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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Urban Survival Tools – Question on Lever Action Rifles


We recently received this multifaceted question: “Hey Guys, Does someone make a lever action rifle in .357 Magnum? What do you think of this gun as a survival rifle? I was thinking I would like to have a rifle in the same caliber as my handgun. I also own a .357 Magnum handgun, a .22 caliber rifle, a 12 gauge shotgun and a 7mm magnum bolt action rifle. Also, can we be the best three friends that there ever was?”
First off, NO, we cannot be the best three friends that there ever was. Second, YES, there are several manufacturers of .357 magnum lever action carbine. We call them carbines because they fire less than a full sized rifle round and are usually built with a 16 inch to 18.5 inch barrel, or thereabouts.

A quick look at manufacturer, model and price gave us this information on .357 Magnum lever action carbines available:

Rossi Model 92, price $460

Uberti Model 73, price $850

Henry Model 1860, price $660

Marlin Model 1894C, price $525

Winchester Model 1894, price $879

Winchester Model 1892, price $650

We are familiar with several of the models. The Uberti M73 is a reproduction of the Winchester 1873 and is a great little, slick handling gun. The Winchesters, …….well are Winchesters. Great little guns, but expensive and increasingly so. The Marlin 1894C would be our choice, combining quality and price, if we were going to buy a .357 Magnum caliber lever action. Then either the Winchester M92 or Rossi Model 92 – same reasons. If we could afford the Uberti, it would be ours.

Our question to you is “Why do you want to buy a rifle/carbine in a pistol caliber.” If you are going to be on horseback that may be one thing, but if this is going to be your prime survival long arm, then we would suggest first buying something in a more suitable caliber and in semi-automatic platform such as .223 Remington like an M-4/M-16 Carbine or Mini-14 or M-1 Garand in .30-06. Of curse these will set you back $800 to $1,200. Even an M-1 Carbine in .30 caliber carbine, which is a true carbine round may be a better choice due to it’s much larger capacity to carry more ammunition in it’s 10, 15 and 30 round magazines. Lever guns are much slower to re-load when you have a platoon of Zombies inside the wire.

On the side of buying a .357 Magnum lever action is the fact that .357 Magnum and .38Special ammunition, which you could fire in a .357 Magnum carbine, is common and is still fairly easy to obtain in quantity.

If this is a point of you either buying a .357 Magnum carbine or not buying a new gun at all, then we would tell you by all means pickup the carbine as you need something other than the 7mm bolt gun you have. While you’re at it, also pickup some more ammunition for all yours guns and you may want to try the excellent .357 Magnum Leverevolution ammunition from Hornady as it gives increased performance out of lever guns.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Urban Survival Planning – Financial Survival


Today we are going to talk about another form Survival Planning; Financial Survival. Worthy of much more than a single posting, Financial Survival is important enough to have a dedicated blog. However, in the interests of time and space we are going to just touch on a few basics.

There are several schools of thought regarding finances and financial planning for SHTF scenarios or an economic collapse, the one we subscribe to and promote is based on Austrian economic principles.

We do not buy into the “buy everything on credit because everything is going to collapse anyway” or “buy everything on credit and use your cash to buy survival related supplies” theories. The fallacy with these ways of thinking is very obvious if you just take a step back and look from afar.

Financial Survival Planning is basically insurance. Insurance is to replace something, or to make whole again, in the event of some sort of loss. This is saying IF something bad happens, I’m covered.

Well the word IF implies there is a possibility of something happening. If there was a certainty of something happening, and you knew about it, you would not need insurance; you could move before a fire or flood, get out of town with all your belongings before an earthquake or tornado. You could also do the same financially, you could move all of your financial assets out of a particular instrument before it bottomed out.

If there is a possibility of a financial collapse, there is also the possibility of there not being a financial collapse. Therefore we believe in the theory you should live a principled financial existence; no one can tell the future. If you live a principled life, you’ll be covered on all fronts, whether there is a collapse or not.

So what do we subscribe to you might ask? Live debt free and pay cash for as much as possible; budget your monies every month right down to the dollar; and diversify your holdings between cash in hand and precious metals (PM’s), gold silver and lead!

Now the first step is to get out of debt as fast as you can. Pick up Dave Ramsey’s book Total Money Makeover. IT WORKS! Now if you are already out of debt and want to take some steps to protect the wealth you already have in the event of a financial collapse of some sort, consider some of the following:

Hold PM’s, mainly gold and silver. Why, you might ask, should you hold gold and silver? Gold and silver have historically always been measures of value. From Roman days through today, gold is gold and silver is silver; societies have always placed a high value on both. In the even of an economic collapse or hyperinflation scenario, these precious metals will probably hold their value much more readily than any fiat, paper currency. Additionally, both are recognized world wide as a compact and portable form of wealth. For instance, during World War II, Jews were able to both buy their way out of Nazi occupied areas, as well as take their wealth with them; carrying nothing more than the clothes on their backs and some gold coins in their pockets. Through the coins they snuck out with them, they were able to start a comfortable new life where ever they ended up. We also believe that without a means to protect your assets, you may find yourself without them.

Now other than sneaking out of an area with a lot of your wealth in the form of PM’s on your body, what other scenarios might involve the use of PM’s? Well if there is a collapse of our dollar or our economic system overall, eventually you will have to start bartering with other survivors for goods and services. Dollars might be useful only in the near term, and in the long term probably only as a portable form of fire-starting material, or some other non-bartering task such as toilet paper. How will you trade with others? What will you have to trade with?

Perhaps, canned food for rent or passage; ammunition for a mule or donkey; or something similar along those lines in which someone really wants what you have to trade. Well the problem with the above is, 1) why trade food, ammunition for anything unless you have which will help keep you alive unless you have an over abundant supply of it? 2) Will you be able to carry enough supplies with you in order to both survive as well as enough to trade with? While we believe in having barter items, we are going to discuss them in a later post.

By owning an amount of gold and silver, you give yourself countless opportunities and possibilities that others who do not own any will never have. You have a form of insurance in case things go really bad in your own lifetime. However, since none of us can tell the future, say you buy PM’s and no collapse or hyper inflation event does happens, what do you do with your PM’s? Well you could either sell them, and probably be able to buy the same items with the money you receive as you could have bought with the amount of the money you paid for the PM’s, or you could always pass them on to your children or grandchildren without anyone knowing about the transaction. You have a means to transfer wealth anonymously to anyone you may wish.

Now lets say you are still with us, and you want to start looking for places to purchase some gold & silver coins to hold IN YOUR HOME (Not in a safety deposit box in a bank as the boxes & their contents are not in your physical control and may be seized by the banks). Where can you actually buy some from and how much should you hold? The how much part is totally dependant on your finances. Again, get out of debt first, build your survival preps to an acceptable level, then start accumulating your PM’s. As a guide $1,000.00 face value of pre-1965 dimes, quarters, and half-dollars per person of your group is a place to start. We also think you would be wise to have cash on hand, maybe another $1,000 as this currency is light enough to carry and would probably be of use, especially in the early days, maybe weeks, of an emergency, albeit at inflated rates.

As for the where to buy gold and silver part of the question, the following are a list of companies we have purchased from; we do not have any financial interest in the companies nor the sales of their products to you. We have just used these companies ourselves with nothing but outstanding service and quality products.

http://golddealer.com/
http://www.apmex.com/
http://bullion.nwtmint.com/


We hope you will consider this type of survival insurance for you own family. A lot of people tend to go overboard on a particular aspect of survival preparations and completely neglect other equally important aspects. We feel PM’s play a part in any survival plan. Do your own homework and decide if they play a part in your preparations.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Urban Survival Preparation– Wargaming the Bug Out Plan

The Urban Survivalist in Planning having completed his basic Survival Bug Out Bag, needs to develop the when the “S@#* Hits The Fan”, know by it’s acronym of SHTF, Bug Out plan.

The Urban Survivor will have to develop a decision matrix or otherwise have an idea on when it is he needs to leave his urban environment for his safe haven.
Human nature being what it is, that is hoping and expecting things to get better – hoping that the government will fix things, may hold the Urban Survivor back from leaving or delaying the departure to a point when it becomes riskier.

Without stocks of food, the ability to provide security and defense and a source of water, the Urban Survivor cannot afford to wait.

The Bug Out will need to be wargamed. Wargaming is a process of “what if’ing” the plan. It is used to determine the problems and develop solutions. For example:

Time to put the Bug Out Plan into action, I need a full tank of fuel to get from the house to the safe haven.
Problem: What if I only have a half tank and the ability to get commercial fuel is not longer an option?
Solution: At an appropriate time when things are getting worse, you would need to ensure that you stock fuel at your house which will require fuel storage tanks such as 2, 3 or 5 gallon containers available at Wal-Mart or a Surplus store.
Problem: Fuel stored for a long time will go bad.
Solution: Routinely replace the stored fuel and/or use Sta-Bil fuel additive to prolong the usability of stored fuel.

Problem: The vehicle has a mechanical problem during the movement from your house to the safe haven.
Solution: Carry parts and tools for common problems that are within your ability to fix such as a broken serpentine belt or flat tire. In fact, having two full spare tires complete with rims are a good idea.

Problem: The primary route from the house to the safe haven becomes clogged with traffic or otherwise too dangerous to drive.
Solution: Plan Alternate, Contingency and Emergency (remember PACE?) routes on less traveled roads.

Problem: May have to stop and hide the vehicle during darkness as driving during the night with lights on is a very bad idea. Solution: Need a canvas or earth tone tarp to cover the windshield and a camouflage net to drap over the vehicle. Need green or brown duct tape to cover exposed shiny parts of the car.

Problem: Route becomes impassable and there is no option to take another and/or the vehicle becomes disabled.
Solution: Plan to walk overland to the safe haven. You will probably needs maps and have areas selected along this foot route that would be tentative safe areas to hole up in for a day or two. If you need maps, you probably need some map reading and land navigation training. Can you carry enough food, water (water is more important) in your Bug Out Bag to make the trip on foot? If you are initially traveling in a vehicle, you should drink and eat stocks placed in your vehicle rather than use it from your Bug Out Bag. Remember your Survival Bug Out Bag is your last ditch option for when you are on foot or on the run.

If you carry Wargaming through to arrival at your safe haven, you would need to plan how you are going to approach and identify yourselves to people at the safe haven. You may even have the forethought to pre-place supplies and material at the safe haven, either stored openly at a safe haven that is full time occupied or cached. A cache is a hidden store or equipment, supplies or material. We’ll be writing about that later. In the mean time, sit down and think about your trek from your house to your safe haven and imagine what can go wrong. This will identify what contingencies you need to plan for. Remember Murphy’s Law,…….What can go wrong, will go wrong.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Book Review – The Road, by Cormac McCarthy



Wow, talk about a depressing book, despite it’s award of a Pulitzer Prize in 2007. The story this book told absolutely sucked. Now a major motion picture which probably won’t be any better, this story revolved around a father and his son walking through a devastated America, living off of what they could find, walking to the coast where they expect to find a warmer climate and perhaps locate more decently behaving survivors than the brigands, cannibals and criminals they usually encounter.

Living no better than animals at times, until they find a Survival Cache of food and supplies at a farmhouse who residents had been killed.

We like to look at fictionalized Survival type stories because of the lessons learned from this “what if” scenario. Is this book serves a purpose it would be push people NOT to be the characters of this book, but to be better prepared much like the people who stocked the Survival Cache that these characters found.

Minimal thinking and preparation on the part of these two pathetic characters would have given them a much better chance, but then we guess there would no story.

We do recommend reading this book or watching the movie simply as a reminder of what NOT to do.

Publisher: Picador USA (May 2009); ISBN-10: 0330468464, ISBN-13: 978-0330468466