I’m fond of saying that if you wind up stranded in your vehicle in any climatic extreme, cold winter or hot desert summer, that you are better off staying with the vehicle than you are trekking off, ill-equipped, to get help. From what I’ve read in the news, I’d say that nine out of ten times staying with the vehicle is the smart choice. I’ve posted plenty of news reports about people who wandered off ‘to get help’ and were never seen alive again. But the key to staying with the vehicle and surviving is to have a certain base level amount of gear to make such a stay more conducive to your survival.

In the land o’ preparedness, we often talk about bugout bags, get home bags, and a handful of other such things. No one really gets too into their ‘stranded in the vehicle’ kits. Maybe they aren’t sexy. The notion of the rugged individualist donning his bulging backpack and setting off to find help is far more exciting than that same rugged individualist wrapping himself up in a blanket, reclining his seat, and reading a copy of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ while waiting for the Highway Patrol to find him.

Since it’s the winter season and this sort of topic is the low hanging fruit of the survival blogging world, I figured I’d go on a bit about what I usually tote around in the winter. Sure, there’s always the usual winter get-me-unstuck gear like a shovel (or two), traction sand, etc. but for actually staying in the vehicle and waiting for help gear…well, here you go:

The container in question is a Pelican 1650. It’s large enough to hold a complete military sleep system and a buncha other gear. The problem with listing the contents of a kit of any kind is that invariably someone will chime in with ‘what about…’ or ‘do you really need….’. So, let’s forestall that by saying that this is an incomplete list of whats in there: sleep system, food ration bars, water packets, complete change of clothes vacuum sealed, candle lantern and accessories, toilet paper, parachute and hand flares, flashlights, spare batteries, knife, pen and paper, a couple thick paperbacks, poncho, water filter, portable radio (takes same batts as flashlight), first aid kit, entrenching tool, backpack, Esbit stove and tabs, canteen and cup, and a few other niceties.

The Pelican case keeps everything protected, tidy, and in one place. I can simply roll it out to the vehicle, toss it in the back, and we’re good to go. The case is rugged, waterproof, crushproof, and because of this I can either leave it in the vehicle or outside the vehicle exposed to the elements and the contents will remain safe and dry. But…suspenders and a belt: any piece of critical gear (warm clothing, electronics, etc.) gets vacuum sealed anyway as an extra layer of weatherproofing. (And this is why having a vacuum sealer is a smart idea even if you never plan on using it to put away bulk pork chops you bought at CostCo.)

Why the backpack? Because, if for some reason you do have to leave the vehicle it would be nice to take as much of that gear with you as possible. When you read about the people who left the vehicle and died, invariably the cause of death was one of two things: hypothermia or dehydration. Being able to take your gear with you lowers that risk factor tremendously.

The logistically-minded of you will think “Hmmm…why not just keep everything in the backpack and that way you’re ready for anything”. Great idea, but unfortunately it wont fit in the Pelican case loaded up, and I very much want the convenience and protection of my gear that is afforded by using the case.

Keep in mind, also, that the things in this case are in addition to the usual stuff-kept-in-the-vehicle…things like road flares, water, flashlight, USB charger, batteries, first aid kit, pioneer tools, etc. (And, yes, there’s a few redundancies.)

In a perfect world, I’d be sitting by the side of the road, after the blizzard has shut down the interstate, tucked safely far enough off the side to avoid crash trajectories from soccer moms in their four-wheel-drive SUVs, sitting in my sleeping bag, reading a book, listening to the radio, awaiting notice that the roads have re-opened and are safe to travel. Worst case, I pull further off the road, fold down the seats, roll out the sleeping bag, and spend a quiet night asleep or playing games on my phone.

I’ll pull some of the stuff outta the case and show you what I carry around in the winter. Your mileage may vary, of course, but it should be entertaining nonetheless.

I was trotting over to some preparedness forum and someone there asked the question “Will this forum slow down now that Trump is elected president?”. The implication, it seemed, was that because Trump won the election we’re all able to slide back to Defcon 4 (or D5 if you’re feeling particularly confident). Where is this coming from? Yes, Hillary didn’t win so the certain doom was avoided, but that doesn’t mean we’re necessarily better off. Let me use an analogy..

You’re walking down the street late at night and a mugger holds you up at gunpoint. As he’s pointing the gun at you and you’re fishing around for your wallet someone steps up behind the mugger and hits him over the head. Now, can you relax and feel that everything is going to be okay? No, of course not…you have no idea if that guy is going to try and mug you as well or if he’s just a good samaritan. All you know is that the immediate threat is gone. Same thing with the election.

I spent far more money than I wanted to in the leadup to the election. But I regret nothing. When the next election rolls around I’ll be buying because I want to, not because I have to.

So, while we’re on the topic, what’s my shopping list for 2017 look like? Well, in terms of thundertoys I’m wanting a few odds n ends. Most notable:

• Mossberg 930 SPX
• Ruger Redhawk 8-shot .357
• Ruger GP-100 .44 Spl. (this makes no tactical sense at all but I have always been a fan of the cartridge.)
• Ruger Precision Rifle in .338 Lapua (Yeah, it’s not even a real thing but I expect Ruger to come out with a magnum length version of the PR very soon.)
• Angstadt Arms PDW-style AR in 9mm for Glock mags
• Ammo

One thing about preparedness, man….there is never a shortage of things to spend money on.

True fact: if you look at the numbers, in terms of victory/losses, during the Revolutionary War you see that Washington only decisively won a few battles. All the rest were either losses or a draw. Washington realized that beating the British in a stand-up fight was not in the cards, so he avoided engagements that he knew would wipe out his army. How is that a recipe for victory? Washington didn’t have to win…he just had to not lose. As long as he still had an army the British would have to keep fighting. And all Washington had to do was ‘prolong the war’ until the British finally got tired of it. It’s the now-standard way of smaller and inferior forces. The technique was best exemplified in Vietnam – the North didn’t have to win…they just had to drag things out long enough that we got sick of the whole thing and quit.

It’s a good thing to remember that, despite it sounding like a cliche, sometimes surviving is a victory. And ‘he who fights and runs away’ really does live to fight another day. So, next time you’re feeling up against the wall try to remember that you don’t necessarily have to win, you just have to survive.

But..uhm….post some really good perimeter sentries on Christmas Eve just in case.

I don’t celebrate Christmas these days, although since there’s at least three or four denominational gift-giving holidays this month I do give a small gift or card to a few close friends. It’s my way of fitting in among the humans.

Anyway, for those of you celebrating Chrismahanakwanzakah (or Festivus) this month, have a happy. I hope Hanukah Harry, Voodoo Man, Santa Claus, or whomever, brings you cool preparedness themed gifts.

Once in a blue moon, people ask me how I vote and what the hot-button issues are for me. People assume I’m a single-issue voter..I vote for people based on how they stand on my gun ownership. This is true to a degree, but not in the way most people think. Yes, I am a single-issue voter and the issue is guns. But not because I want to keep unfettered access to guns, but because many times the candidate who sees eye-to-eye with me on guns will probably (but not always) be on the same page as me on a lot of the other issues. So, by and large, if I see a candidate is feeling the same way about guns as I do, then I can be reasonably confident he’ll feel the same as me on many other important topics as well.

It’s hard for me to articulate that principle and explain it to people. Fortunately, someone else already has. L. Neil Smith, author of some fame and staunch ‘big L’ Libertarian has this interesting litmus test that sums it up.

Again, I’ve yet to find a candidate that is 100% on the issues same as me, but often how they stand on the gun issue tells me how they’ll stand on several other issues that are important to me.

I try to avoid potential problems when I can. I try to use factory mags whenever possible.However, in some cases, a non-factory or non-OEM mag can work just as well. A good example would be contract AR-15 GI mags. By and large, every Okay magazine is…well, okay. On the other hand, some non-facotry mags are outrageous failures – like USA Brand magazines. When the election was a-brewing, and I was planning on President Hillary, it seemed prudent to stock up on more happysticks. Now, Glock mags were about $30, and the MagPuls, though cheaper, were not available yet. I wanted to stock up on some happysticks for speculative purposes and I wanted ’em cheap(ish).

Cruising over at Tams blog, I noticed the ETS magazines. Now, I don’t normally mess with non-factory mags for pistols…but…these aren’t for me. These are strictly for tucking away for resale after the next ban. So, at a sale price of about $12.95 ea. (and after asking Tam about her opinion on them) I went ahead and bought ‘a bunch’. And this is where we segue….

Customer service, man. Those geeks at Palmetto State Armory took their sweet time. I ordered these things on the 28th of November, they didn’t even ship ’em until December 5th, and the bloody things didn’t even get here until the 13th. Annoying.

Back to topic……

I really prefer metal feed lips in magazines. The reason is that I feel that if I leave a magazine loaded for a length of time, the constant pressure against the non-metal-reinforced feedlips will eventually splay them out a bit and cause problems. Glock has metal liners in their mags and this is the main reason that all of my kept-loaded-and-waiting magazines are Glock factory mags. However, Magpul’s mags seem pretty dang good even without the metal liner. But Magpul uses some pretty solid plastic..it doesn’t have as much give as other plastic mags. These ETS mags, which are transparent..a fun novelty, seem to be of a thinner, less rigid plastic. This has me curious about the feed lips. But…not really my problem since these are for Deep Sleep and eventual resale. I suppose f I were going to use them in practice or competition, where I would load them at the range, shoot em off, and then leave them unloaded in storage, it wouldnt make a difference.

But…this is all speculation. For all I know these things will store loaded just fine. I’ll pull a couple out, load em up, and let ’em sit for a few weeks or months and then mike ’em out against their unloaded brethren.

A few post sback I was talking about how with winter here it was time to swap out the gear that’s kept in the vehicle. A couple people asked how you keep water from freezing in the winter. Short answer: you don’t. What you do is figure out a way around the problem.

Get a 5-gallon jerrycan full of water and let it freeze. Now get a cup of water and let it freeze. Put both frozen containers of water side by side in a warm room and wait. Which one is going to completely thaw first? The cup of water, right?  The smaller the size of the frozen mass of water, the faster it will thaw. To that end, I store those little 4-oz. “lifeboat rations” of drinking water in the vehicle during the winter. They’re about the size, shape, and thickness of a Pop-Tart. As a result, they thaw quickly if you just sit on them or hold them between your hands for any length of time. And, yes, four ounces of water isn’t much..that’s why you pack a couple dozen in your emergency box. What would you normally carry…two gallons? Thas 256 ounces. To get the same effect, you’d need 64 pouches.

I usually just grab mine off eBay or Amazon for convenience’s sake but you can sometimes get better deals at gun shows. If you really want to be a clever lad, you’d buy a case of pocket warmers and a couple insulative foil bags. Throw the heaters in the bag with a couple pouches of water and you can keep a steady rotation of thawed water available during whatever roadside mishap you wind up in.

The pouches are just as good for the summer, but I usually just go with 20 oz. plastic bottles during the warmer weather.