Category: Reader-Written Contributed Article

Range Report: Browning BAR Mk3 in .243 – Part 1, by The Novice

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For many years, my go-to deer rifle has been a venerable Remington Model 742 in .30-06 that I inherited from my father. Over the course of time, I became a little venerable myself. As I aged, the old 742 began to kick a lot harder than it used to. Some would say that this is due to global warming, but I have a different theory. In any case, during my last extended range session with the 742, my shoulder got pretty sore. It hurt so much that I dreaded pulling the trigger, and eventually cut the range session short. I …


How to Make Wooden Mason Jar Crates – Part 2, by St. Funogas

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(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Second Jig – Drill-Press Jig  If you have a pneumatic stapler, which greatly speeds up many nailing tasks, you can skip this section. Once you have the first slats cut, you’ll need to drill guide holes for the 4d nails using a 3/16” drill bit. If you try to nail without a pilot hole, not only will many of the slats split, but it’ll slow down your nailing time considerably. This is where jig number two comes in. As seen in Photos 10A  and 10B (inset), this jig positions stacks of five …


How to Make Wooden Mason Jar Crates – Part 1, by St. Funogas

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If you’re an average prepper, you no doubt have enough mason jars to sink a small yacht if they were all filled with pickles and tomato sauce and snuck aboard. And if you’ve done a lot of canning, you’ve probably thought there has to be a better way to manage all the jars than those cardboard boxes they come in. I’ve found that homemade wooden crates work great for me and may work for you as well. What I really like about these crates is that you can store empties in them as well as full jars, then stack the …


Low-Tech Off-Grid Living, by Ani

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I’m writing this article early in the morning during a power failure. I’ve only lived in this house for six months but this is not the first power failure I’ve experienced here. Previously I house-sat in this town and experienced a long duration power failure complete with four days or so of no cell service either. I got on my phone and looked up the outage map and realized that my town and a couple of adjacent towns have a significant outage, definitely due to the high winds of last night. The electric utility will begin mobilizing the line crews …


Sign Language as a Survival Skill, by B.R.

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When I see and read all manner of survival books, magazines, online articles, I’ve noticed a major issue important to me that is never talked about at all, for the most part. What is this issue? In any survival situation how do the healthy, hale members of any society or culture communicate treat and work with our handicapped people/family members? For this article, I will concentrate on the deaf/hard-of-hearing citizens of our own country. As a being profoundly deaf man since the age of four, I have experienced numerous good and bad situations throughout my life. Sometimes the situations were …


Range Estimation and Windage with Mil Reticles – Part 2, by N.E.

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(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Windage Ranging distance is pretty straightforward with practice. It also becomes fairly easy to calculate your elevation adjustment in relation your data-card or ballistics app. How long-range shooting becomes an art is trying to calculate the wind. I am going to be straight with you and say reading the wind is an art that can only be learned over time. Calculating wind becomes easier with specific calibers (high BC), the use wind meters, and lots of practice. But, calculating the wind is not nearly as straight forward as ranging distance. There are …


Range Estimation and Windage with Mil Reticles – Part 1, by N.E.

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“Tossing a bit of dry grass in the air as he had done at countless high-power matches, T.K. judged the wind. He complained, ‘Darn, I wish I had a windage table for .50 Browning. I’ll just have to guesstimate.’ Getting ready for his first shot seemed to take forever. First, he made several adjustments to the bipod. Then he squirmed around trying to get into a comfortable prone position. He tried placing his cheek on the stock several times before he found a position that was both comfortable and provided a full field of view through the rifle’s ten-power Leupold …


My Preparedness Evolution, by Melody Channel

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I was six, and there was very little food in the house that night. I rummaged around in a cupboard and pulled out a nearly empty peanut butter jar, and using a table knife and my finger, I scraped out every bit of it and went to bed early. Being young, I don’t remember if this time lasted days or weeks, but the gnawing feeling of hunger made a profound impact, and from the roots of that childhood experience came the mindset for preparedness and survival. Everyone has a story, and this is mine. It is hoped that by sharing …


Thoughts on an Amish Auction and Preparedness, by 3AD Scout

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Previously, in my August, 2020 SurvivalBlog article titled Going Old School,  I discussed how when we prep by having a primary and back-up, I stated that one back-up should be old school or vintage to accommodate loss of electric and other technology in a prolonged (years) event. Practicing what I “preach” I sometimes attend Amish auctions for non-electric and off-grid equipment and supplies. Recently I spent a Saturday at an auction where the property of an Amish Wheel Wright and buggy maker was up for sale. My first observation was “English” (non-Amish) buyers were the minority. So, if you go …


Getting Started with Cloth Diapers – Part 2, by ADC

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(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Cloth Diapering when TSHTF It is important to remember that SHTF is a spectrum. The S is H-ing TF right now everywhere and H-ing extra hard in several places. I, for one, have broken the seal on my SHTF ammunition reserve. Yet, the electricity and the plumbing still work. We can continue diapering as normal, and don’t have to hope that the shelves aren’t stripped of diapers, and that the store hasn’t shut down because of the pandemic, and that rioters haven’t burned the store down. Detergent is the only diaper supply …


Getting Started with Cloth Diapers – Part 1, by ADC

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Introduction People who are interested in preparedness are naturally drawn to cloth diapering, because cloth diapers provide a degree of independence and resiliency that cannot be had with disposable diapers. Toilet paper shortages in the time of COVID have gotten a great deal of attention, but there have also been shortages of disposable diapers. Cloth diapers might even be the ideal prep: it is simple, affordable, and socially acceptable to choose to diaper your baby right now in the same way as you would have to diaper you baby post-TEOTWAWKI. The easier it is to practice a prep, the more …


Lessons from the Pandemic – Part 1, by Don and Patrice Lewis

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The year 2020 has been wacky, hasn’t it? When we celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2019, few of us anticipated what lay in store for the future. But that’s the nature of crises – they’re unexpected. Despite being immersed in the preparedness movement for many years, the coronavirus pandemic was something we didn’t see coming. Now everyone is coping with the fiscal aftermath of what might turn into another Great Depression. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, these are the days to try men’s souls. From a personal standpoint, our situation is additionally complicated because we’re in the process of selling our …


Hardening Your House, by R.R.

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Preparedness has gained a lot of attention and a whole new meaning in 2020. First, everyone got hit with the threat of infection. Next, a lot of supplies which some households stock regularly, while others buy as needed, went out of stock in the stores causing further panic. Next came civil unrest because folks could not seem to obey simple instructions and suddenly the bad guys became saints and poor victims, but I digress. Altogether, I have to be honest – I’m waiting now for a threat of a meteorite strike or an alien invasion! It seems that in 2020 …


Thoughts on Surviving Civil War, by 3AD Scout

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Author’s Introductory Note: I am not advocating for armed conflict; I am specifically writing this article to get people prepared for a different type of disaster than we normally have to be prepared for. I suspect that the majority of people just want to live their lives in peace but may be caught up in a civil conflict. This article is to help families be prepared should it occur. — Normally I am a very optimistic person, but we are not in normal times now, are we? As “Preppers”, “Survivalist”, “Homesteaders”, and others with a self-sufficient mindset, we strive to …


Physical Resilience for an Uncertain Future – Part 3, by A.D.

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(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.) Putting it all together In this section I’d like to distill all the preceding information into what it might look like in terms of an actual week of fitness. I will also show what a couple weeks in succession could look like, to give you an idea of proper progression. I mentioned in the anaerobic section the analogy of your fitness attributes like the many sliding dials on a DJ’s sound mixing table. For the purposes of this example, let’s say this person is just starting out and has decided to prioritize …