Notes from JWR:

I was recently featured in a slightly tongue-in-cheek article in La Razon, a major newspaper in Spain: Survivalistas: preparados para lo peor.

Today we present another entry for Round 24 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.

First Prize: A.) 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 between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) and C.) A HAZARiD Decontamination Kit from Safecastle.com. (A $345 value.)

Second Prize: 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 $350.

Third Prize: A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing.

Round 24 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.



Inexpensive Hand Reloading Tools–Part of Budget Preparedness, by D.A.S.

“Everything in life is a trade-off.”  There’s wisdom in that and anyone who wants to be prepared has to make the best trade-offs for functionality and their budget. 

Most people who prepare for emergency scenarios, whether it be civil unrest, terrorist attack, EMP, or whatever, include a firearm in their plans. A firearm provides protection and a way to harvest game that is second-to-none.  But firearms require cartridges and there’s the rub.  Unless your last name is Gates, Walton, or Rockefeller, you can’t afford to have 10,000 rounds of ammunition just setting around.  If you have regular job and are working on being prepared as a contingency, you can’t spend all your money and time on ammunition.  There are too many other things that need to be bought and done.

This article assumes you know some basic nomenclature.  If you look at a centerfire cartridge, that is almost any [modern brass-cased[ cartridge except a .22 you’ll see on the bottom a circle that is the primer, which is the contact explosive which sets off the main gunpowder charge.  The cartridge case is the brass tube that holds the primer and the bullet.  The bullet is the projectile that the powder charge forces down the barrel and out to do the actual work.  Fully loaded and ready to shoot, this is called a cartridge. 

Reloading your ammunition is a way to get multiple shots from one cartridge case.  Reloading treats the bullet, primer, and powder as expendables, and recycles the brass case to be used again.  Here again, there are trade-offs.  You can easily spend over $2,000 for reloading supplies for just one cartridge and need a full-size workbench just to reload your ammunition  $2,000 buys a lot of ammunition and unless you are a competitive shooter who shoots hundreds of rounds a week, this is probably not the way you’ll want to go.  You can step down to a couple hundred dollars for a reloading press and dies that will do an excellent job, but still is bulky and hard to transport if you have to leave in a hurry.

There is a way to reload that only takes up about as much space as a paperback book and only requires a wooden stump and a small chunk of wood to completely reload ammunition if you have the consumables: the Lee Loader. This simplified reloading device was invented in 1958 by Richard Lee.  Although the center fire rifle and pistols reloading kits did not come around until a couple of years after that.  I recently purchased a couple of loaders for less than $20 each online on sale.  This will give you easily over $100 to spend on consumables.  You can stock up quite a bit of primer, powder, and bullets for the $100 (at minimum) you saved by going with a Lee Loader. 

These loaders have superb accuracy and lengthen the life of the case because they only size the neck of the case.  A regular press with dies sizes the whole body which is necessary if your brass has been fired in more than one firearm.  However, if you’re only using one firearm for that caliber, the brass will fire form to fit that chamber like a glove.  The accuracy is second to none.  For over seven years, according to the Lee web site, the Guinness World Record for accuracy was held by ammunition loaded by a Lee Loader. 

[JWR Adds: Because these small hand presses do not full-length re-size cases, they may prove unsuitable for reloading ammunition for many semi-auto rifles, but they usually work fine for single shot and bolt action rifles. ]
  
The small plastic case contains four or five parts that let you de-prime, size, re-prime, charge, and seat the bullet on the case.  I’ve seen a video on You Tube of a man starting with a once fired case, completing all the steps and having a round ready to go in 40 seconds.  I wouldn’t recommend going this fast.  Although, after using one to reload several hundred rounds, you’ll begin to get a rhythm that will increase your speed.

The first step is to de-prime the case.  The kit comes with a de-priming pin and de-priming chamber which basically holds the base of the cartridge but doesn’t support the spent primer.  By sliding the pin through the case neck onto the primer, a simple tap with either a non-marring hammer or a piece of wood drives the spent primer out of the case. 
Here’s where an extra not included in the kit can be very handy.  A case-specific trimmer can be used to make sure that the brass hasn’t flowed forward and your case has hence become too long.  The
load card that comes with the kit gives the maximum trim length of the cartridge as well as the maximum overall length.  So another extra that would be very handy is a set of calipers. 

The second step is resizing the neck.  The largest part of the kit is the resizing chamber which is just a piece of steel machined to the size of the case.  By putting the case into the chamber and driving it home with whatever you used to de-prime the case, you size the neck to fit the new projectile. 

The third step is to re-prime the case.  With the case fully seated in the sizing die, a new primer is set on the priming chamber cup up.  Then you turn the sizing die upside down so that the base of the cartridge is pointing down and place this over the priming chamber.  They are made to fit together so that the pocket and the primer will match over each other.  Then the priming rod is fed into the case mouth just like the de-primer which was used earlier.  A couple of good solid whacks will seat the primer into the pocket.  Because of variations in pocket depth and primer sensitivity, you should make sure that your head is not above the case when doing this.  Although I’ve only had it happen a few times and never had the priming rod fly out, I’ve heard stories of this happening and the pop of the primer going is enough to startle you.

[JWR Adds: I strongly recommend setting the priority of purchasing a Hand Priming Tool. This is not only safer, but will provide far greater consistency in primer seating depth. It is also a tool that you will want to keep, if and when you graduate to a more sophisticated bench-mounted reloading press. With the “feel” provided by hand-priming tool, you will get great consistency, which helps contribute to making the most accurate and reliable ammunition.]

While priming, the base of the case will be driven a short distance out of the sizing chamber. You should put the case on the de-priming chamber because it will protect the primer from any impacts and will make it much less likely to detonate. Use the priming rod to push the case far enough out of the mouth that it will come loose from the sizing die and set on the de-priming chamber.
The next step is to put your powder into the case.  The top of the sizing chamber will now act as a funnel for inserting the powder.  The Lee kit comes with a powder scoop sized in cubic centimeters and a list of powders that will work with this cartridge and this scoop.  The best way to do this to achieve maximum repeatable accuracy is to pour the powder into a larger container, dip the scoop down below the level of the powder, bring up and rake across the top with a stiff piece of paper, like a business card.  From there, you simply dump the powder into the top of the sizing die to charge the case.
Once the case is loaded, all you’ll need to do is insert your projectile.  Use the seater that is integral to the priming chamber to set the bullet by hammering the bullet into the case mouth, creating a newly-loaded cartridge.  Here’s a place where the calipers I spoke of earlier would come in very handy again.  You could check the seating of the bullet to a factory-loaded case.  But a pair of inexpensive calipers would be very handy to make sure the bullet is seated to the proper depth. 

After this is done, you will have a fully-loaded cartridge. However, for the sake of efficient motion, if I am reloading a box of cartridges, I will go through and de-prime them all first and then load them all in batches.  Before you start, you should also wipe down the cases to make sure there is no grit that could case wear on your loader. 

Another nice thing about this way of reloading is that it doesn’t require special lubricant like most other presses.  It also doesn’t require a powder scale, although it could be useful if you want to work up a special load for your firearm. 

So here’s a way to reload a complete cartridge that only takes minimal space, weighs little, doesn’t require a bench or any special tools that don’t come in the case and can load high quality ammunition.  It also costs less than a fifth of what other reloading systems would cost, giving you more money for either consumables or other projects.



Letter Re: Comfort and Holiday Foods for Family Food Storage






Mr. Editor,
I think someone should mention that one part of food storage schemes that is often overlooked is “comfort foods”. These are foods that can be used as occasional pick-me-ups that can break up a really monotonous and bland diet, when you are [living] on storage foods. It is also important to be able to celebrate special events, holidays, and big accomplishments, with something more than just a bowl of canned peaches. But my question is: What comfort foods do I store, that store well for years? Thanx, – Clifford D.

JWR Replies: I agree! Part of keeping harmony in a family during trying times is maintaining the ability to cheer folks up. Several of our advertisers sell “comfort” type storage foods, some with remarkably long shelf lives. These include:

Freeze Dry Guy
JRH Enterprises
Ready Made Resources
Safecastle
Best Prices Storable Foods
Healthy Harvest
Milk on the Moove

For example, see the “Dessert Cakes in a Can” offered by Ready Made Resources, and the freeze dried Raspberry Crumble and Blueberry Cheesecake, both sold by Safecastle.



Influenza Pandemic Update:

Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America

Reader DB sent this: KPC: The Other Potential Pandemic–And We’re Completely Ignoring It

U.K. Diagnosing H1N1, Dispensing Drugs Online

National Guard Drills at High School for Possible Pandemic Riots

US Gearing Up for Second Wave of Swine Flu

UK: Healthy Children and Those Over 65 Not Swine Flu Priorities

Chinese Mainland Reports First “Critical” Case of Swine Flu


Peru Detects Swine Flu in Amazon Indian Tribe

Brazil Swine Flu Deaths Soar to Almost 200



Economics and Investing:

KAF flagged this: Tax Dodgers Scramble for Options Amid U.S. Crackdown [JWR Adds: Given this development, I predict that the offshore banking crowd may soon embrace some heretofore “outlaw” nations. There are lots of folks that are willing to take more risk in exchange for total privacy.]

Karen H. forwarded these:

Consumer Prices Fall as Shoppers Hold Back

With Lobster Prices Low, Things Get Ugly in Maine

Recession Chills Sunshine State Tourism

Items from The Economatrix:

Shifting Sands

Bank on Inflation (The Mogambo Guru)

Commercial Real Estate, Construction, and Finance Employment: How Commercial Real Estate Will Drag the California Economy Deeper Into Recession


How the US Treasury and Federal Reserve Juice the Market


The Grinch is About to Steal Christmas


Sales Unexpectedly Fall on Job Losses


US Consumer Confidence Sinks on Jobs Concern


Gasoline May Decline to $1.76 Within a Month
[JWR Adds: But higher crude oil prices are expected before the end of the year, so fill up your storage tanks, folks!]

Bank of Israel Halts Daily US-Dollar Purchase Program


Commentary from Mish Shedlock: Peas in the Deflationary Economic Pod
. JWR’s Comment: Yes, there will be deflation in the short term, but then watch out!

And from commentator Mike Whitney: US Financial System is Bankrupt, Economy Spinning Out of Control



Odds ‘n Sods:

Steven C. sent a link to an article about some exciting new developments in sodium-sulphur battery technology: Power Shift; New battery could change world, one house at a time. Hmm… If I were speculator, then I might consider buying some stock in Industrias Peñoles.

   o o o

Mark P. sent this: Accountant, lawyer, dentist — future farmers? Program partners aspiring farmers with aging pros to preserve way of life. Mark’s comment: “This might be a vehicle for some to make the break with the city and learn those skills they will need as things go from bad to worse. “

   o o o

The new Surviving Disaster series premieres on Spike TV on Sept. 1st. It looks like it might be worth watching. Meanwhile, I’ve been enjoying The Colony, on The Discovery Channel (via online streaming–I don’t own a television.) Four full episodes are now available online.

   o o o

Thanks to Sue C. for spotting this: Old-fashioned bartering helps pare medical bills





Note from JWR:

My wife ("The Memsahib") asked me to send her thanks for your many prayers. She has felt greatly uplifted by prayer, and a great sense of peace, in anticipation of being united with the Lord. May God Bless You!



Letter Re: Viability of a Well-Stocked Suburban Retreat?

Good Morning!
Thank you for the info you provide for all of us in your web site. I live in the Kansas City Area in a beautiful suburb which is one of the nicest cities in the country. till doing okay in the depression too. My work is secure and I do well and I own my own twp-story with basement frame home and have been making it a retreat for the past five years. I have no debt and am 60 days ahead with my mortgage and insurance and utilities. Am I absolutely crazy to try to stay here when things go bad?

First, let me tell you what I have done. I have a new roof ,which is fireproof. I have two large fire extinguishers in each room and more in the basement and garage and attic and I have a 2-inch fire hose with Honda generator to pull water from my 2,000 gallon swimming pool/fountain as well as from my 2,000 gallon [combined capacity] plastic tanks under the deck. Yes, they will freeze in the winter so I may add a new tank in the basement. I have 100 50-pound bags of sand which can also put out fires [and double as ballistic protection].

I have a strong 7′ wood cedar privacy fence around my back and side yards and I have landscaped them such that it is difficult to see into my yard from any point but still need to add a few more tall bushes to screen my home. I brought in 80 [cubic] yards of great topsoil for the backyard to level it and to add garden areas so I can grow lots of food. I have a gutter system hooked up to the water storage and I have 3 months of water stored now in the basement and when the time comes new 55 gallon water barrels with hand pumps will be in each of my 4 bath rooms and kitchen. There is a pond and active stream 200′ from my home and 5 of my neighbors next door and up hill from me have large swimming pools that I can siphon water from. I can produce clean water for 25 for 20 years with my water filters. So I have five ways to get water when the tap stops running.

I can feed my family for more than five years and then grow food too. I have all the stuff you buy in the stores weekly. I can grow food inside or outside and in a greenhouse too that is next to the house which can be heated with the natural warmth of the earth /basement and wood-burning stove, and sunshine.

We can protect ourselves better than anyone you might know, night and day. I have tried to set up my perimeter in my yard using the fence and bushes and trees and berms, etc. without anyone seeing the difference so that a stray bullet or two will not hit us easily. I will build gravel plywood walls in key places inside when TSHTF to reduce stray bullets. My fireplace is 5′ x 5′ x 4′ deep so I can burn 4′ foot logs and keep half my home warm and the firewood is placed outside on the side yards to slow down a bullet or two. The fireplace outside is 10′ wide and goes above the roof. I have a wood stack 10 yards long, half of it is 4′ long wood. I built a barbeque grill/water fall/pool that is solid 12′ concrete that works well to stop bullets and it is 20′ long and 8′ high and looks really cool too.
In my basement I am finishing I added some 12″ concrete walls to also give more strength to the floor above and to
slow down a bullet or two.

There are thick forests within 200′ of my neighborhood to hide in if necessary and they run the stream for 50 miles. I have a nice “wine room” that is built to Joel Skousen standards [per his book The Secure Home] just in case the web bots are right and we have a problem with radiation.

I may have missed to say a thing or two but have been through others check lists to cover it all.

Can I make it in the city? Or do I want to be a refugee or try to live with friends four normal driving hours away without my stuff?

Thanks, – B., Near K.C.

JWR Replies: Your preparations are excellent for someone living in the suburbs. I believe that your plans to stay in place will probably suffice for all but a true worst-case scenario. But it is important to get to know your contiguous neighbors well, including the neighbors behind your back fence. Having neighbors that you know on a first name basis, and that you can trust in times of Deep Drama will be crucial in the next decade. At present, my best estimate is that we will likely experience an economic depression that will be on a par with the Great Depression of the 1930s. Crime will be rampant, and you will need to institute a Neighborhood Watch on Steroids. That necessitates solid familiarity and trust.

Attached greenhouses are wonderful for situations where there isn’t much home invasion crime, but they are a huge security risk in inimical times.

I recommend that you hedge your bets by pre-positioning some of your supplies with your friends, in anticipation of worst-case grid down collapse, where the municipal water will not be available. This is not a major issue for you, since you have an abundance of stored water, and rainwater collection system. But “grid down” will be a true disaster for your neighbors within just a few days. They will likely abandon their houses, leaving you by yourself to defend against large numbers of very desperate looters. You mentioned that you have a five year food supply –which is quite commendable–I’d recommend that you store up to half of it with your friends in the country. Keep in mind that you may only have the opportunity to make one trip Outta Dodge, so it is important to have some crucial logistics stored at your backup retreat.



Economics and Investing:

Farmer John suggested this piece by James Quinn: American Idiots. John’s comment: “This is why the government can do what it wants.”

Karen H. kindly sent these items:

Regulators Shut Down Colonial BancGroup; Largest U.S. Bank to Fail in 2009. JWR Warns: There are many more bank failures to come!

Toxic Loans Topping 5% May Push 150 Banks to Point of No Return

Sugar May Advance 80% on Supply Crunch, Coleman says [Have you already stocked up?]

U.S. Economy: Consumer Sentiment Falls, Prices Steady

Items from The Economatrix:

Alabama-based Colonial Bank Fails, Cost is $2.8 Billion

BB&T Takes Colonial as Regulators Take Five Banks; Biggest Failure Since WaMu

This So-Called Recovery is Going Nowhere

Goldman: Get Ready for Oil to Go Back to $147 [Top off your fuel storage tanks in Septemeber, when the price of fuel bottoms!]



Odds ‘n Sods:

Dan H. and Chris Z. both pointed to where the EMP threat is getting some more mainstream media coverage: Rep. Roscoe Bartlett On Grid Security

   o o o

F.G. mentioned this news item about the new Terms and Conditions (Ts and Cs) for the Ts and Cs: Britain imposes direct rule of Turks and Caicos isles. F.G. ‘s comment: “The empires strikes back!” [JWR Adds: Did offshore banking privacy play into this decision?]

   o o o

Global warming update: Wyoming set for Late Summer Mountain Snowstorm. One historical note: Snow has been reported in every month of the year in every county in Wyoming.

   o o o

Karen wrote to note that the Utah Preppers Network has posted some book reviews of my novel “Patriots”. Meanwhile, the editor of the JC Refuge Blog has posted a review of my upcoming nonfiction book: “How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It”. (As previously mentioned, please wait until September 30th –the “Book Bomb” day–to place your order. For maximum impact, I’d prefer that the majority of orders were placed through Amazon.com. Thanks!





Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 24 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.

First Prize: A.) 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 between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) and C.) A HAZARiD Decontamination Kit from Safecastle.com. (A $345 value.)

Second Prize: 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 $350.

Third Prize: A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing.

Round 24 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.