Tag Archives: bargains

More deal, more ammo

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Another ammo deal has walked into my life. Unfortunately, this one is an all-or-nothing type of thing which means I need to take in the stuff I have no use for in order to get the stuff I do have a use for. What do I have a use for? 25,000 rounds of .22, some .308, some .223, some 7×57. What do I have no need for? 6.5 Creedmoor, .264 Win., .204 Ruger, etc.

But Im into it cheap enough that I should be able to flip it at the next gun show in a hurry.

I already have something like 60,000 rounds of .22 on hand so I suspect most of this .22 LR will wind up going to the Beta Site bunkers. Maybe gift a few thousand rounds to some friends…ammo is always a good gift.

I pick the whole lot up on Friday, I’ll try to remember to post pics.

All American 25q at CostCo

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For those of you who are local to Missoula: CostCo has the AA 25 qt pressure canner marked down to $199.97 with the ‘death star’ on the price label. Sez Google:

The Costco “Death Star” is a small asterisk symbol printed in the upper corner of a price tag that indicates an item is being deleted or will not be restocked in its current form.

What It Means

Pending Delete: The warehouse supervisor or corporate system has flagged the Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) to stop reordering.

Not Always Permanent: While some items are gone for good, others may return as seasonal products, package or size updates, or with a new model number and SKU.

Inventory Clear-out: Once the remaining stock on the floor sells out, the space will make room for new inventory.

Related Price Tag Clues

Price Ending in .97: Indicates a manager markdown or clearance price, which often accompanies the asterisk.

Price Ending in .00 or .88: Signals a rare manager special used to clear out the final few items or floor models.

Price Ending in .99: The standard full price, meaning the item has plenty of inventory and is staying put for now.

Sooooo…..

I just bought one of these a few weeks ago for a friend and it was about $35 more back then, so this is a great deal on a top-of-the-line pressure canner if you don’t already have one. Ive had one of these All Americans for a while now and haven’t had a lick of trouble with it. Good, solid, built-to-last build quality.

Freedom seeds

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Buddy texts me and tells me that a guy is bringing in a bunch of ammo to sell and would I be interested? Well…you had me at “.308 and .223”.

Lets see….

  • 1000 rds. Lake City 62. Gr Green Tip 5.56
  • 1000 rds. Prvi Partizan 55 gr. FMJ 5.56
  • 500 rds. Federal 55 gr. FMJBT 5.56
  • 500 rds. Norma Tac-223 55 gr. FMJBT 5.56
  • 500 rds. Federal American Eagle 150 gr FMJ 7.62×51
  • 500 rds. Federal Gold Medal Match 168 gr. SMK .308 Win.
  • 200 rds. German battle pack FMJ 7.62×51

Price? Well….let’s see… $0.25 for the 5.56 and $0.40 for the .308. Yes, thats a case of Federal Gold Medal Match for $0.40 per round.

I have a friend with a nice little .308 rifle and they do not reload for it, so the Gold Medal will go to them at my cost (because I’m nice that way) and the rest will be kept for Der Tag. Probably take a case or two up to the Beta Site.

This is fortuitous…I’ve been wanting to have some ammo to stash around and this should help with that.

Right place, right time, but it still hurts to fork over the hundos.

 

 

 

Five ton

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I used to know a guy out near Hamilton who had a wonderful piece of property that butted up against the rifle range. Like a lot of people who came to Montana before it became the trendy thing, he had come out here for one reason or another and fell in love with the place. As a young machinist, he didnt have a lot of money, so he went back to California and worked himself silly for two years until he had what he thought was enough to come out and buy a piece of dirt. He found this piece of property that was being sold by an old widow. Being young and a bit inexperienced in the ways of real estate, he didn’t necessarily ask how big the piece that was for sale was. He just saw the “For Sale” sign, saw it was in his price range, and knocked on the door. He made the deal with the widow and right before they shook hands she said she’d take the money but “He had to take all the land.” Waitasec..what do you mean ‘all’? Turned out the offer she made was for the entire chunk of dirt…something like 36 acres or so. He thought it was just for the little chunk he saw that was immediately around her house. So, he wound up with a lot more land than he had thought he paid for. Good for him.

I was reminded of that story today when I went and bought another Beebe Bros. winch. A friend of mine was nice enough to ‘indefinite loan’ me his 2-ton Beebe Bros. hand winch. Awesome bit of old-style tool. But, while his loaning of it to me was generous, it’s still a loan and while I am grateful I also want to make sure he gets it back. So, I went hunting for one for my very own.

I lucked out and found, locally, a 5-ton that was in great shape and reasonably priced. Yay me! But I still wanted my own 2-ton so I could get this one back to its owner. So a month or two back I found on one Facebook for sale out near Ovando (40~ miles away). They wanted more than I was willing to pay. I told them, hey, I’ll give you 2/3 your ask on it. They demurred. I said no worries…if you still have it in a few months, let me know and the offer still stands. They contacted me the other week and I picked it up today. As I was driving back I was thinking how I was going to have to take it apart and clean it, and I was thinking about getting the 2-ton back to its generous owner. But something in my head wasn’t quite settling properly. And then I had the a-ha* moment: 

 

Yeah, that wasn’t the 2-ton model. Like the aforementioned friend, I thought I was buying the small and would up buying the large. Not complaining though. The difference between this and the other 5-ton is the drum on this one is a bit narrower (8″ vs 12″) making it slightly more portable.

It’s purpose? Hauling downed trees out of where I don’t want them and into the places I do. And I plan on moving a buncha rock next year, so it should be handy for that as well.

 

* = Trivia: “A-ha” means the same thing in every language.

Epic loot drop

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A few posts back I mentioned that I was going to be looking at picking up an estate from a deceased survivalist. How’d that go, you ask? Well, you tell me……..the haul includes, but is not limited to, things like gas masks, filters, water purification, water filters, water barrels, water tanks, propane tanks, kerosene, propane heater, kerosene heater, knives, holsters, bear spray, speedloaders, gun rugs, tools, and a bunch of other stuff. Lets go to the pics…

Also picked up a Makita power drill as well…

There were several Buck and KaBar knives. The SOG Seal knife is a bit of a collectible.

Mostly Glock and K-frame holsters. The brand new DeSantis gun belts are only an inch lager than my normal belt size, so those should work nicely. The brown holster is for an L-frame Smith which is the same size as my GP-100 pistols. Same for the speedloaders.

Several of these with filters. All appear new and unopened.

These are one-gallon containers but there were some 5-gallon drums of kero as well.

A little bit of everything. The two tanks are 100-gallon.

I really only took pictures of the interesting stuff. There were also a dozen full barbecue bombs, which, of course, I snapped up.

A  bunch of this stuff will wind up going to the Beta Site at some point soon. A lot of this stuff is actually redundant to things I have here in town…as it should be. Never know if youre gonna be stuck at home for the apocalypse or if youre gonna have time to beat feet to your alternate location.

Its always interesting to go through someone elses preps and see how they decided they wanted to prepare for the uncertain future. Im sure that a lot of cool stuff was picked over by relatives and friends before I got to it, but I am nonetheless pleased with what I got. There were a few good values in there and I have nothing to complain about.

90% of this stuff will wind up going into containers and set aside for when I get the conex up and secured. But, it crosses a lot of things off of my list of Things To Get For The Beta Site.

Bargain meat

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The Meat Tray, praised be its memory, is a thing of the past and its never coming back. But, my local Albertson’s still ‘remainders’ meat at 30-50% off when it hits the ‘sell by’ date. This invariably results in me cleaning them out of whatever it is that has caught my palate’s fancy. For the last few months its been ground beef….an all-purpose animal protein (like chicken breast) that lends itself to all sorts of meals.

They remainder other things, too. Steaks, roasts, etc, but I usually just stick to the ground beef for its low(er) price and versatility. However, today I caught the pork on sale and marked down 50%. I only grabbed about a third of what was there because, honestly, Im running out of freezer space. I picked up another freezer a few years back to supplement my big chest freezer and both of those are darn near at capacity. Time to start rotating out.

According to the receipt, what should have set me back around $77 came out to less than half of that. So, go me!

Im not terribly worried about starving to death. I think that, on the whole, its pretty hard to starve to death in a country of $6 rotisserie chickens. I want to put that in perspective for a moment. A 5# bag of potatoes is about $3 at Winco, a chicken is $6, and a 15 oz. can of yellow corn is about a buck. Half a chicken, corn, and mashed potatoes for two meal comes out to about four bucks for dinner for today and lunch for tomorrow. For an outlay of ten bucks. Since virtually no job is less than ten dollars an hour these days, I argue that not being able to afford to eat is a bit misleading.

But, as I said, Im not worried about starving. I’m worried about inflation and supply chain disruption. America is the only country in history where “Theres nothing to eat” means “theres nothing I want to eat”. In this country, it means “I dont want pancakes and canned pears for breakfast again”. Everywhere else it means, “There is (literally) no food in the house.”

“Buying the dip” when it comes to meats gives me a lot of margin in the event of a job less, supply issue, or other disruption. It’d be crazy not to take advantage of these sorts of sales.

Bargain beef – its whats for dinner

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I have to remind myself every so often that not everyone cares or is interested in what’s going on with the Beta Site. Sure, there’s a lot of folks here who are kinda living vicariously a bit…and I’m happy to feed that. But there’s also a contingent that are probably tired of hearing about it, so I need to remember to post about stuff other than the Beta Site.

Todays noteworthy event was scoring more ground beef at 50% off.

My job requires me to do bank deposits daily. When I’m out running that errand I usually make a fast pass through ALbertson’s to check for remaindered meat. It’s paid off pretty well over the last several months.

Prices rarely go down on ..well..anything. And ground cow is still one of the most versatile animal proteins I can buy. Meatloaf, hamburgers, spaghetti sauce, tacos, etc, etc. Plus..who doesn’t like beef?

As it turns out, my other favorite animal protein – chicken – can be had by the case at WinCo for something like a buck and a half a pound if I dont mind getting a plastic sack full of 40# of boneless/skinless chicken breast. True it is probably the least flavorful part of the chicken, but I almost always just wind up turning it into stir fry or chicken tenders anyway.

I’ve never regretted having a freezer full of food. In my entire life I have only had one freezer failure and that was about twenty years ago. I’ve been much more careful about those sorts of things.

And, of course, you never know when, for whatever reason, trotting down to the supermarket for some 85/15 may not be in the cards. At that point youre living offa whats in your freezer and fridge and hopefully you’ve loaded up. Since Im a cautious sort, and never know when the next EOTWAWKI (personal or national) is coming, I always stock up when I can find these sorts of bargains.

Here’s a truth that you can absolutely bank on: before the big EOTWAWKI happens you will face many smaller, personal ones. You may be in one right now. What do they look like? Job loss, divorce, medical emergency, foreclosure, busted transmissions, leaky water heaters, tennis-ball-swallowing dogs, vulnerable loved ones, home invasions, unexpected expenses, 2am phone calls, and a thousand other crises that mean nothing to everyone else but are paramount to you because they are happening to you.

And when that personal EOTWAWKI, with its accompanying financial spiral, hits your life, it’ll be nice to not have to worry about things like groceries while your frantically trying to keep whatr you have left as you scramle to get your life back on the rails.

Bargain – T3 Gear…sitewide 50% off

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Got a notice in email of a 50% off sale at a vendor I like. Passing it on to you guys.

A small shop that makes a couple items that I very much like. The first is their T3 Bolt Bag, an ‘active shooter’ style bag. Carries spare rifle mags on a removable panel, has pass-through on either side of the bag to access a holster, and is lined with velcro for things like mag pouches and whatnot. I have one of these for each ‘ready rifle’, and it holds mags, a Glock, spare mag, Stop The Bleed Kit, and a few other niceties for when bullets start flying. I’ve got one for the AK, AR, and HK91. At 50% off, these are a good piece of kit.

Other item is this buttpack. Used in conjunction with a ‘battle belt’ and suspenders, this is a nice way to carry essentials in the field. It also has D-rings so you can use it as a sling bag, but it really shines as a buttpack. Again, at 50% off…totally worth it.

I’m passing this along to you guys because I find these two pieces of gear to be quite handy and well-thought out. I’m getting no piece of the action on this, so my motivation to pass this along is strictly out of ‘satisfied customer’.

Discount code is: THISISNOTADRILL

Age come on apace

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Liberace, back in the day, sued a tabloid for implying that he was gay. (And, of course, he was but back then it was a secret. A poorly kept one..I mean, look at the man…but a secret nonetheless.) So Liberace sued and won a judgment against the tabloid. When asked if the stress and spotlight of the scandalous trial was upsetting to him, Liberace famously said “I cried all the way to the bank.”

Fast forward to the other day when I was hitting the bargain meat bin at Albertsons…which I do every day on my lunch hour since they are nearby. So I found a half dozen pork tenderloins marked down 50%. Ok, protein is protein..lets head to the check out. The guy working the till asks me how old I am. I ask him why he needs to know. Turns out, the first Thursday of every month is ‘Senior Citizen Day’ with a 5% discount. Apparently their threshold for senior citizen is a rather low bar and I qualified. So, on one h and, I’m pretty jazzed about getting 55% off on bargain meat, but on the other hand I’m pretty annoyed that I look old enough that someone would ask me if I’m a senior citizen.

I cried all the way to the deep freeze.

CostCo Lithium Batts *

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Was up at CostCo picking up some more lithium AA-batts at lunch. The price tag for the batteries had the dreaded asterisk (“*”) after it’s price. What does that mean, you ask?

SO, what this means, is that once the supply of Energizer lithium AA-batts at this CostCo is gone…theyre probably gone for a while. So if youre local, and you want lithium AA-batts (which you should use in all yhour critical devices), you need to hustle thee down to CostCo and snag the last few 18-packs that are there.