Day: November 17, 2011

Notes from JWR:

I’ve begun drafting a new book, with the working title “Rawles on Guns and Other Tools for Survival.” This book will include an appendix that lists Gunsmithing Service and Parts Providers. If you have any favorite gunsmiths or gun parts dealers that you can strongly recommend from personal experience, then please send me their details, via e-mail. In particular, I’m looking for those smiths that offer the highest quality work at reasonable rates. Because many of these gunsmiths are only known regionally, I’m asking for your help on this. Please include mention of their specialties, web page URLs, phone numbers, …


Lessons From a Mini Orchard and Foraged Fruit–Using Free Food to Prep, by Sally M.

My husband and I moved cross-country to The American Redoubt this past spring with our two young sons.  We had never even visited this area, but our research over two years caused us to fall in love with an area we had never seen in person.  My husband flew out on his own about a month before our move and found us a rental house on a couple acres within our budget.  He thought he saw fruit trees at the time and took pictures to show me, but we couldn’t tell for sure. Our transition was very tiring and tedious, …


Letter Re: Guns for a Tight Budget Minimalist Survivalist

Dear Editor: I am 24 years old and struggling to get a career started in a field other than hospitality. I cannot afford a retreat, and have not had much luck joining other groups due to my lack of skills to the level desired, and my lack of money to afford all the prerequisites many groups have. My question is how can I best prepare to live out of my backpack in a tight spot? I have been training in certain areas like physical fitness and minimalist hiking. I did just obtain my Wilderness First Responder from Wilderness Medical Institute. …


Letter Re: Long Term Gas and Diesel Storage

JWR: Reader R.B. recently mentioned obtaining 55 gallon drums to store diesel as it “lasts for years.”   Gasoline will also “last for years” IF it is stored properly. I recently tapped into a 55 gallon drum that had been stored for 5 years – and was surprised to get 2-1/2 better m.p.g. while experiencing considerably more horsepower going up several mountain passes.  Some of this may be due to 5 year old fuel having a lower percentage of Ethanol than recent production.   USE A QUALITY PRESERVATIVE – I like Pri-G gasoline treatment, but STA-BIL seems to work as well, and use 25% …


Economics and Investing:

Gerald Celente Hammered By Margin Call on Gold Futures With MF Global. Learn from this pundit’s mistake: Keep your precious in metals in tangible form, in your personal possession, well-hidden at home. (NOT in “bonded vault storage”, or in a brokerage account, or in any form of futures, or in an ETF, or even in a safe deposit box. Physical metal in your possession trumps all! This also illustrates that whenever there is a financial panic, a cascade of margin calls can be devastating. California property assessments down only 4 percent from peak but home values are down by 37 …


Odds ‘n Sods:

I had a couple of queries from SurvivalBlog readers about this news article: Google map mystery of giant lines spotted by satellite in Gobi desert. My guess is that it is a radar MASINT test field. (Note the variety of bistatic angles.) Without delving into the compartmented codeword realm, I can mention an open source reference to something analogous: the imaging target field at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Here, I’ll remind you that I wrote a series of articles about Fort Huachuca for Defense Electronics magazine, back in 1988. Hans Halberstadt, a well-respected and seasoned military photographer accompanied me there for …