Letter Re: Fire Fighting Tools and Skills for Retreats

Sir:
The recent piece in SurvivalBlog outlines many of the advantages of belonging to a Volunteer Fire Department (VFD). The VFDs in many areas have women as members as firefighters and support. The VFD that you join will let you network with other folks who care about their home area. The good training is just one of the many perks. You will most likely get to know your local police officers. And if you live in an area that prohibits scanners in cars, as a firefighter you might be able to have one legally. Having scanners lets you know what is going on in your area. Regards, – Tom in Oregon



Letter Re: Advice on EMP Protection for Electronic Gun Vault Locks

Jim:
I haven’t noticed this discussed on your blog, or any other for that matter. Is there anyway to protect a gun safe that uses the electronic key pad instead of the standard dial combination lock from electromagnetic pulse (EMP)? I wasn’t thinking along those lines when I purchased it several years ago. I enjoyed “Patriots” immensely and will be re-reading it soon. Thanks for the terrific blog. – Bruce H.

JWR Replies: I mentioned this about a year ago in SurvivalBlog, but it is worth repeating: A steel gun vault body itself makes a decent Faraday cage. (Although a mesh RF gasket at the door perimeter would make it even better.) All that you really need to add is a flat steel can (such as a peanut can or Danish butter cookie tin) to cover the keypad assembly. Taping the can on works fine, but it will look tacky. A hinge attached to a square or rectangular tin with epoxy (allowing the can to swing to the left or right) might look better. Ideally, the tin should be grounded to the vault body. (Again, this looks tacky, but there is no way around it if you want a fully effective Faraday enclosure.)

If EMP is a major concern where you live (i.e. if you live within 250 miles of a major nuclear target), and your vault has an electronic lock then you should use silica gel rather than a Golden Rod dehumidifier in your vault. This is because the power cord for a Golden Rod can act as an unintentional antenna that might “couple” EMP to your vault’s electronics. (One of the major “no-no’s” with Faraday cages is to have any conductor that can carry RF penetrate the cage/container body.)

And, needless to say, to have a vault lock that is absolutely safe from EMP, the next time that you move, you should sell your current vault as an included “bonus feature” with your house. Then replace that vault with one that has a traditional mechanical combination lock. (I prefer S&G Group II locks.) Oh, and speaking of moving, I prefer Zanotti Armor brand six piece gun vaults that can be disassembled for ease of transport.

 



Letter Re Buying the Right Cookware and Knives for Long Term Preparedness

James,
I am a recent (6 months) reader and learner from the SurvivalBlog and I really do appreciate all the work and information that you have shared with the world. Thank You! My survival preps are going slowly but steadily, and thank God I purchased a few cases of 308 for my M1A before the prices went ballistic.

Now for the meat of the subject. I notice that you have a ton of information on retreats but something that I notice is a lack of kitchen information, which is a must. If you don’t have good cooking utensils, then all of your food preps are worthless.

Having spent 28+ years in the restaurant industry, I can recommend a few items that I think everyone should have in their retreat.

1) Good stainless steel chef, boning, serrated, paring and carving knives. These are readily available in any restaurant supply store for $10 to $30 each. The stainless is for longevity, ease of cleaning, and rust resistance. I also recommend a plastic handle for the same reasons (except rust of course). A good standard readily available knife brand is Dexter-Russell. I recommend the Sani-Safe line of the Soft Grip line. In my years I have seen the Sani-Safe knives take an unbelievable amount of abuse from untrained employees and keep right on going.

2) A good set of cast iron cookware. You know, Grandma’s old skillet that is 60 years old and the best no-stick one out there! No, these are not the latest titanium nestling pots and pans for your BOB, but a very necessary basic need for your retreat. I say retreat because they are a little too heavy for the bug-out bag (BOB). I would include several of them like large skillets with lids, a Dutch oven, a variety of small sauce pans, and there is a wide selection of corn bread pans. The reason I recommend cast iron is longevity with minimum care. Once they are properly seasoned, they will literally last generations. I am a fan of the Lodge brand, probably because I have been to their factory in SE Tennessee. They can be found at www.lodgemfg.com and are a great source of information on cast iron. The fancy no-stick teflon that you probably have at home if fine but it can and will wear out, and how well will that thin bottom pan hold out in a camp fire? Cast iron can and will handle anything you can throw at it and even be used to bake bread in a campfire with the dutch oven and a good bed of coals. Remember [your time in the] Boy Scouts? JWR Adds: Lodge cast iron cookware is available from Promised Land Products in Montana. (One of our former advertisers. These are good folks with fair prices.)

3) A good pepper grinder with metal gears and a supply of pepper corns, and large granule salt or sea salt.

4) A mortar and pestle for grinding herbs, salt, and anything else that you might need to grind up finely.

If you have addressed these items in previous discussions, then my apologies, but I know some folks out there will bring their very expensive Calaphon cookware out to a retreat and be in trouble in a very short time if they have to cook over an open fire. Just my .02 caliber of information. – Mark C.



Odds ‘n Sods:

More on Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), mentioning beehive population losses up to 70%: Mysterious disappearance of US bees creating a buzz

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Remington Arms has been sold to Cerberus Partners

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From the new, improved, Democrat party-dominated U.S. Congress: A bill to create a “Department of Peace and Nonviolence.” George Orwell saw it coming. Don’t miss Section 102, which includes: “(5) analyze existing policies, employ successful, field-tested programs, and develop new approaches for dealing with the implements of violence, including gun-related violence and the overwhelming presence of handguns” Gee, I always thought that handguns could also be used as “implements of self-defense” and “implements of target shooting” too, but I guess I’m one of those conservative dinosaurs who is not properly conversant in the subtleties of Newspeak.

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Nick mentioned this piece from the Life After The Oil Crash (LATOC) web site: True Confessions of a Hurricane Katrina Refugee.



Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Seizing the results of someone’s labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities.” – Robert Nozick



Note from JWR:

The high bid is still at $425 in the current SurvivalBlog benefit auction for several items (including an EMP-proof antique radio, four books, and a copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course) that are being auctioned together as a lot. The auction ends on April 15th. Just e-mail me your bid. Thanks!



Letter Re: Advice on Military Surplus Bolt Action Rifles

Jim,
You have spoken convincingly of purchasing pre-1899 firearms. I have noticed a flood of older rifles on the market for the last few years, all at seductively low prices, even if some [that are post-1898] must be “registered.” I looked through the topics on the Blog site but could not find the answer to what I am about to ask.

Would you care to offer comparative opinions on the older rifles readily available (Mosin-Nagant, Yugoslavian Mauser, Turkish Mauser, etc.) on the market today. Thanks, – B.A.C.

JWR Replies: I generally prefer pre-1899 Mauser rifles. The Yugoslavian M48 Mausers currently on the market are legally “modern”, requiring transfer through an FFL if purchased across state lines. State and local laws vary widely, but the Federal exemption on pre-1899s is captivating. I’d recommend that anyone interested in acquiring pre-1899 cartridge guns contact George at The Pre-1899 Specialist (one of our advertisers). He will be happy to share his knowledge on the subject.



You Might Just Be a Survivalist If…

Reader Ken. M. found the following on the highly recommended Daily Reckoning Discussion Board and thought you might enjoy it:
You might just be a survivalist if…
– You can’t put your groceries in the trunk of the car because its already jammed full with emergency kits, first aid supplies, and fully-stocked BOBs.
– You have emergency rations for your pets, and view your pets as potential emergency rations.
– You know the news three days before it hits the mass media.
– You have back-up plans for your back-up plans.
– You’re convinced you’ve been exposed to so many chem-trails, you consider it a form of birth control.
– You’ve ever repressed the urge to bleat “BAAAAAAAAAH” as your neighbor earnestly asks, “What war? Where?”
*- You’ve ever bought antibiotics for human use through a vet, or grains for human consumption through a feed store.
– You’ve got more than one grain mill.
– You’ve ever wondered how you might filter the used water from your washing machine to make it fit for human consumption.
*- You have a kerosene lamp in every room
*- Your living room coffee table is actually a board with pretty cloth over it to disguise your food storage underneath.
– Your box springs are Rubber Maid containers filled with rice and beans.
*- You save dryer lint to make fire starters.
– Your most commonly-used fuel additive is ‘Sta-Bil’, instead of ‘Gumout’.
*- You automatically choose the heavy duty flatbed cart upon entering Sam’s Club or COSTCO.
– If you know the shelf life of tuna fish, but don’t know how long you’ve had an open jar of mayo in the frig.
– Your basement walls are insulated with crates of toilet paper, from floor to ceiling, all the way around.
*- While other people are saving money for new furniture, or vacations, you are desperately saving to get solar panels put on your house.
– You were excited beyond all reason when they came out with cheddar cheese in a can.
*- You’ve ever served MREs at a dinner party.
– You can engage in a spirited debate on chemical vs. sawdust toilets for hours on end.
*- You’ve ever considered digging an escape tunnel from your basement to the nearest stand of trees.
– You know how to use a vacuum cleaner in reverse to filter air in your designated bio-chem attack safe room.
*- You’ve ever considered buying an above-ground pool for water storage purposes.
– You know what things like ‘TSHTF‘, ‘BOB‘ and ‘TEOTWAWKI‘ mean.
– You have different grades of BOBs.
*- You know the names, family histories, locations, and degree of readiness of over a thousand fellow doomers on the net… but you’ve never met your neighbors.
*- The best radio in the house is a wind-up.
*- You have better items in storage than you use every day.
*- When the SHTF, you would eat better than you eat now.
*- Your significant other gave you a sleeping bag rated at -15 degrees for Christmas… and you were moved beyond words.
– You’ve sewn a secret mini-BOBs into the bottom of your children’s school backpacks.
– Local food pantries have come to depend on donations from your larder when you rotate stock in the spring and fall.
– You’re still using up your Y2K supplies.
*- You have enough army surplus equipment to open a store.
*- The local army surplus store owner knows you by your first name.
*- You fill up when your gas tank is 3/4 full.
– You call Rubber Maid for wholesale prices.
*- You have several cases of baby wipes and your kids are all grown.
– Bert from ‘Tremors’ is your favorite movie character.
*- You carry a pocket survival kit, a sturdy folding knife, a SureFire flashlight and a small concealed handgun on you to church every Sunday.
– You start panicking when you are down to 50 rolls of toilet paper.
*- You keep a small notebook to write down any edible plants you happen to see along the road.
*- You shop yard sales, store sales, and markdown racks for barter goods for after TSHTF.
– You own a hand-operated clothes washer and a non-electric carpet sweeper.
*- You have at least two of every size of Dutch oven, and 20 bags of charcoal, although you have a gas grill.
*- You have rain barrels at each corner of your house, although you have a city water hookup, and a Big Berkey to purify the water.
– You have sapphire lights, survival whistle, and a Swiss Army knife on every family member’s key chain.
– The people in line at Costco ask you if you run a store or restaurant.
– You require a shovel to rotate all your preps properly.
*- You no longer go the the doctor’s because you can either fix it yourself, make it at home, or know and understand the Physician’s Desk Reference better than he does, and can get the goods at the vets or pet store for much less moolah anyway.
*- You know that a ‘GPS‘ has nothing to do with the economy.
– You track your preps on a computer spreadsheet for easy reordering, but have hard copies in a 3-ring binder ‘just in case’.
– You’ve thought about where the hordes can be stopped before entering town.
– You start evaluating people according to ‘skill sets’.
– You view the nearest conservation area as a potential grocery store if TSHTF.
*- You know all the ways out the building where you work.
– You have enough pasta stockpiled in your basement to carbo-load all the runners in the New York marathon.
*- You know that you have 36 gallons of extra drinking water in the hot water tank and your two toilet tanks.
*- You know which bugs are edible.
*- You have a hand pump on your well.
– You have #10 cans of ‘stuff’ that the labels fell off of, but you won’t throw it out or open it because it ‘may be needed later’, even though you haven’t a clue as to the contents.
*- You know where the best defensive positions and lines of fire are on your property.
– You’ve made a range card for your neighborhood.
*- Your toenail clipper is a K-Bar.
*- The Ranger Handbook is your favorite ‘self help’ book.
*- You’ve numbered the deer romping in the yard by their order of consumption.
– You must move 50 cases of food for the plumber to get to that leaky pipe, but you have your own hand truck in the basement to do it.
*- You own more pairs of hiking boots than casual and dress shoes combined.
*- You have more 55gal blue water drums than family members.
– Your UPS system has more than 6 Deep cycle batteries.
– You have a backup generator for your backup generator, which is a backup for your solar system.
*- You go to McDonalds and ask for one order of fries with 25 packs of ketchup and mustard.
– You have ever given SPAM as a serious gift.
*- You’ve had your eye out for a good deal for a stainless steel handgun to conceal in the bottom of the magazine rack next to the toilet.
*- You are single male over 40, but you still have an emergency childbirth kit, just in case you have to deal with that possibility.
– You have two water heaters installed in your basement, but one is a dummy that’s been converted to hideaway safe.
– You’ve made bugout cargo packs for your dogs.
*- You have a walking stick with all sorts of gadgets hidden inside.
– Your koi pond is stocked with catfish.
– As a stand-in scoutmaster, you taught your son’s troop to set mantraps and punji pits, and haven’t been asked to stand in since.
– You’re on your fifth vacuum sealer, but you keep at least one of the worn out ones because you can still seal up plastic bags with it.
– You haven’t bought dried fruit in years, but you buy fresh bananas, apples, peaches and pears by the case and have three dehydrators.
*- Your UPS man hates you because of all the cases of ammo he’s had to lug from his truck to your front door.
– You have duplicates of all your electronics gear, solar panels and generator parts in your EMP-shielded fallout shelter.
*- You have set aside space for your live chickens in the fallout shelter.
– When the power goes out in your neighborhood, all the neighbor’s kids come over to your place to watch TV on generator power.
*- You must open the door to your pantry very carefully for fear of a canned goods avalanche.
*- You have a ‘Volcano’, you know you can cook anything, and you cast evil glances at your neighbor’s annoying, yappy poodle, muttering “your day will come, hotdog” under your breath.
– You’ve learned to knap flint, make twine from plant fibers for snares and use an atlatl, because you fear that all of your preps and hard work will be confiscated by FEMA troops or destroyed by earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear blasts, ravening hordes of feral sheeple or reptiloids from ‘Planet X’ after TSHTF.



Odds ‘n Sods:

Polk mentioned a recipe from, of all places, Black-Rifles.com, for do-it-yourself yogurt.

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S.F. mentioned this from Milspecmonkey.com: Videos from the recent SHOT show, demonstrating the Lula magazine loaders, and MagPul’s fully ambidextrous gas piston-operated lightweight .223 with quick-change barrels. Meanwhile, Bushmaster has introduced their own gas-piston operated AR-15 variant. (Which would be my choice if I owned a .223.) Oh, and in related news, the U.S. Army won’t be replacing the M4–or even retrofitting with HK-416 uppers.

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An income tax in Florida? One of just nine U.S. states without a personal income tax may succumb to state budget pressure.



Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"When a place gets crowded enough to require [identification cards], social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere." – Robert A. Heinlein



Note from JWR:

Today we present another article for Round 10 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. This one is bit short, but still eligible for consideration. The writer of the best non-fiction article will win a valuable four day “gray” transferable Front Sight course certificate. (Worth up to $1,600.) Second prize is a copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, generously donated by Jake Stafford of Arbogast Publishing. I might again be sending out a few complimentary copies of my novel “Patriots” as “honorable mention” awards. If you want a chance to win the contest, start writing and e-mail us your article for Round 10, which ends May 30th. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.



Three Liabilities Addressed: Refrigeration, Sanitation, and Fuel, by James D.

One of the biggest problems for the survivalist is the lack of refrigeration, since the cost in energy is just prohibitive, especially in the multi-generational scenario. Normal refrigeration uses an electrically driven compressor to compress a refrigerant (a liquid that boils at room temperature) turning gas to a liquid. For the survivalist, ammonia is the refrigerant of choice, and at the proper pressure (since it is normally a gas), it will act as a refrigerant, although other chemicals may be added to improve performance, including water and salts. When the liquid boils it will cool the surface that the refrigerant evaporates from returning to gas again. (Note that you can change the pressure in the system to alter the temperature it will boil at)
Evaporative cooling works the same in this case as it does when sweat evaporates into vapor cooling you. Ammonia can be made from urine and was first derived from urea. “It was also used by dyers in the Middle Ages in the form of fermented urine” This is of particular interest for those who worry about the multigenerational scenario.

There are many plans available on the internet for experimental ice makers.
These ice makers for the survivalist may make the difference between life and death for those who need cooling for insulin that will work even after an EMP.
Further ice will have huge trade value when there is no other way to make ice post-crash.
Bleach is a great sanitizer but unless stored as a powder it loses potency over time, and there is a limit to the amount of powdered bleach you can rationally store. So the ability to make bleach from raw materials, water and salt, is worthwhile knowledge. Further with the advent of antibiotic resistant bacteria and pandemic viruses, sanitation is not an issue of social graces, but sickness and death. Further bleach made from salt is another potential use for the salt that should be stored for those who do not have access to bodies of salt water, it has innumerable uses, and this is just one more. The basic process is similar to the other electrolytic processes described on SurvivalBlog, like making colloidal silver. Also see this site.

Alcohol is in many ways the wonder fuel for survivalists. It doesn’t spoil (like gas or diesel), it has been made since the dawn of civilization, so it is a robust and simple process the make it, and the ingredients are ubiquitous, plus it makes good trade fodder as more than just fuel. All you need is sugar, yeast and a sealed vessel. Yeasts digest sugar and make alcohol when there is no oxygen around, this is called fermentation. Yeasts are common enough that even without a culture you can just contaminate the vessel with saliva or expose it to air, and there will be enough yeast to ferment the sugars. This is not the most efficient way, or the most appetizing, but it can work. There are many sources for more information about making the mash, but to make a fuel or liquor rather than a semi-toxic mash you need to refine the product. This process is called distillation, and it works by using the boiling points of alcohol and water to separate them in a device called a still. This process is simple, but for efficient distillation, a well made device is required, and most are quite expensive. This is a good tutorial on how to make a quality one for a reasonable price.



Letter Re: Advice on Storing E85 Ethanol Fuel

Jim:
As far as I know, [modern] E85 vehicles [with fuel flash point sensing] can run on pure ethanol (E100 fuel). You can assume there will never be a commercial supply of E100, though, since someone would inevitably try to drink the stuff.As you note, alcohol is hygroscopic, and “If enough water is absorbed, the alcohol separates from the gasoline and goes into solution with the water.” For E85, “enough” is around 20%, so this generally isn’t going to be a problem. – PNG

JWR Replies: Even E10 (10% ethanol) blended gasoline is highly hygroscopic and can absorb 50 times more water than traditional non-blended gasoline. This can be enough to cause hard starting or even engines that won’t run. Water absorption is of particular concern to boat owners. According to fuel-testers.com, one risk with ethanol blends is phase separation. They assert: “With the process of phase separation, two layers of liquid are visible. An upper ethanol-deficient gasoline layer and a lower ethanol-rich (up to 75% ethanol) water layer. It occurs because ethanol is completely soluble in water but only marginally soluble in hydrocarbons. After phase separation, the gasoline layer will have a lower octane number. The fuel also is less volatile.”

And as for someone attempting to drink E100, as long as it is prominently labeled “denatured” and just a small percentage of gasoline or kerosene is added, that is all that is needed to make it unpalatable. Well, perhaps a wino that is already plastered might try it…