.22 Handguns and Other Options For Self Defense, by R.F.D.

No one, myself included, would recommend a .22 caliber handgun as the ideal defensive weapon. For that matter, I wouldn’t recommend any handgun at all as the ideal defensive weapon. We carry handguns because most of us find it a tad inconvenient to carry a tactical shotgun, or main battle rifle as we go about our daily lives, and most folks tend to get a little upset when you get on the bus with one. If I knew a fight was coming my way, my preference would be a crew-served weapon, preferably with the ‘crew’ in tow. So, a handgun, any handgun is at best a compromise. But then, we’ve all been around long enough to understand that life is a never ending series of tradeoffs. 

I will not debate the .22 vs. ‘whatever’ for self defense. If, by choice or circumstance, your only viable option should happen to be the .22 rimfire, so be it. I have no problem with my students who choose the .22 for self defense, regardless of the reasons. They all know that I advocate using the largest round you can handle easily, afford to practice with, and shoot well. But, we do not live in a perfect world. 

Rule #1 of gun fighting, is to bring a gun, and any gun will always beat no gun. I will spare you all the inane arguments, wives’ tales, urban legends, and witticisms. Suffice it to say, the little .22 rimfire has been a heart breaker, and a life taker for more than 150 years. 

Shot placement will trump caliber, every single time. Since no one in their right mind wants to get shot with anything, fast, accurate, multiple hits with any bullet, including the .22 (which is the easiest round for anyone to shoot quickly and accurately in a close quarter engagement), will take the fight out of anyone. The most common stop is psychological, not physical. Most miscreants will cease their aggressive behavior after taking a well placed hit, or two, or three. With a lighter caliber, such as the .22, the heaviest, fastest bullet will usually produce the best results. The short barrels of most handguns employed in this role will not generate the velocity necessary for reliable expansion of most hollow points, since these cartridges are primarily designed for use in rifles. Penetration then, must be the primary goal, combined with rapid, multiple, well placed hits.

A 40 grain bullet making around 880 to 900 feet per second (FPS), or more from a 2″ barrel (and there are several excellent choices available) will consistently produce penetration depths of twelve to fourteen+ inches in tissue after passing through 4 layers of denim. Most heavier .22 bullets will begin to tumble in the medium they’ve entered following impact, creating a larger wound channel. It matters little whether the round is a solid, or hollow point, since as noted in many previous articles, the velocity is insufficient to cause reliable expansion. 

Function trumps form. Choose a heavy for caliber (40 grain) round that functions flawlessly in your gun. .22 firearms are notoriously finicky about the ammunition you feed them. Bullet design is secondary. A perfectly mushroomed round which penetrated five to seven inches will rarely be as effective as a round that didn’t expand, but penetrated to two, or three times that depth. Very fast and light bullets are impressive on small game and in gelatin tests, but the lack of penetration limits their usefulness in a defensive role. Therefore, I would not recommend any of the hyper velocity, or super fast light bullets that are so popular for small game, since they tend to disintegrate before they can penetrate to a depth of any consequence, and don’t provide the weight/mass to penetrate as deeply if they hold together. They were designed and intended for use in rifle length barrels, and will probably not meet your expectations from a short handgun barrel. 

According to the FBI Ballistic Test Protocol, the performance standards are simple. A handgun bullet must consistently penetrate a minimum of 12 inches of tissue in order to reliably penetrate/strike/damage vital organs within a human target, regardless of the angle of impact or intervening obstacles such as arms, clothing, etc. More than twelve inches is even better, and multiple wound channels will always beat a single wound channel.

Let’s put it all in perspective: A triple tap to center mass with a proper (40 grain) .22 caliber bullet would be the equivalent of being run through to the hilt 3 times in rapid succession with a 14 inch screwdriver, or taking three quick bolts from a powerful crossbow. Think about that for a minute. These are, at the very least, debilitating, and often, life ending injuries. That’s three chances to pierce the heart and/or lungs, or to nick or pierce a major artery, or to strike the spine. All of these hits have proven to be fight stoppers. 

A fast, controlled triple tap with three 40 grain .22s will result in putting 120 grains of lead, and about 220 collective foot pounds of energy on the target virtually simultaneously, with 3 separate wound channels and penetration sufficient to damage/destroy vital organs, and/or the central nervous system (CNS)–in the case of the spine. Were they not sufficient, a second string in the face of your attacker, where the bone is thin and fragile, could result in central nervous system strikes, and bring an immediate end to the altercation, or at the very least, cause him to reassess his rapidly dwindling options. We tend to worry, and argue ad infinitum about knockdown power and one shot stops, but the truth of the matter is, people just don’t like getting shot, especially more than once. The secret to increasing the effectiveness of any bullet in multiples of 100% is as simple as firing another one. So unless you’re facing Sasquatch, even the diminutive .22 can, and does, get the job done quite well, as long as you do your part.

Learning, and practicing to shoot strings of triple taps quickly and accurately at 7 yards or less with a .22 and the correct ammunition is very easy to do, and will provide a great deal of comfort to those who, for a myriad of reasons, have chosen, or been limited to the .22 for self defense. [JWR Adds: While I’m definitely in the “use enough gun: camp and tend toward .45 Automatics, I’ve had two consulting clients with wrist problems that precluded them from shooting anything more powerful than a 5.7 x 28 or a .380 ACP. My advice: If you are thus limited, then make up for it with the very best training that you can afford (be willing to travel to do so) and and practice very frequently, to achieve masterful speed and accuracy.]

Almost every maker of firearms has one or more .22 caliber semiautomatics, or revolvers in their line, and for good reason. This little cartridge has been going strong for 154 years. .22 rimfire handguns are for the most part, relatively inexpensive, lighter in weight, smaller in the hand, and easier to manage than their centerfire counterparts. Most reputable dealers sell their firearms for twenty, to twenty-five percent less than the MSRP, and well-cared for used guns are abundant and fairly priced. Although many .22 semiautomatics are usually less expensive than revolvers, users may not have the strength to manually cycle the slide to chamber a round, or clear a malfunction on a semiautomatic due to physical limitations, or disabilities, which is the reason they’ve gone to a .22 in the first place. The elderly may have weak hands from arthritis or other conditions, and these folks are generally the ones who are most likely to need a dependable, low recoiling, easy to operate defensive weapon. Human predators, like all predators, target those whom they perceive to be weak and easy, and therefore the weak are more likely to suffer at their hands. For these people, the double action revolver is usually the better choice. Modern .22 double action revolvers chamber from 6 to 9 rounds depending on the size and manufacturer. Generally speaking, the higher quality the revolver, the lighter, and easier to use the double action trigger will be, although rimfire revolvers usually have heavier trigger pulls than center-fires due to the need for a heavier hammer drop for reliable ignition. The lightest and smoothest double action trigger I’ve found to date, is on the new Ruger LCR-22. Your mileage may vary. Revolvers have no slide to cycle, no magazine to break or lose, no manual safeties, levers, or buttons to operate, save the cylinder release latch. They can sit unattended in a drawer for 20 years, and will perform as needed when called upon by simply acquiring the target, and pressing the trigger. 

There are two options available in the semiautomatic format that provide an end run around the problem of having to cycle the slide in order to chamber a round. The Taurus PT-22 (double action only, available with both alloy and polymer frames), and the Beretta 21A (double action/single action), both employ tip-up barrels, and allow the loading of the chamber without having to cycle the slide. However, should a failure to fire, failure to feed, failure to eject, or double feed occur, the slide will have to be cycled to clear that weapon, and therein lies the rub. If you should own one of these two, and it runs flawlessly with the proper ammunition, it may be a viable alternative to the revolver. Magazines can occasionally be the cause of malfunctions. Always have at least two spare magazines on hand for any semiautomatic. Having more magazines than that is better.

Never put a semiautomatic handgun into service in a self defense role without first having broken it in, and/or checked it out, with 200 to 300 rounds, regardless of the caliber. No one should ever bet their life on an unproven gun. If problems develop during the break-in period, and do not rectify themselves before it ends, the prudent choice would be to repair, or replace that gun.

We must balance power, weight, size, and recoil before deciding upon the ideal, or at the very least, an acceptable handgun. A handgun must always be within reach, it must be easy for the owner to operate, and it must be comfortable and easy to shoot well.  A .22 in the hands of a skilled and practiced operator is far more deadly than a .357 Magnum being wielded by someone who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with it. For the price of 100 rounds of centerfire, you can put 500 rounds of rimfire downrange in training. That familiarization and training is a priceless asset when your response must be instinctive and immediate.

Bear in mind, .22s are dirty rounds and it is imperative that you always keep your gun clean and lightly lubricated. A dirty, or over lubricated gun may fail you when you need it most.

Cheap practice ammunition .22 rimfire is notoriously unreliable. If your life is going to depend on the gun going bang every time your press the trigger, I would urge you to purchase the highest quality, most dependable ammunition you can find that will run flawlessly in your gun. You may have to try a number of different brands before you find the one your particular gun loves. When you do, stick with it. In my experience, CCI Velocitors and Mini-Mags are manufactured to a very high standard and have never failed me. Aquila Interceptor rounds are Eley primed, are even faster, and have proven to be equally dependable. There are a number of other excellent rounds as well. Do not be concerned with 25+ yard accuracy. These rounds are for self defense, and that means an engagement at 7 yards or less, usually much less. Keep your gun clean, start slowly, and practice, practice, practice until you are able to place those strings of 40 grain triple taps into a 6 inch circle at 5 to 7 yards very quickly. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. Start at the beginning, and in time you will become a force to be reckoned with.

The .22 Magnum cartridge is a more powerful, and therefore more effective choice (generally, a heavier, faster bullet) if you have the option of choosing. The difference in operation between the two on any given platform is for all intent and purpose, identical. The number of semiautomatic handguns chambered for this round is limited. The Keltec PMR-30 with its 30 round magazine is worthy of your attention. There are quite a few excellent revolvers available. The S&W 351PD is a gem, albeit very expensive. The difference in perceived recoil is negligible. The cost of the ammunition is higher, but it is, on average, manufactured to a higher standard, more powerful, and offers a higher reliability factor. Collectively, three excellent attributes. In longer, rifle length barrels the difference between the Long Rifle and Magnum can be dramatic, in short, handgun length barrels, not quite so dramatic. The major difference is the fact that several companies offer .22 Magnum rounds specifically designed to be used in short handgun barrels (Hornady Critical Defense comes to mind, and would be my first choice). These jacketed hollow point rounds are designed to both penetrate and expand at the velocities provided by short-barreled handguns, and are therefore a superior choice in a self defense encounter. On average, they are putting more foot pounds of energy on the target than a .22 Long Rifle from a short barrel, without the attendant recoil of a centerfire.

If you already have a .22 rifle in the loop (and you should), then moving to another caliber may not make financial sense to you if your have a substantial inventory of ammunition on hand (and once again, you should). You must however, resist the urge to use inexpensive, bulk pack ammunition in a self defense scenario. The higher quality ammunition recommended will function fine in your rifle, and will offer you the maximum chance of prevailing in an encounter with a handgun.

Both the .22 Long Rifle and .22 Magnum will serve you well as long as you understand their limitations, and learn to do your part without hesitation.

Above all, do not be discouraged by the armchair commandos decrying the virtues of the .22 as a defensive round. Most of them will probably pass away in their Lazy Boy with a beer in one hand and the television remote control in the other. They know not of what they speak. If, due to finances, disabilities, age, ailments, recoil sensitivity, or other circumstances, you find yourself limited to a .22 handgun as your only viable option to defend your life, and the lives of those you love, then learn to use it quickly and well. Maintain that weapon as if your life depended on it, because it does. Sleep soundly in the knowledge that you have done what you can to provide the means to preserve and defend innocent life as God intended.

Always remember, your gun is not the weapon. Your mind is the weapon. Your body and your gun are simply the tools your mind uses to bring your acquired skills into the fight. It will never be the gun… It will always be the gunner.

Practice equals competence. Competence equals confidence. Confidence equals winning. Make ’em count.

A Viable Centerfire Solution

Should you, or a loved one already own a centerfire revolver that can no longer be used due to recoil issues, that gun can be brought back online with ultra-light recoiling ammunition. I would urge you to consider the .32 Long wadcutter for all those old .32’s that have been sitting around forever in drawers, boxes, and attics. Several companies offer this light, mild shooting, and effective loading. These 98 to 100 grain wadcutter bullets can be fired from any five, six, or seven shot revolver chambered for the .327 magnum, .32 H&R magnum, or .32 Long. The recoil of this mild target load is about on a par with the .22 magnum in a steel framed gun. The bullet is on average, twice the weight of a .22 magnum with a 30% larger diameter, and at least the equivalent foot pounds of energy on the target when leaving the barrel around 700 to 750 FPS, and they will penetrate to at least the depth of the best .22’s. These advantages combined with the reliability of a centerfire cartridge, provide a viable option for individuals who cannot deal with standard, or high velocity loads, and already own a revolver chambered in .32.

If you already own a .38 revolver, but cannot handle even the lightest reduced recoil loads, Mastercast in Pennsylvania produces a 100 grain .38 Special wadcutter load that is the exact ballistic equivalent of the .32 Long wadcutter referenced above (100 grains at 750 FPS from a 2 inch barrel). The recoil of this round in a steel framed .38 revolver is virtually nonexistent. 

If you know someone who foolishly purchased an ultra-light, or air-weight alloy frame centerfire revolver without ever firing one because it was just so darn light, but then found that they couldn’t hold onto it, or control it when firing, even with reduced recoil rounds, the cartridges being discussed here might be the answer for getting that gun back in the loop as well. These rounds offer no expansion capability. They are designed to punch clean, caliber sized holes in whatever they hit, and they do it perfectly every time. These bullets cut instead of pushing a wound channel, and that’s a good thing. Their saving grace is penetration, which runs far out of proportion to what one would expect given the velocity at which they’re running. Prior to the advent of the hollow point design, those in the know replaced their round nose cartridges with wadcutters for social work. They knew even then, that the design just plain works for self defense.

Although these rounds would not be my first choice for the centerfire calibers being discussed in a self defense encounter, they offer us the opportunity to bring a gun that may already be owned, but cannot be used, back online. Any day you can convert a paperweight into an effective self defense tool, is a good day. When recoil is above all else, the determining factor in what is, and is not acceptable, then we must embrace the compromises that allow us to adapt the gun in question into a manageable, and viable alternative. A firearm suitable for self defense by someone who otherwise would have to remain unarmed, unprotected, and afraid. 

Are the huns that I’ve described the perfect solution? No, but, few things in life are. The line between suitable, and perfect is very narrow indeed, when lives may be saved, or the quality of a life may be improved exponentially by adding a means of self protection, and a little peace of mind, for those souls who previously had neither.

There are few of us without elderly, or infirm family members, or friends in our lives who cannot be helped with these options. The confidence and peace of mind that comes with self reliance is something to which we are all entitled, and if that gift of empowerment is within our capacity to give, we must exercise that responsibility whenever, and wherever we can. 

Should you take umbrage with my observations, opinions, or conclusions, then I would urge you to re-read Rule One.

Be well and stay safe.

A Haphazard Approach to Vehicle Outfitting and Risk Mitigation, by W.A.

My new Nissan 4WD Frontier is pretty well equipped…and conspicuous. Maybe it’s the 102” steel CB radio antenna whip that tipped the balance. Yeah, they make smaller ones, but for my first foray into CB, I wanted the best money could buy…my money anyway. And it turns out that you spend more money to go smaller and the reduction in size can challenge the optimized reception with respect to the wavelength of the transmission signal(i.e. in many respects, bigger is still better). Were it not for that tall waving wand in the sky, perhaps the addition of the two sets of off-road lights, contractor tool boxes, bull bar, roof rack, and headache rack might have gone largely unnoticed in my suburban enclave. I was actually able to conceal the Public Address (PA) speakers (front and rear) fairly well. In my first drafting of this article, I actually left them off of the rundown. They were hidden even from my recollection. I do have a winch mount on order, but my plan is to have that dismountable and store the body of the winch in one of the toolboxes to protect it from the elements or potential theft. Although a GPS is no replacement for superbly honed map skills, I once read that in the wake of tornados or hurricanes when all street signs have been obliterated, it might be helpful to have some knowledgeable, turn-by-turn guidance. So I got one. There is a map of my immediate area in the rear seat pouch, and I know I should ideally have more than one map. “Haphazard”, remember? It took the loss of cell phone service following the east coast earthquake of 2011 to encourage me to enlist other modes of communication. CB radio seemed to be the next most ubiquitous which did not require any special licensing. Each of these acquisitions was spurred out of some sudden realization of a latent ‘need’ which was more likely just a ‘want’ which I could justify in the name of preparedness. I will admit, the excitement of opening and installing the contents of each of those parcels over the past few months made what is often portrayed as a doom and gloom exercise into almost a hobby of sorts which I immensely enjoyed.

The concept of preparedness started for me just two years ago. While shopping in Barnes & Noble, I happened upon a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, a satirical, how-to guide for surviving the onslaught of the undead. It was a fairly entertaining read, made all the more enjoyable by the infusion of very practical considerations applicable to nearly any challenging situation. One piece of advice was to review existing survival and wilderness guides for general guidelines, as tactics specifically employed for the “killing” (if you can kill something that is neither living or dead is possible) or otherwise dispatching zombies would be the primary focus of this text. So I did. I picked up two more guides. Fast forward to last year’s “Snowmageddon” which was the ill-fated evening where a fast-moving and productive snowstorm enveloped the DC metro area just at the start of rush hour and gridlocked and stranded thousands of motorists. I was one of them in my trusty 4-door Honda Civic. On uncongested, snow covered roads, it responded rather nimbly in snow and I generally could count on enough room to maneuver should I get into trouble. But generally the idea was to always be a body in perpetual motion. This was simply not possible in stop-and-go traffic. I got stuck and with no provisions in the vehicle, was fortunate to get a quick push in the direction of a nearby shopping mall where hundreds of us wayward travelers had managed to scamper to and take up refuge in the food court.  I had always wanted a 4 wheel drive truck. This encounter solidified the need in my mind.

Fast forward again to this region’s significant earthquake in 2011. I was not the least bit fazed by the occurrence in and of itself. It felt like little more than the weekly trash collection in my office building where occasionally a new driver to the route roughly handles the receptacles down in the loading dock. What was more troubling is what I encountered when trying to contact my wife just to ensure that the house had survived in tact. Phones were down. I’m not sure about land lines. We do not maintain one at home. Cell phones were most assuredly down for about 10-15 minutes. Again, not an excessive lapse of service, but one which few of us anticipated. The cell phone is regarded by many of us “Sheeple” (I was one and still exhibit tendencies at times)  to borrow the phrase, as the be all end all of emergency preparedness and communication. We are lulled into complacency by believing that any service or need can be fulfilled by a timely call placed to the appropriate party or entity. So now, without any sort of coherent plan, I’ve got all these words of wisdom swirling in my head. And both the Civic, and the old beater truck (rear wheel drive only) are at just about the end of their useful service lives. I traded them in and began the journey of outfitting a new vehicle.

But first there was my own personality and ego which had to be overcome. I maintain a significant physical regimen and regard myself as possessing impressive intellect and ingenuity. So my approach to life was “Well, I’ll know how to respond if something happens and will have the physical conditioning to do whatever is necessary to endure any hardship.” And maybe  that can be justified for a single person, but now I’m a husband and will likely someday be a father. To pass on that legacy and demonstrate such dereliction of duty as the head of a household is entirely inexcusable.

So for me, the transitions have been from “nonchalant”, to “haphazard”, to hopefully “better planning” and orchestrations with my preparations than I exhibited on this fitout. My truck now is kind of funny (though survival is no laughing matter). I’ve made it into a kind of Swiss Army Knife of bug out vehicles (BOVs), including a chain saw in the back. Quick story on that is that my job told us prior to Hurricane Irene making landfall that we might be requested to come to the aid of some of our project sites. I work in construction management. I wasn’t worried about high winds (I’ve made this girl pretty heavy now) or high water; it was fallen trees that concerned me. I couldn’t very well drive over them, not without larger profile tires and a lift kit perhaps. But that will never be practical for me because I still make my living as a part time office-worker and office garages in the city do not afford that sort of roof clearance. Sigh. Getting back to my point, I figured I might need to cut any fallen trees up to clear a roadway. My ego liked that. “I could be a rush hour hero…” And now I could justify buying a chain saw. There has to be a practical limit at some point to curtail this form of vehicular hoarding that I was engaged in. As I went along, I did try to balance some of the tradeoffs in terms of weight, fuel economy, etc. I’ve also experienced some missed opportunities in terms of the locations of where some components I’ve mounted which were more cosmetic than utilitarian now occupying the ideal mounting locations of more practical additions. I’m now retroactively trying to improve my fabrication skills with a welder (another survival inspired purchase not specifically outfitted for the truck…yet)  to accommodate a front trailer hitch and the bull bar which is presently installed that I cannot exactly afford to simply throw away. Practicality will ultimately win out, but it is a tough pill to swallow at this juncture.

I’ve started focusing on some of the less sexy aspects of preparedness as they pertain to travel as well. It seems everyone focuses on food and ammo. One article on this blog dealt with the very real issue of water. I was embarrassed that I had three separate vessels for transporting and storing fuel and not even a Dasani water bottle in the truck. Terrible. That’s been corrected. I’ve got a 7 gallon jug now from Bass Pro Shops. I wanted bigger, but I reminded myself of the consideration that  each gallon is 8 pounds of cargo, and with a 50 lb pack and weapons, I’m personally well over100 lbs of carrying weight if I have to go over land. So I’m continuing to read and research in an effort to smooth out the ebbs and flows in my preparedness tide. I’d likely sacrifice the large portable in a fight-or-flight scenario in favor of the Nalgenes I’ve tucked into BOBs for my wife and me. I’ll have to become familiar with water bodies along our escape route such that we can employ the portable water purifier on the go. This brings me to my next point.

What I’m ultimately coming to terms with is that this vehicle (as sexy as it looks), with all that I’ve invested into it, is meant to be a means to an end. I’m merely supposed to travel from one destination to another. It should not represent my entire lifeline or the culmination of my preparation efforts. Should it become disabled, or no other passable routes exist, my very survival might dictate that I abandon it after salvaging whatever resources I can reasonably transport on foot. My efforts of late are actually aimed at reducing my dependence on the vehicle altogether. Communication was the biggest hurdle, as I set up the truck with the PA amplifier and CB radio as my communication hub. It was easy enough in response to this realization to acquire a hand-held CB. I still need to test out the comparative range. (Anecdotally, I read that it is less range, but some range is better than no means of remote communication).  The biggest practical drawback for me is that it is not a diesel engine. All of the posts tout diesel for its versatility of fuel options and that one could even endeavor to generate their own bio-diesel. Yes, I missed that on the dealer invoice. On the same token though, articles that advocate that our ideal bug out vehicle should be a pre-1980 Diesel Ford 4×4 miss the mark (in my humble opinion) in the sense that when the time to bug out comes, we might very well be at a dinner party, or commuting to work or in some other respect sharply jolted out of our daily lives and need to respond. And if this truly is the end of civilization for the foreseeable future, it’s not like I’ll have a regular need to travel down the road to the shopping mall even if I had extensive fuel stores. I’d likely be looking to power a generator or would have hopefully succeeded in setting up my BOL to be self-sustaining off of the grid. I just need this rig to get me there on whatever fuel I have on hand when it’s time to roll out.

Many of the articles talk about how the signs and the advance warning will be apparent leading up to a societal meltdown or destabilization. I may need to depart from the masses in the prep community in that regard. A rather insightful article I found here actually warns against being the lone, bunker dweller who alienates all friends and loved ones with eerie doomsday proclamations. That type of prepper is not beneficial to the cause according to the author. Their stance is that our mindset and practical considerations, when conveyed by a competent person who is an authority or subject matter expert may serve to encourage other loved ones to make their own personal preparations in advance of what is perhaps a more likely occurrence of a natural disaster or prolonged service outage of some sort which challenges conventional modern day life. So it might not be the end of the world as we know it, but more like the ‘end of my typical Tuesday’ which may evoke the need to enact some of the principles and strategies for which this community is renowned. The prospect has become a lot more palatable for my wife as I’ve framed some of these acquisitions in the context of us being able to embark on camping trips and enjoy the outdoors more together. I am not leading her under false pretenses. I am very up front with what my primary inclination and motivation is derived from. But in the end if ‘The End’ never happens, I wouldn’t want to have spent the sums of money and time and not ever had a use for my portable water purification system.

My parting advice is that I recommend self-performing any such improvements on your vehicle. I think the owner should be well acquainted with the intricacies of the outfit such that they are aware of any vulnerabilities and the various service points afforded to the user to ensure continued operation. I also found, in working through and planning the installations (this is the one area where I did employ planning), I considered pathways and approaches which afforded me the best chance of transferability or reusability of components. My CB radio could be hardwired directly to the battery. I instead opted to power it from a cigarette lighter so I could transfer it for use in another vehicle or just quickly extract it and salvage it for parts to be able to service the handheld CB radio I picked up. All in all, any effort that moves one from a state of dependency to self-sufficiency is effort well spent, even if the progression was a bit haphazard. I’ve definitely learned a lot through the various successes and missteps.

Letter Re: Natural Gas “Drip” Condensate

JWR,
I noticed your description of “drip” as an alternative fuel in your novel “Survivors”. Many years ago I was on a task force in Farmington, New Mexico to catch and convict “drip thieves”. I was then a Special Texas Ranger and worked along with New Mexico Highway Patrol, local law enforcement officials and the then Tenneco Oil Company Security investigators. Theft of drip was very big then, as probably now due to the high cost of gasoline. I will share with you some of what we learned from the experts, the actual thieves we caught.

First of all it is not called “drip oil”, but only “drip” in thieves term. It is actually what the oil industry calls “condensate” and as you correctly stated is a by product of natural gas production. It is the condensate liquid that forms from natural gas as it is produced from the wells. Some wells are “wetter” than others and produce more condensate. Those are the wells drip users look for. Wells produce through a well head valve system and flow through pipes to the collection system. Each well has a flow meter, usually a Barton type, that measures the volume of gas produced. Several wells may feed their condensate into what is usually a “210” barrel collection tank, also low points in the pipelines collect the condensate and are routed to the storage tanks. These tanks are the targets of drip users, which will fuel vehicles.

Drip users, which is illegal but common in areas where it exists, like the high gravity clean type, and different wells produce different types. One thief explained the tests he used to test drip, the spit test and the burn test. He would get drip from the valves on the lower part of the storage tanks, the 210 barrel type. He would first get a sample through the top of the tank by climbing the catwalk to the upper hatch, oddly enough called the “thief hatch”, he would lower a small can into the hatch and obtain a sample of the condensate, either a coffee can or similar. Once he had several inches of drip, he would first spit into the drip and see how fast it sank, the faster the better the drip. If it lingered on top or was slow to sink, it was not what he wanted. If it sank and passed that test, he would light the fluid and watch the flame, if it was blue, it was great, if it was yellow or orange and let off smoke, it was too high in sulfur and not too good. Once he identified a good well, he always remembered where it was located.

One thief drove a van and had 55 gallon drums in the back that he would fill. The 210 designation tanks were 20′ tall and gravity would usually fill the drums. He would also fill his own gas tank in the van. But, a good thief would always install a drain cock in his tank in case he got bad drip and had to dump it. Many thieves would use drip for mainly private consumption, however we caught some selling it to regular gas stations who would just mix it with their regular gas and sell it blended, no one knew.

Some thieves told us they needed to advance or retard their distributors a bit to get drip to run the best, but that was in a day before all this electronic fuel injection stuff.

I hope I did not go into too much detail, but now you have a basic idea of drip usage in vehicles and how it is stolen. If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to ask.

Regards, – C.R., Retired in Colorado

Economics and Investing:

G.G. sent us this: The Upside of Government Default

Reader G.P. sent this from The Slog: A timetable for Greek Default?

Courtesy of Michael W.: Dollar Gets No Respect Despite Economic Gains. JWR’s Comment: Genuine money is made of silver or gold. And honest paper money substitutes are redeemable on demand for silver or gold coinage. Anything else is trash. Thus, all of the world’s fiat paper currencies are trash. Some of them are just trashier than others. I would characterize the U.S. Federal Reserve Note as like an aging, gap-toothed syphilitic harlot that is dressed in shabby green dress that has been trailing the tatters of a silver lining for five decades. But then perhaps I’m being too kind.

Items from The Economatrix:

Moody’s Warns May Downgrade 17 Global Banks

Oil Rises To Three-Week High

Greece Stumbles Defiantly Toward Default. [JWR’s Comment: Folks, are your ready for the potential cascade of events if there is indeed a Greek default on March 23, 2012? Be ready for currency devaluations, bank runs, stock market collapses, hedge fund failures, and more.]

A Warning Sign For The World

Odds ‘n Sods:

This company near Denver, Colorado might be of interest: RainyDayRootCellars.com. They make pre-cast concrete shelters that are multipurpose: root cellars, storm shelters, nuclear blast/fallout shelters, and storage vaults. OBTW, if you are wondering how to make a detached underground shelter disappear… just pile part of your supply of firewood over the hatch.

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Please note that my novel “Survivors” is not just available from Amazon.com. It is also available from Barnes & Noble, and several other Internet vendors. There is also a network of local independent bookstores, coordinated by IndieBound.com. Give the other guys some business, too!

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AmEx (American Expat) sent this news story from Champagne, France: Champagne house finds $1 million in gold U.S. coins in rafters. And, coincidentally, in Germany: Handyman finds secret gold stash in kitchen. (Thanks to Diana for the latter link.)

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How awkward! Michelle Obama surprises visitors on White House tour… and shakes hands with man in Ron Paul T-shirt

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Tim J. was the first of several readers to send us this: Mystery mountain man to Utah cabin owner: Get off my mountain. [JWR’s Comment: Here is yet another example of the mainstream media misusing the term “survivalist.” By definition, a survivalist is someone who trains and prepares in advance for self-sufficiency to overcome disasters. Backwoods burglars have to steal because they haven’t prepared in advance and because they lack self-sufficiency skills. Ditto for Eric Rudolph, who was also mislabeled as a survivalist. If he had been a real survivalist, he wouldn’t have to be scrounging in grocery store dumpsters–which is how he got spotted and arrested.]

Note From JWR:

Today we present another two entries for Round 39 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), and E.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo.

Second Prize: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol. It is a $439 value courtesy of Next Level Training. B.) A FloJak F-50 hand well pump (a $349 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. C.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300, D.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and E.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value) and F.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, C.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and D.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 39 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Ready for “Slutet På Världen Som Vi Känner Den” in Sweden

The migration of SurvivalBlog’s web server to Sweden is complete. The new dedicated server is now humming along nicely with 5 Terabytes of available bandwidth, utilizing very fast dual-quad core processors. The kinks have nearly all been worked out. Now that the DNS propagation has been completed, SurvivalBlog is also back to a #1 ranking when you search “Survival Blog” in the major search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and Google.

We are now down to just one sticky issue with McAfee anti-virus software displaying a false malware warning when SurvivalBlog is visited. This is because our server’s IP address falls in the numeric range of our new web hosting company, IT-Staden AB (aka “Server Connect”) in Hudiksvall, Gävleborg, Sweden. (They are located about 170 miles north of Stockholm.) It seems that there had been some past indiscretions by some Swedish or Russian hackers that had been customers of the same web hosting company. Rather than pinpointing the particular IP addresses of the “bad boys”, McAfee’s software takes the sledgehammer approach and displays the warning flag for anyone using servers in large blocks of IP address numbers. I will be contacting McAfee about getting this rectified. For now, you can just ignore McAfee’s malware warning message, but only when you visit SurvivalBlog.com.

Several readers have asked: “Why did you get a server in Sweden?”

In a nutshell, these were our reasons:

  1. First, and foremost, we needed to find web hosting in a country with a stable, neutral government that is not “Beholden to Holder.” (Yes, SOPA/PIPA/ACTA–or something like it–is still a concern.)
  2. We needed a reliable server with high uptime. (Sweden has very reliable hydroelectric power, ane Hudiksvall is well removed from major European pupulation centers.)
  3. Lower cost for monthly bandwidth.

Update (2015): We later migrated to a dedicated server in Holland.

A Wannabe Homesteader, by Brenda K.

Some of my long-time friends can’t believe me now.  I was definitely a “city girl,” but now I’m a “wannabe homesteader.”  We’re living in the country now and I’m having fun learning to do a lot of “new” things.  Some of these things are just ordinary, every-day chores for people who grew up on farms, but for me, it’s a whole new way of life.  I’ve really enjoyed making butter and yogurt from the fresh milk we buy from the local Amish.  The first day I bought a gallon of milk from them, I told them I’d never had fresh milk before and the look on the young man’s face was priceless!  He couldn’t believe it.  Making laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent is saving us money, too – and it’s fun for me.  Something else that’s saving us a ton of money is heating with firewood.  Cutting firewood is something my husband and I do together several times a week and we really feel like a team, working our land together.  Working out in the timber, I feel so blessed that God gave us all those resources to help us.

My husband and I spent our honeymoon in the Ozarks and fell in love with the area.  A friend had found a very nice, reasonable mobile home near a big lake to use as a cabin.  We told him if he heard of another good deal to let us know and it wasn’t too long and we had our own “lake cabin.”   We lived in a major city in the Midwest and had high pressure jobs, so it was really good to get away as often as we could.  We enjoyed our lake cabin for a few years, but we both knew eventually we’d want to have an acreage with lots of trees and some kind of water like a pond or creek.  I was always watching the real estate ads and found an interesting acreage listed.  We called the realtor to get directions to view the property.  She was very nice and offered to meet us there, but we said no, we just wanted to take a look.  The directions were from the south end of town and we started from the north end, so the mileage was off and we had trouble finding it.  We stopped at a farmhouse to ask directions and after visiting awhile, discovered the man’s grandfather and my husband’s grandfather were brothers!  We really hadn’t thought of it, but my father-in-law was born in the area and moved away while in his teens and then his father moved the rest of the family later.  We didn’t even think about possibly having relatives in the area.

My husband started having health problems in 2008 and was in the hospital five times in three months.  In 2009 I had surgery for melanoma and had a second surgery in 2010 which turned out to be benign. (Praise God!).  We decided it was time to make the move, so as soon as we could get our house sold, we were heading down!  Our house was an old farmhouse I bought before we were married.  My dad helped me do a lot of repair when I bought it (because it was a dump!)  He was a contractor for over 50 years, so his help was greatly appreciated.  Later on we did more improvements, like aluminum siding, building an additional shed, an additional driveway, etc., but I wished we’d kept on doing little improvements and updating through the years.  When we were getting it ready to go on the market, we had so much work to do, it was overwhelming.  Our retired friend Jim, who had worked in construction for many years, offered to help us and I don’t know what we would’ve done without him!  The house was finally listed August 1, 2010 and we made a deal with prospective buyers on August 30th.  The deal fell through, but with much negotiation, had another deal with the same people towards the end of September and we closed on November 2.  Our last day at work was October 28.  We signed the paperwork at the title company ahead of time, so we were already enjoying a little time in Missouri, to celebrate.

It was several months before we actually felt like we actually lived at the acreage, instead of vacationing.  Part of that was due to several little trips we took within that first year.  I’ve told several people that feeling like you’re always on vacation, is not a bad problem to have!  My husband says retirement is a good job, if you can get it.  The only way our life could be any better, is if we had more money.

In the late winter and early spring, I started some seeds for the first time and boy, did I have fun!  My plan was for container gardening since the soil is very rocky and has a high clay content.  Unfortunately, there was a terrible hail storm while my plants were sitting out on the deck hardening off and they were hit hard – literally!  A neighbor down the road received $19,000 in hail damage and the people across the road from him had $25,000 damage.  We are ¾ mile from them and we had our roof checked out and the roofer said he only saw three dings!  Later our neighbor said he thought he saw damage on our roof, just while standing on our driveway, so we had another roofer check it out.  He said he saw a couple places where it’d be good to pound down a couple nails and caulk, but that was all.

I had a big container garden to try out a lot of different plants to see what I’d prefer.  According to many long-time gardeners, I picked the wrong summer to try gardening for the first time!  People that had gardened for 50 years were not very successful that year, so it’s no wonder my gardening efforts were pretty much a flop.  With the extensive heat wave and the “varmints,” I didn’t have much to show for my efforts.  I learned a lot. One of the lessons was to do a better job of fertilizing!

I was looking forward to canning bushels of produce from my garden, but that was not to be.  Even without a successful garden, a friend was church taught me how to can and I’ve canned peaches, apples, apple butter, loose meat hamburger, meatloaf, chicken, chicken soup, ham, bacon, navy beans and beans with bacon.  I’ve also had fun “vacuum canning” dry goods like pasta, rice, beans, sugar, salt, etc.

I had hoped to invest in solar power, but we just didn’t have the money for it.  We have a Hardy brand outdoor wood burning stove to heat the house and the water.  We love it!  Since we have a double wide mobile home, we weren’t able to “plan” any of the construction details, like insulation, windows, etc., so we try our best to be frugal and conserve energy.  I’m extremely frugal anyway, so it’s kind of a challenge to see how little electricity we can use during the month.  I keep track of the actual usage – not counting the connectivity fee or tax.  The lowest we’ve used is $29 for the month.  We’ve had a couple $29 months and a $30 month.  It was harder when we had the heat wave last summer.  I think the highest was $77, so after the fee and tax it was almost $95.  That month some friends had a bill of over $300, but they have a two story stick-built home.

In past years, there have been some serious winter storms with some areas being without power for more than two weeks.  After experiencing a terrible storm several years back and being without power for a few days, we wanted to do the planning and prep work to be able to sustain power for our home during an emergency power outage.  We have two generators – a small one and a new larger one.  We had a licensed electrician come and figure the best way to avoid trouble.  Now if there’s an outage, we’ll throw a power transfer switch and plug in the generators and we should be okay.  The smaller generator will service the water pump and larger one will be for the house.  We still have to go through and identify the primary circuits we want to power during an outage.  It feels good to prepare as well as we can to avoid trouble.  We have built up a reserve of gasoline and have treated it with stabilizer to keep it good.

I believe that everyone needs to prepare as much as possible for other types of emergencies as well.  Last year we installed a storm shelter and I’ve been putting supplies in the shelter.  It’s pretty small, so I’m being selective about what to put in there.  The devastation of the Joplin tornado gives cause for reflection and inspiration to stock our shelter well.

An economic emergency is something else I think people should consider.  The state of our government is a big cause for worry for many people – including me.  It wouldn’t take much to disrupt our normal distribution system, which could mean that the grocery stores would be empty within a few days or maybe even a few hours.  I believe it is very, very important to keep that in mind.  Too many people only have enough food and other supplies for a few days or weeks.  A friend of mine told me her son and daughter-in-law in New York shop for their groceries daily.  Their apartment is so small that they don’t stock any groceries.  Apparently, that’s common in New York – yet another reason why I prefer to live in the Midwest.  In case of any kind of disaster, there would be a whole lot of hungry people in that big city!  Imagine the unethical people thinking they’d just take what they need from others.  I think everyone should be building up their supply reserve – even if it’s just a little at a time.  When you’re grocery shopping, try to prioritize so that you can buy a little extra of the basics that will store long term.  Space is an issue for many people, but what I’ve found is, the more you look around and the more you organize, the more space you can find.  It also inspires me to get rid of excess “stuff” and ours goes to a thrift store that benefits the Humane Society–one of my passions!  The more you prepare, the more peace and security you will have – regardless of what’s going on in the news.

Thinking of the evil people who were too lazy to prepare and thought they’d just take what they want reminded me of something I heard a few weeks ago.  We’ve been attending some readiness meetings put on by a discount grocery business that specializes in helping people prepare for emergencies.  A man in attendance said he has a bumper sticker on his truck that says “Don’t tread on me.”  A young guy at a gas station asked him where he got it and he told him.  The man was suggesting that he start preparing for difficult times.  That young guy said he didn’t have to prepare – that he and his ex-military buddies would just take whatever they wanted from others.  He said they could go into anyone’s place and just take what they want.  That was right here in our little (ostensible "safe") town!  One year in the 1990s our town was voted the safest city (per capita) in the nation.  Something else that some of my long-time friends probably would be shocked at, is one of the ways we chose to prepare.  Both my husband and I decided it was wisdom to get our concealed carry permits.  The world is changing – and not for the good!  I truly believe we have to be prepared for all kinds of trouble.

I don’t know your religious beliefs, but I believe that my husband and I were being led to prepare.  Our preparing isn’t like some people, with bomb shelters or the like.  That could be due to financial lack, but I like to think it’s more the path of our leading.  I felt that we were being led to “prepare for difficult times.”  I believe that God has been leading many more of His people to also "prepare for difficult times."  Part of His plan may be to have certain people strategically placed so that they can help others.  I’ve known for several years that part of my calling is to help others – this may be one of the ways.  The friend at church who taught me to pressure can foods at home also feels that she may be called upon to share her reserves with her church family.  That’s why she and I both have been packaging some of our long-term storage into smaller containers – in case we need to share a quart or two of beans and rice or whatever with our friends and neighbors.  If everyone will prepare with the thought of sharing with friends, relatives and other people in need, then those difficult times may be a little easier! 

I want to encourage people – everyone – to prepare.  A little at a time, can by can, jar by jar – week by week, and month by month. Before long you could stand back and admire your “investment” in peace and security.  If an ignorant “city girl” like me can learn how to make butter and yogurt, to can all kinds of food, to make her laundry and dish soap, to help cut firewood almost daily – and to actually enjoy it, then anyone can learn the skills necessary to start on the road to self-sufficiency!

Urban and Suburban Preparedness, by ChemEngineer

A recent conversation prompted this article. It seems that friends in urban and suburban homes feel that there may be little hope for them in case of disaster, since they have no “retreat” set up in a rural area as a destination. This article points out similarities in all disaster preparedness, as well as possible differences in strategies and tactics to make surviving in urban and suburban locations more likely. None of these are new ideas, just slanted toward those who are urban/ suburban dwellers and that do not have a rural retreat location.

While not detailed in scope, below are several points to assist in preparedness for survival in urban/ suburban locations for those who cannot or will not choose to relocate to a rural existence.

  1. Attitude is Critical. As in rural retreating, or any other kind of survival situation, urban and suburban dwellers must adopt the attitude that surviving the bad time is an achievable goal, and whatever can be done to ensure survivability will be done. It may not involve acres of tilled soil or forests of trees, but in all except situations of total annihilation, people can survive in urban/ suburban spaces if properly prepared.
  2. Air. Three minutes without breathe-able air is a problem. Urban/suburban dwellers may find the air more polluted than the rural tribes from fallout, burning buildings, any number of hazards. Gas masks and adequate replacement filters can go a long way for personal protection, but also consider the sealing of your living space (the infamous “tape and plastic” that FEMA so indelicately told us to stock) as well as a filter and fan for incoming air to pressurize and provide air changes in a living space. Coarse filters (like bandanas or sheets) stretched over HEPA filters (second stage) with carbon absorption (third stage) can be found and assembled/ stocked now, so make a plan (actually, make 3 redundant plans) to make this happen. Think of the filter that the Apollo 13 astronauts put together to save themselves. It can be done. Even radioactive fallout will dissipate to livable levels within a couple of weeks, so if you are out of a blast zone (a typical nuclear device has a blast zone of maybe a couple miles in diameter… call that a worst case), this is not a permanent situation.
  3. Shelter. Three hours without shelter in some environments is a problem. Figure out where it would be best to shelter in place, whether that is your home (preferable, because all our preps will likely be there if we do not have a rural location already set-up), apartment, or someplace else (where we can stage and cache supplies). Urban and suburban environments place high value on “space”, so our homes and apartments will likely be our “space”. I have a friend in a major city that took the unused space in a hallway above the door frames, dropped in thick plywood attached to substantial cleats on the walls (attached to studs), and now has an “attic space” right there in her apartment. Do not become a refugee while searching for a better place, but have at least two other options for an alternative space if they become necessary. Don’t plan to live in a tent or “take to the mountains to live off the forest”. Bad idea. Apartment buildings that are 4 stories or more, and not tall enough to stick out or become outposts are good. Stay above the third floor for security (but get in shape, because that is a lot of steps, since elevators will not work). Do not become a refugee in any circumstance. Be somewhere familiar and set up a base. Clothes are included in shelter, so have some work clothes and boots that can last in a pinch, get gloves and backups, and cold/ rain gear for all. You probably already have most of the outerwear for your area.
  4. Water. Three days without water is a problem. Tarps for rainwater collection are your friend, but keep them as subdued as possible. Rainwater from roofs coming down gutters can be diverted to barrels or buckets. Keep Clorox Liquid Bleach in the laundry basket, and a couple under the sink. One gallon of bleach will treat thousands of gallons of water, making it usable. Add two drops per liter and let it sit for 30 minutes. Add more bleach if the water is cloudy. Liquid Bleach has a shelf life, but it is at least 6 months in an unopened bottle, so buy 3 or 4 bottles and be covered. One bottle of bleach may be the best dollar you ever spent. Powdered calcium hypochlorite is fine also, just takes extra steps to use it properly and will lose potency if not carefully sealed. Water needs to be located and buckets stored to transport it, or in suburbs, you can drill a “landscape watering well” with a removable manual pump-head. Urbanites, check roof drain locations and tap into them when needed. You cannot store enough water in a small apartment to last a year… for four people, that would be about 1500 gallons minimum. That is four pallets of water (40”x48”x48” tall) in those pallet-sized tanks, and it would need to be rotated if you kept it onsite. Put another way, it would take about 19 of those 80 gallon hot water tanks to hold this much water. The weight of 1,500 gallons of water weighs more than 10,400 pounds excluding the containers. Keep enough water on hand in 2 liter bottles discreetly hidden under the sink or in closets to use until you can tap into a water source. Locating water is a big deal, so start looking around now. Newer apartment buildings have fire water standpipes, some have tanks on the top floors. Figure out how to tap into those if needed. Take a plumbing class if you can’t figure out how to do a tap and run a hose and open/ close valves, but don’t actually tap it until the time is right..
  5. Food. Three weeks without food is a problem. Basic food storage for four people will take up a surprisingly small space. I do not mean the freeze-dried canned materials, nor am I talking MREs but you can certainly do both of those. I mean basic food, such as suggested in Ragnar Benson’s book, Urban Survival. 
    1. “5×50 pound sacks of sugar,
    2. 6×50 pound sacks of flour (or wheat to be ground into flour),
    3. 10×25 pound sacks of cleaned lentils,
    4. 10×25 pound sacks of split peas,
    5. 10×25 pound sacks of dried beans,
    6. 2×3 gallon jugs Vegetable Oil,
    7. 100 pounds of dried milk. “

All of this adds up to a pallet (40”x 48”) that is about six to seven layers tall… a total of maybe 5 feet tall, and a lot less money than you think if bought in bulk. Think of a big closet for storage, or the “apartment attic” described before. Even small apartments have closets and under beds or inside couches to place the materials. Rotate it out, of course. Now, this list of basics will allow survival with basic nutrition, but you want to do more than survive, you want to thrive, so… Many more things can be stored for long periods of time. Every trip to the store, add a couple of items and you will be amazed how quickly it accumulates. Add bagged rice, boxed pasta, all varieties of canned stuff (condensed soup, canned meat, canned tuna, canned salmon, canned butter, canned pasta sauce, canned veggies), spices, tabasco to give it all some kick. If you are hungry, the pallet of nutrition will get you and 3 other people through a year while you grow things in any available dirt, whether that is a container, on the roof, on the fire escape, in a window box, or in the flower bed. Also, urban living will support pigeon roosts on a roof or an attic or a shack out back (15 pigeons will give 2 squab per week indefinitely), maybe rabbit hutches out back or on a roof (3 does and a buck will give a 2 rabbits per week indefinitely). Traps for other assorted protein. Ponds and waterways in the city surely support at least snapping turtles which are not half bad… cut off the head, pop open the bottom shell, clean them like any animal, season the water with some spices of your choice, boil them up… tastes like chicken.. Canada geese are a poo-dropping pest now, but can be had easily in nearly every city and suburb in America with rocks or a bolo (three lengths of paracord and three weights on the ends). Learn to butcher animals quickly and efficiently, don’t be squeamish. Take a class, learn the basics. Survival and Preparedness Stores are popping up like mushrooms and offer classes in many different skills..

  1. Fuel. To cook food or to keep warm, we need long-storing fuel. Suburbanites can drop a 1000 gallon propane tank (where regulations allow), hide it, and be set for a year of cooking and house-heating using those little infrared propane heaters that do not need permanent vents or electricity.  Space is a little more difficult for apartment dwellers, but the little 25 pound propane tanks can go almost anywhere. Get a fill valve to fill the smaller tanks, and attach the infrared heaters on top and cook/ heat from them. Electricity can be provided by solar PV generators, or if you want to use precious fuel to make electricity, diesel or propane-converted generators can be pretty small anymore. Noise from these is a concern, but can be muffled or directed upwards to make them less rackety. Find the plans for the mufflers, and learn to weld at the same time. Those ubiquitous suburban golf carts make dandy electrical storage devices. Wire your genny or PV panels to them to charge, and you have deep-cycle 12 volt power to feed an inverter to get 120 VAC. You will lose some efficiency, but you can get the power that you need. Take a class, learn electricity at the same time. This is not even including wood stoves that can burn everything from newspapers to phone books to broken furniture to coal from a seam in a road-cut, asphalt from roads, 2×4’s from collapsed buildings, even wood from real trees! Venting is important, some of these things make acrid smoke, but heat is heat. If you have a rock/ brick fire ring outside for cooking, get a Dutch Oven on feet. It can make anything from bread/ biscuits to soup beans to roasts to serving as a water-bath canner. Get a bunch of matches, butane lighters, and fire-steels (they backup each other) to get the fuel burning.
  2. Medical. Same as rural retreat planning. Get yourself trained, get family trained, and get the supplies organized in multi-level a kits. Wound Care Kit, Upper Respiratory Care Kit, and Bowel Care Kit. Take that Emergency First Aid course from the Red Cross or the Survival Store. Your needs and mileage will vary, but is the same as for a rural retreat.
  3. Sanitation. Learn to process your own wastes, whether that is an outhouse privy with a bag of lime to keep it civil, or a cat-hole. I would keep as much ground clear as possible for growing things. Do not slight the way that wastes are processed. Disease springs from untreated wastes. Take care of it, get it buried if there is ground suitable for that, or burned if you want to use precious fuel.
  4. Security. You will need the same weapons in an urban/ suburban situation as well as a rural situation. These can be as simple as a .22 rifle and pistol for taking anything from the size of a rat up to the size of a bad-guy. Keep it simple, and keep a couple thousand rounds of .22 ammunition in the same place. It will only take up a space 4”x4”x4” for over 500 rounds of .22 Long Rifle, so do the math. Do not doubt the lethality of a .22 round at short distances, but have multiple backups in necessarily larger calibers if you can afford it. Consider any of the common Battle rifles (5.56/ .223 or .308) and 12 gauge shotguns (with ammunition and magazines) for as many as you can afford. Knives, we gotta have them, so get some with backups. Get a radio that runs off rechargeables, a walkie-talkie for every member (and backups). Secure the lower ladder on the fire escape for apartment dwellers. If things get bad, I doubt that the Fire departments are going to be issuing tickets for non-dropping lower ladders on our fire escapes. We don’t want visitors coming up that way.
  5. Planning Every excursion out of the shelter should be planned and staffed, with full knowledge of security, and be sure that the mission is worth the risk. Keep quiet, and keep light discipline by closing curtains and maintaining low profile. Cooking odors go a long way, keep lids on when cooking, and doors closed if possible. Keep flashlights, rechargeables and batteries, and backups. You can never have enough flashlights. Finally, find like-minded folks in your area. Visit a Survival/ Prep store and talk to the folks there, buy supplies there, and take classes there. You’ll get a lot of information and be able to cultivate friendships before trouble starts, so you can help each other when things go bad. We cannot go it alone. Strength in numbers, security in numbers.

Yes, it will be tough to survive in an urban or suburban environment, definitely harder than being 20 miles from a town in a hardened structure, well-watered, raising your own food on 40 acres with a mule, munching on your five years of stored food, and taking shifts in strategically placed LP/OPs, but it is do-able. Don’t be overwhelmed, just eat the elephant in small bites. Take classes from community colleges, Survival/ Prep Stores, Red Cross or CERT organizations.  Nearly all events are survivable, with the right mindset, training, and preparations.

Two Letters Re: Powering Vehicles and Machinery Without Gasoline

James,
Thanks again for doing everything you do.  It is with great pleasure I write to you again to contribute some of my knowledge. I mean no offense to Caspar d’Gonzo, but after reading his article I have the notion that he has not yet actually constructed a gasifier based on the FEMA instructions.  Though his article was very good about covering the theory and basics.

I was first fascinated with gasification when I saw them make a gasifier on The Colony.  I read about it and planned to build one.  Not long after I almost wrecked my Jeep while driving through northern Pennsylvania when I saw someone using a home-made gasifier on a car.  I pulled over and chatted with them and now I really had a passion instilled in me for an alternative energy vehicle.

Fall of 2010 I had a college course called Alternative Energy, and the final project was constructing something relevant to the class.  Some classmates and myself tackled the FEMA wood gasifier.  Other groups built solar food dehydrators, small hydro-electric generators, waste oil burners, etc.  The FEMA gasifier instructions are a good starting point, but far from all you need.  Ingenuity and creativity will get you from the FEMA instructions to a working model.

I sized my gasifier to run the 134 cubic inch, 72 horespower engine in my 1963 Jeep CJ5.  At the beginning of my project, I wanted to run that CJ5 with the gasifier.  Now, I see that this will wear out an engine faster than normal fuels, so I will be building a dedicated gasifier powered vehicle in the future.  Also, the gasifier ended up being very large overall, and requires a pickup truck or trailer.  It would not fit in the back of my CJ5.

I was fortunate enough to have full access to a local salvage yard that was sympathetic to college students.  I could go out and pick through acres of scrap, and I still could not find some of the items that FEMA called for.  The instructions are outdated.  Be prepared to deviate and get creative.

Some things I learned…

Harbor freight has the cheapest ball valves for the carburetor unit.

Garages have 125 lb grease drums/gear oil drums that make good filter housings.  They usually throw them away or use them for garbage cans.  I got one with a re-usable lid just for asking.

Home Depot sells a fireplace sealer in white tubs that worked well on the inside to protect the metal from heat cycle fatigue and seal welds and gaps. But be sure to put it on thin or it will never cure.

I used two 55 gallon drums from the scrap yard instead of garbage cans.  They’re thicker and usually found for free, but make sure they didn’t have anything in them that could poise a health risk when you have a fire inside.

For the shaker bowl in the bottom of the gasifier, I found a stainless steel colander (bowl with lots of holes) large enough at a restaurant equipment supply store.  They had lot’s of sizes and very economically priced.

I used flexible steel exhaust hoses to connect the gasifier to the filter and the filter to the carburetor unit.  They were kind of pricey at my local auto parts store but I was having trouble locating heat resistance flexible pipe.

I used a 4″ Attwood Turbo 12v inline blower to draw a vacuum at the carburetor unit and get the gasifier going.  This fan worked really well and I found PVC pipe fittings at Lowe’s to connect it to the exhaust pipe. These fans are built for pulling fumes out of boat hulls, so they’re typically advertised as spark-less, and the best price I found was online at walmart of all places.  This fan was really useful, because by flipping the wires I could run the fan backwards and blow air into the gasifier to fan the flames on start-up.  Switch the wires back and pull the gas through.

The only free fuel I could get my hands on at college were green pine wood chips made for mulch use.  I would not recommend that less than ideal fuel, but it did still produce flammable gas.  I had tar and filthy water pouring out of my filter.  The FEMA design for a filter was really ineffective.  When I get back into the gasifier project I will be researching what other people are using because a can full of wood chips will not keep your engine running for long.  Lot’s of tar and moisture were bypassing it.  Obviously, I did not have enough temperature drop for condensation and particulate filtration going on.  The fuel definitely needs to be a good wood, not pine, that is dried.  Dried goat manure was used with success on the PA Apocalypse TV show.

The only testing I did was on a 6 HP Briggs & Stratton small engine and it ran fine on the gas I was producing, but when I took the head off after test running there was a lot of tar inside.  I was always able to light the gas coming out of the gasifier outlet for entertainment value and have a nice pink or orange flame to verify it was producing gas.  Also, I only used my gasifier while stationary, not mobile on a vehicle, so I was frequently shaking the bowl in the bottom to pass ashes through it and pushing the fuel in the top into the fire tube.  Mobility is a must with this design so that shakes and bumps going down the road keep things running, but other designs exist that are intended to be stationary.

Right now I’m playing with burning waste motor oil and vegetable oil in a 1967 military surplus M35A2 (“Deuce and a half”) I purchased with great success.  For now, my gasifier will sit and wait until I have more time to experiment with filtration and quality fuel.  I hope to find an older 4-cylinder truck, like a cheap Chevy S10 to mount the gasifier on.

Good Luck with Gasification, – Josh in Pennsylvania

 

James Wesley:
The recent article by Caspar d’Gonzo in SurvivalBlog left out the advances by the open source group gekgasifier.com

They have taken the WWII design into the modern era, with a much more efficient design, as well as a design that is easier to start and produces much less tar than the FEMA design. Best Regards, – Bill M.

Economics and Investing:

This set of charts says it all: The day of reckoning for global total debt – total credit market debt up from $28 trillion in 2001 to $53 trillion in 2012.

Bob L. sent this: Richard Russell – A Bitter Pill to Swallow, Austerity or Inflation

Items from The Economatrix:

True UK Jobless “6.3 Million”

Jim Sinclair: The Lonely Road We Take Together

“Poor America” – How The Broke Are Surviving

Mortgage Settlement Will Plunge Real Estate Values

Odds ‘n Sods:

Ian R. sent this one: How Weather Impacts the Dinner Table

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AmEx (American Expat) sent this: Decision time for researchers of deadly bird flu

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Also from AmEx: Special Report: Towns go dark with post office closings. This is of particular concern for those of us who live way out in the hinterboonies.

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Some sage advice from Ol’ Remus: Preps.

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Bryan E. sent a link to this not-so-new “Russian Inwention”: The AK-12. The latest incarnation of the reliable Kalashnikov action, quite predictably now wearing a Picatinny Rail.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“By many indicators, Greece is devolving into something unprecedented in modern Western experience. A quarter of all Greek companies have gone out of business since 2009, and half of all small businesses in the country say they are unable to meet payroll. The suicide rate increased by 40 percent in the first half of 2011. A barter economy has sprung up, as people try to work around a broken financial system. Nearly half the population under 25 is unemployed. Last September, organizers of a government-sponsored seminar on emigrating to Australia, an event that drew 42 people a year earlier, were overwhelmed when 12,000 people signed up. Greek bankers told me that people had taken about one-third of their money out of their accounts; many, it seems, were keeping what savings they had under their beds or buried in their backyards. One banker, part of whose job these days is persuading people to keep their money in the bank, said to me, ‘Who would trust a Greek bank?'” – Russell Shorto, from his February 19, 2012 New York Times article titled The Way Greeks Live Now.

Note From JWR:

Today we present a short guest article and another two entries for Round 39 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), and E.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo.

Second Prize: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol. It is a $439 value courtesy of Next Level Training. B.) A FloJak F-50 hand well pump (a $349 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. C.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300, D.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and E.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value) and F.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, C.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and D.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 39 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.