Economics & Investing For Preppers

…if you decide to stock up, then stock up on all of the requisite components proportionally. (One primer, one projectile, and the equivalent of one measured quantity of powder for nearly every piece of brass.) For most folks, buying factory-loaded ammo is probably the better approach, at present. Provisos: SurvivalBlog and its Editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for our detailed disclaimers. News Tips: Please send your economics and investing news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) These are often especially relevant, because they come from folks who closely watch specific markets. If you spot any news that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers, then please send it in. News from local news outlets that is missed by the news wire services is especially appreciated. And it need not be just about commodities and precious metals. Thanks!…




Basic Handgun Marksmanship Skills- Part 1, by Mark Bunch

…utility/field knife from custom knife-maker Jon Kelly Designs, of Eureka, Montana, A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206, Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value), Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC, Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances, Montie Gear is donating a Y-Shot Slingshot and a $125 Montie gear Gift certificate., Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value), and Round 71 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….




Sweet Spot For the 21st Century With Calibers Beating .308- Part 2, by Alpine Evader

…500 lb bomb onto your house. Still, that pilot has to eat, sleep and poop somewhere. The right intel puts an asset into his portapotty with a Ka-Bar. “Shhhhhh….” However. Those are all theories on how to combat asymmetric forces and without a foundation on 4th Generation Warfare which would be its own article, we’re at an impasse. You’ll play your little games in the Apocalypse and my team will play ours. I do appreciate the comment and look forward to your article on how best to combat the threat. I don’t know everything, we’ve just considered a lot and ‘iron sharpens iron’, as Proverbs 27:17 states. We are merely providing information to discuss options in order to make the survivalblog community stronger as a whole. Thanks again, I hope you enjoy the details within the upcoming segments! Don Williams 1) I would suggest your group consult a lawyer even…




The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

…man in the Army who told me of the Army’s recent shift to more open field conventional combat training as opposed to urban combat training. He said he went to a school specifically designed to make them more proficient with M4’s at 600 yards. They shot several thousand rounds to acquire the skills. At the end they were expected to get 2 hits out of 6 on mansized targets at 600 yards. Old Gray Wolf I have been surprised by the number of people who attribute politicsl change to migration of Americans from one place to another. Particularly in the case of a swing to the left, it has little to do with citizens moving around. The reason could be construed as s flasshing red light right in front of one’s face, and most do not get it. When is the last time you had to stop for a school…




The Second Amendment, by D.V.

…PrepperPress.com, RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site. Third Prize: A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value), A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206, Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value), Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC, Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances, and Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value). Round 75 ends on March 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….




Invicta 29178 Automatic Watch, by Thomas Christianson

…some more searching online, and found a YouTube video that detailed the steps necessary to complete this process. Those steps looked quite a bit easier on the video than I found them to be in real life. After a bit of struggle, I ended up removing a total of five links, and achieved a good fit. Once the band was properly sized, I found the watch to fit extremely comfortably. The thing that has most impressed me about the watch so far is its accuracy. My Seiko tended to lose a minute or so every few days. Whenever I noticed that the Seiko was a minute or more slow, I would move it forward to the point where it was about a minute fast. I needed to make this adjustment once a week or so. So I am quite please that I have not yet needed to readjust the Invicta….




Experience with Tesla Solar and Powerwall 2, by Davey

…also the transitional period that follows. Thank you for raising this! Telesilla of Argos This, folks, is otherwise known as a WARNING. From the Texas Tribune: “Texas was “seconds and minutes” away from catastrophic monthslong blackouts, officials say” https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/texas-power-outages-ercot/ Our vulnerabilities are greater than most people know. Communicate with your utilities officials, local and state politicians, security experts and others about the need for the country to have a sturdy, stable and secure power grid. Understand also that outages like those so many have faced across the last several days don’t just come in the winter. They can come at any time. They can be caused by natural weather events or other disasters, acts of terrorism, and acts of war. Don’t wait for public authorities to course correct. Create your own course corrections in the present. Prepare for safety and survival in the absence of the usual utilities. …and while…




Making a Simplex Voice Channel Plan, by Don Shift

…agreeing on specific frequencies to use and giving them a name or alpha-numeric designation. Having a channel name or number is for brevity and communication security. “Go to five,” is shorter and more secure than saying “Go to 158.730.” So, within your own group/family, you can know that “VHF channel 1” means 146.415 MHz. Again, this is an in-group thing because there are no public ham channel allocations. How to get started My semi-facetious suggestion is to become friends with a like-minded, experienced ham and let him provide you with his pre-existing plan. I kid, but there are hams in your community that have already done this and will have saved you a bunch of trouble. Connections can and do pay off. But for the rest of you… Start by finding the basic band plan for the band you plan to use; in our case it will be 70cm or…




Tips on Buying Physical Silver Locally, by Frank B.

…one of the ways you can buy physical silver. I say physical silver in that I have the actual silver in my hands. It is not just a piece of paper that says I own silver that is in a vault somewhere else for safe keeping. I have it with me at home and I like it that way. After trying the broker method of buying silver I decided to look for silver locally. Reputable silver dealers will price their silver based on what is called the “spot” price. Commonly they will then add a “premium” to the spot price which represents their profit on the trade. The “spot” price can be found in many places online and can change minute by minute depending on what the demand for silver is worldwide. Premiums can change as well, depending on how much the dealer actually paid for the silver he is…




It is Planting Time- Part 1, by L.R.

Jody L.R., although I have been gardening for years and just started saving my own seed in the past 10 years, I continue to read everything I can find on gardening and I also continue to experiment. I may never get to master gardener status, but I don’t care. I just want to feed my family. Keep up the fight so to speak. 🙂 Roadkill My wife still plants flowers. I plant nothing I can’t eat. I just picked up two fig trees. I’m very excited to plant them. They are zone 5/7, the little description says you will get 150 lbs. of figs per tree. The Plus is they are a beautiful tree. Jack Clark We planted a handful of heirloom “Bloody Red Dent Corn” we purchased from Baker Seed as an experiment and even after storms and very hungry raccoons, we harvested a 5 gallon bucket. That was…




A Deep Well Pump Jack: Vital Part of Water System, by R.M.

…abrasive is in your water. NOTE: One huge advantage of using 2” drop pipe and a well cyclinder designed for this, is that you can pull only the sucker rod and working guts of the pump up to change the leathers and never need to pull the heavy pipe! We have one local plumbing supply that carries well cylinders and leathers. There are several online sources in addition to every windmill supplier for the cylinder. Note on the first page, “How to Use a Typical Centrifical Well Pump” in this same system! https://www.deanbennettsupply.com/brass-well-cylinders.html https://www.deanbennettsupply.com/cup-leathers.html http://www.windmill-parts.com/id16.html Pump Jack Disadvantages Thought there are advantage, there are also disadvantage. We’ve found ways to over these and have explained them below. Maximum Pumping Rate The main disadvantage is that it has a maximum pumping rate of about three gallons per minute. This is just not adequate for “modern” life, unless you either have a…




Sweet Spot For the 21st Century With Calibers Beating .308- Part 3, by Alpine Evader

…using 5.56 and .308. Prep on brother. God bless going forward. Alpine Evader Robert,NC: “I’m curious how magpul plastics held up through winter, mods for using artic gloves with your m4gery and did you have to use special lubricant for your rifles. I’m assuming you are dealing with temps well below -10 degrees fahrenheit.” — We’ve not had issues with my personal rifles with Mobil1 10w30. It’s cheap and everywhere, runs with our entire temperature range. I just did a search and found three articles that also use Mobil1 in their AR’s: — http://www.rifleshootermag.com/rifles/ar-15/ar-lube-advice-from-the-experts/ — http://www.xdtalk.com/threads/mobile-1-lube-anyone.207552/ — https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/-/7-539348/&page=1 –I don’t use Magpul magazines personally, I did try them with 9 to 10 rounds of 6.8SPC crammed into them but the gen2 consistently crammed harder than they needed to after they were stored in hot places. The feed lips swelled and it was nothing but consistent jamming. I get better luck…




Notes from “The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs”, by ShepherdFarmerGeek

Did you know that you can get an estimate of distances and elevations conveniently using nothing more than your eyes and your hands? It’s really quite amazing and useful; hikers, hunters, and preppers really need to learn these skills. Ol’ Remus at the Woodpile Report (www.woodpilereport.com) recently recommended a book by Tristan Gooley entitled The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs: outdoor clues to find your way, predict the weather, locate water, track animals and other forgotten skills. It sounded downright intriguing, so I’ve been reading it on my Kindle and enjoying it quite a bit. The first Appendix had the following useful distance and angle approximations (not original with Gooley) that might turn out to be really useful for those of us who can’t afford a decent laser rangefinder (or whose “decent laser rangefinder” has become a “decent paperweight” for one reason or another). DISTANCE Before the invention of…




Self Defense When Your Options are Limited, by L.J.

…the flashlight.  Not the 10 pound, million candle power marine spotlight, rather the small, compact, LED tactical flashlight.  After much research, I settled on the Streamlight ProTac HL.  Now I have no relationship to this company and don’t get any benefit, financial or otherwise from pushing it, and other companies exist that produce similar products, most notably SureFire.  But let me tell you a little bit about my StreamLight and why I think it rocks as an adjunct to “unarmed” defense.  First, the size: it is just 5.4 inches long and weighs only 5.6 ozs.  Small enough to fit in my pants pocket comfortably, or wear on my belt if desired.  Now the real draw, the light.  This thing puts out 600 lumens,and 16,000 candela on high setting.  That is some incredible blinding light, even more dazzling when on the optional strobe setting.  Turning on with a single push button…




Pat’s Product Review: PakLite 9V LED Flashlight

…a dark room at night? Well, I’m happy to report, this neat little invention works and works extremely well.   What we have is a little flashlight that will run on “high” for 30- hours, and on the “low” setting for 600-hours. No, that’s not a misprint, it will run for 600-hours on low – giving you enough light so you are left in a dark room when the power goes off – and we all know that, sooner or later, your power will go off – you’ll have a lighted room.  Now, if you purchase a Lithium 9-volt battery and they are a little more expensive than standard 9-volt batteries, the PakLite will run for 1,200-hours on “low” and 80-hours on the “high” setting! I can’t think of any other flashlight that even comes close to this. I put the PakLite to the test, and if actually ran a…