Blogger ate this title

I got to thinking on the dreary commute in, which is always dangerous, and one of those smack-yourself-in-the-head insights occurred. Bush knew this was coming much earlier than the rest of us. Now the "economic stimulus check" program from Feb '08 was before I fully "woke up" so details from my memory are a bit hazy.

The recession started Dec '07, but the public wasn't told this until Nov '08. I'm willing to bet Bush was told in late January what the numbers were like, and where we were heading. He dropped the bread & circus check on us to try to delay the problem. But when Bob six-pack (Joe's second cousin) gets a check for $600 bucks he buys himself a $2000 big screen, the rest, if not all of it on credit. The $600 check being used for bills, or more likely beer. Such is how we average Americans think.

So the stimulus check did stimulate the economy, but the oil bubble wiped that out. Many, many people around the office here changed plans from Aruba to the cape. Or from Europe to Aruba. Everyone's vacation plans got cut down quite a bit. So all summer we watched the economy tank. At least we got a good laugh (or cry) from the incompetent elected officials try their best to slap another band-aid on an economy already held together with spit and bubblegum.

You must have seen ads by companies selling gold. Other survivalists are screaming for you to invest in gold. I don't have the money to do that so I haven't bothered really looking into it. My father tried to get a scam going where he was a dealer in gold, so I basically look at alot of the articles and such telling us to buy gold as hucksters. I rather invest in canned food and shotguns these days, anyway.

But one of the warning signs of a economic collapse is the price of gold skyrocketing. Here is a quote from a very informative article on how the governments have dicked with the price of gold after WWII. That's another reason I never bothered investing in gold. I want a fair market, not something so easily manipulated.

The global paper currency system is very young. It depends for its continued functioning on the belief that the debt upon which it is based will, someday, be repaid. The one thing, above all others, that could shake that faith, and therefore the foundations of the modern financial system itself, is a rise (especially a sharp rise) in the U.S. Dollar price of Gold.

In the article it goes a long way in explaining how the central banks use paper gold to manipulate the price of gold. Mines "forward sell" the gold to brokers who sell to the public leased gold from central banks. Then there are a bazillion derivatives based on the price of gold going up or down. Forward selling is selling gold still in the ground. Central banks lease the gold, but the possession of it never changes hands. If I buy something I want it in my hands. All the "paper" gold is worthless, just like all the treasuries being bought with a 0.01% rate of return. Mining company forward sells gold to a broker, for $500 an oz., delivered in 2010. Broker sells gold "for immediate delivery" and then leases the gold from the central bank, handing the customer a worthless chunk of paper.

I just checked and the US dollar index is at 83. How can this be? How can the dollar be strong against the myriad of issues devaluing the dollar right now. Nothing is making sense to me, so I'm assuming someone's got their finger on the scale, tipping the balance.

We are printing money faster than a roomful of drunk monkeys can throw shit. The damn Chinese want to make the Yaun the global reserve currency, and since they are one of the only countries to export more than import, they might pull it off. We have half our state governments in line for phase III, or is it phase XVIII of the bailout because they are all going bankrupt. We got Russia dropping 20% of it's US dollar based assets in the last year, with more to come.

Every stinking indication is the dollar should be weaker than it is, but somehow it's at 83 where in the summer it dropped as low as 70. Someone's cooking the books. By the way, if it stays below 70 for long, it's one of Rawles' warning signs of a economic crash. I wonder if this is part of the collective holding of breath as Obammy is about to be sworn in. Once the honeymoon is over I expect to see a huge swing in numbers in a very short amount of time.

I wholeheartedly recommend that as soon as you get your W2 you do your taxes and file electronically. You cannot let uncle sugar screw you over with an IOU like they might do in California. That's it for now, I need a few beers to try to figure all this out. Keep your eyes open, watch this: US Dollar index Maybe set up an alert or something if it drops below 70. Do the same for the price of gold to break $1100. I got to look into how to do that. If I can I'll add it as a widget-thingy to the right!

burned bread

I am happy we are getting a good discussion going on my last post. Discussion is good, we get to swap info and learn from each others experience.

In my efforts of being a good prepper, tonight I attempted to bake bread again. Too bad I'm so smart I can be dumb. I figured that the higher in the oven the better the bread will cook (That's smart). Too bad I had a classic boneheaded maneuver and forgot bread rises as it cooks and it got stuck on the top element. (That's dumb)
I preped up some spices tonight. I got some fresh bulk containers at BJ's over the weekend, and put them in pint jars and sealed them up with my foodsaver. I love that thing. I got me some basil and oregano this trip. Next will be cumin, cilantro and black pepper. Salt doesn't need any preservation, but the rest needs vacuum to keep all the goodness inside. The white things on top of the spices are little circles of paper towels, this is to prevent the spices from being sucked up into the vacuum pump.

Although considered a "comfort" item by many, I feel that a wide variety of spices are an absolute necessity if you are living off your preps. Otherwise, you will get tired of eating the same boring stuff day in and day out. It's one of the reasons I refuse to buy MRE's, - a 5 gallon bucket of spackle tastes better. (Except for the peanut butter, which is quite good, so long as your forget it's supposed to be peanut butter!)

Well time to thump the bottom of my bread again to see if it's done. Good luck out there, and let me know your thoughts on the ammo post. There will be a time, I fear, where such discussions will be yelled from burning wreck to another on why Bob forgot to bring a few extra mags when MS13 is trying to take out your little neighborhood.

So how much ammo?

I started researching today's post on how much ammunition you need for your weapons. I'm trying to figure out what's best for me, and figure out what's best for the prepper. But I quickly got embroiled in what the "combat load" would be for what the situation would be. There are theories all over the map on how much ammo to carry. And how much you carry determines how much you have stored. You see how much you carry is what you expect to almost use in a firefight, plus a bit more for extended engagements before resupplied.

Now for a bit of a tangent. I'm reading Rawles "Patriots! Surviving the coming collapse" and I have to say he is through and through Army. His group trained like one, has procedures like one. I know he did multiple stints, and if I was to bet, his father was career military and/or he went to a military academy. He has you carrying more shit than you need, and has you planning for a fight you cannot win. I have tremendous respect for what he's done, but I am of the mindset that a guerrilla fight is a better option for a prepper than a toe to toe slug match like US vs. CCCP Rawles has us planning for. Part of Rawles' opinions are based on his training for the mobile operations the Army has been using since WWII. Two-thirds the force pins down the enemy, with the other third swinging to flank. If you have a Company of troops it works really well. If it's you and one of your buddies then you need different tactics.

Ok, so as a prepper we are not planning on getting into a toe to toe fight. Hit and run. Overwhelming firepower for a brief time. I feel in order to win a fight as a prepper you need to fight like a Navy SEAL, A Green Beret, or the British SAS. If they come at you with a lot of guys, you HAUL ASS. Use terrain to act as a force multiplier. Bounding overwatch to retreat, etc. etc. More in another post.

Ok so back to the original topic. We are looking at a slow slide now, so as crime increases I would suggest carrying your pistol plus two other mags. You also should have a flashlight and a decent folding knife on you at all times. Also, plan to carry on you a couple of bandannas to use as emergency bandages/tourniquets. That should suffice for your day to day carry. Adding a handcuff key is a good idea. Adding a fighting knife isn't a bad idea either. Depends on what you can conceal about your person. Have a extra mag or two in your car in case you get into a running gunfight.

So you are off to walk around town after the total collapse of society, and you can carry long arms in the open. This is where the term "combat load" comes in to play. Now you are carrying three sets of gear on your walkabout. (I refuse to use the word patrol.) You have your combat gear, your assault pack, and then finally whatever your carrying, whether its your BOB, or the water your hauling back to the house.

So your combat gear is your weapon(s) plus ammunition, map and compass, trauma first aid kit, knife, body armor, canteen, a days worth of food, and a small survival kit. If you have a radio, that's part of this as well. You need to keep this as light as possible. There are a few hard and fast rules I found when reading up on Army researchers and what they found:

The distance marched in six hours decreases by one mile for every 10 pounds a soldier carries over 40 pounds.
The time of an assault course increases by 15 percent for every 10 pounds over 40 pounds.
The distances traveled are reduced by half when moving over average gradients of ten percent.

So your combat gear plus your assault pack needs to be lass than 40 pounds, if you are a male weighing about 200 pounds. So if you weigh 100 pounds soaking wet, then all these numbers get correspondingly smaller.

So in your assault pack is more gear, some extra ammo, a entrenching tool, towel, first aid kit, toiletry kit, poncho, poncho liner, a second canteen, and 2 more days of food. You drop your assault pack when you get in combat. It's just going to weigh you down.

I did some more digging, and the average infantryman is carrying 300 rounds of ammo on patrol in Iraq. That's 9 pounds just in ammo. But again, this is for extended firefights in an urban area. As a prepper I say fuck that! I'm not going to haul all that crap around. So if it's Mad Maxx vs. the mutant ninja zombies out there I would carry 5 or 6 extra mags for your battle rifle, and one for your sidearm. If you have a shotgun or bolt action rifle, I'd carry 100 rounds of rifle, or 50ish shotgun rounds. With the shotty I'd carry both slug and buckshot, you might need to punch through car doors and shoot quite a distance.

So now back from the tangent to the tangent. These numbers are for a economic collapse, so if your planning for nukes and such, go see what Rawles has to say. Looks to me like you want about 1000 rounds of .22 LR to collect for the stewpot and for some practice ammo. For your shotgun, I going to say 100 slugs, 200 rounds of 00 buckshot. For your pistol, I'd say 1000 rounds of JHP - Jacketed Hollow Points. For my rifle, I plan on having enough for 1000 rounds of ammo. If you have no battle rifle, then at least double the rife or shotgun numbers.

If you have been prepping properly, then you will be a better marksman than the bulk of possible opponents you will have to face. Therefore you need less ammo. Carrying less ammo makes you quicker on your feet, and able to get behind cover so you are better protected in a fight. Then your better marksmanship makes lots of dead mutant ninja zombies.

Now because I reload I just need the supplies for reloading, not the completed rounds. Makes it more compact for storage. These numbers are for combat, not for hunting. For hunting add #2 and maybe #6 shot shotgun shells for ducks and pheasant/grouse respectively. I apologize for the post being so screwy, I got interrupted a million times at work, so it was hard to get the train of thought going again.

Saturday Musings

I just cannot get over how quiet it's been. There has been a nearly palatable buildup of expectation in the media. Nothing overt, mind you, but subtly it seems like America is holding it's collective breath waiting for Obammy to come save us.

I find this funny. I find it funny because all those who bought into his ill defined "change" except that on January 21st all will be right in the world. Like some fairy godmother waves her magic wand and POOF! it's all back to normal. No matter what he does it's been built up so much that it's got to be a let down. I cannot wait for my liberal friends to come up with some sort of excuse for why the economy is still in the shitter.

Looks like he's making $775 billion more in economic stimulus. Roads to nowhere and I have heard in at least two reports a "you got a job, here's money" check to middle class families that have a job. I wonder what he considers middle class. I consider myself middle class, and I make 100k a year. Now if I could find a girlfriend who wasn't a golddigger, mentally a basketcase, or didn't want to stay at home and eat bon bons all day, I might be able to break into the upper class for a year or two before we have kids and I go into the poor house.

But I digress. So Obammy is on the high horse we just need to see if he's tilting at windmills or not. I think he is. But you never know. Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups. If enough people think the economy is fixed, then well, it's fixed. As individuals, most non-(sub)urban Americans are smart, hardworking, and generally don't put up with any bullshit. In large groups we Americans are lemmings who will gladly run off a cliff for an empty promise.

I for one do not trust Obammy for a second. He will take a Taco Bell inspired dump on America and wipe his hoop with the Constitution. He's a Politician, that's what they do. Never forget this whether or not you voted for the nitwit. I'm still waiting for any word of how he's going to fund his version of the Sturmabteilung. I'd shit myself laughing if they wore brown shirts. Narcissists are notoriously bad at paying attention to the details, they let that one slip and all he's going to break loose.

He's just handed off this $775 Billion dollar plan to congress, they only have a week or two to go over it before they got to start voting on it if they want Frau Pelosi to have it on his desk for Jan 20th. I bet it's in there we just have to root it out and expose it to scrutiny.

I wonder what that SOB has planned for this American Sturmabteilung. I'm going to look into joining it when and if it comes around. Like Winston in "1984" volunteering a night a week for the Ammo factory, it would be good camouflage for me. Who knows, it might get me enough pull to cross roadblocks when the poop does hit the fan. The SA in Nazi Germany was mainly drawn from the poor and the jobless, where the SS was recruited from the middle and upper classes. I wonder how they will handle it in this repeat of history.

Remember:

Stay Alert!
Trust No One!
Keep Your Laser Handy!

Another f'd up dream

I woke up this morning after having a seriously messed up dream. I was in the arctic on an ice shelf
by the sea. Tons and tons of people were in bathing suits like it was a hot august day. what really makes it fucked up is polar bears were all over the place laughing and dancing with the beach goers. Now one thing that caught my attention was one bear was carrying someone like they were a cardboard cutout. Was a typical California looking dude in swim trunks. With one hand in the air like he was waving.

I heard a voice screaming "Help me! Help me!" over and over but I didn't see who was yelling, and it didn't look like the bears were eating anyone.

I have no clue what it means, but it can't be good.

The Economics of Reloading

Western mass. man asked what are the economics of reloading ammunition. So I went down to NSB's (Natog's Sekret Bunker) ballistics lab and sat down with excel and figured it out.

You need four components to make a bullet. You need the brass cartridge, an appropriate primer, powder and a bullet. I just took the prices I paid for the small amounts I purchased, things get much cheaper in bulk. So everyone grab a drink,and let's talk math!

First on the list is brass. If you have to buy it new, it's $40 for 100 of the average quality. Remington or Winchester are good examples. If you go all out for the real premium stuff, it's a $1 a round, $.80 each in quantity. The good brass will be more accurate and is better for target shooting. One fellow who uses it says it will last forever, the rounds he was using were 8 years old, and he shoots once a week!

Now I will get more than 10 reloads per brass, but it's a nice round number to work with. So $40 per 100 brass, that you can use 10 times is 4¢ per reloaded round.

Now I don't have the numbers for FMJ rounds. I never signed the Geneva Conventions so I'll be firing soft point bullets at any bad guys. 165grain hunting hollow points are $30 per 100, so 30¢ a piece. The premium ballistic tips are $23 per 50 rounds, or 46¢ each. I haven't tried them yet, but they look promising. Let's use the regular hunting rounds.

Primers cost me $30 per 2000, or 2¢ each. This is for the CCI Large Rifle primers. The Federal #210's are a little more pricey.

There are 7000 grains per pound, and I'm using 40.2 grains per round. I paid $23 for a pound, and after doing all the math it's 13¢ worth of powder in each round.

So the grand total is 49¢ a round. If I walk into a gun shop and buy hunting bullets, they are $18 for 20 rounds, or 90¢ each.

So for about half the cost I reload my own. There is more to it than that, though. I can develop and test rounds that deliver the best possible performance for my rifle. From what I have seen, handloading doubles the accuracy of the rifle. So my 1 MOA Remington 700 is a 1/2 MOA with handloads.

Remember these are for small quantities. Buying in bulk once you figure out what works best for you and your weapon will increase the savings substantially.

For my .45 ACP pistol here are the numbers:

Brass: $24 per 100 times 10 reloads = 2¢
Bullets: $60 per 500 for lead round nose = 12¢
Primers: $30 per 3000 = 1¢
Powder: $17 per pound, 5.3 grains per round = >1¢
Total: 17¢ per round. Reloads at the gun store are $13 per 50 rounds or 26¢ each. turns out .45 ACP is easy on the brass to relaod, so you can get many more reloads then the 10 I have used in these numbers.

Now there is a big outlay of cash up front for all the supplies. I got lucky twice with a free press and all the dies, loading blocks, etc. from when I bought my rifle. Up at Kittery Trading Post I saw many presses for sale used, from $40 on up. They had used dies as well. Here is a list off all the stuff, and how much it goes for retail.

$50 Press (used)
$80 Rifle dies
$25 Carbide pistol dies
$20 Rifle trim die (better than that crappy thing with teeth)
$20 Pistol trim die
$160 Good electronic scale
$10 Powder trickler
$2 Lee primer pocket cleaner
$7 Case neck brush
$9 Flash hole uniformer - optional
$30 Calipers
$5 Lee case chamfer tool
$15 Two reloading trays
$30 Good reloading book
$8 Shell holder (.45 ACP and .308 use same one)

That's $471 bucks worth of gear, and you can easily spend more. But if you spend your money wisely these items will never wear out, providing you with a lifetime of ammunition.

The one thing that is missing from this equation is time. It can take a while to hand craft twenty rifle rounds. I just kick back with a cold soda and knock it out. It's just part of my preps to me.

Also I would like to point out you do not need to store 1,000 rounds for each rifle, just the components to reload them, with extra brass for ones you loose. For my .308 I'll put up 100 rounds and keep supplies for a few hundred more. Once I get a battle rifle it will be different, for now that's enough for me. I'm ordering some JHP's for my .45 and I'll work up a load for those and then I'll be all set there too.

I hope you all found this as helpful as I did. Once I start buying in bulk I'll re-do the numbers and give you an update. If your going to get started go used! Dies and presses do not wear out, so used is as good as new! Also brass is available used for sale, or for scrounging. Stick with common calibers, so you minimize the expense of dies and components. I was going to reload tonight but since I have a few beers wile doing math, I think I'll watch the latest Sarah Conner Chronicles tonight. Good luck out there and be safe!

Happy New Year!!!

Well the Mighty Mighty Bosstones concert was fun, even with all the damn chuckleheads out there. I usually avoid going out New Years Eve, St. Patricks Day, and now Halloween because it's rookie night. Tons of meatballs out there who don't know how to drink, and do not know how to have a good time without pissing off the big guy trying to have fun (i.e. Natog) and isn't bothering anyone.

I just got back from the range, and I am pleased as punch. I am very happy with the .45 ACP rounds for target practice I loaded the other day. I'll whip up 50 or a 100 tonight. I'm using the minimum load, but that's fine for target practice. Once I get some JHP I'll have to work up to a heavier load, need as much pop behind that bullet as possible, so long as it stays accurate.

I also tested the difference between the Federal #210 and CCI Large Rifle primers for my .308, and the CCI primers gave me more consistency in this cold weather. It was 9 degrees at the range, and the wind was whipping something fierce. Didn't stop me from shooting. You need to be able to put food on the table regardless of the weather if the poop hits the fan. The Federal Primers might be better in the summer heat, I'll re-evaluate then. Might have to have summer and winter loads.

I've got some math to do this afternoon, Western Mass. Man, asked me for the economics of reloading, so I'll do the math and let you guys know. I've been curious myself, but this is just the incentive to make me do it. TTFN