Springfield Armory Operator 1911, by Pat Cascio

Like most folks who are really into firearms, I always want the best for the least amount of money. Needless to say, that rarely works out, and I have to settle for less – it is frustrating, as most “gunnies” will certainly agree with me. We aren’t rich, and we live paycheck-to-paycheck most months. And it is only through frugal living and planning, we can get the things we want. At times, when I do settle for less than I want, I end up selling or trading the gun that I didn’t really want in the first place. This is frustrating!

I’ve been a 1911 fan ever since I was a teenager, and still believe that it might well be the finest handgun ever designed – they are that good! For a lot of years, I settled for a lesser 1911, and using my armorer and gunsmithing skills, I had fairly good success at customizing many 1911s. I’m still not 100% satisfied with my end results. However, I did customize quite a few plain-Jane 1911s. Unfortunately, I don’t own any of them any longer. I wish that I had held back one or two.

Over the years, I’ve owned almost every 1911 variant that Springfield Armory has manufactured. Short of a few very expensive models, most of the others found their way into my hands, and they’ve all been outstanding shooters. With the exception of an early mil-spec model, that wouldn’t even feed hardball ammo, I’ve never had any real problems. And, that one gun, only needed a little tweaking to get it running perfectly.Continue reading“Springfield Armory Operator 1911, by Pat Cascio”

Editors’ Prepping Progress

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

Jim Reports:

Our dog got skunked again. She is now nearly a year old, so she should have known better. We had to immediately give her the Dog Bath of Shame.  For the first scrub, we used three one-quart mason jars of Lily’s home-canned tomato sauce. Thankfully, it was a warm day, for her bath. As I’m writing this, five days later, she still smells just a little bit skunky, up close.

For Independence Day, we drove down to Hope, Idaho, to see the fireworks display. That was the first time that we’d ever seen the one down there, and it was quite a good show, lasting for at least 15 minutes. The fireworks didn’t upset our pup at all, which surprised me.

I did some more wood splitting and stacking this week. I also helped Lily haul compost to the new wood shed garden plot. Good exercise!

Avalanche Lily Reports:

Dear Readers,
This week Jim helped me finish laying down composted manure in the woodshed garden and I then planted the Leek seedlings and celery seedlings that had been growing in the greenhouse.  Now that garden is fully planted.

I rototilled in between the rows in the Extension garden to control the weeds.

I am working on the Perennial garden.

I weed-whacked more of our meadow.

I am studying my large collection of edible wild plant books to understand wild plants as foods, and their medicinal and other uses.

Miss Violet and I have been riding our bikes and swimming in our local swimming hole several times this week.

Recently, I’ve been spending hours in deep prayer/intercession for one of our adult children. I’ve been reading Stormie OMartian’s book,  “The Power of Praying For Your Adult Children”.  It is an amazing book that has confirmed many of the prayers that God has already placed on my heart to pray.

Please pray for Miss Eloise.  She is in deep need of miracles and restoration.

Sons of Liberty presents a very important interview with Dr. Lee Merritt.

May you all have a very blessed and safe week.

– Avalanche Lily, Rawles

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As always,  please share and send e-mails of your own successes and hard-earned wisdom and we will post them in the “Snippets” column this coming week.  We want to hear from you.

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.

A wise man’s heart is at his right hand; but a fool’s heart at his left.

Yea also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool.

If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding pacifieth great offences.

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceedeth from the ruler:

Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.

I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.

He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.

Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.

If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct.

Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better.

The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself.

The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness: and the end of his talk is mischievous madness.” – Ecclesiastes 10:1-13 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Friday — July 8, 2022

Today marks the birth of actor Kevin Bacon (born 1958.) Preppers usually associate him with the campy movie Tremors. Sadly, his co-star in that film, Fred Ward, recently passed away.

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Today, I’m posting an update to a piece that I wrote for SurvivalBlog back in 2005.

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We are still seeking entries for Round 101 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. Since there haven’t been many articles submitted thusfar for this round, your chances of winning a prize are higher than usual.

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

Update: The Big Picture — Grid Up Versus Grid Down–Oil, Soil, and Water

The following is an update to an article that I posted in SurvivalBlog back in September of 2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast:

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Before selecting a retreat locale, It is crucial that you decide on your own worst-case scenario. A location that is well-suited to surviving a “slow-slide” grid up scenario (a la the deflationary depression of the 1930s) might not necessarily be well suited to a grid down situations. As stated in my post on August 15, 2005, a grid down situation will likely cause a sudden onset variation of TEOTWAWKI with a concomitant mass exodus from the big cities resulting in chaos on a scale heretofore never seen in modern memory.

My own personal “best case” scenario is an economic depression, with the grid still up, and still some semblance of law and order. Things would be bad, but the vast majority of the population would live through it. Living in a rural agricultural area won’t ensure that you’ll always have a job, but probably will ensure that you won’t starve.

My personal “worst case” scenario takes a lot more description: A rogue nation state launches three or four MIRVed ICBMs with high yield warheads simultaneously detonating at 100,000 feet over America’s population center, preferably in October or November, to maximize the extent of secondary electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects. Picture just six warheads arriving “time on target” (synchronized for simultaneous detonation) at high altitude over, for example, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Seattle, and Los Angeles. More than 90% of the U.S. population would fall within the footprint of EMP. With such a very high airburst attack, there would be hardly any initial casualties aside for a few thousand people unlucky enough to be traveling on that day. EMP would disable many electric flight controls, causing any modern aircraft to go out of control and crash. And the sudden loss of engine power in automobiles at the same time as a blinding flash would likely cause thousands of high-speed car crashes, by panicked drivers. A high-altitude air burst would impart no blast effects on the ground — nothing but EMP. But what an effect! Think of the full implications.

As previously stated, the higher that a nuclear air burst is detonated, the wider the line of sight (LOS), and hence the larger the footprint of EMP effects. With an EMP-optimized attack, as I just posited, EMP would be coupled to nearly all of the installed microcircuit chips in the U.S., southern Canada, and northern Mexico. In an enormous cascade this would take down all of the North American power grids, and cripple virtually every vital industry and utility: Natural gas production and piping, municipal water systems, telephone systems (hardwire and cellular), refining, trucking, banking, Internet services, agricultural machinery, electrically-pumped irrigation systems, you name it! Many modern cars and trucks within the LOS of EMP could be inoperative.Continue reading“Update: The Big Picture — Grid Up Versus Grid Down–Oil, Soil, and Water”

Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we look at the BRICS countries’ latest push toward a gold-backed currency. (See the Precious Metals section.)

Precious Metals:

Putin suggests BRICS looking at new global reserve currency backed by hard assets. Notably, four of the five BRICS countries are major gold producers. (Only India is not in the Top 20 producers list, but India’s populace is famous for loving gold as an investment.) Here is an excerpt from the article, penned by Corrie Kruger:

“To evaluate the advantages for an oil exporter of getting paid in US dollars, consider periodic claims over the past decade that the petrodollar would soon face a challenge from the petro-yuan: oil exports denominated and paid for with Chinese currency.

All buyers of exported oil hold or can easily access US dollars, while only China and mostly Chinese companies hold the Chinese national currency, called the yuan or renminbi. Unlike the US dollar, the renminbi is not a freely convertible currency; its exchange rate against other currencies, including the US dollar, continues to be managed by China’s central bank

A new reserve currency not controlled by any individual country would be more desirable. Meanwhile, BRICS countries should peg their currencies to gold to solve this worldwide problem driven by the US dollar.

There are a number of commentators who believe that roubles have a future; the dollar does not. The persistent printing of more dollars renders the dollar to be systematically destroyed. And with it, the future of the US is being rapidly eroded by the day, ultimately leaving the American people impoverished.”

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Capital.com Silver price forecast for 2022 and beyond: Will the precious metal rebound?

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Dominic Frisby, at MoneyWeek: Gold has been incredibly boring to own – but that’s no bad thing right now.

Economy & Finance:

Brookings: Tracking regulatory changes in the Biden era.

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At Zero Hedge: “One Of The Worst Downturns In Recent History”: Zuck Warns Facebook Employees To Brace For Layoffs.

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Larry Summers Says Risk of 2022 Recession Climbing, May Damp Inflation.

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“The Rubicon Has Been Crossed”: The BOJ Now Owns More Than 50% Of All Japanese Bonds.

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“If children do not understand the Constitution, they cannot understand how our government functions, or what their rights and responsibilities are as citizens of the United States.” – Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — July 7, 2022

July 7th, 1907 was the birthday of science fiction novelist Robert A. Heinlein. He passed away on May 8, 1988, at age 80.

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Today, a feature article by SurvivalBlogs Founder and Senior Editor, James Wesley, Rawles (JWR)

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

Neo-Feudalism: Klaus Schwab, the WEF, and The Great Reset

The topic of this essay might seem a bit tangential to normal SurvivalBlog topics, but as I will explain, it falls into the category of “emerging threats.”

Men have always sought to dominate and forcefully order the lives of others. This is part of human nature. It dates back to before the days of Noah. Early empires sought power and wealth, by conquest. Monarchies and feudalism dominated the Middle Ages in Europe, South Asia, and East Asia. Then, in a consolidation of monarchist power, colonialism was rampant from the 1550s to the 1950s. Only a few large and economically strong colonies broke away from their parent countries, before 1900.

As colonialism began to wane, collectivism started to re-shape the world, mostly after 1916. Ponder the far-reaching effects of these brutal collectivists: the Soviet Union (1917-1991), Nazi Germany (1933-1945), Cambodia (1967-1978), Cuba (1959 to present), and Communist China (1943 to present). In all, these and other dictatorial regimes killed more than 133 million people in the 20th Century, imprisoned hundreds of millions, and placed billions of people under the yoke of contrived collective economic systems, confiscating their wealth and land.

Most of this killing and suffering was at the hands of communists or socialists with grand utopian visions of the future (with special status just for themselves) or a “new world order”. To their way of thinking, this justified taking the lives and property of their countrymen, and often also those in other countries, through invasions.Continue reading“Neo-Feudalism: Klaus Schwab, the WEF, and The Great Reset”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “JWR”. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. Today, we look at the weaponized politics.

Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Inflation acts as a gigantic corporate tapeworm. That tapeworm preemptively consumes its requisite daily diet of investment dollars regardless of the health of the host organism. Regardless of a company’s profits, it has to spend more on receivables, inventory, and fixed assets to simply equal the unit volume of the previous year. The less prosperous the enterprise, the greater the proportion of available sustenance claimed by the tapeworm. Asset-heavy businesses with meager returns on equity have no leftovers to spend on expanding, paying down debt, issuing dividends, or making acquisitions. The tapeworm of inflation simply cleans the plate.” – Warren Buffett

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — July 6, 2022

July 6th is the anniversary of the 1994 Storm King Mountain wildfire that took the lives of 14 firefighters. Weather changes, resulting in 45 mph wind gusts, caused a modest wildfire to erupt into a blazing inferno, which threatened homes in and around the town of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Firefighters from around the country were called to assist in fighting this wildfire. We will never forget the young men and women who lost their lives battling this fire:

Prineville (Oregon) Hotshots: Kathi Beck, Tamera Bickett, Scott Blecha, Levi Brinkley, Douglas Dunbar, Terri Hagen, Bonnie Holtby, Rob Johnson, Jon Kelso

Missoula Smokejumper: Don Mackey

McCall Smokejumpers: Roger Roth, Jim Thrash

Helitack firefighters: Robert Browning, Jr., Richard Tyler

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Today we present a guest article by our friend Patrice Lewis. We highly recommend bookmarking her excellent Rural Revolution blog.

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

 

Canning Potatoes, by Patrice Lewis

If you remember, early in May I put up a blog post asking for reader input on canning potatoes. You all came through beautifully in sharing your wisdom.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I just tried canning them myself, and what do you know … they came out very well.

Ironically, the day I canned potatoes was a day I had absolutely no interest in canning. Our weather has done a great big celestial 180 degrees this week, and we went from cool and rainy to hot and dry. Who wants to can anything in hot weather?

But I needed photos on canning potatoes to provide to Backwoods Home Magazine for an article I just submitted, so despite the heat, I canned potatoes.

I started with 15 lbs. of red potatoes, which are often the preferred variety to can because they’re less starchy.

 

 

 

 

 

Cutting into chunks. It’s hard to tell, but the cut-up potatoes are in a bowl of water to prevent discoloration until they got blanched.

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading“Canning Potatoes, by Patrice Lewis”

SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly column is a collection of short snippets: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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I found this linked over at the Whatfinger news aggregation site: Peer-Reviewed Study Finds Young Moderna Jab Recipients Have a Jaw-Dropping 44X Higher Risk of Developing Myocarditis Than the Unvaccinated.

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Reader D.S.V. sent this item: The Dutch Farmers’ Protest and the War on Food.

Don’t miss this video from Holland, as reported by Paul Joseph Watson: Agent provocateurs caught on camera.

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Kirk wrote to mention:

“I was looking for 5-gallon pails of motor oil at my two local Walmart stores for the past month.  The only thing they had in 5-gallon pails was hydraulic oil.  I didn’t check anywhere else ’cause Walmart always has the cheapest prices on the 5-gallon pails. They were about 1/2 the price of the next cheapest store in my area.

I wound up getting 5 quart jugs at Walmart instead, but even those seemed to be in short supply.  Not all grades and not all brands in stock.
Got oil filters too–no problem with those.  They had lots of all types.
I wound up getting enough oil and filters for the next year’s worth of oil changes for the whole fleet-just in case. Not sure if this is true for anywhere else.”

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Reader C.H. was the first of several readers to send this news: Gun permit process in NY could include social media check.

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Mike M. had this suggestion:

“Pat should try the Rescue Wasp Stick.  I buy them in town or on Amazon. Today’s price is$12.76. It was $8.99 when I first tried them.  I hang them for dirt daubers but they work for wasps also. I have greatly reduced my wasp and dauber problems 10 fold.  I even hang them in my deer stands.  Word of caution on hanging them. Hang by BOTH ends. The heat will cause them to release from only one end and fall to the ground.”

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D.S.V. was the first of several readers to send us this: California Just Leaked The Name, Address Of Every Concealed Carry Licensee In The State.

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Yes, Even Your Coffee Maker Is a Security Risk.

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”