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Would you like to learn a skill during these relatively quiet times that will assist you to obtain, or at least keep,  gasoline, diesel, food and every other commodity the a day after this society falls?   The SurvivalBlog posts regarding TEOTWAWKI may provide you with information regarding  what is the bare minimum you need to strive for in you preparation of the day after disaster strikes.  What if you want to be more prepared?  Do you want to possess a skill that everyone will have a need for the day after the disasters strike? Some people believe that a person’s skills will be more important than the commodities that they bring to an after disaster living situation so if you are not going back to medical school soon, you may want develop a bag full of desired skills. Every day that is like yesterday, the more likely tomorrow will be like today.  Every day that slides by, however, pushes us towards the edge of a cliff, and when we fall off that cliff as a society, our days will be forever changed, and you will then have to deal with a new normal.  There is no need to go through all the different possibilities of how and why this will happen, but many have suggested that we will be in a new Dark Age. How will this Dark Age be different than the last one?  More people will die during the upcoming series of disasters.  Many people died at the point of a sword in the last Dark Ages, but during the upcoming Dark Ages, many people will die from a bullet wound. 

All of these articles and blogs at times focus on different reasons how and why people die during these times of disaster and the authors attempt to jump start you along these roads of how and why to prepare yourself and your family.  Your needs will include fuel, fire, food, shelter, and water, but what happens when someone comes to take these precious commodities away from you, or worse yet, what happens when someone attempts to harm you or your family? Okay, so you have a gun, when was the last time you fired it?  If you and your family whole existence will ultimately going to depend on your ability to use your firearm, why aren’t you going through at least a box of practice ammo every month?  Is your family worthy that amount of time and money? What was your answer to the question … what good is your car if there is no fuel in the tank?  Similarly, what good is your firearm with no ammunition?  Hopefully, you are not in the group of people that mistakenly believe that the sight of a firearm or the sound of slide of a shotgun is enough to scare the bad guys away.

You have an ability to make something if you prepare now that could be more important than food, gasoline, and all the other commodities that you are stockpiling.  You can make your own ammunition because with a loaded firearm, many other things are possible.  Without a loaded firearm, you could lose everything including your life.  Back during the Clinton Administration, key players in the Executive branch realized that going directly against gun owners, the NRA, and the 2nd Amendment was probably not the smartest political move so they attempted to eliminate the precursor reloading supplies, and Clinton attempted to tax already loaded ammunition into oblivion.  The far left thinking is based upon the sound facts that guns are useless without ammunition, and  2nd Amendment does not mention anything about ammunition so the far left is able to reach their goal of a USA without workable firearms without going directly against the 2nd Amendment eliminating ammunition.  The current Democrat President could institute such a policy with a mere signature on an Executive Order.

So do you have enough ammunition for all possibilities that the future might hold, or would you like to have the ability to make your own ammunition regardless  of the situation?  Since the days of President Clinton when he attempted to place limits on ammunition, many people who handload or reload have been stockpiling the supplies necessary to essentially make their own ammunition.  This skill would be invaluable the day after the fall, but it also has benefits now of costing less per round to produce a useable round. The ability to reload or handload your own ammunition is extremely simple to learn.  Before deciding to purchase the equipment and supplies required to reload, you can purchase a DVD entitled RCBS Precisioneered Handloading.  There are many makers of the items listed below.  These items are listed as options that you may want to consider before purchasing these types of items. Many of these items may be purchased at your local sporting goods stores, but as an additional option, these items are listed by cost and item number at Midway. The DVD shows you the basic process of how to make your own ammunition and the necessary equipment and supplies you will need to purchase.  Making your own ammunition is a simple process. At Midway, the DVD item number is  #99910, and the cost of the DVD is $10.  After watching the DVD, you can decide you want to add this necessary skill to your repertoire of TEOTWAWKI skills.

Different manufacturers have most of the items you will need to make your own ammunition in Press Kits.  For example, RCBS has a Supreme Single Stage Press Master Kit which has over 90% of the equipment you will need to reload your own ammunition.  This RCBS Master Kit is approximately $300, but for the next couple of months, RCBS has a $50.00 rebate on RCBS items that total at least $300 so with this rebate the cost of the RCBS Kit would be approximately $250.  The Midway item number for this RCBS Master Kit is #646599.  Another reloading company Lee has a similar reloading kit.  This kit contains most of what is contained in RCBS’s Master kit and the Lee kit is on sale at Midway for $82.  Midway’s item number for this Lee Single Stage Press Kit is #423-081. So what will you do with these reloading kits?  After you fire a round in your modern firearm, what typically comes out of the weapon is a brass cartridge or casing.  When you look at that brass casing, you will notice that it has a flat bottom.  Usually on that flat bottom, there will be some words like the caliber of the weapon that casing is for, and name of the manufacturer of that casing.  In the center of the brass casing, you will see a primer.  If the round has been fired, the primer will have a  dent in it, and this primer is typically termed a spent primer once it has been fired.

What happens when you pull the trigger on a weapon is that the pulling of the trigger causes the firing pin to strike the primer in brass casing … that primer shoots a small, but powerful flash through a hole in the casing into that part of the casing where the powder is being housed … that flash ignites the powder in a semi-controlled explosion (the blast), and the mass of that powder is transformed into a gas… the energy … the gas then pushes the bullet out the barrel of the gun. What you are doing when you reload these brass casings is you first resize the brass casing to its original size… you pop out the spent primer … you place a new primer in the bottom of the casing … refill the brass casing with powder… and finally seat a new bullet in the mouth of the brass casing.  Once you watch the DVD, you will realize how easy this process is.  These tasks are primarily performed by merely moving the handle of the reloading press up and down, and it usually requires very little physical force to complete these tasks.  You will need a small area of counter space to set up the press or small reloading benches can be purchased from Cabela’s and other suppliers to house your reloading supplies and equipment all in one place. The items that will not be contained in your press kits are the supplies of primers, powder, brass, bullets, and dies.

Each caliber of weapon will require different primers, powder, brass, bullets, and dies so you will have to make the determinations regarding these items once you have determined what weapon you will be using. For example, you decide that you also want to have .30-06 Springfield in your arsenal of weapons, and you want to be able to reload your own rounds for that .30-06 weapon.  You have chosen to possess a .30-06 because it is a well balanced cartridge, and there should at least be empty brass somewhere that you can obtain.  Initially, you will look in the reloading book that comes in your kit.  If you purchased the RCBS Master Kit, the reloading book contained in that kit will be the Speer Bullet Reloading book.  Turn to the pages in the Reloading book that discusses handloading for the .30-06.  In the current 14th Edition, that discussion takes place on pages  473 through 488 .  The book or manual will also discuss what you will need to purchase for primers, powder, and bullets for a given caliber of firearm.  All of these items will be discussed in greater detail in the reloading manuals, but it is important to follow the instructions in the manual very closely. 

If you still do not know if you want to add this to your bag of skills after watching the DVD, these reloading manuals discuss what to do and how to do it in much more detail so by purchasing one of these manuals, it will provide you will more information before purchasing a kit, or watch the process on YouTube.  These manuals typically cost around $20, but many times these manuals are contained in the kits if you purchase a kit.  The Midway cost on Hornady’s Handbook of Cartridge Reloading 6th Edition is $24 and the item number is #438424.  The Hornady’s Handbook is mentioned because it promotes different bullets than Speer’s bullets, but more importantly on page 38 it has a listing of all the manufactured powder currently for sale.  Hornady’s Reloading manual also lists in a separate book the drop for each bullet at a specific velocity so you can determine how your bullet will perform in the air before it reaches its target. You will have to match, with the assistance and direction of the manual,  the burning rate of your powder to your weapon or cartridge.  The list of powder on these pages is listed from fastest burning powder to slowest burning powder.  Generally, the fastest burning powders are used in shotguns or pistols, and the slowest burning powders are to be used in rifles.  This list is important if you cannot find a specific powder, but you can purchase or trade for another powder, how will this new unknown powder’s burning rate compares to what you need. The current cost for a pound of powder averages between $25-30 per can.  The day after disaster strikes the cost of powder will go off the charts and will you will probably not be able to purchase the items listed in this article anywhere at any price.  Powder has more than doubled in cost over the last several years, and there were times that you could not purchase the more popular powders. 

The more popular powders are those that can be used in several different weapons.  Some of these powders include 4895, 7828, 4831 (rifle powders) and 2400 pistol powder.  A person can usually obtain about 100 rifle rounds out of one can of rifle powder, and many hundreds of rounds from one can of pistol powder for a pistol.  You can purchase powder from your local sporting goods store or from Midway. There was a period of time when President Clinton was in power and he was attempting to shut off the flow of ammunition, or the items necessary to make your own loaded ammunition/ It was then that primers first became scarce and in some instances could not be purchased and any price.  Without proper primers, your weapon and its ammunition will not work.  Eventually, you could purchase primers, but at first, primers cost 3-5 times their normal cost when you could find someone to sell you some.  Currently, the best rifle primers made are Federal’s 215 Match large rifle primers, but there have not been any of these specific primers for sale for several years.  It is extremely important to use the proper primer listed in the reloading manuals so before you purchase any of these items, review your reloading manuals and following their instructions.  Primers can be purchased from your local sporting goods store or from Midway.

With these reloading systems, it makes your one weapon more versatile.  For example, with your  30-06 outlined above, you can have a specific bullet loaded for shooting primarily coyotes or other varmints with the Speer 125 grain “TNT” style bullet. Midway item number for this bullet is 712369 and costs $26 for a box of 100.   This bullet is light, fast, and will expand greatly on impact on small game.  Alternatively, you could handload Speer’s new Deep Curl 180 grain bonded core bullet.  A bonded core bullet is a bullet where the heavy lead core is bonded to the stiff copper jacket so it maintains approximately 90% of its original weight when striking an animal.   This retained weight will ensure deep penetration and a lethal wound channel, and those are the primary reasons most people fire a firearm. This Deep Curl bullet fired from a 30-06 is capable of bringing down any animal in North America. Midway’s item number for this 180 grain Deep Curl Bullet is #973637 and the cost is $31  box of 100.  Finally, you can load this 30-06 cartridge so it is a semi-armour piercing round that could stop a vehicle by loading it with a 165 grain solid brass bullet made by Barnes Bullets.  The Midway item number for this Barnes brass bullet is #384406 and the cost is $30 for a box of 50.  So you can use the same weapon, same brass casing, same primer, same powder and with different bullets have total different impact on your varied targets.  You can purchase inexpensive bulk bullets or more custom bullets that have a specific function for specific targets.

Everyone that dabbles in this sort of ballistic analysis is asked… “What is the best bullet?”  In order to answer that question, you need to know what you are going to shoot, but the question has been mostly answered by   Gary Shciuchetti in an article in volume #193 of Handloader magazine.  Mr. Shciuchetti purchased all the 180 grain bullets made by all the manufacturers and custom bullet makers.  He shot them in speeds from 3,200 feet per second down to 1,700 feet per second.  He then measured the diameter and length of the wound cavity.   Mr. Shciuchetti weighed each bullet after it was fired to determine an average retained weight of the bullets. All the other variables being equal, and after hundreds of test shots, one bullet out performed all other bullets… almost by a factor of two, meaning that this bullet typically cut a wound channel twice as far as the next closest bullet… and that bullet was the Winchester Fail Safe.   The only problem is that they do not make that bullet any more, but Barnes MRX Bullet is made in the same manner and is as good, the problem is that this MRX bullet is comparatively expensive.  Winchester’s XP3 loaded ammunition is close, as is Barnes X bullet, in performance to the Fail Safe bullet.

The final item you will have to purchase separate from your kit is a set of dies in order to reload you own bullets.  There are many manufacturers of die sets.  Usually, there are 2 or 3 dies in each set of dies that screw into your press.  The dies are what actually make the changes in the brass casing when you work the handle of the press up or down.  With different dies you will be able to load different rifle or pistol calibers or shotgun shells by using the same press and often times the same primers and powders. For example, for your .30-06 rifle a good choice would be  a RCBS  .30-06 full length sizing die set.  Midway item number for this die set is #264330 and the cost is $29. So what would happen after to pick up your fired brass is you screw in your sizing die into your press.  Your brass is held in place by a shell holder in the top of the ram of your press.  You follow the instructions in your DVD reloading manual but the first die, sizes your brass, and pops out the spent primer.  You re-set a new primer in the casing.  Fill the case with new powder, and re-set a new bullet, using a different die.  The round is ready to be re-fired.

You can make your own ammunition, and with this skill so you can make rounds for others as long as you have the proper dies, brass, primers, and powders.   It is certainly worth the $10 DVD to better understand this reloading process, or go on YouTube and watch someone reload a centerfire brass cartridge.  Once you see all those folks reloading, you will see how easy it is to learn this vital new skill.