Paul Helinski

Riflescopes have come a long way in the last ten years. It used to be that only elite hunters paid big money for high quality scopes, and those scopes mostly came from Germany. I don’t know if patents ran out on manufacturing methods, or manufacturing just got that much better overseas, but these days there are a lot of great scopes that are crystal clear even in low light conditions, and they don’t cost big money. You can still spend over $5,000 on a riflescope, but for $1,000 to $2,000 you can get what I’ve found to be as good a scope for a lot less (and sometimes even less than $1,000). This Burris XTR II 4x-20x is made in Malaysia, and I would put it against scopes many times its cost.

Very few shooting experiences make me smile from ear to ear, so I feel it necessary to share this very unique “full auto” fun surprise. The Gletcher M712 is an “adult” airgun that looks, feels and works just like an original Mauser “Broomhandle,” which is the American name for the C96, called that because of the wooden rounded grip.

This is the start of a new series I have been thinking about called “Cheap Guns.” I don’t know if cheap is the right word, but it’s the word people use when they encounter a $200 firearm of just about any type. “That’s cheap!” But the next words are something like “I wonder if it is any good.” My goal is to go out and buy some of these guns, some of the more common ones, and go shoot them.

Our last visit to the topic of perimeter security took a look at a really nifty tripwire system I found on Ebay. It busts a .22 caliber nailgun blank, and you can hear it for miles on a quiet night in the country. It is extremely low-tech and electricity free, and it works. For this article I am following up with a couple of wireless options, one expensive and one pretty cheap, and both also work really well. Nobody wants to rely on batteries, but any tripwire system is going to have several basic drawbacks:

If you think about it, communication with the outside world is going to become really important in the weeks and months after a system collapse or major disaster. You may have food and water for months, but you don’t have it for years. And as I explained in my article on seeds, growing your own food just isn’t that easy. But as several commenters pointed out on the first radio article in this series, there is a strong argument to maintain radio silence. Any experienced radio operator can triangulate your position as soon as you press the send key, and in any survival situation, you can bet that there will be hostiles out there listening for where they can steal some supplies. Radio silence has to be weighed against the benefits of reaching out to the world outside.

Preserving BTUs is what survival cooking is all about. An armful of sticks can burn up in a few minutes and cook you nothing, or it can burn for two hours and cook you dinner, sterilize your water, and heat your bath. It all depends on how much oxygen you can keep from getting to the flames while the wood burns. Initially I thought “rocket stoves” were a gimmick, aimed at draining the well meaning survivalist of some cash and little else, but now I’m sold. The StoveTec rocket stove you see here in the pictures is currently $118 on the StoveTec website, and on Amazon, with free shipping. It works killer, and will likely cook your dinner every night for years, in return for a handful of small dried branches you pick up from the ground.

You have probably already surmised that GunsAmerica is an enthusiast site run by enthusiasts. Therefore I feel it my duty to report on really cool stuff I encounter that relates specifically to guns and shooting sports, and other stuff that gun guys usually like. If you have been following my Prepping 101 series, you may have already read the “What is Your Fighting Knife” story, and in that I mentioned that there are some great deals to be had right on Ebay. Why these idiots from Pakistan don’t sell on GunsAmerica is beyond me of course, but I’m an Ebay junkie anyway. What I found of late is that as Christmas gets closer, the opposite of what you would expect is happening. Demand has been slow, and the prices have been coming way way down. Incredibly gorgeous Damascus pattern Bowie knifes and other patterns of hunting knife are going for crazy low money, and I can’t help but share you with you the deals I have found. The digest for this article is coming out on December 22nd, so if you don’t visit here during the week you probably missed out on gift buying for others, but who needs other people when you can can just buy gifts for yourself?

With Christmas approaching, it is a great time to think about all of those upgrades to your guns you have been thinking about. One I have been considering for some time is putting a scope mount on my M1A, but my assumptions were that it was both expensive and difficult, requiring a gunsmith. Turns out I was wrong on both counts. There are expensive options and inexpensive options for installing a rear scope mount on the M1A, and they work equally as well. I tried both the official Springfield Armory mount, as well as a couple exact copies, as well as a new design from UTG. They all worked, and some better than others.

Zanders Live Feed is NOW on GunsAmerica.com! Brick & Mortar gunshops are starting to understand the importance and usefulness of the internet when it comes to in-store face to face sales. Transfer fees are becoming a thing of the past as customers learn that their best bet, even purely on price, is to buy the [...]