Note from JWR:

Life in "The Mud Season" continues. Yesterday we had another power failure. We seem to get most of them in the Fall and the Spring. Things are presently very soggy with all the melting snow, so it is inevitable that some trees will fall. That is life in the hinterboonies. But as a well-prepared family, we can take these glitches in stride.




Letter Re: Advice on a High Capacity .45 ACP Pistol

Jim, Tell me, what is your view on the Glock 21 platform? I made an election to go with this as opposed to a 1911 platform…mag capacity, accuracy, etc. The only down-side to the Glock 21 or any of those platforms, is the absence of a manual safety. It must always be holstered. For $450, they tend to outshoot their contemporaries; at 13 rds per magazine they pack a payload of punch.Your feedback? – Matt JWR Replies: I think the Glock 21 is a fine pistol. As I have mentioned in SurvivalBlog before, if I hadn’t 30+ years of “muscle …




Letter Re: Stocking Up on Augmentin–the Antibiotic of Choice

Jim: I finally bit the bullet and bought 100 tablets of Augmentin (Co-Amoxiclav), the survivalist’s antibiotic of choice (or so I’m told). It was a tidy sum and unlike the rest of my supplies, it is not something that will store indefinitely (18 month expiration date, but I’d use it at twice that date as it is being stored in a refrigerator), nor is it something that I can rotate though and use like food. On the way back from the pharmacy I showed the kids what I’d gotten. “But dad, I thought you hated antibiotics.” my eldest said. “I …




Letter Re: The Herd Instinct on Highways in TEOTWAWKI

As a professional road service mechanic I see all manner of stupid human tricks on a daily basis. I live in the north east and find it sad but comical how people react to adverse road conditions. This has been a fairly mild winter for us Yet I have been caught in the tail end of three multi-car pileups due to snow/ice. Now my service truck is prepared in the extreme tools, fuel, maps for my area of operations (AO), food, and water. So these were just minor delays for me until I plotted an alternative route. Now cut to …




Odds ‘n Sods:

Frequent blog content contributor Ben L. mentioned this article that confirms that the origin of H5N1 Asian Avian Flu was in southern China. Ben’s comment: “As if we didn’t already know. Hello, again, 1918.”    o o o Ben L. also recommends a site with some of the collected essays of Ed Harris (of “Ed’s Red” bore cleaner fame.) Ben’s comment: on Ed’s essays: “[they] bustle with subsonic rifle loads, “minimalist” (my wording) firearms usage, bore-cleaning, sighting, old-time gun writers (Jack O’Connor, Townsend Whelen, etc.), and the like. Quite the relief from “Keeping up with the Jones’s”, re buying the …