Tuesday, August 9, 2016

and stack it deep


AND STACK IT DEEP
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note:
Sir Lord Baltimore:  I got your donation of the latest Kuntsler book.  Much appreciated as it saves me the money I was going to spend on it.  Heck, I have the first two so I HAVE to get the third.  You might consider this a small donation but I think the world of your consideration and generosity.  Thank you!
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Twenty years ago, when it seemed that the Peace Dividend was a real thing, when former Soviet oil gushers combined with newly opened Chinese factories, when our economy was doing so well we gave Clinton a pass on his/her nonsense, you could easily stockpile for the Apocalypse in relative ease.  You could afford payments on Idaho land, with a job to go along with it, and you could stock your retreat with decent quality very cheap Wal-Mart goods.  If you didn’t always have the best luck buying your super deluxe semi-auto carbine of choice, you sure could buy the hell out of ammunition.  You could Buy It Cheap And Stock It Deep.  My, how times have changed.  You still need to stack ammo deep, but you can forget it being cheap.  Today, as a reward for slogging through quite a bit of anthropology, evolutionary biology and politics, I reward you with that rare and elusive gun/ammo article.  Nothing quite stirs the bubbling pot of liquid fecal matter as talking guns or chainsaws.

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You could make the case with firearms that, adjusted for inflation, they are much cheaper than twenty years ago.  Of course, a lot of that had to do with artificial scarcity brought on by the Clinton Ban.  But even so, really, if you want an AR they are barely above prices even thirty years ago.  Nine mil autos are cheaper than dirt ( perhaps due to many more imports? ).  If there is adequate competition due to demand, right now for a small window of time it is a buyers market in a few select military type weapons.  Everything else seems to be a mixed bag.  Reproduction black powder arms are way up, even with Indian production and an Italian economy suffering.  You would think the price would decrease.  Any wood in the design seems to increase the price substantially ( although, granted, that would be more of a design demand deficit rather than a material shortages ).  Right now, even after the Clinton nomination, I think we are seeing a glut in some guns due to everyone jumping into the supply side over the last few years.  Who knows how long it will last.  Other firearms in less demand don’t have the economics of scale and must cost more to produce. 

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But ammunition is certainly not following suite.  Increased demand and production on plastic firearms is one thing.  Plastic is still the go-to material for everything whenever possible.  And anyone can start a company putting together AR parts.  Due to demand many companies are producing those.  But with ammunition, the technology scale is too steep for small shops to get into the game.  A few big companies churn out ammo.  And their commodity constraints are far more severe than the firearms companies.  They are more directly bidding against global demand.  Now, again, if you adjust for inflation ammunition isn’t all that bad of a price.  But there are far less of us working now, and those jobs pay less with less hours in the week, and with far more expensive budgetary items competing for the remaining dollars than previous ( what has medical insurance gone up?  Three times?  Four? ).  It is like with oil.  Sure, the price is really down.  And nobody can afford it because there is no money coming in to buy the products that oil will construct.

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But you still need ammo, don’t you?  You will be at such a disadvantage militarily without it that not having it is not an option.  You certainly don’t need more ammunition to burn off quickly.  You need it because your descendents also need to be armed.  If you go around blowing off 1% of your rounds every time some idiot yells “cover me!”, you won’t have enough ammunition to last anywhere close to your lifetime, let alone your grandkids.  Your ammo supply is not meant for firefights, primarily, as ascertained by all the 2nd Generational Warfare  General Guru’s out there, small people with small penises thinking small thoughts to accompany their small person complexes.  These are the same people that cheered on the burning of all our petroleum, not as investments for the future but as a mere consumer item to enrich themselves.  How hard is it to understand the word “finite”?  I mean, you can buy a dictionary at the thrift store for fifty cents or use the one on your word processor.  Or even Google it. 

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Do not guzzle your ammunition supply in an orgy of noise and panic, thinking that your enemies will be decimated merely because you fill the air with lead.  Sip it with ambushes and self defense and hunting.  Guerilla warfare, and being smart enough to avoid the worst places to live.  If your ammunition supply is FINITE, that means you must conserve.  I know, how un-American!  Believe it or not, you actually fight how you are armed.  If the factories back home produce all the ammunition you can waste, you can use ammunition as a substitute for other tactics.  If there will be no more ammunition, change your tactics to reflect that.  The semi-auto ammunition wasting crowd ( all the survival gurus and 99% of survivalists ) can’t understand FINITE and CONSERVE.  They are incapable of escaping that thought process.  And they are still fighting Second Generational warfare ( with its “infantry holds, artillery destroys” ) rather than Forth ( which is “guerilla” ).

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Your children and grandchildren can have military superiority due to your foresight, or they can return quickly to primitive weaponry because of your refusal to accept anything other than conventional thinking.  You aren’t hurting my feelings here, making sweet love to your AR and your combat carry of 200 rounds.  You are hurting your family.  I’m just the messenger, dudes.  Stock ammo deep, then don’t waste it, so your descendents may be armed with superior weapons.

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28 comments:

  1. Amen Lord Bison. My thoughts exactly but you put it so well.

    I have a wee bit of ammo put up. I don't plan on getting into any firefights but you never know. I have a few tools to do that. But I also have bolt actions and ammo for them. I have a commie M-44 and assorted ammo for that ranging from new brass to a 440 can of the old corrosive steel cased as a last resort. I also have a few American Bolt actions and a fair amount of ammo for those, although that is a week spot in my preps. I have auto pistols but I also have revolvers. I plan on using my 22s as much as possible since I stocked when it was cheap.

    Yes the economy is on a backwards slide and going to get much worse. Mine is ok. About to finish paying off half my child support. Separate baby momma's. And my job just went to 12 hours shifts 84 hours every two weeks and that translated into a 10% take home raise. Hopefully i can keep my head well above water for a bit. Contract time is coming up in 2 years so I am planning to be jobless possibly and getting my ducks in a row. Saving to build my house but that money will keep me afloat in the singlewide for a while if we don't get a new contract and if my pension holds up all the better.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Too few are focused on guns and ammo but not the econ collapse. You never know for sure if we go Mad Max but we are already almost a decade in on the economic feces flush. You sound like your priorities are in line with reality.

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  2. My plan is to sell, all my semi arms when the price is right. Converting the proceeds toward more long term food and more bolt ammo etc.
    Before the ban goes into effect !
    If not....well , it will go to an early grave ha ha.

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    Replies
    1. And you'll find a line of willing suckers.

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    2. I"ll sell some but will keep an option or two. Good thinking.

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    3. I suspect you are way ahead of me here in the planning.

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  3. Totally agreed- the more ammo you have the better.
    Obviously you should only spend money on ammo that you can use (or resell at a profit -though that might not be smart) but you should have if not thousands of rounds then hundreds of thousands cached rounds of ammo for every firearm you plan to use during and after the crash and then a few hundred thousand more rounds.
    Obviously you wont get there right away, but you should not buy any firearm you cant feed- every time I see a firearm for sale I look at whether or not I can feed it ammo and figure that into the price. Thus I only have 3 calibers of ammo to stock, and one of them is a caliber I am only keeping for the first few months of collapse.

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    Replies
    1. I don't think I'll ever get to even 10k on anything other than 22. Too many other items to stock.

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    2. LOL hundreds of thousands. Yeah right.
      We have maybe 10k and enough to make 10k more and that's about all I intend to keep on hand. If I end up needing more than that I'll take everything available and dump it into a 55 gal drum and touch it off while standing next to it just as the horde leader reaches for my throat. fukkem - we ALL go down.

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    3. Hundreds of thousands ??
      Yea right, along with that seven story underground bunker huh :-)

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  4. Yay - ammo post ! Thanks Mr. Dakin !

    I agree - using up ammunition in firefights is idiotic. Hiding out and picking off the home / camp owner when they are exposed is more easier. Come night time though, with no artificial lighting available - all bets are off. I would think night time attacks would become more common.

    I know - boobytraps. Start looking around and check out routes that persons would attack from. Nasty surprises for them would help your odds.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Get the WWII Jap military manual on night fighting. Free e-book.

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    2. Using plentiful deadfall we have created specific *avenues* around the entire perimeter of the estancia to force assailants into my preferred placements.

      See, my uncles training in hasty obstacles in combat engineer school pays off.

      U ncle
      S am
      A in't
      R eleased
      M e
      Y et

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    3. I already have it from my Paladin Press days of yore Jap book. NINJA SECRETS OF INVISIBILITY is not totally accurate - I can make my body disappear but my head and shoes still show up - damn it !!

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    4. You have to buy the sequel to get total invisibility.

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    5. GS-I don't think I've ever heard that acronym. I like it.

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  5. This article reminds me of a story a man told me. He said when he was a kid during the depression he had a single shot 22 and 20 ga. he got 1 shell for every squirrel 1 of each gun for a rabbit, a deer was worth 10 shells for each gun. His mom bought the shells from grocery money and expected meat. Ammo cost cash and if he missed he had to work to pay her back. So ammo to him was cash and food.

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    Replies
    1. Amazing, right? Ammo used to be scarce, and will be again. Alas, most think this is rocket surgery.

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    2. Is it true you can jam a bunch of match heads down the barrel of a single shot shotgun, then some powder, and some thumbtacks and use it in an emergency, or tied to a tree at head level with a tanglefoot tripwire?

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    3. Wouldn't you have more shotgun ammo than matchheads?

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  6. I've kicked around the idea of starting a reloading business. Bring me your empty pipes and I'll pack em right, for 1/2 price.

    The problem is the routine is mostly boring, like factory work. Sitting down and knocking out a few hundred for myself is OK but doing a few thousand a day for others is probably too much to ask.

    And then there's the notion of forced liability. You know, some asswipe slams one my freshly minteds into a scalding hot barrel and gets a cook off that totals his face and his wife/mother/asshole decides I'm responsible for it and hires a mouthpiece.

    Thats as far as that line of thought ever gets. People, make doing business with people, impossible.

    Maybe after the burn-off next year, the lawyers will be too busy fearing for their lives, to run loose bothering sane people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How about cost plus you keep X amount of the brass? Then you only take as much business as you desire. Would there be less liability that way with no monetary reward? Then, when ammo gets scarce you have the tools/supplies, extra brass, customers, and can charge a lot more?

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    2. Then there is also Obummers latest EO requiring all reloaders to purchase a manufacturer's license.

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    3. Details? Even someone buying 1k brass or a few pounds of powder? Or are we talking other than private use?

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  7. I don't know, I think unless one happens to run into someone looking for slaves, everyone DOES have enough ammo to last almost the rest of their lives; it's just a question of how long do you want that to be? ;-)

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    Replies
    1. Right, so Yuppies have enough for one firefight. They will, if lucky, get to fire off all thirty three magazines from the four semi's they carry.

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  8. Just ran across a quote I had to share about the coming revolution against TPTB/Bankers/1%/etc.

    "It's okay to have steak when there's a chicken in every pot.
    But if you're eating steak and the majority of people have nothing, it doesn't take long for you to look like a chicken."


    Which clearly ties into what you have explained on this blog of yours.
    The resource contraction we are suffering right now will not allow the population we have now, but if TPTB were smart we *could* step down the population in a controlled manner, while stepping down lifestyles towards the hippie green dream. It could be done but TPTB choose instead to maintain an illusion of perpetual growth, while taking advantage of the contraction to acquire more wealth and power and live ever more extravagant lifestyles (in comparison to the 99%). They will end up hiring their own armies for self defense. It wont work. Lampposts will end up decorated by the wealthiest 10-20% of the population (yes more will suffer from the revolt than the ones actually benefiting from the acts of TPTB. Then new PTB will sweep in, and things probably will get worse.

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    1. Most times I actually doubt the PTB have any understanding of anything other than making more money. I hope the revolt does take them by surprise. Love that quote. If you have Netflix, watch "The Admiral". Very well done presentation on the masses in revolt turning on the scapegoats.

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