Ruger Security 9 Endurance Test, by Pat Cascio

Back in February 2018, I tested the then fairly-new polymer-frame Ruger Security 9  handgun. It was a stellar pistol, and very affordable, as well. I liked that gun so much that I added a second one to my modest collection. The first one resides in our bedroom, it is my “nightstand” gun – even though it isn’t stored in a nightstand. My second Security 9 has a trigger guard mounted laser on it, and that is the only difference between the two guns.

Look, we all know that, anything can be broken, under the right circumstance, and I stopped doing “to destruction” testing on just about everything I test. I’ve had more than a few firearms almost self-destruct without doing that type of testing. On the Ruger Security 9, I just wanted to put an obscene number of rounds through it, before it stopped working. Needless to say, no easy task, since we are still in the worst ammo drought in history. The nice folks at Black Hills Ammunition supplied me with a lot of the ammo used in this testing. I also purchased a lot of 9mm ammo out of my own funds, and quite a bit was donated to me – my local FFL often gets ammo in a gun trade – usually partially full boxes, and sometimes they get ammo in plastic bags – they’ve donated quite a bit of ammo to me over the years.

As stated, I wasn’t about to do an article or test to see if I could destroy the little Ruger Security 9, I just wanted to run a lot of ammo through the gun, without cleaning it or lubing it, after I first inspected the gun out of the box – at which time, I lubed it with Breakfree CLP and didn’t do any cleaning after that. I was going to terminate my testing, when the Security 9 had a gun-induced malfunction.Continue reading“Ruger Security 9 Endurance Test, by Pat Cascio”

Recipe of the Week: Stir-Fried Radish Pods

The following recipe for Stir-Fried Radish Pods is from Mrs. Alaska.  She lives at a remote homestead in Alaska. Since 2011, she has been blogging at: Alaska Bush Life, Off-Road, Off-Grid.

Radishes are among the easiest and fastest vegetables to grow and harvest. The aptly named dix-huit jours varietal can be harvested a mere 18 days after germination! However, if you are willing to wait longer – 6 – 8 weeks – you are rewarded with so much more to eat than one small root. The young leaves are edible raw, in salads, the older leaves (which get leathery) are a fine pot herb addition to cooked dishes, and best of all, each plant puts out scores of tasty, crunchy seed pods that are very easy to harvest, by “zipping” a dozen at a time off the branches and then plucking off each short stem.

An added plus is that the plants sport pretty sprays of white or pink flowers on long, whippy branches, so I plant many throughout my vegetable and flower gardens and harvest hundreds of pods. Our honeybees love the flowers.

Many American recipes for pickling can be found on the Internet. I favor other preparations. Raw, I eat radish pods as a snack, alone or with a dip, and throw them in green, egg, or tuna salads for the hollow, juicy crunch with a mild, radish flavor.

Quickly cooked, they are a colorful and flavorful addition to rice, noodle, or veggetable stir-fries.

I also blanch a gallon for winter use, but this does produce a texture more like a steamed bean.

Recipes for Asian and Mediterranean stir-fried radish pods

Coat a wide pan lightly with your oil of choice, such as sesame or coconut oil for Asian flavors, or olive oil for a Mediterranean style. Use peanut oil for its high smoke point if you want to char the pods for that nice texture/flavor.

Heat the oil quite hot. Add the aromatics (your choice of amount) such as garlic, green onions, hot peppers, curry, ginger (Asian styles) or oregano and garlic (Mediterranean). Stir constantly until the scents are released, less than a minute. Dump in the pods. If you add a huge amount, they will steam from their own internal liquid. If you add fewer, you will get a drier, crunchier product. Stir so that the pods become glossy with the oil and coated with the aromatics and become a brighter green. This takes a mere minute or two. Remove from heat. Pour and stir a bit of soy sauce for Asian style or lemon juice for a Mediterranean flavor. Serve immediately.

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Do you have a favorite recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers? In this weekly recipe column, we place emphasis on recipes that use long term storage foods, recipes for wild game, dutch oven and slow cooker recipes, and any that use home garden produce. If you have any favorite recipes, then please send them via e-mail. Thanks!

Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we look at some implications of rising interest rates. (See the Economy & Finance section and the Tangibles Investing section.)

Precious Metals:

A video interview: Fed Pause Will Be Crucial for Gold and Silver, Explained – Peter Boockvar.

o  o  o

Stewart Thomson of Graceland Investment Management: Inflation: 18% And Sticky?

Economy & Finance:

The Federal Reserve’s interest rate announcement last Wednesday came as no surprise to Wall Street and to Forex traders, where they already had a 75 basis point jump in rates “baked into the cake.”  It appears that the Fed’s FOMC will keep raising rates until at least October, in an effort to put a damper on inflation. But that credit tightening may be a case of “too little, too late.”  Meanwhile, the Fed is still buying up billions in Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBSes), week after week. Thus, the policymakers seem schizophrenic, with simultaneous credit tightening and injections of liquidity.

Here, I must mention that I’m standing by my long-range projection that the Fed and U.S. Treasury will inflate their way out of the gargantuan Federal debt problem. In effect, currency inflation is a hidden form of taxation. The inflation rate may not go full Weimar/Zimbabwe, but the purchasing power of any saved Dollars will be sharply diminished. So… Hedge into tangibles. The time-proven fallbacks are gold, guns, and groceries. With the latter, I’m referring to long-shelf life storage foods.

o  o  o

Trudeau fertilizer emissions plan sparks backlash from farmers and provinces. (A hat tip to H.L. for the link.)

o  o  o

A new, brief video from Mike Maloney, going through some key charts on yield curve inversions: Decoding the Recession Double-Speak.

o  o  o

At QTR: China Spied On The Fed & Detained, Threatened U.S. Economist For Policy Information.

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“The key to national greatness lies in sustaining and instilling our shared national identity. That means focusing on what we have in common: the heritage that we all share. At the center of this heritage is also a robust belief in free expression, free speech, and open debate. Only if we forget who we are, and how we got here, could we ever allow political censorship and blacklisting to take place in America. It’s not even thinkable. Shutting down free and open debate violates our core values and most enduring traditions. In America, we don’t insist on absolute conformity or enforce rigid orthodoxies and punitive speech codes. We just don’t do that. America is not a timid nation of tame souls who need to be sheltered and protected from those with whom we disagree. That’s not who we are. It will never be who we are.” – Donald J. Trump, Farewell Address to the Nation, (January 19, 2021)

Preparedness Notes for Sunday — July 31, 2022

July 31 is the birthday of free-market economist Milton Friedman. (He was born 1912, and died November 16, 2006.)

On July 31, 1958 the Anti-Chinese uprising began in Tibet.

July 31st, 1921, was the birthday of Army Air Corps veteran David Thatcher, one of the Doolittle Raiders. Thatcher was the tail gunner in the rear of the Mitchell B-25 medium bomber christened the Ruptured Duck, the seventh of 16 planes. Returning from the raid, the bomber crashed into the sea from low fuel and the crewmen survived, in no small part to Thatcher’s heroic efforts. The five airmen washed ashore and were given aid by Chinese fishermen who found them. Thatcher bound their wounds and being the only crewman able to walk, joined with armed guerrillas to carry the other crewmen to a hospital while evading Japanese troops. He was born in Bridger, Montana, and later lived in Missoula, Montana. He died in 2016, at age 94. Only one other Doolittle Raider outlived him: Dick Cole.

—

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present the final entry for Round 101 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical 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,
  4. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  5. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  6. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  7. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime low-cost training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  2. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  3. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. A LogOX 3-in-1 Forestry MultiTool (a $189 value) and a WoodOx Sling (a $79.95 value), courtesy of LogOx, both made in USA.
  4. A transferable $100 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

—

More than $725,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 102 begins on Monday, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Basic Electronic Repair – Part 3, by J.M.

(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.)

Repairing a device whose batteries have leaked isn’t difficult – you just have to be careful and take your time. I once cleaned up and repaired a $300 laser level that was thrown away at a construction site because the batteries leaked, and it’s proven incredibly useful over the years.

Techniques for repairing other types of physical damage will obviously depend on the specific types of damage. Cracked or broken plastic cases or parts can be repaired with glue (I like to use JB Plastic Weld), hot melt glue, crazy glue, heat or friction welding – Make Magazine has a good article on repairing plastic. Storing liquid glue long-term as part of your preps can be an iffy proposition as it tends to dry out, but I’ve experimented with vacuum sealing an unopened tube of JB Weld Plasticweld in a mylar bag, and two years later when I opened it it worked fine. Another skill that I’ve found occasionally useful when replacing plastic parts in devices is aluminum sand casting – you can easily cast lots of different parts to replace broken ones, and it’s something you can continue to do even in a long-term grid-down scenario.

Replacing parts like broken switches, buttons and connectors is slightly more difficult and will depend a lot on what kinds of spares you have available. As I mentioned I’ve deconstructed hundreds of electronic devices over the years, so I have a decent supply of spare parts. If you do need to stock up on some parts I highly recommend Electronics Goldmine, which sells surplus electronics parts for really good prices. They occasionally sell bundles of assorted switches, connectors, etc. that have supplied me with many critical parts over the years.Continue reading“Basic Electronic Repair – Part 3, by J.M.”

July 2022 in Precious Metals, by Steven Cochran

Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review, where we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover gold’s performance, and the factors that affected gold prices.

What Did Gold Do in July?

Gold had a worse than usual month in July. It started the month crashing by $42 from $1,807 per ounce to $1,765. As bad as that was, things got worse as the month went on, with spot gold closing at $1,696.40 on July 20th.

The end of the month ended with a bang, thanks to the Fed. They raised interest rates .75% as expected. But in Powell’s post-FOMC press conference, he said that rate hikes were already having an effect on inflation and that the Fed could ease up on the pace of raising rates.
Gold and silver both rocketed higher after Powell’s speech. Spot gold ended the day at $1,734.80, up $17.50, and at a two-week high. It rose another $22 on Thursday to $1,756.80. This was the highest close for gold since July 6th, and marked a rally of 2.3% in a day and a half. Gold had gained another $10 an ounce by the time the futures markets recorded their last settlement for the month on the 29th.

Silver outperformed gold during the same time frame, gaining 47 cents Wednesday afternoon to close at $19.08. Silver rocketed another 94 cents on Thursday, gaining $1.41 over a day and a half for a 6.4% gain.  Like gold, silver’s rally wasn’t over yet. It settled another 23 cents higher on the last trading day of the month, at $20.25.Continue reading“July 2022 in Precious Metals, by Steven Cochran”

JWR’s Meme Of The Week:

The latest meme created by JWR:

To share this, you can find it here: https://www.kapwing.com/videos/62e5c1a3c863cd00c0345acf

Meme Text:

If The Graduate Were Being Released Today:

“Are You Listening?”

“Yes, Sir, I Am.”

“Magazines. Full-Capacity Magazines.”

 

Movie Clip Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dug-G9xVdVs

News Link: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20220721/take-action-more-gun-control-in-us-house

 

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;

Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being examples to the flock.

And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.

Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand.

The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.

Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.” – 1 Peter 5 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Saturday — July 30, 2022

Today we remember the birthday of author Reginald Bretnor. He was born Alfred Reginald Kahn on July 30, 1911, in Vladivostok. He died on July 22, 1992 in Medford, Oregon. In addition to penning many witty science fiction novels and short stories in his characteristic style, he also wrote nonfiction articles for Mel Tappan’s P.S. Letter 

—

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 101 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical 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,
  4. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  5. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  6. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  7. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime low-cost training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  2. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  3. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. A LogOX 3-in-1 Forestry MultiTool (a $189 value) and a WoodOx Sling (a $79.95 value), courtesy of LogOx, both made in USA.
  4. A transferable $100 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

—

More than $725,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 102 begins on Monady, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Basic Electronic Repair – Part 2, by J.M.

(Continued from Part 1.)

Regarding spare parts – switches, relays, jacks, screws, battery holders and all of the other mechanical bits in electronics can be expensive to replace, and if you don’t have a decent stock you’ll almost always have to end up buying a replacement part (assuming you even can). I’ve found the best source of spare electronics parts are old discarded devices. All of my friends and family know that if they have an electronic device they’re going to dispose of that I’ll always take it. I’ve been given or found in the trash hundreds of devices over the years, and harvesting parts from them has a number of advantages:

  • You get to practice troubleshooting and repairing on something that didn’t cost you anything, so you may end up with a working device if you can repair it
  • They’re a great way to practice opening and carefully deconstructing electronic devices
  • They’re a great source of spare parts

I have a lot of small plastic storage bins with switches, relays, jacks, small screws and a myriad of other parts, all organized, labeled and inventoried. To keep things from getting too messy in my shop I try to limit how many devices I’m working on at any given time, and I’ll promptly throw out any remains once I’ve harvested everything I can.Continue reading“Basic Electronic Repair – Part 2, by J.M.”

Editors’ Prepping Progress

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those –or excerpts thereof — in this column, in the Odds ‘n Sods Column, and in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!

Jim Reports:

This past week was mostly devoted to insulating and re-organizing our shop.

I took three of our yearling steers to the butcher, on the hoof. Normally, I’d wait until they were two years old. But given the sky-high price of hay, it makes more sense to butcher them at 13 months. You may be asking: Why not wait and pasture them until Fall? My local butcher told me that he is now completely booked with appointments, until February. He probably won’t have another opening for processing any hooved livestock until after then!

I attended a gun show on Friday, looking for pre-1899 antique cartridge guns at affordable prices. I found a few to add to my inventory. The price of pre-1899 guns seems to be accelerating faster than the general rate of currency inflation. That means that they are a great hedge on inflation, but it certainly makes it tough for me to add any to my inventory.

Now, over to Lily…Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon.

And there was found at Achmetha, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a record thus written:

In the first year of Cyrus the king the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid; the height thereof threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof threescore cubits;

With three rows of great stones, and a row of new timber: and let the expenses be given out of the king’s house:

And also let the golden and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took forth out of the temple which is at Jerusalem, and brought unto Babylon, be restored, and brought again unto the temple which is at Jerusalem, every one to his place, and place them in the house of God.

Now therefore, Tatnai, governor beyond the river, Shetharboznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, which are beyond the river, be ye far from thence:

Let the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place.

Moreover I make a decree what ye shall do to the elders of these Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king’s goods, even of the tribute beyond the river, forthwith expenses be given unto these men, that they be not hindered.

And that which they have need of, both young bullocks, and rams, and lambs, for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the appointment of the priests which are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail:

That they may offer sacrifices of sweet savours unto the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons.

Also I have made a decree, that whosoever shall alter this word, let timber be pulled down from his house, and being set up, let him be hanged thereon; and let his house be made a dunghill for this.

And the God that hath caused his name to dwell there destroy all kings and people, that shall put to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem. I Darius have made a decree; let it be done with speed.

Then Tatnai, governor on this side the river, Shetharboznai, and their companions, according to that which Darius the king had sent, so they did speedily.

And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.

And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.

And the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God with joy.

And offered at the dedication of this house of God an hundred bullocks, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs; and for a sin offering for all Israel, twelve he goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel.

And they set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the service of God, which is at Jerusalem; as it is written in the book of Moses.

And the children of the captivity kept the passover upon the fourteenth day of the first month.

For the priests and the Levites were purified together, all of them were pure, and killed the passover for all the children of the captivity, and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves.

And the children of Israel, which were come again out of captivity, and all such as had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land, to seek the Lord God of Israel, did eat,

And kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy: for the Lord had made them joyful, and turned the heart of the king of Assyria unto them, to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.” – Ezra 6 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Friday — July 29, 2022

July 29,1805 was the birthday of Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville. He died 16 April 1859. He is best known for his lengthy treatise: Democracy In America.

—

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present the final entry for Round 101 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. It will be posted in three parts. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical 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,
  4. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  5. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  6. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  7. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime low-cost training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  2. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  3. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. A LogOX 3-in-1 Forestry MultiTool (a $189 value) and a WoodOx Sling (a $79.95 value), courtesy of LogOx, both made in USA.
  4. A transferable $100 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

—

More than $725,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 101 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Basic Electronic Repair – Part 1, by J.M.

In several previous articles on SurvivalBlog.com (‘Elements of a Security System‘, ‘Surviving With Electronics’ & ‘Tactical Technology for TEOTWAWKI’) I discussed various ways you can utilize technology like electronics to help you prepare and survive. However, the best technology in the world won’t do you any good if it isn’t working, and you probably won’t be able to go online and order a replacement after the grid goes down. The problem is that electronics are like magic to a lot of people, and the thought of opening a device up and repairing it isn’t something they’ve ever considered. Part of this is due to the societal market conditioning we’ve been receiving since childhood that you always need to have the latest and greatest so you should upgrade instead of repair, and part of it is due to the fact that most people aren’t being taught even basic problem solving skills these days. The reality is that performing common repairs on most electronic devices is actually pretty simple and straightforward, and it just requires the ability to logically approach problems and some simple tools and supplies. Note that ‘electronics’ doesn’t just mean thing like tablets, cell phones and computers – red dot sights, night vision devices, drones, security cameras, flashlights and many other devices commonly included in preps can fail and need to be repaired.

The purpose of this article is to discuss how to adopt a ‘repair, not replace’ approach to electronic devices and the skills, tools and resources you can use to support that approach, both in normal times as well as after the grid goes down. I’m going to focus on small electronics, not major things like appliances, televisions, computers, etc., all of which require a lot of specialized knowledge, tools and supplies. However, the underlying approach of learning how to repair things can be applied to pretty much anything.Continue reading“Basic Electronic Repair – Part 1, by J.M.”