Category: SHTF

Not Scary

SHTF, The Gun Thing

By now, everybody (and his dog) has seen this pic:

Here’s what strikes me:  that piddly little 9mm carry gun looks like a child’s toy.  (I know, I know:  “You wouldn’t want to be shot with one” yadda yadda yadda.)

How much more threatening if the woman had been carrying something a little more businesslike:

And one last thing, to the frightened hubby:

Dude.  Get your wife some shooting and gun-handling instruction.  Having her stand in the background waving her gun around like a two-year-old doesn’t do anybody anybody any good.  She could have nailed you in the back of the head on about four occasions that I could see, and I wasn’t even looking that hard.

And finally, here’s a 6-minute video link (in the pic) of some girls having fun at the range.

It’s so easy, a child can do it.

Yer welcome.

Dry Wells

SHTF, The Gun Thing

And we all thought Obama was the world’s best gun salesman.  We didn’t know about the Chinkvirus:

There have now been an estimated 8.3 million firearms sold in the United States since March—a record-setting pace likely to make 2020 the greatest year for gun sales in American history if the trend continues.
Gun and ammunition retailers are having trouble keeping up with the demand as Americans flood stores.

And a quote from an FFL:

“Pretty much everything is out of stock. We have been doing it since the late ’70s and have never seen literally no supply available. As of last week, at all major distributors you could not get any guns. Everything was literally sold out. Can’t even get hearing protection.”

At my local gun pusher FFL, I’m told there’s at least a two-month wait for a whole bunch of guns — and an indefinite wait for AR-15s.  I often use Bud’s Gun Shop as a dipstick into the state of the firearms business (also to get an idea of prices), and here’s what a cursory look showed me.  If I applied only two search filters (semi-auto  and 5.56mm NATO ), here’s what came up as being in stock (out of 560 items listed):

…in other words, a “California compliant” monstrosity that nobody wants, and an overpriced POS from Colt.  Everything else — Palmetto, IWI, S&W, Ruger, SIG, Daniel Defense, DPMS, Diamondback, you name it — was out of stock.  Even the Ruger Ranch Rifle was MIA.

One of my contacts at a major distributor confirmed that Bud’s and my local guy are the norm, not the exception.

So I went to Option B:  semi-auto rifles in 9mm Parabellum, once again at Bud’s, who typically advertises / carries about a hundred and thirty different models.  Here’s what they had:

All the rest were MIA.  And note that in the above, I said “had”.  When I went back a few hours later to check, even the Beretta Storm was OOS.

And if people are buying everything in sight in 5.56mm and 9mm, that leads to… yup, ammo scarcity.

Windham Taylor, the outreach manager for Ammo.com, one of the largest ammunition dealers in America, said the company experienced the same strains as the gun dealers. Demand for popular self-defense rounds such as 9mm and 223 has kept the store scrambling to find stock to keep their customers supplied.

Now for my Loyal Readers, none of this is either surprising or alarming.  We have (don’t we? ) an adequate sufficiency of both guns and ammo to tide us over — hell, ammo-wise, in some calibers I’m still living with stuff I purchased during the Dubya Administration — which should keep us going through this rough patch.

And speaking of the Dubya Administration, I remember posting back then:  “These are the Good Times for us gunnies;  this is the time to buy guns and ammo, when restrictions are few, supplies are plentiful and prices are sane.”  I recall that many of us heeded that — at least, according to Reader feedback — and I know that I took my own advice, bigly.

The economic lesson is timeless:  don’t buy during times of scarcity;  buy in times of plenty.

If you do have an itch to buy a gun (and don’t we all, all the time?), this might be a good time to look at bolt-action rifles, lever-action cowboy guns and some revolvers. We all know that in a pinch, a lever-action rifle can do sterling duty as a replacement self-defense gun — yeah, it doesn’t have a 200-round magazine — and I for one would not feel undergunned by any means, if that were all I had.

Back to Bud’s, where if we look at just .45 Colt (because neither the guns or ammo are scarce at the moment), we find that there are over 90 options available, e.g.:

…and for a “companion piece” for the above, there are over 150 options in .45 Colt:

Ooooh that’s better.  In fact, you have to get to Page 3 before the guns start running out of stock.  (Gotta say, Kimmy likes the look of this one, oh yes he does):

…but let’s not get sidetracked here.

One more time:  I accept no responsibility for bank accounts emptied, kids’ college funds raided nor relationships wrecked as a result of the above temptations proving too difficult to avoid.

An aside:  I checked on my stocks of AK-47 feed (7.62x39mm) the other day, and discovered that I had only a single can (~600 rounds) left.  EVERYBODY PANIC! until I discovered a couple of cases lying forgotten in some remote part of the garage — and then, by some cosmic coincidence I’m not even going to try to explain, I got a call from the Son&Heir, who wanted to know why he had five cases of 7.62x39mm in his garage when he doesn’t own an AK.  Guess I lost track of them in the move from the old house.  Panic over.

Talking About Gear 2

SHTF, The Gun Thing

So I tried on my “neighborhood defense” gear yesterday, and OMG it was heavy.  I took a brief walk over to our apartment complex’s mailbox center (without the AK because I don’t want to frighten the rest of Little Mumbai), and I was puffing and panting when I came back — as much for the weight as for the ambient temperature (Texas Early Summer, i.e. +/- 93F).

Gawdnose what it would be like with a webbing mag carrier etc., as shown in yesterday’s post, and a loaded AK.

I need to rethink this.  Maybe I’ll forgo the AK and use the old M1 Carbine instead:  lighter, the ammo is lighter too, AND it would be slightly more concealable under a dust coat than the AK.

Hey, if it was good enough for our fathers’ generation in WWII Europe against actual Nazis…

My only problem is that I don’t have as much .30 Carbine ammo (hardly any compared to the AK), for starters.  However:

I need to think about this whole thing a little more.

Talking About Gear

SHTF

At some point, there may come a time when we (being my Readers, myself and kindred souls) may have to suit up and sally forth to resist the forces of Evil — protecting a neighbor’s house, a local store, a statue or similar artwork, and so on.

I’ve always resisted going full “Camo Barbie” because I think that I (and anyone else) look like a complete tit, clad in wannabe-soldier gear and all that — the term “G.I. Schmo” comes to mind.  It’s all very well for actual soldiers and even for the SWAT-ies to look like that:  spare mags, water bottles, knife/bayonet etc., but while it obviously behooves you to be prepared — we’re all about that — I’m not so sure that looking like some weekend warrior is all that productive.

For one thing, you start looking like all the negative stereotypes that the Left has been demonizing for… well, forever, really.  Just as importantly, though, is that you identify yourself as a target — either to the Pantifa brigades or, more alarmingly, to a police force which doesn’t seem to care about keeping the anarchists in check, but seems perfectly willing to go after us — which isn’t so good.

Nevertheless, if this Pantifa/BLM foolishness is going to continue… let’s just say that I’m starting to change my attitude on this.  But I absolutely refuse to go the full Monty.

If all I’m going to carry is a handgun (Browning HP or 1911) then I’m okay:  I use old-style cell-phone webbing pouches to carry my spare mags, and those coupled with a trouser pocket will give me all the backup I’ll ever need.

The pouches hold either two 15-round HP mags, three 8-round 1911 mags, or two 10-round 1911 Chip McCormick 1911 mags each:  30, 24 and 20 rounds, respectively, along with whatever’s already loaded in the gun.  I don’t think I’d ever need more than one of those options, under almost any circumstances.  (And there’s the S&W 637 backup revolver, in extremis.)

The best part about all this is that it’s easily concealed under a light coat / sport coat, a “shoot-me” vest, a gilet or even just an untucked shirt.

Now add a rifle and spare mags, and you can pretty much rule out going around unnoticed.

…especially with all those spare mags.  Good grief, they look as though they’re about to repel a Taliban attack rather than a bunch of Pantifa pansies or BLM goons.

Now maybe that’s a Good Thing, because nothing says “You’re not going any further in this direction” like a wall of armed American big ol’ boy civilians like the above.  But even ignoring the optics of the situation, all that shit gets really heavy after a while — ask me how I know this — and while it’s okay for our soldiers (with the benefit of daily P.T. exercises) to hump that gear, for us Ole Pharttes and Fat Boys alike that’s not a pleasant prospect, especially as more likely than not, there won’t be much in the way of action.  Anyone who’s pushed guard duty at a base camp will know exactly what I mean.

All that said:  I probably need to look at some kind of webbing gear that, in a pinch, I could sorta-conceal under a dustcoat or similar.  There’s this lot, which seem to have much to recommend them, being that their gear is all made in the U.S.A. and not in fucking China:

And if I were to go with any of their products, it would most likely be this one, tailored for AK mags:

While quite spartan, it’s still too much, although that seems to be about as small as this item runs — I’d prefer to hump only two spare 20-round mags because once again, I don’t see me ever needing more than sixty rounds of 7.62x39mm in any kind of situation where I’m not at home.  (Also:  $80?  For webbing?)  And you can forget about any camo clothing, FFS.  Jeans and so on — “civilian” gear — will be all I ever wear unless I’m drafted into the modern equivalent of the Volkssturm.

So what think you, O My Readers:  am I way off-base here?  Or else, if the  situation calls for the scenario described above, should I just throw on the faithful old photographer’s jacket and toss an AK mag or two into the inside pockets (yes, they can hold them, I checked)?

All thoughts are welcome.

Excellent Advice

SHTF, The Gun Thing

Peter Grant has a post about equipping and handling a rifle, and there’s not a single thing he says that I disagree with.  An excerpt:

It’s easy to say, “I can get rounds on target out to 500 yards” – but that’s probably not true in all circumstances. On a square range, on a calm, sunny day, with no interference or distractions, and a well-braced position, and using good optics, perhaps you can. Now, take a wild, stormy, windy day, with you out of breath, panting and puffing, sweat running down your forehead and into your eyes (having just run a couple of blocks to get away from trouble, with “bad guys” in the offing who are after you, and your family bunched behind you with the kids screaming in fear because they don’t know what’s going on), and you with just “iron sights” or a red dot sight on your close-combat carbine, and no time to take up a settled, stable shooting position . . . now make that critical shot, at whatever range. Go ahead. It’s only your life at stake, and your families’ lives.

Absolutely true.  We had guys in our unit who were absolute monsters on the range, but when faced with serious trouble, it all went to hell in a hurry.  This is also why I know I was a far  better handgun shooter back when I did timed IDPA drills every week, as opposed to the leisurely range sessions I do now.  I went from “average” to “much-better-than-average”, and now I’ve slipped back to “marginally-better-than average” (to be extremely charitable).  What I do know is that the habits I picked up from all those hours of IDPA drills are still there, and can be resurrected (even if a half-second or so slower) in a pinch.

Peter’s thoughts about maintaining your battle rifle are also why I prefer the AK-47 over the AR-15:  throw an AK in the mud, drop it off the back of a truck, and it’ll still shoot.  Good luck doing that with your AR-15, with all its electronic doodads and plastic furniture.

And if you don’t own a copy of Jeff Cooper’s Art of the Rifle, that should be your next book purchase.

Not Grasshoppers

Disaster, SHTF, The Gun Thing

From Shooting Times:

Between private conversations with firearm, ammunition and optic manufacturers over the past two weeks, along with public information disseminated by major gunmakers, I am fairly certain a major disruption in the supply chain for those products and likely many more is coming, and coming soon.

Read the whole thing.

And this, my children (he explained for the thousandth time), is why we gun owners need to have not only a plentiful supply of ammo, but also of guns.

Ant and Grasshopper story (executive summary):  buy and lay in stocks during Times Of Plenty, so that when the Lean Times come busting in through the front door, you don’t have to beg for anything from anyone.

This is as true (or more so) for guns as it is for any other household product.