Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Hoarding ammo

Readers of this blog might assume I'm clairvoyant on the subject of the ammo/ammo component shortage. I'm not, but something has begun to bother me about the duration of the shortage: it's affecting preparations for all sorts of nasty eventualities that a careful person might prepare for.

The critical ammunition compnenents are, of course, primers and powders. Since some powder is still out there, the most critical component is primers.

I'm going to make room in my gun safe for all my primers. I don't put ammo in there now, only a few loaded magazines. The primers have been kept in a less secure location in my shop, while the safe is in a locked and alarmed house, in a secure gun room with it's own alarm in the safe-closet.

Readers would be advised to treat their supplies of primers as an irreplaceable valuable as I'm doing now.

Why the FBATFE can't win

It's in the 2-20 edition of Atlantic magazine.

Think improvised weapons, with all the manufacturing facilities of a modern society at hand to make them, and thousands of laid-off, retired or just plain super-skilled machinists, welders and fitters.

Look over the photos, and note expecially the simplest, in photo #25. H/T to the Coyote Kid for the linkage.

Strategically, the ability to project explosive projectiles by any means in short-range urban warfare means that it's difficult to hold ground for long. The short-range capabilities of this improvised artillery also means that modern projectile-tracking systems are less effective against it. BTW, those projectile-tracking systems require the holding of ground in the city in combat, see above.

All moral references aside, this is a classic David vs. Goliath story in Syria. A rag-tag but dedicated force with improvised weapons (including slingshots!) against a modern army with modern weapons AND air supremacy. Note that Goliath is losing the war.

There's an "elephant in the room" for the gun-banners, who are, after all, merely another brigade in Obama's army of wannabe sturmtruppen for the wannabe Reich. It's simply this: while the gun-banners are making their desperate push to stop semi-auto rifles and pistols, there are new welders and fitters being trained every day, and thousands of retired/laid off ones whose hands haven't forgotten how to work and join metal.

The smart militia organizer* thinks beyond who has an AR or AK or a truckload of ammo. He thinks of welders and fitters. Yes he does.

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*Obama gets all the headlines as the "Capo Regime" of Community Organizing, but in fact, there are others doing this work for the other side.

The Dorner Disaster

Every so often, a teachable moment comes along. Most of them are under-appreciated for the lessons they could teach us, and the Dorner crime wave in the Los Angeles Basin will probably follow that pattern. My sense of doing good works requires me to rise to the duty of outlining this lesson, though, so here it is.

PawPaw did a good short blog on what happened, with good linkage, and I posted my take on this lesson over there as a comment, so go to his post and take a look at it (and my attached comment) from the point of view of two old cops with the experience and the writing ability to offer their own profession, then the entire Nation, a valuable lesson in self-reliance.

I haven't decided whether it's important to highlight Dorner's manifesto as to it's statements of political affiliation, because, after all, it could be disinformation, and a good analyst considers that. The statement of political affiliation does seem to check out with the guy's known personal history, though.

The politics can be set aside for the moment though, so as to consider the threat that Dorner's type of  "asymetrical warfare" poses for all of us. It doesn't really make any difference if Dorner was coming from the Left, the Right or if he was a Jihadist, the threat is the same.

Consider my statement in my comment to PawPaw's blog: this guy's rampage has turned the second-biggest Metroplex in the USA absolutely on it's ear, and the reason Los Angeles and it's near-neighbors are functioning at all this morning is because martial law hasn't been declared (yet). Dorner's plan, in his terror rampage, was to cause a lot of disruption, but he seemed to forget the physics: no matter how tactically-proficient one terrorist is, there is a limit on how large of an area he may terrorize. Five Dorners at work on their terroristic tasks would have shut down the entire metroplex. Five such large metroplexes under seige in the country would shut down the entire country.

Think about that. This is the teachable moment. Just look how few determined and trained people it takes to disrupt our way of life.

Okay, has the lesson soaked in?

Good!

What do we do about it?

There is, people, only one answer: we have to re-assume the responsibility for our own protection that we gave up when this country became heavily urbanized five generations ago. Back then, had Dorner sprung forth, life would have gone on, but men would have been a little more wary as they went about their daily routine, perhaps keeping their rifles next to them instead of in the nearby closet. They would have paid attention to the latest dispatches received via telegraph, then passed by word of mouth around their towns and cities. At some point, the terrorist would be killed, and that would be the end of it. If the terrorist was captured, he would be unlikely to have been given the opportunity to spread his poison, and he would have been executed soon, anyway. That's what would have happened if this had occurred 100 years ago.

I'm sure, if I read the blogs deep enough, I would find some that are sympathetic to Dorner, that support his position on perceived racial injustice at the least, and perhaps even some that support his "asymetrical warfare" method of dealing with it personally.

The most immediate lesson for us with the Dorner Affair?

Don't be too damn fast to surrender an iota more of your self-reliance to the Government. Yes, people, you really do need to have those semi-auto rifles that can "shoot all day", and the training, the ammo, the extra magazines, etc to employ them properly in your own defense. There aren't a lot of wannabe Dorners out there, but if they all got mass hysteria and decided to have a "Dorner Apocalypse", you would need the protection of that military-style rifle.

Too bad that in such a "Dorner Apocalypse", you would stand a much greater chance of getting killed by your own police force than by a terrorist.

Enerco (Mr. Heater) Big Buddy Ka-boom, UPDATED

If you are a regular reader, this might seem like "deja-vu all over again". Second one of these MH-18B heaters to kaboom on me. The first one was on a recall list, so Mr. Heater replaced it gratis. This replacement just kaboomed after 3 years service.

The sequence of events:

My son and I went out to the shop building to fetch a tool for him, and we were going to putter around a bit, but it was cold, so I lit off the Big Buddy heater. I noted that the pilot flame was about 4 to 5 times as big as usual, and when I valved in the ceramic panels from the Pilot setting, there was considerable excess flame as they began to glow. I shut down the unit at it's valve, but didn't close the tank valve. We went back into the house.

About 45 minutes later, I went back out to the shop by myself, shut off the tank valve as I noted a propane smell present. I aired out the shop for a few minutes, then opened the tank valve and lit the pilot again. The pilot flame was again way too big, indicating excess propane operating pressure. I shut off the tank valve again and was letting the pilot flame burn itself out when there was a loud "POP" noise, and flames began to issue from the top of the heater's cabinet. I immediately shut off the heater valve. Not good, these flames, but they weren't huge flames as with the previous Kaboom, either, so I tried for about ten good huffs to blow them out with mouth blowing. I almost got them out, but then the cabinet started to smolder, so I reached for the fire-extinguisher. Just as I was about to set off the messy powder to snuff the fire, it exhausted it's fuel supply and went out. I now have another kaboomed Mr. Heater Big Buddy.

I've since spent several hours online trying to get to the bottom of this. Since the first 2004 recall, there haven't been any others. I fired off a technical complaint to Enerco. We'll see what that brings. In the meanwhile, I'm down to my one-panel Portable Buddy heater, plus a smaller one, total of about 12,000 BTU, about 2/3 of what the Big Buddy would give me. Add that to 1500 watts (6K BTU) of electric heat available, and that should be good for heating the shop building unless it gets below 20 or so.

I've sworn by these heaters, even through the last Kaboom, but now, I'm not so sure. I think I'll look around for something different. Maybe a second one-panel Buddy. I think that Primus makes one, too, and that would be good Nordic hardware.

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UPDATE: 011513 0800 PST: Your blogger just successfully concluded negotiation with Enerco to take back the kaboomed Mr. Heater Big Buddy unit and replace it gratis, including shipping both ways. The Customer Service rep and I both agree that the most likely point of failure was the rubber diaphragm in the Gas Regulator.

I also just found out that Enerco seems to have bought the Primus (Swedish) name, as Enerco is selling at least the Portable Buddy heater with the added name of Primus on it.

Useful tech equipment - the "Driveway Alarm"

I have a house containing guns and sharps, guns well secured but ammo not, and had two mobile children over for Xmas who might be in danger from the sharps (bayonet collection, mostly), so I made the upstairs off-limits, and put one of these handy-dandy alarms in place at the head of the stairs (sensor unit), with the receiver unit/alarm box down in the living area.

It worked well. I have been using a model of these out on my property perimeter to secure the M-35A2 bug-out truck, and that first one just turned up it's toes after 2.5 years service in the rain, freezes and baking sun in summer.

Two years-plus service is okay for the price I get these for. Note: at "Hardly Freight", they are half of the Shack's price, and sometimes on sale for less. If you are going to use multiple ones, you have to make sure to buy them on different channels, but I noticed that the new ones don't list the channel, hmmmmmm. My old one was marked "Channel 5".

Their function is to protect everything in front of the motion-detecting sender. It has very good detection sensitivity, it alarms on my cat when the Orange Terror struts the hallway between his various napping positions and his scratch box in the upstairs laundry room. Outdoors, it will alarm on a man working seventy feet away in the neighbor's yard, then send the signal to the box inside my house 105 feet from the sensor, through a cedar-board fence and a box hedge. The alarm is a loud tone which can be subdued to a less-loud tone. It will get your attention, and my old ears can hear the soft tone a half-house away while inside.

Seems to me that this would make a useful travel system. In a sedan, you could set it up on the package deck facing forward, and if anyone got into your car, it would sound off in your room, assuming you could park within 400 feet line-of-sight distance of your room.

Good stuff, but not stealthy. If you have it set on loud, and the thief it detects is nearby, the thief will hear the warning. I suppose a savvy e-builder could mod it to have a silent alarm somehow, but that's a challenge, as it has a sealed chassis which would not then be sealed anymore.

For SHTF preps, this alarm uses both AAA and AA cells, which should be in your kit in the rechargeable variety, right next to your solar charger, right? 

Word

To gun dealers.

Yes, there is panic in the gun market right now (Traction Control wrote 3 or 4 more of these "Plunge" reports since then).

No, you can't predict availability right now.

No, you can't predict predation by the FBATFE which might try to slow your business down by every dirty trick they can manage.

There IS one thing you dealers can count on, though: most of your customers are honest, forthright people, who expect to be dealt with as clients in an honest and forthright manner. Your business lives or dies now depending on us still buying things from you, even if there are shortages of unknown lengths in some of the products we want. What we customers WILL NOT ABIDE is any sort of deception on your part. Please stop sending emails out to your customer base that do everything but tell us the situation as it affects you. If a customer wants a rifle or some .223 ammo, and they can't get it from you, that customer WILL try to go elsewhere to get it. You are NOT going to change our minds on that score. You are ESPECIALLY not going to change our minds if you run out of what we want, but try to pretend you still have it, but can't sell it because you "need to develop new sales policy" or some such crap*. The prices on some rifles has shot way up, yes it has, but if you priced a $700 rifle at $999 yesterday, and now realize it might bring $1499 two days from now and don't want to sell it for $999, well, Pilgrim, you have that right. We have the right to call you a pirate, and that will be done. You honor your committments that you made via your catalogs, or you don't. If you do, you will be rewarded with our future business. If you don't, you'll sell those rifles for $1499 and maybe more, but when supply catches back up to demand, you won't be part of profiting from that demand.

If you are out of popular rifles, and can't get more, tell us that right from the AR or AK pages in your online catalog. If you've raised prices to the gouge-level, well, that's your prerogative. Our prerogative is to not buy at those prices, or, if we feel we just have to buy now, you can bet that we won't buy anything else from you, ever.

AR ammo in .223 (5.56 NATO) has doubled in price in the last week. We would like to know who is making that obscene profit. If it's you, you're toast, you don't get more business from us. If you have to buy from jobbers-turned-pirates, tell us THAT if you want to keep business relationships with us.

Honesty is the best policy, always has been. Telling it like it is will get you more business than lying to us.

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 * That dealer was Cheaper Than Dirt of Plano Texas.

Ruh-Roh, ammo ban coming....

Told ya so.

Read it and weep at Uncle's.

I made my points in comments #7 & #8 at that post.

Do NOT go to the Federal site to leave your thoughts. You WILL be added to a list, and that list WILL be used to generate a visit from the FBATFE when these rules go into effect. Some of us are going to get those visits anyway, just because they can and just because they want to shut us up.

If you haven't bought all the military ammo and/or reloading components you will EVER need by now, you haven't been reading this blog, or worse, you've been reading it but let your better judgement take a pass. So, tell me, how's that new flat screen or that new kitchen remodel going to defend your sorry ass when the S.H.T.F?

Okay, lecture over, do your homework. Pipe this: and this: and this.

If you don't have a Food Saver system yet, get one. You will need it.

Learn to navigate exactly to an off-road location without GPS (the old "pirate map" system). This will be important later. When the Feds impose bans, and folks have buried their vital drek, the first thing that will occur to the Feds is to degrade the accuracy of the GPS so that navigation to a precise location is no longer easy. I learned land navigation and orienteering before GPS, so I'm covered here, how about YOU?

Now, let's apply COMSEC and OPSEC here and stop talking about it, m'kay?

 

Slug-day Saturday

Yep, still in jammies, but that's how bloggers get noticed, right? It worked for a couple of blogger-babes, anyway. 

I was dressed long enough to answer the doorbell at 0900...couple of Boy Scouts collecting canned food for a food bank they run. You should have seen the look on their faces when I admitted them to my prepper's pantry, telling them they didn't have enough bags to haul away what I was about to give them...they went away VERY happy, and so did I. No, I didn't add it up, it was probably $50 or so worth of food, but I couldn't get THAT kind of Happy Ending if I'd just paid the best whore in town for a night's worth of her talent. I am SO delighted to be able to help out this beleagured outfit.

Now, I'm watching the Georgia-Alabama game. It was tough getting through all the SEC-love being spouted by the sportz-blatherers before the game, but now the matter is being settled on the gridiron, as it should be. It will be further settled in Miami for the BCS Championship, where the upstart Snappers wait for the winner of this game. If Notre Dame wins that game, it will probably be the end of the BCS, and I agree with President Obama, that would be good riddance to bad rubbish.

Drink of the day is Starbuck's Dark French Roast laced with Colonel Lee.

Just confirmed a rumor I heard about the .410-ga shotgun, which I now have an example of, the Savage Model 24D. The survival-gun secret to the over/under .22/.410 is to have some way to reload the .410s. I just found that system: a hand priming tool, a 16-penny nail and a pencil. Yep, I just confirmed that .444 Marlin hulls are just the right size to fit the .410 chamber. The .444 Marlin is a long straight case that is about 1/8" short of a loaded 3" .410 round. There are some Brit cases from the old black-powder/early-Cordite days of Dangerous Game rifles that also work, but the cases are rare, and the .444 Marlin is still available. My TEOTWAWKI kit will have my RCBS hand-priming tool, .444 hulls, primers, powder, shot, wads, pencil and maybe some slugs (if and when I figure out the best boolit to load). The non-digital scale is already in there. I have to figure out if the hulls will need re-sizing, but I doubt it for the shot loads.In fact, my test hulls were fired under factory loads in a levergun, and they fit unsized even as they show a slight base-bulge. Since the shotgun load won't generate but a third or less of the pressure of a heavy rifle load, I doubt that there will be any sizing issue at all.

Here's an "Uncle Cliffy" warning. Preparing for the FearSome Cliff: #1: Pay your house payment and any loans due for 12-31/01-01 early. If the "cliff" causes a collapse, you don't want your obligations to get lost in the confusion. There are sharks out there planning right now how to profit from such a collapse.

It's almost half-time in the tied game, so it's time to think about sommething to put in the skillet for lunch. Later, maybe.

The Sunday Edition of "Local Yokel News"

Yokel = Bumpkin, prole, Joe Sixpack

Yokel Weather: Sucks. Sucks a big root. Rain now through the next week, big storms off the coast, edging closer. Coast will have hurricane-force winds, maybe Cat 2 gusts on the headlands, in next 24 hours. Here in the valley, we'll get 35-45 mph gusts, coming with some trees still leafed out, and over soggy ground that will be loathe to hold those trees vertical (had 1"+ rain overnight). That's for starters. Then the stormy weather changes over to the Pineapple Express (when they made the film of that name, the weather geeks changed the name of the PacNorWest monsoon phenomena to "Atmospheric River"), so the accumulated mountain snow will melt, the Cascade Mountains will get maybe two feet of rain, and the rivers will fill up and overflow. Yep, that sucks, but it happens in these parts. My genset is freshly tested, I have enough fuel on hand for 1/3 of-the-day running for a month, the M35A2 High Mobility vehicle is ready, it can take 30" standing or flowing water in normal ops, and the Stihl chainsaw is also ready for action. Plenty of food on hand. Emergency gas fireplace heating unless the NatGas goes away, then I can emergency-heat my survival shelter with propane for about 2 weeks before I have to put up a wood stove in there...yep, Yokels are ready. Guns are clean, too....

Yokel Sports: We have a first-class college football team in these parts, the Oregon Ducks. They are NOT un-defeated any more. For the second time in three years, Stanford came up here and edged out the Local Yokel squad in overtime. Seems that Stanford had a plan for the Ducks' (former) #1 rushing offense: mobile linebackers, large, fast guys who could string out the running plays "East and West" and shut them down for no gain. Those same defensive smarties turned Oregon's barely-adequate O-Line into mush, and their penetration to the frosh quarterback pretty much stymied any hope of the excellent Duck passing game saving the failed rushing game. This frosh QB is good, an accurate passer and the second-best rusher on the squad, but #8 Mariota always had at least 7 seconds to unload before, and last night he never had 4. Most NFL QBs can't handle that level of pressure, so how is a frosh college QB supposed to do it? The failure of the Kicker to score on his opportunity in OT was the capstone of this bad night. Alejandro Maldonado missed, doinked it, and the Stanford kicker was true. Game ended 17-14. Now the BCS hopes are shattered, and your Yokel has to sit around and watch the Notre Dame Snappers lord it over everyone for a couple weeks before they get their nod to play for the Championship. With any luck, the Ducks will still play for the Rose Bowl, assuming that they get by an energized Oregon State next week and then beat UCLA (to my lights, as good or better than Stanford) the following week for the PAC-12 championship. If the Ducks don't win the PAC-12, they probably get some mid-level bowl like the Holiday. Also, if they don't win, Coach Kelly probably migrates to the NFL, where his endurance-busting style of offense might work for a few years until all other coaches beat their men into that good of shape.

Yokel War News: Folks, the world is REALLY close to the entire Middle East going up in a ball of flame, possibly nuclear flame. Islamist Egypt edges closer to invasion of Israel, and Hezbollah, aided by the Islamist "Rebel Alliance" fighting Baby Assad in Syria, is ready to send a few battalions in over that border. Iranian medium-range heavy battlefield (un-guided bombardment) missiles rain down and test Israel's Iron Dome missile defense shield, and the best our Prexy can do is, again, fly off somewhere, casting parting words over his shoulder, "You go, Israel, take care of yourself". Well, the IDF will take care of Israel, and unlike the USA, would consider using it's nuclear weapons to do so. The US military HAS made plenty of preparations in case this war goes general over there, mostly Navy preparations in case the Mad Mullahs try to close the Strait of Hormuz. I could get much more detailed, but my source would prefer me not to, so I won't. Just know that we are REALLY close to general war in the Sandy Regions. If it's gonna happen, it will happen in the next five days, so, if it doesn't, we will really have something to Thank God for this year!

 

Wednesday WTF,O

That stands for pilot lingo, "What the f**k, over" The "over" is from the earliest days of radio, when, to transmit voice, you were on such a narrow bandwidth that you couldn't transmit duplex (both halves of the conversation at once), so a switch had to be thrown "over" (it was usually a large bat-handle switch on the front of the transmitter cabinet) to end the transmitter's broadcast and change the antenna to receive mode. The word "over" was added to the end of each voice transmission so that the receiving party would know that it was his/her turn to transmit. The military probably still uses this protocol, although most forms of radio-telephony are now full duplex.

WTF #1: Do you get the feeling that the whole planet is going to Hell in a Handbasket just now? We just re-elected a President who cares not for the Constitution he's sworn to uphold, and a Congress which won't follow THEIR oaths of office, either. We seem to have a military whose Generals seem more concerned about the press and fit of uniforms and how those unis dazzle the babes than their prowess in battle. Europe applies band-aids to their trashed economies, economies beaten down into the dirt by the excessive expense of Socialism, but the EU citizens don't get it, and riot over every little cut to the largess of their Socialist regimes. Now Israel has slouched into full war with Hamas, which will likely bring in Hezbollah in the next few days, and the IDF will have to defend the Jewish State on all it's borders. But, back on Wall Street, the Day Traders make their lightning trades, advancing their portfolios a penny here and a penny there, and thinking that they are singlehandedly holding the American Dream together. People, we are exactly one RCH away from global chaos, driven mostly by fear, OVER.

WTF #2: The "fiscal cliff". This story rates not only a WTF, Over, it rates a resounding "Whoop Factor Nine". Game of farging chicken. Means exactly ZERO, because neither party wants to address the central idea at the root of the "Fiscal Cliff" issue: the size of Government itself. The current (minority) flavor of Righty politix is "center-right", meaning that government excess, both fiscal and power, can be tolerated with minor objection only. The current (majority) flavor of Lefty politix is that Government is never big enough or powerful enough, so it's NEVER excessive to increase it's size or power. It all costs money, that Government, and there is only so much of it to go around, and not enough to actually PAY for all that Government, so we get a deficit (debt) building up, sometimes less and sometimes more, but always building. Okay, there is a perception that the cost of Government has built up from "of serious concern" to the "dire copnsequence" level, to finally the "Fiscal Cliff". It's all perception, people. There is no bright line, that when crossed, the economy fails. Instead, there's a progression: the higher the debt-to-revenue ratio, the more the costs of Government rise, and when the rate of rise approaches vertical, then an end will come, but we're a long way from vertical, people. Look, I'm not sayin' don't fix this mess, but I am saying that 010113 at 0001 EST, there is not a "Fiscal Cliff" to fall over, unless the boneheaded Day Traders of Wall Street declare one (and some are trying that, even as I write). If everyone just does their job: the President managing the Administration the best he can, and the Congress producing and passing a budget the best they can, we'll get by. We may not be the perfect Jeffersonian Model of a Government, but we'll get by, OVER.

WTF #3: The Lemming Factor. Reading the above WTF,Os, you get the idea that it is fear that drives us these days. You would be right, to a degree. The preppers prepare out of fear (I am one of those who evaluate common fears as to their potential effect on ME, and prepare accordingly). The Press sells soap because of fear (righty and lefty press). Fear causes more fear, but what is all of this fear but momentary discomfort? Enter the Lemming Effect. That's when the fear makes you run in the direction the herd/flock/school is running, just to be doing something about your fear. Someone at the head of the herd/flock/school gets lost (lack of good Navigator, heh!), runs over a Cliff (Fiscal or real), and un-necessary carnage results (and the Zombies waiting at the bottom of the cliff get fed!). That's the Lemming Factor. My take on the Lemming/Cliff paradox is all about not running when the herd/flock/school runs, but standing still to wait until the group passes, just to see what or who is driving them. If they are being driven, I have choices: I can join the running group, I can challenge the drivers, I can hide from the drivers. I have CHOICES, and so do you, OVER.