It’s not only what you wear, but how you wear it

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10/22 Butler Creek mags, $110 f a dozen, inc. shipping.
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Minding my own business and grabbing a Krispy Kreme before my computer modelling final. In front of me is a guy with a small daypack-type backpack. The pack is ‘coyote’ (or what we used to call brown) and he has his jacket rolled up and secured to the bottom of the bag with two straps. Now, see, this is unusual because I’ve noticed most people don’t do that..they just ball up their fleece and shove it in the bag or through a strap. Interesting. So I look closer. He’s wearing solid hiking-type boots, those hiking pants that are lightweight and zipoff at the knees (subdued color), a heavy leather belt that is absolutely a gunbelt, and a similarly ‘tactical’ 5.11 type shirt. On the straps of his pack are some small pouches and I can see a folding knife and a multitool. Hmm. Add it all up and you get someone who knows their gear and the gunbelt says they might be on the same page as me.

He’s talking to the clerk at the counter and he mentions that he’s a math teacher. There’s my in.

“You’re teaching math at the University?”
“Yeah, summer session.”
“Ah, I  have to take statistics this summer. Are you teaching it?”
“No, but I know the guy who is…”

And we go on to have some friendly banter. I decide to test my theory. “Yeah, summer school sucks. I was hoping to get to spend some time this summer catching up on my pistol shooting.”
“Yeah, me too. I just did my first three-gun match last week.”

Aha!

So we chatted some more for a while, and I’m now about 80% sure this guy is on the same page as me. I’ll have to see if I wind up taking any courses that he’s teaching. Could be useful.

But…that’s how you meet like-minded individuals. You encounter them organically. It just happens. Sure, he could have just been some guy back from the sandbox who likes gear, or he could just be a guy who works at Cabela’s and gets a deal on clothing, but if it dresses like a survivalist, has the gear collection of a survivalist, and has the EDC of a survivalist…well…you know the rest.

Return of the 10/22 mags

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As I mentioned earlier, they’re back.

20170510_141842-1The Butler Creek Hot Lips 25-rd, smoke colored, 10/22 magazines from January’s big to do have returned. I have 24 boxes sitting here packed up and ready to go. Each box contains 12 magazines, packed loose (meaning no packaging. If they were still in their packaging I wouldnt be able to fit them 12 to a Flat Rate Box).

Price is $110 for 12 brand new mags, including shipping. Email me and I’ll email you back a link you can pay through email. When they ship you’ll get a tracking number so you can follow along. Email me and say “Dude! Me want mags!”

Link – Know Thy Enemy (During the Collapse)

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As I’ve mentioned before, the Mormon theory behind why they let non-LDS use their food storage facilities is something along the lines of being a good neighbor, god would want us to, etc, etc. But there’s the equally plausible reason that if the neighbors have food and supplies they won’t come to your demanding yours and you won’t have to do something ugly.

While stumbling around the blogosphere, I found this:

This guy is your enemy.   (During the Collapse, that is.)

He doesn’t seem like it; in fact, he looks kind of wimpy.  He’s not a jack-booted Homeland Security trooper breaking down your door to take your guns, so he can’t be a threat, right?

Wrong.  Dead wrong.  He’s a bigger threat to most of you than the government.

RTWT. I’m not quite ready to believe that in a crisis everyone is my enemy. However, I am not naive enough to believe everyone is my friend.By and large, my neighbors just figure I’m that cranky old man down the street…like Clint Eastwood in ‘Gran Torino’. I’m sure they know I’ve got a few guns in the house, but this is Montana…it’s the rare household that doesn’t. However they have no idea about the food, fuel, meds, communications, batteries, etc.

My policy with the neighbors is basically this: be friendly, but don’t be their friends. I’ll be the neighbor who shovels your sidewalk when I’m shovelling my own, help you carry something heavy from your car, let you borrow the lawnmower, let your family park in my space when they visit for Thanksgiving, etc, etc….but you’ll never see the inside of my house, know what my views are, or anything else that should remain private. If someone asked my neighbors about me they could say I’m helpful, fairly polite and considerate, and thats it. They couldn’t tell you who I voted for, where I work, what food I like, or anything beyond what you learn waving at someone when you pass them on the sidewalk.

If a crisis comes along, my neighbors have no reason to think that my situation will be any different than theirs. And from a security perspective, that’s exactly how I want it.

Anyway, it’s an interesting post in an interesting blog and it’s worth a read, IMO.

Link – Great-grandmother survives 5 days stranded in mountains with her cat

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AKRON, Colo. — An 85-year-old Colorado great-grandmother is safe at home after she was stranded for five days in her car in the mountains.

Ruby Stein was in Gypsum visiting family last week and she and her cat, Nikki, were just starting the 200-mile trip back to her home in Akron.

“I’d been stuck at Eisenhower tunnel before, and I thought, ‘I want to get out of here before that snow comes in.’ Well, I took a wrong turn,” said Stein.

Instead of going to I-70, she accidentally drove deep into a rural mountainous area, getting her 2007 Nissan Sentra stuck at the end of a muddy dirt road.

Her cell phone didn’t have a signal, and by Wednesday her car battery had died, drained by the lights she kept flashing to bring help.

But Ruby says she didn’t panic.

Stayed with the car and survived. She accidentally had food and ‘blanket’ materials with her. Even without a dedicated survival kit she had one thing that every person who is going to survive a disaster must have: presence of mind.

“I keep myself very calm, which surprised me. Of course, if you raise 5 kids, you know,” she said with a smile. “What will be, will be. You just got to accept it.”

That resourcefulness helped her survive, as she fashioned a makeshift blanket from clothes her granddaughter had given her for donations.

She also melted snow in a can on her dashboard during the day, and she rationed sweet rolls and Rice Krispie treats to two bites a day, wondering if she would have to eat her cat’s food to keep from starving.

It is hoped that she will have learned a lesson and think twice about deviating from her planned route and will have a better stash of food/water and blankets in her car. Spring is kinda sorta here in the mountains, although there’s still plenty of snow higher up….but you can still get stuck pretty easily if you wander too far off the asphalt and think “I’ve got all-wheel-drive…this thing can go anywhere.”

Moral of the story: Stay with the vehicle. Have gear.

Fortune favors the cheap

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Kinda been having a hankering for meatloaf this week. Thing is, have you seen the prices on ground beef these days? Outrageous. But, I figured I’d hit the remaindered meat bin at my local Albertsons. And, to my surprise, there was this:
20170430_192730Now, let’s do some math. Those are 3# rolls of ground beef. They are on sale at $5.99 per ‘log’. Let’s not split hairs and call it $2/#. They are marked down to 30% off since they need to get it our before it hits expiration. Hmm… lets see how many there are…1..2…3…..10. So thats 10 x 3# @ $2/#, or, another way, it’s 30# of ground beef for $60. That’s a pretty good deal. But….I bet they’d like to get rif of all of it. I wander to the guy in the butchers apron cleaning the meat case.

“Howdy. Is the meat department manager around?”
“No, he goes home at 4pm. Can I help you?”
“Can you point me at someone who has the authority to change prices?”
“I can do it if it’s on something that we already have marked down and today is the expiration date.”

20170430_194556

Achievement unlocked…..

“Excellent. Let’s talk money. If you’ll mark these down to 50% off, I’ll take all of them.”
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
“I can call the manager at home.”
“Awesome. I’ll wait.”

And thats how you get this:
20170430_193104And to put that in perspective, thats 30# of ground beef at $0.998/#. That’s right, less than a buck a pound for dead cow flesh.

How does this relate to preparedness? Well, for starters, my deep freeze now has another 30# of meat in it at dang near Carter-era prices. With ground beef hanging in there around $3.99/# that frees up $90 to go towards other foodstuffs.  These sorts of deals are out there, man. You just gotta look and you can’t be embarassed to ask the manager (or whomever has the authority) if they’re willing to make a deal if you take a big enough amount.

It’s a rare thing for me to feel pride in anything I do, but I am a wee bit satisfied with myself on this one.

Taurus AR-15

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(Miami, FL) –Taurus USA announces their new Taurus® T4SA at the 146th annual NRA Meetings in Atlanta, Georgia. Taurus USA, a leading manufacturer of innovative design in the firearms industry, is reinforcing the company’s commitment to American-made quality and ingenuity. The Taurus T4SA is a lightweight gas-impingement 5.56mm semi-automatic carbine that boasts superior reliability and durability.

Hmm…this can open up a deliciously diabolical philosophical debate: it’s the end of the world and you can only grab one of two guns – either a HiPoint 9mm carbine or the Taurus AR.

I can literally jump into my email and order, right this moment, at least three different American-made AR’s for less than $600 ea. Even when you drift into MSRP country, you can still get a decent AR for less than $750. Taurus is going to have to price their product significantly below that if they want to capture any share of the AR market, IMO.

And, according to this source, the MSRP is $1200. Madness.

My experience with Taurus has been almost nil. Taurus is, to me, one of those guns you buy only if you literally have no other option. (Or you want a disposable gun to leave someplace where it might get lost/stolen/destroyed.) I had a buddy with one of their Beretta 92 clones and it was a decent enough gun, but with trade in Berettas going for around $350 these days why bother South American quality control and non-standard magazines?

Oh, thats right…I’m one of those ‘yuppie survivalists’  who can’t grasp the real issues the way ‘us working men’ do. Hey, if ‘yuppie’ means I’m willing to make the sacrifices to buy quality gear the first time around, so be it. There’s a solution to not being able to afford ‘yuppie survivalist’ gear – either earn more money or spend less money elsewhere.

Thus far I haven’t seen any of these Taurus AR’s floating around, and my vendors don’t show them at the moment, but it will be interesting to see how they are received. The AR market is already pretty saturated, and unless you’re bringing something new to the table it is going to be hard, I would think, to draw any appreciable market share unless you have a radically different pricing schedule.

The AR market is such right now that you can buy two brand-name AR carbines for what you’d pay for one of those Taurii at MSRP. The only reason to spend more than a grand on an AR these days is if it has some really sweet options on it…match triggers, special furniture, high-end scope and mount, etc, etc. Right now, though, you can get rack-grade M4geries all day long for less money than I’ve seen them go for in a long time.

Remington gets into the non-NFA shotgun game

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Remington Arms is bringing its newest firearm — the pistol grip 870 Tac-14 — out to meet the public for the first time this week.

While visiting Remington’s Huntsville, Alabama factory on Wednesday, Senior Product Manager Daniel Cox gave Guns.com a peek at the new gun, set to be unveiled at the National Rifle Association’s Annual Meeting in Atlanta on Friday.

At 26.25 inches overall and with a Raptor Shockwave pistol grip, the 12-gauge’s 14-inch cylinder bore barrel is not a National Firearms Act regulated item as it is a “firearm” and not an SBS or AOW, thus no tax stamp is required under federal law, though state and local laws may apply.

While I’m still not 100% sure there’s a niche in a person’s personal armory to be filled by this thing (other than ‘fun gun’), I’ll probably still get one or two anyway. I like the idea of tweaking ATFE’s nose by following the letter of the law.

I am still waiting for my vendors to get the Mossberg Shockwave in stock so I can get one to play with. As I said, questionable utility but looks like a fun gun to play with.

Link – What I Learned Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food

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Interesting series of posts.

My goal was simple: to see what it would be like to live off a basic food storage kit for 30 days. I had no ulterior motives; I just wanted to see if I could eat what was in the box for 30 days. Sometimes I like to experience things or challenge myself in ways some people might think is odd. To me, I just see it as a fun experiment. Might be a bored housewife thing. Might be a quirk in my personality. Either way, I was actually oddly excited to try this. I was curious about so much.

Not all 30-day kits are the same, though. The Wise brand kits turn up in Costco and a few other places, and I’ve not really heard anyone say too many nice things about them. Mountain House makes a few different kits and most people are have neutral/good comments about them. Augason Farms makes a 30-day kit that I recommend as an entry-level way to try a variety of their products. It’s a broad selection of small cans (not pouches) with about 20 different items. I catch these on sale every once in a while and they make outstanding gifts.

Mountain House offers a few variations on this theme…2-, 3-, 4-, 5, and 14-day kits of pouches. I’ve sold the 3-day kits before and they’re an attractive and convenient option. (By the by –$50 Rebate when you buy the 14-Day Emergency Food Supply + Free Shipping!

All these kits, and this is touched on in the link at the begining of this post, are best when you use them to supplement or augment an existing stockpile of food. Rice, pasta, grain, whatever….these kits help stretch things out and prevent appetite fatigue.

In my opinion, where these kits really shine is in portability. If you have just got to go, go, go and it’s a matter of taking whatever you can grab and throw in the back of the truck in five minutes, thats where these things shine.

Anyway, I’ve seen a few people online do similar types of ‘dietary challenges’ and I thought it would be interesting to bring it to everyones attention.