New Terminator movie

Posted on by

It seems that in the world of franchised movies these days there’s the notion of ‘resetting’ the franchise by giving some deus ex machina reason for timelines/history to be altered, thereby allowing sequels that can ignore previous movies. Most notably the last X-Men movie and the last two Star Trek movies. Well, it appears the Terminator franchise is headed in that direction:

I’ll go see it, of course, but from the trailer it simply looks like a mashup of T1 and T2 with some better effects and a virtually completely recast roster..(except for dat vun notable excepshun.)

But, really, who doesn’t wanna go see Arnie rockin’ the flattop and making bad one-liners?

Non-Commie caliber = non-Commie manufacturer, Commie caliber=Commie Manufacturer….

Posted on by

As everyone knows, a gun without ammo is just a very inefficient club. Unless you’re on fire, there’s really no such thing as too much ammo.

Personally, I’ve been pulling triggers for just less than thirty years. I’ve shot some really broad varieties of ammo, from lotsa different countries, and from lotsa different eras. When I go to buy ammo I want the most reliable, consistent, affordable, quality-made, ammo I  can find.

American manufacturers:

Rattle of the big brands off the top of your head – Federal, Winchester, Remington, Hornady, Speer… if you buy this stuff you are pretty much guaranteed to be getting good ammo. Sure they have recalls once in a while, but I would take a box of Win White Box 9mm or Federal American Eagle 9mm over a box of Wolf any day of the week. The ammo from the large American companies is usually exactly what Im looking for.

Now, there are, of course, smaller manufacturers and some who are actually reloaders rather than manufacturers. Outfits like MagTech, Black Hills, etc. I used to shoot Black Hills ammo way back in the day…remember those 50-round American Flag boxes? It was usually ‘good enough’ ammo but accuracy was sometimes not as good as one might expect. Pricing, however, was good so if the weekend called for a day of busting rocks that was the ammo du jour.

Locally, we have the old Hunting Shack (HSM) ammo and BVAC (Bitterroot Valley Ammo Company). The nicest thing I can say about Hunting Shack ammo is that usually it goes ‘bang’ every time you pull the trigger. They had the local contract for practice ammo and results were…uninspiring. BVAC, which has/had an interesting pedigree as an offshoot of HSM, is slightly better but the company has had some fluctuations in QC and I’m just not willing to stockpile ammo I don’t trust.

Summary: Buy ammo from one of the big US makers and be confident you got good stuff.

European manufacturers:

I’ve been pleased with Sellier & Bellot, Fiocchi, Norma, Lapua, and Hirtenberger. Lapua is probably the best ammo in the world but expect to pay for that. S&B has been very good and reasonably priced. I use them for my 12 ga. needs. A couple drawbacks to these brands is that they just aren’t represented very well. Find something you like and its very possible it may be unavailable at a later date.

The Russians:

Ammo of last resort. If I’m shooting a Commie gun (AK, Makarov, Tokarov, SKS, 91/30) then I go with the spam cans of ‘surplus’ ammo. The guns are designed around those steel cases. Although they now offer other calibers like 9mm, .308, .223, .45 ACP, etc, they are all steel cased and, in my opinion, usually pretty dirty to shoot. You can point me to all the FAQ’s on arfcom but I am not running steel cases out of my AR…or any of my other non-Commie-caliber guns. The only exception I have is I wouldn’t hesitate to run steel .223 out of a Mini-14.

Wolf has tried, with some success, to clean up their image these days but, to quote Big Bang Theory, you’re trusting the technology of a country that couldn’t catch Rocky and Bullwinkle. When the apocalypse comes and I’m down to my last mag of M855 I’ll grab the packet of Wolf steel cased .223 thats offered to me…but I’ll have misgivings the whole time. On the other hand, if I’m using my AK then I’ll take the Wolf 7.62×39 and feel just fine.

The Chinese:

You don’t see much of this anymore since Slick Willie banned it from import, but it isnt hard to figure that it’s a grey-market product that probably turns up in the US. The Chinese move it to the Russians or other Eastern Block countries, they repackage it as their own, and move it to the US. FIlthy, inconsistent, unreliable stuff in any caliber other than 7.62×39…..then its just inconsistent and filthy. I recall one particular batch of ammo (and ‘gunpowder’) that came into the US that was loaded with what was essentially fireworks powder.

The Koreans:

PMC is actually, in my experience, pretty good stuff and I have no qualms using it. When youre just a short-range missle-launch away from North Korea you take your ammo making fairly seriously.

Misc. Surplus:

Used to be you could get South African, W. German, and other surplus ammo in good quantity at decent prices. (I’ve a dozen battle packs of .308 S. African that I paid something like $20 ea.) It turns up rarely, but when it does I have no problem with it if it’s from a country whose national airline you’d feel safe flying on. I’ll take South African .308 ball over Pakistani .308 every time.

These are all personal preferences. Im sure there are folks who’ll tell me they regularly compete and win in their IDPA division using steel cased .38 Super from Glorious People’s Tractor Factory #54 in China but that’s between them and their guns.

For my AR’s and PTR’s, Glocks and Rugers, its brassed case commercial ammo made in non-Commie countries. For my SKS and AK’s, its Russian or Chinese 7.62×39. If I were to check the stockpiles in the bunker right now it’d be Chinese and Russian 7.62×39, Federal .223, S&B and Rem. 12 ga, Federal .22, South African and PMC .308, Win. 9mm, and a hodgepodge of .357, .38 and .45 ACP (but American manufacturers).

Your milieage may vary, of course, but if someone was to ask me which to get, Federal or Winchester 9mm versus Wolf or Armscor 9mm…..well, you’ll get less of the Federal for your money than you would of the Wolf but I’d feel more confident with the Federal. Or, put another way, when you’re standing in front of your family-owned jewelry store in Ferguson MO and the cops are nowhere in sight will you be thinking “Wow, Im glad I saved nine cents a round on this steel cased Russian 9mm ammo”? Don’t underestimate the value of having faith and confidence in your ammo.

 

 

Video – 1980’s surivivalist movie with all the cheese and bad acting of the ’80’s

Posted on by

Someone pointed this out to me and its too bad to not share.

National Guard biker gangs? Check!
Rutger Hauer lookalike bad guy? Check!
Stilted dialog? Check!
Alpha/beta male posturing? Double check!
Ridiculous gunplay? You bet!
Big teased hairstyles….on men? Yup!

How Jerry Ahern didn’t get a check for this is a mystery.

Without further ado, “Jack Tillman: The Survivalist”:

Oh, the early eighties….we thought we were so cool.

Link to two TSP podcasts on backup power

Posted on by

Someone in comments pointed out this link to me and it was worth sharing:
http://www.battery1234.com/

Its a page with two episodes of The Survival Podcast on the subject of emergency backup battery systems. I listened to both episodes and was quite pleased. Lots of information and lots of very specific information…names are named. Yeah, everything the guy discusses is linked to on page and available off Amazon, but I thought the content of the two articles was so good that who was I to begrudge the man a chance to make a few bucks off his links?

I listen to TSP on and off…Far too much permaculture and gardening content for me. Not saying its not important, just saying that it gets boring after a while. Anyway, the two episodes at the link were, in my opinion, quite good and I recommend them to anyone who is still behind on getting some sort of backup/emergency power system in place.

Whaddya want for the holiday gifting?

Posted on by

When I originally started blogging, the purpose was to chronicle the progression of steps towards getting to the level of preparedness I wanted to achieve. So that was around 11 years ago. You’d think that after 11 years there wouldn’t be much left to do…but, of course, there’s always something.

Pretty much all that is left to acquire are the truly big-ticket items – a dedicated vehicle and a place out in the sticks. Both of these are pretty much the final jewels in the crown. Food? We’re good. Guns and ammo? Just ducky. Toiletries, bedding, fuel, generator, tools, security system, etc…yup.

There are still some things that I still haven’t gotten around to, despite years of saying “I need to…” The two that immediately spring to mind are radio communications and a PV-powered battery backup system for same.

Like anything else, the limiting factor is money. Ten years is obviously plenty of time to put some money back for expensive stuff but, sadly, I have a tremendous lack of discipline. Its hard to ‘stay the course’ for a long period of time when people walk in the door or call me and say “Hey, a guy just sold me a couple 1911s…you wanna look at ’em?”

Out of curiosity, what are you hoping to receive for Chrismahanakwanzakah this year? The ‘realistically priced’ gift and the ‘money is no object’ gift.

Paratus – The holiday for, by, and of preparedness

Posted on by

I bounced this idea around in my head for a while and I think I’m just gonna run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.

You guys are familiar with Festivus? (“A Festivus for the rest of us!”) Its the holiday from Seinfeld that was invented when one of the characters got tired of all the Christmas hype. It has its own rules, its own traditions, and, apparently, it’s own adherents.

Made-up holidays aren’t anything new. Kwanzaa is an amalgam of ‘traditional African holidays and festivals’ cleaned up and marketed to empower black people. Presidents Day is a  holiday created by bumping Washingtons Birthday and Lincolns Birthday into a combined holiday. (To keep the number of federal holidays constant, thereby ‘freeing up’ a day For Martin King Day). So why not a fabricated holiday for those of us who believe in preparedness, and it’s virtues and lessons?

WIthout further ado:

The Paratus FAQ v1.0

What is Paratus?

Paratus (from the Latin ‘prepared’) is a one-day ‘holiday’ that basically exists to give an excuse for like-minded folks to exchange appropriate gifts, get together in a social setting, and, perhaps, share some ideas on the subject. It is intended to be a secular holiday but, reflecting the individualistic nature of it’s practitioners, can incorporate a religious element if the practitioner wants. However, the ‘true’ Paratus is strictly secular, non-denominational, genderless, mostly apolitical, and thus available to every demographic that wants to participate.

When is Paratus?

Third Friday of September. September, because there’s kind of a lack of holidays around that time, on Friday so you can have the weekend to play with your new gear, and the third Friday so you don’t have too close a followup to any 9/11 events.

Are there Paratus colors?

St. Patricks day got green, Christmas gets red and green, Halloween gets brown and orange…the colors of Paratus are subdued earth tones suitable for camouflage, as well as camouflage patterns themselves. Woodland, multicam, digicam, even that crappy ACU all count towards being the ‘Official Color Of Paratus’.

How does the gift giving work for Paratus?

Paratus closely follows the Christmas model – as Christmas traditionally dictates an empty stocking hung by the chimney with care for Santa Claus to fill with gifts, Paratus calls for an empty backpack to be left by the preferred primary exit of the dwelling. Your Paratus gifts are placed in the backpack by the giver. Or, if you prefer the ‘Santa Claus’-type mythos, the backpack will then be filled by the elite Paratus Long-Range Recon Gift Squad. It is advised to wait until a child is in their teens before breaking to them the harsh news that the Paratus Long-Range Recon Gift Squad is really just mom and dad filling their backpack with freeze-drieds once the kid has gone to bed.

Gift giving is not based on behavior (‘naughty or nice’) but based on either need, or revenge gift-giving obligation. Get your intended recipient either something they need or something that will force them to get you something equally as awesome. Win-win for everyone. All gifts should be able to pass the test of “if the world ended tomorrow, would this be really useful?” It is considered perfectly acceptable to leave cash, although in the spirit of preparedness precious metals are preferred over cash. Unreciprocated gift giving is acceptable if the recipient makes a tremendous expression of gratitude and makes a self-deprecating remark about their own lack of generosity. The giver then agrees with the recipient about their lack of generosity, injects a level of snark or good-natured mild condemnation, and the obligation is then discharged. Here’s an example:

A: Hey, man…thanks for the cool Swiss Army knife.
B: You’re welcome. So..uhm..where’s my gift?
A: Yeah…about that…things are a little tight but I promise I’ll get you something even more awesome next Paratus. Plus..Im cheap..I’m  so cheap I watch porn movies backwards because I like watching the hooker give the money back!
B: Yes. Yes you are. You’re so cheap you won’t even tip your hat! But…Happy Paratus anyway.

And everyone can still be friends!

What are the traditional Paratus foods?

Paratus is a gastronomically flexible holiday. You can either do a ‘real’ dinner with your fellow  celebrants where the cuisine is whatever you want – pizza, Chinese take-out, home-cooked turkey, whatever – but the more orthodox celebrants will enjoy meals that are exclusively comprised of long-term food and/or homegrown/harvested foods cooked using a non-grid-connected cooking device. Whereas Halloween has candy corn, St Patricks Day has corned beef and cabbage, and Thanksgiving has turkey as traditional food, Paratus supports the notion of ‘do what you can with what you have’. However, anything freeze dried would probably be considered a ‘traditional’ Paratus food. The little marshmallows in Lucky Charms do not count.

What are the traditional Paratus activities?

Shooting, naturally. Anything that promotes the idea of preparedness. This can include, but is not limited to, watching traditional Paratus movies (“Red Dawn”, “The Omega Man”, “Threads”, zombie movies, or any other movie with a ‘survival’ theme), trading books on related subjects, going shooting, hunting, fishing, or just sitting around discussing current events and strategies against them.

What are the traditional Paratus greetings?

“Happy Paratus” seems to work best. “Joyous Paratus” sounds odd, “Merry Paratus” sounds like a Greek actress, and “Good Paratus” sounds like a medical diagnosis.

Is there a Paratus mascot?

Well, there are leprechauns for St Patty Day, witches and ghosts for Halloween, Santa Claus for Christmas, Cupid for Valentines day……the Paratus Development Committee is still on the fence about this one. A heavily armed, and slightly scarred, Felix the Cat is in the lead since the notion of “Whenever he gets into a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks” has some merit as well as cats having nine lives. However, at the moment, there is no official Paratus mascot.

Are there any Paratus carols or music?

Paratus is discouraged from having a specific musical theme in order to prevent people from playing it a month-and-a-half before the actual holiday. Additionally, retailers are discouraged from starting their “Paratus Season” sales more than 30 days before the holiday. However, after-Paratus sales are highly encouraged.

Again, reflecting the individualistic nature of adherents and participants of Paratus, some folks may concoct their own Paratus playlists. Commonly encountered tunes might be “Opening Theme” from the Red Dawn soundtrack, “Silent Running” by Mike + The Mechanics, “A Country Boy Can Survive” by Hank Williams Jr., and similar arrangements.

Anything else to know about Paratus?

At the moment, no. Go forth, have a Happy Paratus, and be sheeple no more!

Friday of Color

Posted on by

Well, the Friday of Color sales I wanted to take advantage of turned out to be a bust. Of the few things I wanted, most had sold out virtually instantly. I suppose this is a good thing since it keeps me from spending money.

oos

Or, at least, it was until I noted that silver dipped down to around $15.50 today. Time to call the Pimp. Speaking of the ‘Pimp, he came by the other day with a silver round for me that he said came from someone who reads the website. So, to that benefactor, I thank you sincerely. When the zombie hordes are finally decapitated into the dustbin of history I shall praise your memory as I barter the silver for lapdances from grateful-yet-still-hot survivors at the local stripclub-turned-impromptu-fortress.

Just because I didn’t get the things I was looking for this Friday doesn’t mean there arent bargains and great values out there. Go! Shop! Acquire! Since ‘Black Friday’ has all but become a holiday I figured it was time to add another synthetic holiday to the pantheon of reasons-to-buy-stuff. Thus, tomorrows post is all about Paratus, the holiday of survivalists.

ETA: Dammit. Almost made it out of Sportsmans Warehouse without getting Friday Of Color’ed. But..but…its M855 on stripper clips! $169.99! Its the ballistic equivalent of Doritos – you can’t just eat a few.

IMG_1957

Admin – Status report and AAR

Posted on by

Its a middlin’-length sordid story, but for those who are interested, and for any bloggers who want to learn at my expense, here it is.

I originally started blogging on LiveJournal back around 2003. After a short time I decided to just get a website. My initial thought was to go with Yahoo since I figured they were huge enough that they’d be reliable and fast on their feet if there were problems. As it turns out, the opposite was true….big enough to not know what the other hand was doing, and big enough that there were layers and layers of “press 1 now” and “you are caller number…”.

For about ten years things were cool. The service was okay and the price was reasonable. Then there were a couple episodes this year that were just horrific. Most notably an unexplained and ill-defined problem that they took almost a month to track down. In that time the blog was virtually inaccessible. I don’t really make any money off the blog…I get a few bucks here and there from advertising, but it isn’t like having downtime puts a dent in my wallet. As a result, I was fairly willing to ride things out and wait for Yahoo to get their act together. But…while I don’t really make any coin off the blog I rather do like the interactions with people and being able to say the blog is one of the oldest preparedness blogs out there…so I did want to see things get straightened out quickly.

Pretty soon the choices were clear – migrate or perish. A blog migration can be either a piece of cake or it can be the internet equivalent of the Alamo. Whats involved? Well, three big things have to line up correctly: backup files from old website, establish new location and install those files there, repoint the domain name so that it goes from old.nameserver to new.nameserver.

Sounds easy, right? Well, I suppose it can be if you are disciplined enough to keep regular backups, remember registrar passwords, and generally keep a clean house. Sadly…that is not me.

For you bloggers, here’s how it went:

Install in my WordPress blog the Updraft plugin as my automatic backup system. Use it to create a backup of everything. Then, head over to Bluehost, sign up, install WP, and install Updraft plugin. Go into Updraft and upload the backup files to the new WP install. Run restore option. Discover that Updraft realizes that this is, in fact, not a restore at all but rather a migration. Demand $30 for migration software add on. Fork over $30. Run add on and start migration. Chew nails and watch status bar as you pray to science that this thing works and doesn’t start spewing error messages. “Migration Succesful!” Really? I dont believe it. ..:::look:::..hmmm….:::look:::…okay, that was worth $30. Then head over to the folks who handled my domain name and change nameservers. Wait for that to propagate. Get busy making finishing touches.

Soup to nuts, the migration, including software and contract with new host, came to about a hundred bucks. Honestly, I’d have paid more to not lose any more than has already been lost.

A new broom sweeps clean, but I will say that thus far I have been pleased with Bluehost. All the options and extra features are overwhelming (in a good way), but the customer support was good (and not based outta Calcutta…unless theres a Calcutta, Utah), and the rates, eventually, will be cheaper than what I was paying at Yahoo. Knock on wood but so far its looking promising.

If you run a WordPress blog I cannot emphasize to you enough how good Updraft is. I have it set to automatically backup everything once a week and dump the files to Dropbox. And I tested it thoroughly to make sure it does exactly that. And if you do wind up having to migrate your WP blog somewhere the migration addon really is worth the thirty bucks to get. this. crap. over. with.

Finally, I also have a plugin that crossposts to LiveJournal which is sort of a backup-of-last-resort and poor-mans-mirror. So if you ever come to www.commanderzero.com and the place looks like a train wreck, go hit http://commander-zero.livejournal.com/ and see if I posted about whats going on.

Barring any surprises, the website should be sitting here for the forseeable future. I still have to go figure out the emails, but it looks like for now you can go ahead and bookmark me and expect me to be there when you click it.

Oh…and skip Yahoo hosting if you can avoid it.

Admin – Is this thing done spinning yet?

Posted on by

Crom as my witness, when the revolution gets here the asshats at Yahoo! web services/hosting/customer service are going to be the second group of mofos up against the wall.

Sitrep:

Dumped Yahoo! web hosting like a clingy girlfriend. Moved over to Bluehost. The migration was not as seamless as I would have hoped but I figured if I did it over the holidays maybe folks wouldnt notice.

I’ll have a much more detailed post about this nonsense later. Right now I have my fingers crossed that things are somewhat normalized around here. Loading issues should be greatly reduced or eliminated, and hopefully most folks won’t have any problems. I’m probably going to be quiet for a day or two as I climb around in here checking for leaks and whatnot.

FYI – this blog is kinda-sorta mirrored at http://commander-zero.livejournal.com/ …. If you come here and its a train wreck, check over there for a post regarding whats going on.

Stripped lower deals

Posted on by

Well, the Black Friday deals are coming in. As tempted as I am to buy, I figure the really good deals will come on actual Black Friday. So far, the most interesting one I’ve come across is one of my vendors offering stripped AR lowers for $35 in bulk. Personally, while I feel that having stripped AR lowers is a form of insurance against future restrictions on AR’s, they are not a cost effective way to put a gun together…in my opinion. Parts kit, stock, complete upper receiver, and youre pretty much into the cost of a quality-name AR (at dealer price). Im sure someone will chime in and say “Yeah, but I can get a lower parts kit from Steves Plumbing and Gun Parts for $25, a made-in-China stock and buffer for $40, a complete upper for $300 from NoNameGunParts.com, and I can put it all together on my table using a video I found on YouTube.” May be, but I think I’d feel more comfortable with a gun put together by the guys at Stag or S&W for $699 versus a gun put together by someone in their kitchen for $599. But thats me.
To me, the attraction to the stripped lowers is similar to the value addition stripped machine gun receivers got back in ’86.
Other deals I’m kinda looking for will be complete lowers at bargain prices. Last year one of my vendors (I can’t remember who) had complete lowers with stocks for around $140. That was a great deal.