Notes from the Sandy Zone

The following was originally posted by "Crowgirl" on AR15.com. I am copying it here so that the info is kept available to all, after it slips into the site's archives. I have cleaned up the formatting somewhat, but otherwise haven't edited the post.


1) My trip to LI (parents were in the hurricane area)

I left here Thursday AM, after loading out the car with a lot of equipment, most of it newly purchased as I was planning on leaving it there and didn't want to sacrifice my own home preps.

I brought: 2 small generators (1800 and 2000 watts), 2 inverters, 2 deep cycle batteries, a battery charger, an extension cord (from house preps), a camp stove (from house preps), 2 power strips, 8 cans of camp stove propane, firestarters, matches, solar lanterns (from house preps), a ton of batteries, a metal cot (from house preps), a shotgun (from house preps), ammo, 2 cases of water, and 10 gal empty gas cans (more on that later).

Also cell phone, chargers, laptop, groceries, clothes and the usual stuff you'd take on a trip.

The ride down from VT was fairly uneventful except for the gas situation, which started to be noticeable 60 miles north of NYC.

I stopped once on I-87 for gas for the car. Then I stopped in Newburgh NY for a cell phone charger that I had forgotten and thank God I did. When I got off the exit I noticed that lots of people with cars with New Jersey plates were huddled around the gas pumps filling up cans. I stopped and asked the guys there where the northern edge of the "no gas zone" was. One told me "you're lookin' at it, baby".

I ended up filling the cans there rather than in White Plains as I had planned. If I had waited it would have been too late.

I topped off the car one last time halfway down 684 and there was nothing left at the station but super unleaded and the line was fairly brutal.

When I got to my hometown I drove right down the main street. Most of the lights were out. Many of the stores were boarded up with plywood against looters and unsavory characters were lurking around.

Trees were down all around, and I had to take a few alternate streets to get to my parents house. Arrival there was uneventful.

I was there for 8 days. The trip home was also uneventful. At the time I left the houses across the street still had no power and gas was still very limited in supply.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

2) Notes on physical issues:

- You may have to head INTO a disaster area rather than out of one, because of family members (or bad luck). This was something I had never really considered. This is a more difficult situation than bugging out or staying put as you have to both pack and assume that nothing is available at your target destination (whereas if you bug out to a safe zone it may be and if you stay put you have all your stuff right there).

- Make sure your vehicle can handle the weight of what you are carrying. My car had so much stuff in it that it steered like a shopping cart with a bad wheel. I
never weighed it but I think I was close to the gross weight the car could handle.

- You will forget things if you don't prepack it and doublecheck it all. I did pretty well considering the circumstances (on top of it all a family member was ill) but forgot my toothbrush, a prescription, my cell phone charger, and some tools.

- Whatever you forget will be the one thing you need to get everything else working. The toolkit had some screwdrivers I needed to get the generator cover off. Fortunately a neighbor had some.

- Gas, gas and more gas. You can't have too much gasoline. If you don't use it or need it someone else will.

- In bad or questionable areas, or in good areas bordering questionable ones, looting will start very quickly after the disaster. What will be looted first are luxury items, such as electronics. The "cash for gold" and the fake nails place also got hit. Food stores won't get looted until later.

- In better areas looting will take a little longer, but will still happen unless it is defended against.

- It is mostly stores that will be looted. Unoccupied houses are at risk but less likely. Occupied houses were generally left alone. The looters are lazy and are looking for a quick hit with no resistance.

- The people on the roads during a crisis will be 2 of 3 groups. The first responders will be out, responding. The normal clueful people will be home waiting it out. And the thugs/morons/lookie loos will be out driving around and getting in the first responders way.

- A crisis will make people drive like they are auditioning for The Road Warrior movie. You need to be very defensive, because if your vehicle gets damaged you may not be able to get it fixed.

- You need multiple ways of doing anything. For instance, when paying for gas some of the stations only took credit cars, some only took cash. Bring both.

- You need backups for critical items. For instance, the built-in connection cord for one of the inverters fell apart in my hands as I tried to hook it to one of the batteries, and I couldn't repair it with what I had on hand. Luckily I had a 2nd inverter. "Two is one and one is none".

- Test out your equipment ahead of time. This wasn't really possible for me because I had just bought it all, but if you have the time don't get complacent and assume it'll all work together when TSHTF. What I encountered was the inverter cord falling apart, and the newfangled gas can nozzles being a) completely cryptic and b) not working to get gas into the car. We never figured out how these "green" nozzles worked. And on the working inverter the cable loop wouldn't fit over the battery post on one of the batteries.

- You need some sort of night vision equipment, even if it's the cheapie game-spotting kind. Blacked out suburbs are DARK. And they will have bogeys in them and you're going to want to see them without them seeing you.

- Have a bicycle. In addition to it being transportation, riding it around can help you quickly acquire information from a larger area than you could get by walking.

- Don't rely on cell phones for communication. They were horrible for the first 5 days. Even texting was bad. I finally received some messages 8 days late just before I left.

- If you have VOIP phones instead of the old-time land line, make sure you have a backup power source for the home router etc. If the line are up and the regional switching gear is intact and working but you have no power in your house your phones will be out when they could be working if you had a way of powering them. Old land lines had their own power source into the phone, the newer bundled VOIP setup does not.

- You are going to need a funnel. Never leave home without a funnel.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

3) Notes on mental and social issues:

- In a crisis people become more of what they already are. Thugs get thuggier, selfish people get moreso, helpful people overextend themselves. Know who you are and who your family is, and multiply it by 100 to get a sense of who you'll all turn into if TSHTF. You will have to figure out how to deal with this.

- Living in close quarters when you can't go out will have you start grating on each other. Most people aren't around others 24X7. If TSHTF you might be and it can get ... interesting. Make sure you have a way of coping, like using earplugs or bourbon or something.

- People will start hoarding even if they don't need the items. Just for grins I stood on a gas line for about a half hour one morning to try and get a gas can filled up for the neighbors generator. The guy behind me on line in his car had gotten gas twice the day before. He had close to a full tank. I still don't know why he was there. It's almost like hunting gas became a hobby for him.

- Acquiring needed supplies in a crisis requires third-world skills. When supplies are scarce everything reverts to who you know and who your friends are. The hispanics and the indians in my town who came from countries that rely on this paradigm did really well with this. Mutual backscratching and a network of friends kept food and gas flowing to them without them having to stand on lines. At one gas station they got a 12K gallon delivery at midnight and opened at 7 AM in the morning with 8K gallons. 4K gallons went *somewhere*.

- I'm convinced that when TSHTF for real the hispanic gardeners are going to be the only ones left standing LOL. They came from hardship conditions so they aren't soft, they work their butts off, and they have the skills needed to thrive in third world conditions. They somehow managed to always have gasoline and were zooming around the neighborhood with leaf blowers when everyone else was still trying to figure out how to get gas or make coffee on the barbecue.

- Expanding on the previous point: the FSA (Free Shit Army. --Dave) is too lazy to survive and will eat each other. The white collar class will still be trying to figure out what the rules are and how to cope with it all and won't do well. The blue collar people with practical skills will partner with the gardeners and will do ok, but only if they have skills in demand such as engine repair, welding, etc. Lazy blue collar workers or unskilled people won't cut it.

- Speaking of practical skills: Get some if you don't have any. Today. Of the 6 neighbors I worked with trying to get the indian people with the disabled family members down the block set up with a generator only 2 of them were of any use. One was familiar with generators. The other wasn't but knew how to hook a generator to a natural gas furnace. This cooperative effort kept those people from freezing to death but this luxury of multiple people with complimentary skillsets was pure luck and should have been able to be done by one person.
You need to understand HVAC systems, electricity, small engines, plumbing, etc. Know your home systems and that of people you will interact with.

- Most people will be appallingly unprepped. The old lady across the street didn't even have any matches. The people I loaned the generator to didn't have a working flashlight. I could go on but you get the picture. You need to either prep extra for these people or be prepared to deny them your help. And if you do the latter they may come back with reinforcements and take it anyway. It's far better to give them a box of matches, look forlorn and say "here, it's my last one, please use them carefully".

- Good neighbors will be your allies. Even ones that are unprepped may have either information or abilities that will help you all out. The guy down the block from my dad rode his bicycle all over and brought back information that was very useful. The ones up the street knew an electrician who could be brought in to help with generator hookups.

- a place that looks unarmed probably isn't. I found out from one of the neighbors that there were a lot more guns in the neighborhood than I ever suspected.

- People's slowness in getting a grip on the situation will drive you insane. For those who have been prepping for years, a crisis is much more "ho hum" and we snap into action, knowing what to do. Its very easy for us to forget that most others who we will interact with have NOT been mentally chewing on it for a decade and will come to reality much slower than we'd like.

- People slow to come to grips with the situation will look at your take-charge attitude and abilities as you being a bull in a china shop, and bossy. I had to really dial it back and gently lead them into understanding the new reality rather than barking orders at them like a Field Marshall, which is my MO in a crisis.

- Normalcy bias is a powerful thing, even in people who prep or at least somewhat get it. For instance, my mother was making tuna salad on the Friday after I got there and asked me if I wanted celery in it. She then said she was out of celery but "could run down to the store to get some". I had to remind her that the store was closed and out of power and that the traffic on the roads near the store looked like the chariot scene from "Ben Hur". This happened several times while I was there.

- Elderly people will have more trouble adapting if they haven't worked on staying flexible. My parents friends refused to come stay at our house, preferring to stay in theirs despite it being 40 degrees indoors. Their son finally forcibly removed them after coming in from another state.

- There is definitely a 'grace period" after a disaster where people are nice and cooperative with each other. It's about 72-96 hours. After that point people start getting pissy because they're cold, tired, uncomfortable, inconvenienced, etc. At that point you need to be careful how you interact with them.

- Proud parents or family members who you are helping will brag to everyone within earshot about how much you brought and how great that is. You do NOT want this to happen so warn them right at the outset to SHUT THEIR PIE HOLE. For a short term disaster this wasn't a problem but in a long term one it could have been fatal if what we had was all we were going to have for a long period of time.

- If you're female, you especially need to get a grip on practical skills. The women in the neighborhood during this were far more clueless and afraid than the men were, and the ones that had no man to rely on were especially lost. You may not always have the luxury of a guy around who knows how your furnace works. You need to be able to do it yourself.

Link to original post.

Sandy Aftermath Gear Report

The following was posted by AR15.com member "NYC-M4," who went through Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath in New York city:

This is a list of much used gear during my week with no power in NYC.
Multitool
Flashlights (assorted)
Generator
Gas cans/funnels
Butane stove
Propane BBQ
Lighters
Matches
G19  (Glock 19 9mm pistol. DM)
870 with SF light  (Remington 870 shotgun with SureFire weapon light. DM)
4 Bassett hounds
MREs  (Meals, Ready to Eat. DM)
Cooler
Bottled water and stored water in jugs.
Oil radiator heater
Ramen soup
Pocket knife
Cordless drill
car inverter
Batteries (assorted)
Having this stuff prior to the storm made my life a hell of alot easier. So if you don't have any of this, get it. 

Source.

Backup Power

I came to the conclusion last week that I need to improve my own backup power situation. Here in the Northeast, we've had the following weather events in the past 14 months:

• Hurricane Irene
• Tropical Storm Lee
• The Halloween 2011 ice/snow storm
• The June 2012 derecho
• Hurricane Sandy

I have been really lucky in that my power wasn't out for more than a couple hours at a time. I've lived in the same neighborhood since 1979, and up until Sandy I can't remember any of my neighbors being out for longer than 12 hours. Well, some of them got power back just yesterday after being out for 5 days. At some point my luck is going to run out.

On Friday I ordered a Champion 3500 running watts/4000 surge watts generator from Cabela's. This will allow me to power the 'frige, some lights, and charge batteries. Fuel consumption will be more than a smaller generator but it's the right choice for my particular situation.

(Amazon.com also carries this generator, but it's currently out of stock. Not surprising considering that the most populated part of the country just had a major storm come through.)


Don't forget that electrical motors, as found in refrigerators, may need up to 3 times the running wattage when they startup. Your generator needs to be sized for this surge.

They have it on sale through 11/5/12 for $429.99, which is $110 off the normal price. If you have any Cabela's bucks or promo codes you can get it for less. I had a promo code for $20 off any Internet order over $150, plus $6.70 in Cabela's bucks, which brought my delivered price down to $469.

I also have on order from Amazon a Black & Decker VEC1093DBD battery charger/jump starter pack.   My main purpose for buying this is to recharge the 70 ah gel cell that I have as backup power for my ham radios, but it can be used to recharge lead acid and AGM batteries, and jump start cars. The gel cell is currently charged and maintained by a PWRgate from West Mountain Radio, but it provides only 1 amp for charging, which would take forever to recharge the battery if it gets depleted. (It looks like WMR no longer carries the specific model that I have, only the Super PWRgate.)

The next thing to get will be a source of backup heat. We have a gas fireplace in our den downstairs that does work when the power is out, but we should have something for upstairs to augment it. I'm looking at propane and kerosene heaters.

We Lucked Out

We lucked out in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Our power went out last night but was restored after about two hours. This morning I went outside to check the house and yard for damage. Except for a torn snowblower cover, we came through unscathed.

One of my neighbors has some tree branches down.

We’re still getting 20 – 30 MPH gusts, it’s raining, and temperatures are in the mid-40s. About 1.3M people in PA are still without power, 2.3M in NJ, and who knows how many in MD, DE, NY, and New England.

Of course, many others weren’t so lucky. NJ and NY got slammed especially hard. The Jersey Shore got trashed and Manhattan looks post-apocalyptic, from some of the photos I’ve seen.

Hurricane Sandy Updates

FYI, I will be posting Hurricane Sandy updates via Twitter.

https://twitter.com/davemarkowitz

Some Final Preps for Hurricane Sandy

As of the time I'm writing this (9:20 PM on Saturday 10/27/12), here in the Philadelphia area we are awaiting the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. It's been awhile since we got really slammed by a hurricane, so we're overdue. Last year when Irene came through and devastated central PA, the southeastern part of the state escaped without too much damage.

I had taken yesterday off with the intention of going shooting, but with most weather reports indicating we have a good chance of getting clobbered, decided to do some additional prepping:

• Went to BJ's Wholesale Club and picked up some more water, canned goods, plus more AA and D batteries. We have plenty of food in the house but more doesn't hurt.
• Topped off the gas tank in my Xterra. I put some miles on it today so I'll probably hit the gas station again tomorrow to top it off and also fill a jerrycan of gas.
• Tidied up things in my shop, in case I need it to fix anything.
• While I was working on stuff, I got some fresh gas and ran my snowblower for about 10 minutes, and added air to its tires. I'm not expecting any snow from Sandy (though folks further west may get some), but yesterday was as good a time as any to prep the snow blower for this winter.
• Stopped by the state store for a bottle of 1792 Ridgemont Reserve bourbon. ;)

Today, after getting home from a practical rifle match that I shot in this morning:

• I secured all the patio furniture and also reconnected the Comet GP-3 2M/70cm antenna on my roof to my Yaesu FT-7800R ham radio. I haven't done anything with the ham stuff in a couple years so connecting it and checking function was important to do ahead of time.
• Charged my Motorola FRS/GMRS radios.
• Charged my Yaesu VX-5RS 2M/70cm HT ham radio and its spare battery.
• Filled the free space in our freezer with water bottles. I also added a bunch to the refrigerator. The more thermal mass both have, the longer they will stay cold if we lose power.

Thankfully, I don't need to worry about my gutters clogging since we got a tree removed last year.

On Monday we'll make sure the girls charge their iPods, Nintendo DSes, etc. If we're all stuck at home on Tuesday electronic diversions may prove to be handy. Likewise, I'll make sure my iPad is charged. I activated the Verizon 3G on it, so if our cable modem connection drops we may still be able to get online.

One PITA that happened today was that my wife got a flat tire on her Subaru Forester. Subaru's roadside assistance came out and changed the tire for her, but now she's running the donut spare on her left front wheel. Tomorrow we'll drop it off at the dealer for them to replace the tire, which is covered under warranty.

We're following Sandy closely at work, too. We have a 3100 square foot lab in our HQ in downtown Philly. If there's a good chance the building will lose power we may recommend to our users that they proactively shutdown their equipment. This is a hassle when scheduled in advance, but even more so when it comes on short notice. What makes it especially annoying this time is that once a year, the building's owners have a planned power outage for electrical maintenance, which requires a full lab shutdown. It turns out that was last weekend.

I'm responsible for three VMware vSphere server virtualization environments at work. Depending on what the forecasts say Monday, I may at least shutdown the VMs, even if I leave my primary VMware environment running. I have a secondary environment which uses an EMC VNX5300. I'm tempted to shutdown the few VMs currently running on it, but leave the VNX itself running, just to test out how it responds to a non-graceful shutdown.

The third VMware environment I'm responsible for is located in Newcastle, DE, which is also in Sandy's crosshairs. That one is in a production datacenter with backup power. So, we may just leave it running.

Hurricane Sandy

Heads-up for residents of the mid-Atlantic states: We may be in for a bit of fun with Hurricane Sandy next week.  It's certainly no cause for panic but it would be prudent to pay attention to the forecasts, and prepare accordingly.

Ruger 22/45 Lite

Over on Blog O'Stuff, I have a few posts up here, here, and here about my latest acquisition, a Ruger 22/45 Lite. In my opinion, a .22 pistol is a very worthwhile addition to any prepper's toolbox, and Ruger's autoloaders are amongst the best available.

A .22 allows you to shoot a lot for little money, is good for new shooters due to the minimal recoil and noise, and where legal for hunting, is ideally suited for bagging small game.

Several years ago, I bought a Ruger 22/45 with a 4.5" barrel and fixed sights for my wife to learn how to shoot. It's proven to be very reliable, even with bulk pack ammo. The Lite's aluminum upper with a stainless steel barrel liner weighs only 22.8 ounces unloaded (without an optic), and most interestingly, is threaded 1/2x28 at the muzzle for a suppressor.

Cold Steel Brave Heart and SOG Pentagon Knives

Yesterday I shot in the Contagion 2012 zombie-themed 3-gun match at the New Holland (PA) Rifle & Pistol Club. I placed in the top third and came home with these two knives as a door prize. :D
IIRC, they were donated by event sponsor Sayoc Tactical Group.





Each knife came with a custom Kydex sheath, in addition to the factory sheath. They are very nicely made.  (EDIT: I just confirmed that the sheaths are from Bladerigs.com.)




If it's not clear from the pics, the Brave Heart is a single edged knife with some jimping on the back edge. The Pentagon is double-edged -- one plain and one serrated. The choil on both sides is ridged.

Here's Cold Steel's page with full specs for the Brave Heart and here's SOG's for the Pentagon. The CS is made from AUS-8A while SOG lists their steel as AUS-8. I don't know the difference between the two. Each knife has a molded-on Kraton rubber handle. They are soft and grippy. The SOG's is larger and more comfortable but the smaller handle on the Cold Steel knife is more easily concealable.

The factory Cold Steel sheath is made from hard nylon with a belt or boot clip, and included a beaded chain so you can wear it as a neck knife. The SOG sheath is MOLLE-compatible and has a pocket which will fit a multitool or small survival kit. The Kydex custom concealment sheaths are very nicely made but unmarked.
Both knives came sharp out of the box, especially the Brave Heart. Both are sharp enough to cut paper. I tested them out against a pizza box. The Pentagon has an edge (pardon the pun) when it comes to slashing, due to its greater mass, while the Brave Heart did better for slicing due to the sharper edge and thinner blade.

For most folks the Brave Heart may be the more practical of the two. It's easier to conceal where legal, but still big enough to be useful. Having read several threads online mentioning the need by US servicemen and -women for a small fixed-blade defensive knife while inside the wire while overseas, I can't but help think it would serve well in that role.

With its double edge, I'm pretty sure that the Pentagon would meet PA's definition of a prohibited offensive weapon, so it's going to spend virtually all its time stored away safely. The Brave Heart may see some time strapped to my daypack when I go on hikes, as long as I'm not in Philly, which has a very restrictive knife ordinance.

The Potential for Urban Violence

A post on the Western Rifle Shooters blog by Matt Bracken, author of the Enemies, Foreign and Domestic trilogy, has been generating a lot of interest in the right side of the blogosphere, as well as various Internet gun boards.

Bracken begins:

In response to recent articles in mainstream military journals discussing the use of the U.S. Army to quell insurrections on American soil, I offer an alternate vision of the future. Instead of a small town in the South as the flash point, picture instead a score of U.S. cities in the thrall of riots greater than those experienced in Los Angeles in 1965 (Watts), multiple cities in 1968 (MLK assassination), and Los Angeles again in 1992 (Rodney King). New Yorkers can imagine the 1977 blackout looting or the 1991 Crown Heights disturbance. In fact, the proximate spark of the next round of major riots in America could be any from a long list cribbed from our history.

Read the rest here.

Some of the responses I’ve read to dismiss his concerns as a SHTF masturbatory fantasy, while others take him very seriously. Personally, while I don’t think it would play out as described, his concerns are very valid.

It was recently announced that the Federal government debt stands at $16 trillion dollars. The only way this is being sustained is by the Fed printing money. Further, we now have about half of all Americans who don’t pay income taxes, i.e., aren’t contributing but rather taking from the productive class. Eventually, this has to end.

Despite the bread (EBT cards) and circuses (TV, movies, and sports), a large part of the American population is aware that something is wrong.

For about a year and a half I was on the board of a gun club in rural Chester County, PA (not to be confused with Chester, PA). We noticed a huge uptick in memberships starting shortly before the 2008 election. After Obama won, the surge increased. We went from maybe 10 new members per month up to as many as 50 or 60 per month. It got to the point where our membership director was overwhelmed, so we instituted a monthly new member cap of 30.

Even that wasn't enough to deal with the influx of new members. Earlier this year we instituted a sponsorship requirement. Finally, we accepted our last new members for the year in August. We are not planning to accept any new members until January.

Over this time, membership went from about 800 up to ~1300. Note that a membership may be a family, so this represents more than 1400 people.

Along with the near doubling of our membership we noticed a difference in the types of guns we'd see on the ranges. Over the past few years it's gone from predominantly sporting rifles to mostly AR-15s and AKs. The pistol range is generally packed on weekends.

Some of this is due to the economy. Some of it's due to the Obama administration's policies and lack of leadership. People are gearing up. There is great unease and I fear that the right spark could light off a powderkeg.

If there is unrest you’ll need to be prepared for it ahead of time. The best way to deal with a fight, whether it involves two people or a mob, is to avoid it in the first place. That’s not always possible.

Pay attention to the news and social media as ways to pick up on potentially dangerous situations, and avoid them if at all possible.

Many of the same things you’ll need to survive a natural disaster would be needed to survive a period of unrest when it’s unsafe to leave your home: food, water, batteries for flashlights and lanterns, etc.

To deal with unrest, I’d add fire extinguishers, first aid kits, and for home defense a good shotgun or rifle and plenty of ammunition. For those times when you must venture out, you’ll want a concealable handgun, a good belt and holster, a bright flashlight, and portable med kit.

Communications will be vital, e.g.,

• Landline, cell phone, and Internet all have their place.
• FRS/GMRS/MURS radios for a neighborhood watch will be valuable. Ham is even better.

Along with tools, you need mindset, organization, and plans. Work out ahead of time with your family members what they should do and where they should go in the event of unrest. If your neighbors seem amenable, you may also wish to discuss things with them. You should also get training on practical marksmanship, the law regarding the use of deadly force, and first aid.

Unfortunately, I don’t think either political party is willing to tackle our country’s problems in a way which will avert eventual unrest. I do think that if Obama is reelected, the timeline will be accelerated due to his demonstrated hostility to capitalism and the productive class. 

West Virginia 10 Day Power Outage AAR

Over on Arfcom’s Survival Forum, “Johnnyutah” posted an AAR about his experience after dealing with nearly 11 days without power caused by the mid-Atlantic derecho of June 29, 2012. It’s worth reading.

Rossi 92 Range Report

Today I got out to the range and shot the Rossi 92 I bought last Thursday for the first time. I ran 150 rounds through it: 100 Sellier & Bellot .357 Magnum 158 grain JSP and 50 Winchester white box .38 Special +P 125 grain JHP.

When cycling the gun empty at home  the action felt pretty smooth. However, once I loaded it up it became evident that there were some burrs in the action. In particular, the S&B .357s were hanging up when trying to load them into the chamber. There were a couple burs on the breech face, alongside the ejector slot. After about 20 shots I took a needle file and knocked them down a bit. I worked through 50 rounds of .357 plus 10 rounds of .38 (which fed smoothly). After about 60 rounds the gun was noticeably smoother and I was able to do rapid mag dumps.

The S&B .357s were loaded with a truncated cone bullet, while the Winchester .38s had bullets with more of a curve to the ogive, basically a RNFP with a hole in the tip. The gun seems to feed better with a more rounded bullet profile so I'll try to use that sort of ammo in the future.

I am going to have to tweak the ejector a bit. Ejection of .357 brass was positive but when trying to eject the last .38 in the gun, the empty case stayed in the receiver every time.

When shooting .38s I also experienced one time when the cartridge on the carrier ejected from the gun along with the empty.

After about 60 or 70 rounds I noticed the bolt pin stop screw on the left of the reciever was loose. It will get some Loctite.

AIUI, it's not uncommon for the Rossi .357s (or Marlin 1894s in .357, for that matter) to experience issues with the shorter .38 rounds. As long as it works 100% with .357s I don't mind the occasional bobble with .38s.

The trigger is good. Probably about 5 or 6 pounds and crisp, with very little creep.

I shot the gun at 50 yards, mostly with my arms rested on a shooting bench. The gun will group into about 3" with the loads I shot today. With the rear sight set on the lowest position it shot a few inches high and about 2" left. Since it was pretty close I didn't adjust the sights today, concentrating more on functioning.

Aside from making sure the ejector is not binding on anything and is properly shaped, I plan to strip the gun and polish the wear points to slick it up (but I will NOT be touching the locking bolts, which set headspace). I will also probably replace the plastic magazine follower with one made from steel, and replace the ridiculous bolt-mounted safety. Finally, I'll be giving the stock some attention to make it look nicer. Whatever finish Rossi uses on their wood comes out really dull.

Overall I'm pleased with the Rossi. It's a light, quick handling rifle in a useful caliber at a reasonable price. With a little "fluff and buff" it'll have a really slick action.

Rossi M92 .357 Carbine

I recently joined Langhorne Rod and Gun Club. It looks like this going to be hazardous to my wallet because it's very close to the shop, Surplus City, where I get most of my guns. I stopped there yesterday after going shooting and he had a couple Rossi 92s on the shelf. One blued .357 and one stainless .44 Magnum. Continuing the cowboy gun kick that I've been on, the .357 came home with me. $459.95 OTD.

Back in the days of the Old West, having a rifle and pistol both chambered for the same cartridge simplified logistics for people out on the frontier. The most famous pairing was a Winchester M-1873 and a Colt Single Action Army sharing the .44-40 WCF cartridge. Winchester continued the trend when they introduced the Model 1892 in .44-40, .38-40, and .32-20. The concept fell out of favor for a few decades but regained popularity in the 1960s and nowadays, the most common pairs are in .357 or .44 Magnum. The .45 Colt has been made available in leverguns in the past 15 years or so, and even the .44-40 has become popular again with the growth of cowboy action shooting.

Aside from logistics, lever action rifles chambering what we now consider pistol rounds make a lot of sense for many modern shooters, especially the carbines in .357 Magnum which can also shoot .38 Special.

.38 Special and .357 Magnum are widely available and relatively inexpensive. They are very easy to handload for and have mild recoil. Many indoor ranges will allow you to shoot rifles chambered in them, but not rifles in “real” rifle cartridges. This is important in our increasingly urban society.

Out of a rifle barrel the magnum handgun rounds pick up a lot of steam. E.g., the bullet fired from a 20” .357 carbine will gain several hundred FPS in MV, compared with a revolver, and will have approximately as much energy at 100 yards as one fired from a revolver will at the muzzle. (See the tables near the bottom of the page, here, for example.)

In the late 19th/early 20th Century, the lever action rifle was one of the premier choices for a defensive weapon. Even today, with AR-15s and AK clones easily available, leverguns fill this role well.

A .357, .44 Mag., or .45 Colt lever action carbine is light, handy, and can be stored with a full magazine and empty chamber, but is very fast to get into action. As noted above, the magnum rounds especially get a real boost from the rifle length barrel.

For several decades the Brazilian gunmaker Rossi has offered a copy of the Winchester Model 1892. Several years ago I had one imported by EMF, an 1892 Hartford Model Short Rifle with a 20” octagon barrel in .357. It was a nice shooter and I’ve been kicking myself for trading it off.

The Rossi I got yesterday is the basic carbine model (R92-56001), with a 20" barrel, 10 + 1 capacity, and weighs in at a whopping 5 pounds.

The wood is nondescript but is fitted well.  My dad owned a Browning B92 .357 when I was a teen, and it sure doesn't look as good as that, though.

This is a view of the safety that Rossi came up with. You can also see the Taurus integral gun lock on the back of the hammer. The two silver colored pieces are the locking bolts.

I find the safety ugly and obnoxious. With proper gun handling it is unnecessary.

After I confirm that the rifle works properly, I'll order a plug that's made to replace the safety so that the gun is closer to the way that John Moses Browning designed it. An alternative is an elevation-adjustable peep sight that takes its place; windage is adjusted by drifting the front sight in its dovetail. Steve's Gunz sells both items.

The peep sight paired with either a fiber optic or a large bead front sight should make a good combination for fast sight picture acquisition.

The action is already pretty smooth. As long as the Rossi functions OK I don't think I'll do any tuning on it, except by working the action and shooting it.

Two or three years ago Rossi was bought by their fellow Brazilian gunmaker, Taurus. Since then, the Rossi 92s have incorporated a gun lock built into the hammer, originally designed for Taurus’s revolvers. As with the safety, I'd rather not have the gun lock, but IMO the Taurus design is one of the better ones. It's unobtrusive and I haven't read of any cases where it's been accidentally activated. That said, I'm going to put a drop or two of boiled linseed oil on it to make sure (BLO is nature's Loctite).

I plan to pick up some Watco Danish Oil in medium walnut color. I saw the before and after pics of what a single coat did to a similar Rossi stock, and it was incredible. The wood went from very "meh" to really nice looking.

The only other addition I plan to make is a set of sling swivel studs so I can attach a quick detachable sling when needed.

After I shoot the Rossi I'll post a range report.

Mid-Atlantic Derecho

The derecho which swept through the American Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states on June 29, 2012 should serve as a reminder to those of us in areas where such violent weather is rare, the we should still be prepared for it.  This storm was massive, and caught virtually everyone by surprise.

My family was fortunate in that we didn’t suffer any damage or power outages. Many folks not too far from us weren’t so lucky.

Five days after the storm, millions remain without power. In the aftermath, Newt Gingrich tweeted that this would be a small taste of what an EMP could do. Based on my own research, the likelihood of an EMP attack taking out the infrastructure in a large part of the country is low. However, a Carrington Event-type EMP would cause widespread, long lasting damage.

Here are ten things you can do to prep for violent weather:

1. Keep on hand at least 72 hours worth of food and water for each individual in your household. The food you stock for this should not require refrigeration and should be able to be consumed right from the packaging, if necessary.
2. Don’t let your vehicle’s gas tank go below half full. If there’s no power, you won’t be able to fill it back up. Fill it ahead of time if you have warning. Also consider storing fuel if you have a safe way to do so.
3. ATMs and credit card machines won’t work without power. Keep some cash on hand. Make sure that you have some small bills; you don’t want to end up spending $20 for a loaf of bread because the seller can’t make change.
4. Have a battery powered radio for getting news, and plenty of spare batteries.
5. Consider getting rechargeable batteries, a charger, and a solar panel to power them. I recently picked up a Goal Zero Guide 10 Plus system, a Goal Zero Luna LED light, and some spare rechargeable AAs. I’ll be testing it on a camping trip next weekend.
6. Have battery powered lighting on hand, again along with a good supply of spare batteries. For a handheld flashlight I like my Fenix LD20, as it puts out a ton of light and uses common AAs, but even a Mini Maglite will do. I also recommend having a headlamp so you can use both hands, and lanterns for area lighting.  One lantern that I have is the Rayovac SE3DLN Sportsman Xtreme LED Lantern, which is excellent.
7. Old fashioned hurricane lanterns can also burn citronella oil when used outside, to help keep away bugs. The cheapies at WalMart have a bad reputation for leaking.  Get Dietz lanterns from Lehman’s or W.T. Kirkman. They can also be used inside as long as you have good ventilation and use lamp oil.
8. If you have large trees on your property, have them trimmed to reduce the likelihood of branches or an entire tree falling on something like your car, house, or worse, you.
9. If you have trees, have a chainsaw, fuel, and oil, to cut up fallen trees for removal. Learn how to use the chainsaw beforehand, don’t use it alone, and be careful.
10. Fill unused space in your freezer with water bottles (leaving room for expansion). The frozen bottles will help keep the freezer cold longer, and when they do melt you have some more water available for drinking or washing.

Obviously, there’s a lot more you can do but this list is a good starting point.

Cartridge Reloading

One of the things you can do to improve your self reliance is to reload your ammunition. Reloading enables you to recycle the most expensive part of a cartridge - the case - many times. It also allows you to tailor loads to your gun for best accuracy, or to load cartridges that are not commercially available.

The general process of reloading involves these basic steps:

1. Resize and deprime the used cartrdge case.
2. Reprime the case with a new primer.
3. Charge the case with a measured amount of the correct type of gunpowder.
4. Seat a bullet and crimp it in place.

Obviously, it's a bit more involved than that but boiled down to the basics, that's what you are doing.

Reloading tools can range from very basic to very complicated and expensive. At the low end is the Lee Loader. The Lee Loader has been around for five decades and the cartridge-specific kits can be used to handload ammo ranging from pistol (9mm is the current smallest caliber for which the Loader is available) on up to .45-70.

However, the lowest end loading tool I'd recommend would be Lee's Hand Press. I have one of these and while it works OK for pistol cartridges, it's slow. If you have the space go for a workbench-mounted press.

In order of ascending complexity, the different types of loading tools are:

1. Lee Loader
2. Single stage bench press, e.g., the RCBS Rockchucker.
3. Turret press, e.g., the Lee Classic Turret or Lyman T-Mag.
4. Progressive press, e.g, any model from Dillon Precision.

When I lived with my folks I used my father's RCBS Rockchucker single stage press to load .38 Special for my S&W Model 15 and .30-06 for a Garand. Until recently, however, I didn't have space for a bench-mounted press here at Casa Dave, so all I had was a Lee Hand Press. Now that I have my shed/workshop with an 8' long workbench, I ordered a Lee Classic Turret press, along with a spare die plate and other reloading accessories. Although I've reloaded ammo in the past it's been awhile since I've done it regularly. I did not want to deal with the complexity of a progressive, nor did I want to spend the money for one.

I'll initially be setting up the Lee press for .38 Special and .44 Magnum. The .38s will be used in my assortment of .38 and .357 revolvers, while the .44 Magnum is for the Marlin 1894 that I traded for a couple of weeks ago. The next caliber I'll tool up for probably will be .45 Colt, to use in the Remington 1858 which I fitted with a Kirst Konverter earlier this month.

Getting into handloading/reloading your own cartridges does require and initial outlay of money to acquire equipment and components, but if you shoot a lot you'll bring your price per cartridge down dramatically, allowing you to shoot more. Lyman has great introductory piece, "Getting Started In Reloading" (3 MB PDF file) if you want further info.

Rayovac Sportsman Xtreme LED Lantern

Today I received a Rayovac SE3DLN Sportsman Xtreme 300-Lumen LED Lantern from Amazon. I ordered it earlier in the week when they were running a sale, so between the discounted price and a gift certificate that I had, I paid only $5 and change.

My first impressions are very positive. With an output of 4W, it's very bright on high while on the lower setting it's still plenty bright for lighting a campsite or a room during a power outage. It also has a strobe mode which could possibly be useful in an emergency.

The lantern is powered by 3 D cells. The battery life is supposed to be 72 hours on high and 150 hours on low.

A nifty feature is that the diffuser can be removed and the lantern hung upside from a hook as overhead lighting.

The lantern is compact, ~4" square by ~7" high. It’s made from plastic with rubber bumpers around the top and bottom edges, as shown in the pic below.

 

(Image copied from Amazon.)

Currently Amazon shows 578 customer reviews with an average rating of 4.7/5 stars.

I will probably get some use out of it in my new shed workshop, until I get the shed electrified and permanent lighting installed. It’s also going to find a place in my camping gear. Being battery powered it might have problems in very cold weather but for Spring, Summer, or Fall trips it should be ideal.

Being compact, reasonably priced, and using common batteries, it should make a good addition to your home’s emergency kit as well.

Century Arms NDS-2 AK-74 Rifle

Back in November I picked up a Century Arms NDS-2 AK-74 rifle. This is a typical semiauto-only Kalashnikov made from a mix of surplus and newly made parts.

The NDS-2 is built on an American made NoDak Spud stamped receiver with a scope rail and a new barrel. It also has a Tapco G2 fire control group (trigger, hammer, and disconnector), American made black plastic furniture, and an American made barrel. The remainder of the parts a Bulgarian surplus. The rifle is finished with a nicely done, even parkerizing.

I finally got to shoot the rifle this past weekend. As expected it ran like a top. I put 120 rounds of Russian surplus 5.45x39mm 7N6 ball through it with no malfunctions, feeding from a couple Bulgarian surplus magazines. Whenever I shoot a new rifle for the first time I try to do so at 25 yards to ensure that it’s on paper, and then move back to 100 yards to fine tune the zero. Since I didn’t feel like picking up an moving my stuff I stayed at 25 yards for this outing. I’ll finish zeroing it the next time I get it to the range.

Shooting the rifle is a pleasure. The G2 FCG has a nice, consistent, light pull. The 5.45mm round has minimal recoil, which is made even less by the very effective muzzle brake. The brake does result in a rather pronounced muzzle blast, however. I have a Bulgarian flash hider which fits the 24mm front sight base of this rifle and may give it a try.

The American made furniture is craptacular. Since Century or their contractor had to setup a mold to make the furniture anyway, I don’t understand why they didn’t just use a set of surplus furniture as the model and copy it. Instead, the butt has insufficient drop for use with iron sights, while the handguards lack a heat shield. I’ve read of other people melting them in sustained fire. So, I ordered a set of olive drab K-Var furniture that will not only look a lot better, is of much higher quality.

Unlike some Century Tantals, I saw no evidence of keyholing due to an oversized bore.

The barrel is plain carbon steel, not chrome lined. Since I’m not taking this rifle into battle with the potential of not being able to clean it regularly, it’s not a problem for me. Even though military surplus 5.45x39mm cartridges are corrosively primed, as long as I clean the gun the same day I won’t see corrosion.

I did run a few patches wet with Hoppe’s No.9 through the barrel, and also wiped the bolt face down before I left the range. Despite Internet myths about cleaning up after corrosive primers, all you need is either Hoppe’s No.9, MPro-7, or USGI Rifle Bore Cleaner. Hoppe’s No.9 was introduced in the early part of the last century and has always been rated for cleaning up after corrosive ammunition. Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the only ammo I shot in my SKS was Chicom 7.62x39 with corrosive primers. Hoppe’s was all I used for cleaning and I never had any rust.

Despite the lack of a chromed bore this rifle with better furniture is a good choice for a defensive carbine. New production non-corrosive 5.45mm ammo is available, but even in most SHTF scenarios it’s not an issue. If you can stock up on ammo you can lay in a decent supply of solvent and a cleaning kit.

Aside from the light recoil, the 5.45x39 round has the reputation for better accuracy in AKs than the more common 7.62x39 cartridge. Also, it’s currently the cheapest centerfire round available, if you buy military surplus ammo. For example, AIM Surplus currently lists a 1080 spam can of 7N6 for $139.95 + shipping, or $10 less if you buy more than one can. At that price you can afford to stock up.

AK-74 magazines are a bit harder to find than AK-47 mags. At one time they were very common and as cheap as dirt but that’s no longer the case. That being said, some time spent searching online will find magazines available for sale. I would stick with military surplus magazines for serious use, however.

Overall, I am quite pleased with the NDS-2.

Ruger LCP .380 Pistol

In a few of my recent posts on Blog O’Stuff I have discussed why it is important for Americans (especially Jews) to keep and bear arms. I also posted a link to a thread on Arfcom, "Street Robberies and You." Last week I picked up a new pistol which will help me follow my own advice, a Ruger LCP.

Ruger's LCP (Light Carry Pistol) is one of several recent micro-sized semiauto pistol designs to reach the market. It's in many ways a copy of the Kel-Tec P3AT. The Taurus TCP, Smith & Wesson Bodyguard .380, and Diamondback DB380 are all in the same class. The specs for the Ruger are:

• Caliber: .380 ACP
• Capacity: 6 in the magazine plus 1 in the chamber
• Length: 5.16"
• Width: 0.82"
• Height: 3.6"
• Weight: 9.4 oz for the standard model, 9.9 oz for the model with a LaserMax LASER* sight.
• Sights: Fixed, machined integral with the slide.
• Finish: Blued

I bought the LCP-LM, which is the one with the LaserMax sight.  MSRP is $443 but I was able to get it for $399 including tax. Here’s a quick picture of my pistol:

The LCP comes in a cardboard box with one magazine, an extended magazine floorplate, a gun lock, pistol rug, fired case, LaserMax flyer and adjustment wrench, and an owner's manual.

As can be seen in this picture, the Ruger is tiny. The silver object is a standard Zippo lighter which I included for scale. I have small hands and can get only two fingers on the grip. I installed the extended floorplate even before I took the gun to the range, because at under 10 oz. unloaded I want the extra purchase that it provides. Even so, I can get only two fingers onto the grip.

I went with the LASER for a couple reasons. First, even though this is a belly gun the need to use aimed fire could arise. The LCP's sights are tiny and won't be very visible in poor lighting. Second, statistically, most defensive gun usages are resolved without shots fired. Once a bad guy knows his intended victim is ready to resist with a gun, he usually finds that he needs to be elsewhere post-haste. The LASER can enhance the deterrent effect of a gun, and if shots do need to be fired, will help in putting them on target.

The placement of the LASER's ambidextrous switch works very well for me. When holding the gun with my index finger off the trigger, indexed on the frame, the tip is right on the switch. I can immediately press it to turn on the LASER, without shifting my firing grip.

I do wish Ruger included a second magazine with the gun. A leading cause of malfunctions with semiauto pistols is defective or dirty magazines. So, the same night I brought the LCP home I ordered another mag with the extended floorplate from MidwayUSA, along with a couple of boxes of CCI Blazer .380 ACP Full Metal Jacket ammunition.

A word about defensive ammo choice for the LCP: The .380 ACP cartridge is on the low end of acceptable defensive cartridges. Bullets are generally light and if hollow points are used, you may not get enough penetration to reach an assailant's vitals and incapacitate him. So, I plan to carry it with FMJ ammo, which will reliably penetrate at least 12" in ballistic gelatin.

Many folks will just chuck a gun like the LCP in their pocket and go on their way. Although I'm currently packing the Ruger that way, I've ordered a DeSantis Superfly pocket holster to keep the gun consistently oriented, and to keep the LASER from being switched on accidentally. If you choose to pocket carry without a holster, be sure to not put anything else in the same pocket as the gun. You don't want anything getting into the trigger guard that might cause the gun to discharge, or prevent you from firing it, e.g., something getting lodged behind the trigger.

Yesterday I took the Ruger to the range and put a box of Federal American Eagle .380 ACP FMJ through it. I had one failure to go into battery in the first magazine but after that it ran perfectly. Putting only 50 rounds through a semiauto gun to "prove" it is generally deemed to be insufficient, but the light weight of these micro-.380s comes with a price: brutal recoil. You don't shoot one of these for fun, unless you're a masochist. Not only does it whack your hand, there's some trigger slap and sometimes the recoil drives the inside of the bottom of the triggerguard into your finger.

Anyway, using the the minimalist iron sights the Ruger LCP is surprisingly accurate. It will pretty easily hold the center ring of an IDPA target at 15 yards until your hand starts getting beat up. I turned on the LASER and was able to see it on the white target from 15 yards, but in this outing didn't shoot with it on.

Up until fairly recently, if you wanted a posket pistol this size you were limited to guns chambered for .22 Short, .22 Long Rifle, or .25 ACP. With the advent of the micro-.380s starting with Kel-Tec's P3AT you can now get a similarly sized pistol that chambers are much more effective cartridge. This makes it easier for more Americans to be armed for self-defense, which is a win in my book.

 

* I capitalize "LASER" because properly, it is an acronym meaning Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

Street Robberies and You

AR15.com's General Discussion frequently is a big pool of stupidity, but every so often someone there posts a thread which is pure gold. Last night one such thread was started by "BurnedOutLEO," titled, "Street Robberies and You - The Basics." It is truly one of the best pieces I've read anywhere about personal defense. I copied the post into an MS Word document for my files.

Some introduction:

Background

First, my info. I worked in the street of one of America's most violent, dangerous cities for 15 years. I usually worked in the worst part of that city. I spent 15 years in patrol. I liked patrol. It was wild. Most of the time I worked in areas covered in ghetto. By that I mean large housing projects combined with run down slum housing. I have worked all shifts. Later I became an investigator including a robbery investigator. I have spent countless hours in interrogation rooms talking to hold up men. I know them. I am still an investigator but have quit playing the Robbery game because my family was starting to forget what I looked like.

The Enemy

Some may object to me calling hold up men "the enemy". You can call them whatever you like. I can assure you however they are as deadly an enemy as you will find anywhere but the battlefield. Even many soldiers probably lack the viciousness and utter disregard for life most hold up men possess.

No one wakes up in the morning one day and decides to become an armed robber. It is a gradual process that requires some experience and desensitizing. Before a man will pick up a gun and threaten to kill people who have done him no harm in order to get their usually meager possessions he has to get comfortable with some things.

He has to get used to seeing others as objects for him to exploit. He has to accept he may be killed while robbing. He has to accept the felony conviction for Robbery will haunt him all his life. He has to accept he may need to kill a completely innocent person to get away with his crime.

This is a process that starts with stealing candy at the corner store as a child. It progresses through bigger property crimes that may also involve violence. But one day G gets tired of selling his stolen property for nothing and decides it would be better to steal cash. Cut out all that tiresome sales stuff.

Keep in mind many petty thieves, auto burglars, residential and commercial burglars, paper thieves, and hustlers will get to that point and decide not to become armed robbers. Most will. It is a special group of outliers who decide threatening to kill people for a few dollars is the way to go. 

And one of the highlights:

When to draw

Despite warnings I often see on the Net I have yet to encounter an instance in which a hold up man called the police to report his intended victim threatened to shoot him. Thugs do not want to come into contact with the police. They may already be wanted or realize chances are good they have been identified in a recent robbery. Or what ever. They are not going to call the police if you draw on them.

Now, go read the whole thing.

Rethinking Gun Control

Over on Blog O’Stuff, I have a couple of posts which were prompted by an article which recently appeared in a NJ Jewish paper titled, “Rethinking Gun Control.”

My posts are here and here.

New Mobile Format

This morning while poking around in my Blogger Dashboard I saw that they now offer a mobile device viewing option, which I’ve enabled for both Survival & Emergency Preparedness and Blog O’Stuff. Hopefully, this will make both blogs more accessible to mobile users.

DMT Dia-Sharp Diamond Sharpening Stones

Sharp tools are important for a couple reasons. First, they require less effort to use. Second, because it requires less effort when cutting something, a sharp tool is less likely to slip and cause an injury than a dull tool.

When I was a kid my father taught me to sharpen knives using Arkansas bench stones. I used them exclusively up until a couple years ago, when I tried a couple of other methods. The first was sandpaper  on top of a mouse pad, to create a convex edge. The second was a Spyderco Sharpmaker. I have found the Sharpmaker to be an excellent tool for sharpening knives as long as the edge wasn't too dull, or damaged. However, its stones are too fine for major reshaping of an edge.

Recently, it became necessary to sharpen a Wustoff paring knife that had become very dull. However, I could not get an acceptable edge on it with any of my existing sharpening implements. I decided to pick up a couple DMT Dia-Sharp bench stones from Amazon. I bought two, one coarse and one fine.

The DMT "stones" are really 8" x 3" steel plates with one side coated with industrial diamonds. Each weights a couple pounds, which helps keep them in place on your workbench. They also come with rubber feet. DMT says you can use them dry or with water as a lubricant, but not to use oil. I found they worked beter with some water than dry, as it helps to keep the swarf from clogging the surface.

The coarse stone allowed me to put a proper bevel on the paring knife, after which I was able to get a semi-decent cutting edge with the fine. However, it wasn't as polished as I wanted, so I used my Sharpmaker to get a good cutting edge on the blade.

Compared with a hard Arkansas stone, even the DMT Fine is a bit coarse. I will probably buy an extra-fine grade DMT Dia-Sharp stone for final edge polishing when using them.

Packing and the Friendly Skies

Here's an interesting article describing why if you must fly, having a firearm in your checked luggage may be the best way to prevent your bags from being pilfered.




{H/T Sipsey Street Irregulars.}

So, can you sew?

{Old guy}Back when I was in junior high school, everyone took Home Economics classes, including cooking and sewing. Nowadays you're lucky if a kid can tie his shoes.{/Old guy}

Every so often I'll read a comment by some he-man type to the effect that sewing is women's work. Horse crap. Sewing is an important survival skill. If you know how to sew, you can make, repair, or modify clothing and gear.

For example, I recently bought a puukko from Cloudberry Trading via Amazon.com. It's a great knife and came with a high quality, handmade sheath. Unfortunately, the sheath is right handed and as anyone who's read this blog has seen, I am a southpaw. I first tried to come up with a mod to the sheath to enable lefty use, but it came out looking bad. So, I decided to make a new, left handed sheath.

It's nothing fancy but it's sturdy and works well. 

First, I made a pattern from cardboard. The sheath is made from three layers of leather about 1/8" thick each: the front and back, and then a middle layer which covers the stitching so that the knife cannot cut through it. After laying out the pieces I secured them together with rubber cement.

Since you can't easily poke a needle through 3/8" of leather, I used my cordless drill and a 1/64" bit to drill the holes for the thread. The thread is artificial sinew, basically the same as waxed dental floss but colored brown. It's strong and being made of polyester won't rot.

Once I finished sewing the sheath together I used Fiebling's #121 Medium Brown leather dye to color it, then gave it a good coating of Sno-Seal after the dye dried.

I now have a unique piece of equipment which suits my needs and which cost me under $20.

Prepping for Civil Unrest

Prepping for civil unrest is beginning to take on a new urgency, in my opinion. Over on Blog O'Stuff, I've posted here and here some pictures of the Occupy Oakland and Occupy Philadelphia crowds, respectively. When you have persons like the Mayor of Oakland and the President of the United States openly voicing support for communist revolutionaries within our borders, it isn't a big stretch to see this spreading and becoming more violent.

IMO, ff you live in an urban area you should be prepared with sufficient food and water to last out a week's worth of rioting at a minimum, along with fire extinguishers, first aid supplies, and the means to defend yourself and your home.

Don't get caught with your pants down.

Reminder About Your Carbon Monoxide and Smoke Detectors

I'm sure anyone reading this blog has both smoke detectors and carbon monoxide (CO) detectors in their home. If not, do the right thing for safety and get them installed ASAP.

While fires and smoke are easy to see and smell with your own senses, CO is invisible, tasteless, and odorless. In short, it is dangerous because it combines with the hemoglobin in your blood and interferes with oxygen transport to body tissues. More info here.

My house is a split level, so I have two of each. One of each type is installed in the downstairs hallway outside the closet in which our furnace is located. The others are located in the hallway upstairs outside our bedrooms. My house was built in 1957, so I'm using battery powered units.

More modern units may be hard wired for electrical power. You can also get detectors which have a battery backup. That would be a good idea, since if fire or a CO problem strikes your home while the power is out you need to be alerted.

Tonight when I walked in after work I was greeted with the chirp from the downstairs CO detector which indicated that the batteries were low. While I was replacing the batteries in that one I also got did the upstairs unit. CO detectors have limited lifespans. When first introduced they lasted as short as two years, but more recent units may be good for up to seven. I checked my CO detectors and they are supposed to be good for seven years, but the manufacture date on them is 2005, so I'll be replacing them shortly.  I just ordered two Kidde KN-COPP-B Front Load Battery-Operated Carbon Monoxide Alarm with Digital Display units from Amazon.com (yes that's a referral link) for delivery Thursday.

Homemade Firestarters

If you were ever a Boy Scout this post is probably old hat to you. ;)

I did some testing tonight with one of the egg carton, dryer lint, and canning wax fire starters I made a couple weeks ago. To light it I put some unwaxed dryer lint on the top and lit it with sparks from a firesteel (ferrocerium rod).  These will of course light readily with matches or a lighter.

Unlit fire starter:

After about a minute:

At six minutes it's going strong and giving off quite a bit of light:

At 14 minutes. As you can see the flame is getting lower.

Finally, about a minute and a half after the previous picture, it finally went out. There were still embers of cardboard glowing now that all the wax was burned off. This pic was taken after 16 minutes:

It burned pretty hot and since the flame lasts long it would be very good at lighting wet sticks. I haven't tried it myself but I have read of guys using one of these with an Esbit stove to boil water for tea or soup.

The cost for one of these is minimal, really all you need to buy is the canning wax, and you could substitute wax from candles that you can often buy for pennies at yard sales. I recommend using dryer lint from loads with mostly cotton clothing or towels.

Be very careful when melting wax. Use a double boiler and it's safest to do it outside, just in case it ignites.

Stoeger Coach Gun Range Report

I have a brief range report on the Stoeger 20 gauge Coach Gun that I bought earlier this month.

I was able to put about 10 rounds through the gun today.  I patterned both barrels with Remington 2-3/4" No.3 buckshot, and the equivalent from Federal. At 10 yards both loads and barrels will pretty evenly saturate the -1 zone of an IDPA target.

I also fired some Remington 2-3/4" "Slugger" slugs from 25 yards. At that range the right barrel seems to shoot to point of aim, while the left barrel is high and right.

Recoil was noticeable but not too heavy. Even though the Stoeger lacks a recoil pad, it was more pleasant to shoot than my H&R 158 Topper 20 gauge, which is about a pound lighter but has a factory recoil pad. With a good pad like a Pachmayr Decelerator or a Limbsaver, the Stoeger should be downright nice to shoot with defensive ammo.

I had one light primer strike which resulted in a failure to fire. I think it's because I failed to fully disengage the safety for that shot, and there was enough drag on the hammer to cause it to give light primer strike. Until I have the safety modified so it's manual-only, I need to make sure that I'm mashing it into the fire position.

Stoeger Coach Gun

A lot of people -- including myself -- favor a shotgun as a home defense weapon.  Shotguns combine effective terminal ballistics with limited range, which is ideal for the majority of Americans who live in urban or suburban areas. The most common shotguns chosen for home defense are slide or pump actions. Good quality pumps are readily available at modest cost, especially if you can find police trade-ins.

Another kind of shotgun which has seen a resurgence in popularity in the past 10 to 15 years is the side-by-side double.  This is due to the popularity of cowboy action shooting, or CAS.  Most CAS shooters use a short side-by-side double commonly referred to as a "coach gun," the name coming from their use in defending stagecoaches in the Old West.  Probably the most common of the modern coach guns are those from Stoeger, who describes them thusly:

The Stoeger Coach Gun was developed in response to the demand for a value-priced, short-barreled scattergun for use in Cowboy Action Shooting. The sawed-off shotgun has been romanticized in hundreds of Hollywood Westerns as the stagecoach guard’s weapon of choice, and this one is as handsome as it is affordable.

Also a potent home security gun, the Coach Gun is chambered for 2-3/4” and 3” shells in 12-gauge, 20-gauge, and .410 bore.

The Coach Gun is available in blue, matte nickel, and polished nickel-plated finishes. The Nickel Coach Gun has a polished nickel-plated receiver and barrels and a black-finished, hardwood stock. The Silverado Coach Gun features a matte nickel receiver and barrels, and a standard stock with pistol- or straight-style grip, or an English stock—both in satin-finished American walnut.

The Stoeger Coach Gun is built on the same action as their Uplander hunting gun, one of which I've had for several years. The Coach Gun is basically a shorter version of the Uplander.  Aside from the length, the primary difference is that the Uplander's barrels feature interchangeable choke tubes, while the Coach Gun has fixed Improved Cylinder and Modified chokes.

They Stoeger doubles simple, robust guns designed around a box lock action.  As with most doubles, they feature extractors rather than ejectors.  (Ejectors are required in CAS.)

Today was a vacation day and since the weather was absolutely crummy, I went up to Cabela's instead of going shooting as I'd planned. While there, I bought a 20 gauge Stoeger Coach Gun.  One of the reasons I bought it is for possible use as a home and camp defense gun, as well as something to take on road trips.

While in my old post about my Uplander I expressed some reservations about a gun with extractors for HD, viewing this video from Clint Smith has caused me to reconsider.  The vast majority of civilian gun usage involves no shots being fired.  In the event that shots are necessary two rounds of 20 gauge buckshot will probably suffice, while practicing my reloads will make keeping the gun running feasible.

My Coach Gun is well finished and has some pretty decent looking wood on it. Actually, the forearm is really nice, with a lot of curl.  The bluing is even and the metal has a good polish.  The action is a bit stiff but that will improve with use. 

After I got it home I took the gun down to clean off the factory preservative and properly lubricate it.  While I had the gun taken apart, I lightly polished the bearing surfaces with some Flitz metal polish to help speed the break-in period. I'd wanted to remove the stock from the action so I could hose out and relube the mechanism, but the stock bolt is tight and I couldn't get it to budge.  The stock bolt has a hex head with a slot for a large screwdriver. I have one that I bought so I could remove the butt from my Uplander but this gun's bolt ain't moving. I'll have to see if I can get a socket on a long extension down the bolt hole and remove it that way, then put some anti-seize on the threads before reassembling it.

Anyway, why would I want a coach gun for defense when I have a couple of perfectly good pumps?  A couple reasons. First, both my pumps are 12 gauge and too much for my wife to handle.  A 20 may be easier for her.  Second, a double gun with 20" barrels is short, really short.  For example, comparing the Stoeger with my Remington 870, the Coach Gun is at least 4" shorter, even though both guns have the same barrel length.  The double doesn't have a reciprocating bolt behind its chambers, enabling the gun to be much shorter.  Additionally, the manual of arms for a double is simpler than that of a pump shotgun.

The light weight and short length of the Coach Gun make it very fast handling. With the butt tucked under your shoulder it doesn't protrude very far in front of you, making navigating one's home easier.  I wouldn't generally recommend trying to clear your home if you think there's an intruder, but some homes may require you to navigate from one part to another to protect a loved one.

I also mentioned camp defense as a potential use.  My friends and I go truck camping at least once a year in Tioga County, PA.  It's a very rural area and while we don't expect crime, there are black bears in the area, some of which have been losing their fear of humans.  And unfortunately, there are good camping spots around the US where concern about criminals is warranted.  Loaded with slugs, the Coach Gun would be just fine for bear.  For defense against criminals my load of choice would be No.3 buckshot.  Some high brass No.4 shot would be good for taking care of vermin, such as raccoons or skunks.  (Mainly a concern if they are rabid. Rabies is a problem in many parts of the US, including Pennsylvania.)

I also mentioned the Coach Gun for use when traveling.  Double guns take down easily for compact stowage in a vehicle, whether it's a car, boat, or aircraft.  In particular, the Coach Gun takes down into a package that's 20" long.  Related to this, ammo for the 20 gauge I selected is lighter and more compact than 12 gauge ammunition, although the latter remains the most popular choice.

Once I've proven the Coach Gun to be reliable there are a couple of mods I have planned for it:

1. Have the stock cut and a Pachmayr Decellerator recoil pad installed. Along with this I want the length of pull shorted by about 3/4 inch.

2. Have the automatic safety disabled. An automatic safety is tolerable on a sporting gun but not desirable on a defensive arm.  Fortunately, this is a simple modification requiring removal of a small bit of metal with no impact on other functions, and leaves the safety as manual only.

I'll post a range report once I get to shoot it, probably in a couple of weeks.

More Irene Follow Up

I've seen several stories calling the new coverage of Irene over-hyped, and in some measure it was. However, what a lot of folks seem to have forgotten is that even a Category 1 hurricane dumps a lot of rain on an area, and combines it with high winds. Irene may have been no Katrina, but that's far from saying it was a non-event.

I was lucky in that I only had a relatively brief power outage (9 hours, followed by a 1 hour outage). However, I did get some water in my crawlspace which has resulted in my den being filled with stuff that was in the crawlspace, while it dries out.  Combine a ton of rain along with already saturated soil, and you have a recipe for flooding.  Several areas including upstate New York and Vermont have seen massive floods.

Two words I repeatedly heard at work today were "sump pump." A coworker has a home with a wet basement. He'd gone and bought an auxiliary sump pump beforehand and used it along with his primary pump, until the auxiliary unit burned out.  He's looking at getting his yard landscaped to better divert water away from his home, getting his basement waterproofed, and seriously considering an automatic, natural gas powered generator to power the sump pump in the event of a power outage coinciding with flooding.

Over at Snowflakes in Hell, Sebastian and Bitter have posted about their experience in trying to keep water out of their home, along with a few other major inconveniences.

Aside from the flooding, even sub-hurricane force winds can take down trees, which knock down power and phone lines.  We have a lot of people in the northeast without power now, and who won't get it back for several days at least.

Keeping Your Cell Phone Working in a Disaster

Instapundit links to an article at MIT's Technology Review with tips on keeping your cell phone running as long as possible in the aftermath of a disaster.  The article has some good tips but one that is missing is to keep a spare, charged battery with you.  Spare batteries are light and not very expensive.  This is especially important for smartphones, since the large touch screens use up a lot of juice.

For example, after returning to work following the February 2010 Snowpocalypse, when Philadelphia got hit with two Nor'Easters in one week, I had the need to swap batteries in my Motorola Droid. When coming home from work, a railroad switch got frozen and SEPTA (Philly's mass transit provider) dumped me off at Wayne Junction in North Philly.  I.e., da hood.  I'd failed to fully charge my phone before leaving the office, but since I was able to swap in a spare, I was able to call for my wife to come pick me up.

Now that I'm using an iPhone, I don't have a user-replaceable battery. So, I got a Duracell Instant USB Charger with Lithium ion battery, that I keep in my laptop bag. Several other rechargeable batteries are available here.

With cell phones being such an important part of modern communications, and especially since pay phones are now rare, it's important to be able to keep them running in an emergency.

Hurricane Irene AAR

 

It looks like we made it through Hurricane Irene OK.  Last night we started getting heavy rain and high winds.

Power for a good chunk of my neighborhood went out around midnight last night but was restored between 0930 and 1000 this morning. That lasted for about 45 minutes and it went out again. It was restored after about another hour.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it'll stay up but we still have some high wind gusts, so I won't be shocked if it goes out again.

This morning when I called PECO to report the outage I got a recorded message indicating that they are experiencing very high call volumes and to call back later.

I finished my preps before the storm, including putting some extra water bottles (about 2/3 full) in the freezer, and a bunch in the refrigerator, to help keep them cool in the event of a power outage.  I already store water in empty cleaned 2L soda bottles, plus I filled the 7 gallon jug I take camping.

We made sure that all of our cell phones, iPods, and other rechargeable items were charged ahead of time, but I forgot my Yaesu VX-5 handheld 2m/70cm amateur radio, so that's currently out in my truck charging. I did confirm that the 12v outlet-to-Powerpole adapter works when connected to my Powergate, which is fed from my 70AH gel cell.

Ten Things To Do In Advance of a Hurricane

It looks like there is a good chance that the Northeast US is going to get hit by Hurricane Irene this weekend.  Depending on your location there are several things you can do to prepare, even at the last minute:

1. Ensure you have plenty of food and water.

2. Fill the gas tanks in your vehicles. If you have gas cans fill them, too.

3. If you have a generator, do a test run and make sure you have plenty of fuel.

4. Make sure you have an ample supply of batteries for flashlights, lanterns, radios, etc.

5. If you might need to use an alternative cooking device, have plenty of fuel on hand. E.g., propane, Coleman fuel, or charcoal.

6. Have fuel and oil for chainsaws. Make sure it's working ahead of time.

7. Get some large tarps for quickly covering any roof or window damage due to wind or falling trees. You'll also need some means of securing the tarps - heavy duty cord, drywall screws, or nails.

8. Clean your gutters and make sure any drainage ditches or storm drains are clear.

9. Have a few hundred dollars in cash on hand.

10. Charge any rechargeable electric or electronic devices. E.g., drills, saws, cell phones, iPods, etc.

This is hardly an exhaustive list, but should get you started.

Hoppe's M-Pro 7 Gun Cleaner

After reading a recommendation for it as an effective, odorless carbon remover, I ordered an 8 oz. bottle of Hoppe's M-Pro-7 gun cleaner from Amazon last week. This past weekend I gave it a try, and based on the results, I am now a fan.

I gave M-Pro 7 a tough test. I went camping over the weekend and brought two guns with me. The first was my Euroarms Rogers & Spencer black powder percussion revolver. The second was my 1945-vintage M-1944 Mosin-Nagant carbine, shooting some early 1960s-vintage Soviet surplus 7.62x54R light ball ammo.

We shot the R&S with 30 grains of Swiss 3Fg black powder. Swiss powder burns cleaner than Goex, but it's still black powder and leaves behind plenty of fouling. We put about 36 to 40 shots through the gun. Afterwards, no more than 6 patches wet with M-Pro 7 got the bore clean. It was similarly effective on the rest of the gun.

The Soviet surplus ammo we fired through the Mosin-Nagant is some of the dirtiest "smokeless" ammo I've shot, and of course it has corrosive primers. I also put a 5 round clip of Hungarian light ball through the gun. Again, only a few patches wet with M-Pro 7 through the bore got it clean. I followed up with a patch wet with Ballistol to verify that M-Pro 7 hadn't left anything behind, and it too came out clean.

We did our shooting on Saturday, I cleaned the guns immediately thereafter, and then I checked them the following Monday. Neither gun showed any signs of corrosion. I ran a patch wet with Remoil through the Mosin's bore and it came out green, indicating that the residual M-Pro7 and Ballistol left in the bore had been attacking copper fouling.

I am impressed with M-Pro 7. It is odorless with no fumes, not flammable, doesn't require any special ventilation, and according to the MSDS doesn't contain anything especially nasty. After years of using smelly, carcinogenic gun cleaners I think I found my new favorite.

A Couple Inexpensive, Useful Xterra Mods

My daily driver/BOV is a 2007 Nissan Xterra S that I bought back in April. It's a great truck. After reading the Xterra forum I did a couple of inexpensive modifications. 

First, my baby: 

The Xterra comes with two cargo tie-downs near the lift gate. Unfortunately, they are cheap plastic and will pull out if 
you put to much weight on them. So, I went to Home Depot and picked up a 4-pack of Stanley steel cargo tie-down shackles and a pack of selt-tapping sheet metal screws. I pulled out the OEM tie-downs and installed the metal tie-downs in their place. The screws go into sheet metal under the plastic, so they are secure. I used the left one this weekend to secure a 7 gal. water jug, worked great.

I wanted a mat to cover the plastic floor of the cargo area. It helps to keep things from sliding around and may dampen road noise a little. Nissan wants about $75 for a factory mat. Screw that. Along with the shackles I picked up a 3'x5' rug at Home Depot. Upon getting it home I took out all my crap and laid the rug inside the cargo area. I then used a piece of chalk to trace around the areas I needed to remove, then cut them off. Finally, I sealed the edges with a lighter. It even matches the truck. 

The cargo box is a Contico SUV box that I bought a few years ago at Lowe's. I can highly recommend it. It's made of some sort of hard expanded foam. It does not latch although it does have two places for a padlock. I had to leave it on my back patio over the weekend because I needed the space, and it got rained on heavily. No water got inside the box.

You may notice that I also added a cargo area cover. IMO, if you drive an SUV or a station wagon it's a good idea for security to cover up whatever you keep in the back. What people can't see won't tempt them. 

Making a Lockable Ammo Can

I ran across this video on Youtube showing how to make a lockable ammo can, and thought it worthwhile to pass on.

Going to try Hammocking

My annual camping trip to North Central PA is coming up in a couple weeks, and the following weekend I have an overnight hike planned with my brother. The North Central PA trip will be truck camping, so it'll be easy to bring a tent and a cot. In contrast, the trip with my brother will have us hiking a few miles into a state forest. Not being keen on sleeping on the ground, even on a pad, I decided to give hammocking a try.

After reading through the Hammocks forum on Bushcraft USA, and product reviews on Amazon.com, I ordered a Grand Trunk Skeeter Beater hammock. It's nicely made with a polyester taffetta body and a zip-open bug net sewn to it. There are S-hooks attached to each end, and it comes with two cords to hang it, along with some smaller diamter cord to hang the netting. There's also a sewn-on stuff sack for storage.  The hang cords aren't very long and in some places you're not supposed to use rope to hang hammocks because they can damage tree bark. So, I also ordered a set of Hammock Bliss extra long tree straps. The webbing straps don't dig into tree bark like rope, and will allow me to hang the hammock between trees that are further apart.

In case of rain or squirrel poop, I'm planning to rig a tarp over me as a fly. For now, I have a cheap camo poly tarp. Assuming that I like hammocking, I'll probably get a lighter nylon tarp like an Etowah or one of the tarps from the BCUSA store.

To prevent getting bitten by bugs through the hammock, I plan on spraying it down with a permethrin-based bug repellent before taking it into the woods. I normally use DEET-based sprays but it's my understanding that DEET can damage polyester, and the last thing I need is for it to dump me on the ground.

I plan on trying the hammock on the first trip and will post a follow up after I get back.

You know preparedness is going mainstream

... when you see this on the comics page:




The comment about defensive weaponry should be taken to heart, as well as the unspoken lesson about OPSEC.

(Click the comic to view full width.)

UK Surplus Soldier 95 Jacket

Last week I put in an order for some first aid supplies with Warden's Surplus, and I noticed that they had some British surplus Soldier 95 jackets in stock, and amazingly, in my size.  I've always like British uniforms and the price was right -- under $20, so I added one to my cart. It came the other day.

I've posted a full review with more detailed pictures on the Bushcraft USA forum.