Note from JWR:

The high bid in the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction lot is now at $60. The auction is for three items: a 120 VAC/12 VDC BedFan Personal Cooling System (a $99 retail value), kindly donated by the manufacturer, a Thieves Oil Start Living Kit (a $161 retail value) donated by Ready Made Resources, and a copy of the latest edition of “The Encyclopedia of Country Living” by the late Carla Emery (a $32 retail value). The auction ends on March 15th. Please e-mail us your bids, in $10 increments.

Letter Re: Recommendation for the Movie “Right at Your Door”

Jim,
If you haven’t had the chance, I highly recommend the Lionsgate movie titled ‘Right at Your Door’. Without giving anything away, it is about a large scale terrorist attack on Los Angeles . It’s not a traditional disaster movie that tries to cover all the angles, dazzle with special effects and thrill with drama; instead it tells the story of one couple from the suburbs that most should easily relate to.

In no time at all, you see the vulnerability of the average person, and the break down of systems we take for granted, how it all leaves us practically helpless and lost. Chris Gorak, the director, does a good job of pulling you emotionally into the situation and demonstrating our susceptibility. Even the least prepared of us should take heed and learn. For the more practical and prepared, it will confirm our choice to be so.

Jim, from a 10 Cent Challenge subscriber I must give thanks for what I regard as the single best site on the web, bar none. Keep it up and spread the word. – Dfz from Louisiana.

Selecting a Rifle for a Budget-Constrained Prepper

Dear JWR,
I have first taken the time to read through your previous posts on Main Battle Rifle (MBR) recommendations before asking this question, but have not found what I am looking for. I am sure you receive an over abundance of firearms questions but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Due to financial restraints I am the weak link in my group so far in preparedness. I have chosen to spread what resources I do have at my disposal evenly rather than focus only on firearms as too many seem to do. I feel a need to escalate all of my preparations due to present day situations, but 1.) I live in Central Illinois with all ridiculous gun control that comes with living in the same state as Chicago, and 2.) If we are less than a year away from a Democrat-controlled White House and Congress I fear further gun control restrictions. So I am trying to purchase my firearms as soon as possible.

I am planning on purchasing a Model 1911 .45 ACP , an AR-7 .22 Long Rifle survival rifle from Henry (which can be disassembled stowed in its waterproof stock), a shotgun, and a MBR. For magazine and ammo interchangeability we are all keeping with .45 pistols, 12 gauge shotguns and .22 rifles. The other members already have [.223] AR-15s and we are now adding .308s. Due to my budget I am opting for less expensive alternatives to the rest of the groups collection, i.e. a Taurus 1911 instead of their Gold Cups, a Mossberg 590 instead of their Remington 870s. I will most likely not be able to purchase both an AR-15 and a .308 MBR, so if forced to choose one I am going with a .308.

I have looked into Springfield M1As, FN FALs, HK91s (and PTR91 HK clones), all leading me toward a $1,500 to $2,000 price range, it seems. I have noticed several times CETMEs and Century Arms FN clones, but have noted your objections to them. Is there anything in particular that is the problem with these alternatives that can be addressed by upgrading parts or having a gunsmith make some modifications? Or are these rifles just clusterflops? If I can purchase a CETME for $500 and spend $200 having a gunsmith work some magic the savings over an HK or FN FAL would almost leave enough to make all my other firearms purchases.

I realize that saving a couple dollars is not worth being caught in a situation where you have a .308 paperweight in a firefight. I just am not sure if you are stating that one is much preferable to the other out of the box, or if there is nothing that can be done to bring these alternatives up to spec. If you could shed some light on the shortcomings of these budget rifles I would be very interested. Thanks for your help, and all your work. – Eric in Illinois P.S.: Pony up the 10 Cents, people!

JWR Replies: I can appreciate your budget concerns. You are not the only prepper with a tight budget!

The main complaint that I’ve heard about both the Century Arms L1A1 Sporter (inch pattern FAL clone) and the various CETME clones is unreliable feeding. These can be traced to either receiver dimensional quality control or a Neanderthal approach to assembly. (Namely, lots of grunting and head scratching, followed by WECSOG sledgehammer pounding and copious grinding.) The bad news is that these feeding problems are difficult to isolate and resolve. but the good news is that these problems are not universal. (Roughly 40% of these rifle function like a champ.) Therefore, if you have the opportunity to buy one these rifles, I recommend that you first make inquiries about how well it functioned at the range and if the magazine well “feels” right with standard, unaltered magazines. (Many of these rifles have dimensional problems wit their magazine wells, making them “tight” so that it is difficult to insert and remove magazines quickly. If you get a positive report on both counts, then ask the seller if you can test fire the rifle before you buy it. Be sure to put at least 80 rounds of standard ball ammunition through the rifle. If it feeds and functions well, and magazine insertion does not require Herculean strength, then buy it! (If not, then politely pass, and continue your search.)

FWIW, my current favorite MBR recommendation is the the excellent Vector V-51 clone of the HK91. These are built in Utah, using German Army surplus HK G3 parts sets, with seven US-made parts to comply with US Code section 922(r). The Vector rifles have a great reputation for function, reliability, fit, and finish. The good news is that they can sometimes be found in used condition for as little as $675 to $725 at gun shows. The JLD PTR-91 is a fairly close second choice, and can be found for about the same price, or perhaps a bit less if you are lucky.

These days, with the profusion of military surplus G3 magazines on the market–often less than $2 each, if bought in quantity!–I consider HK91 clones to be the best rifles for the money, Spare parts for HKs are also quite reasonable. You can find complete G3 parts sets (with everything except a receiver) for around $275. (BTW, that would be unheard of for an M14 parts sets. Presently, complete M14 bolts are $120 each, and both operating rods and barrels sell for around $250 each!)

Letter Re: Keeping a Low Profile is Crucial for Preparedness

Hi Jim,
I agree with you that you shouldn’t “get so paranoid that you withdraw to hide under a rock” when using the Internet. Take precautions, certainly, but strike a balance.
To illustrate why total privacy is practically impossible while making use of the Internet, here’s a discussion about recent work done with “de-anonymize” algorithms. In short, the researchers were able to identify 99% of anonymous users by comparing different datasets, one anonymous, and one not.

Further, there have been studies with publicly available census data that show a person can be reasonably identified by all sorts of seemingly innocuous data. For example:
“Using public anonymous data from the 1990 census, Latanya Sweeney found that 87 percent of the population in the United States, 216 million of 248 million, could likely be uniquely identified by their five-digit ZIP code, combined with their gender and date of birth. About half of the U.S. population is likely identifiable by gender, date of birth and the city, town or municipality in which the person resides. Expanding the geographic scope to an entire county reduces that to a still-significant 18 percent. “In general,” the researchers wrote, “few characteristics are needed to uniquely identify a person.”

“Stanford University researchers reported similar results using 2000 census data. It turns out that date of birth, which (unlike birthday month and day alone) sorts people into thousands of different buckets, is incredibly valuable in disambiguating people. “

Thanks for all of your work with SurvivalBlog.com. I read it every day. – JohnTheAnon

Identity Theft–The Jury Duty Scam

The following is one of those items that widely gets circulated via e-mail, but this one is legitimate and I think that warrants posting to the blog:
“Be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.

The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo; your identity was just stolen.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado. This swindle is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system. The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.”

Here is the FBI’s web page about the scam

Here is confirmation on its authenticity at Snopes.

Any SurvivalBlog readers that do not yet have identity fraud protection should get it. This is just one aspect of well-rounded preparedness. The service that I recommend is Comprehensive Risk Solutions. (One of our advertisers.)

Odds ‘n Sods:

Wheat Prices Near $20 Per Bushel

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Eric H. found us this: Health officials keeping eye on drug-resistant flu strain

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Here is a “must read” piece: Signs Point To Banking Crisis Getting Much Worse. Meanwhile, reader Randy K. mentioned that the US Bank reserves have dropped even deeper into negative numbers. As reported in WorldNetDaily the “non-borrowed bank reserves column is now at $-18 billion. Randy’s comment “It seems that the earlier report of an $8B shortfall was less than half way there. For me, the phrase “financial institutions would be bankrupt if the Fed did not provide billions in liquidity” nails it. It is explained as an accounting anomaly, but why the anomaly? “Borrowings are larger than total reserves.” So, the banks are finally doing what America is doing…. borrowing more than they can pay. We do it from the banks… they do it from the Fed.” Once again: Be ready for some spectacular bank and hedge fund failures, as well as some good old-fashioned bank runs,.

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New York City Mayor Bloomberg Rips Government Over Failing Economy. A couple of key quotes: “[The nation] has a balance sheet that’s starting to look more and more like a third-world country”, and, “They want to send out a check to everybody to stimulate the economy. I suppose it won’t hurt the economy but it’s in many senses like giving a drink to an alcoholic.”

Letter Re: More About the Chimney Fire Hazard

We just just learned that the beautiful house we had built on our 20 acre Michigan property burned to the ground. I want to urge all readers to have their chimneys checked yearly. The house had a wood furnace in the basement and a well-built 3-flue chimney yet in a state with deep frost, foundations can settle. The new owners never spent the money to have the chimney cleaned/inspected yearly as we had advised them to. Yet they just spent over $40,000 on granite countertops and all that fancy stuff. “Penny wise and Pound foolish!” My brother-in-law lives next door on property he bought from us so he got the full picture. Apparently they hadn’t upgraded their insurance either after renovating.

When we moved to the Ozarks and bought this old farmhouse we didn’t trust the wiring or chimney…and inspection showed the chimney had been struck by lightening and was dangerously damaged. So we put in a stainless steel liner which makes all insurance companies smile! Wiring was original cloth-covered well chewed by rodents! If we’d have light a fire or turned the power on we could have been looking at a smoldering pile of rubble, too. Which is why we opted to put in a wood-fired outdoor boiler and only rarely use the back-up stove in the kitchen on zero degree days. Since we’ve lived here five different houses in this area have burned down–all due to chimney fires. Don’t think fire can’t happen to you. – Diana S.

JWR Replies: I recommend that readers practice cleaning their own chimneys, and buy their own set of brushes and rods. Even if you eventually get lazy and pay someone else to clean your chimney, you need to know how to do it, and you’ll have the means to do so.

Unless you already live at your retreat year-round, WTSHTF, you will likely be burning far more wood than usual. This necessitates inspecting your chimney at least twice a year. My philosophy is, as long as you are pulling things apart to inspect, you might as well a go ahead and de-gunk the spark arrestor and brush the chimney. If you have a proper removable bottom clean-out for your chimney, then the whole job should take less than an hour. Be sure to wear gloves, goggles, and and a dust mask.

OBTW, be particularly vigilant if you switch to burning soft woods, such as pine. The creosote build-up can be very rapid!

Four Letters Re: My Preparedness Plans Just Took an Unexpected Turn

Jim:
While I cannot speak to diabetes, except to say that we use natural sweeteners such as maple syrup and honey and maintain a balanced meal, we do have a lot of hands-on with the gluten-free diet. Our daughter has gluten sensitivity, as well as intolerance for corn and soy. I encourage the mother who wrote to you to examine corn as a possible allergy. It tends to go with gluten sensitivity. This has made our situation more difficult as the dynamic duo of wheat and corn are pervasive, they are present in products that you would never imagine and many times hidden under different names, sauces or derivative ingredients. For example, gluten is contained in the following: malt flavoring (from barley), hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) (non-US made), caramel coloring (non US made), dextrins (especially vitamins and medications), wheat starch and the big unknown – natural flavors – which could be anything until you actually ask the manufacturer who often won’t even tell you.

We have been dealing with a gluten free diet for over a year now. Fortunately, as the rest of us have no such restrictions, all the preparations to date have not been wasted. The first approach, which we have been doing for years now anyway, is to have an organic garden from heirloom, open-pollinated seed. In a grid-down situation, we intend to grow as much as possible. Fruits and vegetables (excluding corn, wheat and soy) are perfectly fine for our daughter. We have also done well with the crop rotation and experimenting with varieties to manage to have fresh produce almost the entire year – January and February are a challenge here in the northeast – but even now, we have spinach and other brassica.

You can extend this philosophy of fruits and vegetables (and nuts) to the canned and dry goods on the shelves. Be very careful reading ingredients, for everything! The canned fruit (home canned and store bought) have less of a shelf life, but are a nice addition to the survival larder. Canned vegetables such as organic peas, green beans, etc., have a much better shelf life – measured in a few years. In fact, the old adage of bullets, beans and band-aids still holds… beans are fine for the gluten-free diet. For more substantive meals, we have found a few organic soup combinations (Amy’s Lentil, Split Pea, Three Bean, etc.) that are totally gluten and corn-free and that have a two to three year shelf life.

Turning to meat, there is more good news here in that most people with gluten sensitivity are fine with meat. So depending on the ingredients, whether MRE, #10 cans, jerked, dried, pemmican or freshly hunted, if it’s just meat, it will mesh with a gluten-free diet. Dairy is also usually fine for gluten-free, so milk, butter and cheese are on the menu from whatever your chosen source. Bread, however, is a much more difficult prospect. We have been experimenting for over a year now to find a recipe without wheat, corn, oats, barley (our daughter is sensitive to all of these). So far, my wife has made acceptable bread with chestnut flour (almond, lentil and brown rice flours were just so-so). The chestnut flour has been store bought and shelf life is limited, so not an ideal situation. However, this spring season we are going to try hickory flour (we have several shagbark hickory trees on the property, and yes, I’ll be planting chestnut trees) and you can make flour from just about anything. Hopefully this will work for the long-term. I also want to go back a moment to rice. Rice is also generally fine for the gluten-free diet and it is a staple on our table. We try to use brown rice for better nutritional value, but white rice does fill the belly too. It will store well on the shelves, and several companies (BioNaturae and Tinkyada) make gluten-free pasta. In our case the Tinkyada is best since it is brown rice based and both gluten and corn-free. Yes, it’s not quite the same as wheat pasta, but it’s an acceptable substitute. However, unless you can grow rice, it is not a long term solution.

Let me finish by suggesting that you search for gluten-free recipes on-line and drop by the library/used book sales for reference books such as “Gluten-Free Girl” by Shauna Ahern.
Jim – as always, our best to you and yours. – Bill H.

 

Hi Jim,
First I want to MP in Seattle that I’m sorry, and that we’ve been there and done that, my Grandson was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes two years ago July. We also have Celiac, dairy, egg, soy, nuts, oats and a host of other allergies in the family. However, the first thing is not to panic (although I do remember the panic weeks after the diagnosis!) We had to rethink things, big time! But we seem to be getting things together, and they can too, it does take time and lots of planning.

First try to get “comfortable” with the diabetes (those first months can be rough) start storing the extra insulin and supplies, and rotate them! (Even the test strips have to be rotated, and don’t forget the blasted [glucose] meter batteries! (We did that!) We now have about an eight month supply, but constant and diligent rotating is the key. Every pack and vehicle we own has a diabetic emergency kit in it–you never leave home without it. It truly does change everything.We are opting to stay with shots and pens for insulin delivery, as too many things can go wrong with little people and [insulin] pumps, especially if times get rough, and the supplies are cheaper and easier to buy over the counter.

As for the food allergies, because of the Celiac, soy, nut, egg and dairy (three of us) we went from wheat to rice as a staple, and have already put in place a plan for what if A & B would get cold cereal (rice bases) with rice milk while the rest of us eat oatmeal, et cetera But the plan is in place and new stores created with these factors being worked in. Again it’s not easy, but can be done, it just takes time, which I really hope we have, because we’ve come to realize everything changed with his diagnosis.

Oh, one more thing, regarding aspertame-based sweeteners: Yikes! He does get some, but we try to really limit it, there are alternatives, some herbal teas, very weak black tea (we made a deal, teas always made, and as long as he adds water, it’s okay) and water! Love your site! – Lori

 

Jim,
My heart, too, goes out to the author; my son just turned one year old last week, and we’re blessed that he’s pretty healthy…

The following are two brief excerpts from the Walton Feed. web site. I remembered these, since I had been concerned that my son might be gluten-intolerant when he was a newborn. I hope it helps. – Bob

SPELT
Here in the United States, until recent times, Spelt was grown mostly as feed. However, since the mid 1980’s, Spent has made a real inroad into the health food market as a wheat substitute.
Many people who are allergic to wheat can tolerate Spelt. However, many allergy doctors believe that Spelt is too closely related to wheat for it to be an effective replacement grain. They feel that even though wheat sensitive people might be able to tolerate it now, as time goes by they will develop wheat-like allergies to it. However, companies that exclusively sell Spelt products to people, many of them with wheat allergies, say their customers have had really good luck eating Spelt goods. Spelt has a lower gluten strength which makes it possible for many people with gluten allergies to eat this product. Purity Foods, one of the main marketers of Spelt say that out of thousands of their customers with wheat allergies, only 16 of them have reported allergic reactions to Spelt. An Ohio bakery that specializes in making spelt products and distributes them over several different states has numerous customers who can’t tolerate wheat yet can eat Spelt products. It seems, for the wheat intolerant among us, Spelt is probably worth a try. If you are allergic to wheat and you want to use Spelt, please consult your doctor before trying this product, then use adequate safeguards when trying Spelt to prevent serious complications should you also be allergic to this product.

QUINOA
Quinoa is one of the few foods with a relatively balanced protein. Quinoa’s high level of the amino acid, lysine, complements wheat nicely. By mixing Quinoa into your wheat at a ratio of 25% Quinoa to 75% wheat, the Quinoa will make your wheat breads a complete protein. Quinoa contains a long list of nutrients.

Quinoa contains no gluten so it’s safe for gluten intolerant people to eat. Quinoa can be eaten in many different ways. Traditionally it has been eaten as a porridge or in soups and stews. Only taking 10-12 minutes to boil until soft (Quinoa is the fastest cooking whole grain), Quinoa seed’s size mushrooms into plump little morsels with a tail. The Altiplano Quinoa has somewhat of a bland yet pleasant flavor. Having a nice, crisp texture similar to brown rice, Quinoa has greatly expanded nutritional qualities over rice and can be used in place of rice in most dishes. Quinoa is also delicious eaten as a side dish by itself. Quinoa flour has been made into spaghetti noodles, flakes, a drink and Quinoa has even been popped. Mixed with wheat flour, Quinoa will boost the nutritional qualities of your bread and add it’s unique flavor. In addition to this, it can be used to make delicious salads, soups and desserts. With the amazing nutrition that’s found in Quinoa, we think, as you begin to use this grain, you will start using it more and more in your daily cooking.

JWR Adds: I highly recommend the many resources at the Walton Feed. web site. I also recommend them as a storage food supplier.

 

Dear Jim;
This is for all those survivalists who have or who might develop Diabetes type 2.
I am a 48 year old white male, 6’3″, 206 pounds with a 34″ waist. If you put me in a room with ten Americans and asked random people, “Who is the diabetic?” I would be the last on their list. But here I am. I only had one symptom: I would wake up in the night feeling like my lungs were full of burning butane. At first I thought it was cancer but the “good” news was diabetes.
Just a little present from Uncle Osama. The stress of living through 9/11 triggered it. As could the stress of living through TEOTWAWKI.

My doctors want me to take insulin, blood pressure meds, cholesterol meds, it is as if they get a free trip to the Caribbean if they get me to sign up. But those meds will not be available after the Schumer hits.

In a grid down situation there will be no medicines. However, there will be a lot of exercise. In India where the poor have to use very low tech, low cost medicine, diabetics are prescribed seven miles of walking every day. This amount of activity will erase all the symptoms of diabetes. It will also lower your body fat which will help with insulin resistance. Today I will walk 5 miles, or about 18,000 steps. I walk to work, one mile each way, and then I take care of three dogs with no fenced in yard. How many people reading this get up off the couch at 10 PM and go out walking for 3/4 of a mile?

My doctor does not believe the theory. But he sees the results. The number one thing every diabetic can do is eat right and exercise. That will mitigate 80% of the problem. Increase your training gradually. Listen too your body. It took me years to build up to this level. I eat an organic, free range, high fiber, high protein hunter/gatherer diet. You can’t hunt or gather Doritos in the wild. Why should I eat them now? YMMV.

The good thing is that my retreat is 200 miles away. I can walk there in ten days carrying the food and equipment I need on my back if I have to. I could ride my bike in two days.
Eat Healthy, Live Longer! – Spider, Long Island, New York

Odds ‘n Sods:

Credit Default Swaps Are Next to Take the Crunch Test. Does this sound familiar?

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A reader sent me an e-mail to chide me for mentioning that hedge fund redemption suspensions were on the increase. He said: that I was being “an alarmist” because “those [redemption suspensions] are still rare.” Well, I’m going to go out on a limb and state publicly that I believe that they are going to become a lot less rare in the immediate future. Even large hedge funds are not immune. For example, just recently one of CitiGroup’s hedge funds announced a withdrawal suspension. There are a lot of hedge funds with bond, CDO, and CDS exposure!

   o o o

Even Boise, Idaho is not immune from the foreclosure flurry: Foreclosures hit pricey Eagle homes hard

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Reader Phil T. asked about rolling over his existing Individual retirement Account (IRA) into a precious metals IRA that holds US Gold Eagles in bonded storage. It is quick and easy to do. I recommended Swiss America for setting up his gold IRA

Note from JWR:

The winter weather is starting to relent, and the snow is melting here at the ranch. It is the first hint that Spring is coming. The patchy snow on the hillsides beyond The Unnamed River looks so much like a Bev Doolittle painting, that I half expect to see a few Paint horses to wander through.

Letter Re: Vehicle Selection in Light of Potential Post-Peak Oil Shortages

Jim,
no one seems to be discussing what kind of cars to buy in light of the Peak Oil situation. My reading so far has been to stay away from hybrid cars. My situation is that I have a 2003 4×4 V8 Toyota 4Runner. I commute about 30 miles each way to work and [the price of] gas kills me now. My car weighs 6,000 pounds and I don’t need a vehicle that big to tow myself around-I am single. I expect the gas prices to go up drastically in the next five years.

I am considering trading in for a V6 4×4 Toyota Rav4 which gets about 10 more miles per gallon than my present vehicle gets, which certainly reduces my burden. This would be my everyday driver and my bug out vehicle.

I was hoping that you could post for readers your perspectives on cars in light of the fact that soon oil will be extremely costly, and scarce. Thanks, – Robert A.

JWR Replies: My general advice is to maximize your flexibility by having a variety of vehicles at your retreat, including at least one that is “flex fuel”–that will burn both gasoline and E85–, at least one light vehicle that is entirely electric (such as a Bad Boy Buggy), and and at least one diesel engined vehicle. You might also look for an inexpensive used propane-powered 4WD pickup. (These are sometimes sold by utility companoes in fleet rotation auctions.) If the Peak Oil crowd is right, then fuel supplies will be spotty, at best. There conceivably may be times when only diesel fuel or ethanol are available. There may come a day when gas and diesel are both so expensive that they will be unaffordable for regular day-to-day driving. So my counsel is to have the greatest flexibility possible. If you budget allows it, a large photovoltaic power system–with excess capacity that could be used to charge a small electric vehicle–would be ideal.

In your circumstances, switching to a lighter vehicle makes sense, but its cargo and towing capacity will of course be less than your 4Runner. This reduced capacity, BTW, is just one more reason that it is crucial to pre-position the vast majority of your supplies at your intended retreat.

I’m often asked by blog readers and my consulting clients about my opinion of Peak Oil. In a few years, we might very well recognize that May 2005, with production of 74,252,000 barrels of oil per day was the all-time peak, and that it is all downhill from there. That is difficult to say for certain. By the time that we are certain, we may very well be “behind the power curve.” So my advice is, just in case the Peakniks are right, hedge your bets:

1.) Buy large propane, gas, and diesel fuel tanks for your retreat, so you can take advantage of dips in the market and ride out acute shortages.

2.) As previously stated, diversify your assortment of vehicles, to be ready for both chronic shortages and acute interruptions in supply of any particular type of fuel.

3.) Move to a region with plentiful firewood–both so you can heat your home, and hopefully someday benefit from local fuel alcohol production (Either methanol through distillation, or possibly ethanol, through bacterial digesters,as has been recently touted, but not yet proven feasible.)

4.) Be sure that you can live off the land where you live–so that means fertile soil and plentiful of water.

5.) Assume the worst for potential societal disruption. That necessitate living somewhere safe–well-removed from major population centers.

Letter Re: Mining Claims as Potential Retreat Properties

Sir,
I am so happy to have stumbled onto your site today. I have not been on the internet in a very long time (1997 or so). I have been working for a number of mineral exploration/mining companies south of our border on and off since 1998. I will no longer travel outside of the U.S. (unless I’m reactivated by the Army) for work or pleasure. I am going to be 40 this month and I don’t feel like getting shot at any more, at least not for money. I am a former Army Combat Engineer, Electronic Engineer, small business owner/operator (septic pumping and commercial steam cleaning). The reason I am writing to you is that back in 1982-1983 while I was in high school I was reading Soldier of Fortune and American Survival Guide (ASG) magazines and now it seems I am coming full circle and finding myself planning a long term placer mining operation in a remote wilderness area. I think that some aspects of small scale mining are directly relatable to survival/preparedness living and prospering.

Living in this great country again, I am struck by the wealth surrounding all of us and the opportunity afforded all US citizens by the 1872 mining law to actively pursue that wealth. I will tell you that nowhere else in the world do private citizens have the right to “stake claim” to mineral wealth with so little regulation/red tape not to mention that the US government does not take “royalties” from your finds. The total cost to me for the acquisition of one 20 acre mining claim filed November of 2007 was $217. Fairly reasonable wouldn’t you say? Granted, one does not “own” the land. Rather, one controls the “surface mineral reserve” and has the rights to: sell, rent, lease, even pass-on to your descendents these rights as a deeded land owner.

Well, I just wanted to introduce myself and to inform you of my intention to submit an article on the mechanics of the claiming process for your contest. – RLS

JWR Replies: I would greatly appreciate you submitting an article for our writing contest that would share your first-hand knowledge of mining claims. OBTW, in many parts of the western US there are still patented (deeded) mining claims available, although the recent run-up in the price of gold is inflating claim prices. In recent years the US Forest Service and the BLM–which have effectively taken over administration of most mining claims–have increasingly placed restrictions on year round occupancy of mining claims. In some cases their bureaucrats have even mandated that camping trailers be removed seasonally. But they have hardly any jurisdiction over patented claims, aside for controlling roads to in-holder (lank-locked) claims. For that reason alone, I strongly prefer buying patented claims, if possible.

Letter Re: Harder Homes and Gardens

Dear Jim,

I think before readers spend their hard earned cash on a brick or cinder block structure (thinking it is much safer then stick framed construction) then watching all three parts of this [“Concealment Doesn’t Equal Cover”] video is essential. All [high power] rifles (.223, 7.62×39, .308) and 12 gauge slugs went through normal brick and [hollow] cinder block construction. Just food for thought. – Ryan

JWR Replies: I first posted a link to that Dahlgren/Marine Corps training video in SurvivalBlog in December of 2006. There was also a discussion of this topic in July of 2007., following my initial reply, in which I recommended supplementary sandbagging.

I do not recommend standard hollow cinder-block construction to my consulting clients. Instead, I recommend super-insulated masonry, preferably with an air gap. (Although a rock facade directly over poured masonry or brick works fairly well.) The first wall typically breaks up .30 caliber or smaller projectiles, and the second wall then nearly always stops them. This design will also stop individual 12 gauge slugs, but not .50 BMG hits.

The bottom line is that typical stucco-covered wood frame construction is pitiful, but two-course brick (two thicknesses of bricks) or concrete-filled cinder block walls offer some protection. They are certainly not absolute protection, but they are much better than wood frame houses, which offer hardly any protection at all from high power .30 caliber bullets. Even super-insulated masonry construction will not stand up to repeated, well-aimed high power .30 caliber rifle fire. Tests at the Box-o-Truth web site show that short of pouring 20 inch thick reinforced concrete, sandbags are just about the only truly reliable protection from well-aimed repetitious rifle fire. If I were expecting incoming rifle fire, even if I lived in a poured, reinforced concrete house or a Monolithic dome house, I would still construct interior supplementary fighting positions. These would have room for a cot, and be set back a few feet from windows, per current MOUT doctrine. These would be built of sand bags, with 2″x10″ or 2″x12″ boards built into boxes (sans ends) to provide firing ports. Sandbags are presently cheap and plentiful. But they someday may be highly sought after, so it is important to lay in a large supply (with extra for barter and charity) before the balloon goes up! (SurvivalBlog reader “MurrDoc” recommended Saddleback Materials in Lake Forest, California as a good source for sandbags. Phone: (800) 286-7263.)