Tag Archives: gear

Best birthday ever

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

I must say, this year’s birthday was a bountiful one. I am exceptionally pleased that I managed to parlay the birthday gifties so that I finally ‘finished’ my Uzi.

Three things I wanted for the Uzi. I mean, other than a third choice on the selector.

  • Rails
  • Light
  • Vertical foregrip

For a gun design thats been around fifty years, there is an absolute dearth of Uzi rail systems out there. Oh, you can buy the usual handguards that someone then bolted a section of rail onto…thats easy to find. And, for most situations, that’s really about all you need. But I wanted to run a light and a VFG. So…first things first. Let’s get some rails. I wound up with this: Mako Tactical Rail System for Uzi. It’s nice enough…fits, seems to do the trick…but not worth more than $100 in my opinion. Nonetheless, if you’re going to need more than one section of rail you don’t have too many choices in Uzi rail systems.

So,,,now we’ve got rails. Lets throw a VFG on. I went with the Magpul MOE RVG Grip, Black …mostly because it was fairly inexpensive while being of good quality. Once I had the rail system mounted and the VFG attached it was a very convenient package to handle. More importantly, I could grip the VFG with my left hand and remove my right hand from the pistol grip and still keep control of the gun. Also, it seemed a more natural presentation of the gun than with the palm flat underneath the regular handguard.

So, that left the tactical light..which is where it gets interesting. I tried pulling the old Streamlight M3 off my Glock and putting it on the Uzi. A little snug on the rail, but not bad. Trouble is, its an old model..incandescent/Xenon. I’m trying to switch over to LED lights for the increased durability and battery run-time. So, I pulled the Scout light off the AR and tried it. Very nice! And it was right around that point that a buddy of mine who was in town visiting came by and gifted me with a truly awesome weapon light… a Streamlight 69230 TLR-2s Rail Mounted Strobing Tactical Light with Laser Sight and Rail Locating Keys that we had looked at the previous day at a local gun shop. After we had split up for the day he went back and picked it up for me as a birthday gift. How awesome was that? Well, can’t let an awesome piece of gear like that go to waste…so onto the Uzi it went. Sweet Crom, I may have created the ultimate home defense gun. The light is bright and intense, the strobe effect is suitably disorienting to the target and the cute little red dot on the target conveys a nice sense confidence when you point it down a darkened hallway at that shadowy figure that wasnt supposed to be there. I was vacillating about whether to SBR this thing and this has convinced me that I absolutely need to.

Speaking of birthdays, the vast portion of gifties this year wound up being, naturally enough, preparedness-related….so I got plenty of fodder for some product reviews which will be forthcoming over the next couple weeks. Some really cool stuff. Man, I wish birthdays came more than once a year.

Gun show, stove link, fuel rotation, gift arrival

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

So the great Missoula Gun Show came and went. I played it pretty cheaply, all things considered. And while I bought a few small goodies for myself I did manage to keep from buying the really big tickets I wanted. I love going to gun shows and it’s always a pleasure to just wander the aisles..

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Someone sent me this link about some of the new portable woodburner stoves on the market these days. I’d heard about the Solo stove and have been curious to try one….but, this other stove, Firebox, seems like a real gem, other than it’s weight. Usually when Im just out for the day, I take a little Esbit stove. But for being out in the boonies a bit longer it would be nice to be able to just burn the abundant twigs and other burnable detritus that litters the woods. What’s the difference between these and just building a fire on its own? Generally, these things are designed to create drafts that create hotter burning, more efficient fires. Hey, I’m all about less work at less expense. I went ahead and added the Firebox to my Amazon Wish List and at some point I’ll pick one up and put it through  its places.

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Rotated some stored gas today. Fuel from, according to the tag, 2010. About two years of storage. The fuel was treated with a generous dose of PRI Fuel Stabilizer which I’ve found to be an excellent product. Usually, I’ll wait until the gas tank in the truck is down to around 1/4 or less, dump in one five-gallon can of fuel and then fill the rest of the tank with fresh gas. Seems to work so far. Someday, having a stockpile of fuel is going to be very, very important. Heck, even in the not so recent past (Katrina) it’s proven itself to be pretty important. Now that the feds have, essentially, wiped out the scourge of eay-to-use gas cans from the US it’s harder than ever to find a good gas can. Spend the money and buy the ‘Euro’/NATO-style cans…you can find them at many offroad accessory websites. They are far, far better cans than anything Blitz ever out out and I like ‘em better than the plastic cans.

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Birthday tomorrow. Another gift came in the other day and I need to do a write-up on it. Its one of these (Freeplay FreeCharge 12V ) and I’m quite eager to experiment with it.

Gun show find

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

Well I can cross off the ARMS #22 set of QD rings from my Amazon Wish List. Was wandering around the gun show and found a guy selling a pair for $65. Thats almost 50% off the new price. These babies will get mated up with my IOR M2 scope and mounted on one of my flattop ARs. Eventually, I hope to put together something very similar to the RRA Coyote rifle which will then be the new home for this arrangement.

Saw a few other goodies of interest but Im trying to behave and not spend any money. Although I did pick up a nice Hensley and Gibbs bullet mould for a mere $5…that would have been criminal to pass up.

Blegging done, ALICE packs, Gun Show

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

Well, I’m officially done blegging. That doesn’t mean you can’t donate if you want to, it just means I’m done mentioning it. About two dozen folks were kind enough to fling some greenbacks at me for operating expenses, including one fella who went old-school and simply stuffed cash into an envelope and sent it in. All told, it’s enough to things humming for about the next three years…assuming prices on hosting don’t suddenly skyrocket. My most sincere thanks to those that donated and I hope to make you glad you did.

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Picked up a couple ALICE packs w/ frames the other day. The ALICE packs are pretty dinosaur-y, but they’re usually cheap and make a good secondary or tertiary level of backup. What I really like most about them is their ability to be used with a cargo shelf for hauling things like fuel cans and ammo boxes…anything large and fairly bulky can get strapped to the frame and carried. Someday when a person needs to manhandle five-gallons of water down a trail to a remote rally point, these babies will be just the ticket. Old Grouch has a decent deal on a frame/straps/shelf combo as well as a frame/straps/large bag combo. And if you’re a surplus junkie like me, you’ll really love the ‘used-n-musty’ ten-dollar medium packs…looks like they come with straps, so thats worth ten bucks on its own.

The ALICE packs arent my first choice for running out the door (first choice is my Kifaru bags), but for stashing a loaded pack somewhere ‘just in case’, having packs to hand out to unequipped guests, or hauling jerry cans ….a good choice.

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Gun show at the UM Field House tomorrow. I will be there all three days looking for bargains, catching up with acquaintances, doing a lot of ‘damn I wish I had the money for that’, and possibly..if Crom smiles upon me…buying some small odds-n-ends. Militia of Montana honcho Johnny Trochmann will be there and he always has useful stuff. Since it’s the largest show (and one of the oldest) in Montana it draws in vendors that normally don’t do other Montana shows. I need to keep an eye open for more Uzi mags and parts. Should be interesting to see how the markets are since the Colorado shootings…even without that event in the background, the fact that its an election year is enough to put the buying/selling markets into a state of heightened activity. Nonetheless, it shall be fun and I am greatly looking forward to attending. If youre in the region it’s Friday-Sunday at the University of Montana in Missoula.

Gifties – Pt. II

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

Happy, happy, joy, joy! As the mailman climbed outta his truck to give Nuke his MilkBone bribe I noticed the familiar Amazon box in his hand. (The mailman’s hand, not Nuke’s.)

Could it be? Dare I hope? Birthday gifties! w00t! (My birthday is next Tuesday…I’ll be 45. I should buy myself a Sig 220 or something to commemorate it.)

A very generous soul plucked a few items off my Amazon Wish List and had ‘em sent to yours truly. Well, I don’t know about you but I’m not exactly a ‘Do Not Open Until Xmas’ guy sooooooo……let’s crack this thing open and see what we got!

Nalgene BPA Free Tritan Oasis Canteen 32 Oz Narrow Mouth Bottle

Ahhhh…..I’ve been very eager to try one of these. I love the notion of getting the advantages of Nalgene and still be able to have backwards compatibility with my older canteen covers and the like. Definitely going to have to check this out and see how it fits with a canteen cup and a few other accessories. Surprisingly, this thing is much more flexible than I was anticipating…I was figuring it would be a hard Lexan-like product like the traditional 32 oz. Nalgene bottle. Not so. It’s about as flexible as a regular GI canteen. (Are they even using those anymore? Seems like its all-CamelBak, All the time.) I have a feeling I’m going to wind up getting a few more of these and retiring the GI canteens down to a tertiary level of redundancy.

Tuff Quickstrip Black 6 Round – Pack of 2 (.44/.45/.460 Caliber)

Next up, a package of Tuff QuickStrips…I got a couple of these a few weeks ago and still haven’t gotten a chance to go to the range and try them out.  I’ve played around with them a bit and they are dead-ringers for the Bianchi strips in .38./.357, just scaled up. I have a very nice 1983-era reintroduction of the S&W M24 that I like to carry from time to time. (What can I say…too much Skeeter Skelton on my reading list when I was a young, impressionable 19-year-old) N-frame speedloaders can be a wee bit bulky, so these strips should be just the ticket for carrying some spare ammo discretely and unobtrusively while still retaining a speed advantage.

Army Field Manual FM 5-125 (Rigging Techniques, Procedures and Applications)

And, finally, a copy of TM 5-125 Rigging Techniques, Procedures and Applications. In the last few months I’ve developed an interest in non-powered methods of moving large, heavy objects…which means rope and pulleys. Some day there’s going to be a time when you need to move debris off the road, pull stalled cars out of your way, move heavy obstacles from your path, and lift/lower heavy gear into/outta the back of a vehicle. Can’t rely on electric winches, although theyre darn nice to have, so I figured this would be as good a place as any to start reading about how set up gin poles, windlasses, and that sort of thing. I loves me some TM’s and FM’s.

My sincere thanks to the generous reader who sent these birthday gifts along. I very much appreciate it and I’ll try to review these things and report back on ‘em so we can all get some use out of it. Again, mucho thanks.

Acquisitions

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

Well, blogging isn’t just doing the low-hanging fruit of posting links to interesting things. Sometimes, ya gotta make an effort. So, let us recap and round up whats going on here Commander Zero’s Post Nuclear Bunker Of Love and Taqueria….

Managed to pick up a few goodies the other day…a recap:

This place is closing up its doors in anothe couple weeks. I was in there last week and everything was 50% off. Picked up a couple pairs of boots and, other than that, didnt really see much I needed. But, hey, really nice GoreTex insulated military desert boots for $25/pair in my hard-to-find 10W are reason enough for me to rejoice. There wasn’t much of anything else he had that I wanted…I have all the right-handed ALICE pack straps I need. (Seriously, it was a stack of, like, 150 shoulder straps and all were right-handed. WTF???)

In addition to the boots, from other sources I picked up another military sleep system. This takes care of the redundancy I’m after and I can now stop collecting the darn things. As you know, one is none and all that jazz. These will go nicely, I think, in the carriers I picked up from SG a few weeks ago.

The Missoula Gun Show will be this coming weekend so I’ll keep my eyes open for any other targets of opportunity. And, it is rumoured, we may have a trip to the LDS cannery to look forward to this weekend as well…in which case I’ll finally get to round off some ‘broken’ cases that I’ve been wanting to get taken care of.

Link – Company Selling Zombie Preparedness Kit For $24,000

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

ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) – Preparing for a zombie apocalypse does pay off, but it’s hard work. Although battling the hordes of eBay bidders and gathering everything piecemeal could be one preferred method, an Illinois-based company has created an easier way.

Optics Planet created a one-stop solution for zombie battlers everywhere called Z.E.R.O.

Z.E.R.O., short for Zombie Extermination, Research and Operations, is a kit that contains everything someone would need to keep alive in the end times. Initially priced at $31,375, the kit has been discounted to $23,999 with delivery available to the customer’s home or armed complex.

 

Okay, I wanna say two things about this…neither of which is directly related to zombies (sorry).

1) I’ve had some dealings with Optics Planet. Neither dealing resulted in a completed transaction. Problem? Well, let’s put it this way: call them to make sure that when they say they have something available and ready to ship they really, actually, honest-to-Crom have physical possession of that item at that time and at that location.

2) There is virtually no kit of anything….first aid, ‘survial kit’, whatever….that is as well thought out and as economical as anything you could put together on your own from stuff you sourced on your own. The trick in putting a kit of any type together is to have the knowledge and information to put the kit together properly. In my experience, especially with the internet, knowledge and information is pretty much free these days.

Now, I can understand the appeal of just writing a check and being done with something, but if you put your own kits together you have a better idea of what you can and can’t do because in the process of putting together that kit you have to weigh the merit, value, and utility of every piece of gear. That, my friend, is how you gain knowledge. Sure, you can start off with someone elses recommended list and that works fine, but there really is no cookie-cutter solution to your needs. So while a pre-made kit of anything is a great place to start, it should never be the end of the equippage process but rather a beginning.

 

Gifties – Pt. I

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

Well, birthday season approaches and some gifts have started to magically appear in the hands of my mailman (who is actually a very bitter woman..I call her my femailman…not to her face, of course.)

Anyway…….

These two gems arrived today:

These little goodies are a happy alternative to bulky speedloaders. I’ve touched on the subject a time or two (here & here) explaining what I like or dislike about them. Here’s a nice article about them as well. I was quite jazzed about someone finally making these in a size other than .38/.357. While a good quality speedloader (Safariland, HKS) is my first choice for revolver reloads, the speed strips are compact, non-mechanical, relatively cheap, not bulky, and still speed up the reloading process considerably. I’ll be taking these out to the range later this week to try out. If you’re interested in some for yourself, Amazon carries ‘em. ( Tuff Quickstrip Black 6 Round – Pack of 2 (.44/.45/.460 Caliber)

Next goodie was a tiny little 8gb USB drive.( Kingston DataTraveler 108 8 GB Flash Drive DT108/8GBZ ) I usually keep a little USB drive on my keychain since I like to keep certain files handy. For example, I’m always on the lookout for bargains on guns so I keep a scanned FFL and a copy of PS1508 in .pdf with me so I can ship handguns back to myself without paying the exorbitant UPS and FedEx charges. And, of course, it’s a handy way to carry around files to share with my fellow LMI. (Nothing inflammatory or incriminating or needing to be encrypoted…mostly .pdfs of gun manuals, ebooks, that sorta thing.) Anyway, this little drive takes up virtually no space but packs enough memory to handle even a fair amount of video. Handy thing…

My most sincere thanks to the sender of such fine bits of swag. Mighty generous! I love birthdays…especially my own.

Expect a review of the Tuff QuickStrips at some point in a week or so. Gotta go load up some .44 Spl. ammo for the ‘ol S&W M24 and head to the range to give ‘em a workout.

Nostalgia purchase – 1L. canteen

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

(l.) new 1L canteen, (r.) 25+-year-old 1L. Wish I’d held up as well.

There isn’t a lot of stuff I have left over from early days of being into preparedness but one of them is the 1-liter military canteens. I bought a few back before I moved to Montana 25 years ago and I still have one. It’s beat up and scuffed and I haven’t used it in years. In fact, it’s relegated to the tertiary level of water storage. A quality Nalgene bottle beats it in just about every regard. But…nostalgia got the better of me and when I saw some available at countycomm I couldn’t resist and ordered up a few. Normally, I try not to give in to sentimentality, especially when it is so obviously trumped by better and newer products, but I couldn’t help myself.

Like I said, these things get beat by a good Nalgene bottle in just about every regard except for the shape. The relatively flat and square shape of the 1L canteens make them easy to stack or tuck in a corner of a bag or vehicle. Interestingly my old ones didnt come with a keepr for the cap and neither do the new ones. Of course, since there are grooves on both parts for a keeper, a few minutes with some paracord will take care of that.

As I said, this was mostly about nostalgia…I got the original ones back when the Cold War was still going on, Reagan was president, and the pinnacle of tactical ubercoolness came from a Brigade Quartermaster catalog…no internet ordering! I was just a kid who liked cool military-type stuff and I remember me and my brother getting a few of these. He, apparently, still has his, too. There is very little stuff I have now, that I still use, from back then…a knife or two, my polypro neck gaiter from BQ, this 1L canteen, and maybe a few knickknacks that have travelled with me over the years.

Ah, those heady young days of the late ’80s when someone talked about the Evil Empire and they weren’t talking about us. Say what you will, I liked the ’80s.

link – A Hard Lesson; Survivor Ammunition Storage

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

Man, I’m way ahead, statwise, on posting frequency. I better start pacing myself.

But! A goodie from Tam over at View From The Porch: First hand report of what happens when your ammo locker gets flooded. Hint: Those military ammo cans you bought were worth it…provided you actually use them.

 

My wife, despite her usual inherent goodness, does, from time to time, give me a bit of…grief…about the quantity of ammo cans that sit around. Sure, maybe theyre empty NOW….but, when the poisoned, disease-ridden floodwaters swamp us out she’ll be glad we had all that important stuff packed away.