DHS Eleventy Gazillion Rounds of Ammo

I had an interesting conversation today that merited sharing here. Met a guy socially and we got to talking. Somehow the whole 'DHS is buying every bullet in the world' thing came up. (A gal mentioned it was why she couldn't find 9mm [which DHS isn't buying anyway but she is a nice lady so I didn't want to sharp shoot] ammo) He started shaking his head. I should mention this guy works for customs. Pretty common down here around the border. You are far more likely to run into one  here than if you were in Kansas or something.

Dude shared 2 interesting things that I thought were worth mentioning. First he shoots 4,000 rounds a year of pistol ammo (currently .40). Second and more importantly it is all hollow point's. Dude's been working that job for twenty years and has been shooting all HP the whole time. Between being very blunt on other topics and having no reason whatsoever to lie I'm pretty sure he was above board.

Anyway that's something to think about when you read stuff on the internet.

Just Read the FM's?

American Mercenary wrote an excellent post. Army Field Manuals, like any other sort of reference tend to be geared toward people with a working understanding of the topic. They are meant to help make sure you do not miss a step, not to teach you something from the ground up.

What I am getting at is that a guy with a background like AM or myself could get a bit rusty in a staff job then pick up a Ranger Handbook and one of FM 7-8 and quickly reorient ourselves to light infantry tactics. In contrast someplace I have a Chilton Manual for a '76-79 (or whatever the specific years of the book covered) Chevy half ton truck plus a reasonable variety of hand tools. That doesn't mean I can change out that particular truck's carburetor or give it a tune up. Joe Mechanic could take that Chilton Manual plus my tools then do all sorts of stuff to that truck because he has a frame of reference. However give Joe Mechanic a Ranger Handbook, FM 7-8, an AR-15 and a fighting load and he'll do about as good of a job with it as I would taking that engine apart.

Unfortunately some folks without a frame of reference think they can learn from manuals or other references. A few can, we call them geniuses or savants or whatever. That being said for the 1 in a million who can learn Jui Jitsu/ Piano/ Small Engine repair from a book there are the other 999,999 who cannot. Most people simply are unable to learn that way and need some sort of more organized instruction. Those who fail to realize this simply do not know what they do not know.

Anyway those are my thoughts on that.

Battle Drills and SOP's

FM 25-101 defines a battle drill as "a collective action rapidly executed without applying a deliberate decision-making process."
a. Characteristics of a battle drill are--

• They require minimal leader orders to accomplish and are standard throughout the Army.
• Sequential actions are vital to success in combat or critical to preserving life.
• They apply to platoon or smaller units.
• They are trained responses to enemy actions or leader's orders.
• They represent mental steps followed for offensive and defensive actions in training and combat.

I could not find a good definition for Standard Operating Procedure. My informal one is simply a standardized way of doing something within an organization.

A battle drills is a collective response to a given event applied rapidly with minimal thinking. According to FM 7-8 there are 8 battle drills but some obvious alternatives could be put in place to suit a specific units mission. Some of the Army ones could be used more or less as is, others might be discarded (conduct initial breach of a mined wire obstacle comes to mind) while some new ones (react to house fire and react to home invasion come to mind) depending on your group as well as it's concerns. Furthermore SOP's are often the basis for METL tasks.

Where battle drills fail is if people try to make battle drills out of something too complicated or if everybody doesn't know how to execute the drill. An ambush or a raid are not good candidates for becoming battle drills because there are too many variables. Doing the wrong thing all the time is nicely standardized but not effective. People not knowing battle drills is self explanatory. If a person cannot do their part cold under any conditions without thought they do not know it. Muscle memory comes from practice; so PRACTICE ALREADY.

SOP's vary more as they can deal with stuff (keep a tourniquet in your left cargo pocket would be an example) or smaller pieces of how we do things. As a general rule anything on your person or gear that another person might need to rapidly find should be part of an SOP. Medical gear, commo stuff, ammo, group gear (the bino's, breaching gear, etc) and the like should be part of an SOP. On the other hand snacks, spare socks, luxury items or whatnot can IMO go in whatever reasonable place people want to put them.

In terms of doing things SOP's get really into the weeds on both general and collective tasks such as battle drills or METL tasks. Whether the back man in a stack signals being ready with a shoulder squeeze, a head tap, butt slap or whatever would be an SOP. The specific commands a group uses for buddy movement would be an SOP. Hand signals should be done by SOP. [Everybody seems to think other people know what they mean with hand signals but it just isn't so within the Army, at least beyond the 3-5 most common ones, so SOP's are needed to ensure a common understanding]You get the idea.

SOP's in the Army can get silly into everything because that is our nature. For a family or survivalist type group I would say that within reason (that's what team leaders and squad leaders are for;) unless there is a compelling reason to standardize something people should be left to their own devices.

Packing lists can be a part of SOP's. In general I am not a fan of blanket standardized packing lists. The reason for this is that equipment should be driven by the mission not what somebody thought should be on a list months ago. A standardized packing list for a specific mission makes more sense to me as it can take into account the variables such as what you are doing, where you are doing it, the time length of the mission, etc all. Granted there will be some similarities most of the time but the exercise of thinking it through has merit. Breaching stuff isn't needed in the woods and E tools are not very useful in the city. You get the idea.

Do not make an SOP without a compelling reason. Sometimes they are not actually easier. There can also be issues if nobody i son the same page for what mag count constitutes green/ amber/ red ammo counts. This brings us into the second and more significant problem with SOP's. SOP's are only as good as peoples compliance and understanding of them. If Tim thinks 4 full mags is green, Bob thinks it's 3 and the actual number is 6 for green, 4 for amber and 3 for red there is going to be faulty reporting which could drive uninformed decision making.

The solutions are to keep SOP's simple, the compelling reason standard helps here by minimizing the sheer number of SOP's, and practice/ enforce them to the point of mastery by the youngest stupidest person in the group. If Bob who's nice but destined to top out at ditch digger gets it everybody else should.

If folks show enough interest I will dig into some existing battle drills and SOP's as well as discuss potential ones to suit survivalist/ prepper needs.

Fix Your Weaknesses- I am Getting Trained

If I haven't mentioned it Wifey took the kids home to go to a wedding and visit. Since most of the cost is getting her there it made sense for her to stay for awhile. So that means I am a geo bachelor for a few weeks. All of the household responsibilities of a normal bachelor but no dating (well you're not supposed to anyway and I certainly am not).

In any case I am taking advantage of this time to try and do some things. One of those things is taking a pistol class. I pulled the trigger today and will be heading up to Tuscon to Warrior School in a couple weeks for their Defensive Pistol class. The place was recommended to me by a smart guy I trust. Would like to track down enough 9mm fmj at a sane price to avoid dipping into the stash for range ammo. That doesn't really matter though.

Getting better with a pistol is something I've been wanting to do for awhile. Honestly I'm about as far as I'll easily get by myself. Putting money into a class makes a lot more sense to me than slinging it downrange hoping to get better. Thankfully the money is not a primary concern but if I had to sell a gun to fund this it would still be a smart move.

Pistols are my primary concern first because I'm the least competent and able to train myself to be better with them and secondly because that's what one is by far most likely to get into a fight with. It's going to be a fight with my CCW gun in a parking lot, not the AR in our house or some field.

I am not telling you to do what I am doing. We all have different weak points and what is right for me is probably not right for you. The point I am trying to make is to systematically look at your strengths and weaknesses both of personal skills, systems and food storage then work to make them better.

Address your weak points while you the opportunity is still available.

Dry Fire Practice- Little Things

This evening after putting Walker to bed I conducted some dry fire training. It was pretty good. Definitely getting used to handing the smaller J frame and it's trigger. One nice thing about a DAO revolver is that you cannot cheat and thumb cock it so you just have to get comfortable with the trigger. I am eager to get it out to the range and put some more ammo through it. This trip will coincide with zeroing the new scope for the AR after it arrives.

Did notice one interesting thing when shooting the wheel gun. My Blackhawk IWB holster came out with the gun a couple times. Admittedly it was probably just because I was repeatedly drawing without taking the time to really reset the holster. That consideration aside it is still no bueno. An easy fix is to undo the velcro on my rigger belt, slip the holster in and then re velcro the belt. The bottom of the plastic clip sort of looks like an upside down T that hooks on both sides of the belt keeping it solidly in place. I will probably talk more about this holster at some point. It's not perfect but for $10 picking one up when you get a gun then figuring out another option down the road when your budget allows (if you even feel the need to) is a solid option. Elitists will hate it but a $10 holster that is good enough for casual use or to get you started on a busget has some real value in the market place.

Next I shifted to rifle work. I haven't rocked iron's as primary sights for awhile and wanted to get used to using them in a CQB type setting. Also I needed to knock some dust off the old muscle memory. Rifle work was good. Weapon manipulation and target acquisition were solid. Also spent some time training with the tac light. With it located at about 1:30 the setup is pretty natural. The only minor issue is if I get lazy about grip my thumb can obscure the sights. Optics sit slightly higher so this should be less of an issue. If a bit more training will not fix this I will look at other mounting options or a pressure switch.

The point I am trying to get to is that we find flaws and weak points in our gear, systems and capabilities when we use them. Little things come up and we figure them out by setting stuff up differently or training appropriately. Occasionally something big pops up that must be dealt with. If you just buy a gun, a holster and a bunch of hollow points  then load up the gun and stick it in the holster to occasionally travel with you these flaws never appear. It is true that you may live a charmed life and never have these unknown flaws become huge problems but not everyone is so lucky.

Get out and use your stuff. Getting out and shooting is great but with the limited availability and high price of ammo these days it may be hard to do often. Dry fire is free and you can do it at home so there are no excuses.

Just Do It!

Pride

So many times people let their pride stand in the way of bettering themselves. Dudes are worse about this than chicks for whatever reason. We dudes seem to have the impression that we can shoot like Chris Costa and fight like a young Mike Tyson even if we can't hit a barn from the inside or beat up a 12 year old yellow belt Taekwondo student.

My point is that we need to objectively assess our own skills to find the strengths and shortages. We then need to seek out qualified people (paid or not) to help work on those shortages. Sucking it up and taking a couple classes or spending some afternoons with a friend learning can do a world of good. Not fun to admit not knowing something but the short term sucking it up to fix the problem beats a whole life of continuing to know know the thing.

Have you let pride stand in the way of bettering yourself?

Draft New Years Resolutions

So a few days ago Alexander Wolfe of TEOTWAWKI Blog reminded me that I usually do New Years Resolutions. Last years deployment threw off the cycle. Anyway I got moving on this a lot later than usual; so these are not as thought through as they could be. I am posting some ideas. In a week or a month these will be solidified into the New Years Resolutions I am going to run with.

Physical:

Maintain a consistent weight lifting program.

Run over 1,000 miles

Ruck at least 1x a week

Eat reasonably with decent consistency so I don't gain and lose the same weight 2-3 times over the year.

Skills/ Training:

Attend a defensive handgun course.

Attend a trauma based first aid class (I am due for retraining).

Work on developing a variety of other skills as they come up by doing as much myself as possible.

Guns and Gun Junk:

Pick up a couple holsters, pouches and assorted other stuff to get squared away for what we have. 

Buy 2 cases of .223 ammo.

Free float the barrel on project AR. 

Get more spare parts. Beef up on core stuff (AR's and Glocks) and get some basic stuff for other guns.

Finally get my (already sporterized) 1903 30'06 tapped and mount a scope on it. 

If this gun ban madness calms down start building an AR pistol.

Food:

Build up to a 1 year supply of food for 4 people.

Can something

Pursue gardening/ fishing/ hunting as it fits with our environment and life. 

 Energy/ Other:

Get a better solar setup. A bigger panel with a power supply and a few small lights is the answer. Goal 0 makes what I am looking for. It will cost about $400. Probably 500 once I get the lights. This would have gotten purchased late in 2012 but the whole ban madness shifted my priorities elsewhere.

Get licensed to drive a motorcycle. Purchase a used enduro/ adventure touring motorcycle.

Continue putting together and refining our systems. Firm up the bug out bags and the heavy (vehicle) bug out setup.

Re look and improve our cache situation.

Financial:

Continue being debt free and saving. Along these lines continue not doing stupid things. 

Once we are done with the food storage goal get back to putting away some silver and gold.

Long Shots:

Get a DBAL for my AR.

Buy some land (this mostly depends on some other things).

As always input is welcome. It would be fairly useful now before these resolutions are solidified. 

Dry Fire Practice

I have started doing dry fire practice over the past few days. Definitely good stuff. I have figured out a few things and am getting my overall concealed carry system sorted out. While K over at Combat Studies Group has some interesting ideas to fill a few sessions I am sort of flying fast and loose without an overall plan. Suspect I will end up with something cyclical. Will figure it out soon enough; if I recall there is a good book on dry fire training on my Amazon wish list.

Need to figure out the shooting scene here. My goal is to conduct dry fire training not less than 6 days a week and live fire training monthly. Would like bi weekly better but I am not sure if that is realistic right now. Will have a better idea once I figure out the logistics of shooting here and some other stuff. Certainly monthly is realistic.

I discovered the TV show Longmire and it is pretty cool. A contemporary Western that has some of the good parts of those old shows without being a cheese throwback.

Anyway that stuff was all going on and all of a sudden I realized it was after midnight and I hadn't posted anything today. Now I'm off to bed.

Free and Low Cost Survivalist Actions

After my recent post "I can't afford to prepare" I got to thinking of ways to prepare yourself that cost little to nothing. First we will talk about free ways.

1.Physical fitness. Start a running program. Put on your ruck and do some marching. Do body weight exercises like pushups, situps, pullups, planks, dips and plunges. Lift heavy things because well, it makes you stronger and more awesome. If you cannot wrangle free access to weights (or theoretically other good heavy things) to lift I recommend that you check out Beast Skills and Convict Conditioning  (brief description, you tube channel, I have heard you can find a PDF of the book online if so inclined) for some ideas on serious body weight training.

2. Dry fire practice. Do it. Drawing your pistol, ready up drills for the rifle, mag changes and trigger squeeze drills. Somewhere awhile back John Mosby talked about this if I recall.

3. Planning. Put thought and research into things that worry you.

4. Organize your stuff. Build thought out systems to suit your needs using things you already have.

5. Cross training, If you are a skilled mechanic the other members of your group or family should be also. Same if you are an MMA guy or a competitive shooter or an ER nurse.

Revenue neutral ways to prepare. These ways are not free but are ways to get more out of things most folks already do.

1. Shooting. If I had to guess about a quarter of the US based readers of this blog shoot monthly. Probably half (50%, not half of the remainder) shoot at least quarterly. Be intentional about this shooting. Don't get me wrong dumping mag after mag into empty beer cases and such is fun. Plinking is one of my favorite things to do. However if money is tight (and probably anyway) you need to really get something out of shooting. Shoot to zero a weapon, improve or test a skill, not to destroy cheap pumpkins you got the day after Halloween. Again I have to refer you to John Mosby's excellent site for specifics, half because he talks it better than me and half because I don't feel like working hard enough on a post at this time to do the topic justice.

2. Food Storage via normal food purchasing. This takes a few bucks to get going but is definitely worth it. By purchasing THINGS YOU NORMALLY EAT in quantity when they are on good sales you can then wait until they are on sale again. Thus you can eat stuff at sale prices (almost) all the time. Also by not needing to purchase baked beans (or whatever) every week it frees up dollars to buy extra peanut butter when it is on sale. By dropping the average price of much of the food you eat it lowers the cost though that money will likely be sitting in the pantry, not the checking account. You can eat better and increase food storage without spending more. Talk about a win.

Working coupons helps a lot also. So many folks talk this better than I do. Also learning which sales are when helps a lot. This is best when you can work 2-3 big stores. Buy meat once a month at the big sale at store A, canned goods when store B does BOGO, or whatever you can work.

I noticed that the sidebar with my links, ads and such was gone from the main page. Since I didn't change anything I am going to wait a couple days in the hope that the problem is a glitch that will correct itself.

Anyway I hope you all enjoy the post.

 

What are your Weak Points and What are you Doing About Them?

Know how when you are pissed off at somebody everything they do just makes you more angry? Like at #*$*(# at the office who has the darn nerve to sit and quietly work at their desk? Well that has been just about everything for me today. Not entirely sure why but I am really annoyed without any particularly good reason.

Anyway I have been looking at our weak points lately.

First and foremost our food storage situation is not good right now. From the point where I started earning real money we were moving, then we got to Germany which has it's own issues. We have established, then tried to eat up, a decent 90+ day food supply wherever we went. In about 2 months we are headed back to the US. Among other things we are going to vigerously pursue a serious food storage program. This will be the biggest single goal we will be pursueing. I expect it will take a year or two to really get to where we want to be.

In terms of skills I need to get better with a handgun. I am not where I need to be and for better or worse this is the gun most likely to be fought with. Some professional training will happen to pursue this objective. Attending an Appleseed would be interesting also. I don't really need any sort of cool guy CQB rifle stuff. A shotgun course might be worthwhile but that is low on the list and years away.

We have some work to do on cross training between Wifey and myself. I need to improve or build some domestic skill sets and she can use some defensive and primative living skills. This is probably going to be a work in progresss for the foreseeable future. That is OK since it doesn't really end until I know everything she knows and visa versa.

That really answers the questions for my house.

What are your weak points and what are you doing about them?

Azimuth Check

I have stolen this title from Lizard Farmer who runs an excellent newish blog that focuses on retreat/ farm/ ranch defense. His post was more a check on how folks thought his blog was doing. I will head in a different direction. My azimuth check is more about the direction from where my/ your overall situation was to where we want it to be. I will break it into a few categories.

Finances:
How is your debt situation? Do you have any debt with an adjustable or otherwise particularly high interest rate?

Do you have some savings for if something happens?

Do you have some money accessible to buy things if there is an event that interupts normal banking (this means cash on hand)?

If you can afford it have you considered putting some money into precious metals? There isn't a right or wrong answer to this one. Folks differ widely on this topic.

Health:
Are you and your family of a reasonably healthy body weight? If not are you making tangible progress towards getting there?

Do you have any health/ medical/ dental issues that could be improved but have not been? Maybe you need an elective surgery or have been putting off dental work or need to get into physical therapy to get something worked out. Bringing us back to the last question it is utterly amazing how many medical issues decrease or go away if you get to a reasonably healthy body weight.

If applicable do you keep a stash of essential perscription meds on hand? Keeping 30 days on hand is ok, 90 days is pretty decent and will cover a lot of issues but of course more is better. It may mean paying out of pocket but consider the alternative which is, to varying degrees, very ugly.

If applicable do you have at least a pair of spare glasses in your current perscription (two or three would be better)?


How are your chompers doing?

How are you doing at physical fitness? Can you walk long distances with a load? Run fast for short periods and slower for longer ones? Control your body weight through a variety of tasks and obstacles? Lift heavy things or carry another person?

Skills and Training:

Can you make a fire? At night? Can you do it when it has been raining for a week strait?

Can you find your way around with a compass and a map?

Can you make or improvise some sort of shelter to be as comfortable as possible in a variety of situations?

Can you turn basic staples like flour, rice or wheat into a decent or even tasty meal?

Can you grow or raise your own food?

Can you find or gather food from fishing, hunting, plant gathering or something else really cool I have never heard of?

Can you fix stuff? Mechanical things? Small arms? Brick and mortar? Wood? Plumbing? Electrical?

Can you engage targets with personal weapons in realistic circumstances?

Can you organize a defense be it at home or in some sort of hasty situation?

If the Chinese invade or whateveer can you plan and execute small unit Red Dawn/ partisan/ G style offensive operations?

Stockpile and Equipment:

How is your food storage doing?

Do you have personal weapons as well as the stuff needed to use them? Do you have some spare parts, cleaning stuff and ammunition to keep your guns running without a trip to Wally World or the local gun shop?

How are you doing at storing all of the other stuff like medical supplies, batteries, fuel, cleaning and hygiene stuff, spare parts, etc all to keep on keeping on as well as you can without outside assistance?

Is the stuff you have put together into kits or packages or systems that will meet your needs on short notice?

I am sure there are some good questions that I missed. This covers a ton of ground so do not be ashamed if there are some areas where you fall short. My goal is to give you some areas to think about and see where you are at. Every one of these questions is not equally applicable to all situations. Like many things you would be well advised look at these questions with brutal honesty, action what is applicable and disregard what is not.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Skill Saturday- Skill Development

skill/skil/

Noun:

The ability to do something well; expertise. A particular ability

 I decided to start paying more attention to skills here. Starting by talking about what skills are and different ways you can develop them seemed like as good of a place as any. To me skills differ from education or knowledge in that they relate so some sort of a specific action or end product. A mechanic could show his skill by fixing a vehicle or a chef by making a tasty meal.

Broadly speaking skills tend to be more difficult to develop on you own than knowledge. A guy who reads the right shelf of books and has a decent memory could learn a lot about history for example. It would be much harder to learn to fix engines from a shelf of books.

Thankfully over the last couple decades between how to tapes and DVD's, the internet, reasonably priced recording equipment and youtube there are some readily accessible individual options other than trying to figure things out from a small black and white picture in a book. Being able to read about something and see another person do it goes a long way towards making it actually work. Assuming we are talking about a reasonably simple skill and you are a moderately intelligent person this is often enough to get started.

The upsides of this self guided at home type learning are that you can do it whenever and almost wherever you want. You can learn skills that are uncommon in your area or you don't want to advertise pursueing for whatever reason. The downsides are that it is seriously limited in what you can learn. Complex skills with multiple things going on at once (shooting, hand to hand combat, complicated auto repair, etc) do not typically work well with this style of learning.

 In many cases the easiest way to develop a skill is to find somebody who has that skill and get them to show you how to do it. This is a good place to start for most skills. Look at people in and around your family/ friends/ work circles. Somebody probably knows how to do basic auto maintenance, another guy might know how to do tile or plumbing or shoot a gun. Typically folks are willing to help you out. Just about everybody likes an excuse to practice their hobby so if the skill falls into that area you are probably good to go. If it is something a guy does for a living like auto repair or construction it is a bit harder. Offering to help them work on a project of theirs vs offering to let them do their job outside of work and fix your car/ toilet/ whatever for free is something I have seen work well.

The upsides of this style of learning are that it is convenient, comfortable and cheap. All of these are good things.

The downsides however are noteable. Sometimes free training is worth exactly what you paid. Jimbo the gun guy or Bob the shade tree mechanic might be completely uncapable or even dangerous. Unfortunately folks with no experience in an area are often not capable of assessing an individuals skill or ability at instruction.  Often instruction in this style is limited by time and effort by both parties. If your 65 year old retired neighbor shot high power for 4 decades and is lonely he might teach you almost everything he knows over a few years of Sundays at the range but if your 30 year old cousin who casually target shoots takes you to the range once the amount of skills you get will be pretty minimal.

Also different groups vary but it is my observation that often skills tend to cluster in groups based on region/ socioeconomic/ cultural leanings. The odds that a rural Wyoming community has folks who can teach you to shoot or hunt are a lot higher than in Manhattan. On the other hand Jim the rancher probably can't do the paperwork to set up a dummy corp incorporate your small business in 20 minutes during a Saturday BBQ. Sometimes skills you need do not exist inside of your social group.

As with anything in life, you get what you pay for.

The next option is looking to local groups or clubs. Join an outdoors or orienteering club or whatever. This may cost a little bit of money but if paying a $20 membership fee and doing some stupid meetings lets you get a skill that you need it is a good investment. The upside is that you can pursue specific skills in this way. The downside would be that it really only applies to certain hobby type skills.

The last option is getting professional training in the area(s) you are weak in. If you really want to learn how to do something getting quality training from an expert is a hard option to beat. For specific skills which have a high level of technical complication that you really want to get good at this is probably the best way to go. Unless your good buddy is an MMA fighter or a tactical marksmenship instructor who is willing to teach you for weeks or years for free this is really the only viable options. One thing to consider is how much time and money you would need to spend to reach a given skill level. Lots of schools can teach you to be a decent defensive handgun shooter in a weekend for a few hundred bucks. Spending 2 years going full time to a technical school to learn to fix engines is a lot harder to pull off. The only real downside of this plan is that it is expensive. The old addage about trading time and convenience for money probably applies here.

Anyway while not exclusive the ways we talk about developing skills are pretty representative of the available options.

Thoughts?

Skills and Mindset

Recently I realized something that I do not like about this blog recently. There is not anywhere near enough discussion of skills, mindset's or training taking place here. After looking around long and hard for somebody to blame for this shortcoming I was unable to find anybody but myself.

I got to thinking about why exactly this is the case. The answer came about pretty easily. This blog is largely a reflection of what I am doing, working on or thinking about. Skilss haven't been a big part of this personal journey in survivalism or it's subsequent twists and turns.

The reason that skills haven't been a big part of my journey are that I came into this thing fairly comfortable with my skillsets. At the risk of tooting my own horn when I became seriously interested in survivalism I had a solid outdoor background, decent hand to hand and firearms/ tactical skills and a variety of little stuff learned from rural living and various redneck jobs. Certainly not saying that I know everything or am a master of anything but somehow I had a pretty good grab bag of skills to work with.

Once I started getting into this I pretty much needed stuff to feed the skill sets that already existed. This I have been more likely to be thinking and talking about something related to food storage than how to cook with a camp stove as I can do that. While I have worked on a small skill here or there it hasn't been a big part of my personal preparations.

I want to add these parts to the blog in greater frequency, mostly for readers. The way I talk and operate here works for somebody with a background similar to mine but would fail miserably for a lot of people. Different folks need different things to become more fully prepared. The desired endstates are the same but how to get there is different based on where one currently is. A super rural small scale organic farmer/ rancher has different needs and concerns than a big city SWAT cop. Obviously what is good for one person isn't necessarily good for another.

In any case broadly speaking my lack of discussion of skills is an issue. In the worst extreme it could leave them with thousands of dollars of stuff they don't have a clue what to do with. I will try to consciously step back and talk about different foundational skills to the best of my ability.

Priorities should probably go to the most foundational stuff. You have got to learn basic weapons handling before you learn to shoot steel at 1,000 meters and how to change the oil before rebuilding an engine. This also helps because it typically puts the easiest targets in front of you first. Finding a basic (qualified) instructor in firearms handling, outdoor skills, auto maintenance, etc is probably something you can do pretty locally and cheaply. Heck if you are willing to invest some time and sweat equity money may not even be an issue. Less so if you want to shoot like Sammy The Seal or Wally the Super Woodsman who an go into the woods with a knife and build a shopping mall.

Personally I have some things to work on. Mostly because of the eccentricities of Germany (as well as our OP Tempo and deployment) the skills I need to develop have pretty much been in a holding pattern. I need to get better at mechanical stuff and harvesting wild game/ plants. I could greatly benefit from some targeted professional firearms training. Additional medical training is always beneficial. I am almost surely missing other stuff. Some of these things will take sweat equity and the rest will take cold hard cash.

Not quite sure how I will do this. Maybe a weekly feature or something. Despite any of my failures as a blogger please pay attention to the skill sets which you have and those which you lack. Work to close the gap between the two. Come up with some sort of plan that will allow realistic progress towards these goals.

SHTF-Oriented Fitness and Martial Arts for a Middle-Aged Couch Potato

I saw this thread 1, 2 over at Survival Blog and have to talk about it.....

Things like this always kind of bother me. It is like folks are framing a question to get an answer they want. "What is the best gun if I do not want to spend a lot of money but want something super reliable and also really cool?" or "What is the best bolt action rifle that costs less than $120 has dirt cheap ammo and was manufactured between about 1898 and 1945 in a country that borders Poland and China?" Maybe even worse folks ask for seriously sub optimal and almost ridiculous advice like "So I won't exercise at all and will continue being a huge slob, also I am not willing to spend any money or time on preparedness, have no extra space in my home and am unwilling to change my current lifestyle in any way but how do I become completely prepared for the Zombie apocalypse in 30 days?"

For folks getting back into fitness the key is to start with something that is reasonably easy (in fancy words training OPTIMALLY not MAXIMALLY) and to slowly but CONSISTENTLY  and methodically progress in difficulty and length of effort based on some reasonably logical plan. Heck, those are the keys to fitness anyway but older folks with some extra pounds and maybe some injuries can't get away with what healthy 22 year olds can.
Tighten up on your diet is so important I just can't talk about it enough. Like a lot of things as you get older the slack goes away. At 20 or 25 most folks can eat just about anything and stay at a healthy weight but that goes away over time. I am not saying that you have to shift to a perfectly healthy diet tomorrrow but just about everybody can do better. Have a bit of discipline to not eat complete junk like fast food, chips and sweets all the time and pay some attention to your portions. A significant amount of the "bad knees/ hips/ backs" of 35-55 year olds would magically be cured by getting to a reasonable body weight.
Assuming a program makes some sense ie: is progressive or scalable, allows enough time to recover, has strength, muscular endurance and running/ rucking type components and generally passes the common sense test it should be just fine. Doing something is probably more important than following the perfect program.
As to specific points that came up in this series with my comments:

"To start with, use only a few primitive techniques (punches, kicks, blocks, movements) and combinations of them. A simple well-practiced technique is far better than several of those which you won’t be able to do in the critical situation. A simple and reliable technique is far more valuable than a complex one."

I agree with this but it kind of misses a simple and valuable point. The basics are what make you a good athlete or fighter. It is honestly a disservice to call them the basics in that it demeans them and implies that there are some more useful and advanced techniques out there. The difference between a total novice and a great fighter or shooter is that a great fighter or shooter can properly apply the basics very quickly at the right time with a high level of consistency while a novice fails at some or maybe even all of those.

For example anyone could learn in an afternoon the exact same skills that Chris Costa of Magpul fame or genuine Tier 1 Bad Mama Jamma Larry Vickers use to draw and fire a handgun. Does this mean that they would be able to put a round downrange from concealed carry in the same sort of time, let alone have the same accuracy? Does it mean that Mr. Couch Commando could defend himself as efficiently as either of those gentlemen could if he was attacked leaving the Bank after cashing a check? I seriously doubt it.
If you can’t do at least 50 push-ups in a single set, your punch will never be any good."

This is just stupid and is really what bothered me enought to write this whole thing in the first place. First of all let us look at where striking "power" comes from, namely proper technique and then sheer strength.

I have been hit by a lot of people in my life. Some of them were professional fighters. A professional welterweight outpunched a few 220+ pound big strong men because he really knew exactly what he was doing. Bringing us back to the first point for a second this is a great example of mastering the basics. Secondly if we factor it out technique by getting fighters of similar skill levels then sheer raw strength (and size but those two usually rhyme) is what matters in terms of striking power. A punch is a quick aggressive movement of near full force. If you are going to exercise to hit hard you lift big heavy things to get stronger, period. Local muscular endurance, which is what max rep pushups measure has absolutely nothing to do with this other than that it may be losely related to strength.A guy who is strong (we would have to define that but I don't feel like tossing out some random arbitrary numbers) can hit hard, a guy who is REALLY STRONG can hit REALLY HARD.  Jim Wendler or Matt Kroc could hypothetically have the fighting technique of an average elementary school kid and still hit REALLY HARD because they are just that strong.
Lastly to utterly refute this concept I bring up Butterbean. I rather doubt he could do 50 good pushups but he sure hits hard.

In a reply to this post a fellow recommends training in some Japanese swordfighting thing called Kendo to get into shape. This sounds like a great plan if you want to learn traditional Japanese swordfighting but is a poor allocation of precious time and money if you want to get into shape or learn an effective modern martial art to defend yourself with. It honestly seems sort of like apprenticing yourself to a buggy whip manufacturer.
Well, those are my thoughts on that.

Just Do It

There is a saying in running that “the hardest part is putting your shoes on.” I go through it about every other time I run; it is wet/ cold/ windy/ hot and I am sore/ tired/ busy with work/ have lots of stuff to do so maybe it would be better to just run tomorrow instead. Most of the time my motivated side wins and I do in fact go running. About 95% of the time that is the right decision.

I am coming to see that most things are a lot like running in that regard. It is always easier to start dieting tomorrow, start saving next paycheck and go train at the range next weekend. Today you can have a double quarter pounder with cheese, this paycheck you can buy some junk and this weekend you can vegetate on the couch.

My advice is to just do it. Tomorrow/ next paycheck/ next weekend it isn’t going to be any easier.
Most of us are inherently lazy in our personal time. After a long day at work we just want to relax. However sometimes our current lazy side needs to take a back seat for the long term goals we have for ourselves. You will not be in better shape in a year if you don’t do anything different. If you don’t save you will keep living paycheck to paycheck. Why people keep doing the same thing and expecting different results is utterly beyond me. IIRC it is the definition of insanity.

While I gave some examples here and I do give advice in other posts telling you what to do is not my goal. Maybe you want to get better at long distance shooting and gardening or sewing and mechanical repair, or cooking with staple foods or whatever. My point is to start doing it. Don’t be that guy who buys the same “how to get 6 pack abs” edition of mens health  (versus the other two issues “how to get huge arms” and “how to add 40 pounds to your bench press this week”) and reads it to then eat a whole pizza and wash it down with a 6 pack. Be the guy who buys the magazine, starts eating reasonably and running, the guy who might actually trim down his stomach.

Don’t just sit around waiting for things to change, do it.

Leveraging Experts

One thing that has worked very well for me in life is seeking out and taking the advice of experts in various fields. I would not be where I am in numerous areas without these folks. I have been able to get new ideas, bounce my plans and ideas off of them and generally leverage their experience in a certain field to my benefit.  There are folks I talk to about money, folks I talk to about tools or home repair or computer stuff or taxes. Some are friends, family or neighbors and others are in a more professional capacity.

It goes without saying that these folks excel, at least relatively, in the area in which I seek their guidance. The person I consult on financial stuff is loaded (despite never having a massive salary), and the guy I listen to on strength stuff is really strong, the guys I listen to on defensive stuff are folks I really would not want to fight. Get the idea?

It never ceases to amaze me when people look to someone else who is not good (or great) at something for advice. How some somebody going to help you get good at something when they are not excelling in that area? Maybe more significantly why in heavens name would you listen to them? A friend of mine used to always try and give me financial advice. His history read much more like a cautionary tale than a financial success, I wasn’t rude but I certainly didn’t follow it! When fat people try to give me diet advice I have to bite my tongue or leave to avoid openly mocking them.

In recent years the internet was really democratized information. Instead of just being able to talk to people you personally know or buying a book you can (via blogs and websites and forums) hear the opinions of all sorts of people. Want to hear a 40 year old mom from Peduke, Iowa’s opinions on finances or a 23 year old guy from California’s thoughts on weight training? You can do that.

The big issue with this wealth of information is that there are a bunch of totally unqualified people giving advice which is often wrong or misleading or even dangerous. (Yeah it is ironic that I write this on my blog) Total beginners giving other beginners advice is a huge problem, particularly in forums. All sorts of massive problems stem from this.

So how do we sift the wheat from the chaff? The first thing I can say is to really listen to people, especially when they talk about themselves. I have found that most people are generally honest online (at least on forums and blogs that are based around specific things like fitness, self defense, guns, finances, etc) and the ones who aren’t are so stupid it is easy to tell. It isn’t beginners portraying their selves as something else and other beginners following their lead; it is self described beginners giving their opinion and other beginners taking it. It is worth noting that I do frequent numerous blogs and am on a couple forums now and then. I find them useful. I tend to lean toward paying more attention to concrete individual reviews, reports or experiences than people’s broad ideas. How easy is it to make this modification or does this product suck sort of things. A guy who has put this pouch onto that chest rig and had issues is talking about something he personally experienced. I don’t care what he thinks is a perfect load out rig or zombie killing gun.  Often I will find someone else has already asked a question and gotten it answered or I can find something similar. The best is when I find something a few months old where one person gave another advice and they had time to try it and come back and say how it worked.

Also educating yourself on a topic through a variety of resources which you know are legitimate. I have found that with some basic knowledge in an area I can smell bad ideas and BS in a given area easily. Certainly long before I fully understand the topic or have mastered it. Do however beware of confirmation bias which is where we seek out experts whose ideas totally mesh with the ones we have which makes them validate our original beliefs, sort of “yes experts” if you will.

Do you leverage experts in your life? If not I would consider it.

Thoughts on Insurgencies- What Made the Mujahedeen Successful

Thoughts on Insurgencies- What Made The Mujahedeen Successful?
I am going to try to discuss some of the reasons the Mujahedeen were so successful in Afghanistan against the Soviet’s. Some might draw parallels to the US experience here and I would say they have a case in some areas, though not in others. In no particular order here we go.
•    Rural Afghan’s are, particularly in the South and East of the country, strongly tribal in nature and very militaristic. When not fighting outsiders the tribes seem to, almost without exception, fight each other. It is about the closest thing to a cultural pastime as this country has.
•    They started out reasonably trained in small unit and individual tactics. Why, well I think consistent tribal warfare is the answer. This was probably the most helpful in the beginning because if you take anybody and toss them into a guerilla war after a year, should they be alive, they have some skills and knowledge.
•    They fought to their strengths and as such avoided their enemy’s strengths. Knowledge of local terrain coupled with hitting weak targets and vanishing worked pretty well. It helps when you can use the same hill Grandpa used to fight the British coming along the same road. This leads back to my last comment about training and knowledge.
•    Physical fitness. Between their rough lifestyle, reliance on foot transportation, moderate calorie intake and lack of medical care (that meant the sick and crippled were either useless in the village or dead) Afghan’s of military age were physically fit. They could haul butt up the side of a mountain carrying a medium machine gun after an ambush and leave the soviet’s panting at the bottom.

 [In my opinion physical fitness is the most lacking trait of American militia/ guerilla wanna be’s (I don’t mean “wanna be” in a derogatory way, just that since we don’t have a guerilla war going on it is kind of just a self imposed label instead of a title). Seriously if these guys spent half as much time exercising as they do arguing about what pouches to have on load out gear or which rifle to use in internet forum’s they would be much better off. I get particular amusement when somebody who is a disgusting fat body and probably hasn’t ran a whole mine this year talks about being a “light fighter” and using “hit and run tactics”. Many of these individuals are good, well meaning people and I probably poke too much fun. I hope that if any of them read this instead of taking it personal they look inward. If this side rant is hitting too close to home I recommend that you get onto a reasonable but ambitious physical fitness program and exercise some self control at meal time to get into fighting shape. ]

•    A proliferation of small arms, particularly rifles. Every military aged male did not have a rifle but a heck of a lot of them did. Eventually they started capturing weapons and getting them shipped in by foreign backers but for awhile it was just rural Afghan’s and their rifles.
•    A cohesive and resolute group vision. Rural Afghan life is very traditional and tribal, especially in the Pastun areas to the South and East, and its values stood in stark contrast to what the Afghan communists and their Soviet backers sought to impose. They were, and the Soviets never quite got this, absolutely unwilling to compromise and would rather just fight.
•    There are probably more but a couple of these are already more generic of all guerillas than is my intent. Now let us not forget the two factors which had a massive impact on events and were largely outside of the Muj’s control.
•    Safe haven’s. In particular the ability to seek medical treatment, shelter their families, train, plan and recover in Pakistan had a direct and immeasurable effect on the war. The Soviet’s launched a few rockets and probably a few raids but in the big picture the Muj were safe to recover and plan in Pakistan and parts of Iran.
•    Outside Aid. Despite some fantasy ideas to the contrary it is difficult to keep a force fielded without feeding and equipping them. While guerilla logistics are pretty simple and light they still need weapons, bullets to shoot, explosives and food to eat. Being able to keep at least part (this improved as the war progressed) of their force through the whole fighting season was essential to building up cohesive organizations and conducting significant operations. Even if you want them really bad guns, food and bullets don’t just appear. Also as these wars go on for years stocking enough of anything except maybe shoe laces to get you through one is wishful thinking.
•    A long term vision. In a sound bite and paragraph quote world they thought in terms of seasons and years. The Muj were never going to win in a sense where they militarily forced the Russians out. They could however continually make it uncomfortable for the Russians to be here (I am in Afghanistan as I write this, oh irony) until their government decided it was time to throw in the towel.

SERPA Holsters

I mentioned SERPA holsters in a post about equipment soldier’s use and got a couple comments about them. They more or less matched up with some relatively recent reporting of people having negligent discharges when using the holsters. So here are my thoughts.

When I first saw them I thought it was a gimmicky idea and would be a flash in the pan. Man I got that one wrong, I totally missed the pulse of a community I am a part of. Before anyone asks personally I do not like SERPA holsters. Maybe it is for the best that I do not buy individual stocks.  The reason I do not like SERPA holsters is that they have a method of retention that uses the index finger. I am used to thumb break and open top friction type retention holsters. I have a lot of muscle memory in thumb breaks and just pulling the darn thing out is pretty much as easy as it gets. My personal experience is that in times of stress and fatigue we revert back to muscle memory. I can’t get over visions of myself trying to pull the darn thing out and pressing random stuff with my thumb only for it to stay fast in the holster.  They work fine I guess but I see no reason to stray from what I am used to.  That sums up my strictly personal opinion on the matter.
As to the SERPA and negligent discharges I find little to no reason to buy into it. Sure you have to extend your finger to draw the weapon but personally I draw that way anyway as it puts my hand where I want it. I index my finger along the frame above the trigger until I want to shoot something. If you don’t stick your bugger picker into the trigger guard and go flopping it around wildly the darn gun probably will not go off. That is strictly a software issue (in your darn head) not a hardware issue, at least in the way you might think.
It reminds me of when a couple of big PD’s (back east, NY I think) switched to Glock’s some time back and had a few embarrassing high profile negligent discharges. Those Glock’s were not faulty in any way. They fired when some cop stuck his finger into the trigger guard and pulled the trigger, intentionally or not. The reason is that the new hardware (the Glock’s) exposed a weakness that had always existed in those shooters. Those cops grew up on double action revolvers (and had maybe spent a short period using DA/SA auto’s but let’s not get sidetracked from our current side track). Not that you should but one could walk around with their finger on the trigger of one of those old DA duty guns all day long, about no way you could fire it off by accident. Now a Glock is another matter as they have a substantially lighter trigger pull than a DA revolver.  I sort of see the same thing with SERPA holsters in that a new piece of technology is exposing weaknesses in shooters fundamental weapons handling.

Without doing a ton of research I suspect two things are involved in this supposed chain of ND’s. First after people hit the release button instead of immediately indexing their finger they unintentionally keep it bent and are applying pressure onto the holster as they draw. When the weapon clears the holster this pressure brings their bent finger into the trigger guard with disastrous results.  The second (which I suspect is the root cause) is folks who are trying to proverbially run when they should be walking or jogging. I would bet that if the same shooters (prior to these ND’s) were asked to draw their pistol and then fire 3 rounds at a target in no particular hurry they would be fine. However if they are out of breath, trying to run while shooting at 3 targets simultaneously and be cool like Quick Draw Delta Dan or Speed Shooting SWAT Jimbo you can get disastrous results. As for why they are SERPA holsters part of it is probably that they are immensely popular with the “I’m going to go to super cool guy class” types.  Also the training issues we talked about before. At least that is what I suspect.

As to classes banning SERPA’s I bring you the 8 pound NY trigger AKA avoidance instead of training. NY decided that too many cops were having ND’s so they got a substantially heavier trigger made. Banning SERPA’s is avoidance of hardware that may be less forgiving of a particular weakness than other hardware.
I have never seen, though have heard of from 1 reputable source (fanboy’s in forum’s do not count) about a SERPA holster locking mechanism jamming. I have never seen an ND which was related to a SERPA holster.

In closing if you own and like the SERPA holster then by all means keep using it, just don’t stick your trigger finger into the trigger guard unless you mean to. No hardware will solve that problem.

Can You Do It In Kit

The other day I was doing IOTV pullups. In case you are wondering they are hard. I also run in kit and do all sorts of other stuff in it. I should note that this sort of physical training is pretty hard and should be worked up to gradually, especially if you are not in great shape. Walk before you run. However this is a good thing to do for a few reasons. First it is a pretty good test of if you have the effective fitness to move and control your body in kit. Next it is a great counterpoint to the internet forum fan boys who think you need dozens of pouches and all kinds of tacticool junk hanging everywhere. Also this is a great way to work out all the little kinks and get everything to work together. You will find that a pouch might get in the way or the hose to your camelback won't stay put or the like. A poorly fitted vest will quickly be noticed. Some simple walking and jogging, or more if you are up to it, and a few trips to the range will help iron all that stuff out.

I'm Baaack!

It was cold, snowy and just plain nasty. Average temperature was around 20f or so. It snowed a lot and there was a biting wind. The foot or so of unpacked snow played hell with walking, let alone running and other more vigerous activities. However it wasn't too bad. We do have pretty good gear which makes a huge difference. Also I had a warm dry place to go in my off hours and generally got decent sleep which helps a lot.

I did write every day (just no net to post) so next time this happens there will be posts which is good. Been thinking and fiddling with slings a lot lately. Decided I need to just throw down the cash for a purpose built two point adjustable sling. Will announce the winner of our awesome contest as soon as I can.

Got home pretty late tonight. Wifey made a nice dinner and I got to spend some time with Walker which was cool.  He smiles and sort of tries to play now which is cool. Makes him a bit more interesting to hang out with. I am looking forward to a calm weekend at home. Anyway I have nothing else huge to say so I will talk to you tomorrow.

Ryan