Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation." – John Adams

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 21 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The contest prizes include:

First Prize: Two transferable Front Sight  “Gray” Four Day Training Course Certificates. This is an up to $4,000 value!
Second Prize: A three day course certificate from OnPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses.
Third Prize: A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing

Round 21 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

Perspectives on Prepping on a Very Low Income, by Kuraly

I was raised in a missionary family, on nine different mission fields around the world. At the age of nineteen, I went out to serve the Lord on my own in the former Soviet Union. I had no formal Theological training, but was accepted by the missionary societies of my denomination because of my experience under my father and my willingness to go to dangerous areas.

I married, and my wife and I have now six children. A few years ago, due to some changes in my theology, I fell out of favor with my denomination and had to return home to the USA. I was faced with a situation of suddenly having to feed and care for a large family with: 1. no formal education/training/skills of any kind and 2. very little understanding of the southern American culture that I found myself living in. I was forced to take very low-paying jobs and survive on a low-income.

With our savings we were able to buy a small rural house and 7.5 acres in the southeast. We were able to pay cash, I wanted it to be ours with no strings attached, regardless of what the future held. I figured that at the very least we would have a roof and some plantable land. I bought in the area my parents lived in to help care for them as they progressed in years.
Our income is very limited. I work at just above minimum wage. I work a full-time job and another part-time job. I am thankful that the Lord provides.

As I studied current events I became concerned about the possibility of a world-wide economic and/or societal collapse of some kind, or a societal break-down here in the USA resulting from any number of possible reasons. I had witnessed the chaos of the nineties in the former Soviet Union, had watched doctors and physicists sweep streets and live off of potatoes and bread for months on end, and I was concerned about my responsibility to feed my family should a similar collapse happen here.

What can you do when you have very limited means? Actually there is much you can do. It amounts to setting goals and getting your family on board with you. The first thing I did was (after my wife and I had many long talks and she began to see things in a similar way), I gathered the family around and explained everything to them. I explained about our limited means, exactly how much money was coming in, how much went to utilities, fuel, etc. I explained what I believed the dangers were. I explained what we needed to do as a family. Let me interject here that after being born and growing up on a third-world mission field, they were far from spoiled children! They were accustomed to living in tight quarters, washing in cold water, eating cheap, and basically just “roughing it.”

My first priority was for two weeks worth of provisions. We began to buy a few extra cans of food when we went shopping. I set a goal of 20 dollars per week for prepping. Some weeks ten dollars of canned goods and/or dried foods like rice, beans or noodles, and ten dollars in ammo or medical supplies. Some weeks just food, some weeks just extra gasoline. We bought gas cans at thrift stores and garage sales for a dollar apiece, Large scented candles (better than nothing) at closeout sales and garage sales for 30 and 50 cents, and just about anything we could scrounge that might come in handy if the lights went out. It did not take us long to build up enough supplies to last two weeks in an emergency. We had enough gasoline to drive to work for two weeks (if needed), enough food for our family plus a little extra, and candles, radios, batteries and other odds and ends to get by.

I had also along the way added to my ammunition stocks for my Winchester .30-30, and my bolt-action .22 LR.
After we reached the point where we felt we had enough for a two-week catastrophe, we began to focus on the six-month time frame. This opened up many entirely new possibilities. since the food required for this amount of time was such a major expense, we had to make sure that it would last for several years. This raised the issue of long-term storage in buckets, mylar bags and oxygen-absorbers. We had to save for months to buy an order of oxygen-absorbers and mylar bags on e-bay! We found low-cost buckets and began to fill them with rice, feed corn, corn meal, noodles, beans etc. Anything that was inexpensive. We taught the children to like corn-meal mush and grits since they might get quite a bit of it one day!

Gradually we worked our way up to 30 buckets. At this point I made a strategic decision. I decided that we needed to invest our extra funds in gardening. Not entirely stopping the food storage, but reducing it in favor of procuring means and experience in growing and canning our own food. We began to buy canning jars and lids to put away in the attic for the future. My father gave us a tiller with a blown engine which we were able to get fixed, and we began to garden. The first garden was not very well thought-out. Some things grew, some did not. But we learned. We learned first-hand what pollination means and about soil fertility. We learned about bugs and blight. We gained valuable experience.

We also invested in chickens, and watched some of them die, some of them be eaten by neighbor’s dogs, some get eaten by our dogs, and the hardy survivors begin to lay eggs. We watched them eat their own eggs and learned to give them calcium. We let half of them free range and half range in portable pens that we built which have an open floor that we could move each day to fresh grass. We learned how to make them roost and lay where they were supposed to.

We bought some rabbits and learned a lot, real fast! We experimented with many types of portable cages for rabbits which would allow us to move them from one grassy spot to another without giving them time to dig a burrow. Sometimes we would wake up and find rabbit carcases torn to shreds, because a neighborhood cat had gotten to them. My kids handled most of this, and they learned things the hard way.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, We were totally green. I spent my life traveling and overseeing the translation of Christian literature into foreign languages. My wife is a musician. We had zero experience at any of this, and no one around that we knew to advise us. We had to learn everything from scratch. We bought a goat and promptly saw it attacked and killed by a stray dog. That hurt, financially as well as emotionally. After sending the dog to join the goat “on the other side”, I bought another goat. and then another. These have survived. We have learned to care for them.

Gradually I am seeing my children grow confident in their relationship to the animals under their care. Gradually we are learning the needs of these animals and how to make them produce for us. If we had had some kind of hands-on training, it would have saved the lives of a lot of animals, but we didn’t. I am happy to announce a much higher survival rate for animals that we bring home now.

I felt like I needed a greater firearms capability (what man doesn’t?). I thought long and hard. At first I bought a Mosin-Nagant since they were so cheap ($75) and the ammo was dirt-cheap as well. I then began to consider what type of semi-automatic I could afford. I looked at the prices of ammo which was very critical since I would have to train my entire family to shoot. At the time the best deal for us appeared to be the SKS rifle. It was cheap (a good quality Yugo[slavian SKS] was less than $200), dependable, semi-auto and the ammo was very cheap at the time. I later added a cheap 12 gauge pump, and last but not least, a 17 round Bersa Thunder 9mm. After purchasing these guns I began to pick up ammo for them when I could find it on sale. I have gradually gotten up to about 500 rounds for each of them.

I then turned my attention to our home and it’s defense. While we live in the country, we are close to our neighbors 100 yards +/-, about five miles from a small town, about 15 miles from a large town, and about 90 miles from Atlanta (upwind fortunately). My greatest concern is our proximity to the road. The house is only about 65 feet from the dirt road in front of our house. A looter or burglar/rapist could be at the door or windows before the dog barked. In response to this my next expenditure is to be fence posts, fencing, and barbed wire, along with a row of thorny bushes in front of the wire next to the road.

Our house is a soft target, offering no ballistic protection. My remedy/forlorn hope is to have plenty of sand and gravel on hand, and to start checking the thrift stores for pillow cases to buy and store. perhaps we would have time to bag up sand bags and at least harden up certain corners or rooms of the house. We also have several large piles of sandstone (we live on top of a mountain) which could be placed strategically and then perhaps sand bags on top of that. We could also cut logs and add that to the mix.

Our water supply is a [grid-powered] electric well. This is one of my biggest worries. We have made it a priority to buy a generator at least strong enough to run the well and freezers for an hour or two a day. I know that this is only a temporary solution but is about all we can handle right now. I am very thankful for the non-fiction writing contribution about the siphon pumps for wells such as mine, that offered up new possibilities which I have not had time to address yet. We also have a neighbor 1/4 mile away which has an artesian spring on his property, though it has extremely high iron content. I have purchased two 330 gallon plastic livestock watering tanks and several drums which I can fill at the first sign of trouble. I can also load them on my little trailer and pull them down to the neighbor’s to fill up from his well. I just need to check on the ramifications of the high iron content.

I am also trying to fill up as many containers as possible with gasoline. I add Sta-Bil and plan to use/rotate it yearly (as long as the price stays low). I would like to keep at least 250 to 500 gallons on hand at all times. I buy old gas cans at yard sales and just found a source for cheap 55 gallon drums with sealed lids ($3). I may start using them instead.

Our immediate plans are to build more pens and raise more chickens and goats, maybe a pig or two. We also look forward to planting a much bigger garden this spring and maybe use some of our hard-won experience of last year. We also want to involve the kids in martial arts classes if we can afford it, as well as herb-collecting hikes from the local community college field school (which are free and fun). We want to spend more time with them in the woods and in the garden so that they feel comfortable there and begin to think about survival from their own perspective. We also are beginning to exploit the library for free resources for them to study on various topics.

The future of this country looks grim. As Christians we have “read the back of the Book” and we know Who wins. Our responsibility is to be good stewards of the talents we have, perform our duties as husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, and ultimately, to trust Him for that which is beyond our vision and power.

Letter Re: Kids and Home Security

Jim::

I have some observations on home security where there are children under the roof:

I have given my kids two new directives.

1) Every time they enter the house, they must now shout out their name and lock the door behind them. I did this because I realized that I was getting desensitized to the sounds of my front door opening…

2) If they hear me say “Hit the ground!” they immediately do just that, no excuses.

If I ever need to discharge a weapon in my house I want to decrease the odds of a bullet hitting them. It goes without saying that you should manipulate your position and the background positions to keep your loved one’s from being downrange.

For the kids, it’s a game. I’ll say it every once in a while to keep them on their toes. “You can be going to the bathroom or have a glass of milk in your hands, I don’t care. If I say to “hit the ground”, then [you immediately] hit the ground.” – SF in Hawaii

Economics and Investing:

Several readers sent this: Santelli’s Chicago Tea Party

Gone in 60 Days: Citi and Bank of America Won’t Live to See May (A hat tip to KT for the link.)

Another Friday FDIC bank failure notice: Citizens Bank, Corvallis, Oregon, Assumes All of the Deposits of Silver Falls Bank, Silverton, Oregon

Items from The Economatrix:

Stock Decline Hits Depression Levels

Get Ready for Mass Retail Closings (220,000 stores may close)

GM Break-up Close as Saab Files Bankruptcy

No Bailout Can Mend the Economy Now. A quote: ” …the life of the depression is being deliberately extended in order to complete the wealth distribution process.”

Gold Rises Over $1,000

Latvian Gov’t Falls; EU in Crisis

Popular Rage Grows as Global Crisis Worsens

Major Indexes Fall 6%+/- for Week

Inflation Via Another Con (The Mogambo Guru)

The Great Depression Has Arrived–Collapsing American Dreams

Commercial Real Estate’s Crisis Point Approaching?

Friday: Stocks End Down 100 Points After Seesaw Day

B of A, Citi Shares Fall on Fears of Nationalization

Housing Plan Leaves Out Critical Pieces

Odds ‘n Sods:

Jeff M. found this: Family of Four Trying to Live on $1,500 for the Year

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The folks at CampingSurvival.com got creative and put together a fairly complete one year food storage system. including Yoder’s canned meats and cheese. All you need to add is some cooking oil, a sprouting kit (or multivitamin tablets) and a couple of tubes of toothpaste!

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KAF sent us: How to Build a Cold Smoker

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Our Editor at Large Michael Z. Williamson found this: Building a stick welder from an old microwave oven.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

Then Daniel went to his house, and made the decision known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, that they might seek mercies from the God of heaven concerning this secret, so that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. So Daniel blessed the God of heaven. Daniel answered and said:

“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
For wisdom and might are His.
And He changes the times and the seasons;
He removes kings and raises up kings;
He gives wisdom to the wise
And knowledge to those who have understanding.
He reveals deep and secret things;
He knows what is in the darkness,
And light dwells with Him.
“I thank You and praise You,
O God of my fathers;
You have given me wisdom and might,
And have now made known to me what we asked of You,
For You have made known to us the king’s demand.” – Daniel 2:17-23 (KJV)

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 21 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The contest prizes include:

First Prize: Two transferable Front Sight  “Gray” Four Day Training Course Certificates. This is an up to $4,000 value!
Second Prize: A three day course certificate from OnPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses.
Third Prize: A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing

Round 21 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

Preparing Your Feet for TEOTWAWKI, by The Surgeon

This essay will cover several common foot problems which can be prevented with proper care. These problems can lead to impaired walking, running, and decreased mobility, which may adversely affect survival in a serious post disaster situation. The foundation for this information is basic knowledge gleaned from the 1930s edition Scout Handbook, which relied heavily on Lord Baden Powell’s experience in the British Army.The author is a Board-Certified Surgeon.

The feet have a hard job to do. They support the weight of the body standing, walking, running, and jumping. Any time there is excess body weight, the added load on the feet can result in problems. These include plantar fasciitis and ankle sprains. There is a much higher incidence of Type II Diabetes in the obese, and this leads to a host of foot problems, many of which can be life-threatening.
Ingrown toenails are a common preventable problem. There is a congenital predisposition based on the geometry of the nail, and this is made into a problem by the bad habit of keeping the nails too short and ripping the nail off instead of trimming or filing it straight across. This leads to a spicule of nail which points into the soft and delicate tissue of the nail fold, where it causes irritation, inflammation, and finally chronic infection and pain.

The preventive treatment is to keep the nail as thin as possible by filing the surface, which makes it flexible instead of rigid, and to avoid any ripping of the nail. The nail should be gently filed or trimmed straight across, with only enough rounding of the sides to prevent digging into the skin. A small tuft of cotton can be wedged between the nail and the nail bed if needed to prevent digging in until the nail grows long enough. [JWR Adds: I concur that a relatively "square" cut is best, as has been encouraged by military organizations since before the 1850s. However, readers are forewarned that changing the profile of toenails radically can cause in-growth, so make any changes gradually!]

Sometimes cutting a “V” notch in the center of the leading edge can relieve the pressure on the sides until it grows out.

There are proprietary systems which involve gluing a rigid polymer or metallic strip across the nail to pull up on the sides. In theory this should work. It is difficult to get any adhesive to work on nails, but they are worth a try.

If things have gotten too far out of hand, and a spicule of nail is growing into the nail fold, then a thin portion of nail will need to be removed by a surgeon or podiatrist.
This can be done as an office procedure with local anesthesia. The procedure itself is not very hard but I have found that getting good anesthesia requires some skill and patience and I would not recommend it as a “do-it-yourself” project. The nail matrix needs to be destroyed either by cautery or by a caustic agent to prevent re-growth on the affected side. Recovering from this to achieve normal walking takes several weeks.

Parents and partners need to look out for each other and their children since this can become a serious problem. Education about proper foot care starts early along with toothbrushing.
Immersion foot or trench foot is caused by chronic exposure to water and extreme environmental condition, either hot and humid or cold. The best prevention is avoidance of immersion, and if this should occur, dry socks need to be put on after drying and powdering the feet. It is helpful to have spare boots. The time to break these in and waterproof them is now.

Ankle sprains can be extremely debilitating. Wearing well-fitted ankle high boots, laced securely, best prevents this. There is a great product available wherever animal health supplies are sold called Vet rap made by 3M. It is flexible elastic wrap that is self-adherent. It provides excellent support for those who have previously injured their ankles, and it makes an all-purpose first aid dressing material, which can help hold a pressure dressing in place, or keep a splint immobile. If you would like to pay more, the human version is called Coban. I would recommend the 4” size.

Diabetics need to take special care of their feet. In a survival situation it is extremely unlikely that you will be able to get the specialized care needed to treat a diabetic foot infection, so prevention is key. Because of the peripheral neuropathy which many diabetics develop, the feet may lose sensation. It is very important to frequently inspect the feet for any injury, nails rubbing on the skin, pressure sores, etc. This is best done with a partner so all parts of the foot can be seen. Nails need to be cared for meticulously. Cotton tufts can be placed between the toes. Shoes must be “shaken out” frequently to make sure that no pebbles or debris get inside. Well-fitting high boots are less likely to get debris inside than sneakers or low-cut footwear.

Smoking can lead to severe peripheral vascular disease with loss of arterial supply to the toes and feet. In a normal situation it can lead to gangrene and amputation. Combined with diabetes it can result in more severe atherosclerotic changes in the blood vessels. It can also make the smoker more susceptible to frostbite.

Who can help you meet these challenges? Most experienced outdoorsmen and soldiers have learned the hard away about these issues. Next to making sure the troops get enough water to drink, foot care comes a close second. It might be a good idea to link up with a healthcare provider to make sure you don’t have any remediable issues such as ingrown nails that require attention.
Diabetic control and smoking cessation can be approached with your primary care doctor. There are specially trained nurses who frequent senior centers and nursing homes, providing basic foot care. Those with a nursing background might check out this type of training. For good quality shoes with plenty of toe room, and custom made inserts for pressure relief, you’ll need to see an orthotist.
Having healthy feet is critical to maintaining a tactical readiness for future possible disaster. Some chronic foot problems develop over years, so now is the time to make appropriate changes in one’s habits.

Three Letters Re: The Risk to Reward Ratio in Getting Concealed Carry Permits

Sir:
Some states allow for the public release of permit holders names and sometimes address. Newspapers have requested these lists (since they are public information) and then published them.
Other states (like Minnesota, and others) makes it a crime to release to the public who is a permit holder. – X.

James,

This headline says it all: Dateline Feb. 17, 2009 in The Miami Herald: Florida can’t keep up with concealed weapons permit requests.

Regards, – Jim H.

Mr. Rawles,

Thanks for your very reasonable and level-headed response on concealed carry permits. I agree that you they aren’t for everyone! I wish that I lived where I only had to worry about predators with four legs. But living where I do (in Virginia), we have lots of two-legged predators and I would feel naked without my XD .45. (I got the “Compact” version.) I used to carry a Commander-size Kimber 1911, as I used to be a M1911 Die Hard, but nowadays I practically speak Croatian.) [JWR Adds: To explain his comment to the uninitiated, the Springfield Armory XD-series auto pistols are made in Croatia.] My family will soon have two XDs, since my wife is signing up for the Front Sight “Get a Gun” package deal. We want to get back out there while the weather is still cool. (Summer at Front Sight is an oven set to “BROIL”.) Their XD package is an amazing bargain, and the training is superb. It is absolutely worth the travel expense! I recommend it to everyone that reads SurvivalBlog. Put that training at the top of your “Priorities list.” Without proper training you are just a “pistol owner”, not a competent shooter. I had no idea how incompetent I was until I went to take the training. It takes some humility to admit that, but I really was incompetent, and just thought that I was good shooter.

By the by, I am buying every XD magazine that I can lay my cotton-pickin’ hands on at a good price. Since they are imported, these mags could be under risk of an import ban, soon. One of your recent posters mentioned he saw high mag prices at gun shows. That is true, but there are still some bargains out there, by mail order. [JWR Adds: I highly recommend 44Mag.com, CDNN Sports, MidwayUSA, and Natchez Shooter’s Supply, as low-costs sources for full capacity magazines. Buy plenty, now, while they are still reasonably-priced!]

My XD is a my constant companion, kinda like an American Express card. I “don’t leave home without it.” – Riggins in Virginia

Economics and Investing:

Justin sent us a link to an excellent documentary on the chain of events in the global credit collapse, with a bit of pro-interventionist coloring from PBS: Inside the Meltdown.

Heather sent us this: Volcker: Crisis May be Even Worse than Depression

Jim Willie nails it: Russia’s Post U.S. New World Order Blueprint ( A hat tip to KT for the link.)

Luddite Jean in England sent us three bits of news of ill-portent: £2trillion – the terrifying total of our national debt… that’s £33,000 for every man, woman and child in Britain. —
Car industry in meltdown as plant faces ‘imminent’ closure with loss of 100,000 jobs and production plunges by 58%. — Repossessions soar by 54% in a year as 40,000 people lose their homes.

Items from The Economatrix:

Gold Demand Surges by 1/3 to $100 Billion

Record 881 US Auto Dealers Closed in 2008

Wall Street Slumps as Dow Hovers Around Three-Month Low

UK Public Finances Deteriorate Dramatically

Giants Swiss Re and BNP Paribas Report Severe Losses

Ukraine Crumble Triggers Fear Through Europe

Foreign Firms, Investors Flee Ireland

Bank of Japan to Buy 1,000 Billion Yen of Corporate Bonds

Dow Ends Thursday at Lowest Close in More than Six Years

Sarkozy Announces $6 Billion in Aid to Avert Unrest

Rising Debt May Overwhelm Obama’s Bailout

US Bank CEO: TARP Program is Lousy

GM, Chrysler Seek $21 Billion More

Newly Poor Swell Food Banks Nationwide

GM Shares Hit 74-Year Low

Bank Fears Hit Wall Street; Dow Down 6.2% for the Week, S&P off 6.9%

Odds ‘n Sods:

LRG spotted this: Cave house for sale in Festus, Missouri

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I just heard about another preparedness blog The Prudent Home. Check it out.

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Oxy sent this: Scratch Guadaloupe off the list of possible retreat locales.
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The JPFO’s latest Talkin’ to America show features and interview is with Mark Spungin, the author of “Neither Predator nor Prey“. Mark’s novel is about the reaction by a minute percentage of Wyoming gun owners to a nationwide ban and confiscation of firearms.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Abilene is a town of an armed citizenry. This tends to make relations both peaceful and respectful.” – James Butler (“Wild Bill”) Hickok, while City Marshal of Abilene, in an interview with an eastern newspaper reporter. (Until Hickok’s reply, the reporter had thought Wild Bill himself was the reason.that Abilene was so peaceful for the locals)

Letter Re: The Risk to Reward Ratio in Getting Concealed Carry Permits

Jim,
Thank you for your excellent site. I’m here every day.
My wife and I are considering getting Concealed Weapons Permits. Do you recommend getting a permit? Is it a good idea, or is it a red flag that would attract the unwanted attention of our government officials? Do you have a permit? I would appreciate your insight. – The Forester

JWR Replies: I do not have a CCW permit, but I have the benefit of living in an open carry state. I don’t issue any blanket advice on concealed carry. Everyone has to weigh the risks and benefits of licensure for themselves, in their own particular circumstances. Since I live in a lightly-populated region with low crime, I decided that the high profile that goes along with getting a CCW permit wasn’t justifiable. I am far more worried about being mauled by a bear when out berry picking than I am getting mugged. Street crime is virtually unheard of here in TUWS. (Robert Heinlein was right: An armed society is a polite society.) Again, the decision on whether or not to get a CCW permit is personal judgment call. For many SurvivalBlog readers living in high crime areas, getting a permit would probably be advisable.

BTW, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and perhaps the Dakotas all “going Alaska” in the next few years–dropping the requirement for a CCW for carry inside city limits. This has been the case in Vermont since time immemorial, and the CCW permit requirement for inside city limits was recently dropped in Alaska. (In many southern and western states it is already legal to carry conceal outside of city limits.)

The Winning Edge: Safe Dry Practice, by John Parker, Jr.

I’ve often been asked for advice on how a shooter can improve his or her proficiency at arms, and it seems that the questioner is almost always expecting some magical tidbit of “gouge” that will bring out their “A” game. Apart from analyzing form and talking about mechanics, one thing that I universally recommend, and almost always find lacking in the normal routine of many shooters, is dry practice.
The term “dry practice” includes many things, but to put it simply and encompass all applications, it is firearms training conducted without live ammunition. Far from a replacement for live fire training, dry practice is, however, an essential and exceptionally useful tool in improving everything from presentations to reloads to trigger control and beyond. Its application to a program of training can help with any firearm related endeavor, and if you aren’t doing it now, you should consider adding it to supplement your live fire training.

So, how does one go about this dry practice? First, one needs a safe place to conduct it. We are training without live ammunition, but human fallibility still applies, so a safe backstop is requirement number one. In the event that a live round finds its way into the mix despite all our precautions, which we will discuss shortly, a safe backstop will limit the event to an embarrassment instead of a possible tragedy. I often use a 40mm ammo can filled with sand to affix my target to, and place this in front of a stout exterior wall. Basement walls are ideal for this. Ballistic panels, such as those made by Second Chance and Point Blank, also work well to affix targets to, and you are really limited only by your imagination, as long as your backstop will reliably stop the caliber of arm you intend to conduct training with, even if you were to not strike your intended aim point. Targets can be anything from the actual targets used in a competitive discipline to scaled silhouettes replicating distance in the confines of the practice area to squares of tape or target pasters. Col. Jeff Cooper even recommended the “televisor” as a dry practice aid, as he stated he could get along quite nicely without it. (Placed against a safe backstop, of course!) Your mileage may vary on this one, for many reasons. I would recommend saving yourself a potential television replacement trip to Best Buy and using more mundane targetry. Other considerations for the training area include floor composition—when conducting pistol or carbine reload drills you don’t really want to be dropping magazines onto a concrete floor hundreds of times (cardboard and carpet are your friends!)—and also separation. You want your practice area well-defined so that all sources of live ammunition can be kept out, and your mental focus can be devoted to the task at hand. One final note: no mirrors. While one may think that a mirror will help to observe and debrief practice sessions, their effect is always negative. Your attention will be focused away from where it should be, and the result will be negative training. No mirrors on the backstop, no mirrors anywhere in the area. If you want to be able to debrief performance, use a video camera.

Additional equipment includes dummy cartridges and “snap caps”. Snap caps, for the purposes of this treatise, are generically defined as inert cartridge simulations which include a semi-rigid or spring loaded surface in the primer area to cushion firing pin or striker fall. Some arms designs are better suited than others to omitting such aids, but I’ve always thought it wise to use them in all my dry practice to avoid striker/firing pin abuse. Snap caps can be found in nearly any caliber or gauge from Brownell’s, Midway, and other sources, and are made by A-Zoom, Armsport, Precision Gun Specialties, and other manufacturers. When practicing reloads and manipulations, dummy cartridges can be used to add appropriate “heft” to magazines. One does not reload with empty magazines, so it should not be so in practice. Dummy cartridges can be obtained from the same sources as snap caps, or can be manufactured if one is a reloader. I use cartridges reloaded with appropriate real projectiles sans primer and powder. My manufactured dummy rounds for this purpose are all marked “DUMMY” on the side of the case with a blue Sharpie pen, and projectiles are likewise colored blue. For dual purpose training aids on the cheap, dummy cartridges can be assembled with short length of nylon rod of the appropriate diameter (available at any hardware store) inserted into the primer pocket. The nylon rod will cushion the firing pin fall and last for a good long while.

Apart from these items, the appropriate firearm, magazines, holsters, and magazine pouches, are of course requisites, as is a container for live ammo downloading at the entrance to the practice area for use when practicing with a carry weapon that is normally kept loaded and on the person.

Dry Practice Safety Rules

This brings us to safety and prep. First and foremost, eliminate all sources of live ammunition. When entering the practice area, download your carry firearm, if appropriate, and place all rounds and loaded magazines into the live ammo container at the entrance to your practice area or range. A sealed container is best. Pat yourself down and check weapon condition before proceeding. Enter your practice area. I keep dedicated practice magazines and snap caps/dummy rounds in a box that gets placed on a stool in my practice area. Ensure that this box is visibly different from the live ammo container. Now, inspect all magazines and training cartridges to be sure they are what they are supposed to be. Inspect the primer area of all dummy cartridges, and check weapon condition again. Do this every time you begin practice. If, for any reason, you are interrupted during your training, stop everything, and do not begin again until you have come back and completed the inspections again. Now conduct your training. Dry practice sessions should be no more than 15-30 minutes depending upon the discipline and intensity. After this, we get into the realm of diminishing returns and incorrect repetition. At the completion of training, Stop. Flip a mental switch out of practice mode. No more trigger squeezes, no more manipulations. Check weapon condition. Police up training aids and store them. Exit the training area and place the weapon in the desired condition at the live ammo area. Done.

So what do we actually “practice” in dry practice? As stated before, these sessions can be put to a myriad of uses. I tend to begin and end each and every session with pure fundamentals. Stance, grip, sight alignment, sight picture, slow steady trigger “roll”, drop the hammer/striker on a snap cap, follow-through, recover, repeat. For pistol, I include dominant hand and less-dominant hand only work as well. In the meat of my sessions, I pick out several items to work on ahead of time and concentrate on these areas. This is a great opportunity to work on presentations, especially in the case of pistol if you are unfortunate enough to be limited to live fire at a facility that frowns on holster work. End each presentation with sight alignment, sight picture, and I mix it up between stopping there and continuing through to trigger actuation. This prevents creating a conditioned response of always pulling the trigger after presenting your weapon. Work slowly and concentrate on form at first, gradually pick up to full speed, then push it past your limits a bit. Don’t get too carried away here, and if form deteriorates, it’s time to pull it back. After pushing it past the redline, I always come back to slow and deliberate again, and finish with normal full speed. This formula works for just about any area in which you wish to increase speed. Rifle bolt manipulations for hunting arms, tactical and speed reloads, malfunction drills, assuming firing positions, and many other drills can be incorporated. Drills do not always have to include trigger actuation. One of my staples is multiple target drills where I simply practice taking a sight picture on each of several Aimpoints, working on decreasing my target to target splits. Your imagination is the limit here, and further guidance on dry practice drills can be obtained from numerous books by the best and brightest in the shooting world.

On frequency of practice, this is up to the shooter. When deployed in harm’s way, I have dry practiced nearly every day in one form or another with primary and/or secondary weapons systems. When stateside, my frequency drops off a bit depending on the minutiae of everyday life, but at a minimum, I can find at least one or two times a week to devote to dry practice, no matter how hectic things get, and usually more. It’s not hard to find 30 extra minutes a week if you make it a priority. This small investment in time will quickly show its many rewards in your live fire training. Remember to use a safe backstop, separate yourself from all live ammo, check and recheck weapon condition in all phases of practice, and remember, above all, that you are handling a live firearm—do not treat it as anything else, and remember to observe all basic safety rules.