Folks you meet at CrossFit..or..How To Survive In The Woods

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More CrossFit. Behold, a sweat angel:

20150109_184915This is what happens when after the workout you flop down on your back on the floor to try and get your breath back. This is also what it looks like, I would imagine, after the paramedics peel you off the floor and ship your carcass to the hospital.

But, more interestingly, the fella instructing the class had his own ‘lost in the woods’ survival experience that I was curious about. He got turned around while out hunting and wound up having to spend the night in the sticks as it dumped 13″ of snow on his position and the temperature clocked in around 0 degrees. He survived with no apparent injuries and was helicoptered out the next day. I asked him what happened:

Him and his hunting buddy drove up a forest service road way back into the boonies, they then parked and rode their mountain bikes further in, they then parked the bikes and hiked in on foot. They then split up, one guy heading up one ridge and one guy heading up the other. After a while he broke for lunch and as he was eating he spied a mule deer out of the corner of his eye. He chased after it and by the time he came up for air he realized he had gotten turned around. He wandered for a while, back tracking, climbing up and down the hills, before realizing he was well and thoroughly turned around.

The weather was starting to change and daylight was fading fast. He built himself a big fire , broke out his mylar blanket, and settled in for the night. He would alternate between getting wood for the fire and sitting on heated rocks to stay warm. His cellphone was dead and had minimal signal. At one point he tried it and it had just enough charge for him to get a GPS coord and to text those coords to his wife. But…he would have to make it through the night before help could get to him. The next morning he tried wandering towards what he thought was a road and as he did so the rescue ‘copter flew right over him on its way to the coords of his campsite. He was sure he’d screwed the pooch but they circled around again and he waved ’em down with his space blanket. The recovered him and got him to safety.

1383305_10203834820924062_7193706435147102802_nI asked if he had carried any special survival gear and he said it was just the mylar, nalgene bottle, celphone, firestarter, and the usual hunting gear….no extra clothes. He said he normally would have carried a spare cellphone charger with him but it was in his truck and they had taken his buddys rig to go hunting. What he did do, which made all the difference in the world, was once he realized he was well and truly lost he made camp while there was still light to see what he was doing and got a big fire going. He did mention that he will make sure to take his GPS along next time. (I’d go with map-n-compass as a backup, but Im not going to armchair quarterback this guy to his face.)

As you know, even when cell reception is too spotty for voice, text messages can often get through. In his case it made all the difference.

It was an interesting conversation, mostly because this is the first time I’ve actually gotten to talk to someone who had one of these experiences and it was quite interesting to hear the first-hand account. He also says, by the way, his subsequent hunting trips have not been as deep into the sticks as that one. His wife keeps him ‘on a short leash’, as he says.

My own experiences hunting and getting caught in bad weather tell me that while it is very easy to go overboard and encumber yourself with too much gear, there’s definitely a possibility of undergearing yourself as well. Its a tough balancing act to keep things light enough for tromping up and down mountains all day and having the gear you need when things go sideways. Something to think about.

 

Article – Ted Turner’s Doomsday Video at CNN

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When CNN launched in 1980, founder Ted Turner already knew how it was going to end. “Barring satellite problems, we won’t be signing off until the world ends,” he reportedly said. “When the end of the world comes, we’ll play ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ before we sign off.”

According to various rumors over the past three decades, Turner made good on that promise, creating a tape that would only be played in case of apocalypse: the combined Armed Forces marching band playing “Nearer My God to Thee,” according to The New Yorker. But few people had ever seen the tape… until now. Jalopnik writer Michael Ballaban has posted a grainy, minute-long video that he says he unearthed in 2009 while interning for Wolf Blitzer at The Situation Room, under the simple name “Turner Doomsday Video” (as seen in the screenshot above.) Formatted for standard-definition 4:3 television, it would make a bizarre sight today — although we might, obviously, be too busy with the end of days to notice.

Gotta tell you, if its the end of the world I have a lot better things to do than sit around watching CNN playing band music. And even if the end of the world event were truly ‘end of the world’ where we’re all 100% guaranteed dead tomorrow I would still have something(s) better to do and they mostly involve me being naked and a whole buncha chicks who realize that they’ve nothing left to lose.

Glockness

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Completely unexpected, completely unwanted, but when a paperless like-new Gen3 Glock comes your way for way below market what can you do?

20150105_203119I’ll sit on it until someone with a 9mm Glock is looking for something to trade. In the meantime, maybe I’ll throw a Streamlight on it and use it as a house gun.

Back to the gym

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Had an interesting, although brief, conversation the other day that I thought might be worth repeating.

For reasons that don’t need going into at this juncture, I have signed back on to CrossFit. After the last session the instructor asked me if there was anything in particular I wanted to work on in the sessions. I said that I wanted to work on stamina and endurance so that at the end of the class I’m not laying on the floor gasping for air (which is usually how I end a class). He then asked, ‘what about outside class?’ I misinterpreted the question and thought he was inquiring how things were in general in m life. No, thats not what I meant. he said. Then it dawned on me what the real question was. “Oh. I get it. Well, I need to work on things like being able to carry heavy objects over distances..things like water and fuel cans, climb over obstacles, run distances with gear, pick up people and things and move them around…you know, your basic end-of-the-world survivability stuff.”  He nodded his head and said that was pretty much what he was shooting for as well.

That’s pretty much what made me interested in CrossFit, the notion that it wasn’t about being able to do one thing – like running, or lifting a record-setting weight – but rather that it purports to promote ‘functional fitness’. That is to say, the things you do in the real world…jumping up onto things, climbing things, running with weights, pushing/pulling things.

The way I figure it, no matter what flavor of apocalypse youre expecting, you’re going to need to do things like carry a spare tire a couple hundred yards to a vehicle, lift heavy debris off a roadway, unload a dozen 5-gallon fuel cans off a truck and then into another one, run distances while carrying stuff, etc, etc….all those physical things that are going to make the apocalypse such a pain in the butt. Thus far, CrossFit seems to support those sorts of physical tasks. So…back to CrossFit for a while.

I metnion it because it is so easy to get wrapped up in all the other sexy stuff in preparedness and ignore things like physical ability. And Im the first one to agree that it’s a lot easier and more fun to order preparedness gear off the internet and consider yourself ‘prepared’ than it is to do the really crappy, annoying, loathsome things like exercising regularly.

10/22 mag prefs

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If you had to pick one .22 rifle as ‘the survivalists .22 rifle’ it would be highly unlikely that anyone would strongly disagree with the choice of the Ruger 10/22. Having been around for around fifty years, pretty much everyone makes accessories for the gun and if there’s a gun shop out there that doesn’t carry 10/22 rifles or accessories, I haven’t seen it.

Problem is,as with just about any semiauto, some mags are good and some are crap. My experiences have been that there are a handful of good magazines out there and plenty of bad ones.

For an amazing amount of time, Ruger only offered the 10-rd mag for the 10/22. Thats fine, theyre really really good mags. But, they are limited to ten rounds and sometimes you just dont feel like swapping mags all the time. Ruger eventually introduced some 25-round factory mags but, interestingly, they have a mixed reputation….a very rare case of a factory mag not being as good as the aftermarket mag.

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If your needs can be met with a 10-rd mag, the factory Ruger 10/22 mag is pretty much the best and only way to go. These mags are several years old.

For aftermarket Ruger 10/22 mags its pretty hard to go bad with the Butler Creek stuff. Sure, your mileage may vary, but my experience has been almost uniformly positive. The Butler Creek mags come in two flavors: Hot Lips and Steel Lips. The Hot Lips are mags with plastic feed lips and the Steel Lips are the mags with…well, you can figure out.

Back in ’94 I grabbed as many Hot Lip mags as  I could and used them for the next ten years, as Slick Willie’s repulsive ‘Assault Weapons Ban’ made making new mags holding ten rounds a crime (unless, of course, those mags were for the cops or military…in which case they had to be marked as such.)

So, for ten years I had about a dozen Hot Lips mags to use. They held up quite well but they eventually started having problems. But, it was a good opportunity to learn just how much life you could get out of a $15 magazine before it needed replacement. The answer, it seems, is about ten years.

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Ca. pre-1994 Butler Creek Hot Lips mag on left, new Butler Creek Steel Lip mag on right. Note the plastic feedlips on the Hot Lips mag showing wear and fraying from years of use.

The Steel Lips magazines, obviously, were a good bit more durable in the feed lip department than the Hot Lips mags. They charge a bit more for the Steel Lips magazines but I’m of the opinion that it is very much worth it. I still sock away the Hot Lips mags, but if I come across a good deal on the Steel Lips I’ll go ahead and get as many of them as I can.

Now that Ruger has re-introduced their Charger 10/22, and brought out the American Rimfire, both of which take the 10/22 magazine so it’s really not a bad idea to get the most durable mag possible. Ten years of regular usage showed that the plastic Hot Lips mags could serve well, but I think in the future I’ll be socking away the Steel Lips more than the Hot Lips.

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New BC Steel Lip mag (L.), pre-1994 Hot Lips mag on right shows signs of wear and age from being used frequently during 1994-2004. Mag still functions but it best saved for ‘range use’ or non-critical usage. A replacement is about eight bucks….for now.

The only other aftermarket non-BC mag for the 10/22 I’ve found that was any good are the Eagle brand mags. These are also a plastic-lip mag but they can usually be found in bulk at bargain prices…sometimes around $5-6 ea. They’re good for using at the range and otherwise taking the pressure off of your stash of Butler Creek mags…but for packing away a rifle, case of ammo, and a dozen mags, I’ll stick with the Butler Creek mags.

The best sources I’ve found for deals on the BC mags are either CDNN, MGE, or GAS. You 9or your dealer) will have to subscribe for their email specials but usually once or twice a year they’ll have specials on the 10/22 mags. When they do, don’t cheap out and buy five….get as many as you can afford. They’ll always have a good value and if there’s another magazineban they’ll really be worth their weight in silver.

For carrying magazines, there’s a couple outfits that make single-pouch mags that ride on your belt and, if you don’t mind looking a little like Carl Spackler, there are some chest rigs out there as well. When the gophers are about to overrun your position, and the haze is too thick for air support, a rig like that might save you from being pounded into the dust by thousands of tiny feet.

“License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit – ever. They’re like the Viet Cong – Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that’s all she wrote…” -Carl Spackler

So, just my two cents worth, but if you’re gonna go with the 10/22 for most of your .22 rifle needs you’d be doing the smart thing to go heavy on the Butler Creek mags.

Signage

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Remember a few posts back I saw a sign in the window of a local shop? Well, someone thought I shouldn’t be without, and this little gem showed up in the mailbox the other day:

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I’ll be giving it a prominent place in the shop window for the world to see. Much thanks!

 

Trying the new Gen III ECWS

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Bloody cold today. Actually, it’s not that cold…it’s simply what its pretty much supposed to be in Montana around this time of year. Currently? +3, although I expect below zero as the night progresses.

Since it was so cold during the day today, I figured I’d try out a new piece of cold weather gear. See, usually I wear my heavy Carhart coat in this sort of weather. It does a decent job, and its tough as nails, but it’s pretty bulky. I picked up a Gen III ECWS parka a few months back and this has been my first chance to try it out and I’m very pleased with it. Like most cold weather gear, it helps if you dress properly underneath it – you cant just put it on over a t-shirt and expect to be toasty.

gen3_level7_400x408One nice thing, right off the bat, is the compressability….the Carhart coat cant be stuffed down into a small(er) package the way this thing can. I was out this evening walking Nuke and I was wearing the parka over a longsleeve ‘waffle’ pullover and a ECWCS undershirt (which I recommend highly for its warmth and low bulk. Buy ’em cheap by the dozen on eBay) and was warm and comfy. I suspect I’ll troll eBay and pick up two or three extras for myself and one or two for the missus.

Not all military surplus lives up to the hype, but I have to say that thus far I’ve been pretty pleased with it. If you’re hunting for something warm but not overbearingly heavy/bulky you might wanna check these things out.

2014 in review

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Well, 2014 hits its end in another few days. How did 2014 fare in terms of preparedness? Lets see…

It was a gun heavy year. At least four or five rifles and shotguns, and no less than a half dozen handguns. It wasn’t so much that I had any more money than usual, it was that I took advantage of some deals that came along.

Ammo was still a big deal with .22 ammo going from being ‘virtually unobtainable’ to simply ‘still overpriced’. The availability is there, if you’re willing to pony up about ten cents a round. I shot very little .22 this years, and with the acquisition of my Sparrow I now need to get a goodly stash of subsonic .22 as well.

In the centerfires I put back a little bit more .223 which is always good. I didn’t shoot very much centerfire ammo at all this year…probably less than 500 rounds total. Virtually all of that was used in function testing new guns.

Food levels remained pretty much the same. Went through one package of freeze drieds during hunting season and thats about it. Towards February we’ll pick up half a beef and restock the freezer. In short, the level of food around here stayed pretty constant.

Rotated some fuels during the year with fresher stuff. Again, zero-sum game. Fairly even amount of fuel as what the year started with.

A quick bit of math in Excel shows that the average cost, with premium, for silver acquisitions this year was $19.50 per ounce. Since the premiums can run anywhere between $1 and $3, depending on the form of silver, that would mean the spot price of silver purchased during the year was between $16.50-18.50.

Any consumables used during the year – batteries, toilet paper, soap, etc – were all replaced so we’re on an even keel there.

We did add fairly heavily to the supplies of first aid gear. That was the result of a lethal combination of eBay, a PayPal account, and late-night boredom. On the bright side 4,800 bandaids should last us a good while.

No major turmoil in the family, no job losses, dog is in good health, still married, truck still runs, house is still standing, so all in all I’d say that while 2014 wasn’t any remarkable advancement there weren’t any real losses…so I call that a win. Yay for homeostasis. Actually, thats not true…as I (poorly) proofread this, it occurs to me that we used a windfall to knock down almost 16% of our mortgage in one stroke. That shaved 2.5 years off the 15-year mortgage and really felt good.

There were no power outages or infrastructure failures that affected us this year, so it looks like the ‘fragile infrastructure’ that threatens to throw us into ‘grid down chaos’ at any moment might be a bit more resilient than we thought. Or, more likely, the appropriate challenge simply hasnt occurred yet. There was a little ebola buzz around here what with out local hospital being one of the handful of designated ‘ebola-ready’ hospitals. They are now backing away from that status and I suspect its because theyve discovered that all it takes is treating one ebola patient to bring a hospital to its knees in terms of function, readiness, and fiscal health.

I’m hoping 2015 will be a year of advancement. I’d like to make some progress on the mortgage towards paying it down early, I’d like to do some production-capacity upgrades at the shop, and a few other things. I dont do ‘resolutions’…I figure if something is a good enough idea, why wait until New Years to implement it? But I think 2015 will be a year with a focus on that ‘ol filthy lucre …. say what you will, money is the most concentrated form of energy available to the average joe and things go a lot easier with it than without.

Winning the loot roll

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The big Festivus gift this year? Well, check this out… for the last week or so, the wife has been spending all her time in the living room configuring her computer for some new games that she was interested in playing. Nothing surprising there, after she’s done fighting the forces of evil at her job she often spends a few hours a night fighting them online.

So I open my suspiciously large wrapped gift this morning and inside the box is – a custom gaming PC that she built from parts and spent the last few days configuring and installing, right under my nose. She built it so that it looks like her computer and that way could do all the work on it in front of me without me being the wiser. How cool is that? And the best part? Windows 7….now thats thoughtful! SSD boot drive, awesome graphics card, modular expandable case, etc, etc. and its preloaded with Skyrim, Battlefield and WarCraft.

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I’ve been using the same computer for the last seven or ten years and would never have bought one on my own. I tend to just use peoples hand-me-down computers because I’m too cheap to buy a new(er) one. As long as it runs my browser, lets me get email, and that sorta thing Im happy. So a dedicated gaming box…thats quite the toy.

So there you have it….not at all topical or gear-related but still one of the most awesome gifts I’ve ever gotten.

Happy holidays

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09-festivus-poles.w529.h352.2xThere’s a handful of holidays this month, some secular and some not-so-secular. It would be presumptuous for me to assume everyone has the same belief system, so I’ll just cover all the bases with a ‘I hope you have a happy whatever-holdiay-you-celebrate’.

Kwanzaa, Hannukah, Christmas, Festivus, Solstice, Voodoo Day, whatever……December really manages to pack a lot into it, doesn’t it?

Be safe on the roads, guys…drunks abound on these sorts of occasions.