5&5 2 of 3

FIVE AND FIVE part 2

Yesterday we covered my top five prepper mistakes financially speaking, and so today we have the less germane, not quite as helpful ‘top five preps I can’t afford”, which is where I got the concept of this as a Wonder Bread article ( which is the same concept as the Popcorn Movie, all flash and sparkle with little substance.  “Star Wars” was a popcorn movie, a feast for the eyes, but a terrible story.  “Independence Day” had a better plot, characters that were layered and fleshed out and you could watch it multiple times as an adult, even if the glittery eye candy was also there.  I’ve watched the two new Disney Star Wars movies, free, and I can’t believe how retched they are.  All special effects and PC posturing.  At least the ‘77 movie TRIED to tell a story ).  You can go to any other prepper site and get the same old tired advice on how to spend MORE money for your preps.  I’m actually indecently satisfied with all of mine.  Probably because “stuff”, while as important to my survival as a spear was to a lice covered Stone Age mutant man, is mainly just generic tools to me rather than sexually alluring totems of invincibility.

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Don’t get me wrong, I feel as strongly if not more so about my Lee-Enfield rifle as others do about their plastic poodle shooters, but I think any gun to any guy has about the same effect.  Guns give us wood, a return to natures dominator, a way to banish fear just as a campfire is.  Our personal choices are just as effective as cheering a certain sports team.  But having a strong confidence in the ability of your chosen tool as the best of the bunch doesn’t mean you need to look at them other than just another tool.  I feel I’ve made the correct choices to assemble the best of the frugal tools to give me the edge in survival.  But tools are just a way to even the odds should all other factors be equal.  If you are well equipped, but live in the big city, you aren’t equipped at all.  Ol’ Remus with his “stay away from crowds”, with one down-home homily, reduces my Herculean labors behind the keyboard nearly redundant.  If you are away from crowds you are better equipped than the richest prepper out there, in terms of initial survival anyway.  And tools don’t work if you don’t work them properly.  I’m not talking about maintenance and marksmanship, but about using tools intelligently.  Spray and pray and covering fire is not an intelligent use of semi-auto’s after the apocalypse.  If you are that close, stick with a shotgun or pistol.  If you are using a rifle, distance is more of a intelligent tool than the gun itself is ( police use of shotguns was practical and intelligent.  The move to go M4 ninja, outside SWAT, and even then I sometimes wonder, is neither ).

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So, while you read this, take it for what it is.  Not a list of things I think I need but just a musing of perhaps what I could have done differently.  Because as far as I’m concerned, NOTHING expensive is needed or desired.  It certainly isn’t better, but merely an alternate way.  This list is actually harder than the first one, as I find everything of high price merely desperate clinging to our long ended American Way Of Life ( with quality issues being what they are, the prettiest most glittery expensive toy and doo-dad is so poorly engineered or constructed that it is a waste of resources to own anyway.  If it is an exception, it is reliant on fading resources anyway ).  With all that in mind, let me try to attempt to endeavor to construct the Unaffordable Prepper Stuff list.  I think the first thing would be a homestead, rather than junk land.  I’m not speaking of a conventional homestead with twenty acres and forest and stream and farm.  I’m talking about a desert homestead.

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A desert homestead is cheap enough.  The first order of business would be to buy an acre as close to the river as possible.  It doesn’t have to be water lapping at your doorstep, but 600 to 900 yards away would be great.  You can’t afford a well, and you are silly to think one sustainable, so you buy the land closer to the river.  Here in Elko, the railroad land blocks most river access south of the river, so you need to go north.  This is largely undeveloped and it is still possible to find lots in sight of the river if you focus on the north branch.  This also gets you away from the interstate and population.  With drip irrigation you could have a few plants.  Potatoes and other root crops are the only practical choices in the high desert, and they have bonus calories.  And chickens.  Don’t forget your yard birds.  As long as you have a underground solar coop they will be fine over the winter.  A lot of folks kill the chickens for the winter and buy anew come spring, negating the feed costs over the winter, but that assumes new chicks will always be there to purchase.  Over winter feeding is the cost of doing business.

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And so is having a lot more grain and feed storage.  A lot.  Otherwise there is little point.  Come the collapse you could  move on down to the waters edge to grow crops, but the soil there is just as crappy as anywhere here.  You’ll need soil improvements.  Less problematic long term is goats, as they don’t need the same feed as chickens and they have a better time of it in winter ( chickens are descendents of tropical birds and can only be breed so far for our northern climate ).  But you can’t let them graze on private property or public land at the present.  So you’d need to supplement feed them now.  Whatever you do animal wise, it is going to be expensive in the pre-collapse.  By buying river land you can negate the $10k cost of a well ( minimum $5k for the casing, now add power, pump and storage ), but feed costs are going to be a significant factor.  It would be a worthwhile cost, given that grazing herds are your primary food source post-apocalypse, but it isn’t an insignificant one ( not only feed, but fencing.  And, since the animals are cooped up and few in number, you’ll need veterinarian care.  If they were free range and numerous that wouldn’t be a factor ). 

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Because north of the river land is so far removed from civilization, it isn’t ruinously expensive.  It isn’t in an overabundance, but again we aren’t talking about rivers edge so it isn’t a huge deal all things considered.  You’ll have a bit of a commute into town, but you don’t really want to be around all those oxygen wasters all that much anyway.  For not much more than the cost of land elsewhere in the county you can be on a dirt road but removed from civilization, a nice cushion from town folk, raising meat on the hoof and enjoying peace and solitude.  The land would be anywhere from four to seven thousand for an acre or two.  You don’t necessarily need a motor vehicle for commuting but a motor assisted bicycle would almost be mandatory.  Just the assist up the hill pulling a trailer with a sack or two of grain would be a blessing.  Call that a thousand, but for that you get multiple back ups of the motor and batteries and a dedicated solar panel set.  I can’t guess at what fencing will go for but another grand for that and once again for an earth sheltered passive solar small barn.  Another grand for feed storage.  Housing would be the same as elsewhere but I’ll assume you couldn’t reuse some materials and call it another thousand.

UNAFFORDABLE PREPPER LIST #1-desert homestead $12k maximum

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I rarely miss an opportunity to declare my undying love for the British Lee-Enfield rifle.  Unlike the Mosin-Nagant Russian bolt action, it has a gas bleed safety, and unlike those and the German Mauser it has peep sites rather than crappy post and leaf.  Unlike both it is easy-peasy to add a scope, should that be necessary.  For the survivalist up until about 2007, it was the perfect post-apocalypse gun.  After that, the supply started shrinking and the prices became unreasonable for what you should pay for a used and abused weapon ( although the ammo is still reasonable and readily available, proving the lie of the M16/M60 ammo advocates ).  I would never consider giving up my SMLE’s, but sometimes I wonder if I should have gone with another type of arsenal.  It isn’t like I want to, or that I need to ( heck, with my ammo, reloading equipment, research books, accessories and especially the plethora of bayonets, it would be unreasonable to switch horses in midstream ), but let’s just consider it for academic purposes. 

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I’ve always joked that I could be persuaded to leave my current location if the suitable buxomly nymphomaniac cook with an arsenal of HK91 clones asked me, and I am still of the mind that if you went with said rifles you could do a heck of a lot worse.  But are they the pinnacle of survivalist firearms as almost universally acknowledged?  That is open for debate, obviously, as no two preppers agree on guns.  And it doesn’t even really matter because whatever gun you own and are comfortable and proficient with is the perfect survival gun.  Yes, even the AR.  But since this is academic, we proceed.  An HK, which is understood to be a clone only, and American since the Spanish ones are problematic-yes, I know the design was originally Spanish so clone is a misnomer, does two things rather well.  It doesn’t jam and it is pretty accurate.  A third, a very nice bonus, is that the parts seem rather indestructible.  What more do you want from a survival gun?  The accuracy of a cheap AR, the field reliability of an AK ( sorry, you can’t convince me the M16 system is field robust.  My experience says otherwise ) and the part longevity of a Japanese mechanical device.

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Ah, but the cost.  And not only the cost, but the return on investment.  For what you are getting, basically a tightly engineered Enfield, sniper grade, in a semi-auto cyclic action, I find that still in the Boy Toy category.  Have we already forgotten that the Industrial Age was all about incredibly cheap tools of adequate if not perfect design?  Just a mere dozen years after its irrevocable fall, we’ve already gotten used to our industrial tools now being dear for any modicum of quality and superior design?  That used to be the two minimum requirements, and now they are luxury items?  HK clones are still far too costly for what they deliver.  Now, I realize that this is a wish list that needn’t be subject to close price constraints, but it is still a list of smart financial decisions rather than one of wonton spending on frivolities.  I’m not a kid in a candy store, just a smart buyer with extra cash burning a hole in my pocket.  So, what would be a bump up in desirability survival weapon wise?

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 I think I would much prefer an SKS.  I understand this is heresy, but unlike the Papists I expect you to pause a moment and attempt to listen to my argument.  Yes, I know you are supposed to prefer a full size battle rifle to a carbine.  And German design is supposed to be superior ( it isn’t.  Culturally and sociologically they had/have superior systems but I don’t apply that to engineering past a certain degree ).  But for the cost on one HK clone, you can get three SKS’s of good quality eastern European manufacture.  If your terrain supports a mid range rifle, you still have the thirty caliber round, just with less powder behind it ( don’t get me started on the inferior 223 ).  The SKS is a milled rather than a stamped receiver like the AK and is a much more accurate shooter.  The AK was never meant to be anything other than a true assault carbine and is the far superior one, whereas the SKS can fill the role of a limited marksman.  The fixed magazine fed by stripper clips is actually a plus for the survivalist, since while you can still waste ammunition it isn’t as bad as detachable magazine feeders.  It is a good compromise between a bolt and a quick change semi.  And you can easily turn it into a bolt action if you so desire ( say, if you find out that you can’t control the adrenaline leading to unaimed fire ). 

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Is the SKS superior to an Enfield?  No, of course not.  Except that they are far more abundant and less abused, a tighter shooter without sacrificing ruggedness, and only a few bucks more.  They suffer for being a carbine rather than a battle rifle, but that is being a different tool rather than an inferior one.  The HK is, if scattered reports are factual rather than just one off confirmation biased opinions, actually less accurate than the SKS ( this would obviously need to be confirmed personally-I take the 2“ groups on the HK as factual, I just need to know the SKS betters that ).  So unless you need the range, and are skilled at shooting there, and can live with a reduced power round, the SKS just seems superior ( do NOT under any circumstances buy the Chinese ones ).  You don’t need a scope ( don’t add anything to the rifle, as it just detracts from the performance ) and you don’t need magazines and I’d feel comfortable at three times the amount of ammo of a bolt compared to the ten times you need with a magazine fed semi.  An HK three rifle arsenal, with thirty mags and thirty thousand rounds of ammo is an insane $20k.  A three rifle SKS arsenal and fifteen thousand rounds of brass ammo is $7k ( for comparison, my Enfield’s, ammo and bayonet [ you get one on the SKS, even if it isn’t that great ] ran about $2,500 ).

UNAFFORDABLE PREPPER LIST #2-an SKS arsenal $7k

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Well, we have three to go but I’m afraid our word count is maxed out for the day.  Continued and concluded tomorrow.

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