Ar15.com and ,Rawles’ both had reposts of an after action report (AAR) from some hurricane refugees. It was pretty much what Ive been reading over the last six months…taking 30 hours to cover what normally took eight hours, closed gas stations, etc, etc. The disturbing part was about how when they were refueling their vehicle the people involved were close to being robbed for their fuel. The description mentions having to stand there with pistol in hand while fuelling and even the deterrent effect of that was sketchy.

As we all now, desperate people sometimes do things that defy good sense, and unarmed people trying to rob obviously armed people are one of those things.

So, I was wondering to myself, whats the solution. Its easy to say ‘shoot the first guy that comes too close after being warned’ but when push comes to shove I think there’ll still be reluctance to actually do that.

I figured there were a few options. In no particular order –

Refuel in an out-of-the-way area or in a way that obscures what youre doing from most observers. Perhaps when youre at ¼ tank you pull off an exit and drive a mile or two down the road and into a driveway or to the side of the road in some trees and refuel that way. Drawback is that from what I read, many exits were blocked off by the cops for various reasons. This means youre only choice is to refuel on the side of the interstate in full view of everyone else, who will no doubt be jealous of your forethought and wonder why you shouldn’t share with them since its unfair that you have fuel and they don’t.

A subterfuge would have been to have two people hold ponchos up to screen the activities of someone fuelling. To the casual observer it might appear to simply be someone taking a dump by the side of the road. Pretty sure this wouldn’t work though. Also require more people than might be available.

Neatest option would be some way to refuel covertly designed into the vehicle. In the case of a pickup truck, perhaps a secondary fuel port on the inside of the truck bed. Then a person could sit in the bed, have the fuel can below the line of sight and use a bulb-type pump to transfer fuel. Or simply run a large diameter length of tubing into the tank and have the free end routed over the gunwale and into the bed of the truck. Drape a sleeping bag or something over the side to conceal the tubing and it may simply appear that youre lounging in the back of your truck when in actuality your discretely pumping fuel into your tank below everyone elses line of sight.

Travelling at night might make a little more sense since you’d have cover of darkness to refuel and perhaps even less traffic to deal with. However, darkness brings its own problems too.

Finally, a dedicated non-lethal shotgun loaded with a blank or two and then some rubber buckshot. If things get ugly you fire a blank or two into the air or ground and if that doesn’t work you start bouncing rubber buck off the tarmac and into legs or just aim directly at the offending persons legs. If that doesn’t dissuade them, drop the gun and transition to pistol. The major drawback to this is, of course, that once you start pulling the trigger, even if it’s a blank or nonlethal round, someone might respond in kind.

A few people replied to the initial post suggesting that an overwhelming show of force would be the answer. Someone fuels while someone stands guard with their tweaked out M4gery. I think that some misanthropic opportunists might see this as a challenge and do the old ‘Whaddya gonna do? Shoot me? C’mon tough guy!’ routine and wind up escalating the situation unnecessarily. Tough call. In a pure nukes-have-destroyed-Chicago-NewYork-and-Washington-its-the-end-of-the-world scenario you probably could get away with simply warning someone to leave you alone and then shooting them if they press the issue. In a temporary disruption though…well, things will be back to normal in a week and it’ll catch up to you.

Of course, you could also just leave early and avoid a good portion of this. Or you could prepare to stay in place and avoid a good portion of this.

Really, theres no easy answer. Each possible solution has its own particular set of drawbacks.
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Unless Hillary Clinton runs for President in 2008 or Al-Queda nukes Miami, I don’t think the Republicans will win the election. I usually try to keep the political content to a minimum here but I think the current administration has made too many people hostile to them and its going to show at the polls. Unless the GOP clones Reagan and nominate him, I think the 2008 election will give us a Democrat for president.

If I’m wrong, great. I’d be happy to be wrong. But if Im right, then we could be looking at more gun ban situations. Sure, a Democrat President hamstrung by a Republican House and Senate majority might result in the kind of political stalemate we can all benefit from but Im not willing to take that chance.

In preparation for 2008 I am advocating:

• Magazines, magazines and more magazines (Those $2 HK91 mags may be a good investment) Esp. Glock, AR, AK and FAL mags.
• Stripped AR lowers. The remaining parts are uncontrolled. 
• .50 BMG guns and ammo if youre into that sort of thing
• 7.62×39 ammo and any other caliber that a shut-off of the imported stuff would cause you to drastically shoot less. (8mm., 7.62×25, 5.45×39, etc.)
• Powder and primers in case ATFE gets a wild hair to classify them as bombmaking gear and start requiring licenses. They already did this for some model rocketry motors.
• If youre of the mind to get an FFL of some type (C&R, 06, etc) get it now.

I don’t think that the non-gun aspects of preparedness would be affected nearly as much as the gun aspect. Freezedried foods will still be available, as will fuel cans, MagLites, sleeping bags, water containers, etc, etc.

http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/313/C5234/

A step in the right direction, the foot-powered Freeplay Freecharge Weza portable energy source is the ideal way to keep your mobile device’s battery, and your waistline, healthier.

The compact Weza weighs in at 20.5 lb and will be available next March to those with an extra $294.95 kicking around.
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Must. Get. One.

Specs can be found at Freeplays website.
7 amp/hour battery but for my minimal needs of lighting and radios, it might be adequate.

I have a pretty decent mountain bike. Not the top of the line, but still pretty good…it’s a Gary Fisher that I paid about $500 for. For where I live and most of the errands that I need to run, it makes miles more economic sense than driving. Of course, for about five months out of the year its just too damn cold to ride it, but the rest of the time…

As Im sure you can imagine, the mountain bike has a few bonuses going for it as well, once you factor in the preparedness angle. I can avoid traffic jams and roadblocks, weave down alleys, sidewalks and between parked/stalled vehicles, requires no fuel, is quiet, covers a fair amount of distance, can handle logging roads and even foottrails in the sticks, and can carry an adequate amount of gear for immediate and short-term needs. (Esp. if I wear a backpack.)

Going back to the current apocalyptic paradigm of Katrina, anyone with a decent mountain bike, a map, a backpack, and 24 hours notice could have put some major distance between themselves and the worst-flooded areas. I remember seeing footage on 9/11/01 of people having to hoof it out of NYC. That can be a long walk in business attire. Even one of those funky ‘foldup/briefcase’ bicycles would have been several orders of magnitude better than walking…esp. if you didn’t know if things were going to get worse and needed to de-ass the area in a hurry. And, yes, I could also do all those same things, and do them faster, with a KLR650 or other motorcycle but, sadly, my budget can’t handle that right now.

I’ve been thinking about having the bike stripped down to the frame and having the frame powdercoated to give it an essentially impervious and protective finish…a nice olive green color with a matte finish. Although, I suppose, in a pinch I could just spraypaint the whole thing if I had to.

One of the things I need to do is pick up some maintenance manuals and tools and put together a bicycle repair/maintenance kit. Things like spare spokes, tubes, chain, links, cables, guides, etc, etc, as well as all the requisite tools like patch kits, pump, spoke tools, allen wrenches, screwdrivers, chainbreaker, etc, etc. Larger things like spare seat stems and wheels would, of course, have to go in the bunker.

I need to get a good pouch/bag to carry this gear. The requirements are that the pouch/bag be subdued color, immensely durable, versatile, capable of being carried independent of the bicycle (carry strap), affixed to the bicycle, and have the ability to be integrated (MOLLE, PALS, ALICE, etc) into a larger bag.
Interestingly, Im looking for a bag for my support gear for my CZ as well. I need a bag that meets the same criteria as above. I need to carry spare ammo, magazines, cleaning gear, scope tools, screwdrivers, range cards, spare sling and swivels, maybe a set of binoculars, etc, etc. Sort of a grab-n-go bag for my CZ550. And, like the bag mentioned above, it should be capable of being carried on its own through use of a sling or strap and should also be able to be integrated into a larger bag through the use of standard attachment methods/points.

A standard SAW ammo pouch comes close to what Im looking for and with a few minor modifications might work well, but I need to shop around a bit…hit the usual gearqueer sites like Kifaru, Maxpedition, etc, etc.
Speaking of my CZ, now that I have the lovely 8# keg o’ Varget to use I can accelerate my work on developing an ideal load for my .308. I’ve got some Sierra MatchKings to try out and also will be getting some Lapua .308 brass to try as well. I want to find a load that shoots well and then crank out about a thousand rounds of it to stock away. Then comes the fun part – calculating ballistics with things like time of flight, remaining energy, bullet drop, wind drifts, etc. at various ranges and making range cards. According to my software, assuming a target 6″ in diameter (about the size of someones face), if I sight in at 129 yards I can hold dead on out to 270 yards and hit within that 6″ target zone without having to worry about holdovers. Assuming my target zone is a 10″ circle (about a torso/chest size) I can sight in at 154 yards and hit within my target zone out to 330 yards.
What brings the good Commander Zero joy? Saving money and stocking his freezer..and if I can do each of those at the same time, all the better.

Case in point: ground beef. My local Albertson’s is only three blocks from my workplace, so each day around lunchtime I trot over and scope out the meat counter. Stuff that has hit (or is about to hit) its ‘use by’ date is put in a bin way at the end of the counter and marked down. Todays prize: 80/20 ground beef that was normally $2.99 a pound is in 1~2# packages at $1.69 per pound that’s about 44% off. Put another way, the $8.79 I spent to get 5.2 pounds of meat would normally have only gotten me 2.94 pounds of meat. Its like getting two-and-a-quarter pounds of meat for free. Darn near half price! Pays to shop smart, people! (They also had a few pork loin roasts and some angus beef marked down but I couldn’t really see them being as versatile as regular ground beef. However, on those occasions when they have a beef roast marked down, I try to get those since they are good for sandwiches all week.)

1/3 goes into the freezer for immediate use and the remaining 2/3 goes for the cryo-nap in my deep freeze downstairs (after being vacuum sealed, naturally).

There is no reason for anyone in this country to be hungry. If you can come up with $5 a day I can feed you until you bust. Last night I made shrimp fried rice and the cost was about…mmm…twentyfive cents for enough rice for two people…another thirty cents for three eggs..about twenty cents for one green onion…soy sauce was free since it was a packet from a Chinese take out…three bucks for some cooked shrimp (or I could use some of the even cheaper remaindered skinless chicken breast or steak and bring this in for even less)…so its about a $4 dinner, in terms of actual ingredients. That’s for two people, mind you…so that’s really $2/person. Still leaves me three bucks to feed you oatmeal, scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast and maybe some soup for lunch.

An interesting side note was that when I was cooking last night I had to restock the rice container that was on the kitchen counter. I got on the footstool, opened a cabinet and pulled down a white six-gallon bucket. Set it on the counter, unscrewed the GammaSeal lid and beheld bazillions of tiny grains of rice…all nice and safe, clean and dry, secured from rodent and insect problems, and when I scooped out a cup of the stuff it barely made a dent in the huge quantity that was there. Mmmmm…that’s security. I love that smug, satisified feeling of ‘Oh yeah, this was a good idea’.

There arent many people who enjoy a good apocalyptic fiction (as opposed to apocalyptic non-fiction, I guess) book as much as I. So, when I heard Stephen King had a book out (Cell) about zombies I figured Id give it a shot. Now, theres spoilage ahead but I dont think you’ll care because Im advocating you save yourself $18 and give this thing a pass.

Let us be warned: There be spoilage ahead

Yup, got a bit weary of the fundamental and the judgemental over at the Cheap Rodent forum so I signed up at arfcom’s forum. Still read over at the other place, but after reading pretty much every post at arfcom I think I like them a bit better. Need to just lurk for a bit to see what sense of community they have though.

For the interested: http://www.ar15.com/forums/forum.html?b=1&f=123

Article about hyperinflation in Zibabwe

Classic example of hyperinflation complete with buy-it-now-before-prices-go-higher, buying food with suitcases of money, issuing superhigh denomination notes, inflated salaries,etc.

Reprinted under cut

Happiness is finding food storage that you like enough to eat even when there arent hordes of zombies roaming the streets.

Tried making egg fried rice this evening and to my surprise it came out pretty darn good. I was surprised because the ingredients were pretty unimpressive.

1 cup cooked rice
couple tablespoons cooking oil
salt
green onion, sliced
three eggs

Beat three eggs lightly, add a pinch of salt and a little bit of the green onions and then beat some more.
Heat oil in wok and add eggs, scrambling and cooking until theyre about half done
Add rice and mix really really well
Cook with frequent stirring until eggs are dry, rice is thoroughly coated. Add remaining onions and cook another minute or two.

Its good by itself with some soy cauce. Where it really shines is as a base for adding whatever is handy like chicken or othermeats and whatever vegetables (or sprouts) you have laying about.

The original recipe calls for some green peas as well but I dont care for green peas so I omitted them. However, Mountain House makes freezedried (FD) green peas. The dehydrated eggs, rice and cooking oil can all be stored longterm and dehydrated or FD onions could be substituted for the green onions.

Good meal, filling, hearty, requires minimal prep and the cost is less than $1 for a large serving.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

The most useful and valuable resource any revolutionary movement can have is…what? Operational bases located in other countries. The FLN had Tunisia, the Viet Cong had Cambodia and to a lesser degree China, Anti-Castro forces have/had Florida, etc, etc. The advantages are, to me, obvious. Remember when you were a kid and played tag? If you were on ‘base’ you were immune from getting tagged. Same thing.

I mention it because I think one of the biggest advantages that a person can have in terms of personal preparedness is a secondary location to relocate to. Take the case of Katrina victims, for example. Lets say they do get on a bus or get some gas for their Buick and get out of Dodge. Where to go? If you dont have a secondary location or some good friends or relatives to set up with youre going to be living in your car or a hotel and neither one of those is an attractive option. The solution would be to have a place to go where you know that even if the accomodations arent exactly the same as the place youre evacuating from you at least know theres food, fuel, water, clean clothes and power waiting for you.

Realistically, this is probably the most expensive aspect of preparedness (short of fortifying or building-to-suit your primary residence). There are a few ways to go about setting up a secondary location. Your secondary location could simply be good friends or relatives. Showing up on their doorstep with just the clothes on your back would be a bit of a burden so if they are, as we say, ‘Like Minded Individuals’, they might not mind you leaving a couple footlockers in their basement in case you ever wind up becoming their guests for a few months. Clothes, bedding, toiletries, some food, etc…the usual stuff, goes a long way towards making oneself welcome. A decent all-season tent would be nice because then you could just pitch it in their backyard and really be a low-profile guest. Shower in the morning using their bathroom, run an extension cord out to the tent for a small heater or radio, and you’d pretty much be invisible to them.

Another option, and one I’d like to pursue, is to simply have the land available to retreat to. Realistically, we all want a nice fortified, spacious dwelling to pull up to as the mushroom clouds bloom in the distance. In reality, thats a pretty big-ticket item. The old addage about a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush really comes to play here. Example: the property you want with nice old stone farmhouse, year-round spring and fertile fields is $300k. While youre saving that money The Big Event happens and you need to relocate…but you havent gotten the property yet. A more realistic alternative, in my opinion, is to buy the bare land first and hold onto it until such time as you can build on it or re-sell it when youve saved enough for another place. This way, while your saving up for that perfect bunker you still have a place to go if you need to. A few acres of land that is in your name gives you alot more relocation options than a real estate brochure and money in a savings account. Its a place to park a trailer, set up a tent, drop a cargo container, or even build a small, basic build-it-yourself-in-a-weekend cabin.

While your sticking money away for the Perfect Place, you have this chunk of land as a fallback position. When you finally do have enough money you can either build on your proerty or buy the property you’ve been wanting all along and sell your other one (which probably appreciated in the interval).

At least, thats the theory….

The most useful and valuable resource any revolutionary movement can have is…what? Operational bases located in other countries. The FLN had Tunisia, the Viet Cong had Cambodia and to a lesser degree China, Anti-Castro forces have/had Florida, etc, etc. The advantages are, to me, obvious. Remember when you were a kid and played tag? If you were on ‘base’ you were immune from getting tagged. Same thing.

I mention it because I think one of the biggest advantages that a person can have in terms of personal preparedness is a secondary location to relocate to. Take the case of Katrina victims, for example. Lets say they do get on a bus or get some gas for their Buick and get out of Dodge. Where to go? If you dont have a secondary location or some good friends or relatives to set up with youre going to be living in your car or a hotel and neither one of those is an attractive option. The solution would be to have a place to go where you know that even if the accomodations arent exactly the same as the place youre evacuating from you at least know theres food, fuel, water, clean clothes and power waiting for you.

Realistically, this is probably the most expensive aspect of preparedness (short of fortifying or building-to-suit your primary residence).  There are a few ways to go about setting up a secondary location. Your secondary location could simply be good friends or relatives. Showing up on their doorstep with just the clothes on your back would be a bit of a burden so if they are, as we say, ‘Like Minded Individuals’, they might not mind you leaving a couple footlockers in their basement in case you ever wind up becoming their guests for a few months. Clothes, bedding, toiletries, some food, etc…the usual stuff, goes a long way towards making oneself welcome. A decent all-season tent would be nice because then you could just pitch it in their backyard and really be a low-profile guest. Shower in the morning using their bathroom, run an extension cord out to the tent for a small heater or radio, and you’d pretty much be invisible to them.

Another option, and one I’d like to pursue, is to simply have the land available to retreat to. Realistically, we all want a nice fortified, spacious dwelling to pull up to as the mushroom clouds bloom in the distance. In reality, thats a pretty big-ticket item. The old addage about a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush really comes to play here. Example: the property you want with nice old stone farmhouse, year-round spring and fertile fields is $300k. While youre saving that money The Big Event happens and you need to relocate…but you havent gotten the property yet. A more realistic alternative, in my opinion, is to buy the bare land first and hold onto it until such time as you can build on it or re-sell it when youve saved enough for another place. This way, while your saving up for that perfect bunker you still have a place to go if you need to. A few acres of land that is in your name gives you alot more relocation options than a real estate brochure and money in a savings account. Its a place to park a trailer, set up a tent, drop a cargo container, or even build a small, basic build-it-yourself-in-a-weekend cabin.

While your sticking money away for the Perfect Place, you have this chunk of land as a fallback position. When you finally do have enough money you can either build on your proerty or buy the property you’ve been wanting all along and sell your other one (which probably appreciated in the interval).

At least, thats the theory….

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I saw on the news that the Red Cross is still getting blowback from their operations (or lack thereof) in La. following the hurricane there. The main complaint seems to be that on a small/local level they do okay, but those small on-the-ground units are hampered by lumbering out-of-touch corporate bureaucracy. Remember the scene in ‘Blackhawk Down’ where generals in Washington are trying to manage a battle over satellite? Theyre in Washington giving orders to troops in Somalia who are engaged in firefights. Same thing.

Solution? Everyone has a solution. Mine is to do what most militaries do. Give broad guidelines and tremendous lattitude to the on-scene crews to do what they think is necessary within the pre-established framework. Of course, I also think a military-like approach to disaster relief would make a huge difference. Not military as in gun-toting gung-ho types (although theres certainly a place for that in any disaster relief org.) but rather in terms of TOE, rapid deployment ability, logistics, etc, etc.

The girlfriend and I were going through our snail mail the other night and there was a ’send us money’ letter from the Red Cross. The girlfriend said that in the past she had donated but that she wouldnt this time. I asked if it was because of the mismanagement of the agency that has come to light in the wake of Katrina. She said that wasnt the reason, her reasoning was that it made more sense to spend that money on our own preparations. By our being prepared, we are not a burden that the Red Cross needs to put resources into. In short, since we’ll be ready the RC can go elsewhere. (And, of course, theres the added bonus that we dont have to stand on food lines.) A very practical response. One less needy couple means the RC can focus their efforts on someone who isnt prepared.

Does this mean I dont think the RC is worth donating to? Not sure. They do good work in terms of first aid/CPR training and the smaller stuff. However, I think that money would be better invested in community/state level disaster relief. After all, the RC will take a couple days to get to you whereas the boys at VFD #1 will already be there the second the hurricane is over. Municipalities have no shortage of properties that would be suitable for secure and structurally resiliant supply storage facility.

I’ve said it before, but its true – Katrina/New Orleans will be the paradigm for most disaster planning for the forseeable future. It was hust too ‘perfect’ an example to not use…there was lawlessness, out of control cops, local and federal impotence, dramatic tales and footage of survival, huge body counts, etc, etc. Its every ’survivalist fantasy’ made manifest. All the elements are there. The scenarios that previously just existed in badly-written ‘mens action’ novels (*Ahern*cough*Johnstone*)actually existed and, by implication, could exists again elsewhere. Definitely a wakeup call to the less-than-prepared.
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Im experiencing some disappointment with the plastic Blitz fuel cans. This requires some mental imagery so bear with me. The spout that comes with the can is, when not in use, inverted so that it is inside the can. Follow me? Problem is, the spout hangs down far enough into the can that its mouth comes in contact with the fuel. When the temperature changes the expansion/contraction of the container and the vapors within creat pressure and fuel is forced up the spout and then seeps out the cap. Very bad. The solutions are all unappealing:
Fill the cans to the point where the fuel doesnt come in contact with the spout – so my 5-gal. containers is a 4.5 gal.?
Remove the spout and simply use a cap on the mouth of the can – Easiest but removes convenience of having a pourable spout available with the fuel.
Leave lids screwed on cans loose enough to allow vapor/pressure bleeding – Im sure you can see the unappeal of that

Sadly, if I continue to go with the plastic cans, option #2 looks like it may have to be the way to go. About now someone will ask why not use the MFC (mil. fuel cans) that are available. Well, for my needs theyre probably a good choice but damn they are spendy. Let me quickly recap my needs vis-a-vis plastic vs. metal fuel cans: metal cans are for long (>1 year) storage of fuel and are preferred for their lack of permeability and their durability. The plastic cans are for short term (FAQ on fuel storage cans that compare the most popular ‘jerry cans’. I’ll try to find it and post the link.
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I just finished cleaning the girlfriends AK and as I marvel at its simplicity all I can think is “The AR is never clean enough and the AK is never dirty enough”.