New Guns Part II

The Stoeger Double Defense: A tactical coach gun with top & bottom rails & a black finish. This appeals to me immensely because I like the simplicity & power of coach guns but would prefer something more tactical than a shiny cowboy firearm.

The Rossi/Taurus Circuit Judge: A rifle version of the well-received Judge .410/.45 revolver. Not quite my cup of tea, this, but KUDOS to Rossi for producing a unique firearm that probably performs well as both a varmint gun and a home security weapon.

The Springfield XDM Compact: A single pistol that performs as both a concealable backup weapon and a full-size combat handgun. The secret is in the grip, which can take either a short 13-round magazine or an extended 16-round magazine. A truly innovative design for a proven world-class firearm. Saves us all from having to buy 2 pistols.

Locomotive with a FUCK YOU bumper

U can C how this bumper sticks out the front of my locomotive, but can U hear what it's saying? Listen carefully. Hear that? It's whispering, "FUCK YOU." Cuz it's a solid steel motherfucker. Now plz, stay out my way.

New Guns

OK, this Chiappa Firearms Rhino is a .357 Magnum revolver with some odd characteristics: The barrel is aligned with the lower cylinder, which lessens the recoil and allows for greater accuracy. The reduced recoil inherent in the design allowed for significantly lighter overall weight. Also, the cylinder is flat-sided rather than round, giving the pistol a flatter profile and making it very concealable. I think it looks cool.

What we have here is a Kel Tec PMR-30, which holds THIRTY .22 Magnum rounds in its magazine. Which is fucking astounding. Seriously. That is a LOT of fucking firepower.

Here is a high-end, rifled replica of the (in)famous FP-45 Liberator. It's expensive and not quite able to fire as sold, but I always liked this puppy cuz it's so effin simple and useless. It's single-shot and you have to pry the fired casing out of the chamber to reload. The handle is hollow and holds extra ammo. This gun was designed to allow French Partisans to obtain better weapons by killing enemy soldiers. They originally cost US$2.10 each.

Mind Game

If you had to arm a 50-man local or retreat militia (5 10-man squads), what weapons would you choose, and how would you allocate them?

My answers:

Super Low Budget: Moisin Nagants (or Lee Enfields) for everyone! Bayonets, slings & cleaning kits included. Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. A couple of surplus stainless steel .357 police revolvers thrown in if the budget allowed.

Low Budget: I'd probably go for the Chinese SKS (7.63 mm x 39 mm w/fixed magazine & integral bayonet) as the main armament, as I admire it for its durability, quality and low price. Russian ammo is plentiful and cheap, as are stripper clips and Chinese ammo pouches. Plus, the fixed magazine, with its 10-round capacity, favors methodical shooting over rapid fire. Every tenth man would carry a 12 gauge Remington 870 pump (20-inch barrel), and a 9mm Glock, instead. I don't particularly like Glocks, but who can argue with their price and performance, and the ubiquity of the 9mm round?

Medium Budget: I'd probably go with the best AK-47 I could find, 40 rifles all told, all AKs would be of identical make/national origin for purposes of redundancy. Half the rifles would have fixed wooden stocks while half would have metal folding stocks. Bayonets all the way around. Every tenth man would carry a pump 12 gauge Mossberg 590A1 (20-inch barrel), and one out of ten men would carry a scoped AR-15. One AK per squad would be converted to full auto come the Apocalypse. One or two 9mm Glocks per squad.

High Budget: Each 10-man squad would be armed with 5 M-4s, 2 7.62mm Galils, 2 Springfield M1A1s & 1 Mossberg 12 gauge pump 590A1 (20-inch barrel), plus a couple of Model 1911 .45s. The fifth 10-man squad would also be armed with several Stoeger 12 gauge tactical double barrel shotguns, which would be cut down come the Apocalypse.

OK, enough of that, now I gotta go clear my mind.

Zoom Update

Had an ARB bumper and a winch installed on Zoom. Feels like I'm driving a freight train - the truck's heavier, and that bumper could punch a hole thru a brick wall. At some point I'll lift him an inch or two and have larger tires put on - nothing too drastic, just to raise him a little and bring the front end back up. Also, one day he'll get heavy duty ignition wires and high end spark plugs, and maybe at some point a canvas shell on the bed.

DIY Snow Tires for Your Bike

Monowalker Hiking Trailer for Hikers

Sorry for the cut-and-paste links below, but (as usual) they are the best I can do:

http://www.monowalker.com/ENG-index.html

http://winarco.com/monowalker-hiking-trailer-for-hikers/

http://www.trailspace.com/blog/2010/05/18/monowalker.html

This thing is a hippie survivalist's wet dream. It is a finely crafted hiking trailer with a disc brake. It can be converted into a bicycle trailer or a backpack. Amazing!

The Survival Bike

Here's a cool idea! Take a rugged, lightweight mountain bike, give it front & rear racks, panniers & a trailer. The trailer has one wheel. Two handles can be easily attached to the trailer when it is removed from the bike, making it easily pullable by a single person. Or, if need be, the trailer can be pushed, like a wheelbarrow. There are modular attachments for the trailer, such as a plastic water tank, a seat, a metal fuel tank, a waterproof duffel, a tool box, battery packs, a cargo net, a solar panel, etc.

There is a simple PTO on the back of the bicycle, running up thru the rear center rack. A variety of tools or appliances can be attached to this PTO, and when the bicycle is placed on an integral stand, pedaling powers them directly, via the back wheel. A blender, a dentist's drill, a grain grinder, a food processor, a circle or band saw, a drill press, God knows what else.

There is also an optional battery pack that can be charged by the bicycle. It has an integral solar panel, but it can be attached to the bike to charge via a small pedal-powered generator. The battery can in turn charge USB devices, laptops, LEDs & cell phones. For that matter, the bicycle can be used as a stationary generator to power any batteries, or to run some electric appliances directly.

An electric motor can be attached to the bike, to assist with heavy loads or long uphills. It can be powered by multiple batteries on the trailer, if necessary.

A small gas engine can be attached to the bike, to provide long-distance propulsion. The engine comes in gasoline or propane versions. The propane version can run on small propane bottles, which screw in directly, or on a larger canister that is attached to the trailer.

A person has all these options to choose from - they can customize the bike any way they want, to create the BOV that they need.

This Future

I am a man out of time. The world I am meant to live in has not yet arrived. It is, however, drawing closer. The world I am waiting for has technology even more magnificent than what we now see, and it is caught in the grip of chaos so extreme that the institutions which govern our world are crumbling away one by one. Governments, cultures, economies, laws, traditions, rules, nations, cities - all are crashing down, collapsing in the face of endemic warfare, civil strife, natural calamity, starvation, economic collapse, resource shortages, etc.

It is the good side of this future that I look forward to - that is, the freedom that will arise as the old institutions disappear. Freedom to live in new, better ways, to form new societies, new economies, new technologies, freedom from the restriction of archaic, burdensome, ineffective rules that no longer benefit people in any significant ways. Somehow, when this world arrives, I'm going to be right there in the middle of it, thriving, helping to set up new systems & identifying solutions to the problems we face.

Can't wait!

Odds & Ends

*Getting an ARB winch bumper installed on my truck next week, including an 8,000 lb winch w/synthetic line (FYI: Synthetic line weighs 1/7th that of steel cable).
*More reasons the Expedition Range Camp (mentioned in the previous post) appeals to me: It has a lantern hook inside, it has gas lamps, the wagon-wheel configuration means that you can unhook your truck from the trailer and the trailer remains fully level/functional without the need for jacks, and the Dutch door gives the trailer interior a bunkhouse feel.
*The LATOC (Life After the Oil Crash) website, run by Matt Savinar, has officially ceased to provide its daily news service, which is a bummer.
*The post-holiday blues have hit me early this year. Eek!

Expedition Range Camps, LLC

Here is something that appeals highly to the Hippie Survivalist (sorry for the usual pain-in-the-ass cut-and-paste format):

http://www.expeditionrangecamps.com/products/

Note the rugged wood stove/hardwood floor/bunkhouse elements to these trailers. Note that while they are tow-able, they are designed more for living in and less for driving about than your usual RV. Note, too, the high clearance and the fact that they are designed for remote living, as opposed to the usual RV which is designed for plug-in camping. I have nothing against propane and electricity, but would rather not rely on them solely. This is one of the very few RV/portable homes that appeals to me, because it is designed for homesteading rather than vacationing.

Grinches

Took out a Grinch last night, the fucker came at me like a hippo in the fog. I was walking my cat -- Shadow -- up by the abandoned school when he ran out of the shadows and blindsided me. Luckily I was armed to the teeth and I plugged the fat green buck with 2 .308 rounds. Got him in the stomach both times and he went down like a sack of steaming wet shit, neighing. Shadow tore off a good-sized chunk of his arm before I got her muzzled and sacked and out of the way. I cut his horns off and pulled his teeth and rolled him into the weeds for the school kids to skin at recess today. When I got home I let Shadow loose and gave her those cracked green teeth to play with. The horns are mine, though -- they're going over the mantlepiece. I went by the schoolyard today and there was nothing left but a pile of smoking, black bones, and next to them a note that said THANKS in kid's writing. Made me feel mushy all over.

Shields & Other Shite

Major Surplus & Survival is my favorite online surplus store...AND it just so happens that right now they are selling Chinese riot shields for $49.95.

Sportsmansguide was selling British riot shields 2 weeks ago, but they are sold out. The Brit shields were round, clear plexiglass, more police than military, probably superior in every way to these green thingamjigs.

Anyway, I am a major proponent of hand-held defensive weapons and riot gear for those of us who live in urban environments. I'm talking push spears, tomahawks, armor, baseball bats, shields, helmets, the works.

But what I really want to say today is that my main interest these days is in promoting self-sufficiency. To this end I am continuing to plant fruit, nut and olive trees on "friendly" land. I continue to spread the hippie survivalist doctrine in whatever form I can to those around me, though interest remains fairly minimal. As we all know, the world doesn't give a shit about survivalism, because survivalism is a buzzkill.

I tell you though, you can still find people with the most unlikely skill sets. I have one friend who has lived below the poverty line for many years, and knows how to survive on very little money. She buys everything secondhand or gets it for free, dumpster dives, buys discount food, improvises, recycles, reuses, much as I imagine our grandparents did during World War II. Though she is a die-hard, old-school pacifist, I find her lifestyle rare and inspiring. She has never owned a credit card, has no debt. If we all lived the way she did, the world wouldn't have half the problems it now does. And she is pretty much impervious to economic hardship, because she has adapted to it over the last 20+ years.

One last thing: Silver has gone from roughly 10 to 28 dollars an ounce in the last 3 years. They call it poor man's gold.

It's raining. Good night!

ROBES by Penny Kelly

I have recommended this book before, and I will recommend it again. If you are a survivalist, if you are a futurist, if you are worried about the state of the world and are trying to anticipate where the human race is headed, then read ROBES by Penny Kelly. It details a long series of very precise visions that Penny Kelly had in 1979 and 1980. These visions describe certain aspects of the fate of the human race in the 21st century and early 22nd century. Don't be put off by the New Age aspects of this book - it contains vast amounts of crucial information. Many of Penny's visions have come to pass, or have started to happen. One of Penny's central themes is that we are entering an era in which modern nation states and governments are fracturing and collapsing. This trend will gain momentum until governments ultimately fail completely.

We are entering an era of real hardship, wherein the greatest wealth we can possess is self-sufficiency - the ability to grow our own food, the ability to form alliances and communities with other people who can augment our skill sets, and the ability to run home businesses. This is serious shit! Open your eyes and look around, read the headlines. Food prices are already skyrocketing globally, as predicted. We face a catastrophic health crisis brought about by eating synthetic garbage, as predicted. The Western world is bankrupt, as predicted. Corporations are gaining ever more power as they merge through endless acquisitions, as predicted. Governments are stalling, and failing to provide for their people, as predicted.

We are heading into very dire times. Times of extreme chaos, in which societies will rupture and explode, warfare of all types will break out, resources will run low, pollution will make areas of the earth unlivable, governments will be unable to provide for their people, economies will tank, multinationals will seize power, terrorists will run rampant, global conflicts will go nuclear, billions will starve, and disease will kill many.

How are you going to face this future?

I will end this diatribe by quoting Penny Kelly directly: "Prepare for some amount of chaos, then go build the best possible world."

Amen.

Me, I'm off to buy more ammo and plant the fucking potatoes.

Survival Cache & Minor Notes

*This is a great website with a very useful and informative weekly newsletter: http://survivalcache.com/

*Someone mentioned in passing that permafrost holds mountains together...I wonder if they will start falling apart as the planet heats up? Sounds exciting to me!

*Been working on my All-Weather 10/22, trying to build the most useful squirrel gun I can. So far: a Hogue rubber overmolded stock w/QB sling swivels and a sling, an extended magazine release button, an extended bolt handle and an after-market bolt release catch. I like it, but am considering switching out the stock barrel for a heavy-wall, brushed stainless barrel. Also, I removed the scope for the time being. I'd rather learn to shoot on iron sights. The 10/22 gunsmithing DVD I purchased is excellent, if overpriced at $39.99.

*Grinch guns - we all need them this time of year. What's your ideal platform? Methinks the AK-47 is the bomb.

*Uh, been a long time since I updated this blog. Went to Australia a few months ago, came back with a different view on things. Less paranoid these days.

*Remember that we are designed to eat whole, unprocessed, living foods. Eating McDonalds hamburgers and white flour and pasteurized/homogenized milk is a bad idea. Did you know that raw cows' milk does not cause problems associated with lactose intolerance, because it still contains the enzymes we need to break down the lactose? Did you know that raw cows' milk is alive and is better for you the sourer it gets? Did you know that grass-fed beef contains Omega-3s? The processed food we eat is very, very bad for us - it is responsible for a great many of the health problems that constitute the health crisis we are experiencing today. Taking responsibility for your health is something every hippie survivalist should do.

*Israeli “Auto Kill Zone” Towers Locked and Loaded:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/12/israeli-auto-ki/