FOOD FIRST
Why do prepper pussies, that weird breed who insists that it is quite
alright to spend ten thousand bucks to live in upper middle class slender for
the three weeks it takes to recover from a storm ( when you need far less than
that to drop out of the system, prep for a die-off with five years of food, AND
even perhaps start your own micro-business ), and super ninja survivalists, who
have prepared for all infrastructure to collapse and have triple redundancy for
everything, both put aside their doctrinal differences and agree on about one
thing and one thing only. They must have
guns. Lots of guns. Lots of guns with lots of gun accessories (
shades of Hank Hill “propane and propane accessories!” ). Cool tactical guns with shiny plastic
furniture. Super cool
more-gun-than-they-can-handle guns. I
can almost imagine they need so many guns almost as if they were tools not so
much for mayhem but for convincing their owners that they were actually capable
of inflicting mayhem, rather than reinforcing the image of over-consuming for
the Apocalypse ( I can justify buying multiples of proven practical tools
almost indefinitely, and even then most preppers over do the firearms cache
even by my liberal definitions ). All
you have to do is go over to Rawles site and find the “portraits” section and
read how insanely real estate rich and grotesquely gun wealthy these fools are,
with corresponding piss poor food stores.
*
We all have to budget, whether we make $10k a year or $100k. We all have to compromise. No one is saying a retreat is a bad
investment, or that you don’t need firearms to protect yourself from the
legions of crack heads the government encourages to exist to bolster the
legitimacy of their security state. You
need it all, and you need it yesterday.
But, really? Enough guns and ammo
to field a squad, over a hundred grand on a country retreat, and six to twelve
months of food? Your priorities are a
bit screwed up. Food is
fundamental. Food is everyday. Without food, nothing else matters. In a pinch, a pick, shovel and ax can build
you a perfectly adequate shelter for the deepest winter. In a pinch, you can arm yourself with bows
and arrows ( which you can fashion while you hide out over the winter in your
dug-out )( and yes, I finally ordered a paper book on beginners bowery, after
having waiting far too long for comfort ).
But you can’t guarantee the fish will be biting, or the deer come near
your camp ( or if their will be any left-if the Great Depression saw game
decimation with half the population we have now, and far less urban sprawl, you
do the math ). You can’t guarantee your
garden will produce the first year. Yes,
you need firearms to rationally adequately defend yourself. And a place in your name free and clear of
bank debt will be extremely helpful in the very near future. But those things can be half-assed and be
done frugally. Food first, for Christ’s
sake!
END
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*Contact Information* Links To Others* Land In Elko* Lord Bison* my bio & biblio* my web site is www.bisonprepper.com
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My guess is at the first bit of action, the bad guys would get the drop on them, steal all those fancy guns and the money and the supplies, and these preppers will end up just as broke as the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteIt is one thing to collect the guns, another to use them successfully.
It was my understanding that an AR made you into an instant warrior. Dammit! And I had just started to save up for one :)
DeleteGood article once again, but I must point out back in the Great Depression, no body had food stamps and a large percentage of folks knew how to hunt. Most folks now would sit in the cities waiting for the FedGov tittie to pop out until it was too late to save themselves. Also the .223 round was made more to wound than to kill and is at best marginal against a deer sized animal, so maybe the game would do better this time. You might look into bolos and atali's(spelling?) for game harvesting also.
ReplyDeleteI suck enough on bows, let alone the other types. Although I might do better now with increased upper body strength.
DeleteTraps.
DeletePlain and simple learn to track and putting out traps is the important thing to know. Traps hunt for you 24/7/365 silently or nearly so. You have the prey held still and you only use the gun (or better bow) to kill the already immobilized (if not dead) prey.
For me guns are to kill either predators or my livestock that is too large for single ax blow to painlessly dispatch when it is that time.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BN4PO7G/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2JPB4UA8Z98TB&coliid=I33WS7WACDMV6K
Delete*
Buckshots book on trapping
Good to see that you finally broke down and got that book James. Bows will be very useful, especially for covert activities, since they do not broadcast one's whereabouts. But I do think that for general food procurement, traps and snares are a better way to go post apocalypse.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to all of the game disappearing as with the great depression, something tells me that it actually might not be as bad this time around? At that time the majority still lived outside of the cities, and we were still more of a self sufficient gun/hunting culture. As time marched on and the “proles” were herded into the cities, they lost touch with their more primitive roots. The end result over time was your typical tree hugging, lispy, effete, mangina, that is all too typical of the younger male class today. Set one these types out in the woods and most will perish within a fortnight.
I do recall that Donald Eugene Sisco (Aka Kurt Saxon; must have got his ass kicked as a youth one too many times ;) ) discussed his time on his relatives farm during the great depression, where he and his family were able to ride it out in relative comfort, for there was no lack of food.
You have a good point with more population herded into cities leaving the game alone. However, with double the population, and far less small farms around the place to provide substitute meat, I think we still arrive back at the same place.
DeleteI also ordered a book on PVC bows. The concept sounds fascinating, with millions of miles of plastic plumbing out there waiting to be scavenged.
DeleteHe has a lot of videos on youtube as well James, particularly on the PVC bows. I must admit to being skeptical of this concept at first, but after seeing him shooting them, and how easy they are to make, I'm sold on it. He also has a video on a PVC crossbow, and he did a great job on it, making it look factory professional.
DeleteCheck out his youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/BackyardBowyer
Most of the pvc that is buried is likely to be brittle from exposure, but most likely available after the stores are looted, lemme know how your trials go, or at least let me know the title of the book
DeleteI ordered the two books by Nicholas Tomihama. Beginers book, Backyard Bowyer and a PVC book, Takedown Archery. Not cheap, but I figure an investment that will pay dividends.
Delete
DeleteYes, you will want to use fresh PVC Wrenchr, not something that has been lying around in your yard. If you check out his youtube channel that I posted the link to above, I'm pretty sure that you can get all of his PVC designs straight from the channel. I also ordered the book, but it was before I knew this. But I suppose it doesn't hurt to have post apocalypse insurance in book form.
What about PVC in the home? Same issue as the buried stuff?
Delete"What about PVC in the home? Same issue as the buried stuff?"
DeleteIt should be okay James. The main thing to avoid is the stuff that's been sitting out in your yard and exposed to the elements. We've had some PVC sitting out in our yard for a long time, and I've noticed that when you go to cut it or bend it, it snaps or shatters. Fresh PVC cuts evenly, and when you bend it too far, it will collapse in the center and kink in the process, but it doesn't snap or shatter.
Nicholas Tomihama actually has a video that illustrates how to repair a PVC bow when it does this. Though it's probably not going to have quite the same strength that it had before? He's actually quite a sharp dude. He spent a few years at University, until he determined that they really couldn't teach savvy individuals such as himself much of anything. He then started writing books and producing videos, and apparently he's doing quite well for himself. Not affiliated with him in any way, just a fan of his books and videos.
Probably a good plan to have several pieces of the PVC of the schedule that Nicholas recommends, along with a few good red oak boards of the proper specifications. No heat guns in a post apocalypse, so a fire will have to do for heating and forming your PVC.
I know I'm being obtuse here, but better to ask stupid questions and have the right answers. So, buried PVC is going to be okay? Just nothing exposed to the sun? I'm thinking this is important, when it comes time to loot for materials.
Delete“So, buried PVC is going to be okay? Just nothing exposed to the sun?”
DeleteI don't have any experience with the buried PVC Jim. I do know that the stuff that we had sitting around in our yard cracked when I used one of those PVC pipe cutter tools. But it did dawn on me that the buried stuff is actually a special grade over the standard stuff, because it's the electrical grade that is designed to be buried, and is a gray color if I recall correctly? You might be on to something, and it just might work? I am not positive, but I want to say that Nicholas Tomihama makes mention of it in one of his videos?
Okay, I found the video. The summary is that he says that it will work, and is less susceptible to UV radiation. But apparently it sucks in warm weather, and will get soft just sitting in the sun. He doesn't recommend it, but it will work if it's all you have, and the weather is cool.
Gray Electrical Conduit VS White Plumbing Pipe for PVC Bows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAsq-k6PFdc
All the PVC I've buried was regular white.
DeleteTo be honest Jim, I don't really have a good answer for you? I looked into it briefly, and the best that I can tell, the gray is UV rated, and the white is not? In a pinch, I suppose that you could always try using the buried stuff, be it white or gray, if you had nothing else. But since it's pretty cheap stuff, I think that it's better to go out and buy a few of lengths of it for a “rainy day” so that you have a dependable supply when you need it.
DeleteAlso picking up a spool of Dacron for bow strings wouldn't hurt either.
I appreciate the effort. Prepping is full of hundreds of near unanswerable questions like that and none of us are experts. Just as I'd stock the oak sticks ( whatever wood the cheap bow guy says ) I can stock the pipe also. Plenty of time to experiment after the collapse.
Deletehttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-19/step-aside-human-worlds-second-biggest-mining-company-unveils-robot-trucks
ReplyDeleteMight be a concern around your place Jim.
Completely unrelated : in a test in our school where pupils have to name US states by its two-letter code (yes we do that in France for optional anglo-saxon civilisation course), one pupil wrote that NV stands for "Nirvana"
I suppose if you've just won the jackpot, are drinking whiskey at 5 AM and are visiting a hooker, it could be considered Nirvana.
DeleteRead the article, then the comments by the Aussie on "its the talk of all the pubs". I try to stay in the loop on the general mine issues, knowing several workers, and while they all might be in denial here, I'm thinking it is more like nobody here has a clue of this possibility. The sooner the better, we need to clear off excess people in this burg.
DeleteTech that makes people redundant will have them clearing out fairly quickly, so the robot trucks are good news for you as long as you are careful on the roads when they start to get implemented..
DeleteWindows blue screen occurances how often? :)
DeleteIf the people are trapped in theiir highway-ringfenced urban areas without lifetime supplies of canned meat, they will learn to cook the long-pork while announcing to the neighbors the discovery of an operating freezer (solar powered secret bunker!) full of wrapped swine to feed the barbeque.
ReplyDeleteI like to think of the I105 and I405 as concrete moats to contain (for self-elimination) the whiney elements of pdx society. It's not a perfect cage, but 100% of vehicles and 95% of people trapped will be good enough.
pdxr13
The "off" taste is of course just freezer burn. :)
DeleteThe absurdity of planning to "bug out" without a destination is lost on people who have not spent some time walking across the Western United States. It's no place to be a refugee. Even with credit cards/money, gas stations and small-town diners (home made pie!), the Western States are HUGE. In the NE fUSA, a person can walk across counties in a few hours and across States in a few days. This is how distances are measured before railroads. Fields are 2 hours peasant-walk from town, towns are a day walking between.
ReplyDeleteSo, let's assume that you HAVE TO live in town due to your (fill in the blank unavoidable whiney-bitch reason of lust/greed, or just plain inertia) that has not been subsumed below a rational fear of being roasted alive by pensionless baby-boomer urban cannibal looters.
Let's look at modes of "bugging out":
Walking-most popular, last-minute mode. No planning. Shoes and extra socks are useful. You can carry 40-70 pounds if in some kind of fitness. Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon. Food? Cast iron pan? Ninja blender? 500 rounds of 7.62x51? Careful with the total weight, since it affects speed and endurance. Make sure to distribute some weight to the family-unit, up to 1/3 of their body weight. Expect complaints if they aren't Marines home on leave.
Human-powered wheeled devices: Cart-Bike-Trailer. Doubles or triples your over-the-road weight capacity. You can bring 5 gallon totes of water! Wet-packed canned food is almost reasonable to carry for use when the urban-jerky runs out. In permissive places with smooth surfaces, you can really burn through some miles without much pain. Carts can go almost anywhere people can go (rough and crumby "roads"). Relatively affordable, even for the MBZ of trailers and carts made for European rich-people volksmarching (aspen/aluminum/titanium/Carbon-Fiber?).
Cars/mini-van/1-ton van/Pickup: Ahhh, motoring. Cue The Who, "Who's Next". I'm on the road, goin' mo-bile! Finally, not so sweaty, and hardly any weight or space limits. But, you need fuel, and are restricted to roads for getting anywhere before breaking down/ getting stuck/out-of-fuel. The roads are the chokepoint. Light civilian vehicles are deathtraps for the most-amateurish-ambush or illegal "checkpoint". Every kind of bullet from every firearm goes through the skin of a car and has enough energy to hurt you. Not a fighting vehicle. All persons must bail-out to escape or fight, losing luggage. Useful for moving rapidly over highway if highway traffic is moving.
Trailer-truck combo: less maneuverable than a car. Able to carry crazy volumes of stuff, people, and a lot of weight. Will guzzle fuel. Be early, by weeks if possible, and have a prepared destination. When to "the place", the trailer will become a fixed shelter. The truck could be useful, but it's not really a good idea to use a vehicle if other people can't buy gas. Tarp and conceal.
Motorhome is pretty much the same as truck-trailer. No off-road capability, best early to prepared site that it will never move from again. Some motorhomes are on 14K chassis, so determine how much cargo weight is available with a scale. Don't overload the chassis or tires! Add a trailer if you need more weight, because the engine can pull it, just slower with more fuel burn.
Think of a Saturn V rocket. Freakin' huge. That's a 14000+ pound motorhome, with $800 worth of gasoline and propane aboard. Carts bikes and hand-trailers strapped on top, backpacks and clean socks inside with the people. A/C blowing cold from the dash and roof, seemingly unlimited water from the tap and light at the flick of a wall-switch (just like home, before the troubles), a turkey in the oven, cold beer in the fridge, a hot bath for mama, and a vcr/color tv combo over the driver seat. A mile-a-minute over the road, then unload and toss a few road flares in and walk away.
It drives until it can't (or you got to the place), then eject for stage II: human powered travel.
pdxr13
I'm thinking anyone with a Saturn V motorhome deluxe won't easily give it up but stick to it tenaciously. Certain class of lazy buys those things, right? Give it up? Hardly.
DeleteThe Saturn V metaphor is that it takes a really huge booster to get a little ship far away. Re-entry is unpowered. People arrive with almost nothing and dirty socks after a long trip.
DeleteOnce the MH stops moving or runs out of fuel, it's a looter-beacon. They look like civilization-on-wheels (shower-toilet-microwave!), full of treasures and places to charge the 3DS.
In a bad situation where movement is stopped, GET AWAY FROM THE BEACON. Mount up your packs and attempt to unhook some of the external carts and load extra water jugs or containerized food, then toss the flares in. 36' of burning and cooking-off (a case of 1# propane canisters is pretty fun) RV attracts a lot of attention while you get away. They might shoot first assuming that you will over-defend the stuck-broken-nogas POS.
Yer regular Itasca/Winn-a-bagel is made of just enough stuff to hold up to freeway driving and some cross-winds, so wear your armor inside.Only .mil command posts are slightly bullet resistant.
Original owners who make 205 monthly payments with 19.7% APR are "a certain class of luxury-lazy", but those of us looking for the cheapest stealth cargo vehicle over 10000 pounds gross for $2000 or less are motivated fixers of 1980's tech. 454/turbo400/good tires/4mpg is the formula for last-owner last-trip success.
pdxr13
Good post Lord Bison. Food is definitely a priority more so than a crazy amount of firearms and ammo. Of course I am heavy there but have quite a bit of food and have guns for sale.
ReplyDelete