything but this flashlight caught my eye. (I’m a sucker on a deal for a good flashlight.) It’s the Fenix E11LED flashlight. (Fenix 105 Lumens Flashlight) What jumped out at me was that it was a good output (100 lumens), had the usual tailcap switch, had two brightness levels and..this was the clincher….ran on a single AA batt.

Now, I love my SureFire lights. While I understand that performance does not come cheap, there are times I don’t need a $100 flashlight that uses $4 batteries…..like when I’m picking up Nuke waste on our midnight walks. The Fenix E11 was on sale for $19.95 so I grabbed one. I figured it would be a good ‘disposable’ flashlight and if I liked it I would get a few more to salt away in my various packs and bags.

Loaded it up with a new Duracell AA and was mightily impressed. I like this little flashlight. It throws a somewhat unfocussed beam thats good for about 50′, is very compact, has a lanyard attachment, and uses cheap readily available AA batts. I’m liking this light a lot.

Biggest drawback is that it is, dammit, Made In China. Of course, thats also why it was $20 and not $120. I’m gonna have to go get a few more, a package of lithium AA batts, and these will be the flashlights I leave in the truck and shop kits. It’s not something that will replace my primary lights, which are SureFire and MagLite, but for those times when I want a light that I dont care if it gets lost or damaged this would be an excellent choice.

On Amazon they go for about 1/3 more than what I paid but you’d save that after a few battery changes where you weren’t paying for expensive CR123 batts. So far, Im very, very pleased with this light.

To my surprise and delight, one of these (Streamlight 73001 Nano Light Miniature Keychain LED Flashlight, Black) showed up in my mailbox a week ago…a gift from a thoughtful reader. (….who now gets a shout-out and sincere thank you from yours truly.) Normally, I like the little Photon microlights for keychain/zipperpull lights. But…I’m mightily impressed with this little Streamlight. The major negative review about it is that the twist-to-turn-on/off head can twist a little too easily and come on in your pocket. This wasnt a big deal for me since I planned on using it as a zipperpull, but buried in the reviews on Amazon was a comment from a fella telling how he removed the head, wrapped a little teflon tape around the threads, put the head back on and the problem of the too-easy-to-twist was solved.

This is an excellent light for finding your keys/keyhole in the dark, looking for stuff in your truck at night, etc, etc. Best part is that the darn thing is always with you if you have it hooked to your zipper. The wife an I were unloading the truck in the dark and I let her use it…she was so impressed with it she got on her computer and ordered up five more for her other coats and jackets. She doesn’t get excited easily about preparedness toys so this must be a really good piece of gear. Use itty bitty coin batteries but at about $7 per light, I’m rating these as ‘disposable’ although if you wanna buy a buncha those little batteries you can certainly replace then. Battery life is said to be about eight hours…that’s a long time whe you think about the intermittent use of a product like this.

Anyway, two really cool, really handy lights that I thought I’d bring to your attention.

(Did I mention the E11 takes a single AA batt? Thats my favorite thing about it!)

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Went to the Kalispell gun show today. I saw no AR on dealers tables for less than $2k. That doesn’t mean any of them were selling at that price, as evidenced by the fact that the ARs were still there…but thats what they were asking. No AK’s for less than $1k. And even SKS rifles were up in the stratosphere. There was one lone PTR-91 for $2100. Cheapest AR mags were about $30 ea. I saw absolutely nothing I would want to spend money on.

Cool part was that I found a little gun/preparedness shop on my way back. Last time I was in Kalispell, there was a new gun shop being set up. That was six months ago so I figured I’d go see what it was like. To my delight, it was a small gun shop with a large emphasis on preparedness…they had #10 cans from MountainHouse, AlpineAire, etc, first aid supplies, Gamma Seal lids, buckets, books, etc, etc, etc. Prices were good on some stuff, not so good on others. The Mountain House cans were at a pretty good price, though. If youre up in that neck of the woods, it’s Big Bear Firepower 115 Main St., Kalispell.

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

I have a small quantity of the masks mentioned in the previous post to sell. Email me for details. zero@commanderzero.com

Well that didnt take long. Watch this space if more become available. (I’ll also mention it in a post somewhere if/when they become available again.)

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

I get the most interesting stuff in the mail. Todays trip to the post office landed me this:

Normally an unsolicited package like this makes me think I should a) cut the blue wire! and b) wonder if there’s a buncha guys with earpieces and badges standing in the parking lot waiting to see who walks out the door with the obvious-looking package. But..I had a bit of a heads-up about this and although I was not informed of the contents, I was told to expect it. Yes, I am amassing a fabulous collection of Hardigg products. My house is starting to look like their showroom. But, as cool as the box is (and it was pretty cool..what with “PROPERTY US GOVERNMENT” stamped on it and all) I’m deadly curious to see whats inside. Lets undo the annyoing wire twisted through the locks and see what we have:

Ahh, yummy. SEA-brand first-responder emergency masks, filters, pre-filters, and voiceboxes. Just the thing for when the SWAT team thinks a couple tear-gas rounds will send you running out the door crying. Actually, as an aside, the masks used by our local department are surplus US military masks from the 80′s and 90′s..even a few of the old Porky Pig style. Tragic, but heartwarming to know I’m outgearing the SWAT team on this one. Well, this one and several other levels…but I digress……..

Where’d these come from? My brother picked up a couple gaylords of these things and apparently has some left. (Yes, I used the words ‘fabulous’ and ‘gaylord’ together in one post. Big deal.) The story behind these masks is kind of interesting and while I can’t say how true it is, I can tell you what I heard.

DHS sent the various NYC agencies a couple zillion of these things. They came in a hard plastic case with mask, prefilter, voicebox and a filter that was vacuum-sealed in foil. The powers that be figured everyone would carry one of these in their rig and in an emergency they’d take the filter out of its vacuum-sealed pouch, thread it onto the mask, put on the mask and go fight evil. The unions said “Uhm…that would take about thirty seconds to unwrap the filter and put it on the the mask. We want the filter to be on the mask at all times.” Problem was, once the filter was out of its vacuum-sealed foil pouch, it was rated for only a few months and then would need to be replaced. Kept in the foil pouch, it was good for years. NYC was faced with having to replace zillions of filters every year if they did it that way. So…no one got any of them and they were surplussed out.

These things were issued during a time when there was no real uniform standard on mask/filters for these sorts of things. You know how body armour basically uses the NIJ criteria for it’s metrics? Well, there was not such thing for masks/filters at the time. They made one up after the fact and these things didn’t quite meet the new standard…but thats okay because even then they still do exactly what you and I would want…”Used against particles, dust, smoke, fume, bacteria, viruses, biological warfare agents, and a wide range of organic, inorganic and acid gases and ammonia. Examples: Sarin, nerve gas, mustard gas, cyanogen, phosgene, radioactive dust, toxic particles, aerosols, tear gas, bacteria, viruses, anthrax, smallpox etc. — Also provides protection against industrial gases such as ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, acid gases, chlorine, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen chloride and many more.”

I had a few of these socked away because, well, what kinda survivalist doesn’t have creepy-scary stuff like this? Now, is something like this really necessary? Good grief, I hope not. I hope that I never need something like this. But…it’s an interesting world we’re living in (and descending into). Besides, while Montana doesn’t exactly have much of a history of being a favored target of terrorists, (With one notable exception.) we do travel to larger metropolitan centers every so often.

Anyway, a cool package in the mail, another Hardigg case for the collection, and fodder for a blog post….seems like a good day so far. (Knock on wood.)

ETA: Some folks were wanting to know if I had plans to sell any of these. I wasn’t planning to but let me check and see if maybe there are more to be had. Gimme a couple days.