Category: Retreat Security

Converting a Standard American Home Into a Hardened Retreat, by CentOre

Not everyone can find or afford a solidly built brick home with fittings to hang bullet-proof shutters and doors. We agree with the bulk of the writings we have read concerning the ‘non-defensibility’ of the average United States home.  Our group has choices as to which house will become ‘The Retreat’ for the entire group when the SHTF.  Our group’s consensus is our ‘Primary’ retreat will probably be a 2,600 square foot triple-wide ranch style manufactured home.  It has three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a living room and family room.   There is an adequate kitchen with a totally …


TEOTWAWKI Planning From the Perspective of a Former SF Operator, by SAV

When starting the process of preparation for TEOTWAWKI we must first plan for the most likely scenario that will cause the survival situation you are prepping for. When contemplating the TEOTWAWKI scenarios, one is confronted by a plethora of daunting challenges and theories from Magnetic pole reversal, getting hit by a rouge asteroid (don’t worry about this one Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis will save us) to solar flares knocking out technology, and the list continues.  My fear is that the end will not come from a major event but from a minor event that triggers a chain reaction of …


COMSEC: One Time Pad Generation, by B.R.

While re-reading the ‘Radio Ranch’ chapter in JWR’s novel “Patriots“, I started thinking about the Book Code method versus a One-Time Pad. I went through the books on my shelf, and noticed the lack of duplicate books; the number of ‘common’ books; and how many of my books I figured would be in the Uncle Sam’s cracked book repository. At that point I thought I’d be SOL when trying to setup a secure method of communication. Being an ex-Army Infantry turned computer geek and prepper, I figured it would be much easier to write some code to generate pages of …


The Early Stages of Preparation, by St. Croix

The Early Stages of Preparation, by St. Croix Over the past couple of years I have had a few people, two in particular, hint to me that it would not be a bad idea to begin picking up a few extra non-perishable items on my weekly visits to Wal-Mart or the local grocery store.  I began realizing, like most of the population, when me or my wife go to the store, we normally only pick up a “few things”, or just enough to get us through the week.  However, thanks to their continuous subtle remarks, and the assistance of the …


Letter Re: Planning for Multi-Family Cohabitation

Hi Jim, Just wanted to chime in here on the recent blog post about multi-family living. There are currently three families in our house: Five adults and and four children ranging in ages from 13 down to 6. (This includes two married couples and a single mom.) And how did all of this begin? Well the spark was friendship.  My wife and my friend’s wife were best friends and room mates. We spent all of our time at the girls apartment, going there after church, meeting there for evening outings, etc. I would get back to my apartment with just …


Blending In–Unremarkable and Invisible Architecture

Much of my consulting work revolves around either finding retreat properties for my clients, or helping them design or retrofit houses, once they’ve bought a property. I often have to play the “voice of reason” role, especially with houses that will be within line of sight from neighboring properties or from public roads. It is important to have a house that blends in with the style of architecture of your neighborhood. Yes, a Monolithic Dome offers great ballistic protection, but if it is the only one in your county, then it will attract attention. My advice: If you want ballistic …


Two Letters Re: Securing Windows With Plywood The Fast And Easy Way

James: I learned this very important lesson from a building contractor. On his hunting trips to Alaska he would send his supplies ahead of him in small (20′) shipping containers. After the first shipment of containers were raided by thieves he decided to add security to his supplies with a sheet of plywood over [the center of] the doors. Here is the trick that he used: the plywood was well-secured at close intervals with a variety of Phillips screws, Reed & Prince screws, square drive screws, Torx head screws, and long 5/16″ self- tapping [flathead] screws. Thieves might be armed …


Letter Re: Securing Windows With Plywood The Fast And Easy Way

Sir: I’ve been researching ways to secure windows in a SHTF scenario and it seems that one of the best ways to do this is by screwing pre-cut sheets of plywood to the window frame.  This will take many screws and it will leave screw holes in your window frame if/when it comes time to take down the plywood.  It also takes precious time to put a lot of screws in even with a powered screwdriver and depending on the size of the window, you might need several people to hold the plywood in place while you put the screws …


Letter Re: Military Surplus Generators and Concertina Wire

Jim: I have found some good advice in SurvivalBlog over the years.  For example your referenced GovLiquidation.com site some years back.  Fort Polk, Louisiana is a two hour drive from my retreat.  I bought a $10,000 MEP-002A 5 KW diesel generator with only three hours clocked on it at auction for $1,500. I was somewhat concerned that it might not work or have problems with it but I decided to chance it.     Picked it up, brought it home, hooked up two batteries and it cranked right up.  Runs like a top.  Amazing that the government is selling  stuff for …


Letter Re: Just How Bad Can it Get?

JWR, I will preface by saying that I have a much different opinion on the aftermath of a significant long-term or permanent collapse of the economy and the power grid leading to a collapse of the social structure.   I have read numerous studies that indicated that, in any long-term absence of modern technology, the sort of defended retreat with family and friends, not to mention the exposure you will get bartering and dispensing charity with third parties, will be only the initial phase of a total breakdown of a functioning society.  Some say the further degradation of what we now …


Letter Re: SlideFire Stocks and OPSEC

Mr. Rawles,          First, I’d like to thank you once again for doing what you do, helping many, many people in the preparedness movement.    I’d like to to share my experience with the SSAR-15 SlideFire stock. I saw a video of the product in action on YouTube a month prior to the SurvivalBlog post concerning the SSAR. I couldn’t resist ordering one myself. A very interesting and functional product. And fun too! But where I shoot is private plantation pine land with a dozen houses within a mile. Rifle fire is a unmistakable sound even over mile in …


Our Community-Wide SHTF Contingency Plan, by T.M.

We are located in the Southeastern United States. There are nine families in our “block”, with the next neighborhood or community more than two miles away. I refer to it as a block because a major highway runs through it. The only dwellings on the major highway are three houses and one country store. The rest are on a “U” shaped secondary road that starts across from the store on the main highway and ends, back on the main Highway, 1 mile east, at a cross road. We are all contained in one square mile within that “U”. I should …


Retreat Security Myths, by Grandy

The following are some of my thoughts about our planning when it comes to preparing retreat defenses.  Some will work, others maybe not as well, but I intended it to be motivation for SurvivalBlog readers to start thinking about these issues.  This is written mainly from a TEOTWAWKI standpoint and not your typical short term SHTF event.  But some of these concepts apply to both situations. #1:  The Location Myth More often than not, our retreats are in a somewhat secluded location.  Rural areas are typically the norm and the further away from built up urban areas the better.  But …


Home Security, Inflation Hedge, and Liquidity, All in One, by Scott in Wisconsin

I’ve been prepping for about five years now, and I thought I’d share a little “trick” I discovered, to cover three very important prepping problems, all at once. We all want a more secure home, of course.  If the SHTF, we may well need to hunker down and be self-sufficient for a while.  But no matter how much stuff we’ve put aside, it’s meaningless if we can’t hang on to it.  So home security is very important. We also want a hedge against inflation, which seems sure to come.  The way the Fed is printing money, and the government is …


Initial Experience With a Slide Fire AR Stock

Courtesy of one of my consulting clients, I recently had the opportunity to shoot more than 120 rounds through an AR-15 equipped with an SSAR-15 SlideFire Solutions stock. These are legal “bump fire” stocks that slide 1/2-inch, allowing you to very rapidly re-press the trigger, under recoil. The effect sounds just like full auto. It takes a few minutes to get accustomed to controlling the length of bursts. The trick is using a slight forward pressure on the foregrip. As with full auto, don’t expect much accuracy after the second shot in a burst. (I was able to keep two …