Columns

In a survival situation you can’t take anything for granted. Cleanliness is absolutely required, and soap is something you already should be storing in decent quantities. You don’t have to make it yourself, but I just realized that I might as well share how to do it. I’ve been making soap for over a decade and my only warning about making soap is that if you plan to give some to your friends and family, don’t, unless you want to start a free soap business. Homemade, cold process soap made from vegetable oils will eliminate most dry skin issues, and used as shampoo, it will do away with the need for dandruff shampoo. Believe it or not, I’ve even had reports from friends that it gets rid of hemorrhoids. Soap is an interesting product because you aren’t allowed to advertise it with any health claims, but suffice it to say that store bought soap just isn’t the same as homemade.

The .308 battle rifle is making a comeback. Ruger released their SR762 to high praise. Colt’s modular 901 can accept uppers in .308 and .223. The AR10 is still alive and kicking, and rocking throwbacks, like Springfield Armory’s MiA line, manage to be both nostalgic and innovative. What is it about the hard-hitting 7.62 x 51 that makes it so appealing? Wasn’t the high-pitched crack of the AR-15 sound the death knell of oversized, overweight, overkill? Apparently not. There’s more staying power in the old-school battle rifle than the slew of 5.56 rifles would have us believe. None of this is news to the fans of the H&K G3. Yet import restrictions make the G3, and the H&K 91 (the civilian version of the G3) hard to come by stateside. Don’t give up hope. At the upcoming SHOT show in January 2014, PTR will launch a new version of the Classic Wood 91, the KR. The K is for Kurz, which refers to the 16-inch barrel. The R denotes a welded rail. With a shorter barrel and a rail, the new iteration will appeal to those who respect the classic look of an old G3. It will also speak to those who want a hard-hitting CQB rifle with manageable length and the option to more easily add optics. If you are looking for heavyweight precision, with just a hint of German engineering, take a good long look at the PTR 91. These American-made 91s are taking the iconic H&K design to new levels of precision and reliability.

We know how viruses spread. If you stay in your house and don’t have contact with other humans, it is impossible to get a virus. Viruses need a host organism, therefore they cannot be spread through water supplies, especially chlorinated water supplies which most of us drink. Out in public, Ebola can most likely spread through the air, from sneezing or coughing, but there are simple precautions you can take if you absolutely must go out to the store, which I will get into below. Treating Ebola is a crapshoot at this point, but I will explain the splintered logic as to what your options are should you contract the disease.

The Remington 700 Ultimate Muzzleloader is unlike any front loader I have had my hands on. The bolt-action front loader is as close to a Remington 700 as you can get, which should open more doors for early season hunters who may have doubts about muzzleloaders. But is it the ultimate, hard hitting, long range early-season hunting gun?

Sometimes we take for granted some of the most obvious things, then when you find out that what you took for granted doesn’t actually exist anyway, it can be terribly disappointing. A lot of people have been asking our resident guide Dwayne Powell of Kissimmee River Hunt & Fish about “free range” game lately, as opposed to fenced in game. The guided hunt market exploded a couple years ago, and this far down the line some people are getting wise to the fact that a lot of guided “hunts” aren’t hunts at all. They make it feel like a hunt, but really what you are shooting are caged animals on very small parcels of land. There are guys selling “open range” hog hunts, turkey hunts, deer hunts, and even alligator hunts, on from 100 down to even 5 acres of land. Around the property is a high fence, and none of the game is native and wild on the property. it has all been deposited, to be caged and killed. On the smaller properties the “guide” will drive around in circles, then take you a feeder you would swear is deep in the woods, but is really only a couple hundred yards from where you started.

Some time ago in this series we covered network-free GPS map product from Trimble for your Apple and Android phones (they still aren’t selling the Iphone one). That product is basically a memory chip containing maps for whatever state you buy, and the phone uses the GPS chip to help you navigate the map. Many people in the comments of that article said “I’d really prefer a printed topo map in a SHTF situation.” And I agree, but when you look at what you get with that product as compared to printed maps, it is a really great buy. For this follow up I decided to look into MyTopo, the $9.95 – $319 printed version of Trimble’s map product, and WOW, you aren’t going to believe how far modern cartography (map making) has come.

Trashcans in campgrounds across this country are being rudely overturned. Clotheslines across the heartland are being torn from their moorings, and laundry scattered hither and yon. Though late night cable crews struggle in vain to capture images of the culprits, their efforts have been fruitless. Half-assed, I say. It is up to us, the sportsmen of this venerable republic to stand united and bag these unruly bruits. With that noble goal in mind, I present the top 5 guns for hunting Sasquatch.

From the beginning this column has been about actually going and doing what most people only think about doing. At the height of the “prepper craze,” when the mindless and completely fake cable “reality” shows were popular, it was estimated that for every 10 people thinking about off grid survival, only one was actually taking actions at all. These days, when survival food is on clearance at Walmart, even more people have lapsed into “it isn’t going to happen here.” Because as it turns out, prepping is expensive, and very involved.

This article is not for the faint of heart. Like many of the overview articles in this Prepping 101 series, the topic of solar systems is fairly simple, but you have to learn the basics to get started. With what is here you should be able to take action and get going while avoiding a huge learning curve and the pitfalls that such a complicated learning curve can entail. In our first article on solar we looked at a very simple do it yourself kit from Harbor Freight. For more than a few light bulbs, that kit is lacking the energy to do much of anything, and it doesn’t even come with a power inverter or battery. The other side of solar is the big money option. Houses are being outfitted with solar every day all over the country. With enough panels and controllers and batteries, you can run your whole house on solar for a totally off grid lifestyle. For preppers, this is not a viable plan. Part of what we are doing has to be kept a secret, because when the system breaks down, we don’t want people to know that we have food, water, radio, and even working lights.