Articles by Paul Helinski

It is almost laughable when you hear people say “I don’t want to survive in whatever world is left after the collapse.” I promise you that every one of them will be singing a different tune when they are wasting away from thirst and hunger. “I don’t want to die like this!” That is what they are going to be saying. You can bet on it. That also goes for injuries and sickness. Nobody is going to say “Nah, don’t try to stop the bleeding! Don’t give me antibiotics to get rid of my Malaria! I really don’t want to live anyway since the world is so crappy now. Go help someone else.” Nobody wants to die when the time comes. Nobody.

Believe it or not, a steel target is not something that you buy in anticipation of ultimately destroying it. Sure, we have all seen steel targets at the range that are shot up and shot through, but that is not what you should expect from a quality steel target. If the company engineers the target to not fail, and instructs you in the proper use of what the target can and can’t do, your target probably won’t even have any divots in it after a full day’s match. The key is to understand the nature of steel targets, and follow directions as to their limitations.

One of the more memorable scenes from the 1973 film Soylent Green was Edward G. Robinson on his pedal powered generator, to keep the lights in a post collapse scenario. Is pedal power realistic? How much power do you get? We we able to try the $195 extremely innovative K-Tor Power Box, one of the few complete package options on the market. It generates 20 watts at a steady pedal rate. This is not a ton of power, but lets take a look at the actual numbers, plus a general review of the product itself. One of the nice features on the K-Tor is that it generates 120 volts, not 12v like most backup power systems. The power is DC, not AC, but you can plug your regular wall warts right into the K-Tor, because DC will pass through the power rectifiers in the wall wart. Most electronic devices run on DC, but electric motors are generally AC.

Who hasn’t been at the range after an afternoon of shooting and dreaded picking up the brass? Sometimes you can just sweep it into a pile and use a shovel to scoop it into a bucket, but there are always the few that you have to bend over to get. If you shoot in your back yard as we do here in Florida, you have no cement floor and handy sweep up. Brass picking becomes a chore.

I have been sitting on a story since Media Day at the Range back in January on the day before the 2014 SHOT Show. It is a very simple GPS driven topography map interface for smartphones and tablets. Who doesn’t have one of those these days right? But outside of a very small percentage of hunters that hunt public lands with topo maps, I didn’t think many people would be interested in our gun world. One detail about these cards, though, makes them extremely relevant for long term survival. They don’t require a network connection to use the GPS or the data. Once you download the app, all you need is the micro-SD card with the data. At $69.99 without private land data and $99.99 with that data, these are a really cheap way to keep right at your fingertips a complete set of topo maps for your entire state. Right now the cards are available for all Android devices and the Ipad, and we were able to fondle the first generation of IPhone charger cases at SHOT Show, though they have yet to be released.

One of the best war movies ever made was “Enemy at the Gates.” It is about the WWII Battle of Stalingrad, and a Soviet sniper named Vasily Zaytsev. In the movie Vasily becomes a national war celebrity, and is then pitted against a top German sniper. The victor will, seemingly, carry the hearts and minds of the soldiers in the field, thereby swinging the war in the favor of the victor. Yes there are some stupid relationship and love triangle moments, but the movie doesn’t stray too far from the brutality of a war that was literally about survival.

BudK https://www.budk.com/product/M1-Garand File this one under go figure. I am a big fan of the knife importer BudK and I was really excited when I saw that they are importing a reproduction of the Model 1942 US bayonet that was originally made for the M1 Garand, and that also fits the M1903 Springfield. The original [...]

Measuring radiation isn’t as complicated as all of the terminology makes it sound. Any radiation measuring device has some sort of Geiger–Müller tube, also called a G-M tube. The tube is a surprisingly simple device that turns any type of ionizing radiation into an electrical pulse. The rest of the machine we call “Geiger Counter” or “radiation meter” is just a signal amplification circuit that can contain computing chips and measurement dials or readouts. In a nuclear emergency there won’t be time for news of it to hit The Drudge Report. You’ll have to take evasive measures immediately (a topic for a future article). We are all waiting for the next big false flag or hoax catastrophe, and if it turns out to be nuclear, you’ll want some sort of Geiger counter, both to tell you when it is time to go inside, and also when it is ok to come out. For the most part, Geiger counters aren’t cheap. But I found a source for a DIY Geiger counter that takes only basic soldering for under $60, including the G-M tube. You can also get a no-solder option for still under $100, and they work great.

Trojan horses are always sure to show up in an information war, and they are coming in some very creative ways these days. Today I read “The Death of Money – The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System,” by James Rickards. What I expected was a very organized approach to our very complicated world financial system, and a very clear conclusion that the world is in for some big trouble. Eventually Mr. Rickards gets into quite a lot of that, but on page 27 he felt the need to explain to all of us apparent retards that the 9/11 Truth Movement (he actually calls it that) and any criticism of 9/11 is “nonsense” and a disservice to not only to the people actually killed, but also to the people who were only injured, and the military personnel who were killed (and presumably injured) in the resulting wars.