Rambling Thoughts on the Ammo Situation

We are now about 8 months into the biggest and longest guns and ammunition buying panic ("Banic") that I can remember, and I've been following these things since the '80s.

Yesterday on Facebook, ammunition manufacturer Hornady posted a link to this statement on ammo and component availability. Additionally, they linked to this list of the ammo and components that they will be producing for the remainder of 2013.

So, I offer the following thoughts and observations. Please pardon the rambling.

First, if this hasn't brought home to you the necessity of keeping a significant supply of ammunition on hand for your firearms, I don't know what will.  The reelection of Barack Obama and the Sandy Hook school shooting, with the ensuing push for gun control by (primarily) the Democrats and their propaganda arm, AKA the mainstream media, has caused a panic the likes of which nobody has seen. As observed by Bob Owens back in December, the American public's response was to buy up every firearm of military utility designed in the past century, and the ammo to feed them. If the Dems' goal had been to cause the American populace to arm for war, they couldn't have done better.

If you're concerned that buying online or paying for guns or ammo with a credit card will land you on a list, join the rest of us already there. Frankly, if you're not on a list, you've been slacking in speaking up in defense of the rights that both major parties have been so eager to trample upon. If you can't find ammo locally or at a gun show, there's a good chance you can find it online. The website gunbot.net will help you find ammo in stock.

I am starting to see some kinds of ammo come back in stock, e.g, 9mm, .45 ACP, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .223/5.56mm, 7.62x39, etc. .22 rimfire remains in short supply with only expensive, match grade stuff remaining in stock for more than a few hours.

.22 rimfire is essentially a commodity, and IMO, what we're seeing with the.22 LR shortage is a feedback loop. I.e., more people own .22s than any other gun, but they've been used to being able to pick up a box or two whenever they want to go shooting. Now, people are buying .22 LR any time they see it in stock somewhere, even if they don't plan on shooting it immediately. This in turn furthers the shortage. We've seen the same effect with other commodities like gasoline.

12 gauge birdshot seems to have been readily available even during the Banic, but slugs and buckshot have been scarce. Birdshot/trap loads are relatively cheap, and with some ingenuity can be remade into ammo more suitable for defense or hunting medium game. (Also Google "cut shells" and "wax slugs," neither of which are ideal but under certain circumstances may become necessary.)

As supplies catch up with demand I'd urge you to lay in a good stock of ammo for your most important guns. If you can afford it you should have enough ammo so that you can go out and practice even if you can't buy ammo that day. So, having 500 or more rounds per gun on hand at any given time is far from unreasonable.

I've seen online that many preppers prefer to keep only guns in common calibers, thinking that they would be most easily available if the SHTF. This panic has given the lie to that train of thought. The most popular calibers -- 9mm, .38, .223, etc. -- were the first to disappear from shelves. If you think about it, this makes sense. Thus, even if your primary guns are a 9mm Glock and a 5.56mm AR15, you should have guns in other calibers in case you need to fall back on them. Over consolidation in calibers limits your options for resupply.

One caliber that has remained available has been 7.62x54R, as used in Russian surplus Mosin-Nagant rifles. Most Americans regard Mosins as crude but they are solid, dependable rifles capable of good accuracy, and available even now at low cost.

Likewise, if your primary handgun is a semiauto, there are a wide variety of police surplus revolvers in .38 Special and .357 Magnum available at moderate cost. A well maintained wheelgun is still a formidable arm even in this day of semiautos, and is not dependent on the quality of ammo for reliable functioning.

Reloaders haven't been immune to the effects of the panic. The supply of primers became tight months ago. Not only are reloaders buying them up, I suspect that a lot of production that would normally go to the reloading market is instead going into commercially loaded ammo. Aside from primers, projectiles have been in short supply. It's going to be time for me to get into bullet casting.

A serious prepper should have on hand guns suitable for reloading with scrounged or self-fabricated components. Older large bore cartridges have an advantage in this regards because they can more effectively use cast, non-expanding bullets, and may even be able to efficiently use black powder. For example, the .44 Special and .45 Colt were originally loaded with black powder. The .44 Magnum case is the same as the .44 Special, lengthened by 1/10". Large bore rifle rounds like .444 Marlin and .45-70 (originally a BP cartridge) can be reloaded with it. Even in 2013, a competent man armed with a lever action carbine and a single action revolver is not someone to be trifled with.

Speaking of black powder, it's one area that's been relatively unscathed by the panic. However, at a couple times I noticed that Cabela's had their Remington 1858 percussion revolvers and round balls on back order. A black powder revolver would be far from my first choice in 2013 for a defensive gun but it beats any non-firearm for defense. They were effective weapons in the 19th Century and remain so today, especially given the advances in metallurgy. They  provide a way to practice your marksmanship without cutting into your supplies of modern ammunition, and in extremis ammunition can be fabricated from scratch (with percussion caps being the most difficult).

Likewise, airguns have flown under the panic radar. Modern high quality airguns offer a way to practice marksmanship at low cost, the ammo is low cost and low volume, and many of them are powerful enough for small game and varmint control. These are not the BB guns we all used as kids. A good primer on what air rifle to buy is available here, on Arfcom.

A nice bonus is that in most states, airguns and black powder guns can be obtained with no paperwork or background check, on a cash and carry basis.

So, what's my point? I guess what I'm trying to get across is that if you're serious about remaining an armed citizen, you need to:

(a) Maintain a good supply of ammunition during "normal" times. By "good supply" I mean one that will allow you to go out and practice even if commercial supplies are short.

(b) Do not over consolidate. Rather, keep guns in a few different calibers, including some that are less common, in case you need to resupply during the next panic or extended shortage.

(c) Look into reloading and stocking up on components when they are available.

(d) Look beyond modern firearms to those that are considered obsolete, because having something like a black powder revolver and/or precision airgun as part of your armory increases your ability to be self reliant.

As for myself, I'd been stocking up for awhile before the panic hit, so I was in good shape ammo-wise. I was caught short when it came to reloading components and dies for a couple calibers I want to reload. Additionally, I need to get setup for bullet casting. As funds and supplies permit I plan to rectify these gaps in my preps.

Machine Shop Update

On Saturday I completed the installation of digital read outs (DROs) on my Grizzly G8689 mini mill. Previously, I'd installed a belt drive conversion from Little Machine Shop. The DROs will enable me to make much more precise cuts, while the belt drive conversion made the mill a lot quieter, smoother running, and increased the top RPM to 4300 should I ever need it. Both are worthwhile mods, IMO.

However, a lathe is still the basic machine tool to have in a machine shop. After much additional online research today I ordered a Big Dog 7x14 benchtop lathe. Unlike most of the benchtop hobby lathes on the US market, this one is made by Yangzhou Real Bull, rather than Sieg. Included feature and accessories are a digital RPM display, lever lock tail stock, a steady rest, a follow rest, tail stock chuck and a live center, 4" four-jaw chuck, and metal transmission gears. I still have the lathe tool kit that I ordered when I placed my original order with Grizzly, so I should be able to get up and running with it immediately.

Delivery should take 5 - 10 days, after which I'll post a review.

Remington 550-1 .22 Semiauto Rifle and a Day at the Range

I picked up another classic .22 autoloader today at Surplus City. It's a Remington 550-1. AFAIK, the 550 was made from the 1940s up until the early 1970s.  It has the floating chamber designed by Carbine Williams so it can shoot .22 S, L, or LR. I tried some CB Longs and while it will eject the empties, the bolt didn''t come far back enough to pick up the next round. The floating chamber may need to be pulled and cleaned. The tube mag will hold 15 .22 LRs.

The rifle was made before 1968 and has no serial number (shotguns and rimfire rifles weren't required to have serial numbers before 1968). The date code on the barrel indicates that it was made in March 1948. I'd rate it as NRA Very Good with an excellent bore. I put over 200 rounds through it today with only a couple failures to feed. One was with a CCI Mini Mag and one was with a Federal Champion. Incidentally, comparing the two types of ammo side by side they look identical except for the headstamp. They sound the same and shoot to the same POI at 25 yards. So, AFAIC, the Federal Champion is the equal of CCI Mini Mags. I also shot a bunch of Federal 550 bulk pack and it ran fine with them, too. (ATK owns both CCI and Federal.)

I ran a couple patches through the bore and applied a generous amount of FP10 to the bolt before shooting it. It hasn't been cleaned in a long time. For all I know there's four decades' worth of gunk inside the receiver. Fouling started working its way out of the action and some funk actually fell out the trigger slot. I took the stock off and removed the bolt, tonight and hosed the action out with Kroil, letting it soak for a couple hours. A fair amount of yucky stuff came out.

The 550-1 is a tackdriver. I shot it from the bench at 25 yards where it would keep the Mini Mags and Champions inside ~1.5" which is about as good as I can do with an open rear sight and a front bead. The receiver is neither grooved nor drilled and tapped for a scope. I plan to drill and tap the receiver with my milling machine. I have an extra Nikon 4x32mm Prostaff rimfire scope that will go on it.

The varnish on the stock shows some dings and chips, so I'll probably strip and refinish it. It's also missing the brass/gas deflector that Remington shipped with the rifles. Numrich has spares and the mounting screw, so I'll definitely get one. It does spit a little out the ejection port. I'll also probably swap out the recoil spring for a new one.

Compared with more recent .22 autoloading rifles the Remington feels a lot nicer. It's definitely a product of a bygone era when American gunmakers shipped rifles made from high quality blued steel with nice wood stocks. It feels a lot more solid than my Ruger 10/22 or the Marlin Model 60s I've handled.

I also shot my Remington Nylon 77 with the extra mags that I had to modify. (The 4 spare mags that I got from Remington would not lock into the rifle. I had to grind away part of the locking lug. Worse, 3 of the 4 needed the metal reinforcing clip bent out so I could load them.) They worked well today, so now I'm happy with them.

Here's a pic of the two Remington .22 autoloaders:

Older blued steel and walnut .22s like the 550-1 make excellent additions to any prepper's battery. They were made very well and in many cases are extremely accurate. Older Remingtons in particular have a reputation for being very, very accurate. The tubular magazine is much less likely to be lost than a detachable box, although if you aren't careful you can damage it.

Finally, I also put a box of WWB .45 ACP through my Springfield M1911A1 using two new Chip McCormick magazines, which worked perfectly.

Some Data on the Current State of the Panic

Surplus City Guns in Feasterville, PA is the shop that I've bought most of my guns over the past 10 - 15 years. Yesterday afternoon, they put this on their Facebook timeline:

This is got to be a record for our store for one caliber ( 5.56/.223 )
13,360 rds in bulk in under an hour today
50,000 rds in bulk in under 3 hours Wednesday
21,000 rds in bulk in under 2 1/2hrs Tuesday
and another 2000rds sold by the 20 rd box sprinkled thru-out the week
THAT'S EIGHTY SIX THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ROUNDS IN UNDER 7 HOURS .....GEEZ LOUISE GUYS !!!!
The crazy part is we could have easily sold 2 to 3 times that amount if we had it......Thank you for your patronage and we will do our best to keep you supplied at a reasonable price . Keep an eye on Facebook for any upcoming announcements .

Surplus City isn't some huge store. It's your average sized gun shop. Now imagine this going on at every gun shop in the country. This points out a few things, IMO:

1. DHS contracts are not solely to blame for the ammo shortage.
2. This is just 5.56/.223. Other calibers like 9mm, .45 ACP, and .22 LR are flying off the shelves as fast or faster. Ditto for reloading components and magazines.
3. A large part of the American people are arming themselves to the teeth. They are stocking up on guns and ammunition. Kind of like 1775 or 1860.

Anyone with two neurons to rub together knows that the current crop of politicians in Washington -- whether Republican or Democrat -- is incapable of or unwilling to address the problems rending this country in two. In fact, they and their willing accomplices in the mainstream media are doing everything in their power to feed the divisions.

This will not end well.

H&R 158 Topper 20 gauge / .22 Hornet

About five years ago noted firearms instructor Clint Smith posted a trailer for his Defensive Shotgun DVD on Youtube. In the video, Smith effectively makes the point that you can defend yourself even if all you have a single shot shotgun.

 

Clint Smith–Defensive Shotgun

This video has sparked a lot of interest online in non-tactical shotguns for defense, spawning forum threads such as this one on AR15.com.

I own a couple old Harrington & Richardson Toppers, one in 12 gauge and the other came as a combination gun in 20 gauge with a .22 Hornet rifle barrel, which wears a Weaver K-4 scope.

The 12 bore suffers from a malady common to 1980s production Toppers – the lug that the forearm is screwed to broke off under recoil. It’s safe to shoot this way because the lug does not serve to hold the gun closed, only as an anchor point for the forearm. The gun is currently held together with duct tape, something I hope to remedy in the near future by having the lug TIG welded back on.

With the 12 gauge currently in disrepair, I turned my attention to the 20. The factory finish had some wear and the original factory recoil pad was both ugly – red with a white line spacer – but also hard. My first step in the project was to remove the old pad.

After removing the forearm and barrel, I stripped off the old finish with sandpaper. I’ll give H&R credit, that took some elbow grease. After sanding to 100 grit I used a shop towel with mineral spirits on it to clean off dust, then stained the wood with Minwax cherry stain. This did not come out as dark as I wanted, so I gave it a coat of Fiebing’s dark brown leather dye. This gave it a nice, reddish brown tint. After letting the leather dye dry I wiped it down with a dry shop towel, then gave it a couple coats of a spray-on polyurethane finish. It came out pretty nice, I think.

Instead of another recoil pad attached with screws, I bought a small slip-on Pachmayr Decellerator pad from Amazon. It fits the stock perfectly, and allows me to access the cavity I made inside the buttstock:

I should have enough room inside for a pull-through and some cleaning patches, plus a small bottle of oil. I might put a spare forearm screw in there, too.

You can also see that I added quick-detach sling swivels. Rummaging around in my gun stuff I found a Chicom SKS sling, which will serve nicely as a carrying strap.

If you want to weather proof a single shot shotgun better, you can replace the wood furniture with a set of plastic from Choate. They sell replacement stocks for H&Rs in a few different styles, including one forend that’s easily detatchable with a thumbscrew and which has space for storage within.

One thing you’ll notice that I did not do, but is common among the folks making single shot “survival” shotguns is chop the barrel. Shortening the barrel has some disadvantages, even if it does make the gun a bit handier.

First, and most importantly, you lose whatever choke the barrel had. If you are limiting yourself to slugs or very short range, a cylinder bore will work. But for most use with shot you should have some choke to extend the useful range. This one has a modified choke, although I’d prefer improved cylinder with modern ammo using hardened, buffered pellets.

Another disadvantage of a too-short barrel on a shotgun is that it hinders follow-through when you are shooting at a moving target. As a single shot, break open design, the Topper is already shorter than a pump or semiauto with the same barrel length.

Most people making these survival single shots are using 12 gauge guns. 12 gauge has the advantage of ubiquity. It’s the most common shotgun ammo in the US and even during the current panic, hunting ammo has remained available.

However, 20 gauge ammo is also widely available and because it’s lighter, you can carry more for the same amount of weight. It’s worth noting that during the 18th and 19th Centuries when smoothbore muzzleloading tradeguns were popular, many were in 24 gauge, which is even smaller than 20 gauge. The reasons for this were that the ammo was cheaper (no longer true when comparing 12 vs. 20), and using less powder and shot when far from resupply was critical.

Recoil was also much less with the small bores. Nowadays, you have to go to a 28 gauge or .410 bore to get light recoil in a single shot. Even the 20s can be brisk, hence my use of a good recoil pad. That said, 12s are worse. Once I get my 12 gauge H&R back together I’d like to try out some Aguila Mini Shells, which load reduced payloads into a 1.75” long shell.

Single shot break open shotguns have been made in the millions over the past 140 years or so.  Certainly, something like a Remington 870 or a Benelli M4 is a better defensive weapon. But, a single shot shotgun if it’s all you can afford or are allowed to own leaves you far from unarmed. Additionally, the break down into two halves easily so that can be stored in confined spaces like a boat or airplane, and are dirt simple to operate. As a survival gun that can serve for defense or procuring food in the wilderness, a single shot break open shotgun is a viable choice.

Legacy Arms Gen 2 Scramasax

Once again I got the wants for a big knife. This time I wanted something historical. After looking at various daggers I came upon the Legacy Arms Generation 2 Anglo-Saxon Scramasax at Kult of Athena. Depending on which web page you look at, it's also called a 6th Century Lombard Scramasax. Not being an expert on knives from the Dark Ages but knowing a neat knife when I see one, I ordered one from KOA on Sunday. UPS dropped it off today.

From my reading about scramasaxes, AKA seaxes, they were single edged knives used by the Germanic tribes of Northern Europe, used as both tools and weapons. They ranged in size from a few inches long to blades the size of swords, known as a langseax. Unlike the "broken back" sax which has a blade tip that angles down towards a straight edge, this scramasax is closer to a spear point, but still authentic.

This is a big knife. Here are a couple pics showing just how big. Top-to-bottom, it's shown with my Valiant Large Survival Golok, the Scramasax, Ontario SP-48, and Camillus Becker BK-7.

Did I mention this is a big knife? Compared to the Scramasax, the SP-48 and BK-7 feel like toys.

Per Kult of Athena, the Scramasax has a 12.5" long blade that's 1.625" wide (by my measure), weighs 1 lb. 2 oz., varies from 4.5mm to 3.7mm thick, has a 6" long grip, and is 19.125" long.

Here are closer views of the knife and sheath:

The pommel is peened:

The back of the sheath, showing the belt loop:

IMO the overall workmanship looks good. The 5160 steel blade, steel band at the end of the haft, and the pommel are well polished. The wood handle feels good, although a few of the diamonds formed by the cross hatching did have points break off. The edge is sharp enough to cut paper. The leather sheath is solid although not especially authentic. I.e., it can be hung vertically from a belt but there's no way to suspend it horizontally as the originals were (despite the description on KOA's page).

This Scramasax should make a pretty good camp knife. It's a bit handier than the golok but should chop very effectively. If needed as a weapon it has a blade design suitable for hacking, slashing, or stabbing.

I'm looking forward to giving it a good workout and will post a follow up when I do so. It'll probably be a couple weeks, though.

Dyna Glo Kerosene Heater

I had to take off from work today to help care for my wife and two daughters, who've come down with the creeping crud that's been going around. During my morning errands I stopped off at Lowes and bought a Dyna Glo model RMC-95C6B kerosene heater. We've wanted an auxiliary heater for awhile and today seemed like a good time to pick it up along with a 5 gallon can of Klean-Strip K-1 dye-free kerosene.

The Dyna Glo model we got is a cylindrical convection style heater putting out 23000 BTU. We have it in the middle of our living/dining room, which is the middle level of our split level home. Our den downstairs has a gas fireplace to keep it warm, while the forced air heat from our gas furnace manages to heat the upper level where our bedrooms are. The living and dining room tend to be cold, partially due to the ductwork, but also because they have a cathedral ceiling.

The heater required minimal assembly - basically I needed to put on the top piece and the protective grill. There are two Phillips head screws holding it together. The heater can be lit with a match, but the primary way to light it is via the built in electric start that is powered by two C cells.

For safety's sake I filled the heater outside. It came with a siphon which made filling it easy. The tank has a fuel gauge on it so you know when it's almost full. Using the siphon instead of a funnel allowed me to fill the tank without spilling any fuel.

Before lighting the heater I brought it inside and let the wick soak up the fuel for a little more than an hour. Doing so with a new wick is key to preventing poor burning and making fumes.

So far it's burning nicely and has made the middle level of my house very comfortable. The Klean-Strip K-1 seems to burn cleanly without smoke or much odor. It's definitely not as stinky as the K-1 we used when I was a kid. I just wish it wasn't over $8 per gallon (due primarily to taxes).

Overall it seems decently made but the handle connection could be better. I'm going to see about getting a couple hitch pins to better secure the handle to the heater body. I do not plan on moving it while lit so this isn't an immediate concern.

Anytime you are burning fuel indoors you need to be aware of the possibility that you could be producing poisonous carbon monoxide (CO). Because it's odorless, it can be difficult to detect until it's too late. Our primary heating system is forced air natural gas, so we already have to CO detectors. One is downstairs right outside the furnace closet. The other is in our upstairs hallway. So far neither has chirped but I'm getting a third to have in the living room with the kero heater just to be on the safe side.

Back in the early/mid 1980s when energy prices were relatively high, but kerosene was relatively cheap, kerosene heaters were more common in American homes. My parents used one to help keep their house warm. It never failed that ever winter there would be at least one news story about a house fire started by someone putting gasoline in a kero heater. NEVER do this. You'll be lucky if it only catches fire. There's a good chance that putting gas into a kero heater will cause an explosion.

If you use them properly kerosene heaters are a good, safe way to provide supplemental heating for your home. Read the directions that came with your heater, use only the correct fuel, and have a carbon monoxide detector.

Tiananmen Square Activist Turned American Second Amendment Activist

Watch this and share it. This needs to go viral.

Here’s a transcript (the cameraman missed the first paragraph).

The past Monday I decided to visit the Minuteman Park in Lexington and pay tribute to Captain John Parker and his fellow minutemen. A thought came to my mind, that the founding fathers of the United States and Chairman Mao had one thing in common: they all realized that guns are important political instruments. Their similarities, however, ended there:

Chairman Mao wrote: ‘Political power grows out of barrel of a gun’, and he dictated: ‘The party shall command the gun’. James Madison and his compatriots, however, believing that the power of the state is derived from the consent of the governed, ratified that ‘the right to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed’.

23 years ago, I was a college freshman exercising my freedom of speech and assembly in Tian’anmen Square, much like we are doing here today. We grew frustrated by the restriction of personal freedoms and the corrupted Chinese government, and we thought peaceful protest would make the country better. Our young passion and patriotism was crushed by hails of full metal jackets out of AK47’s. (Some AK purists here would argue they were really type 56’s). We could not fight back, because we did not have an inch of iron in our hands, to borrow a Chinese expression: we were unarmed.

Gun owners like us often say: the Second Amendment is the protector against a tyrannical government. Some may argument that a man with a rifle is no match to the military machines of today, so such beliefs are no longer relevant. However, 20 million peaceful Beijing citizens in 1989, sure wished that they had a few million rifles in their hands!

Freedom is not free. Liberty has costs. We recognize that in this free society, criminals or mentally deranged could get weapons and murder the innocents. The answer, however, is not to disarm the law abiding citizens. Not only criminals and the deranged will violate the laws anyway, but more importantly, when a government turns criminal, when a government turns deranged, the body count will not be five, ten or twenty, but hundreds, like in Tian’anmen Square, or millions, counted in the 90-year history of the Chinese Communist Party.

Our constitutional republic may look fuzzy and loving today (if you think so, I’ve got a TSA agent you should meet), but keep in mind that absolute power corrupts absolutely! And when a government has monopoly on guns, it has absolute power!

Do you know that the Chinese Constitution guarantees almost all the nice things we have here? It is written that Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of speech and religion, they have human and property rights, and that such rights cannot be taken away without due process of the law. And do you know what? Chinese people do not have the right to keep and bear arms. I assure you all those nice guarantees, are not worth the paper they are printed on, because when the government has all the guns, they have all the rights.
I was not born a citizen of the United States, I was naturalized in 2007. In 2008, I became a proud gun owner. To me, a rifle is not for sporting or hunting, it is an instrument of freedom. It guarantees that I cannot be coerced, that I have free will, and that I am a free man.

Now suppose the 20 million Beijing citizens had had a few million rifles, how many rounds should they have been ALLOWED to load into their magazines? 10? 7? How about 3?

Never, never, never give up the fight, my friends. It may be a small step that you give up your rifle, or a 30-round magazine, but it will be a giant leap in the destruction of this great republic.

In closing I will quote the words of Captain John Parker: "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they want to have a war, let it begin here."

(Link to transcript of this and other speeches from yesterday’s rally in Boston.)

DIY Speedloader for .22 Rifles with Tubular Magazines

Having recently bought a Norinco ATD semiautomatic .22 rifle with a tubular magazine, I wanted a way to load it more quickly than dropping in single rounds. The commercially made Spee-D-Loader is available from several vendors, e.g. MidwayUSA and Cablea’s, and by most accounts works well.

I was interested in a DIY-solution, however, and did some googling to see what other people have come up with. Basically, you need a tube with the right internal diameter plus a couple end caps. Several folks mentioned using old aluminum arrows. I didn’t have laying around that I wanted to sacrifice, though. Eventually, I came across this post at the Marlin Owners Forum. “O1Sporty” described making his own speedloaders from lengths of 4’ long by 0.28” internal diameter clear polyethylene tubing and push on vinyl caps obtained from McMaster-Carr. The tubing was only $0.86 for each piece, while the caps were $3.76 for a bag of 100. After shipping my order was about $14.00.

I got my order of 6 tubes and a bag of caps today and made up a few speedloaders for the Norinco ATD tonight. Each one holds 11 rounds of .22 LR. I measured by capping one end of the full-length tube, dropping in 11 Remington Golden Bullet .22s, and marking it with a Sharpie. I then used the first cut piece as a template. You can cut this tubing with scissors.

I made the tubes a little longer than needed for the Golden Bullets, in case I used them with other .22 LR ammo with a slightly longer overall length.

I had a piece about 5” long leftover. I capped it and filled it with BBs for my daughter’s Red Ryder.

My Winchester 9422 holds up to 18 .22 LRs, if I remember correctly. I plan to make up some longer speedloaders to with it.

These should work well. They are cheap and easy to make, and are water resistant. I can have several of them loaded up ahead of time and then spend less time loading at the range.

Norinco ATD .22 Rifle Pictures

I took the ATD out to my shop tonight to clean it and took some pictures.

Looking into the underside of the action, you can see the cartridge-shaped magazine follow up against the top of the receiver. The latch at the rear of the forearm keeps the barrel indexed when the rifle is assembled.

Here’s the magazine tube insert partially withdrawn for loading. You can also see the funnel-shaped port on the right side of the butt. That’s where you drop cartridges into.

Here’s the buttplate and the end of the magazine tube insert. Norinco left some wood unfinished there. I need to seal it.

Here’s the mag tube insert pulled out of the gun, along with the trigger guard/bolt group.

Norinco ATD .22 Semiauto Rifle

Recently I came to the conclusion that having a takedown .22 autoloading rifle that uses a tube magazine could come in handy. Most .22s with tubular magazines have them mounted under the barrel, with a few notable exceptions such as the Remington Nylon 66, some older Winchesters, and the Browning Semi Auto .22, all of which have the magazine concealed within the butt stock.

The Browning SA-22 was introduced in 1914 and produced by FN in Belgium until 1976, when production was moved to Miroku in Japan. It was also produced in the United States by Remington, as the Model 24 and Model 241. Finally, it's also been made by Norinco in China as the ATD and JW-20. Interarms imported the ATD into the US in the late 1980s/early 1990s, until all Norinco imports were banned by Clinton in 1994. Canadian shooters can still buy the JW-20 (see Marstar.ca).

Having researched a number of the older tube-fed .22 takedowns over the past week, today I picked up a NIB Norinco ATD at Sarco in Easton, PA.

Apparently, Sarco found a bunch of Norinco ATDs in their warehouse last Fall. I found about them from a link to Sarco's website on Slickguns.com. I called Sarco Friday afternoon and they had one left in the showroom. The salesman I spoke with agreed to set it aside for me. Yesterday morning I drove up to Easton and bought it. After getting it home, I field stripped, cleaned, and oiled it. It was pretty clean, without too much oil or grease.

The Norinco is a very close copy of the FN and Miroku-made guns. From what I've read, most Browning parts are interchangeable, although some fitting may be required. Compared with a Browning, the Norinco's fit and finish is much cruder, but by most accounts they work well. My rifle's blueing is well done and the wood is decent, if not up to Browning's standards.

Aside from the tubular magazine which is protected within the butt stock, the Browning/Norinco has a few features which made it desireable for me:

First, the bottom ejection means that as a lefty, I don't need to worry about getting empty cases or gas in my face. My daughter and wife are also left eye dominant, so even though they are right handed they shoot portside. Last weekend my daughter shot my Remington Apache 77 and called it quits after getting hit on the cheek by an unburned powder granule. (This is one reason why we all wear safety glasses when shooting.) Also, the crossbolt safety is reversible for left handed operation. I'm still figuring out exactly how to do this, since the manual merely states that you can have a gunsmith perform the switch.

The gun takes down into two halves less than 20" long in just a few seconds, with no tools. I may pick up a cheap camera tripod case to hold the rifle when broken down. I got one for my Stoeger coach gun and it's great for holding the gun, a Boresnake, and some ammo.

Likewise, field stripping the rifle requires no tools. Finally, it weighs less than five pounds, which makes it easy to pack, and easy for my daughter to hold up.

To load the rifle, you twist the end of the magazine tube insert (accessible via a hole in the buttplate) and pull it out until it stops. Then, with the rifle pointing muzzle down, drop up to 11 .22 LR rounds into the funnel-shaped port on the right side of the butt. Then push in the mag insert and twist about a quarter turn to lock it in place. Finally, charge the rifle by pulling back the bolt handle and letting it go.

Last night I was able to shoot the Norinco on an indoor range. I put about 245 rounds through it, with a few malfunctions. So far it seems to prefer CCI Mini Mag solids over Federal 550 pack HPs. There was one failure to eject with the CCIs between the 40 and 50 round marks, but several with the Federals. .22s in general can be finicky when it comes to ammo, and semiautos in particular may have a strong preference for one kind or another, so this came as no surprise. I'm also hoping that once I get a few hundred more rounds through the gun it breaks in better, and functions better with the Federal ammo.

I also tried some CCI CB Longs, to see if the Norinco would handle them if manually cycled. No joy. With any of the CB Longs in the mag you cannot pull back the bolt. OAL must be jamming the feed mechanism. Once the first round gets into the chamber it'll fire and eject though, which surprised me. Last week I tried the CB Longs in my Remington Apache 77. They fed and ejected fine from the Remington's box magazine when manually cycled.

One thing you need to be careful of with these bottom ejectors is having hot brass eject out of the gun and go into your sleeve. Move your hand forward on the forearm to avoid this. I'd also avoid shooting one of these while wearing sandals. Hot brass between your toes will leave a scar.

The Norinco's trigger is good. There's little takeup, no grittiness, and the weight is probably 4 to 5 pounds.

The Browning and Norinco copies lack any kind of a bolt hold open device. So, if you're on a range that requires actions to be locked open during ceasefires or when the rifle is benched, you'll need to either use a chamber flag or stick and empty case in the ejection port so as to hold it open.

The bead front sight + rear open sights weren't working so great with my middle aged eyes, so I'm going to look into a barrel mounted red dot. Something like a Bushnell TRS-25, Primary Arms Micro Dot, or a Burris Fast Fire would greatly improve the sighting arrangement without messing up the svelte gun's balance.

I like the Norinco a lot. Once I improve the sights, I'll like it even more.

Antenna Pictures

As mentioned in my last post, I constructed a short mast to support the end of my Ultimax 100 antenna so that it's not lying directly on my shingles. I got it up on the roof this morning.

As you can see, I scraped the base a little when I hoisted it up onto the roof. The Plasti Dip coating came off easily. I’m hoping that as long as it doesn’t get any more scrapes it’ll hold up to the weather.

I tied a piece of 550 cord between the insulator on the end of the antenna, and a loop of insulated copper wire wrapped around the iron pipe serving as the mast. The wire is a piece of the black conductor from some Romex I had leftover from a previous project.

The matching network at the other end of the antenna is attached with cable ties to the mast supporting my Comet GP3 2M/70cm antenna.

You can see the feed lines going over the peak of my roof. They go down to the front left corner of the house, are cable tied to a downspout, and then come into my shack on the ground flood.

As a side note, make sure you use outdoor-rated cable ties if you are exposing them to the weather. When a friend and I installed the Comet GP3 several years ago we used white cable ties, which are for indoor use only. When I put the HF antenna up there I replaced all the white ties with black ones that are UV-resistant. I didn’t need to cut the white ties – they snapped with only finger pressure.

Anyway, elevating the antenna and orienting so that it runs as close to North/South as I could get seems to have improved my reception on 20M. I had a QSO this morning with a ham in Georgia and both Tx and Rx seemed much stronger.

Been Working More HF

Since getting my Icom IC-7200 setup and my last post I've been working more HF, mostly on 20M and 40M PSK31. Aside from more contacts here in the US I've managed to bag QSOs with Greece, France, and Venezuela.

I think my antenna will perform better, though it I elevate it so it's not in contact with my roof. Wood rafters and asphalt shingles are largely transparent to RF, but they have different dielectric properties than air. So, yesterday I went to Lowe's and bought some supplied to support the end of the antenna. I'll post a pic when it's done, but essentially it's a cross-shaped based made from a pressure treated 2x4, with an upright made from a piece of 1/2" (7/8" OD) black iron pipe. I cut the 2x4 into three pieces. One is four feet long and the others two feet long. I fastened the shorter pieces to the long piece with flat mending braces and Titebond 3 glue. I then took a 10" long piece of scrap 2x4 and laid it across the joints, gluing and screwing it in place.

Before beginning  construction of the antenna support, I measured the pitch of my roof using Theodolite on my iPhone. It came to 15 degrees. Before attaching the 10" long piece of wood to the base, I put it in my vise at the same angle. This allowed me to hold my drill approximately vertical when I made the angled hole for the pipe. This way the pipe will be more or less vertical when the base sits on the roof.

I've covered the entire thing with a coat of black Plasti Dip rubber coating. I'd bought a can a while ago to use on some tool handles but never got around to doing anything with it. I figured that coating the antenna support black will make it less visible, and the coat will help to preserve it from the weather. It'll be interesting to see how well it holds up.

Tomorrow after the Plasti Dip is fully dry I plan to epoxy the pipe into the base. We got some light snow so I doubt I'll be able to get it on the roof. I don't like heights, doubly so when they are slippery.

I'll post a follow up once I have the antenna support in place.

Had my first QSO on HF last night

My Icom IC-7200 arrive last Tuesday, and the Ultimax-100 antenna came on Friday.

Yesterday afternoon I put the antenna up on my roof, fed with 50’ of LMR-400 coax. The antenna is attached to the base of the mast supporting my Comet GP-3 2m/70cm antenna, which is near the peak of the roof. The Ultimax is stretched out so it slopes down along my roof, and was secured in place by tying a piece of 550 cord to the end insulator, with the other end tied to my gutter. I do plan on making some PVC supports to hold the antenna up above my roof by a foot or two.

Being a computer geek I am largely interested in digital modes. The IC-7200’s USB port for connection to a computer without having to use an interface like a RIGrunner or Signalink USB was one of the main reasons I chose it. So, I installed a Windows 7 64-bit driver from here, and installed both fldigi and Ham Radio Deluxe.

After some tinkering I was still having difficulties getting the DM780 part of  HRD to transmit so I changed over to fldigi. I got it working and coordinated with a couple guys on Arfcom, and we got a QSO going using Olivia 16/500. Olivia is a slow mode for transferring text but is very tolerant of poor propagation conditions, and low transmitting power.

I’m looking forward to working with this more.

USMC Antenna Handbook

I ran across this today. USMC Antenna Handbook, MCRP 3-40.3C. It's a 193 page PDF, about 2.5 megs.

Book Review: A Distant Eden

As a longtime fan of the SHTF/post-apocalyptic fiction genre I decided to give the book A Distant Eden by Lloyd Tackett a try when I saw that I could get the Kindle edition for $0.99.

I wasted a buck.

The author attempted to write a survival manual in the guise of a novel, and to his credit, states this in the forward. Unfortunately for a survival manual, it is full of inaccuracies, bad advice, and warped ethics.

To begin with, the book offers poor advice about firearms, tactics, nutrition, and water purification. E.g.:

• Some of the gun-related content sounds like ad copy from Gunz & Blammo.
• What the author refers to as complete foodstuffs will result in a variety of deficiency diseases. E.g., pellagra. 
• After a short training period by a handful of special ops soldiers, the good guys go attack a fortified encampment held by superior numbers of armed men. Did I mention that one of the uber-elite special ops types kills the Numba One Bad Guy in a planned duel? Or that the good guys take no casualties?
• The water purification methods in the book are better than nothing but depending on the locale may not be enough to prevent infection by various parasites.

The effects of a solar electromagnetic pulse (EMP) aren't portrayed accurately. Without getting into detail here, I recommend that you start reading about EMP here. (Make sure to follow the links at the bottom of the linked page.)

The almost immediate descent into savagery as portrayed in the book doesn't mirror how people have responded to massive regional disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina or Sandy. Certainly, plenty of people will take advantage of the situation (e.g., looting during the 1977 New York City black out) but it will take a lot longer for societal breakdown on the scale described in the book. Take for example the aftermaths of the EMP-induced power failure in Quebec in 1989, the 2003 Northeast US power outage, or various ice storms through the American South in recent years.

But perhaps the worst part of the book is the ethical system embraced by the protagonists and apparently endorsed by the author. At one point in the book, the "good guys" ambush and kill a poacher because he's taken a deer on private property to feed his wife and child. The justification for this is that by killing the deer, the poacher has taken food from the protagonists' childrens' mouths. He then goes on to kill the poacher's wife and kid because they are now without a protector, and portrays killing them as a mercy.

REALLY?!?

Shortly thereafter, the same protagonist spares a different poacher, but only does so after determining that he's a Christian. Because, you know, only Christian people are worth sparing.

To repeat myself, REALLY?!?

How 13th Century.

There is some good, independently published survival fiction out there like David Crawford's Light's Out or Thomas Sherry's Deep Winter. That A Distant Eden received a bunch of 4 and 5 star reviews on Amazon is a testament to how ignorant many people are.

Ordered an Icom IC-7200

After a ton of online research, this morning I pulled the trigger on an Icom IC-7200 from Ham Radio Outlet.  HRO had an open box unit that I ordered. The discount for this on top of seasonal discounts brought the price down to about $890, the cheapest I found it anywhere.

One of the things that I find especially appealing about the IC-7200 is that it was designed from the outset for use with a computer. It has an USB port on the back, allowing you to control the radio with your PC, including the use of digital modes like PSK-31, without requiring a sound card connection.

I didn't order any other accessories as I've been able to find them cheaper elsewhere online. E.g., I need to get an external antenna tuner, an antenna, a patch cord to run between the radio and the tuner, and an antenna feed line.

Edit: Got a call from HRO that the open box unit I ordered was defective when they tested it. They're going to send me a different one, still at a discount but not as much. Should have it Monday.

All Comments Now Moderated

Due to increasing amounts of spam I am now moderating all comments.

CQ CQ CQ de KB3MNK /AG

After getting my No-Code Technician's amateur radio license back in 2005 I was active on 2M for a couple years, but haven't done much with it lately. The FCC finally eliminated all Morse Code requirements in 2007 but I never got around to upgrading.  Recently, I came to the conclusion after the bout of storms we've had ove the past year and a half or so that I should get back into it, and upgrade my license.

So, last Thursday I took the FCC's Element 3 exam and upgraded my license to General Class. The update hasn't shown up yet in the FCC's Universal Licensing System database, but I have my CSCE.

To prepare for the exam I used three resources:

• The ARRL's General Class License Manual
• Free online practice questions from QRZ.com
• Free online practice questions from Hamexam.org

Although QRZ.com and Hamexam.org contain the same pool of questions, they present the questions differently. When you take a practice test at QRZ they are shown to you one question per page, and immediately graded. However, when you take a practice test at Hamexam all 35 questions are presented on one page, and not graded until you click a button after finishing all of them. I found Hamexam's format to render better on my iPad, but I found QRZ's format better for learning.

With my newly acquired HF privileges I need to get a new radio. The modes I'm interested in operating on HF are SSB, PSK-31, and Olivia MFSK, on 10M to 40M. 60M and 80M would be cool, too, but I don't know yet if I'll be able to setup an antenna suitable for them.

After seeking input on Arfcom and doing a lot of online research, I am leaning heavily to the Icom IC-718. It's been out for awhile and gets good reviews on eHam.net. Plus, compared with radios like the Yaesu FT-857 of -897, or similar Icom and Kenwood HF/VHF/UHF capable units, it's less menu driven, which should make it easier to use. The IC-718 does 160M to 10M, lacking 6M, VHF, and UHF. For the latter two I have a Yaesu FT-7800R and VX-5RS. While 6M might be nice to have I don't think I'll really miss it that much.

Along with the new radio I'll need a new antenna and an antenna tuner. Due to space constraints I'm leaning towards an Ultimax 100 strung between the roof of my house and a short mast near my back fence. (At least I don't need to deal with a homeowner's association.)

For mobile use I'll also pick up some sort of portable vertical antenna and/or a multiband dipole that I can string up between a couple of trees.

This should be fun.

Juicebox Portable Power Box

During my morning browsing I came across the Juicebox portable battery backup box. Built into a USGI surplus ammo can, the manufacturer claims that on a single charge it can:

• Charge a typical laptop six times
• Charge a Smart Phone 50 times
• Charge a Cell Phone 80 times
• Run an I-Pad® for nearly 100 hours
• Run a portable radio for weeks
• Run a GPS for 140 hours
• Run a desktop fan for 20 hours
• Light up a campsite for several nights

It's a neat solution for providing power in the field or in the event of an outage. Even if you don't want to buy one from them, it can serve as inspiration for a homebrew setup. See, for example, ChinoUSMC's emergency communications ham radio and backup power setup, here.

{Hat tip to InstaPundit.}

Champion Generator Follow Up

I received my Champion generator about a week after I ordered it.

The generator came well packed in a heavy duty cardboard box. Luckily, I was able to work from home the day it was scheduled for delivery. I met the UPS driver and he wheeled it back to my shed and helped me lift it in. The generator weighs about 140 pounds, so this made my life a lot easier.

Champion packs them without the wheels, handle, and support leg attached. Installing them takes maybe 10 or 15 minutes, it’s just a matter of bolting them to the frame.

Most generators ship with no fluids (i.e., motor oil) in them. Champion did include a 0.6L bottle of 10W30 and a long funnel with the generator.

I had my first opportunity to test it yesterday. After connecting the battery cables and putting in the oil I moved it outside, then added about a half gallon of gas.

Before trying to start it I turned over the engine a few times using the starter cord to get some oil circulated through the system. (The unit has a recoil starter, but as long as the electric start works that’s what I plan to use. Why make life difficult?)

Next I switched the battery to On and the ignition to On, took a step back and per the instructions, briefly pressed the start button on the included remote start key fob. It clicked and started right up. I waited a bit, then tested the key fob’s off button, and finally did the same with the onboard ignition switch.

After I was done with testing the starting buttons I let it run for about a half hour. When I decided it had run enough I changed the fuel shutoff valve to off. About a minute later it conked out.

I don’t have any kind of sound meter but the noise isn’t too bad. The muffler is pretty large in relation to the 196cc engine. It makes less noise than my snow blower, and a hell of a lot less noise than the monster generator my neighbors were using after Hurricane Sandy.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with it so far. It seems well designed, came with clear instructions, and starts easily.

I have a long, heavy duty extension cord on order to use with it; one end has a twist-lock to connect to the generator, while the other has three standard three-prong outlets.

At some point I plan to build a “dog house” to cover the generator while it’s running to protect it from the elements, and hopefully muffle the noise even more.

Another Hurricane Sandy AAR

“Ar-jedi” posted a Hurricane Sandy after action report that’s worth reading, over on AR15.com. (The lack of capitalization is in the original. Regardless, he included a great deal of useful info.)

hurricane Sandy visited us and left behind a mess. not but a week later a Nor'easter visited and caused more issues. the result was 12 days without utility power. i thought that it would be useful to document some of the successes and failures of dealing with this short term outage.

preface:

i live with my wife in a semi-rural community approximately 15 miles inland. my immediate family members live either very near the water (mom) or just a few miles in from the shore (brother and sister). i work about 35 minutes north of home.

constraints:

our house has a well, 220 feet deep with a 0.75HP submersible pump at the bottom of the hole. it requires 240Vac at 8A running current, with an inrush of about 40A. aside, everyone in my town is on well water –– but this is not the norm for the county, where municipal water is most common.

build up:

the NE (specifically, the mid-Atlantic coast) does not get frequent hurricanes; our worry is generally about Nor'easters –– which can carry a lot of rain (>8" in 24 hours) or alternatively a lot of snow (>24" in 24 hours). hurricane Irene passed over last year, leaving most folks in our area without power for 2-4 days. Sandy first appeared on our collective radar about a week before landfall, although at the time the projected tracks were all over the map. some models had the eye going north of us, some south, some showed it veering out to sea, etc. one note –– the NE area is structured primarily atop rock and clay-based soil; ergo, unlike areas with sandy soil it does not absorb water and then drain all that easily. frankly, with a storm of this size i was more worried about the quantity of rain versus the wind.

common preps:

my wife and i live fairly simply and have on-hand at all times enough for about a month of "no societal contact" living. we keep our food, water, and other staples maintained. from this perspective, if Sandy had just "shown up" i don't think we would have had much of a problem overall. for example, in the basement are 24 cases of bottled water, qty 4 NATO type 5 gal water cans, and upstairs there is plenty of stored pasta, rice, soup and other. in addition i have a modest store of freeze dried food as well. there is a shallow creek out behind the house and this non-potable water could be used for flushing toilets, for example. it is relatively high in iron and so it's not a great input to a portable water filter.

event preps:

i anticipated Irene again, and there would no power for 2-4 days. nevertheless on thursday (5 days before the storm arrived) i topped my available fuel stores to the maximum: 25 gallons of gas (5 x 5 gal NATO cans), and 16 gallons of diesel (2 x 5 gal NoSpill cans + 6 in the tractor tank itself). so i believed from the outset that we were "covered" in terms of fuel stocks, and of course these stocks could be prolonged by changing usage. fuel tanks in my truck and my wife's car were also filled.

worries:

my primary concern was the safety of my family, including my mom and siblings. at my home, my worry was structure penetration or damage from trees. while i have culled some trees away from the house over the years, there are one or two that could give the house or the detached garage a good sized headache. the other concern was of course power –– for water, heat, and comfort.

Read the full report here.

Comet CTC-50M Antenna Line Feed-Through

This week I received from Universal Radio a Comet CTC-50M antenna line feed-through. It’s a piece of coaxial cable designed to allow you to pass an antenna line through a window, but still allow you to shut the window all the way. It does this by using a special piece of flat coax, instead of the normal round cable.

The ends are terminated with SO-239 connectors, allowing you to attach a PL-259-terminated line from the antenna, and another line from the radio.

I had been using a PanelRelief Lexan pass-through panel from QuickSilver Radio. However, it wasn’t very weather tight. Not a problem in warm weather but unacceptable when it’s cold.

So far it seems to work fine on receive but I haven’t tried transmitting yet. I’ll post a follow up after I do.

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.

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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.

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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.