JWR’s Recommendations of the Week:

Here are JWR’s Recommendations of the Week for various media and tools of interest to SurvivalBlog readers. This week the focus is on URGI rifles. (See both the Instructional Videos section and the Gear section.)

Books:

Gunsmithing the AR-15, The Bench Manual

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Gunsmithing (Stackpole Classic Gun Books).  A reprint of the classic Roy Dunlap book.

Instructional Videos (URGI Rifles):

This new video by Garand Thumb is interesting: Geissele URGI: The New Army Special Forces Rifle.

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Hickok45: How NOT To Carry a Colt Single Action Army

Gear (URGI Rifles):

Want your assemble own URGI  semi-auto clone?  Brownells has the Geissele uppers available, but be forewarned that they are spendy! Their part number for the upper with bolt carrier and charging handle is: 100-026-695WB. At $1,249, that is a lot of money for a direct gas impingement (non-piston) upper! They use a mid-length gas tube. By the time you buy URGI clone optics, a flash hider, and the other requisite optics and other parts you’d be looking at more than $2,000, even if you already have a stripped AR-15 lower on hand. Yikes!  Well, it could be worse: You might want a HK 416 clone built with original HK-made parts. Brownells sells those parts, too. That is more like a $3,800 project!  Frankly, for as much as that one clone would cost, I’d much rather own an extra seven Rock River M4gery clones.

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Whenever you are buying any firearms, air rifles, or power tools, don’t forget to also get high-impact safety glasses. Please, don’t ever give the gift of a firearm or air rifle without also giving safety equipment! One of our new affiliate advertisers is Safety Glasses USA. They specialize in eye protection and hearing protection. They also sell other safety gear like gloves. Remember the safety acronym ATGATT: “All the gear, all the time.”

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Commander Zero of the great Notes From The Bunker blog recommended these handheld scanners: Icom R6 Sport Wide Band Handheld Communications Receiver. They operate on standard AA batteries, or with a wall outlet AC-to-DC power cube. For some reason the model with the red case presently sells for $30 less than the model with the black case. Go figure…  Note that these will not demodulate trunked police dispatch transmissions. But that is an issue mostly in big cities. (If you do live in a major metro area with trunked traffic, then get a more expensive Uniden Trunk Tracker scanner.) And of course no commercially-made scanner can demodulate military frequency hopping/spread pecturm or various forms of encryption. All in all, the Icom R6 handheld is a great way to have a very portable scanner than covers AM and FM broadcast, police, fire, weather, air traffic control, shortwave broadcast, various amateur bands, MURS, commercial, CB, Marine Band, and much more. One further suggestion: Invest in a good pair of folding headphones to use with your scanner.

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Propane-fired Buddy brand Mr. Heater radiant heaters are practically standard issue in the RV and camper world.  They have a great reputation for reliability. They are also quite inexpensive. But like any other liquid fuel heater you need to take ventilation precautions–both to prevent asphixiation and to prevent  moisture build-up.

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