The Preparedness Articles Category
Manufacturing base and national security
About the author: Kevin Felts graduated high school in 1986. After high school, Kevin went to work in a welding shop that built ASME certified pressure vessels. In 1987 Kevin went to work for a company that built AMSE certified heat exchangers. After working 4 years building heat exchangers, Kevin moved from shop to shop, until he went to community college and went into computers. In all, Kevin has around 14 – 15 years experience in the welding field.
Think working in a factory is only for stupid people that can not make it in college? Think free trade is good? Think cheap products from china (or anywhere else) is a good thing?
Think again.
Besides economic stability, a strong manufacturing base can be retooled during times of war.
One of the problems with the USA, Canada,,, and the rest of the world, we have forgotten what its like to be in a “real” war. This war in Iraq is not a war where our cities are being bombed. We do not even have to buy war bonds like people did during WW2.
If the US went to war with someone like Russia or china, we have no steel mills, we have only a couple of ship yards spread out through the country to build ships with, most of our steel is made overseas, most of our welding tools are made overseas. The shipyards from the 1940s and 1950s have been demolished. All that remains in some locations is an open field. There “might” be left-overs from the old ships yards, but they are far and few in between.
Introduction to reloading
Lets talk about reloading. My first press was a Lyman 4 stage turret press I bought used. I don’t think lyman even makes them anymore. I bought that press sometime around 1988 or 1989, along with some other stuff from a guy I used to work with. Fast forward from 1998 to 2003, I found out the guy I bought the press from died, so I gave the press to his best friend. The last time I saw that old press, it was sitting on a file cabinet in the friends office. I can not even start to count how many thousands of rounds I ran through that turret press.
My next press was an RCBS rockchucker, and finally a piggyback. The RCBS is a solid press that is good for reloading just about anything from 9mm, all the way to 300 winchester magnum and above.
If you want to get into reloading, I highly suggest buying a starter kit. Just about all reloading companies sell some kind of starter kit that includes just about everything you need to get started reloading:
Survivalist OPSEC
As a survivalist, live part of your life by one simple saying – “loose lips sink ships”.
There is an episode of the Twilight Zone where some satellites are picked up as incoming nuclear missiles. One man and his family has taken the time to build a bomb shelter under his house, but none of the other neighbors have taken the time to prepare. As the news of the “missiles” is broadcast over the radio, people started to panic.
The family that had the shelter started moving supplies into the shelter, filling jars with water, grabbing flashlights and batteries, moving canned goods from the kitchen to the shelter,,,,. After the family closed the door to their shelter, the neighbors start beating on the steel door demanding the family let everyone else in.
As the missiles are getting closer, the neighbors start tearing down the steel door of the shelter. As the door is just about to be removed, the news reports that the missiles are really satellites, and the whole alarm was a mistake.
Two rifle calibers for SHTF survival
22 long rifle
Lets say that some kind of long term disaster happens, such as civil unrest, climate change, new disease breaksout. You and your family head to the remote camp. Unless you have a small farm with chickens, rabbits, hogs, or goats, the main source of meat is either going to be fishing or hunting.
The 22 long rifle is well suited for taking just about any small game in North America, maybe even anywhere in the world.
If the muzzle report is a concern, stock upon 22 shorts or sub-sonic ammo.
If you need a little more power then the 22 long rifle, there is the 22 magnum.
When my dad was growing up, one of the families main sources of food was small game, like squirrels. For hunting the tree rats, my dad used 22 shorts. When I was growing up, my dad used to take me and my brother squirrel hunting every winter. Instead of using a 22 rifle, we used shotguns – my dad used a 12 gauge with #4 shot, and I used my single shot Winchester 410. when I got old enough, my dad bought me a Montgomery Ward Western Field (Mossberg) 12 gauge pump shotgun.
Related forum section: Ruger 10/22 Forum
One of the big differences between the 22 long rifle and a shotgun, is the cost of the ammunition. Where a box of 25 shotgun shells might cost $10 – $15, a brick of 500 round of 22 long rifle cost less then $20.
Wasting food after a disaster
This weekend my family and I rented beach house and spent a couple of days at the beach. This was our last summer bash before old man winter arrives.
Something that was observed during breakfast reaffirms my belief that children will waste the most food then any other group during a long term shtf survival situation.
Several months ago my family and I had a cookout. When we have a cookout, we have a “COOKOUT” – ribs, brisket, beans,,,, the works. After everyone had packed up and went home, my wife and I started cleaning up the yard. It was during the clean up that I found something that irritated me – one of the children and taken a single bite out of a babyback rib, and then threw the rib on the ground. The size of the bite mark indicated a childs mouth.
With the rib being thrown on the ground, we were dealing with 2 different things – 1, a parent that is not watching their children; 2, a child that was just outright wasting food.
Video about cooking some ribs and brisket on the pit.
Being a liability to a survival group
There are two types of people in a survival group – assets and liabilities. In your survival group, how do you determine who is a liability and who is an asset. For the sake of discussion, lets talk about liabilities.
Liabilities to a survival group usually do not:
Stockpile food – they do not take the time to prepare and kind of food stocks besides some canned goods, noodles, pasta,,, the typical stuff someone would keep in their cabinet.
Instead of having food stored in mylar bags or buying #10 cans, liabilities trust that other people will stockpile food for them. Storing food in mylar bags is not expensive, but it is time consuming. The liability usually does not want to dedicate any extra time to preparing their food stockpile.
If liabilities do have food stocked up, its going to be just enough for a few days, maybe a week or two at the longest.
When their food stocks run out, the liability will ask the other members of the survivalist group for help.
During a long term SHTF survival situation, the most in demands items are going to be food and safe drinking water. Even though food will be one of the most in demand items, its also one of the most overlooked items of the liability. Where a survivalist takes the time to study their food preps and stockpile food, the liability will usually shop at the local grocery store and only buy what their family needs within the next week or 2 weeks.
Hunter Gatherer or Farmer Survivalist
What kind of long term survival plans do you have? Do you plan on bugging out to the wilderness and living a hunter gatherer lifestyle, or do you plan on living the lifestyle of a farmer gardener?
Hunter Gatherer
Our ancestors lived a hunter gatherer lifestyle for hundreds of thousands of years. For some people hunting, gathering roots, gathering berries and fishing the rivers might seem like an attractive lifestyle. I wonder if those types of people are influenced by their genes? Do the survival that plan on bugging out to the wilderness carry more the genetic code for the hunter gatherer lifestyle?
The problem with the hunter gatherer lifestyle, those types of people only plan a few days or weeks ahead of time. Tribes followed the herds along their yearly migration routes. There was little planning – follow the herd, kill something, gather roots, gather berries, catch some fish, follow the herd,,, repeat, as they were required to gather food almost daily. People learned that if they dried meat and fish, or salted the meat and fish it lasted longer. During the Lewis and Clark expedition, the explorers noted that the North American Indians dried their fish to store it during the winter. But man can not live on dried fish alone.
Farming and Gardening
It’s estimated that maybe 7,000 years ago people started adopting the farming and gardening lifestyle over the hunter gatherer lifestyle.
As communities started planting crops, we started thinking in 3 – 4 month periods. People started making calenders, counting the days of the year, planting crops, harvesting seeds, drying crops to save them over the winter, domesticating livestock,,,,,.
People started paying attention to when it was time to work the fields and plant the crops. A few months later its time to harvest the crops and put the crops up for the winter.
After people started planting crops, they found out that they had to stay in the area to take care of the fields.
Shortsighted Survival Plans
After watching Hurricane Irene hit the east coast, the fires in Texas, and the earthquake in the northeast,,,, do you think people will go into a long term panic buying mode? Meaning, will people start stockpiling food, guns, water and ammunition more then usual?
When there is a disaster, people usually kick into some kind of short term panic buying mode for a few weeks. People will buy all of the batteries, flashlights, camp stoves, 1 pound propane bottles,,, and even ice chest stores have in stock. But after the disaster passes, people seem to forget about the disaster and return to what their life was before anything happened.
With the recent events, do you plan on changing your spending habits to buy a few more canned canned goods then normal.
After Hurricane Rita, there were people complaining they did not have gas to drive to the food lines. Even though they had several days warning, they did not gas up their vehicles. The local radio station would have a talk show where people could call in, and important information was broadcast to the community. There were people calling in and asking how they were supposed to get to the food lines? the radio host asked them if they had been watching the news before Rita made landfall. The people that called in to the radio station usually had some kind of excuse to justify their actions.
What is wrong with people, the news says there is a major storm on the way, and they do not even buy some basic canned goods and gas up their car. I guess they think the government will be there to help them within a few hours after the storm passes.
Video about stockpiling LED Flashlights, Seeds and Lithium Batteries
Long term survival food preps
When someone says “survival food preps” or “stockpiling survival food“, what do you think of? Do you think of tons of dried rice and beans stored in mylar bags? How about a basement full of #10 cans, does that come to mind? Or is it a combination of several things?
When I was thinking of writing an article about survival food preps, the first thing that popped into my head was – MREs, canned goods and garden seeds. But where does perishable goods fit into that narrow picture? For the first week or so people are going to be eating stuff out of their freezer. For the sake of discussion, lets move past that first week post SHTF. Something bad has happened, the food in the grocery stores has dried up, people have gone through their immediate perishable food items,,,, now what?
A book about the Roman military I just finished reading contained a quote from an ancient historian – “nothing caused as much stress within the troops as the lack of supplies.” Just like it says, when the supplies started to run low, the stress level went up. 2,000 years later, and nothing has changed.
When people worry about paying their house note, stress goes up.
When people worry about not having the money to pay the rent, stress goes up.
When people worry about having food to eat, stress is “really” going to go up.
People are visual animals – we like to see stuff. There has been test that showed that just the sight of food can relieve stress. When I open an empty cabinet, my stress level instantly goes up. Thats why I think it would be a good idea to have food out where people can see it post SHTF. Maybe not food that can spoil, but leave some cans of chili on the cabinet, leave a few MREs out, leave a bag of rice out,,,, stuff that bugs can not get into, but gives the members of your party something to look at.
Types of survival food preps:
MREs / Pre-Packaged Meals
Examples can include the Just in Case Meals from Prepared.pro, the good ole military Meal Ready to Eat, Eversafe Meals, Sure-Pak MREs, Mainstay meals and everything in between.
One thing that I really like about the pre-packaged meals, they can be handed out members of the group, and eaten when their ready. Communal cooking and eating is good, but not everyone is ready to eat at the same time. Having their own meals allows people to snack or eat their meals when their ready – on top of the communal meals.
A case of MREs contains 12 packaged meals. Because each package contains so much food it in, each MRE might contain 1.25 – 2 servings. Depending on the activity level of the person, they might eat more or less of the MRE. But for the sake of discussion lets say that the average person only eats 75% of everything in the MRE – leaving the desert, beans, cracker, snack bread or peanut butter for later. This means that a case of MREs might feed 1 person for 5 – 7 days.
Bug out location stove and grill
Some kind of disaster has happened, you and your family have moved to the bug out location, you open a #10 can of chili mac,,, and now what? What are your plans on cooking that the bug out location?
In other words, the SHTF, and now what? How do you plan on cooking at your bug out location?
In this article we are going to be looking at propane stoves, wood stoves, and wood grills.
Propane:
Propane is a short term answer to a long term problem. Propane has several advantages – it stores well, it burns clean, and propane has multiple uses.
Two of the main reasons why I like propane – it stores well, and it has a multiple of uses. I can buy the 2 pack of 1 pound propane bottles, store them at the camp, and the fuel never expires. Then there are the wide range of attachments for the bottles – lanterns, stoves and space heaters.
When the weather gets cold, my brother takes a small space heater to his deer stand. Go back a year later and the stove still works.
When we need some light outside, get a propane lantern.
Need to warm up a meal, get the propane stove out and cook something up.
At the camp we have a 250 gallon propane tank which is used to fuel the furnace and the stove. When the power goes out, we can light a couple of the burners on the stove, and we are able to heat just about the whole house with just a couple of burners going.
A buddy of mine has a 500 gallon propane tank that he plans on using for his generator.
Besides 1 pound propane bottles, 250 gallon and 500 gallon propane tanks, there are the 20 pound propane bottles.
Instead of using the 1 pound propane bottles, people can stockpile the 20 pound bottles, then get an adapter to power lanterns, stoves and other devices.
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