Article – Starving Greeks queue for food in their thousands

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

A bit sensationalist but, hey, I’ll run with it…….

Starving Greeks queued around the block for free food handouts yesterday as the country’s politicians managed to end a crippling stalemate to form a coalition government.

Young children as well as the elderly waited in line in Athens to collect the parcels of fruit and vegetables donated by farmers from Crete to help ease the devastating austerity faced by many Greeks.

But as hungry people collected food, a few miles away a new conservative-led alliance was formed, vowing to renegotiate the country’s strict European bailout in a bid to breath economic life back into the debt-stricken country.

…..

The measures have left the country struggling through a fifth year of recession, with unemployment spiraling to above 22 percent and tens of thousands of businesses shutting down.

The face of the crippling poverty gripping the country was plane to see as hundreds of poverty-stricken Greeks queued in a central Athens park for free vegetables.

….

Among the people lining up was Panayiota Sidera, 31, from Athens. She said she has been unemployed for two-and-a-half years and her husband is also out of a job. The couple is living on a (euro) 250 monthly disability pension and rent from an apartment they own, and has a (euro) 540-a-month loan installment to pay.

‘That’s my predicament,’ she said, adding that the food handout ‘is helping people, and I’m grateful.’
‘The government should have been doing this years ago,’ she said.

Prolonged recession, lengthy unemployment as the bills pile up. And thats…Greece? Sounds like the same conditions as here. An excellent case for eliminating as much personal debt as possible, trimming some fat, making the most of every dollar you have, and stockpile food to the rafters.

Speaking of austerity measures……..

Something to keep in mind…when we read about ‘austerity measures’ you should keep in mind that among those measures are things like reducing or eliminating government subsidies. Some countries keep the prices of certain goods….fuel, bread, grain, cooking oil, etc…artificially low. When those subsides stop and the natural market prices come into play, that loaf of bread that cost pennies is now out of the reach of many poor people. The natural consequence of this is dissatisfaction at its best and revolution at its worst. This is why those subsidies were there to begin with – to keep the poor fed and relatively content so they wouldn’t get their Castro on. This is why countries with…unstable…populations resist these conditions that are imposed by the folks willing to bail them out.

Don’t think this country doesn’t do the same thing…we just dress it up as SNAP, Section 8, SSDI, and a handful of other programs that give resources to people who can’t make it on their own. I’m not saying whether those programs are good or bad, I’m just saying that when government, local or federal. has to stop sending money to those people they’re gonna get pretty angry and they’re going to take it out on someone.

 

 

Admin – Some changes

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

There’s going to be more admin stuff going on over the next couple days. Biggest thing is that I’m going to try and develop a custom theme for the blog, move some stuff around, throw in a feature or two…that sort of thing.

A few obvious changes…:

Calendar page on right menu bar. Personally, I find these to be a nice way to quickly check and see how active a blog has been. It may seem like I hardly ever post but, according to the little bolded numbers on the calendar, I spew brain droppings at a fairly consistent pace.

Yeah, there’s a Donate button at the top of the menu bar. You may not like it, but then again, you dont have to click it either. Honestly, I don’t care if you read, comment, engage in a few discussions and never kick in a buck or two for bandwidth….that’s not why I do this. But, if you want to kick in a couple bucks, or want to help me get a cool piece of gear to beat the crap out of and report on….it’s there.

There’s a subscription page. (Its the rightmost link just under the graphic at the top of the page.) I guess if you want the latest posts emailed as they occur, you can subscribe. Not sure why you would, but it’s there. At least, I think it’s there…I haven’t really tried it yet.

 

Modified 10/22

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

Friday = Guns, so……..

It’s a personal preference, to be sure, but for me and a lot of other folks that keep an eye on the uncertain future the .22 rifle of choice is the ubiquitous Ruger 10/22. While Ruger makes a few variants of the 10/22 that are a bit more…desirable…for our specialized needs, none has all the features I figured I’d want. Fortunately, and this is one of the strengths of the 10/22 platform, there are enough aftermarket accessories out there that I can tweak the 10/22 into exactly what I want. Oh, it may not be cheap, but it’s possible. In retrospect, what I was after was essentially a Ruger 10/22 that had all the features and styling of the M1 Carbine – Protected aperature sights, side mounted sling, etc.

First step was the sights. Optics are nice but for the average effective range of a .22 LR, which I figure to about 100 yards and not much further, I figured a good set of open sights was the way to go. The standard sights with the Ruger are all right, I suppose, but I wanted a few special features. First, I wanted a longer sight radius. This meant a rear sight that was mounted back on the receiver, not on the barrel. I tried an aperature sight from Williams, which was my first choice, but found that it just did not have the range of elevation adjustment I needed. I wound up going with the TechSights and I’m quite pleased with them. Easy to install, protected rear and front sight, same sight picture as one my AR and PTR-91, accurate, and plenty of adjustment. Only thing I didnt like (other than the price) was that the sights weren’t made in the US. Can’t have everything, but when I buy gun stuff I like to buy American….firearms ownership is uniquely American, I feel the accessories on my gun should be too. Or, at least, not made in China (or Taiwan, although Taiwan is a bit more acceptable to me, but not much more.) (Two posts on the Tech Sights)

Some fitting may be is required. For me, it was easier to trim wood than metal.

After the sights, I wanted better options for the sling. I don’t really like traditional sling mounts that put the sling on the bottom of the gun. I much prefer the side mounted slings since they let the rifle lay comfortably flat against the back. There were a few options but most were replacement stocks, which I didnt really feel was necessary, or plastic replacement barrel bands for the front of the gun. I don’t mind some plastic parts, but a part that was going to take the stress of a sling should not, in my opinion, be made of plastic. Fortunately, this  ProMag Ruger Barrel Band caught my eye. I ordered one up and it arrived last week. The reviews mentioned that one of the rail segments would probably butt up against the stock in such a manner that some fitting might be required. Indeed, that was the case. Options are: remove metal from the band or remove wood from the stock. Wood cuts easier than metal so I removed some wood. Didn’t bother me, I have a bunch spare old 10/22 stocks sitting around. Once mounted, the barrel band took a SureFire Scout just fine.(Although in reality, I have no need for a light on a .22 rifle, I just wanted the side sling mount….but I suppose if you’re heading out to the chicken coop at 2am to see what the fuss is about, it might make good sense to have a light on the end of your Chicken Defense Carbine.) Now I just need a sling bar on the back end of the gun to go with the side-mount sling at the front. (There’s a company selling an M1 Carbine-style stock for the 10/22 that would be perfect but Im just not ready to spend that much coin.)

Once sights and a sling mount were taken care of, all that was left was to swap out the standard magazine release for an extended AK-style release and we were done. A solid little 10/22 that was a bit easier to carry, had a better set of sights, and could field a a couple tacticool accessories like a light and bipod in case the gophers ever decided to get their act together and go Zulu on me.

Total outlay is around $120~ but the majority of that is in the sights, and I don’t mind popping the money for sights if theyre good, durable, and do what I want them to. I doubt I’ll be tweaking out all my 10/22′s like this one, but the one that I did tweak out a bit has been fun and accurate to shoot. If I had the money, I’d probably swap out the barrel for a threaded version to add a suppressor to, but thats a buncha money that is way down the line for right now.

Article – Gun-toting Olympians forced to leave London early, banned from social media

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

The Australian swim duo who posed with guns at a California shooting range and posted the photo to Facebook will be forced to leave the Olympics after the swimming competition ends on the second Sunday of the Summer Games. Nick D’Arcy and Kenrick Monk are also banned from using social media for a month-long period beginning July 16 as part of the punishment stemming from the controversial photograph.

Posing with guns is apparently a no-no. . The Australians don’t like folks showing off with guns, so even though these guys were doing it in a place that was okay with it, someone at the Home Office thought it sets a bad example.

This is a pretty fair example of a culture war. Don’t kid yourself, we have always been at war with  Eastasia culture. Used to be a time that shooting and guns were laudable interests. Big celebrities of the day like Robert Stack, Sammy Davis Jr., Mel Torme, etc, etc. were bigtime gun fanciers and no one gave it a second look. Nowadays, well, it’s a whole other story.

Empirical data gathering

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

img_03281Stopped by to visit with a fella the other day and saw a little project of his sitting on his workbench. He had a light fixture hooked up to a 12v battery, just sitting there. I asked him what he was doing. He said that he’d found a place selling 12v bulbs that worked in regular light bulb sockets, so he was seeing how long a charged battery would run the light. As he went about his day he would make a note on the hang tag that was attached to the light noting the time and how much time had elapsed. I commented that I really liked his approach but that it might be better served with an LED light to increase run time, and a light meter so he could monitor the actual decrease of light as time went by. He said he didn’t like the light LED bulbs gave off so he was sticking with the incandescent (which, I gotta say, would not be my first choice if Im counting on running on battery power) and that while I was probably right about getting a metric using a light meter, he just went with what his eyeballs told him was ‘usable light’.

Gotta admire someone that goes past the theory and grabs at a little empirical data for their own edification. I need to do more stuff like that.

Mag degreasing

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

Spent the afternoon disassembling, degreasing, lubing, and re-assembling a couple dozen surplus Uzi magazines. There is very little as annoying, dirty and slightly hazardous as degreasing military surplus. See, you figure you could just wipe down the mags with solvent and be done with it. Nope, gotta pull the mag apart and degrease the inside as well. And that is where it becomes a pain in the posterior. I stripped the mags, put them in an empty one-gallon pickle jar, filled it halfway with kerosene and laid it lengthwise to allow the mags to soak. Gave it a good shake every so often to move stuff around. Waited a while, fished ‘em out, laid ‘em in the sink and poured boiling water over them. The water washed away the kerosene and heated the mags up to the point that they dried themselves…no moisture. Wipe things down with a touch of Hoppes, re-assemble, and good to go.

Except, of course, I smell like a fuel leak.

FMJ v. (premium) JHP

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

Ammo is, naturally enough, a topic that comes up in the preparedness forums fairly often. Skipping past the usual “what caliber should I have for my SHTF pistol” nonsense, one of the more common questions is what type of ammo to keep around. Should you go long on the FMJ/Ball ammo or stock up on the JHP and ‘Personal Defense’ stuff?

I go long on the FMJ/Ball stuff, and keep a very small fraction of our stockpiled centerfire ammo as JHP’s.

Most military ammo is FMJ, right? So for the calibers where surplus military ammo is available we wind up with a lot of FMJ. Nothing wrong with that. Pretty much any rifle bullet, FMJ or not, traveling at a couple times the speed of sound will radically change someone’s immediate plans. In handguns the majority of our autopistol ammo is FMJ with probably less than 20%  as JHP or ‘defense’ ammo. Why? Couple reasons.

Although we have a decent amount of thundertoys on hand, there is no guarantee that the guns we’ll have will be our own guns. Might pick up a 1911 someone trades to for some freezedrieds, might come across an SKS in someones garage, might find a repairable Mosin Nagant in the back of a wrecked pickup truck. In short, you never know what guns you may stumble across. FMJ or Ball ammo is the ‘Type O-  Universal Donor’ of bullet styles. If a gun won’t work with quality FMJ ammo it probably won’t work better with anything else. (Of course, I’m sure there’ll be comments from folks saying they used to own a gun that bobbled every FMJ but shot hollowpoints perfectly. May be, but broadly speaking if a gun can’t handle FMJ it’s probably not going to do great with the more unusual bullet shapes like the hollowpoints or softpoints.)

“But..but..if you use FMJ ammo you’ll be giving up stopping power!” Well, maybe. But while FMJ may (or may not, depending on whose studies you review) have less stopping power than an FMJ, I can guarantee you that FMJ has more stopping power than JHP that nosedived into the feed ramp.

Interestingly, there is a happy medium in this ballistic mess. Years ago Federal came out with the very odd concept of an expanding FMJ. A contradiction of terms? The bullet has the profile of an FMJ but the front of the bullet, under the jacket, is filled with marshmallow or some similar gunk. The round feeds like an FMJ but when it hits something it compresses and expands like a softpoint of JHP. Very cool. Sadly, not something I can afford to stockpile in bulk. However, it seems like a wonderful choice for folks who are shooting something that can be finicky about bullet shapes. Cough*1911*cough.

The personal defense grade handgun ammo isn’t cheap. Where I can stock 9mm FMJ all day long at around $0.12@, stuff like HydraShocks, SCT, XTP or even Silvertips are going to be prohibitively expensive for anything other than a few hundred rounds. For carrying around day-to-day, I have some snazzy hollowpoints in the Glock, but once they’re gone it’ll be a diet of 115 gr. FMJ. On the other hand, to have shot off all the defensive hollowpoint ammo would mean that there must have been one amazing post -apocalyptic episode.

If I had the money, I’d do an even mix of FMJ and JHP. Hmm…lemme grab a catalog and do some comaprisons….

  • Federal American Eagle 9mm is $0.22@ vs. Federal Hydra Shock 9mm at about $1@…
  • Win. USA Brand 9mm is $0.34@ vs. SX JHP at $0.76@….
  • Rem. UMC 9mm is $0.32@ vs. Golden Sabre at $0.96@…
  • Speer Blazer 9mm is $.021@ vs. Gold Dot @ $1.05@….

So at its most generous, youre looking at around 2x the price for defense-grade pistol ammo and in a worst case almost 5x the price. Or, put another way, five cases (5000) of American Eagle FMJ will cost you one case (1000) of HydraShocks. So, for my money, I could have 1000 rounds or 5000 rounds. Easy to say I’ll take the FMJ when you put it that way. But, honestly, I would go for a mix of something like 20:80 of premium JHP:FMJ.

Now, where it gets really interesting is when you start reloading. I’ve a lovely Dillon 1050 and delaer pricing with the bullet companies. My cost difference on 5000 JHP for reloading versus 5000 FMJ for reloading is about, mmmm, maybe seven cents a bullet…meaning that to assemble a 9mm FMJ is $0.12 versus about $0.20 for a quality JHP. Or, put another way, I can reload JHP ammo with ‘brand name’ defensive hollowpoints (Gold Dots, XTP, etc) for about the same cost as buying loaded FMJ ammo.

Even with those numbers, I tend to stock FMJ in far greater quantities than JHP. My two reasons are primarily concerns about functionality in a very wide variety of platforms, and getting the most ‘bang for my buck’ – I want to maximize the amount of ammo my dollar gets me. At the same time, I recognize that ammo performance isnt to be disregarded and try to keep enough high-end ammo on hand to keep our favorite daily carry guns stoked for quite a while.

There ya go. Your mileage may vary.

Worng number right price

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

:::phone rings:::

Me: [Business name]!
Caller: Is this Trader Brothers?
Me: No, it’s [Business name]…that’s why we answer the phone with “[business name]!”
Caller: Oh. Well, I musta got the wrong number…..

“Well, it looks like your looking for some gun stuff…what’d ya need?”

“I’ve got an Uzi I was looking to sell. I’m 75 years old and it’s just too damn heavy to shoot.”

“Really? You know, I just happen to be in the market for one….”

Two hours later he comes into the shop. It’s a genuine Uzi from Action Arms, not one of the Vector clones or the (shudder) Centrury Chinese guns (derisively called ‘choosies’). Just the gun and one rusty magazine. Barrel nut is missing. A quick look online shows replacements are $25. We talk and I tell him what I can offer.

“Look, the best I can offer you is [X]. It’s worth more than that, no doubt. You can take it to a gun show and I’m sure you’ll find some takers but theyre probably looking for it for resale so theyre going to need to get it at a price that leaves them some room to move. But you might find someone who wants it for themselves and they’d give you more than [X]. I’m ready to give you $X, right now, cash money. You dont want to, thats perfectly fine too. No hard feelings, we can still be friends.”

“Mmm…I bet you could do [x+50]…”

“You know, I appreciate that, I really do. I wish I could. But I’m serious…[X] is what I’ve got right here, right now in my pocket. I really can’t go [x+50]. I still have to pay my rent and then explain to my wife why I’m walking in the door with an Uzi. I’ve got [x] right here, so it’s up to you.”

And, really, if he didn’t want to take [X] I would have been okay with it. True, these tings haven’t been brought into the country since ’86, but they do turn up with fair frequency. But, at the same time, I’d really like to cross “compact, fits-in-backpack, military-rugged 9mm carbine” off my list of things to buy so I can get it done and move on with my life.

So, when it was all said and done, he sold me the gun for what I offered and promised to come back sometime if he needed some gun stuff. In the meantime, I dragged what I call my “Uzi Hope Chest” out of the basement. Don’t look at me like that. I figured that someday I’d have another one of these things so I’ve been acquiring mags and accessories.

So, anyway, that how a wrong number wound up putting an Uzi in my gun rack.