Letter Re: Question on Two Cycle Oil Mixing Ratios

Dear Mr. Rawles,
Perhaps you could help me understand the mixing ratios for two stroke oil.
I remember buying the old Homelite oil, you could either buy it in a can to mix with one gallon of gas or a can to mix with two gallons of gas.
Most of the new two stroke oils I have seen recently state that they are 50:1.
Is this mixture acceptable for my old Homelite Super XL chainsaw and other two stroke equipment?
The rep at the Stihl store by us said that the new oils are so much better formulated than the old oils, that 50:1 is good for all two stroke equipment–old and new. Does he know what he is talking about? – Mark G.

JWR Replies: While it is true that some of the pre-1990 manufacturers’ manuals called out a 32:1 or even 24:1 mixing ratio, with modern name-brand mixing oil, there is no problem using a 50:1 ratio in just about all two cycle chainsaws and other two cycle power tools that are marked 24:1 or 32:1 (such as leaf blowers, weed trimmers, ice augers, et cetera). The modern mixing oils provide plenty of lubrication at a 50:1 ratio. You can use more oil if you’d like, but it would be a waste of oil, and will also produce more smoke.

OBTW, I discovered that there is an interesting thread of conversation on this topic over at The Arborist Site Forums.



Dip Sealing Tools for Storage

Jim,
I don’t know if you are familiar with this product already but I thought it couldn’t hurt to bring it to SurvivalBlog readers attention. It is called “Dip Seal” protective removable coatings, peels off like a banana [skin]. It is, from the company’s own description two or three different types of plastic seal, “Type one coatings are the most commonly used for corrosion protection. These coatings leave an oil film on the protected part. A relatively hard coating that is excellent for long-term storage and protection from rough handling. Part numbers, UPC codes, etc., can be easily seen through any of the transparent Type One colors. Recommended dipping temperature for all Type One coatings is 350° F.”

I thought this type of seal could be used as a part of a redundant system of sealing parts, etc. for long term storage. I’ve used the product myself and like it very much. If one is peeling off the seal it’s rather easy not messy at all and leaves no unwanted residue or particles as long as you check to make sure its all been removed. They have different types of seals some with oil and some without, so the user would want to be aware of what was okay or advantageous to seal with which type of Dip Seal product. For what it does it’s a safe product to work with and not pricey either. – John T.

JWR Replies: Thanks for that recommendation. It is a precaution that is particularly appropriate in damp climates. Just be sure to start with tools that are free of rust, since in some circumstances oxidation can continue even underneath dip sealing.



Letter Re: Low Light Shooting Techniques

Mr. Rawles:
Anyone who carries a sidearm for protection should watch these three videos by Surefire: One Two Three. The first one covers principle of using light and flashlights to your advantage. It also discusses the Harries and Rogers Surefire techniques for shooting and advantages and disadvantages of both. The second one covers the FBI and neck index methods of shooting. The last covers clearing techniques in a building. I personally don’t like the Rogers Surefire technique because it requires a specific flashlight and will not work if the switch is not properly adjusted. – Bill N.



Odds ‘n Sods:

There is an interesting thread in progress titled: “Popular Mechanics new take on Heinlein’s skill list“, over at The Mental Militia Forums (formerly called the Claire Files Forums.) I agree with the consensus view there. Parenthetically, I’m glad that I’m raising our kids out in the hinterboonies in a largely self-sufficient lifestyle with plenty of “do it yourself”–mostly by economic necessity but partly by choice. A boy should know how to build a field fence just as well as a web page.

   o o o

From Bloomberg: U.S. New-Home Sales Drop, Prices Fall Most Since 1970

   o o o

At The Economist web site: The turning point–Does the latest financial crisis signal the end of a golden age of stable growth?

   o o o

SF in Hawaii recommended this site: You Grow Girl–Make Your Own Pop Bottle Drip Irrigation System



Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t.
They kept going. Because they were holding on to something."
"What are we holding on to, Sam?"
"That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for." – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of The Rings



Notes from JWR:

Today we are pleased to feature an excerpt from the novel Enemies Foreign And Domestic by Matthew Bracken. The story is set in the near future, as a small scale resistance movement develops in reaction to the end of constitutional liberty. The author is a SurvivalBlog reader, former US Navy SEAL, novelist, and an accomplished blue water yachtsman. I trust that like me, you find survival fiction a useful tool for “thinking outside the box” and considering “what ifs”, in preparedness planning.



“The Checkpoint” — An Excerpt from the Novel Enemies Foreign And Domestic by Matthew Bracken

Brad was driving his red pickup with Ranya snuggling against him as they crossed the five mile wide I-664 James River Bridge-Tunnel from Newport News. They covered in only a few minutes the same water which they had sailed upon yesterday at a tenth of their present speed. It was a little past four PM on the warm Sunday afternoon when they passed back onto the northern shore of Suffolk County, almost within sight of the burned ruins of the Edmonds house. Neither one of them spoke of it, although they both stared in that direction.
Driving down from Poquoson they had been listening to the news on AM talk radio. The latest shock to hit Tidewater was an accidental police shooting. Either Virginia Beach police or an FBI team—it wasn’t clear which—had shot a man in the head at a dramatic felony traffic stop. The man, whose identity had not been released yet, had been pulled over in his black full-sized pickup truck on Laskin Road, misidentified as a possible suspect in the shooting of Attorney General Sanderson.

Blocked in by their patrol cars and surrounded by uniformed police and undercover agents, the unlucky driver had been simultaneously ordered both to “freeze!” and to “get out!” of his truck. The man had slowly reached for his seat belt buckle to comply with the order to get out, and this had been seen as a “suspicious movement” by one of the police or undercover agents who had heard him ordered to freeze.
He had been shot in the face point blank through the windshield, with either a police or FBI assault rifle or submachine gun, that wasn’t determined yet. This had happened two hours ago in broad daylight, in front of numerous witnesses, some of whom were already angrily calling in to the radio talk shows. Apparently the police and FBI undercover agents had been seen whooping it up and “high-fiving” over the bleeding body of the man they had thought was the sniper. No firearms or weapons of any kind were recovered from his vehicle.

As they entered Suffolk they were in a grim mood, the magic of their afternoon aboard Guajira already shattered. The news of the man’s death hit Ranya with another spiritual hammer blow. She felt personally responsible, because instead of pursuing her for Sanderson’s murder, the police had killed an innocent person instead. Her stomach knot twisted another turn, but of course she couldn’t share this secret pain with Brad…

In a few minutes they would arrive back at Crosby’s Boatyard in Portsmouth, where she had left her Yamaha the day before, and then they’d return once again to Brad’s sailboat. She was looking forward to wrapping herself around the bike and snapping it into gear, using its clutch and throttle to fly over the highway at three digit speed. She hoped the wind blast and the onrushing pavement might clear her mind of its accumulation of guilt, pain and fear.

“I need to get gas,” Brad told her, and he pulled over onto the exit lane for Hoffler Boulevard. The exit ramp cut through a break in the wall of pines alongside the highway, then curved off out of sight to the right and sloped gently downward. “Oh cr*p, what’s this?” he said, braking quickly.

Ranya bolted upright and buckled her seatbelt. There was a police cruiser on the side of the ramp just beyond the trees, and a cop was standing in the middle holding up both hands, blocking Brad’s truck and two cars in front of him.

“Checkpoint!” Ranya said. “One of the FIST checkpoints, it’s got to be!” The FIST program, the brainchild of Virginia Attorney General Eric Sanderson, was intended to stop the transportation of illegal weapons. Sanderson had come down to Norfolk to announce and promote the program on Friday, he had been shot and killed Saturday morning, and Sunday afternoon they had driven straight into one of his FIST checkpoints. There just seemed to be no escaping his reach, she thought.

Thank God she’d left her Tennyson Champion .223 sniper pistol hidden back on Guajira! But she still had her father’s gift to deal with: the new .45 pistol was in her fanny pack on the floor.
Hopefully they would be able to slide through the checkpoint unmolested. The police would readily verify that the pickup carried no long guns of any kind. On the other hand, Ranya was sure that if the pistol was found, its serial number would be called in to some national data base, and she would be taken aside and cross-examined closely. She would be questioned about the legal ownership of the gun, leading to more questions about her murdered father. She would be questioned about Brad, about their relationship, their destination, what they were doing together…
Maybe they would be questioned separately, and there was no way to know how such a split interrogation session would turn out. Should she admit to the police that she had the pistol if she was asked, or deny having a firearm in the car and hope it wasn’t found in a search? Fear constricted her throat, instantly turning her mouth desert dry yet again. But at least she didn’t have the Tennyson, that scoped .223 pistol would have linked her directly to Sanderson’s death as neatly as a signed confession.
She had to tell him she had the gun. While they had time, they had to quickly get their stories lined up together, in case they would be questioned apart.
“Brad, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I’ve got my .45 with me. What should we do?”
“Ahhhh…Cr*p. Okay, it should be all right. I think they’re just looking for rifles. I hope.”
“Me too.”

The exit ramp made a slight right then left “S” curve as it descended through brush down to Hoffler Boulevard. There were large stop signs on both sides at the end of the ramp at Hoffler, which passed under the I-664 overpass off to the left. Halfway down the ramp, parked along the right shoulder, there was another police car, then a line of eight or ten civilian cars and SUVs, then two more police cars. Orange traffic cones divided the wide asphalt ramp down the middle. Police and camouflage-clad soldiers were walking alongside the row of parked cars; some of the cars had open doors and trunks. A single slow-moving motorcyclist was being waved past the line of cars to proceed on his way, a fact which Ranya noted with great interest. Obviously, the police did not think a motorcyclist could be concealing a banned semi-auto or sniper rifle.

Two hundred yards away at the bottom of the ramp, parked off to the left in the weeds and facing uphill towards them, was a desert-painted Army humvee.
“Damn, look at that!” said Brad. “The humvee’s got a machine gun on it. I’ve never seen that before, not in America.”
“I’ve seen it up around DC sometimes, they put them near the Pentagon and Reagan National during security alerts. They were there all the time after 9-11.” A helmeted soldier’s head and torso was visible, sticking out of the humvee’s roof behind the pintle-mounted machine gun.

“They picked a perfect spot for a checkpoint. I didn’t see anything until it was too late,” said Brad.
“Yeah, they can be damned sneaky. I’ve seen them set up this way a few times when they’re searching for drugs. It’s just like a trap: by the time you see it, you’re caught in it.”
“I wonder if they’re checking every car, or if they’re letting some pass around? I wonder if they’re going to hassle us?”
“A thirty year old white guy in a red pickup truck? What do you think Brad? They’re not looking for guys named Mohammed down here; they’re looking for guys named Bubba.”
“I guess we’ll find out in a minute.”

The young father in the white Ford Taurus, the second car from the front of the line, said, “No sir, I won’t open my trunk, not without a warrant, and I do not ‘consent’ to be searched.”
The even younger Virginia National Guard corporal standing outside his driver’s side window looked around, confused. This situation had not come up before. Could this guy just refuse? Was that allowed?
The holdout’s young blond wife said, “Martin, please, just do like he says. Don’t make trouble; the girls are frightened.”

“Honey, it’s the point of it. This is still America, and there’s still a Constitution.”
“Daddy, why are there soldiers here? Is there a war?” asked seven year old Danielle from the back seat. Her four year old sister Ashley, next to her in her booster seat, sucked her thumb, afraid without knowing why.
“No sweetie, there’s no war. The soldiers are helping the police to look for some bad men.”
“Criminals daddy?”
“That’s right sugar plum, criminals.”

Another man walked up to their window. Martin Powell could not tell if he was from the military or the police: he was dressed in black from his helmet to his boots, with no badge or insignia in sight. The man in black rapped on his driver’s side window with the steel muzzle tip of his black submachine gun. “Open up! Get out! Now!”

“Officer, do you have a warrant? What’s your ‘probable cause’ to search our car?” Martin Powell was trying very hard not to show the fear he felt, holding onto the wheel to keep his hands from visibly shaking. He hoped he did not sound as afraid as he felt. He remembered reading about the Eagle Scout in Maryland, who had his face shot off a few years ago by an FBI agent with an M-16 rifle, after a mistaken traffic stop. Powell had not yet heard about today’s accidental police shooting in Virginia Beach of the man in the black pickup truck. His wife could not stand listening to news talk radio and they played soft rock music CDs instead.
“My ‘probable cause’ is you’re an a**hole who refuses to give consent for a search, that’s what! Now get out! Out! Out!”

ATF Special Agent Alvin Bogart was having a bad day, and now he was angry enough to chew up barbed wire and spit out nails. He was angry because it was Sunday afternoon, and he was pulling the absolute sh*t duty of all time manning a FIST checkpoint, instead of kicking back on his recliner in his den, with a cold Budweiser in his hand, watching the Eagles play the Carolina Panthers. For this he had become a Federal Law Enforcement Agent?

He was angry because he was pulling his second consecutive day of twelve hour checkpoint shifts, which really meant a 14 hour work day, only with no overtime pay like the State Troopers were raking in. And worse, he knew that he had to do it again tomorrow and the next day and it looked like forever. If he had wanted to pull this kind of sh*t duty, he would have joined the Border Patrol like his brother Daryl!

He was angry because he had to walk around all day in full tactical gear in almost 90 degree heat, including his Kevlar helmet and black body armor, carrying his MP-5 as if they were expecting a head-on terrorist attack right here in Hicksville Suffolk Virginia! This had been at Sanderson’s direct orders. Sanderson, that preppie douche bag who was not even in his Federal chain of command. Sanderson, who had never sweated like a pig beneath heavy body armor and tactical gear on a hot day in his life. Just for this alone, Bogart was glad that Sanderson had had his head blown off on the golf course yesterday! But unfortunately, the FIST checkpoints had not died with the state Attorney General; instead they had been stepped up.
He was extremely angry because earlier today he’d heard through unofficial federal law enforcement back channels that a brother ATF agent had been killed in the line of duty last night, shot in the neck by some punk-a** redneck during a raid not three miles from here.

And now Alvin Bogart was positively livid because this curbside Allen Dershowitz in the old piece of sh*t Taurus wanted to give him a lecture on the 4th Amendment, consent searches, and probable cause! As if he needed to hear that sh*t! Like all ATF men, Alvin Bogart held a special burning hatred for “Constitution fanatics.”
“So, you refuse to give voluntary consent for a search of your vehicle, is that correct?” Bogart smiled pleasantly at the man in the car.
“Yes sir, that is correct. Under the 4th amendment of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution…” The driver’s side window was rolled halfway down. Turned slightly sideways, ATF Special Agent Alvin Bogart had casually slipped the small can of pepper spray from his tactical vest unnoticed, and then he snapped it up and sprayed Mr. Martin Powell, U.S. citizen and taxpayer, straight in his shocked face.
As Martin Powell screamed and dug at his eyes, Bogart snaked his arm down inside the half open window, grabbed the handle, and jerked open the door. As Powell’s wife and daughters screamed both in terror and from the effects of the pepper spray being released inside the car, Agent Bogart grabbed Powell by his hair and shirt and pulled him halfway out, until he snagged up on his seatbelt. Bogart unsnapped the belt, and then used both hands to jerk Powell all the way out onto the asphalt, where his head landed with a satisfying smack. Active duty Navy Lieutenant Commander Ira Jacobson was sitting in his mint-condition 1971 red Mustang Mach One just behind the Taurus. He was not in uniform, returning from a visit to his mother’s house in Alexandria. His ship, the Burke class destroyer Winston Churchill, was at the Norfolk Naval Base. He was the ship’s Operations Officer.

He had sat patiently in the line awaiting his turn, fully intending to cooperate. But seeing the black-uniformed policeman (if he was he a policeman, it was hard to tell) abuse the civilians in front of him was getting him steamed. When the black-clad policeman had maced the interior of the car Jacobson couldn’t believe it; he clearly heard a woman and children screaming!
When LCDR Jacobson saw the man in black pull the driver out of his car and slam his head down onto the ground, it was time to take action. LCDR Jacobson would have intervened automatically if he had seen a Chief Petty Officer abuse a junior sailor even half as severely; he’d write the Chief up for Captain’s Mast in a heartbeat! For assault! So Navy LCDR Ira Jacobson, not in uniform, stepped smartly out of his red Mustang. It was his nature and his training to take action; to render instant decisions and intervene in such a situation. LCDR Jacobson did not skate away or tap dance around when dealing with out-of-control junior personnel, and he did not shrink from his perceived duty today.

“ Just what the H*LL do you think you’re doing to that civilian?” he barked, using his strongest officer’s “command voice” to impose order and gain control of the situation.
ATF agent Alvin Bogart was kneeling on Martin Powell’s chest, one hand around his throat, getting ready to pepper spray him again with the other.
The other ATF agent was at the uphill end of the line of cars when he saw and heard the fracas. He was working with a State Trooper K-9 dog handler and his German shepherd, searching the trunk of a Volvo.

Six National Guardsmen and women and three other state troopers were spread out along the line of cars and past it in both directions, directing traffic and generally trying not to be jerks, avoiding actually searching the cars as much as possible. None of them wanted to be there. The two ATF agents were the gung-ho ones, pushing them to search more cars, to find contraband weapons.
None of the state troopers or soldiers was certain about what had happened in the white Taurus, to cause the driver to be pepper sprayed and pulled out, but they assumed an illegal weapon or maybe drugs had been spotted: after all, that’s what they were there for. Suddenly they saw a tall civilian with short black hair jump out of a red Mustang and go after ATF Special Agent Bogart, screaming something. Bogart’s ATF partner shouted, “Turn the dog loose!” to the K-9 handler. He immediately did as he was told, pulling the 100 pound beast back short on his leash, crouching down close to his canine partner to direct his attention, aiming the dog like a missile, and releasing him with the command “Hansie! Attack!”

The German shepherd cleared the thirty yards to Jacobson in a blur and knocked him down from behind, biting him viciously on the buttocks and in the groin area. Ira Jacobson screamed, Martin Powell was still screaming, and Powell’s wife and little girls in the car kept screaming as shocked state troopers and soldiers converged on the scene of the melee.
From Bogart’s first rap on Powell’s window, to the dog attacking LCDR Jacobson, only sixty seconds had passed, but they had been a long sixty seconds! The next sixty seconds were going to be far, far longer. Two cars behind Jacobson’s red Mustang, 83 year old Luke Tanner’s hands were locked in a death grip on the steering wheel of his cream-colored 1986 Cadillac Eldorado. His teeth were grinding, his breath was short and labored, his heart was racing, and his skin was so flushed that the liver spots on his bare arms were nearly invisible.

The last time that Luke Tanner had seen that black uniform and peculiar black coal-scuttle helmet in person had been six decades earlier. It had been in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, trying to hold out against the 6th SS Panzer Army, during the defining days of his life in The Battle of the Bulge. Tanner had fought regular German Wehrmacht across France, and he’d fought the Waffen SS in Belgium, and he still held a burning hatred for them even six decades later.

But he had never imagined that he’d see the God damned black uniform of the SS here in America! Then he watched as a young man was pulled from his car by the storm trooper, and he saw his head bounce off the pavement, he heard a lady and children screaming, and his hand fell to the seat beside him.

He’d lost his wife Edna in 1997 after almost fifty years together. She had been dragged to her death alongside her own Buick, the victim of a botched carjacking in Richmond. After that, Luke Tanner always kept his old Government Model .45 caliber pistol under a folded newspaper on the seat beside him, with a round in the chamber. He didn’t know what the particular legality of that was, and he didn’t care: a man had a right to defend himself, law or no law. It was the very same .45 automatic he’d brought back on the hospital ship in 1945. Every year since then he had fired one box of ammunition through it at the National Guard Armory range where he knew people, then he cleaned it and reloaded it with fresh bullets. He’d never fired it in anger in over sixty years.

The last time Luke Tanner had fired a weapon at anything except paper targets had been around frozen Ettebruck, Belgium in 1944, and it had been at a God damned Nazi storm trooper in a black SS uniform!

Who could ever have dreamed that sixty years later, Nazi SS storm troopers dressed in black would be running loose right here in Virginia! Certainly not Luke Tanner. All those good men of the 28th Infantry Division had died in the Ardennes fighting the Nazis, and now here they were again, in the flesh!

Then a brave young fellow got out of a red Mustang in front of Luke and proceeded to give the SS Nazi h*ll for what he was doing to that man on the ground. Good for him! But an instant later a dog, a big German shepherd no less, had that fellow on the ground thrashing like a whirlwind and biting him to pieces, then more soldiers and police were hollering and screaming and running from all over!

Another of those black-uniformed Nazi SS storm troopers ran past Luke Tanner’s Cadillac and began kicking the man on the ground with his black boots, and that’s when Luke Tanner had seen enough! Too much! The 28th Infantry “Bloody Bucket” Division had not killed all those God damned Nazis in France and Belgium just so they could regroup here in America! He’d long ago seen far too many fine young Americans killed and crippled at the hands of the Nazis, way more than enough to last many lifetimes.

Luke Tanner had always considered every day since December 23rd of 1944 to be a Gift from God, a bonus day, springing from the pure dumb luck which had for unknowable reasons deserted so many better and more deserving young men than him. December 23rd of 1944 was the day that he earned a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, and a trip home all during one fire fight near frozen Ettebruck, Belgium.
He’d lost his left eye and part of his stomach over there, and more recently he’d lost his wife, and that was enough. To Luke Tanner, it was not going to be worth living in America another year, if the last vestige of freedom was going to be lost too. What had all those guys died for in France and Germany and all across the Pacific? What for? What for?

Somebody had to teach the youngsters how to fight Nazis, and Luke Tanner figured he knew about as well as anybody. There just weren’t many of his generation left, who’d had the good fortune to still be alive so many years after those bitter-cold never-forgotten days at the end of 1944. He wrapped his leathery old hand around his heavy slab-sided Colt .45, thumbed back the hammer, opened the door all the way, and stepped out into the sun.

The police and soldiers and Nazi SS storm troopers were all busy, focused on the tangle of confusion beside the white Ford when Luke Tanner walked up along the red Mustang, his .45 held down beside his right leg, hammer back, safety off, finger on the trigger. When he’d picked up that .45 and thumbed back the hammer, the last six decades cleanly disappeared. But no one paid any attention to the frail-looking old bald man with the thick black-framed glasses in the yellow short sleeve shirt. Not until he unexpectedly grabbed one of the Nazi SS storm troopers by his black shoulder strap.
ATF Special Agent Alvin Bogart spun part way around, saw yet another civilian interloper and yelled “Now what the h*ll do YOU want grandpa?”
Luke Tanner, chronological age 83, and the survivor of more than that number of deadly skirmishes and battles with Nazis as a much younger man, smiled unexpectedly and said, “I want to see you dead, Fritz!” He held Bogart off with his once-again strong left arm still gripping the black shoulder strap, quickly raised the .45 from behind his leg, and fired once.

The .45’s report was like a cannon, sending off shockwaves through the huddle of police and soldiers. Bogart was hit upward between the eyes. His Kevlar helmet contained his brains, but did not prevent a shower of blood and tissue from flying back out all over Tanner, making it appear that he had been shot himself. Then Bogart was down, dropped like a pole-axed steer, police were screaming “GUN!” and drawing their pistols, soldiers were trying to unsling their M-16s from their shoulders, and Tanner, still smiling, aimed again at the other Nazi SS storm trooper who now stood in wide-eyed mute amazement seven feet away. Tanner fired one-handed, aimed and fired again, as the ATF agent tried to turn away and raise his submachine gun (which was snagged on his chest sling) at the same time, then suddenly the second ATF agent went down, his wound unseen, acrid gun smoke bitter in everyone’s noses, all ears ringing from the .45’s steady barking in their midst.

The second BATF agent was still rolling away slowly as Tanner continued to fire at him on the ground, until his eight rounds were expended and the .45’s slide stayed locked to the rear. He was surrounded by police and soldiers who were all falling back away from him, some running, some seeking cover behind cars, but for the moment it was a “circular firing squad” with police and soldiers and civilians in their cars all around him, causing them all to hesitate, until finally a state trooper took careful aim with his service pistol and fired.

Tanner was hit several times and sat down hard, then fell onto his back staring up past the clouds, blinking at the sun, his empty .45 fallen from his hand at last. A soldier leaning over him heard the old man whisper: “I got ‘em Sarge, did you see me kill those Nazi bastards?” The young soldier could not see who the blood-covered old man was talking to, he could not see in himself Luke Tanner’s last platoon leader, Sergeant Alonso Delvecchio, who was killed in action on Christmas Day of 1944 by a Nazi sniper’s bullet. This was two days after Tanner got his “million dollar wounds” and was evacuated from the battlefield at last; to go home, to live, and to remember.By this point the soccer mom in the forest-green Ford Excursion SUV two cars behind the Cadillac had seen and heard too much, and finally her stunned brain somehow reconnected to her frozen limbs. She switched the ignition back on and in one fluid motion turned the wheel sharply to the left, threw the shifter into drive, and stomped hard on the gas pedal. Her giant SUV clipped the Toyota in front of her, spinning it sideways, ran straight over two National Guardsmen, crossed the exit ramp and headed down the brushy slope towards Hoffler Boulevard bouncing and picking up speed with every yard. The soccer mom’s mind was operating in an unfamiliar emergency crisis mode; she was on automatic heading for the safety of her three car garage like a crazed doe fleeing before a forest fire.

Down at the bottom of the ramp Private Hector Ramirez was still standing on the middle bolster seat of the Humvee, leaning back against the ring cut through the roof when everything went crazy up at the line of cars. When the shooting broke out, he had reflexively leaned forward and shouldered into his M-60 machine gun, sighting up the road, but could make no sense out of the “lucha libre,” or free-for-all fight.
Hours before, Private Ramirez had been content to accept the duty in the Humvee with the machine gun. For one thing, he remembered how to load and fire the M-60 from his active duty Army time, unlike most of his squad. But mainly he knew he had been given the machine gun duty because his English was very bad, muy malo. Terrible in fact, lo peor, the worst. Sgt. DuBois didn’t want him searching the cars with the policias and dealing with the public because he could not understand rapid southern dialect English; and he could not communicate well in English in any case.

Private Ramirez’ lack of English skill was understandable. After all, he had walked across the frontera Mexicana in central Arizona for the third and final time only a few years before. Then by the grace of all the saints, he had been granted ‘amnistia’ along with millions of his countrymen living in El Norte. A little later a cousin warned him that the amnistia might be taken away, but that there was a program where if he joined the gringo army, he would be guaranteed full gringo citizenship in only two years, and then he could bring up his mother and the rest of his family. And in fact, that is exactly what happened.
Gracias a Dios he had been given the answers to the tests before the Army boot camp, or he would have been rejected. But Ramirez more than made up for his lack of Ingles with an abundance of enthusiasm, always shouting “Sir Yes Sir!” in boot camp the loudest, whether he understood the question or not. His uniform was always perfect, he always had the fastest times on the runs, and his Sargentos had put him in front of the Compania to carry the flag. Army boot camp had been a high point of Hector Ramirez’ short life!
So he’d spent the day leaning against the hole in the roof of the humvee, sitting, standing and trying to stay awake, until all h*ll had suddenly and without warning broken loose, with people screaming, dogs barking, and now guns firing!

Hector yanked back on the cocking handle of his machine gun and got ready to fire, but was unable to find a target: all he saw were policias and soldados. Anyway, his orders were to just make a show, a demonstration he thought they had said, to be the “blocking force.” Ramirez understood “fuerza bloquear.” It meant that he must keep anyone from escaping from the checkpoint. He understood that mission well enough! This was something he had grown up seeing routinely as a small boy on the roads back in Chiapas. But today, although he had 200 cartuchos of ammunition in the green steel box next to his M-60, he had never expected to fire even one bullet of it!

Suddenly an enormous dark green truck roared out from the line of cars behind all the fighting and shooting, and drove straight over two of the members of Ramirez’ esquadra, smashing them! Then it drove faster and faster down the hill directly towards him! And he was the blocking force, to prevent the escape of the terroristas!
He sighted directly at the onrushing windshield and fired a prolonged burst, causing the truck’s windows to explode. The truck veered back toward the highway ramp, and it was still trying to escape as far as Ramirez could tell, so he followed it with his machine gun’s front sight, firing continuously until it crashed into a police car at the bottom of the line! But when Hector took his finger away from the trigger, the maldita machine gun continued to fire without a pause, as if it had a mind of its own, so he raised the barrel to fire safely up over the hill.

A hundred yards away, halfway up the exit ramp, Sergeant Ashante DuBois of the Virginia National Guard was crouching behind the trunk of the cream colored Cadillac, while down the hill Ramirez raked the line of cars with 7.62 caliber machine gun fire. The rounds snapped as they passed; with every fourth shot a red tracer flashed by. Then the windows in the Cadillac blew out, showering her with a thousand tiny glass fragments. The Mexican had obviously gone totally insane with panic!

Sergeant DuBois knew that it was up to her to protect the civilians still hiding in their cars the only way she knew how. She laid her M-16 rifle along the left rear trunk of the Caddy, pulled back the charging handle to chamber a round, aimed carefully at Ramirez and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Sergeant DuBois turned the rifle on its side and looked at the selector switch, turned it to “semi,” and began to pepper Ramirez with fire as more 7.62mm tracer rounds cracked past her up the hillside and over the highway behind them.

Back up at the top of the ramp Brad and Ranya had watched events spiral out of control in disbelief, but when the M-60 on the humvee opened up on the big green SUV, and the tracer rounds started flying past, the policeman in front of them finally ran for cover behind his cruiser. Brad noticed he was a Suffolk cop, and not a state trooper like the rest of them doing the searches down the ramp. He threw his pickup into reverse and burned rubber fishtailing backwards up the ramp, then threw it into forward and took off down I-664.

In another sixty seconds they were a mile and a half away, and Brad took his foot off the gas pedal. There was no remaining sign of the inexplicable mayhem they had witnessed during those two mad minutes on the Hoffler Boulevard exit ramp, except for the adrenalin still pumping through their blood, and their intensely focused memories.



Odds ‘n Sods:

I was doing some web surfing and stumbled across this video clip on American Gun Owners. I haven’t yet seen the book on which it is based, but the video is remarkably unbiased. I think that it would be a good introduction to the American “gun culture” for SurvivalBlog readers that live in countries that restrict firearms ownership.

   o o o

A Financial Sense editorial by Eric Englund: From Prime to Sub-Prime: America’s Mortgage Meltdown Has Just Begun

   o o o

The WRSA has a high power rifle shooting clinic scheduled for October 6-7 in Brookings, Oregon. These clinics are great way to get high quality rifle shooting instruction for a fraction of what you’d pay at one of the big name shooting schools. Don’t miss out!

   o o o

RBS forwarded this: No end in sight for Idaho’s growth



Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“I cannot guarantee that you will not get hurt or killed whether you follow my advice or not. Just keep in mind that people who never lifted anything that could be classified as ‘heavy’ got hernias from coughing and died of a stroke when they strained on a toilet. As someone smart said, fear of doing things does not prevent you from dying, only from living.” – Pavel Tsatsouline



Notes from JWR:

We are rapidly approaching the two million unique visits milestone, and we have readers all over the planet. Thanks for making SurvivalBlog such a huge success. Please keep spreading the word. Links at your personal web page and/or in your e-mail footer would be greatly appreciated.

The bidding is now at $460 in the SurvivalBlog benefit auction, for a scarce pre-1899 antique Finnish M39 Mosin Nagant rifle from my personal collection. This rifle was rebarreled by Valmet during WWII, and is in excellent condition. It comes with a replica bayonet, original sling, and original muzzle cap. Since the receiver for this rifle was made in 1898, it can be mailed directly to the winning bidder’s doorstep, with no FFL paperwork! The auction ends on October 15th.. Just e-mail us your bid.



Letter Re: Questions on Underground CONEXes

Hello Mr. Rawles
I’m a fairly new reader of your site and have been meandering through your archives and checking back periodically. It’s a wonderful site you have here, and I’ve found your articles to be quite interesting and informative. My personal concerns for the future are more focused on nuclear events than fiscal ones, but in either case I’m likely screwed as I am living on the east coast in close proximity to dense population centers and terrorist/military targets.

As of late however I have been considering buying a few acres in one of the rural areas a few hours away. Someplace where I could build a small cottage to go and relax every now and then. Perhaps with a few unobtrusive modifications to make it a bit more disaster resistant. But I want to do something that’s both low budget and low visibility. Especially since I hope to move away from this area in the years to come, and don’t want to spend a fortune setting up something I’ll be a thousand miles away from in times of trouble. (Or trying to sell a place with expensive hidden features I don’t want to mention publicly… I believe you just commented about that issue today.)

To that end I’ve been pondering the pros and cons of buried cargo containers, and I was wondering if you know of anyone who has done any serious engineering studies of them? I’ve read a lot of speculation about them, but very little hard data. Obviously they’re quite strong and stackable, but only along the corner posts. I haven’t ready any serious studies of what kind of lateral force they can withstand, or what kind of internal or external reinforcement might be necessary to berm or bury. I’ve heard suggestions about flipping the containers over, since the floor is designed to support a massive load. But it seems to me that if you flip it over, the load is now on the wrong side of the floor supports. A system to carry the load on the corner posts should work, just like the floor of each stacked container does. But cutting the bottom off of one container to use as the roof support of another seems wasteful and inefficient. And I’m not sure what kind force would be applied to the sides of a buried container or how much pressure corrugated steel can withstand.

Personally I was considering burying two twenty foot cargo containers side by side. At eight feet or so wide, that equals around 320 square feet of storage and living space and produces a pretty square footprint. Bury them under three feet of earth and you have a decent fallout shelter with space for a significant amount of supplies. Presuming it’s not going to collapse under the weight above it. And that it is properly ventilated. And hasn’t filled with water or condensation.

Now here is a second item I was hoping you could offer some advice on. If I do build something like this, I want it to remain a secret. I am assuming that with a bit of training, a bit of rental equipment, and a lot of elbow grease, I should be able to excavate my own pit and even drag a cargo container or two into it without killing myself. But what if the structure does require some additional support in the form of a concrete shell or load bearing roof? It would be a significant volume of concrete. Far more than one man and a few friends could possibly mix and pour. Which would mean hiring a cement truck. And a load of cement workers curious as to what the h*ll you’re building in a hole in the ground.

So, any advice on how to have work such as that done without worrying about every concrete worker on the crew showing up on your doorstep in bad times, families in tow? Aside from avoiding outside labor in the first place? This, of course, applies to any sort of expert service you can’t possibly handle on your own.

I was also considering how to ensure proper ventilation, and how to camouflage the vents. Here is a thought that may prove useful to some of your other readers who are considering similar projects: It might be possible to hide the air intakes in plain sight. A lot of passive heating and cooling systems are becoming popular these days, and one such system is earth cooled tubes. An earth cooled tube is pretty much what the name says: A length of tube buried a few feet underground, where the temperature is fairly stable. By blowing air through the tube you can cool it in the summer and warm it in the winter. I’m not sure how cost effective it actually is, since you still need a fan to blow air through the system and it’s efficiency depends on the local climate, but it hardly matters. You can simply claim that you have such a system, and that your bunker vent pipe is the intake for it. You could even pass it off as a reason not to dig or build over your bunker, since that’s where your ‘passive cooling system’ is buried.

Or alternatively you could actually install such a system and route it through the bunker, keeping it well ventilated as you cool or heat your house. Mind you, there may be moisture and condensation issues you would have to take care of. But if you do need to make use of your bunker it might help keep the living conditions inside it a bit more bearable.

Anyway, I believe this e-mail has rambled on long enough. I’d appreciate any advice you can offer, and I wish you and your site the best of luck. Keep up the good work! – Robert in New York

JWR Replies: I’ve seen precious little hard data and lots of speculation about using CONEXes underground. One thing is certain: “as-is” they are not designed to take a substantial load anywhere but the corners. Since I’m not a structural engineer, perhaps a reader that has some “in the ground” experience can fill us in on what sort of internal or external support is required to make CONEXes safe for use underground.



Letter Re: Running Chainsaws on Ethanol & Home Alcohol Production Stills

Sir:
About your comments [on Thursday] and others in regard to kerosene use in a gasoline engine: From anything I’ve experienced, you are correct about it not being as simple as some have posted. Engines that were built for “all fuel” use – including distillate and kerosene, had very low compression ratios – usually around 5 to 1. Low compression makes a low-power, inefficient engine. The carburetors were jetted differently, a twin fuel tank setup used, a selector-valve installed for quick fuel changeover, and a closeable air-shutter on the radiator to keep the engine hot. You started the engine on gasoline, got it good and hot, then slowly switched over to kerosene. When it came time to shut the engine off, you had to switch back to gasoline first -otherwise once cool, it would not start again.

Modern automotive gasoline engines with computer controls can be anywhere from 9-to-1 to a 11-to-1 compression-ratio. Older automotive engines, if not made to run on “high test” tended to be in the 8 or 9 to 1 range. Modern heavy-duty industrial use gasoline engines – and other off-road equipment – including lawn-mowers and such, tend to run a compression ratio of 8.5 to 1 which is too high for kerosene use.

I was a John Deere tractor mechanic in the 1960s/70s and used to work on a lot of “all fuel tractors.” Deere and other companies made them up to the late 1950s. We usually converted them to higher compression ratios to run on straight gasoline. This way, they made more power and ran more efficiently. In fact, we sometimes took standard gasoline tractors – and installed “high altitude” pistons to make them even more powerful. There are still a few all-fuelers around being used – including the two I own. My 1937 Deere [Model] BO still has the original all-fuel parts including the radiator shutters. I have to get it really hot before I dare switch it over to kerosene. And, after working it – if I park it with the engine idling and still hooked on kerosene – it will cool down, start backfiring and eventually die – unless I either get it hot again – or switch over to gasoline.

Just to show the power difference, a 1956 John Deere 720 all-fuel tractor with a 360 cubic inch engine put out a max. horsepower of 42 horsepower. Same engine and tractor in the gasoline-only version put out a max. of 55 horsepower and ran 20% more efficiently. Same tractor in diesel version put out a max. horsepower of 56 and ran twice as efficiently as the all-fuel version. Seems using diesel power is a no-brainer. If you have some kerosene in reserve, stick it in a diesel. – John from Central New York



Weekly Survival Real Estate Market Update

Doubling Up Before the “Crunch”
This is a unique time in survival real estate. Never before have we seen so many people actually wanting to purchase a family retreat for the coming hard times, but as last week’s update alluded to, most people are struggling to complete their purchase due to the lack of capital, usually because a current real estate asset has yet to sell.

These times call for more purposeful thought and planning in order to come up with a solution. One idea is to bring two or more like minded families together in order to increase their buying power and their odds of survival when the retreat is activated. Although the monetary side of such a deal is delicate, it can usually be worked out with simple terms and conditions put down on paper, it is the personality issues that become exponentially diverse and could pose a major problem that may lead the parties to regret such a partnership.

One solution for someone who cannot immediately move and has a trusted friend or family member who is like minded is to purchase a retreat and move that person onto the property as a caretaker. This person(s) would have their ‘rent’ reduced such for such activities as ground maintenance/improvement, receipt/inventory and storage of supplies shipped to the retreat (off site delivery is recommended), building of additional structures and emplacements and a myriad of other daily activities to keep the retreat in tip top shape. A spin-off of this would be two or three families purchasing a larger retreat and move the caretaker (who may or may not be one of the buyers) onto the property for services rendered.

In today’s world of reckless abandon it is an idea that some will consider absurd, but it is a solution that with careful thought and planning can be a life saver in the future. There are many parcels that are out of reach for the average buyer, but with several families in concert together they can purchase more acreage, many with multiple dwellings or a single main house that will someday become the retreat’s ‘lodge’ once everyone builds their own home on the land.

For example, there are several parcels for sale northwestern Montana in great locations that have good acreage and are already set up for two families, having multiple dwellings with plentiful water, sun exposure and defensible terrain but run above $750,000. That is out of reach for the average buyer, but perfect for two or more families willing to ‘double up’ for the hard times.

So, logistically this solution is fairly easy to coordinate and pull off. Now, to tackle the issue of ‘who’ do you choose to double up with and how. Most preparedness minded people are low key and may not have friends that share similar views so they will be stuck trying to find someone in the dark. Well, the best advice is to find another person or family that shares similar views on critical issues, especially moral and ethical values. As to where you would meet them, who knows, maybe you have overlooked some folks at your local fellowship or home school group, give it some careful thought and put it to prayer, God will lead you. – T.S.



Odds ‘n Sods:

From The Independent: Only £4.4m left to protect UK’s bank deposits

   o o o

There is an interesting topic posted over at The Mental Militia Forums (formerly called The Claire Files), about the tremendous gains in the price of Rhodium in the past five years. Obviously, somebody made a lot of money. (FYI, it wasn’t me. I was very conservatively invested in silver and gold.)

   o o o

Pets being slaughtered in meat-starved Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is now truly in crisis. 80% unemployment. An average life expectancy of just 37 years. The inflation rate is continuing to increase–some analysts predicts a 100,000 percent annual rate by the end of 2007.

   o o o

Courtesy of RBS, from U.S.News & World Report: Bozeman, Montana Locals Worried About Wealthy Newcomers