Category: Reader-Written Contributed Article

Fall of the American Republic – Part 1, by Single Farmer

Author’s Introductory Note: Please remember all of my writings are a Gedankenexperiment, not a form of advice, but an extended thought experiment. I can safely conclude that the Republic has likely fallen just before its 250th Birthday. My ancestors were founders of the original Republic and I am one of the small percentage of Heritage Americans left with 97.5 percent of people who reside in the United States having no original colonial Patriot blood flowing in their veins. I do not make this pronouncement lightly or gleefully, but solemnly as my family has for generations warned against the dangers of …


Mastering the P.A.C.E. Model for True Self-Reliance, by A.C.

Most people live in a state of perpetual psychological comfort known as Normalcy Bias. This is the deeply ingrained, warm, fuzzy assumption that the systems keeping us alive today will function indefinitely tomorrow. We unconsciously believe that the grocery store will always hold a fresh supply of organic kale, the kitchen tap will never run dry, and the wall outlet will indefinitely pump electricity on demand. Spoiler alert: It won’t. When we analyze why individuals, organizations, or entire societies collapse during a crisis, the root cause is rarely a complete lack of preparation. Instead, failure occurs because someone mistook a …


Precision Workshop Practices, by Grandpappy

We all have should have a place where we can repair, build, or maintain our equipment and appliances. This is a workshop space for our projects, from the simplest like building a simple tool, to the most complex like rebuilding the engine of a classic car. The space needed can range from a small corner of your garage to a complete workshop facility for a fabrication or repair hobby or even a small business. After forty-five years around engines and tools, I have come to the conclusion that every man needs his own workspace where he can develop his hobbies …


A Review of AGI’s Professional Gunsmithing Course Level I, by Gunsmith

Full Disclosure: After a conversation I had with Gene Kelly of American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI), he offered me this course at no charge in exchange for an honest review in a written article for SurvivalBlog. There were no other strings attached, and I was not pressured in any way about the outcome of this review. He did not ask for a preview of the article, nor was he offered one before publication. This review is my own opinion of the course after having spent time taking it and passing the tests involved. My Background I have been interested in firearms …


Health, Fitness, and The End Of The World, by D.F.

In this article, I’ll describe how medicine and society will change, and why you should become a fitness nut and not just a prepper. There’s a stereotype of preppers, and it’s not kind: A middle aged or older man with a BMI that passed 30 before he was 30 and grew by 1% every year, a ton of guns, canned food, and a half-hearted vegetable garden. I know because I resemble that. As I’ve been struggling to recover my health, I’ve had a few realizations that have kept me on the path to fitness. Health is something money can’t buy. …


Saving Western Civilization, by Single Farmer

Editor’s Introductory Note: This young man is prayerfully seeking a wife. He is offering an after-marriage gift of up to $50,000 to whoever introduces him to his bride with $18,000 after their marriage and another $16,000 to the individual who provided the introduction after the first two births of healthy children born to him and his wife, for a total potential gift of $50,000. For further details, see his article posted on July 13th, 2025: My Quest for a Wife: I’m Willing to Move, and in his May 6, 2026 article on rural migration starting at the bold section on …


Modern Handloads for Antique 7mm Mauser Rifles – Part 2, by Tunnel Rabbit

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Considerations for Projectile Selection There are many different bullets and powders to choose from.  Given the very long throats of their chambers, we are mostly limited to heavier and flat based bullets.   Choosing the best projectiles for the antique Mausers will help us get the best all around results, quickly. For the purposes of hunting, I would like it to shoot no larger groups than 2 MOA with iron sights and that would limit my shoots to 250 yards if I had 20-20 or better vision and had the rifle on …


Modern Handloads for Antique 7mm Mauser Rifles – Part 1, by Tunnel Rabbit

Is the 7x57mm Mauser M1893/95 rifle obsolete?  The original 7mm Mauser cartridge is in no way an obsolete cartridge, yet it can be improved when modern powders are used.  As of this date, few handloaders are exploring what can be done with the old warhorse when modern propellants are used to make it competitive with modern cartridges such as 7mm-08, 7.62 NATO, and even .308 Winchester.  There is no discussion on this topic that I’ve yet found on the Internet.  Perhaps we are breaking new ground, as we speak.


Writing Contest Prize Winners Announced — Round 124 (The Final Round!)

We’ve announced the winners of Round 124 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest, which ended yesterday. This was the final round of the contest. More than $989,000 worth of prizes have been awarded in the 20+ years that we ran the contest. My congratulations to all of the prize winners, over the years. Your articles have been a key part of what makes SurvivalBlog such a valuable reference. Your articles will remain freely available in the SurvivalBlog archives. Note: Please continue to write articles for SurvivalBlog, to share your knowledge and experience. Reader-written articles are a key part of SurvivalBlog. See …


Bicycles and Their Practical Use in Prepping, by Tunnel Rabbit

To look into the future, we only have to visit the past, and how other cultures adapt to their circumstances. Long ago and far away, I lived just south of Copenhagen, Denmark for a while, and then on the oldest and once largest farm still standing on the Island of Bornholm that was first in Swedish territory, and then Danish territory. The farm had been established in the 1700s. In the end,  I was so immersed in the culture and language that locals did not believe I was an American.  More often than not, given my accent, they thought I …


Water in Disasters: A Rain Catchment and Treatment System, by Suburban Prepper

Water is essential to all life. The human body can go three weeks without food but only three days without water before completely shutting down. Yet most of us find it much easier to store a year’s worth of food than a month’s worth of water. I live in the suburbs and while I have my beans, bullets and band aids pretty squared away, water has always been an area of concern for me. There is no way to store enough water for a long term outage, and I haven’t found many good options. Recently I have spent more time …


A Letter To My Younger Self – Part 2, by N.C.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) The World As We Now Know It Succeed here first. A good man succeeds regardless of where he is. Marcus Aurelius would be a good man here or in ancient Rome. Same for Sejong the Great. Same if an Adeptus Astartes was put in your place. A good man succeeds where he finds himself. “I would succeed if only…” is loser talk. It’s taken many a man who might have succeeded and turned him into one who did not. You’ve probably heard “if you think you can or think you can’t, you’re …


A Letter To My Younger Self – Part 1, by N.C.

This is an article hypothetically written to my younger self, as if I were just going to start on my path of preparation. These are lessons I spent a couple decades learning. So, this is for you, young man. Things I’ve learned, what I’d do if I were in your shoes: Social Skills Are the Primary Prepping Skills Not guns. Not gardening. Not bushcraft. Social skills. Social Skills are the single most important skill you need. It will affect your career and therefore your resources and your preps. It will affect your mate options. It will affect your children. It …


Prepping on a Dime, by Michael X.

When we started prepping, we did not have the money to buy an old missile silo…or an old mine…or a ready-to-use retreat. We were “stuck” in the city where our jobs were. Then we retired. We could sell our house and move to the middle of nowhere… From a city near the Twin Cities in Minnesota of over 100,000, my loving wife and I have relocated to a lakeside cottage in northern Wisconsin, a few miles outside a village of about 400 people. Wisconsin has its own problems. Mostly Madison and Milwaukee. And to a lesser extent, Eau Claire. Those …


30 Year Review of My Automotive EDC, by A.J.

This review started because I needed a band aid the other day and rather than dribble through the house, I went to the first aid kit in the minivan.  I was surprised at the amount of empty space in the plastic case, but there were the necessary items to handle the cut. I used a benzo conium wipe (still wet) and a Band-Aid (still sticky) and then started quality checking the kit. I looked at the contents label and it was printed in 1996 and looking further, the remaining dose of Imodium in the kit had a use by date …