Before I go any further, let me wish you good luck and God speed on your upcoming deployment. Thank you for your service!
I recently purchased my first AR15 platform (a Bushmaster) and I am learning quickly that it requires a different amount of lubrication (read more) than I have used with my other rifles. I would love to have you write a column about your recommendations as to maintenance procedures and lubrication of AR15 type rifles with particular recommendations of particular type of lubricants. I am also interested in what you might do to prepare the rifle for cold weather use. Your profession makes you an expert. Thanks for everything.
Steve D
TOR here: Thanks for the kind words. I would like to congratulate you on getting a nice defensive rifle. Hope you have fun with it at the range and are comforted by its presence in your home. Onto the maintenance question.
I have been carrying and shooting the AR platform for a long time, both for work and fun. I have used them in the desert, frozen central European winters and the primordial deep South as well as a few other more mild climates. I've shot most models and many makes. However even with (damn I feel old) this bredth of experience as always YMMV.
Personally I think that the necessary amount of maintenance to keep an AR running has been greatly overblown by a small very vocal minority. Remember that girl from your home town who everybody was sure was totally slutty but it was all 'I know a guy who knows a girl who said this and that' kind of stuff? Nobody had personally been involved with anything but they just sorta pass stuff on. I think it is a lot like that.
First lets talk about the need for maintenance. I would say that a field cleaning (we'll come back to this later) every several hundred rounds of shooting, or bad weather/ high humidity day in the field is a good idea. However that is pretty much standard advice and a good idea for all firearms. I would say that once in awhile, every few cleanings, maybe after an intensive shooting course or before you put it away for the winter doing a full cleaning is a sound idea. If you have some issues or plan on caching an AR then going crazy on the cleaning makes sense.
I am sure with the second sentence of the last paragraph five people went 'aha' that it is clear evidence you must clean an AR every day for it to work. I did suggest field cleaning daily if you shoot a lot or are in bad gun weather and will stand by that. An AR will work for a long time in these conditions without cleaning if you keep it lubed but just like your kitchen, if you let it get to be a complete mess cleaning up sucks. \
It is also worth noting that comparing the AR's need for maintenance with an AK is kind of apples and oranges. To say that the AR is unservicable because needs lots of maintenance as measured by it requiring more than the AK is about as valid as saying that the AK is not servicable because it is unaccurate as it is less accurate than the AR. The decision (if you can afford it don't choose just get both) has a lot of complicated factors but both are good guns. Anyway.
A field cleaning goes as follows. You will need a rag, bore brush or snake, and oil. Nothing else, all that stuff is for the full cleaning. If you are in the field after finding a nice place (soft, shady in the sun, dry and warm in the winter) and take off your hat. Set your hat on the ground in front of you. Shotgun your AR (remove the back pin, and open it sorta like a break action shotgun. Next pull the charging handle and remove the bolt carrier group and charging handle then set them in your hat. Take your rag and wipe out the inside of the upper receiver. Get that clean and then go to the chamber. Remember your goal isn't to get it absolutely perfect and spotless but to knock off the big chunks of carbon, sand and grit and such. If it takes more than 5 minutes you are dilly dallying. Clean the bore real quick. Next pay a bit of attention to the bolt carrier group by wiping it off. This should take maybe 2 minutes. Give the charging handle two swipes (top and bottom) and everything is clean. Lube it up and put it together. The whole thing shouldn't take more than 10 minutes.
Lubrication as you mentioned is a bit different than other rifles. AR's like to be kind of wet. A light coat on all the internal parts is a sound idea. If oil is dripping off the weapon or drops of it are running here or there it is too wet. As for types of lubricants I am not very picky. I have used gallons of CLP, cans of Rem oil, that random oil that comes in generic cleaning kits and a decent amount of militech. Militech is by far the best. It is kind of expensive and (at least I've heard) you need to totally remove all other oil before using it but that stuff is awesome. The rest I would consider functionally equivalent.
My observation is that AR's will run for an indefinite period of time if you keep them lubed and do regular field cleanings. This is a great example of the 90/10 rule. You get 90% of the payoff of cleaning for 10% of the effort.
When it comes to the AR platform I don't think the importance of lubrication can be overstated. Really when it comes to the field cleaning it is less about removing junk and more about getting oil on the moving parts of the gun. A word of caution on the color of oil on AR's. Since the direct gas impingement is a dirty system some carbon gets in there. The tiniest bit of carbon will turn the oil slightly dark or black. When it stops looking (texture and thickness not color) and moving like oil or there are chunks of carbon is more important then that it gets a bit grey/ darn after firing a couple mags. Also in humid or wet climates you need to get that moisture off the outside of the weapon regularly. While I haven't personally tested it to the extreme I would wager an AR will shoot for A LONG TIME if you just keep oiling it.
As for the 'I won't have time to clean a gun every day if (enter your worst case scenario)'. In fact to be honest most days you will be so bored you will give it a quick once over if it's needed or not. I would say that baring a true Alamo/ Rourke's Drift type scenario you can definitely take a few minutes to maintain an AR.
A full cleaning is a good thing to do every now and then. I tend to do it after every trip to the range but that has a lot to do with force of habit and not much to do with actual necessity. For that I go home, lay out a towel and disassemble the weapon (take apart the bolt carried group and bolt) onto said towel. Clean all the individual parts and then attack the inside of the upper receiver and chamber. Use gun scrubber or carborator cleaner or Hoppes if it suits you. Cue tips help a lot here. You tend to go through a decent amount of them but they are cheap and a lot come in a box. Typically one of those big boxes gets lost or relegated to generic household duty before it is used up cleaning. Also a couple of pipe cleaners for the gas tube are a good idea. The chamber is the annoying part. That it isn't easily accessible and has that weird star pattern makes it hard to clean and get to. After the big chamber brush you go to the cue tips. It takes a lot but they are cheap. After that a piece of paper towel on your pinkey finger twisted around in there gets it done. I tend to do this sort of cleaning when I have time and am not in a hurry. It typically takes about two beers to get it nice and clean.
I hope that helps answer some of your questions. If you have any more then just leave them in the comments section.
Monday, January 31, 2011
RE: Retirement Fun-for Boomers and Beyond
Mayberry said:
Ryan, Yep, the division/diversion campaigns have worked very well. You are still in bed with the system, therefore you lash out at those who've done nothing more than start to collect on that which they paid into their entire career. Your diatribe is best directed at the criminals who 1) created the Ponzi scheme to begin with, and 2) stole from the "trust fund" for decades, and 3) made promises to pay ever increasing "benefits" from that fund, knowing full well there was not enough money to cover those promises. For no other reason than selfish political gain...
But those truths seem to be lost on the right wing crowd, who have no problem forking billions into illegal wars of imperial aggression, while screaming for SS beneficiaries to have their funds cut.
SS is not "welfare". It WAS a retirement program, which, by the way, was (is) FORCED upon us working stiffs by nanny.gov, and has been aborted beyond it's original intent by criminal politicians. Do I like it? No. Do I want it? No. But I've been forced to pay into it for 20 years now, and like all the others who've paid, I damn sure expect to get back what I've put in, with INTEREST.
Will it be my sole retirement income? No. Hell, I doubt I'll ever be able to retire. But do I want to see my 80 year old Grandmother's SS go away? Hell NO! That, and a small pension from my Grandpa is all she's got.
Now to address you on your Dave Ramsey high horse: MAYBE if SS was not extracted from our pay by the barrel of a gun, folks could have planned better for their retirement. But they suck a hell of a big chunk of cash from our pay, reducing our ability to plan and save for ourselves. So maybe you want to rethink your "welfare" position. Maybe you want to open your eyes and SEE that the government WANTS people dependent on them. It's a self preservation thing you know. Most people, yourself included, refuse to recognize that little fact. Chew on that for a while...
TOR here:
Mayberry, You've got it twisted. Maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been anyway moving on.
First and most importantly I am not looking at what I want to happen but what I see happening. The combination of impossible numbers/ demographics and changing political power situations will make drastic changes unavoidable. I know old ladies who rely on SS to live also and don't think it would be desirable in any way to change the income they depend on.
If I was the King of America (a hypothetical situation where I had wide sweeping powers to fix entitlements and such) here is what I would do. I would sit down with a bunch of economists and actuaries and such. We would figure out how much money is needed to pay for those collecting or about to collect SS benefits. The unfunded obligation would have to come from somewhere, really a whole bunch of places. Foreign aid, agricultural subsidies, and defense (foreign wars, bases and cushy defense contracts) are likely candidates.
As for figuring where exactly to draw the line for who would get SS benefits that is a toughy. We would have to look at what we could actually afford and balance that with an individuals ability to adjust their retirement plans (ie a 55 year old doesn't have a lot of time while a 30 year old does). I would like to say we could offer some sort of benefit to those in their early to mid 40's but imagine the numbers will actually support SS benefits for those in their late 40's or even early 50's. Maybe some sort of individual retirement fund type thing with some money could be done for people who we can't fund SS for but will be seriously affected by this move.
As for if entitlements are welfare. I tend to classify entitlements as welfare because, despite forced contributions, the money that comes in (even if you factor out the money pulled into the general fund) doesn't equal the money going out. I don't think anyone can actually believe the money they pay into medicare covers the free market cost of insuring them through the most expensive years of their life. SSI paying widows and children vastly beyond what a wage earner may have made, let alone contributed is IMO welfare. Social Security minus SSI is a bit more complicated. We would have to do some research and look at all kinds of tables, charts, etc. However lets say we had all that stuff and were sitting around in a nice quiet bar. I would wager the next round of drinks that some people, most likely low income ones who just made the required number of quarters, receive a payout that is dispurportionately generous when compared to what others receive. Maybe welfare is a poor word because it has a lot of stigma attached to it. Anyway lets focus less on one word and more on the big picture.
As for blame. There is so much to go around that most everybody can take a nice big bite. I blame the politicians who created the stupid program as well as the people who voted them in. Most of the folks meaningfully involved in that stuff are long dead. I don't blame individuals collecting Social Security because they are just doing what normal reasonable people would do. That would be like blaming a bank teller because a bunch of CEO's got the bank into mortgage backed security madness.
I am young enough that I've been paying in my whole working life knowing I will never get benefits. Seriously lighting a bunch of 20's on fire every payday would be way more entertaining. I could light a cigar with a hundred dollar bill somewhat regularly which would be kinda cool too.
I know you would like to receive benefits that reflect what you have put in. However lets be realistic here. As a guy in his 30's do you actually see that happening?
I agree that our government likes people being dependent on it. However the government is simply not going to be able to make it work. Right now the subject is essentially toxic. Expecting politicians to commit job security suicide is just not realistic. Sooner or later a radical change in entitlement benefits is inevitable.
Lastly I want to talk about why I wrote the original post. I am sure somewhere in the last few years you have heard the phrase "stress test". Basically a stress test is, at least in theory, a way to see how a corporation, bank or person would do in different scenarios. I wrote this to be thought provoking and to lead people to do their own personal stress tests on what I see as plausible scenarios. If it was a bit gloomy that is meant to be a warning. Sort of how you would warn your buddy if the 300 pound gorilla sitting at the bar slamming shots started angrilly glaring at them. My intent was not so much to talk about the ethics of entitlements or even entitlements in general but to provoke some thought and get folks to consider how these events would affect them.
Ryan, Yep, the division/diversion campaigns have worked very well. You are still in bed with the system, therefore you lash out at those who've done nothing more than start to collect on that which they paid into their entire career. Your diatribe is best directed at the criminals who 1) created the Ponzi scheme to begin with, and 2) stole from the "trust fund" for decades, and 3) made promises to pay ever increasing "benefits" from that fund, knowing full well there was not enough money to cover those promises. For no other reason than selfish political gain...
But those truths seem to be lost on the right wing crowd, who have no problem forking billions into illegal wars of imperial aggression, while screaming for SS beneficiaries to have their funds cut.
SS is not "welfare". It WAS a retirement program, which, by the way, was (is) FORCED upon us working stiffs by nanny.gov, and has been aborted beyond it's original intent by criminal politicians. Do I like it? No. Do I want it? No. But I've been forced to pay into it for 20 years now, and like all the others who've paid, I damn sure expect to get back what I've put in, with INTEREST.
Will it be my sole retirement income? No. Hell, I doubt I'll ever be able to retire. But do I want to see my 80 year old Grandmother's SS go away? Hell NO! That, and a small pension from my Grandpa is all she's got.
Now to address you on your Dave Ramsey high horse: MAYBE if SS was not extracted from our pay by the barrel of a gun, folks could have planned better for their retirement. But they suck a hell of a big chunk of cash from our pay, reducing our ability to plan and save for ourselves. So maybe you want to rethink your "welfare" position. Maybe you want to open your eyes and SEE that the government WANTS people dependent on them. It's a self preservation thing you know. Most people, yourself included, refuse to recognize that little fact. Chew on that for a while...
TOR here:
Mayberry, You've got it twisted. Maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been anyway moving on.
First and most importantly I am not looking at what I want to happen but what I see happening. The combination of impossible numbers/ demographics and changing political power situations will make drastic changes unavoidable. I know old ladies who rely on SS to live also and don't think it would be desirable in any way to change the income they depend on.
If I was the King of America (a hypothetical situation where I had wide sweeping powers to fix entitlements and such) here is what I would do. I would sit down with a bunch of economists and actuaries and such. We would figure out how much money is needed to pay for those collecting or about to collect SS benefits. The unfunded obligation would have to come from somewhere, really a whole bunch of places. Foreign aid, agricultural subsidies, and defense (foreign wars, bases and cushy defense contracts) are likely candidates.
As for figuring where exactly to draw the line for who would get SS benefits that is a toughy. We would have to look at what we could actually afford and balance that with an individuals ability to adjust their retirement plans (ie a 55 year old doesn't have a lot of time while a 30 year old does). I would like to say we could offer some sort of benefit to those in their early to mid 40's but imagine the numbers will actually support SS benefits for those in their late 40's or even early 50's. Maybe some sort of individual retirement fund type thing with some money could be done for people who we can't fund SS for but will be seriously affected by this move.
As for if entitlements are welfare. I tend to classify entitlements as welfare because, despite forced contributions, the money that comes in (even if you factor out the money pulled into the general fund) doesn't equal the money going out. I don't think anyone can actually believe the money they pay into medicare covers the free market cost of insuring them through the most expensive years of their life. SSI paying widows and children vastly beyond what a wage earner may have made, let alone contributed is IMO welfare. Social Security minus SSI is a bit more complicated. We would have to do some research and look at all kinds of tables, charts, etc. However lets say we had all that stuff and were sitting around in a nice quiet bar. I would wager the next round of drinks that some people, most likely low income ones who just made the required number of quarters, receive a payout that is dispurportionately generous when compared to what others receive. Maybe welfare is a poor word because it has a lot of stigma attached to it. Anyway lets focus less on one word and more on the big picture.
As for blame. There is so much to go around that most everybody can take a nice big bite. I blame the politicians who created the stupid program as well as the people who voted them in. Most of the folks meaningfully involved in that stuff are long dead. I don't blame individuals collecting Social Security because they are just doing what normal reasonable people would do. That would be like blaming a bank teller because a bunch of CEO's got the bank into mortgage backed security madness.
I am young enough that I've been paying in my whole working life knowing I will never get benefits. Seriously lighting a bunch of 20's on fire every payday would be way more entertaining. I could light a cigar with a hundred dollar bill somewhat regularly which would be kinda cool too.
I know you would like to receive benefits that reflect what you have put in. However lets be realistic here. As a guy in his 30's do you actually see that happening?
I agree that our government likes people being dependent on it. However the government is simply not going to be able to make it work. Right now the subject is essentially toxic. Expecting politicians to commit job security suicide is just not realistic. Sooner or later a radical change in entitlement benefits is inevitable.
Lastly I want to talk about why I wrote the original post. I am sure somewhere in the last few years you have heard the phrase "stress test". Basically a stress test is, at least in theory, a way to see how a corporation, bank or person would do in different scenarios. I wrote this to be thought provoking and to lead people to do their own personal stress tests on what I see as plausible scenarios. If it was a bit gloomy that is meant to be a warning. Sort of how you would warn your buddy if the 300 pound gorilla sitting at the bar slamming shots started angrilly glaring at them. My intent was not so much to talk about the ethics of entitlements or even entitlements in general but to provoke some thought and get folks to consider how these events would affect them.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Retirement Fun for Boomers and Beyond
With the slew of municipalities being broke and having insolvent retirement funds, corporations dumping pensions whenever they get any excuse and a whole bunch of states broke I would be concerned if a pension was going to fund my retirement. Heck even the federal government isn't doing so great. Consider what would happen if you pension was radically reduced or even defaulted entirely.
Also if you haven't noticed the USA has a real problem with
I imagine a lot of small things will be done to try and bend the exponential curve of
Also more significantly generations X and Y realize we are never going to collect meaningfull social security. As boomer politicians screw us with higher rates of
My point here is that you should plan for retirement without counting on a pension OR social security. If you can collect either of them then go for it. However personally I would want to be able to support myself without either and just have them as icing on the cake.
In an even darker scenario the dollar and subsequently paper investments denominated in the dollar could take a nasty hit. Maybe it could be a slow slide or a fast crash, I don't know. In any case the have money in investments and live off interest/ dividends plan would fail in this scenario. To be honest this is relatively unlikely (slow slide to a currency among many versus world reserve currency and a moderate loss in purchasing power is more likely) but it would be a bad one. Most retirees would be devastated. The truly rich would generally be fine (somehow they always are) but middle and upper middle class folks would mostly be destroyed.
What can be done for those who are worried about this relatively unlikely (the extreme version anyway) scenario? The first thing that comes to mind is to have your basic financial house in order. For those close to retirement age having very minimal or no consumer debt and having your primary residence paid off is so huge. I watch a lot of those financial shows and the amount of people who are trying to retire with car loans and very little equity in their home (let alone having it paid off) baffles me. If you are debt free and retire then something happens so you face a drop in income at least this way you can shred your expenses. It would suck but as long as you can pay property taxes, fuel and food you will be OK if not happy. However if your pension fund fails/ the stock market and subsequently your investments collapse and you have all sort of stupid consumer debt and a high mortgage payment it will get ugly fast.
My next thought also flows well with what is likely reality for most boomers. The reality is that many of them saved like they have a cushy defined benefits retirement plan when in fact they have a 401k. Too many of them continued to upsize their home and used home equity like an ATM instead of paying off their home. Fundamentally a lot of people are approaching retirement age and just can't afford to retire, at least in the way the Greatest Generation did. Some will be able to retire and live modestly (versus lots of travel and recreation) while others will need to keep working in some capacity or another.
The advantage is that earned income (vs from dividend's, stocks, interest, etc) is pretty flexible. You can, at least in theory, renegotiate the deal for future services to reflect a changing economic situation. That could mean getting paid to reflect the real value of currency, in a stable currency, PM or barter. Hard to do that with your pension or retirement account. If something this ugly happened a lot of people would be headed back to the workforce in a seriously damaged economy. The way to get ahead of the game would be by working in some capacity already. Maybe you could work part time, consult or just have a couple clients. Even a modest income could (in addition to making todays retirement economics more comfortable) be the difference between making it and not.
Where you choose to put your money is important also. I am not against precious metals for an alternate currency/ store of value but have concerns about them for retirement. The reason is that they do not benefit from interest, dividends, etc. Every silver dollar or gold eagle you spend is coming strait out of your principle.
The reason that truly rich (maybe wealthy is a better word) people do not get wiped out is that they own businesses and real estate that produce income for them. If currency values change radically a solid business will continue to earn some money. People will continue to rent apartments, homes and commercial space.
Things that produce income are good things to buy. A lot of the downsides of real estate (and to a lesser degree businesses) are minimized if you pay cash. I would rather have some money in the bank and the market and a modest rental house or twelve in decent areas earning me income than a bunch of money in the market.
I don't know what is going to happen so I hesitate to suggest putting all your eggs in any basket. If your finances are in order, you earn a bit of income and have at least some of your money in tangible things that produce income odds are you can weather whatever comes.
Thoughts?
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Random Thoughts: Tunisia, Egypt, Revolutions and Stuff
There is sure some interesting stuff going on in Tunesia, Egypt and Yemen (and the broader Arab world) right now. Not really suprising. All those despotic dictatorships with lots of young unemployed or marginally employed teens and 20 something who are growingly educated or at least exposed to the outside world via technology are a recipe for disaster. Hopefully if they are successful they will be able to break the 'One man, one vote, one time' and military dictatorship back and forth that have rules the Arab world since it became free from it's colonial rulers 60 years or so ago.
In Thailand not so long ago some folks really tried to get a revolution going. They succeeded in shutting down the capital for awhile but were eventually foiled. Some said it was because they were not armed which has some merit. If security forces crack down you can't do much to resist without guns. However I would say that: A) while they had a vocal minority there was not sufficient backing among the population and B) the willingness of the security forces to put down a rebellion are more important than a few dozen or even hundred guns. We saw this with Eastern Europe. The combination of the desire for regime change reaching critical mass AND the refusal of tactical level Army and police units to crush the protesters is essential for this sort of grass roots reasonably peaceful revolution/ regime change under the model of the fall of the USSR and more recently Tunisia. If you have even a fairly big protest and the security apparatus is still down with the regime you get the massacres of the USSR in the 50's and 60's (there were a couple I can't recall of the top of my head and don't feel like looking up) or Tiannamen Square. A government that doesn't pull any punches or care what the international community thinks can crush a pretty determined uprising and use the secret/ political police to keep it crushed. Anyway onto other stuff.
I have had a heck of a week. My schedule was early, late and generally erratic. So ready for the weekend. No real big plans here. Just going to try to rest and relax, do some packing and take care of a few little things. Got a bunch of new gear which I will write more about soon. Also there are a few other interesting things floating in my head.
Anyway I hope you all have a great weekend.
In Thailand not so long ago some folks really tried to get a revolution going. They succeeded in shutting down the capital for awhile but were eventually foiled. Some said it was because they were not armed which has some merit. If security forces crack down you can't do much to resist without guns. However I would say that: A) while they had a vocal minority there was not sufficient backing among the population and B) the willingness of the security forces to put down a rebellion are more important than a few dozen or even hundred guns. We saw this with Eastern Europe. The combination of the desire for regime change reaching critical mass AND the refusal of tactical level Army and police units to crush the protesters is essential for this sort of grass roots reasonably peaceful revolution/ regime change under the model of the fall of the USSR and more recently Tunisia. If you have even a fairly big protest and the security apparatus is still down with the regime you get the massacres of the USSR in the 50's and 60's (there were a couple I can't recall of the top of my head and don't feel like looking up) or Tiannamen Square. A government that doesn't pull any punches or care what the international community thinks can crush a pretty determined uprising and use the secret/ political police to keep it crushed. Anyway onto other stuff.
I have had a heck of a week. My schedule was early, late and generally erratic. So ready for the weekend. No real big plans here. Just going to try to rest and relax, do some packing and take care of a few little things. Got a bunch of new gear which I will write more about soon. Also there are a few other interesting things floating in my head.
Anyway I hope you all have a great weekend.
Friday, January 28, 2011
50 States of Shame
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Joke Of The Day
"A guy makes a rolling stop at a stop sign and gets pulled over by a local policeman. Guy hands the officer his driver's license, insurance verification, plus his concealed carry weapon (CCW) permit.
"Okay," the officer says, "I see your CCW permit. Are you carrying today?"
"Yes, I am.
"Well then, you'd better tell me what you've got."
The motorist says, "Well, I got a .357 revolver in my inside coat pocket. There's a 9mm semi-auto in the glove box. And, I've got a .22 Magnum derringer in my right boot."
"Okay," the officer says. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, back in the trunk, there's an AR-15 and a 12 gauge shotgun. That's about it."
"Sir, are you on your way to a gun range?"
"Nope."
"Well then, what are you afraid of?"
"Not a d**ned thing!"
"Okay," the officer says, "I see your CCW permit. Are you carrying today?"
"Yes, I am.
"Well then, you'd better tell me what you've got."
The motorist says, "Well, I got a .357 revolver in my inside coat pocket. There's a 9mm semi-auto in the glove box. And, I've got a .22 Magnum derringer in my right boot."
"Okay," the officer says. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, back in the trunk, there's an AR-15 and a 12 gauge shotgun. That's about it."
"Sir, are you on your way to a gun range?"
"Nope."
"Well then, what are you afraid of?"
"Not a d**ned thing!"
Got Readiness?
Are you current on your shots? What about those third world ones most Americans don't get? What about smallpox? Just tell your doctor you are going to somplace warm in the third world ad they will give you all of them.
Do you have 180 days of all medications on hand? Modern medicine lets many people live or have decent quality of life through a variety of medications. If you need them and don't have them, well you get the picture. I know this one sucks because you will likely have to go out of pocket but depending on what you are taking it is very important.
If you wear glasses or contacts do you have two spare pair of glasses in (or pretty close to) your current perscription? You can get real cheap glasses online, maybe not the pair you want to wear every day but at least good for affordable backups. Here and here are some potential sources.
When was the last time your teeth were checked? Have you been putting off any work because it is unpleasant or expensive?
When was the last time you had a medical checkup?
Do you have any prolonged injuries you have been putting off dealing with for whatever reason?
Get this stuff taken care of BEFORE it is an issue because that issue could come at a real inconvenient time. Having your one pair of worn out glasses break during a hurricane would be bad. That dental issue you have been putting off flaring up when services are unavailable for a prolonged period would be very, very bad.
I don't know what is going to happen. Some folks I really respect see very dark and violent scenarios as possible. Other folks, probably more realistically see the economy continuing to get worse. That means that services, to include medical, optical and dental are going to become more expensive, potentially drop in quality and maybe even become temporarily unavailable. Even if these services are available you need cash and or insurance to pay for them.
Get ready!
Do you have 180 days of all medications on hand? Modern medicine lets many people live or have decent quality of life through a variety of medications. If you need them and don't have them, well you get the picture. I know this one sucks because you will likely have to go out of pocket but depending on what you are taking it is very important.
If you wear glasses or contacts do you have two spare pair of glasses in (or pretty close to) your current perscription? You can get real cheap glasses online, maybe not the pair you want to wear every day but at least good for affordable backups. Here and here are some potential sources.
When was the last time your teeth were checked? Have you been putting off any work because it is unpleasant or expensive?
When was the last time you had a medical checkup?
Do you have any prolonged injuries you have been putting off dealing with for whatever reason?
Get this stuff taken care of BEFORE it is an issue because that issue could come at a real inconvenient time. Having your one pair of worn out glasses break during a hurricane would be bad. That dental issue you have been putting off flaring up when services are unavailable for a prolonged period would be very, very bad.
I don't know what is going to happen. Some folks I really respect see very dark and violent scenarios as possible. Other folks, probably more realistically see the economy continuing to get worse. That means that services, to include medical, optical and dental are going to become more expensive, potentially drop in quality and maybe even become temporarily unavailable. Even if these services are available you need cash and or insurance to pay for them.
Get ready!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Quote of the Day
" If you can’t save 5-10% of your income then seriously review your lifestyle and expenses"
-FerFAL
-FerFAL
Product Review: Vickers Padded Sling
Today I am going to be talking about the Vickers Padded Sling I recently ordered. Today I had the opportunity to put it on a rifle and use it for awhile. Also the day started real early and ended real late so a kinda short post is in order.
The Good: I was initially impressed about how heavy, thick and stuff the webbing on this sling was. It makes my Tactical Tailor slings seem thin and flimsy. Today I put it on and found that it was quick and easy. I got this sling because it is padded and that helps (or at least spreads out the weight) when carrying a weapon for hours. Also I thought the quick adjustment idea was pretty cool. The sling has both more permenant (well not permenant but you would have to take off the rifle, sit down and mess with them) adjustments on both sides of the padded part as well as the quick adjust. I theoretically liked the quick adjust idea, especially going from wearing body armor to not wearing it and changing into heavy winter clothes, etc. My observation is that with a fairly fixed sling I was regularly wishing it was a couple inches longer or shorter, for whatever of the above reasons.
I put the sling on today and used it for awhile. I was quite impressed with it. Also the great forethought of the adjustments helped immensely. Most padded slings have the pad way too far toward the center to be useful when carrying in the low ready. I took a minute and choked up the back adjustment and let a bit out of the front one and it rested right across my shoulder, neck and upper back where it is needed.
The tab adjustment for the quick adjust is something I was really skeptical about. I was very pleasantly suprised. You just grab the tab and pull it the way you want it to go and the sling stays there till you pull the tab again. Can't say why it works but it does. I set it up so that my normal sling length is right in the middle of the quick adjust. This gives me some play in both directions.
I really enjoy this sling.
The Bad: They are expensive. Costing a nickel under $60 before shipping this isn't a sling that most people would buy lightly. To be honest the only reason I got one is because I have tried all sorts of ghetto rigged two point slings and just haven't been really happy with them. Also I carry a rifle a lot so getting a tough, well thought out quality piece of kit is worth it for me. [Sort of like how it is worth it for a professional carpenter to spend quite a few bucks on a hammer or a tool belt where it isn't for an average guy. Someone who frames 25 homes a year has very different needs in terms of comfort, ergonomics and ruggedness than a guy whose big effort is helping on a deck or an addition each summer.]
I definitely don't plan to order a bunch of these. They are cost prohibitive to say the least. I got one for work because if spending a few bucks makes my life easier and more comfortable I will do it. At some point I will order one for my go rifle too.
No Ugly.
I put the sling on today and used it for awhile. I was quite impressed with it. Also the great forethought of the adjustments helped immensely. Most padded slings have the pad way too far toward the center to be useful when carrying in the low ready. I took a minute and choked up the back adjustment and let a bit out of the front one and it rested right across my shoulder, neck and upper back where it is needed.
The tab adjustment for the quick adjust is something I was really skeptical about. I was very pleasantly suprised. You just grab the tab and pull it the way you want it to go and the sling stays there till you pull the tab again. Can't say why it works but it does. I set it up so that my normal sling length is right in the middle of the quick adjust. This gives me some play in both directions.
I really enjoy this sling.
The Bad: They are expensive. Costing a nickel under $60 before shipping this isn't a sling that most people would buy lightly. To be honest the only reason I got one is because I have tried all sorts of ghetto rigged two point slings and just haven't been really happy with them. Also I carry a rifle a lot so getting a tough, well thought out quality piece of kit is worth it for me. [Sort of like how it is worth it for a professional carpenter to spend quite a few bucks on a hammer or a tool belt where it isn't for an average guy. Someone who frames 25 homes a year has very different needs in terms of comfort, ergonomics and ruggedness than a guy whose big effort is helping on a deck or an addition each summer.]
I definitely don't plan to order a bunch of these. They are cost prohibitive to say the least. I got one for work because if spending a few bucks makes my life easier and more comfortable I will do it. At some point I will order one for my go rifle too.
No Ugly.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Breaking In Boots
My observation is that all boots which will have real miles put on them(vs worn at work or whatever) need to be broken in. There just isn't a substitute for it and if you don't they may chew your feet up something nasty. One thing I have found that helps speed things up is getting them wet. Fill the bathtub up with water and stick your boot covered feet in it. I like to have the water be comfortably warm but YMMV. Let the water soak in and them just wear them for a few hours. They will sort of form to your feet and it helps speed things up. After that put a few easy miles on them just at work or in easy short walk and you should be good to go.
How do you break in boots?
How do you break in boots?
Monday, January 24, 2011
What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?
When I wasn't at work we've been trying to maximize family time. Not a lot happened here in terms of preps. We've been working our way through storage food and stuff. However since we ended up eating out more than usual (just kinda happened and at this point we are just focused on keeping things as easy as possible) we didn't go through that much stuff.
We have been selling some unnecessary stuff. The combination of Wifey relocating and me deploying comes with all kinds of $100ish expenses as well as a grand for Wifey's ticket home. No big worries as we've got the ticket paid for. This is just a bit of a gentle push to sell the stuff we have been meaning to sell for awhile now. We made $75 for stuff we spent $30 on so that was nice.
We did stash 15 Euro's but that was on accident as we had a 50 and dinner cost 35.
I did OK in terms of working out. Got 3 extra workouts which is under my goal of 4 but certainly better than 0 workouts.
What did you do to prepare this week?
We have been selling some unnecessary stuff. The combination of Wifey relocating and me deploying comes with all kinds of $100ish expenses as well as a grand for Wifey's ticket home. No big worries as we've got the ticket paid for. This is just a bit of a gentle push to sell the stuff we have been meaning to sell for awhile now. We made $75 for stuff we spent $30 on so that was nice.
We did stash 15 Euro's but that was on accident as we had a 50 and dinner cost 35.
I did OK in terms of working out. Got 3 extra workouts which is under my goal of 4 but certainly better than 0 workouts.
What did you do to prepare this week?
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Site Review: The Survivalist Blog by M.D. Creekmoore
Today I will be the Survivalist Blog by MD Creekmoore. This is sort of a new feature here. Now that the idea is in my head it might be a fun way to introduct readers to cool new blogs I stumble into. In any case M.D. asked for reviews. Also I can use some link love, am short on ideas and would like to win a cool looking free knife.
This is also a good time for me to to appologize to MD. For the longest time, and I have no idea why, I thought his last name was Creedmoore. I just noticed one day it was a k not a d and the name made a lot more sense. Unfortunately since Creedmore is how I tagged his stuff in blogger early on I am going to have to continue using that tag though I added one with his actual last name. Anyway buddy I am sorry.
I will review the site just like I review everything else.
The Good:
I love that M.D. really 'walks the walk'. Lots of folks talk about all kinds of things but the ones who get out and do what they talk about have a special place in my book. He lives off grid on paid off land in a travel trailer, cooks simply and grows/ harvests a lot of his food. The blog is chock full of Survival Tips. The guy is always trapping something or finding a novel way to do cool things in an affordable way. He has, uses and talks about all sorts of traditional country living type skills which are rapidly slipping away from common knowledge. He is sorta like a redneck McGuyver; which if you knew me in real life you would know is a heck of a compliment.
I also enjoy that M.D is willing to try new things and isn't dead set on using any particular equipment, gear or whatnot. He is regularly getting a new piece of gear or trying some new or novel thing and writing about it. This gives me all kinds of new ideas to impliment or file away. It also keeps me informed on stuff that probably isn't worth my time and money.
Enough with the buttering up. It is nice to tell people what they are great at but we learn a lot more from failures than successes. This is why competitors are hungry and champions can get complacent. It is also why a team that is great for a few years can all of a sudden suck. This is also the reason that I am going to talk more about what I think could be improved than what I think is going well. Onto the bad and the ugly. Survival Tips : The Survivalist Blog
The Bad:
Posting can at times be really sporatic. I check the site most every morning and regularly am dissapointed at the lack of a new post. I am unsure why this is because I am sure MD has plenty of great ideas and imagine he has the time. Also the amount of link posts, polls as posts, etc is a bit high. Of cource not every post can be a home run but there are an aweful lot of bunts. There might be two posts in a week, one of which is a link to one selected news article from drudge and another from yahoo.
The Ugly:
At times there is some definite classist stuff. Sporatic 'everyone who makes more money or has nicer stuff than I do is a yuppy' type stuff. I am unsure if it is envy or just a sarcastic sense of humor or maybe a desire to set a sharp contrast from another blog which will go unnamed. That flows well into the next ugly part.The ratio of drama is kind of high. Mostly it is readers in the comments section but when a blogger has settings to approve comments and he approves one bashing somebody else he is at least tacitly supporting it. I am not saying that I or anyone are perfect but there can definitely be drama in and around Survivalist Blog.
In closing I would like to say that I really enjoy Survivalist Blog. The negatives are far outweighed by the positives. I am consistently informed and or entertained by reading it. Sometimes there are posts that can awesomely combine useful ideas with sharp and witty humor like Build A Arsenal You Can Be Proud Of. It is truly a post that I wish I had written myself. Anyway I read his blog and if you haven't yet you should check it out.
This is also a good time for me to to appologize to MD. For the longest time, and I have no idea why, I thought his last name was Creedmoore. I just noticed one day it was a k not a d and the name made a lot more sense. Unfortunately since Creedmore is how I tagged his stuff in blogger early on I am going to have to continue using that tag though I added one with his actual last name. Anyway buddy I am sorry.
I will review the site just like I review everything else.
The Good:
I love that M.D. really 'walks the walk'. Lots of folks talk about all kinds of things but the ones who get out and do what they talk about have a special place in my book. He lives off grid on paid off land in a travel trailer, cooks simply and grows/ harvests a lot of his food. The blog is chock full of Survival Tips. The guy is always trapping something or finding a novel way to do cool things in an affordable way. He has, uses and talks about all sorts of traditional country living type skills which are rapidly slipping away from common knowledge. He is sorta like a redneck McGuyver; which if you knew me in real life you would know is a heck of a compliment.
I also enjoy that M.D is willing to try new things and isn't dead set on using any particular equipment, gear or whatnot. He is regularly getting a new piece of gear or trying some new or novel thing and writing about it. This gives me all kinds of new ideas to impliment or file away. It also keeps me informed on stuff that probably isn't worth my time and money.
Enough with the buttering up. It is nice to tell people what they are great at but we learn a lot more from failures than successes. This is why competitors are hungry and champions can get complacent. It is also why a team that is great for a few years can all of a sudden suck. This is also the reason that I am going to talk more about what I think could be improved than what I think is going well. Onto the bad and the ugly. Survival Tips : The Survivalist Blog
The Bad:
Posting can at times be really sporatic. I check the site most every morning and regularly am dissapointed at the lack of a new post. I am unsure why this is because I am sure MD has plenty of great ideas and imagine he has the time. Also the amount of link posts, polls as posts, etc is a bit high. Of cource not every post can be a home run but there are an aweful lot of bunts. There might be two posts in a week, one of which is a link to one selected news article from drudge and another from yahoo.
The Ugly:
At times there is some definite classist stuff. Sporatic 'everyone who makes more money or has nicer stuff than I do is a yuppy' type stuff. I am unsure if it is envy or just a sarcastic sense of humor or maybe a desire to set a sharp contrast from another blog which will go unnamed. That flows well into the next ugly part.The ratio of drama is kind of high. Mostly it is readers in the comments section but when a blogger has settings to approve comments and he approves one bashing somebody else he is at least tacitly supporting it. I am not saying that I or anyone are perfect but there can definitely be drama in and around Survivalist Blog.
In closing I would like to say that I really enjoy Survivalist Blog. The negatives are far outweighed by the positives. I am consistently informed and or entertained by reading it. Sometimes there are posts that can awesomely combine useful ideas with sharp and witty humor like Build A Arsenal You Can Be Proud Of. It is truly a post that I wish I had written myself. Anyway I read his blog and if you haven't yet you should check it out.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
What If?
CarTeachO asked the question "What if you could only have 5 guns?". I was going to answer it as my daily post but then he went and did a real nice post on it, so there went my nice stolen idea.
My first 3 were easy:
Defensive pistol; concealable- Glock 19
Rifle; military pattern, magazine fed- AK47- Could go either way on this one with an AR as the other option. Like both but right now I lean AK.
Shotgun- Remington 870
The next one was pretty fast also:
.22 Rifle- Ruger 10/22
The last one. Well I got pretty stuck on this. A .22 pistol would be nice but with a .22 rifle isn't really necessary. Also in theory I could have a converison kit for the Glock (and by that theory one for the AK, if they exist, and eliminate the 10/22) but to me that would be gaming the scenario. A tiny pistol (Keltech P3AT, Ruger LPC, Seecamp, etc) would be nice for really NPE carry. A scoped rifle for hunting and such would be nice too (one of the advantages of the AK is that it is legal to hunt and quite capable of harvesting deer sized game at reasonable ranges, a real benefit of a semi auto .308 would be that it could hunt at distance also.) I guess it is a toss up and I would likely go with a scoped bolt action rifle such as a Remington 700.
What are your 5?
My first 3 were easy:
Defensive pistol; concealable- Glock 19
Rifle; military pattern, magazine fed- AK47- Could go either way on this one with an AR as the other option. Like both but right now I lean AK.
Shotgun- Remington 870
The next one was pretty fast also:
.22 Rifle- Ruger 10/22
The last one. Well I got pretty stuck on this. A .22 pistol would be nice but with a .22 rifle isn't really necessary. Also in theory I could have a converison kit for the Glock (and by that theory one for the AK, if they exist, and eliminate the 10/22) but to me that would be gaming the scenario. A tiny pistol (Keltech P3AT, Ruger LPC, Seecamp, etc) would be nice for really NPE carry. A scoped rifle for hunting and such would be nice too (one of the advantages of the AK is that it is legal to hunt and quite capable of harvesting deer sized game at reasonable ranges, a real benefit of a semi auto .308 would be that it could hunt at distance also.) I guess it is a toss up and I would likely go with a scoped bolt action rifle such as a Remington 700.
What are your 5?
Defensive Weapons For Home Security and Kids
Between the last time I really lived around home and when I was back home for Christmas my tribe has taken a real demographic shift. A couple of babies grew up into awesome chaotic toddlers. This puts them right into the 'accidentally find a gun, play with it and have a horrible accident' age. This age starts when they start moving around and ends when they have the training and or cognitive abilities to prevent accidents. Chronologically it is probably from around one to somewhere between seven and sixty five. In this age range children simply cannot have even potential unauthorized access to firearms. They can't wrap their heads around it. Even though I am sure many families had a loaded gun here or there without any issues it is one of those low probability high impact events which is easy enough to prevent.
My inclination for home defense weapons is to have them strategically but discretely located throughout the house. Weapons in the bedroom, living room and kitchen are pretty standard. Obviously when young children are present this plan is not viable. Weapons need to be secured or directly under your supervision. I don't find that carrying a pistol concealed or otherwise is that big of an imposition. Other than that weapons are locked up with consideration for having one in the sleeping area. Easy enough for a relatively short trip.
I think it is really important when looking to secure something (in this case guns) to think about who you are trying to secure it from. Any sort of securely locking cabinet or closet will stop young children from accessing firearms. Stopping a burglar is a bit harder and all you can do against a determined robber is slow them down.
Down the road when this is our situation for at least several years I will do a few things to make it easier. I will purchase a nice shoulder holster simply because they work with any sort of clothes and it is easy enough to toss on an open bowling shirt or warmup jacket to answer the door. I will also purchase several of those small fast (combination or fingerprint) safes to mount in strategic locations. We will keep a few guns in a safe and the balance of our weapons will be divided among multiple secure locations. I don't think keeping weapons ready for defense but still protecting children is that hard. It will take a bit of effort and a little bit of money but that could be said of most things.
My inclination for home defense weapons is to have them strategically but discretely located throughout the house. Weapons in the bedroom, living room and kitchen are pretty standard. Obviously when young children are present this plan is not viable. Weapons need to be secured or directly under your supervision. I don't find that carrying a pistol concealed or otherwise is that big of an imposition. Other than that weapons are locked up with consideration for having one in the sleeping area. Easy enough for a relatively short trip.
I think it is really important when looking to secure something (in this case guns) to think about who you are trying to secure it from. Any sort of securely locking cabinet or closet will stop young children from accessing firearms. Stopping a burglar is a bit harder and all you can do against a determined robber is slow them down.
Down the road when this is our situation for at least several years I will do a few things to make it easier. I will purchase a nice shoulder holster simply because they work with any sort of clothes and it is easy enough to toss on an open bowling shirt or warmup jacket to answer the door. I will also purchase several of those small fast (combination or fingerprint) safes to mount in strategic locations. We will keep a few guns in a safe and the balance of our weapons will be divided among multiple secure locations. I don't think keeping weapons ready for defense but still protecting children is that hard. It will take a bit of effort and a little bit of money but that could be said of most things.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Common Sense And Your Scenario
Having guns, training with them and carrying whenever functionally and legally possible is a good thing to do. However what gun rags and supposed expert instructors don't tell you is that there are a lot more important things you can do to protect yourself. For a second ignore the ' defensive experts' and listen to your Grandmother.
-Live somewhere that doesn't suck. Not much makes it more likely that you will have to deal with crime as having 3 crack houses on your block. Look at areas, local police reports and statistics. Don't confuse ritzy and safe as plenty of totally safe neighborhoods aren't fancy or expensive.
-Don't deal with sketchy people. Sketchy people bring sketchy stuff with them. This is a great example of a place where the difference between a good person and a good citizen is important. I know plenty of people who smoke a bit of pot and or break a couple laws or dodge some taxes that are fine people and are perfectly safe to be around. However when you talk about serious criminals and hard drug users they bring violence and crime like nobody else. Even if your hard drug using friend/ family member is a nice enough person sketchy stuff just surrounds them, I don't think they can help it. The dirty little secret the anti gun folks won't tell is that drug users/ dealers/ distributors are the reason you are 328% more likely to be shot by someone you know than a stranger. If you choose to spend time around them or especially allow them in your home I am certainly not saying you deserve what happens, just that you shouldn't be suprised.
-Get home early. The phrase that nothing good happens after 11 o'clock (well made a 9 o'clock movie but I digress) is just so true. Along those same lines if you like going out to taverns or bars I personally advise doing it earlier instead of later. You don't see a lot of stupid stuff happen at bars at 7 or 8 in the evening.
-Be smart about where and when you get money from ATM's. Getting cash in a rough neighborhood at 2am is just stupid. I can't remember a single case of a guy getting robbed at the ATM in a Barnes and Noble at noon. Also beware that some places are safe at one time but not another. An ATM in a vibrant down town shopping/ restaurant/ business area might be totally safe at 4pm but going there at midnight is just stupid.
- Keep information about your valuables need to know. It is pretty hard to keep someone from seeing a nice TV if they end up in your house for all sorts of reasons. However stuff like guns, cash, precious metals, expensive jewelry, etc is a bit easier. Sure close friends usually have a solid idea but outside of that handful of people this information needs to be kept only to those who need to know for some legitimate reason.
Even if you take all of this advice and impliment it there is still risk. There are some unique factors that can dramatically affect your risk. Your line of work is definitely a big factor. For example the odds of a bail bondsmen having a non random violent encounter with a criminal are a lot higher than a middle school teacher. I would be a lot more worried about my security plans if I was a cop in the organized crime department then as an accountant at a random company.
Are you in a cash business? This is a big risk factor. I have a friend who is in a cash business. To up the ante even more it is a cash business that is very seasonal. He makes most of his yearly income during one month. He didn't advertise or anything but invariably more than a few people knew he was paid a lot of cash during the season. His personal OPSEC wasn't bad but the nature of his business sorta put him out there. A few years back there was a home invasion gang in his area. Not an elite paramilitary organization but a lot more than a couple random thugs. Somehow it became apparant that he was on their list and a couple SWAT cops lived at his place for awhile. For him it ended up fine but it wasn't so good for the first couple people that got hit. If you are in this sort of scenario I suggest some serious security plans.
The overall level of risk your area, profession and lifestyle minus the accomodations (above or similar) you are willing to make leave some degree of residual risk. This residual risk is a significant contributor in what sort of energy and resources you should put into cautionary measures. I am torn on this one. On one hand life can be randomly dangerous, even if you are an insurance broker in Quietsville, Ohio. On the other hand it sort of makes sense. Stuff that you see an immediate need for is a lot more important than stuff you would sorta like to have around on general principle. For example this year a bullet proof vest is on my list, in fact it is pretty high on my list. Next year we will probably get another one. They are good things to have but I don't have a pressing ned and am balancing other concerns. However if I somehow ended up in a serious disagreement with 'Crazy Guns' Tony Guinn an enthusiastic local gangster both of bullet proof vests would be purchased locally at once no matter the premium.
I guess to me ones individual residual risk doesn't so much change what is ideal. A well thought out and comprehensive security plan is desirable for everyone. However I do think that where the components of this plan in terms of stuff, time and energy fall on your overall list of lists can vary widely by your circumstances. What might barely make one persons list for the year could be a 'this has to happen this weekend even if we've got to live on rice and beans for a month' type priority for another AND THEY ARE BOTH RIGHT! A strong reinforced door/ frame would be nice if you live in a pretty calm neighborhood. However if your third neighbors door got booted by goblins it has to happen now.
In conclusion I think you should take common sense measures to minimize your risk. I also think that you should take a look at your situation and the residual risk that remains. While everyone should have a well thought out security plan, depending on your residual risk level, it might be more urgent for some than others.
-Live somewhere that doesn't suck. Not much makes it more likely that you will have to deal with crime as having 3 crack houses on your block. Look at areas, local police reports and statistics. Don't confuse ritzy and safe as plenty of totally safe neighborhoods aren't fancy or expensive.
-Don't deal with sketchy people. Sketchy people bring sketchy stuff with them. This is a great example of a place where the difference between a good person and a good citizen is important. I know plenty of people who smoke a bit of pot and or break a couple laws or dodge some taxes that are fine people and are perfectly safe to be around. However when you talk about serious criminals and hard drug users they bring violence and crime like nobody else. Even if your hard drug using friend/ family member is a nice enough person sketchy stuff just surrounds them, I don't think they can help it. The dirty little secret the anti gun folks won't tell is that drug users/ dealers/ distributors are the reason you are 328% more likely to be shot by someone you know than a stranger. If you choose to spend time around them or especially allow them in your home I am certainly not saying you deserve what happens, just that you shouldn't be suprised.
-Get home early. The phrase that nothing good happens after 11 o'clock (well made a 9 o'clock movie but I digress) is just so true. Along those same lines if you like going out to taverns or bars I personally advise doing it earlier instead of later. You don't see a lot of stupid stuff happen at bars at 7 or 8 in the evening.
-Be smart about where and when you get money from ATM's. Getting cash in a rough neighborhood at 2am is just stupid. I can't remember a single case of a guy getting robbed at the ATM in a Barnes and Noble at noon. Also beware that some places are safe at one time but not another. An ATM in a vibrant down town shopping/ restaurant/ business area might be totally safe at 4pm but going there at midnight is just stupid.
- Keep information about your valuables need to know. It is pretty hard to keep someone from seeing a nice TV if they end up in your house for all sorts of reasons. However stuff like guns, cash, precious metals, expensive jewelry, etc is a bit easier. Sure close friends usually have a solid idea but outside of that handful of people this information needs to be kept only to those who need to know for some legitimate reason.
Even if you take all of this advice and impliment it there is still risk. There are some unique factors that can dramatically affect your risk. Your line of work is definitely a big factor. For example the odds of a bail bondsmen having a non random violent encounter with a criminal are a lot higher than a middle school teacher. I would be a lot more worried about my security plans if I was a cop in the organized crime department then as an accountant at a random company.
Are you in a cash business? This is a big risk factor. I have a friend who is in a cash business. To up the ante even more it is a cash business that is very seasonal. He makes most of his yearly income during one month. He didn't advertise or anything but invariably more than a few people knew he was paid a lot of cash during the season. His personal OPSEC wasn't bad but the nature of his business sorta put him out there. A few years back there was a home invasion gang in his area. Not an elite paramilitary organization but a lot more than a couple random thugs. Somehow it became apparant that he was on their list and a couple SWAT cops lived at his place for awhile. For him it ended up fine but it wasn't so good for the first couple people that got hit. If you are in this sort of scenario I suggest some serious security plans.
The overall level of risk your area, profession and lifestyle minus the accomodations (above or similar) you are willing to make leave some degree of residual risk. This residual risk is a significant contributor in what sort of energy and resources you should put into cautionary measures. I am torn on this one. On one hand life can be randomly dangerous, even if you are an insurance broker in Quietsville, Ohio. On the other hand it sort of makes sense. Stuff that you see an immediate need for is a lot more important than stuff you would sorta like to have around on general principle. For example this year a bullet proof vest is on my list, in fact it is pretty high on my list. Next year we will probably get another one. They are good things to have but I don't have a pressing ned and am balancing other concerns. However if I somehow ended up in a serious disagreement with 'Crazy Guns' Tony Guinn an enthusiastic local gangster both of bullet proof vests would be purchased locally at once no matter the premium.
I guess to me ones individual residual risk doesn't so much change what is ideal. A well thought out and comprehensive security plan is desirable for everyone. However I do think that where the components of this plan in terms of stuff, time and energy fall on your overall list of lists can vary widely by your circumstances. What might barely make one persons list for the year could be a 'this has to happen this weekend even if we've got to live on rice and beans for a month' type priority for another AND THEY ARE BOTH RIGHT! A strong reinforced door/ frame would be nice if you live in a pretty calm neighborhood. However if your third neighbors door got booted by goblins it has to happen now.
In conclusion I think you should take common sense measures to minimize your risk. I also think that you should take a look at your situation and the residual risk that remains. While everyone should have a well thought out security plan, depending on your residual risk level, it might be more urgent for some than others.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Homework Assignment Of The Week
Turn off your computer right now (well maybe take 5 minutes to check email or whatever) and spend time with your family. I don't care what you do but do something. If it is close to your bed time complete this assignment tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Sharks With Laser Beams On Their Heads
TOR,
I read your blog frequently and appreciate your views on the utility of pistols and also the weakness of the weapon. I have engaged in combat with an M4, but never closer than 50m and I was always in a decent position as far as cover and concealment. The adrenaline in these situations was pretty intense, so I imagine a pistol fight, at close range and in the open would dramatically increase the spaz factor.
I don't get to the range enough, which is one of my resolutions for 2011. I'm not a gun nut, but I own a few. I also carried the M9 in combat, but only fired it at the range. The SF guys I worked with had lasers on their M9's, but I never shot one. In retrospect I should have asked just to check it out, but I always concentrated on my own weapons during range time.
Anyway, after all of that background I've been thinking about adding a laser to my 9mm or maybe getting a new pistol with an integrated laser. What is your experience and/or thoughts? I'm not looking at it as magic. Training will obviously still be important and I have been deficient in that area. However, I wonder about it's utility in helping overcome some of the inherent weaknesses in a pistol? If you get a chance I would appreciate any advice you might offer.
As for your upcoming deployment, good luck! I was there from 04-05. Keep your chin up and your head down!
Thanks,
Jester
TOR here: First I have to mention something. Between my various correspondences,advertisers, newsletters I subscribe to and random questions/ comments/ etc I get a pretty decent amount of emails. I try and am generally successful in answering, in some form or another all emails to which it is applicable. If you send me an email that has a question or something and I don't respond in a couple weeks then please resend it. Also mention that you are resending it. Sometimes stuff just gets lost in the inbox.
Anyway to the question at hand. My thoughts and experiences when it comes to lasers is that visible lasers, while fun for plinking at best offer negligible advantages. I personally don't think they add much in the way of capabilities which is what separates novel/ cool accessories from truly useful ones. The four fundamentals of marksmenship are: steady position, aiming/ sight picture, breath control and trigger squeeze. Do those right and you hit stuff. Mess any, some or all of them up and your accuracy degrades accordingly. Anyway strictly speaking the advantage of lasers is that they largely remove aiming from the picture. If you can't put the little red dot on the target then nothing I can think of will help you. Still got to get the other three elements right to hit stuff. The thing is that you still have to essentially aim the weapon by pointing or using your sights to get the dot onto target with any sort of speed. Otherwise you would just be pointing the weapon wherever and then slowly walking it onto target. I haven't seen visible lasers improve the speed or accuracy of decent or good shooters. I have seen (not saying you fall into this category) folks who think getting a laser means they do not need to learn to use pistols.
There is also a school of thought that a visible laser is intimidating to a potential goblin. That school of though says if you are in the dreaded hostage type scenario a laser to the face will make them wet their pants, drop their weapon and surrender immediately. To be blunt I don't buy it. My observations on performance not really improving with lasers and their tendency to be part of an overcompensation lead me to that belief. The biggest thing about that sort of situation which will help you is CONFIDENCE. A laser might work as part of a bluff. However if you know you can put a bullet into the 4 inch circle at the center of a goblins face you don't need to bluff. If you know for sure that at 10 meters no matter the pistol you can make the shot you will subconsciously display that in your voice and manerisms. Also worst case you can just shoot them in the face.
Your mileage may vary. I would suggest that you try to shoot, or at least really handle a a pistol with a laser before putting money into one. I would also note that if you choose to go with a laser for defensive purposes don't go cheap. Buy a quality laser from a reputable manufacturer. Also you probably don't need to go out and buy a new gun to use a laser with. There are all kinds of options when it comes to lasers but I would like to highlight two cool ones. The first are lasers that essentially replace the guide rod of the semi automatic pistol. The first advantage of these is that they do not require or necessitate changing the holster you use or add any bulk to the pistol. The second is that the laser is about as close in line with the bore as it can be. This means the closest point of aim and point of impact that you can get with a laser. The other noteable type of laser is Crimson Trace Grips. These are cool because they can be mounted on weapons without rails and revolvers (no guide rod). They are also cool because they are activated by pressure on the grip so when you grab the pistol the laser is activated.
Personally I think if you want to use technology to make it easier to quickly and accurately engage targets I would look into a red dot type optic. Suarez International does a lot of stuff putting together in terms of defensive pistols with red dot sights which are rugged and compact enough for tactical use. The reason a red dot type sight is so much better than a visible laser is that they make the traditional skill set of marksmenship easier. Traditional marksmenship techniques put red dots very close to on target and it is so fast to get them the rest of the way. They just make what we have been doing for our whole shooting lives easier and faster.
For whatever it is worth I would suggest you either put the money that would go into a laser towards additional training or look at options for red dot's. Hope that helps.
I read your blog frequently and appreciate your views on the utility of pistols and also the weakness of the weapon. I have engaged in combat with an M4, but never closer than 50m and I was always in a decent position as far as cover and concealment. The adrenaline in these situations was pretty intense, so I imagine a pistol fight, at close range and in the open would dramatically increase the spaz factor.
I don't get to the range enough, which is one of my resolutions for 2011. I'm not a gun nut, but I own a few. I also carried the M9 in combat, but only fired it at the range. The SF guys I worked with had lasers on their M9's, but I never shot one. In retrospect I should have asked just to check it out, but I always concentrated on my own weapons during range time.
Anyway, after all of that background I've been thinking about adding a laser to my 9mm or maybe getting a new pistol with an integrated laser. What is your experience and/or thoughts? I'm not looking at it as magic. Training will obviously still be important and I have been deficient in that area. However, I wonder about it's utility in helping overcome some of the inherent weaknesses in a pistol? If you get a chance I would appreciate any advice you might offer.
As for your upcoming deployment, good luck! I was there from 04-05. Keep your chin up and your head down!
Thanks,
Jester
TOR here: First I have to mention something. Between my various correspondences,advertisers, newsletters I subscribe to and random questions/ comments/ etc I get a pretty decent amount of emails. I try and am generally successful in answering, in some form or another all emails to which it is applicable. If you send me an email that has a question or something and I don't respond in a couple weeks then please resend it. Also mention that you are resending it. Sometimes stuff just gets lost in the inbox.
Anyway to the question at hand. My thoughts and experiences when it comes to lasers is that visible lasers, while fun for plinking at best offer negligible advantages. I personally don't think they add much in the way of capabilities which is what separates novel/ cool accessories from truly useful ones. The four fundamentals of marksmenship are: steady position, aiming/ sight picture, breath control and trigger squeeze. Do those right and you hit stuff. Mess any, some or all of them up and your accuracy degrades accordingly. Anyway strictly speaking the advantage of lasers is that they largely remove aiming from the picture. If you can't put the little red dot on the target then nothing I can think of will help you. Still got to get the other three elements right to hit stuff. The thing is that you still have to essentially aim the weapon by pointing or using your sights to get the dot onto target with any sort of speed. Otherwise you would just be pointing the weapon wherever and then slowly walking it onto target. I haven't seen visible lasers improve the speed or accuracy of decent or good shooters. I have seen (not saying you fall into this category) folks who think getting a laser means they do not need to learn to use pistols.
There is also a school of thought that a visible laser is intimidating to a potential goblin. That school of though says if you are in the dreaded hostage type scenario a laser to the face will make them wet their pants, drop their weapon and surrender immediately. To be blunt I don't buy it. My observations on performance not really improving with lasers and their tendency to be part of an overcompensation lead me to that belief. The biggest thing about that sort of situation which will help you is CONFIDENCE. A laser might work as part of a bluff. However if you know you can put a bullet into the 4 inch circle at the center of a goblins face you don't need to bluff. If you know for sure that at 10 meters no matter the pistol you can make the shot you will subconsciously display that in your voice and manerisms. Also worst case you can just shoot them in the face.
Your mileage may vary. I would suggest that you try to shoot, or at least really handle a a pistol with a laser before putting money into one. I would also note that if you choose to go with a laser for defensive purposes don't go cheap. Buy a quality laser from a reputable manufacturer. Also you probably don't need to go out and buy a new gun to use a laser with. There are all kinds of options when it comes to lasers but I would like to highlight two cool ones. The first are lasers that essentially replace the guide rod of the semi automatic pistol. The first advantage of these is that they do not require or necessitate changing the holster you use or add any bulk to the pistol. The second is that the laser is about as close in line with the bore as it can be. This means the closest point of aim and point of impact that you can get with a laser. The other noteable type of laser is Crimson Trace Grips. These are cool because they can be mounted on weapons without rails and revolvers (no guide rod). They are also cool because they are activated by pressure on the grip so when you grab the pistol the laser is activated.
Personally I think if you want to use technology to make it easier to quickly and accurately engage targets I would look into a red dot type optic. Suarez International does a lot of stuff putting together in terms of defensive pistols with red dot sights which are rugged and compact enough for tactical use. The reason a red dot type sight is so much better than a visible laser is that they make the traditional skill set of marksmenship easier. Traditional marksmenship techniques put red dots very close to on target and it is so fast to get them the rest of the way. They just make what we have been doing for our whole shooting lives easier and faster.
For whatever it is worth I would suggest you either put the money that would go into a laser towards additional training or look at options for red dot's. Hope that helps.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Read This
Personally I am WAY more worried about the value of the dollar, interest rates, food prices and rising crime than I am a civil war or insurgency in America. However it is interesting to apply realistic models to potential situations. American Mercenary does this by looking at characteristics of successful insurgencies and America. Read it and think.
What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?
I decided to shift this feature to a work day. Anyway my biggest accomplishment was that I got started on a good workout plan. I also found a folding Romanian side folding stock for my AK. That turned into quite the boondoggle. Also we are eating up the stored food and learning some stuff from that.
What did you do to prepare this week?
What did you do to prepare this week?
Monday, January 17, 2011
The American Dream Revisited
Mayberry mentioned the American Dream (read my old thoughts here) in passing recently. While we don't agree on everything and do frag eachother from time to time I really enjoy his blog. Anyway I got to thinking about the American Dream today.
The real question in my mind is a) if the American Dream is still realistic b) and if so for who then c) under what conditions. Before getting into this too deeply I think it is worth noting that in the roughly decade or so before the 2008 housing bubble and the subsequent Great Recession this dream was seriously amped up. Homes got bigger, the huge increase in home prices lead to paper gains people borrowed against to buy all sorts of stuff and generally a lot of folks went into a consumer spending frenzy. A more traditional post WWII American Dream of buying a solidly decent home, having a conmfortable life, helping the kids through college and retiring comfortably is what I will base the rest of this on.
To question a) if the American Dream is still realistic, yes I would say that it is still realistic. I can say this confidently because plenty of people are still doing it. Don't buy into all of the doomer stuff. People are currently buying homes, putting kids through college and retiring which is clear proof that it can be done. Also I dare say that recent events should be a serious caution about getting too far into debt and buying a home you just can't afford.
To question b) and if so for who, the answer is a lot more complicated and a lot less optomistic. The sad fact is that for a variety of factors a lot of people are getting squeezed out of the middle class. Low skill manufacturing jobs are going away or becoming crap jobs, cost of living and (broadly speaking) housing are going up and American Dream is slipping out of these people's reach. If you look at what a lot of folks earn, a reasonable % of income that can be allocated to housing and average home prices in a lot of areas and for a lot of people the numbers don't work. America is facing some demographic shifts and the middle class as a broad group are losing. These folks are losing much more than most. Unfortunately they are coming to face the choice between figuring out how to earn more money or accepting a new normal. That new normal is going to mean a lot of things but most noticeably moving to areas with lower housing costs or some sort of alternate housing.
To question c) under what conditions I think the answer is multi part. We are going to have to make more good decisions and choices then the Greatest Generation or the Boomers did to get comparable outcomes. In particular we are going to have to put a lot more energy and effort into positioning ourselves to earn a decent living, not just at one particular job but over our working lifetimes. The good paying jobs with minimal prerequisites are largely gone and the ones that are left aren't very secure. We are also going to have to start earlier and do better with our financial planning. Homes and educational expenses (middle class/ American Dream staples) are a lot more expensive than they used to be. More significantly almost all of the responsability for retirement has shifted to the individual.
What can we do to be in the best position possible. Making the choices to get a degree or truly skilled trade that can earn a good living is so important to this. The difference in 20 or 30% income will separate a comfortable middle class type existence and something less comfortable. Buying homes a lot more like the Greatest Generation than the boomers will help us get into a good spot. In other words buy a modest (for your income and situation) home, pay it off and LIVE THERE. If you need to move don't upgrade substantially and certainly don't keep upgrading.
We can also take a lesson from the Greatest Generation when it comes to saving. Those folks did a lot of it and so should we. Surely hard learned experiences from the Great Depression were a factor in this but so was their lifestyle. Since they bought a modest home, paid it off and kept it there was plenty left over to save. As some Boomers are about to start learning if you keep trading up homes, live right up to or beyond your means and finance all sorts of stuff that doesn't leave much to save for the proverbial rainy day.
The real question in my mind is a) if the American Dream is still realistic b) and if so for who then c) under what conditions. Before getting into this too deeply I think it is worth noting that in the roughly decade or so before the 2008 housing bubble and the subsequent Great Recession this dream was seriously amped up. Homes got bigger, the huge increase in home prices lead to paper gains people borrowed against to buy all sorts of stuff and generally a lot of folks went into a consumer spending frenzy. A more traditional post WWII American Dream of buying a solidly decent home, having a conmfortable life, helping the kids through college and retiring comfortably is what I will base the rest of this on.
To question a) if the American Dream is still realistic, yes I would say that it is still realistic. I can say this confidently because plenty of people are still doing it. Don't buy into all of the doomer stuff. People are currently buying homes, putting kids through college and retiring which is clear proof that it can be done. Also I dare say that recent events should be a serious caution about getting too far into debt and buying a home you just can't afford.
To question b) and if so for who, the answer is a lot more complicated and a lot less optomistic. The sad fact is that for a variety of factors a lot of people are getting squeezed out of the middle class. Low skill manufacturing jobs are going away or becoming crap jobs, cost of living and (broadly speaking) housing are going up and American Dream is slipping out of these people's reach. If you look at what a lot of folks earn, a reasonable % of income that can be allocated to housing and average home prices in a lot of areas and for a lot of people the numbers don't work. America is facing some demographic shifts and the middle class as a broad group are losing. These folks are losing much more than most. Unfortunately they are coming to face the choice between figuring out how to earn more money or accepting a new normal. That new normal is going to mean a lot of things but most noticeably moving to areas with lower housing costs or some sort of alternate housing.
To question c) under what conditions I think the answer is multi part. We are going to have to make more good decisions and choices then the Greatest Generation or the Boomers did to get comparable outcomes. In particular we are going to have to put a lot more energy and effort into positioning ourselves to earn a decent living, not just at one particular job but over our working lifetimes. The good paying jobs with minimal prerequisites are largely gone and the ones that are left aren't very secure. We are also going to have to start earlier and do better with our financial planning. Homes and educational expenses (middle class/ American Dream staples) are a lot more expensive than they used to be. More significantly almost all of the responsability for retirement has shifted to the individual.
What can we do to be in the best position possible. Making the choices to get a degree or truly skilled trade that can earn a good living is so important to this. The difference in 20 or 30% income will separate a comfortable middle class type existence and something less comfortable. Buying homes a lot more like the Greatest Generation than the boomers will help us get into a good spot. In other words buy a modest (for your income and situation) home, pay it off and LIVE THERE. If you need to move don't upgrade substantially and certainly don't keep upgrading.
We can also take a lesson from the Greatest Generation when it comes to saving. Those folks did a lot of it and so should we. Surely hard learned experiences from the Great Depression were a factor in this but so was their lifestyle. Since they bought a modest home, paid it off and kept it there was plenty left over to save. As some Boomers are about to start learning if you keep trading up homes, live right up to or beyond your means and finance all sorts of stuff that doesn't leave much to save for the proverbial rainy day.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Be Advised
If someone ever wants you to go to a remote camp in the Arctic or extreme northern Canada to investigate what happened to the people that were working and or scientifically experimenting there and subsequently died/ vanished you should not go. Can't say exactly what will happen. Maybe there are ghosts or aliens, strange scientific phenomena or foreign soldiers or just some psycho with serious cabin fever. I can however say with a high level of confidence that it never ends well. There is also a very realistic chance that you will die.
Got Mags
In my not really doing anything productive but not ready to go to bed yet internet time wasting I noticed that CDNN has Glock mags. They have factory 33rd mags for $35 and normal 9m mags for $22. I can personally vouch for them being a good company to deal with.
Magazine Frenzy
That loser who shot the folks in Arizona couldn't have just used a revolver. He had to use a Glock 19 with a 33 round extended magazine. Information on this whole unfortunate mess seems really sparse but maybe that is because it is fairly close after the fact. I heard that he used generic Walmart white box ball ammo. Am unsure if that was a factor in peoples injuries or not. That could be interesting to read about later if/ when more information comes out.
Anyway back to the point. There are vigerous calls from the left and the MSM which owns them to ban this that and the other thing. Some gal named McCarthy from NY plans to introduce some sort of a new version of the AWB. Folks are buying up Glock mags, and in particular 33rd 'happy sticks' like it is two minutes before happy hour and they want another $3.50 Long Island ice tea. I thought about purchasing some more Glock mags myself. However after some consideration I decided against it.
I think in the firearm community and in particular those who make their living selling stuff there is kind of a Chicken Little syndrome. Either things are going fine and it is a buying opportunity or anything just happened and thus the sky is falling so you need to order everything TODAY. I do believe that those who rely on weapons that take evil non politically correct assault murder magazines should do what they can to square theirselves away. Unless they just recently purchased said weapons they probably should have done this some time ago.
Rarely have I regretted not spending money. While we aren't totally at a happy place we are at a pretty decent one. We have all the mags I feel we need for the weapons we currently have. That includes a decent stash of full capacity Glock mags as well as a handful of happy sticks. While we are young and thus not fully set up the deep redundancy (I'd like a lot of depth in a few platforms) like yet we aren't in a bad spot.
Also last year my purchases were really firearm centric. We put a lot of money into mags, spare parts and ammunition. I don't regret that as I finally got a bunch of stuff squared away but this year we are going to put more resources into other directions. After some consideration I decided to just stick with my New Years Resolutions. Especially since a bill hasn't been introduced anywhere, gotten out of committee, or even been debated I am just not that worried. Also I don't see an opportunity to sell inventory at a 30% markup over the prices two weeks ago.
Is it time to go crazy, empty your bank account and max your visa card to fill a closet with all kinds of magazines? I just don't think so. However it might not be a bad time to revisit your magazine situation. If you have really been meaning to make a purchase to get your pistol or rifle set up then you should probably do so. I guess what I am trying to say is to think about your situation and correct any glaring defficiencies but not to go totally nuts.
Thoughts?
Anyway back to the point. There are vigerous calls from the left and the MSM which owns them to ban this that and the other thing. Some gal named McCarthy from NY plans to introduce some sort of a new version of the AWB. Folks are buying up Glock mags, and in particular 33rd 'happy sticks' like it is two minutes before happy hour and they want another $3.50 Long Island ice tea. I thought about purchasing some more Glock mags myself. However after some consideration I decided against it.
I think in the firearm community and in particular those who make their living selling stuff there is kind of a Chicken Little syndrome. Either things are going fine and it is a buying opportunity or anything just happened and thus the sky is falling so you need to order everything TODAY. I do believe that those who rely on weapons that take evil non politically correct assault murder magazines should do what they can to square theirselves away. Unless they just recently purchased said weapons they probably should have done this some time ago.
Rarely have I regretted not spending money. While we aren't totally at a happy place we are at a pretty decent one. We have all the mags I feel we need for the weapons we currently have. That includes a decent stash of full capacity Glock mags as well as a handful of happy sticks. While we are young and thus not fully set up the deep redundancy (I'd like a lot of depth in a few platforms) like yet we aren't in a bad spot.
Also last year my purchases were really firearm centric. We put a lot of money into mags, spare parts and ammunition. I don't regret that as I finally got a bunch of stuff squared away but this year we are going to put more resources into other directions. After some consideration I decided to just stick with my New Years Resolutions. Especially since a bill hasn't been introduced anywhere, gotten out of committee, or even been debated I am just not that worried. Also I don't see an opportunity to sell inventory at a 30% markup over the prices two weeks ago.
Is it time to go crazy, empty your bank account and max your visa card to fill a closet with all kinds of magazines? I just don't think so. However it might not be a bad time to revisit your magazine situation. If you have really been meaning to make a purchase to get your pistol or rifle set up then you should probably do so. I guess what I am trying to say is to think about your situation and correct any glaring defficiencies but not to go totally nuts.
Thoughts?
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Eating The Stash And Random Observations Theiron
One of the unique things about my job is that we move far more regularly than most people. Also when I say move I don't mean to another place in the same town. I also don't mean moving to the next town over or even to a neighboring county. For my upcoming deployment Wifey and Walker are headed home. This means that a bunch of food is either going to get eaten, donated or will expire/ be tossed.
We have been down this particular road a couple times before. Like a lot of things the further in advance you start planning and acting the more desirable the outcomes typically are. Our preference is to eat our stored food, followed by donating/ giving it away and lastly throwing it out.
So about a bit more then a month back we got started with the eating. We are leaning more staple heavy than usual replacing some fresh stuff with staples (been using dehydrated milk, etc) but aren't going crazy and radically changing our diet exclusively to storage food. We are still buying meat, dairy, fresh veggies and such. I have some random observations on what has taken place.
This time we did a lot better than last time in terms of storing what we actually eat than last time. That time was also FWIW at least a bit better than the time before that. Maybe the pain in the butt of this whole process actually has some benefit after all. Even if you don't move all the time you could substitute leaning heavy on your prep food (beyond normal FIFO rotation) for a period of time at regular intervals.
We did better because we stored a lot more different items. We stored lots of different types of pasta as well as sauces. Wifey leans pretty heavily on these for a quick hot meal when I am gone. We also stocked a lot of cereal which I eat every day for breakfast and Wifey snacks on. We stored coffee because well, I drink coffee. The canned goods we stored were a lot more varied. Instead of having (just to toss out numbers) 50 cans each of 3 different things we had a couple dozen cans each of 7-10 different things. We still end up with a bit more heavy soup (chili, stew, clam chowder, etc) than we rotate in our normal diet. However I am pretty OK with that because those are some of the cheapest, quick to cook, high calorie/ protien food out there. Maybe next time we will instead stock more canned beans. We can rotate (ie use and not waste) a lot of baked beans by eating them 2-3 times a week. We also stocked oil, brownie mix, cake mix, and other such stuff in addition to the standard rice, flour, beans, etc.
We also did well by staggering our purchases. We bought a variety of stuff over time instead of a whole bunch at once. So instead of having a ton of stuff that expires at one time we have a bit of stuff that expires at any given time. Assuming you use some sort of a system to get a good first in first out effect (also write dates on stuff so you can reorganize in the right order if need be) then things should be easy to keep going.
Enough tooting our own horns. If I were to grade us it would probably be a B-. In any case there are a lot more lessons to be learned from mistakes. Here are the notes for improvement that I have so far.
1. We need to do a better job of storing non food household items: dishwasher soap, bar soap, garbage bags, etc. We kept a spare or two around but that is at best a halfhearted effort. If we want to have X (90 or 180, 365, 5,942) days of food wouldn't we want the same timeframe worth of these things? In order to have an X days worth of stuff we need to know how long this stuff lasts.
I've heard that the thing to do is to keep track of what you consume (buy or pull from storage) in a certain period of time. I think 30 days would work well and 90 days would work great. You probably don't need to stock EVERYTHING you buy in that timeframe. There is no need to go down to the gatoraid and reeces big cup I get every shopping trip (Don't have the discipline to stock them anyway. I would eat them all the second day and drink the gatoraid leaving me fat and very well hydrated.) but it would tell a lot about what you actually use and should keep around.
2. The cats should get the same attention as our trash cans. We have been storing food and litter but a random amount and probably not enough. Thus we need to do a more measured way of stocking their stuff.
3. We still are not buying the right ratios of spices, sauces and such to staples. I think it is particularly easy to underestimate when it comes to rice. For us a usual meal with rice is a couple cups of the stuff with some sort of sauce and or meat. We could stretch that a bit but not a whole lot without undesirable results. Thus we need to stock A LOT more rotelle, brown sugar, terriaki sauce, soy sauce, etc in the future.
I can't think of anythng else right now. Maybe more to follow.
We have been down this particular road a couple times before. Like a lot of things the further in advance you start planning and acting the more desirable the outcomes typically are. Our preference is to eat our stored food, followed by donating/ giving it away and lastly throwing it out.
So about a bit more then a month back we got started with the eating. We are leaning more staple heavy than usual replacing some fresh stuff with staples (been using dehydrated milk, etc) but aren't going crazy and radically changing our diet exclusively to storage food. We are still buying meat, dairy, fresh veggies and such. I have some random observations on what has taken place.
This time we did a lot better than last time in terms of storing what we actually eat than last time. That time was also FWIW at least a bit better than the time before that. Maybe the pain in the butt of this whole process actually has some benefit after all. Even if you don't move all the time you could substitute leaning heavy on your prep food (beyond normal FIFO rotation) for a period of time at regular intervals.
We did better because we stored a lot more different items. We stored lots of different types of pasta as well as sauces. Wifey leans pretty heavily on these for a quick hot meal when I am gone. We also stocked a lot of cereal which I eat every day for breakfast and Wifey snacks on. We stored coffee because well, I drink coffee. The canned goods we stored were a lot more varied. Instead of having (just to toss out numbers) 50 cans each of 3 different things we had a couple dozen cans each of 7-10 different things. We still end up with a bit more heavy soup (chili, stew, clam chowder, etc) than we rotate in our normal diet. However I am pretty OK with that because those are some of the cheapest, quick to cook, high calorie/ protien food out there. Maybe next time we will instead stock more canned beans. We can rotate (ie use and not waste) a lot of baked beans by eating them 2-3 times a week. We also stocked oil, brownie mix, cake mix, and other such stuff in addition to the standard rice, flour, beans, etc.
We also did well by staggering our purchases. We bought a variety of stuff over time instead of a whole bunch at once. So instead of having a ton of stuff that expires at one time we have a bit of stuff that expires at any given time. Assuming you use some sort of a system to get a good first in first out effect (also write dates on stuff so you can reorganize in the right order if need be) then things should be easy to keep going.
Enough tooting our own horns. If I were to grade us it would probably be a B-. In any case there are a lot more lessons to be learned from mistakes. Here are the notes for improvement that I have so far.
1. We need to do a better job of storing non food household items: dishwasher soap, bar soap, garbage bags, etc. We kept a spare or two around but that is at best a halfhearted effort. If we want to have X (90 or 180, 365, 5,942) days of food wouldn't we want the same timeframe worth of these things? In order to have an X days worth of stuff we need to know how long this stuff lasts.
I've heard that the thing to do is to keep track of what you consume (buy or pull from storage) in a certain period of time. I think 30 days would work well and 90 days would work great. You probably don't need to stock EVERYTHING you buy in that timeframe. There is no need to go down to the gatoraid and reeces big cup I get every shopping trip (Don't have the discipline to stock them anyway. I would eat them all the second day and drink the gatoraid leaving me fat and very well hydrated.) but it would tell a lot about what you actually use and should keep around.
2. The cats should get the same attention as our trash cans. We have been storing food and litter but a random amount and probably not enough. Thus we need to do a more measured way of stocking their stuff.
3. We still are not buying the right ratios of spices, sauces and such to staples. I think it is particularly easy to underestimate when it comes to rice. For us a usual meal with rice is a couple cups of the stuff with some sort of sauce and or meat. We could stretch that a bit but not a whole lot without undesirable results. Thus we need to stock A LOT more rotelle, brown sugar, terriaki sauce, soy sauce, etc in the future.
I can't think of anythng else right now. Maybe more to follow.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Got AK Stock?
I am looking for a Romanian side folding stock for my AK. The wire looking one that you can just screw on. Ideally with a lever instead of a button. One Source Tactical used to carry them but don't have them in stock. I tried to get one through Gun Broker but their site hates me. Guns of America doesn't seem to have any either.
If anyone has one they would like to sell or knows a current source for them please help me out.
Thanks,
If anyone has one they would like to sell or knows a current source for them please help me out.
Thanks,
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Thoughts on Insurgencies (3?): Myths, Night Letters and Cost to Benefit Ratio
I have enjoyed writing this series (1, 2) and hope you have gotten something out of it. I was quite proud of the overwhelmingly positive response the first chapter got. I hope to keep a bit of that spark in every chapter. Anyway it is time for another chapter. I imagine it will continue periodically for the foreseeable future.
The first thing I am going to talk about today is what I think is the biggest myth about insurgents/ guerillas/ partisans in certain preparedness/ liberterian and pro gun circles. For lack of a better word lets call this myth the noble insurgent. In America the term Noble Patriot would fit better. The idea is that these noble insurgents are operating within an acceptable moral framework and level of violence against a clearly targeting a definite enemy and moving towards pure and worthy goals. This myth is so presumptuous and morally superior I cannot find the words to accurately describe it. It is to many men with an assault rifle and a copy of the Constitution what the nice college girl trying to earn her degree is to a guy in a strip club.
Lets disect it real quick. The Noble Patriot is absolutely sure that a) his cause is riteous or possibly holy, b) that the violence he commits against c) whomever is an evil supporter of tyranny (or otherwise disagrees with him) is just and noble for the end cause. We will go point by point.
A) My real concern here is that typically the crazier someone and their cause are the more riteous and possibly holy they believe it to be. Just because an individual or a group believe in a cause doesn't make it just. Also for heavens sake please don't find 3 pieces of scripture that, taken completely out of context, seem to support your cause and say it has sacred underpinnings. I am not going to say that all true believers are crazy. Some are decent sane folks who just believe really strongly about this or that. However some are completely off their rocker. There is nothing scarier than a true believer.
B) I don't have a real issue with this one. When you start hurting or killing folks I just can't see morally, ethically or otherwise how it matters much how you do it. To say that shooting them is OK but stabbing then is wrong, dropping mortars on them is OK but an IED is wrong, etc doesn't have much standing with me. Maybe a certain way is slow or cruel but at the end of the day the only person to whom that matters is the one it is inflicted upon. I don't think God differentiates between dudes you just shot in the face vs dudes you killed in another manner.
C) This is where the whole Noble Insurgent thing really breaks down. The Noble Insurgent ideal works only if we think in absolutes. People are absolutely good in the context of whatever your value system is or against it an absolutely bad. Anybody with experience in a chaotic area suffering a serious breakdown of law and order, let alone an insurgency or civil war can say that absolutes are a hard thing to find. Most people have some good elements and some bad elements. We are talking about a whole lot of shades of grey between a little bit of black and white on the perimiters. A and C come together to create some real issues.
I get reminded of a quote from The Goodfellas. "For most of the guys, killings got to be accepted. Murder was the only way that everybody stayed in line. You got out of line, you got whacked. Everybody knew the rules. But sometimes, even if people didn't get out of line, they got whacked. I mean, hits just became a habit for some of the guys. Guys would get into arguments over nothing and before you knew it, one of them was dead. And they were shooting each other all the time. Shooting people was a normal thing. It was no big deal." Another notable quote is "when the only tool you have is a hammer every problem starts to look like a nail." Basically once you get into the habit of killing folks to solve problems it is disturbingly easy to start killing all sorts of folks to solve all sorts of problems.
The honest truth is that despite the purity of their goals insurgents/ whatever are going to have to do a lot of bad things. More significantly they are inevitably going to have to intimidate/ coherce/ conscript (at least in a limited way for limited tasks) and steal. The last Matthew Bracken book had a good portrayal of this. It is fine and dandy to think about killing enemy soldiers or traitors but what about a shop keeper, small business owner or average joe trying to get by in a crazy situation? This is where those shades of grey continue to be problematic. Sure capping a dude who you estimate to be 90% evil is an easy decision but what if you think he is 52% evil?
The blunt and honest situation, if you look at accurate real life examples, is that insurgents are eventually going to have to force some sort of goods, services or information out of people who are not willing to give it. It is truly unavoidable. The 'cause' is going to bump into some decent normal people who just want to live their lives. Shooting enemy soldiers is pretty clear cut but what about some average joe so you can get some food or fuel?
Before flaming this please realize that I am not saying all insurgents or insurgencies or 'patriots' are inherantly bad. Nor am I saying that some causes they could stand for are not entirely just. Personally I can say there are some situations where I would start collecting information, sabotaging and destroying infrastructure and killing enemy personnel. It would be like a more boring but also more effective Red Dawn. I am a pragmatist and thus believe that the ends can justify the means. My main point is that folks need to get off of a high, morally superior horse and come to terms with the fact that being a successful insurgen is going to mean doing some bad things. It is also going to mean doing some bad things to people who probably don't really deserve it.
Maybe it is easy for Americans to have a nice sanitized 60's Western PG view of this sort of thing because our Revolution was a really long time ago and our civil war is also beyond real authentic memory. We can say that in America these things are fine, clean and noble. We can also use cultural, ethnic and racial steriotypes to think that revolutions and civil war's in other parts of the world are not dirty, nasty and violent because of their inherant nature but because these people are somehow inferior to us. Anyway onto the next point.
Insurgents are successful largely (or at least in part) because they can effectively intimidate the populace. To burst your bubble even further they don't intimidate people because they are tough, virtuous and have neato rifles; but instead because they prove very willing to cripple, main or kill those who do not bend to their will. Night letters are a great example of the power insurgents can have. A night letter is just a letter, posted at night and attributed to a given group that gives a warning/ threat. For example lets talk about Afghanistan. Here is a story that isn't exactly true but is very like a lot of true stories. Those crazy Americans think it would be nice to teach girls (oh their wacky western ideas) to read, do basic math and stuff like that. Lets say they go to months of effort and great expense to build and set up a nice school for these girls to learn some stuff. They hire a teacher and all that too. The night before the scheduled big opening of the school the teacher gets a letter stuck to his door. It says "If you teach those girls, we will cut your head off" and is signed by the local insurgent group. No way the teacher is going to deal with that. He may or may not do a lot of things the next day but sure as hell isn't going to that school! The reason this letter is effective is not because the insurgents are pure of heart or have nice rifles; but because the insurgents have a track record of cutting people's heads off. They have probably cut the head off of a couple people from the teachers village for whatever reason.
While I am diametrically opposed to the Taliban's perspective on educating young girls I cannot say their methods aren't awesomely effective. An insurgent in another place, provided they were willing to do what it takes to establish the kind of credibility required to get this sort of reputation, could accomplish a lot of things with night letters. Maybe the evil occupiers have a base in your area. On that base they have toilets and since they are exceeding the capacity of that system they have plumbing issues. They hire a plumber who then gets a night letter. Either the insurgents have already earned through blood some credibility and he quits or it takes till plumber #3 for them to get that credit. Night letters flow well into my next point.
Insurgents are never on an even playing field with the government/ occupiers. If they go life for life and dollar for dollar they will quickly lose. However if they can find a way to negate or otherwise tie up a significant amount of personnel, energy and money for a modest investment they are in business. Back to that night letter I talked about before. Lets say the occupiers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as lots of time and energy on a project and that project can be nullified by the insurgents posting a single letter. Even a force with lots of men, money and resources can quickly be worn down when the their large investments are countered by the 25 cents it costs to write a letter.
IED's are another great example. A fairly smart Iraqi bomb maker (specialized insurgent skill) with some electrical skills and a flair for creativity makes a new type of bomb. It costs $500 in components and a couple days of his time. Call it $750 just to have a number. That bomb blows up, messes up a vehicle and kills a few people. The Americans send numerous experienced specialists to study this bomb. Then the Army Center for Lessons Learned, EOD and numerous other groups and contractors spend a ton of money figuring out how to defeat this new threat. Millions of dollars are spent which then creates a new system or product. That product is created and fielded to as many groups as possible as quickly as possible. It costs tens of millions of dollars on the low end. So for an investment of $750 the insurgents killed 3 guys, wrecked a truck, tied up countless thousands of man hours and MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
Insurgents can do well with this sort of techniques. Not flashy like direct action missions and that stuff but far more useful. Even if the enemy is 20x stronger and 20x better funded by using techniques that tie up vastly disproportionate amounts of their money and time they can be worn down into defeat.
I guess in closing being an insurgent is not a nice business. They do really bad things, sometimes to pretty decent people. If you don't believe that the ends justify the means then I suggest another hobby. If you do choose to be an insurgent then use the fear your group envokes to your full advantage. Also plan and conduct operations that will tie up disproportionate amounts of the enemies time, money and resources.
The first thing I am going to talk about today is what I think is the biggest myth about insurgents/ guerillas/ partisans in certain preparedness/ liberterian and pro gun circles. For lack of a better word lets call this myth the noble insurgent. In America the term Noble Patriot would fit better. The idea is that these noble insurgents are operating within an acceptable moral framework and level of violence against a clearly targeting a definite enemy and moving towards pure and worthy goals. This myth is so presumptuous and morally superior I cannot find the words to accurately describe it. It is to many men with an assault rifle and a copy of the Constitution what the nice college girl trying to earn her degree is to a guy in a strip club.
Lets disect it real quick. The Noble Patriot is absolutely sure that a) his cause is riteous or possibly holy, b) that the violence he commits against c) whomever is an evil supporter of tyranny (or otherwise disagrees with him) is just and noble for the end cause. We will go point by point.
A) My real concern here is that typically the crazier someone and their cause are the more riteous and possibly holy they believe it to be. Just because an individual or a group believe in a cause doesn't make it just. Also for heavens sake please don't find 3 pieces of scripture that, taken completely out of context, seem to support your cause and say it has sacred underpinnings. I am not going to say that all true believers are crazy. Some are decent sane folks who just believe really strongly about this or that. However some are completely off their rocker. There is nothing scarier than a true believer.
B) I don't have a real issue with this one. When you start hurting or killing folks I just can't see morally, ethically or otherwise how it matters much how you do it. To say that shooting them is OK but stabbing then is wrong, dropping mortars on them is OK but an IED is wrong, etc doesn't have much standing with me. Maybe a certain way is slow or cruel but at the end of the day the only person to whom that matters is the one it is inflicted upon. I don't think God differentiates between dudes you just shot in the face vs dudes you killed in another manner.
C) This is where the whole Noble Insurgent thing really breaks down. The Noble Insurgent ideal works only if we think in absolutes. People are absolutely good in the context of whatever your value system is or against it an absolutely bad. Anybody with experience in a chaotic area suffering a serious breakdown of law and order, let alone an insurgency or civil war can say that absolutes are a hard thing to find. Most people have some good elements and some bad elements. We are talking about a whole lot of shades of grey between a little bit of black and white on the perimiters. A and C come together to create some real issues.
I get reminded of a quote from The Goodfellas. "For most of the guys, killings got to be accepted. Murder was the only way that everybody stayed in line. You got out of line, you got whacked. Everybody knew the rules. But sometimes, even if people didn't get out of line, they got whacked. I mean, hits just became a habit for some of the guys. Guys would get into arguments over nothing and before you knew it, one of them was dead. And they were shooting each other all the time. Shooting people was a normal thing. It was no big deal." Another notable quote is "when the only tool you have is a hammer every problem starts to look like a nail." Basically once you get into the habit of killing folks to solve problems it is disturbingly easy to start killing all sorts of folks to solve all sorts of problems.
The honest truth is that despite the purity of their goals insurgents/ whatever are going to have to do a lot of bad things. More significantly they are inevitably going to have to intimidate/ coherce/ conscript (at least in a limited way for limited tasks) and steal. The last Matthew Bracken book had a good portrayal of this. It is fine and dandy to think about killing enemy soldiers or traitors but what about a shop keeper, small business owner or average joe trying to get by in a crazy situation? This is where those shades of grey continue to be problematic. Sure capping a dude who you estimate to be 90% evil is an easy decision but what if you think he is 52% evil?
The blunt and honest situation, if you look at accurate real life examples, is that insurgents are eventually going to have to force some sort of goods, services or information out of people who are not willing to give it. It is truly unavoidable. The 'cause' is going to bump into some decent normal people who just want to live their lives. Shooting enemy soldiers is pretty clear cut but what about some average joe so you can get some food or fuel?
Before flaming this please realize that I am not saying all insurgents or insurgencies or 'patriots' are inherantly bad. Nor am I saying that some causes they could stand for are not entirely just. Personally I can say there are some situations where I would start collecting information, sabotaging and destroying infrastructure and killing enemy personnel. It would be like a more boring but also more effective Red Dawn. I am a pragmatist and thus believe that the ends can justify the means. My main point is that folks need to get off of a high, morally superior horse and come to terms with the fact that being a successful insurgen is going to mean doing some bad things. It is also going to mean doing some bad things to people who probably don't really deserve it.
Maybe it is easy for Americans to have a nice sanitized 60's Western PG view of this sort of thing because our Revolution was a really long time ago and our civil war is also beyond real authentic memory. We can say that in America these things are fine, clean and noble. We can also use cultural, ethnic and racial steriotypes to think that revolutions and civil war's in other parts of the world are not dirty, nasty and violent because of their inherant nature but because these people are somehow inferior to us. Anyway onto the next point.
Insurgents are successful largely (or at least in part) because they can effectively intimidate the populace. To burst your bubble even further they don't intimidate people because they are tough, virtuous and have neato rifles; but instead because they prove very willing to cripple, main or kill those who do not bend to their will. Night letters are a great example of the power insurgents can have. A night letter is just a letter, posted at night and attributed to a given group that gives a warning/ threat. For example lets talk about Afghanistan. Here is a story that isn't exactly true but is very like a lot of true stories. Those crazy Americans think it would be nice to teach girls (oh their wacky western ideas) to read, do basic math and stuff like that. Lets say they go to months of effort and great expense to build and set up a nice school for these girls to learn some stuff. They hire a teacher and all that too. The night before the scheduled big opening of the school the teacher gets a letter stuck to his door. It says "If you teach those girls, we will cut your head off" and is signed by the local insurgent group. No way the teacher is going to deal with that. He may or may not do a lot of things the next day but sure as hell isn't going to that school! The reason this letter is effective is not because the insurgents are pure of heart or have nice rifles; but because the insurgents have a track record of cutting people's heads off. They have probably cut the head off of a couple people from the teachers village for whatever reason.
While I am diametrically opposed to the Taliban's perspective on educating young girls I cannot say their methods aren't awesomely effective. An insurgent in another place, provided they were willing to do what it takes to establish the kind of credibility required to get this sort of reputation, could accomplish a lot of things with night letters. Maybe the evil occupiers have a base in your area. On that base they have toilets and since they are exceeding the capacity of that system they have plumbing issues. They hire a plumber who then gets a night letter. Either the insurgents have already earned through blood some credibility and he quits or it takes till plumber #3 for them to get that credit. Night letters flow well into my next point.
Insurgents are never on an even playing field with the government/ occupiers. If they go life for life and dollar for dollar they will quickly lose. However if they can find a way to negate or otherwise tie up a significant amount of personnel, energy and money for a modest investment they are in business. Back to that night letter I talked about before. Lets say the occupiers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as lots of time and energy on a project and that project can be nullified by the insurgents posting a single letter. Even a force with lots of men, money and resources can quickly be worn down when the their large investments are countered by the 25 cents it costs to write a letter.
IED's are another great example. A fairly smart Iraqi bomb maker (specialized insurgent skill) with some electrical skills and a flair for creativity makes a new type of bomb. It costs $500 in components and a couple days of his time. Call it $750 just to have a number. That bomb blows up, messes up a vehicle and kills a few people. The Americans send numerous experienced specialists to study this bomb. Then the Army Center for Lessons Learned, EOD and numerous other groups and contractors spend a ton of money figuring out how to defeat this new threat. Millions of dollars are spent which then creates a new system or product. That product is created and fielded to as many groups as possible as quickly as possible. It costs tens of millions of dollars on the low end. So for an investment of $750 the insurgents killed 3 guys, wrecked a truck, tied up countless thousands of man hours and MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
Insurgents can do well with this sort of techniques. Not flashy like direct action missions and that stuff but far more useful. Even if the enemy is 20x stronger and 20x better funded by using techniques that tie up vastly disproportionate amounts of their money and time they can be worn down into defeat.
I guess in closing being an insurgent is not a nice business. They do really bad things, sometimes to pretty decent people. If you don't believe that the ends justify the means then I suggest another hobby. If you do choose to be an insurgent then use the fear your group envokes to your full advantage. Also plan and conduct operations that will tie up disproportionate amounts of the enemies time, money and resources.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Jim's Quote of the Day
I know some of you, for whatever reason do not read Survivalblog so now and again I try to hilight things from there which pop out at me. Jims Quote of the Day is one of them so read it.
More AK Discussion: Accuracy Revisited and Other Rifles
In response to my recent post on AK's (and Mini's) AZRedhawk44 said: I stewed on this over the weekend subconsciously, and it leaped to the forefront of my mind while I was at a High Power match (I shoot an M14 so I don't have any skin in the AK/Mini conflict either way).
One of Ryan's very valid points was the legitimacy of shooting someone more than 100 yards away. At first, I accepted that premise.
At the match, however, an idea jumped out at me. "Hits" aren't necessarily all good. A 200 yard shot with an AK that tags a leg, arm hip or shoulder might still leave someone functional enough to return fire at me. Yes, it's a hit. But despite the fact that I tried damned hard to make that shot count as best as I could... the platform and cartridge dynamics allowed that bullet to drift 8 to 12 inches more off target than a different platform.
No, I don't want to drag a platform war onto your site. I like FALs, FNARs, AR-10's, AR-15's, DaeWoos, Galils, M1's and M14/M1A's. I like lots of gun platforms. I even like the Mini and AK for what they can do.
The price difference between a self-built AR and a higher end AK or a new Mini just isn't that far, and the AR will (typically) put the lead in the center of the target better.
I just think if you're gonna aim at something and squeeze the trigger, the best possible outcome is for the bullet to impact _exactly_ where you intended to hit.
TOR Here: Thanks for taking the time to ponder this question and then write a reply. Personally from informal experience I believe that the AK platform, given a servicable weapon, is quite capable of hitting dinner plates at 100 meters and a torso sized target at 200 or maybe more. There is certainly a range where the weapons inherant accuracy limitations start pulling shots out of the vital torso and into flesh wounds and appendages.
I don't think anyone could disagree with your statement that "if you're gonna aim at something and squeeze the trigger, the best possible outcome is for the bullet to impact _exactly_ where you intended to hit."
I think there are a few universally desirable characteristics of a rifle:
Reliability- It should go bang every single time you pull the trigger, no matter what. Seeing as firearms are mechanical and even the best mechanical things fail now and then we should seek the lowest failure rate available.
Ruggedness- You want a rifle that can take a beating. Most of us generally take good care of our rifles. However we still definitely want them to work if they happen to be banged around, dropped, not get cleaned as often as they should or get exposed to the elements.
Adaptability- The ability to change a rifles ergonomics, fit, and sights to your preferences and needs. The ability to employ useful accessories.
Commonality- There should be wide access to magazines, spare parts, accessories and such.
Affordability- Outside of gamers and fanboys in forums (there are some good folks there too) the rest of us live in the real world. In the real world instead of theorizing about what the best possible maker for every single component in the world we have to live in a budget. Be it tiny, modest or pretty decent we all have budgets. We need to consider the cost of magazines, optics, ammunition, useful accessories and other ancillary equipment.
Capacity- More bullets and fewer reloads are better than less bullets and more reloads.
Lastly since you already mentioned it accuracy- A rifle that can't hit stuff you shoot at isn't very useful.
It would be great to have a rifle that is devastatingly accurate out to great distances, holds a lot of bullets and reloads quickly, is utterly reliable and rugged under all sorts of adverse conditions, has great adaptability and parts/ ammo/ mags which are widely available. It would also be great if this rifle and its ancillary equipment were so cheap that an average working class guy could get a few rifles, a big box of magazines and enough ammo to fight a moderately intense guerilla campaign.
Ever heard the building analogy that you can have a job be done fast, cheap and right but you only get to pick two? So it could be fast and right but not cheap. Or fast and cheap but not right. It could also be cheap and right but not fast.
Have you ever played the kind of video game where you get to build your own boxer? You get a certain amount of points to divide among different categories (I remember strength, foot speed, quickness, conditioning and toughness or something like that)? If you put all of your points into quickness you could punch really fast but it wouldn't do much and you were really easy to knock out. Put all your points into strength and your boxer will knock people out, when he can hit them. Anyway you get the idea.
My observation is that some foolish and inexperienced people buy a rifle because they saw it in a movie or know a certain group or unit uses it. However smart and experienced people choose a weapon based upon the best balance of the above desirable characteristics prioritized by their own unique scenario with the limiting factor of affordability. Affordability is a limiting factor because in order to have a rifle you have to be able to buy it.
We also need to consider the cost of multiple weapons. After all if things are so screwed that you need a rifle wouldn't it be a good idea for your spouse to have one also? What about your 15 year old child? Sure the idea of arming them is scary in a lot of ways. However if Rorke's Drift is playing out in your neighborhood then the kid needs a damn rifle. Also remember that two is one and one is none.
Price point is an interesting discussion. I think it is important to compare as equitably as possible. For example comparing a bare bones generic AR some yahoo put together in his basement to an AK that comes out of a highly prestigious custom shop is gaming the scenario a bit. Comparing chevy to chevy and BMW to BMW makes more sense. The difference in price between say a WASR-10 at about $550 and an Olympic or Stag AR at say $750 isn't that much. Mags are about a wash. AK's do however have a real cost edge in terms of ammunition. My observation, and YMMV, is that AR's don't really like steel cased ammo. AK's on the other hand will eat anything. Brass cased .223 costs about twice as much as steel cased 7.62x39. So $200 (I didn't check prices today so please don't nit pick) will get you about a half case of .223 or a full case of 7.62x39.
If you look at say a mid range AR with 10 mags, a case of ammo and a few spare parts/ accessories vs a mid range AK with 10 mags, a case of ammo and a few spare parts/ accessories the actual cost is different. Make it two or three cases of ammo and the cost difference is really significant.
As I mentioned peoples own unique scenario is a big factor here. Do they live in the city or out in the country. On the wide open western plains or the primordial woods of the deep south. Do they have a good budget or is money really tight? How important are accessories and their availability? Do they plan to also hunt with their defensive rifle? Do they have problems carrying long heavy rifles? What about felt recoil? Is their plan to have a CQB machine to keep by their bed, an all around rifle or a precision marksmenship machine. What kind of worst case scenario does this rifle fit into?
When we are talking about modern fairly common magazine fed semi automatic rifles such as the AK, AR, Mini- 14, M1A, FN-FAL, HK 91 series, etc. I am becoming less and less convinced there are any real absolutes. I don't think it is so much about the right rifle but the right rifle FOR YOU. If cost is a concern and you aren't so worried about long shots an AK could be a great choice. If you really like commonality and adaptability but cost is a factor then maybe an AR is the answer. If you like the power of a .308 but are concerned about the cost of magazines and spare parts then an HK 91 type could be the way to go. If love rifles made of wood and steel, you really want to reach out and touch someone accurately and money isn't a concern then an M1A would be a good choice. A great rifle for one person might be a horrible rifle for another.
Personally I like AR's and AK's. In terms of rifles I grew up on AR's. I have more muscle memory with that platform than any other or any two others combined. I have a lot of experience and comfort when it comes to that platform. I also appreciate that they are easy to use and pretty darn accurate without completely breaking the bank. I got an AK for no particular reason a few years back. For a random spur of the moment (made the decision at a gun store) purchase I couldn't have done better. I am coming to like AK's more and more. They are affordable to purchase, very affordable to equip, utterly reliable and as rugged as they come. Also they are pretty fun to shoot.
I urge you to be realistic about your budget and consider what it will cost to fully (however you define that) equip a rifle. Next think about your own unique scenario. Do plenty of research and fire as many weapons as possible. Seriously reflect on and consider your options for this major purchase and you will end up with a weapon that will serve you well.
One of Ryan's very valid points was the legitimacy of shooting someone more than 100 yards away. At first, I accepted that premise.
At the match, however, an idea jumped out at me. "Hits" aren't necessarily all good. A 200 yard shot with an AK that tags a leg, arm hip or shoulder might still leave someone functional enough to return fire at me. Yes, it's a hit. But despite the fact that I tried damned hard to make that shot count as best as I could... the platform and cartridge dynamics allowed that bullet to drift 8 to 12 inches more off target than a different platform.
No, I don't want to drag a platform war onto your site. I like FALs, FNARs, AR-10's, AR-15's, DaeWoos, Galils, M1's and M14/M1A's. I like lots of gun platforms. I even like the Mini and AK for what they can do.
The price difference between a self-built AR and a higher end AK or a new Mini just isn't that far, and the AR will (typically) put the lead in the center of the target better.
I just think if you're gonna aim at something and squeeze the trigger, the best possible outcome is for the bullet to impact _exactly_ where you intended to hit.
TOR Here: Thanks for taking the time to ponder this question and then write a reply. Personally from informal experience I believe that the AK platform, given a servicable weapon, is quite capable of hitting dinner plates at 100 meters and a torso sized target at 200 or maybe more. There is certainly a range where the weapons inherant accuracy limitations start pulling shots out of the vital torso and into flesh wounds and appendages.
I don't think anyone could disagree with your statement that "if you're gonna aim at something and squeeze the trigger, the best possible outcome is for the bullet to impact _exactly_ where you intended to hit."
I think there are a few universally desirable characteristics of a rifle:
Reliability- It should go bang every single time you pull the trigger, no matter what. Seeing as firearms are mechanical and even the best mechanical things fail now and then we should seek the lowest failure rate available.
Ruggedness- You want a rifle that can take a beating. Most of us generally take good care of our rifles. However we still definitely want them to work if they happen to be banged around, dropped, not get cleaned as often as they should or get exposed to the elements.
Adaptability- The ability to change a rifles ergonomics, fit, and sights to your preferences and needs. The ability to employ useful accessories.
Commonality- There should be wide access to magazines, spare parts, accessories and such.
Affordability- Outside of gamers and fanboys in forums (there are some good folks there too) the rest of us live in the real world. In the real world instead of theorizing about what the best possible maker for every single component in the world we have to live in a budget. Be it tiny, modest or pretty decent we all have budgets. We need to consider the cost of magazines, optics, ammunition, useful accessories and other ancillary equipment.
Capacity- More bullets and fewer reloads are better than less bullets and more reloads.
Lastly since you already mentioned it accuracy- A rifle that can't hit stuff you shoot at isn't very useful.
It would be great to have a rifle that is devastatingly accurate out to great distances, holds a lot of bullets and reloads quickly, is utterly reliable and rugged under all sorts of adverse conditions, has great adaptability and parts/ ammo/ mags which are widely available. It would also be great if this rifle and its ancillary equipment were so cheap that an average working class guy could get a few rifles, a big box of magazines and enough ammo to fight a moderately intense guerilla campaign.
Ever heard the building analogy that you can have a job be done fast, cheap and right but you only get to pick two? So it could be fast and right but not cheap. Or fast and cheap but not right. It could also be cheap and right but not fast.
Have you ever played the kind of video game where you get to build your own boxer? You get a certain amount of points to divide among different categories (I remember strength, foot speed, quickness, conditioning and toughness or something like that)? If you put all of your points into quickness you could punch really fast but it wouldn't do much and you were really easy to knock out. Put all your points into strength and your boxer will knock people out, when he can hit them. Anyway you get the idea.
My observation is that some foolish and inexperienced people buy a rifle because they saw it in a movie or know a certain group or unit uses it. However smart and experienced people choose a weapon based upon the best balance of the above desirable characteristics prioritized by their own unique scenario with the limiting factor of affordability. Affordability is a limiting factor because in order to have a rifle you have to be able to buy it.
We also need to consider the cost of multiple weapons. After all if things are so screwed that you need a rifle wouldn't it be a good idea for your spouse to have one also? What about your 15 year old child? Sure the idea of arming them is scary in a lot of ways. However if Rorke's Drift is playing out in your neighborhood then the kid needs a damn rifle. Also remember that two is one and one is none.
Price point is an interesting discussion. I think it is important to compare as equitably as possible. For example comparing a bare bones generic AR some yahoo put together in his basement to an AK that comes out of a highly prestigious custom shop is gaming the scenario a bit. Comparing chevy to chevy and BMW to BMW makes more sense. The difference in price between say a WASR-10 at about $550 and an Olympic or Stag AR at say $750 isn't that much. Mags are about a wash. AK's do however have a real cost edge in terms of ammunition. My observation, and YMMV, is that AR's don't really like steel cased ammo. AK's on the other hand will eat anything. Brass cased .223 costs about twice as much as steel cased 7.62x39. So $200 (I didn't check prices today so please don't nit pick) will get you about a half case of .223 or a full case of 7.62x39.
If you look at say a mid range AR with 10 mags, a case of ammo and a few spare parts/ accessories vs a mid range AK with 10 mags, a case of ammo and a few spare parts/ accessories the actual cost is different. Make it two or three cases of ammo and the cost difference is really significant.
As I mentioned peoples own unique scenario is a big factor here. Do they live in the city or out in the country. On the wide open western plains or the primordial woods of the deep south. Do they have a good budget or is money really tight? How important are accessories and their availability? Do they plan to also hunt with their defensive rifle? Do they have problems carrying long heavy rifles? What about felt recoil? Is their plan to have a CQB machine to keep by their bed, an all around rifle or a precision marksmenship machine. What kind of worst case scenario does this rifle fit into?
When we are talking about modern fairly common magazine fed semi automatic rifles such as the AK, AR, Mini- 14, M1A, FN-FAL, HK 91 series, etc. I am becoming less and less convinced there are any real absolutes. I don't think it is so much about the right rifle but the right rifle FOR YOU. If cost is a concern and you aren't so worried about long shots an AK could be a great choice. If you really like commonality and adaptability but cost is a factor then maybe an AR is the answer. If you like the power of a .308 but are concerned about the cost of magazines and spare parts then an HK 91 type could be the way to go. If love rifles made of wood and steel, you really want to reach out and touch someone accurately and money isn't a concern then an M1A would be a good choice. A great rifle for one person might be a horrible rifle for another.
Personally I like AR's and AK's. In terms of rifles I grew up on AR's. I have more muscle memory with that platform than any other or any two others combined. I have a lot of experience and comfort when it comes to that platform. I also appreciate that they are easy to use and pretty darn accurate without completely breaking the bank. I got an AK for no particular reason a few years back. For a random spur of the moment (made the decision at a gun store) purchase I couldn't have done better. I am coming to like AK's more and more. They are affordable to purchase, very affordable to equip, utterly reliable and as rugged as they come. Also they are pretty fun to shoot.
I urge you to be realistic about your budget and consider what it will cost to fully (however you define that) equip a rifle. Next think about your own unique scenario. Do plenty of research and fire as many weapons as possible. Seriously reflect on and consider your options for this major purchase and you will end up with a weapon that will serve you well.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Tueller Drill and Knives: Myth, Fantasy and Reality
FerFal wrote an interesting post today. It left me with three thoughts. 1) The human body is a beautiful and interesting thing which reacts pretty randomly to violent trauma. One healthy 20 year old male can take (just as an example) a whack on the noggin and be fine and another will pop a blood vessel in the brain and be dead on the floor. Short of truly massive trauma not much is guaranteed to kill a human being. While they can make for interesting examples it is best to look at large groups and broad statistical trends and not get bogged down with onesy and twoesy kind of cases.
2) The Tueller Drill is an interesting thing. Read more about it here and here. It is also known as the 21 foot rule and that name is probably more accurate. The drill itself isn't so useful, it is the rule that comes from it and the well tested scientific evidence behind it that are useful. Basically the jist is that it takes right about as fast for a guy with a knife to cover 21 feet and presumably shank you as it does for a reasonably trained individual to draw and fire an accurate shot. It really is useful as an educational tool and protection for armed citizens should they face a goblin with an edged or impact weapon. It helped scientifically dispell the lawyer and prosecutor based idea that guns are magical talismans and unless a guy with a knife is 3 feet away you shouldn't be able to defend yourself. In short the 21 foot rule did a lot to break down the myth that guns are some sort of a magical talisman.
I do however think that the Tueller Drill/ 21 foot rule has created a sort of fantasy around knives.Sure knives are dangerous. Lots of people got killed with pointy and or blunt objects before guns were invented and lots more have been killed with them after guns were widely available. However I strongly disagree with the idea that at under 21 feet knives are better than guns. This is a fantasy because in the Tueller Drill the guy with the knife starts with it in his hand and the guy with the gun starts in its holster. It doesn't mean that knives are supperior, just that under this scenario the guy with the knife has an advantage.
While I do respect what the 21 foot rule has done for LEO's and private armed citizens some folks are taking this too much at face value and not digging deeper. If you dig a little deeper you would see that it is more about two things. First in terms of the real world it shows that action beats reaction. The guy with the weapon in his hands has a real advantage, go figure. Also secondly it shows that certain acts take a perscribed amount of time and thus acts which take less time are faster.
The advantage the knife has in the Tueller Drill is that it is in the hand and that coupled with moving a perscribed distance is comparable in time to drawing and firing a pistol, not that it is intrinsically better than the gun. If the knife was in a sheath or the gun was in a hand it would be a very different drill. It is more about quicker movements and action vs reaction. It isn't that the knife is better because a bat, tire iron, can of campbells soup, flower or a serving of cotton candy can all have the same advantage. Individual weapons don't matter because we aren't talking apples and apples but are talking apples and oranges. Clearly cotton candy isn't deadly.
When we are talking apples and apples I don't think anybody would choose a knife at 21 feet. How many accurate shots can an average handgunner get off on a male torso sized target in a second and a half? I imagine a couple if they are average and a few if they are above average. Jerry Miculek could ponder the endless questions of life for a half second and them put 6 rounds in the head. It doesn't matter if the knife wielder is a hard core MS13 prison thug that has killed 15 people with blades and also studied Philipino Knife fighting for 20 years. The deadly thug/ martial artist can even have a genuine ginsu knife in his hands but it doesn't matter because he doesn't have a head anymore.
It would be very, very difficult to convince me that a gun is not better than a knife at 21 feet. However 4 feet is a more interesting discusssion. Knives have the advantage that they are hard to impossible to grab from a trained hand or deflect without the consequence of getting cut. Conversely if the barrel of a pistol just has to be pointed away to make it harmless. [Semi automatic pistols have the real disadvantage that they cannot fire 'contact shots'. It doesn't take much pressure on the barrel/ slide to put a semi automatic handgun into battery which makes them useless. This is an area where revolvers have a real advantage though it is so specific of a scenario to IMO factor into your carry choices.] However pistols are IMO more capable of rapidly stopping an opponent than knives, at least when relative skill is factored in. Also if you consider a moderate amount of hand to hand defensive tactics and or movement on the part of the guy with the gun (versus passively being stationary while getting stabbed) and the game changes considerably. FWIW the only time I would take a knife over a gun is if the fight started grappling on the ground.
To me the big take-away of the Tueller Drill is not to hesitate in the use of deadly force if you face the threat of a contact weapon. Also that you need to be highly aware to have the maximum amount of time to react to a potential threat. It isn't so much about individual weapons but states of readiness and speed of employment. You let somebody with an inferior weapon be more ready and employ their weapons faster and you've got issues. For example would you want to assemble and load an AR 15 while somebody 15 feet away threw bricks at you? I don't think so. There are many things you could do but sitting there trying to get the firing pin retaining pin in place would not be a good one. It is about rapidly recognizing a threat and employing the most effective weapon you can as quickly as you can. Hopefully quick enough to avoid the other guy doing irrevocable harm upon you.
Thoughts?
2) The Tueller Drill is an interesting thing. Read more about it here and here. It is also known as the 21 foot rule and that name is probably more accurate. The drill itself isn't so useful, it is the rule that comes from it and the well tested scientific evidence behind it that are useful. Basically the jist is that it takes right about as fast for a guy with a knife to cover 21 feet and presumably shank you as it does for a reasonably trained individual to draw and fire an accurate shot. It really is useful as an educational tool and protection for armed citizens should they face a goblin with an edged or impact weapon. It helped scientifically dispell the lawyer and prosecutor based idea that guns are magical talismans and unless a guy with a knife is 3 feet away you shouldn't be able to defend yourself. In short the 21 foot rule did a lot to break down the myth that guns are some sort of a magical talisman.
I do however think that the Tueller Drill/ 21 foot rule has created a sort of fantasy around knives.Sure knives are dangerous. Lots of people got killed with pointy and or blunt objects before guns were invented and lots more have been killed with them after guns were widely available. However I strongly disagree with the idea that at under 21 feet knives are better than guns. This is a fantasy because in the Tueller Drill the guy with the knife starts with it in his hand and the guy with the gun starts in its holster. It doesn't mean that knives are supperior, just that under this scenario the guy with the knife has an advantage.
While I do respect what the 21 foot rule has done for LEO's and private armed citizens some folks are taking this too much at face value and not digging deeper. If you dig a little deeper you would see that it is more about two things. First in terms of the real world it shows that action beats reaction. The guy with the weapon in his hands has a real advantage, go figure. Also secondly it shows that certain acts take a perscribed amount of time and thus acts which take less time are faster.
The advantage the knife has in the Tueller Drill is that it is in the hand and that coupled with moving a perscribed distance is comparable in time to drawing and firing a pistol, not that it is intrinsically better than the gun. If the knife was in a sheath or the gun was in a hand it would be a very different drill. It is more about quicker movements and action vs reaction. It isn't that the knife is better because a bat, tire iron, can of campbells soup, flower or a serving of cotton candy can all have the same advantage. Individual weapons don't matter because we aren't talking apples and apples but are talking apples and oranges. Clearly cotton candy isn't deadly.
When we are talking apples and apples I don't think anybody would choose a knife at 21 feet. How many accurate shots can an average handgunner get off on a male torso sized target in a second and a half? I imagine a couple if they are average and a few if they are above average. Jerry Miculek could ponder the endless questions of life for a half second and them put 6 rounds in the head. It doesn't matter if the knife wielder is a hard core MS13 prison thug that has killed 15 people with blades and also studied Philipino Knife fighting for 20 years. The deadly thug/ martial artist can even have a genuine ginsu knife in his hands but it doesn't matter because he doesn't have a head anymore.
It would be very, very difficult to convince me that a gun is not better than a knife at 21 feet. However 4 feet is a more interesting discusssion. Knives have the advantage that they are hard to impossible to grab from a trained hand or deflect without the consequence of getting cut. Conversely if the barrel of a pistol just has to be pointed away to make it harmless. [Semi automatic pistols have the real disadvantage that they cannot fire 'contact shots'. It doesn't take much pressure on the barrel/ slide to put a semi automatic handgun into battery which makes them useless. This is an area where revolvers have a real advantage though it is so specific of a scenario to IMO factor into your carry choices.] However pistols are IMO more capable of rapidly stopping an opponent than knives, at least when relative skill is factored in. Also if you consider a moderate amount of hand to hand defensive tactics and or movement on the part of the guy with the gun (versus passively being stationary while getting stabbed) and the game changes considerably. FWIW the only time I would take a knife over a gun is if the fight started grappling on the ground.
To me the big take-away of the Tueller Drill is not to hesitate in the use of deadly force if you face the threat of a contact weapon. Also that you need to be highly aware to have the maximum amount of time to react to a potential threat. It isn't so much about individual weapons but states of readiness and speed of employment. You let somebody with an inferior weapon be more ready and employ their weapons faster and you've got issues. For example would you want to assemble and load an AR 15 while somebody 15 feet away threw bricks at you? I don't think so. There are many things you could do but sitting there trying to get the firing pin retaining pin in place would not be a good one. It is about rapidly recognizing a threat and employing the most effective weapon you can as quickly as you can. Hopefully quick enough to avoid the other guy doing irrevocable harm upon you.
Thoughts?
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