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A Kind Word For the Ruger Mini-14

In a world that has somehow fallen in love with the AR platform of rifle, for everything from varmint shooting to deer hunting, many people forget that there were other platforms prior to VietNam and the M16.

According to several knowledgeable individuals, the absolute best platform for survival and combat was the M1 Garand, a .30-06 rifle that helped America settle the mess that Hitler and Hirohito started in WWII.  This rifle was great for distance as well as for CQB, (in a pinch). A friend of mine named Dale “Piper” Hickman was in the 5th wave at Omaha Beach on D-Day, and walked across Europe in the 1940’s a privileged guest of his Uncle Sam. Once, while pinned down in a French village by a German sniper, he successfully used his Army issued M1A1 Garand to  counter snipe the unlucky bastard after he observed his muzzleflash in the top of a church steeple. Piper claimed he got three rounds off as he ducked behind the corner of the building he was using for cover, and then flanked the church from an adjoining street and cleared the church with two other members of his platoon. There he found the sniper, deceased from one round that punched a hole in his throat, one in the center of his Nazi face, and one adorning his forehead like a ruby red jewel. Piper was very impressed with the rifle’s performance stating that was the only time during his entire tour that he was able to judge his own accuracy, because no one else had shot at the guy.

However, most soldiers found the M1A1 Garand to be too heavy, it’s ammo too cumbersome, and it’s length too much to try to maneuver. Therefore, the next rifle that went into service was the .308 M-14 rifle, which never saw a lot of combat use other than in the very early years of the VietNam war. There it was discovered that the ergonomics of the rifle were off for jungle combat, and the M16A1 was introduced into service.

However, many people saw the benefit of the M-14 design for sporting and utility purposes, specifically for ranchers. That is why, as the M-14 rifle lost it’s place to the M16 platform, companies like Sturm Ruger saw and opportunity in the design. Ruger therefore took the basic design and repaired the ergonomic flaws and produced the current Mini 14 rifle. This rifle had a very distinct cult following before the attention turned toward the AR platform which evolved from the M16. It was very popular in law enforcement and quasi military organizations like Border Patrol, Correctional Facilities and Fish and Wildlife. Sturm Ruger Co. offers excellent customer service for these rifles, and even offers armorer courses around the world to teach dis-assembly, modification, and upkeep.

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Uncle John’s Truck: The Final Chapter

…As cliché as it sounds, the drive up into mountains was like a dream. I sipped hot coffee from one of my dad’s Stanley  thermoses as I huddled comfortably in the drivers seat in a fleece lined, camouflage, hooded sweatshirt my mom had bought me at the local hardware store on clearance.

Life was good right then and right there; I felt young and old, independent and vulnerable, lonesome and fulfilled. This was the closest thing to a grand adventure that I had experienced up to that time. The Pirelli tires I had recently purchased for Uncle John’s truck chewed the gravel of the country road that led to my mom’s new woodlot.

It was still dark when I got to deer camp, (I had basically left the night before and drove all night). And I grabbed some sleep nestled in the warm front seat of the truck. I woke up from my snooze well after dawn and immediately set up my camp. I backed the truck down to  the little creek that meandered through the property and pitched grandpa’s old Army tent about 10 yards away from the bank. I chose to have it facing the creek so that I could sit in the front of the tent at night and look out over the glistening rocks and rippling flow of water as I drank camp coffee in the moonlight. I was going to be here a week by myself and had three deer tags to fill.

It was a little past noon when I had finally set up the tent and had cut enough fire wood to last me the day. I was hungry, so decided to make some oatmeal in my cookpot and sprinkled some brown sugar and almonds into it as I sat back in my camp chair and enjoyed the semi-warm weather. In a few minutes I planned to go find a likely spot to set up my tree stand and to throw a bag of apples and turnips out around it. As I was blowing on the steaming thick mass of chewy goodness I heard splashing.

I turned to see a good buck crossing the creek. He was about an eight point, not too big and young; maybe a three year old. His nose was to the ground like he was trailing a doe but he was in the water. He stopped and looked directly at me and huffed. I think he was commenting on the smell of my oatmeal. He didn’t seem overly impressed in any way. “it’s going to be a good hunt”, I thought as he meandered on down the creek line, leaving me to my oatmeal.

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Why survival? 3 reasons you need to hone your skills right now

There have been times over the years, as I live in luxury and ease, that I have questioned whether or not it was worth all of the trouble I have gone to in order to learn and live survival. There have also been long periods of my life that I haven’t bothered to hone these skills to their utmost. However, in these days and times I make it a habit to stay on top of these skills because by all signs, children, we are heading for some tough times.

You only need to read the news everyday to realize that we are heading towards a conflict, not only in the world, but within this country as well. With conflict comes hardship, and when society breaks down again, finally, it will be up to you to be able to fend for yourself and I’m here to tell you that you will need to have some survival skills in that time. Here are three scenarios that could throw us into a long term survival situation right now:

  1. War. You think it’s not possible? If so, it’s probably because you are a member of that privileged  generation who hasn’t had to live with the fear of an attack from a foreign, invasive army. The truth is that we as Americans are surrounded by enemies on all sides and there are many others who want what we have.
  2. Cyber attack. Whether you realize it or not, we are under the power of the Chinese and the Russians due to errant practices in the past. We have trusted hostile countries to act as manufacturers to supply the major components to our computers, which now run our power grids, weapons systems, public works, etc…  Who knows what kind of trojan horses they have planted on everything  from motherboards to cellphones.
  3. Far left election. Do you realize that there are political factions whose entire platform is to threaten our very way of life? They desire to take us back into the ages before fossil fuels and who knows if they will be successful or not?
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There was blood in the leaves: lessons in tracking wounded game

It was a typical Saturday afternoon when I looked up from where I was working on the tractor tire to see Carl, dressed all in camouflage, come in to my shed with a serious look on his face.

“I need your help” he said seriously as he pulled a bloody shred of something out of his coveralls pocket and thrust it in my general direction meaningfully.

I took the tidbit trepidatiously and saw that it was two strands of bloody fat, each about three inches long… very strange item to have in one’s pockets.

I noticed that Carl was now looking at me hopefully, which was a welcome relief from all of the meaningful seriousness that I had been confronted with earlier.

“Well, what do you need?” I asked handing him back his fat.

“I need you to help me track this deer!” he exclaimed as if I were simple.

“What deer?” I asked…

Well, Carl had shot this huge buck, he said, and had found lots of blood and these two strands of fat. He had followed the blood for a distance of maybe a quarter of a mile and it had diminished and finally petered out. He had fallen asleep in his blind and had awoken to find this deer standing about twenty yards away and with it’s rear end towards him looking towards some does standing on a distant hillside. He had taken a quick shot with a Barrett crossbow equipped with carbon fiber bolts and Zwickey broad-heads. The fat told me the story. It was fall and the fields were ripe with corn and beans. The fat was rib fat, (I knew this from having butchered several hundred deer over the years). The reason the blood trail stopped was because the superficial wound had dried up… I wasn’t about to track that deer until he died of old age!

I only tell this story to introduce you to an aspect of hunting that is very important to any sportsman, hunter, survivalist, or prepper; that of reading sign. And in this instance, reading sign left by wounded game. So over the next several entries, let’s discuss tracking methods that will help you find the game you have lethally wounded, and disregard those you have merely inconvenienced… stay tuned.

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USMC: 7 new boots that are on the list

Do you remember the good old days when you were issued one pair of uniform boots of the same exact style as everyone else in your branch of the service? Well, those days are over, at least as far as it goes for the United States Marine Corps. In a recent article written for Military.com, the Marine Corps has, in an effort to continually improve the equipment and clothing of the branch, approved 7 new brands of combat service boots. “”

According to the article, “Marines can now choose from 16 different combat, rugged all-terrain or optional boots. The list of approved styles was released in a service-wide administrative message last week, which was signed by Lt. Gen. David Berger, the head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command.”.

The article, written by journalist Gina Hawkins goes on to give a brief description of the merits of the new approved footwear, as well as a detailed listing of them and their manufacturer.
“These are the boots that were added to the list of officially approved footwear:

Combat:

  • Bates style No. E30502 (hot weather)

RAT:

  • Bates style No. 29502 (hot weather)
  • Wellco style No. E114 (temperate weather)

Optional:

  • Danner Reckoning boot style No. 53221
  • Bates lightweight style No. E50501 for men and E57501 for women
  • Danner’s Marine Expeditionary Boot style No. 53111 (temperate weather)
  • Danner’s MEB style No. 53110 (hot weather)

The Marine Corps first authorized Danner’s Reckoning hot-weather boot last year. Even though it wasn’t formally publicized, word spread quickly when the service started selling the boots in the exchanges, Hamby said.

The last time the list of authorized boots had been formally updated was in March 2016″.
What this means for the civilian military surplus community is that these same boots will at some point in time be made available as surplus. Because, even though the individual soldier will often purchase the footwear of his or her choice directly from the manufacturer, the military will still buy mass quanities of same for research, testing, deployment, etc…

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The view from here: two things you must remember about multitasking

As I sit quietly in the woods with my camera set up on a tripod and equipped with a 500mm lens for maximum focus and range, (at least to my college student budget), I contemplate what life is about and I ponder on what brings true happiness.
I am waiting for wildlife to happen by. I don’t really care what they are or what they’re doing, (though I would prefer -if given my choice- to film a family of sasquatches digging for roots in the ditchline), but beyond that I am good with squirrels, deer, coyotes, or any form of bird that wants to present itself to me for film capture.
It’s quiet out here, and there is a very light snow gently falling… the first of the year. Though it isn’t significant it’s getting us to where we want to be and this is, speaking for myself at least, into the midst of a white Christmas. We haven’t had one in mid Ohio for about five years now, and we’re way past due.
It’s cold here, 29 degrees or so, and as I write my iPad is freezing up… literally I think.
The point I’m making here is that multi-tasking can take on relevance in any scenario, and I am right now fulfilling obligations to two different clients as well as getting data for research projects. Thanks to the advent of things such as iPads and wireless technology, I am sitting in the woods adjacent to the local college campus, gathering footage for a client on Ohio whitetail deer, filming B-roll for a media class assignment and writing blogs for another client. I am also out of the house and getting some fresh air.
If I didn’t need to be quiet and at least somewhat attentive, I could be doing this from my iPhone either through thumb typing or by voice to text dictation.
Plus, I am also on a military surplus tent adventure with a friend of mine as well, so I’m killing several birds with a handful of stones I guess, but I digress. We’re camping for a few days in the local woods trying to get footage and just having a grand old time doing it. I’ll post some inconsequential footage with this article.
I want to urge you to think about the technology that you already posses and ask yourself how you can apply that technology in such a way that you can recreate while you work. You’ll be surprised, I think at what you’ll find, and all of a sudden work might not seem so much like work. Particularly when you are able to do it from the midst of something you actually enjoy doing.

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SOME GOOD NEWS FOR MILITARY VETERANS… MAYBE

Photo By: Drexel University

United States President elect Donald Trump has recently announced that he wants to nominate David Shulkin as the new Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Already at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Shulkin had been charged with transforming the country’s largest integrated health system. In 2014, CNN reported that at least 40 U.S. veterans had died while waiting for care at the VA facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, and internal investigations revealed that the problem was widespread. 1

Shulkin was nominated by President Elect Trump, and is yet confirmed by the Senate in 2017. For a physician with decades of experience across the private and academic sectors, the challenge of bringing help to American veterans is going to be daunting, but will not necessarily be anything new to Shulkin.

In this case, that help means bringing business experience from the private sector to the federal government. It means looking for processes that are cheaper, better and faster. It means questioning the status quo to make sure that the system truly benefits veterans and improves access to care. 2 And if his nomination is confirmed, he will have the power to do it.

President elect Trump thinks that he will “Do a truly great job.” And having been a senior advisor and faculty member on Drexel University’s medical school as well as a savvy physician and businessman who knows the ins and out of the medical care industry, it stands to reason then that Shulkin is a great pick for the job.

For too long now, it seems, as if America has treated it’s military veterans like any other piece of military surplus equipment. Often trying to store them on the shelf, or sell them off to the highest bidder so that they can be someone else’s problem; and President Elect Trump has stated that this is a horrendous practice that must come to an end. In his recently publish book “Crippled America” he has made the claim that he is going to take measures to ensure that the American men and women, who serve this country’s military, deserve to be treated like the first class citizens that they are.

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SURVIVAL PARACORD; 4 HANDY USES YOU CAN IMPLEMENT TODAY

We’ve all been there. One minute you are out in the bush enjoying a camping or hunting trip and the very next minute you are engaged in a fight for survival, depending on nothing more than the items you have on you and your steely wit to save from certain death and damnation. In times like these there is nothing in the world that you need more than some para-cord. Of course we all know how to make cordage out of the inner bark of certain plants and trees, or how to cut cordage from rawhide, but to be honest, having some prepared and quality manufactured cordage on hand can be the difference between a fun survival trip and one which is just a miserable struggle. So here are four ways to be prepared for a survival situation by having paracord on hand as a replacement for everyday items.

  1. Wear a survival bracelet. You know what these things are, they are all the rage today, and most of you probably even know how to make them. If you don’t and you want to learn, watch a youtube video. Not only are they snazzy and you can make them to represent your favorite sports team or whatever, but they are easily incorporated into everyday dress.
  2. Craft a belt from paracord. Let’s face it, you need a belt anyway, why not make one from paracord and then you will have plenty of cordage with you at all times?
  3. Make a rifle/shotgun sling. This concept is relative to the concept of having a belt made of paracord. Why not craft your own long gun sling that you can use as a functional sling and put to use as cordage in a survival situation?
  4. Use as a wrap for your water bottle. Not only does this concept allow you to have a non-slip grip on your water bottle during a military surplus tent adventure or outdoor excursion, but it also supplies you with a plethora of cordage to use in a survival situation. As with all of these concepts, instructional videos are easily located on youtube.
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MILITARY SURPLUS FORECAST: BLAST PROTECTIVE PANTS

Photo by: Army Times

According to the Army Times, the military is rolling out a new set of combat fatigues that we can expect to see appearing on the surplus market very soon. These “Blast Protective Trousers” come equipped to keep the boys safe from shrapnel as a result of IED’s and other detritus driven injury devices. In a recent article it was reported:

The Army is rolling out a new pelvic protector to shield soldiers from painful and potentially life-threatening injuries caused by the debris, dirt and dust kicked up in an improvised explosive device blast. The blast pelvic protector, a lightweight ballistic harness that protects soldiers from underneath, was designed by a team at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center . It is meant to avoid the multiple surgeries it takes to remove the debris that commonly gets lodged in a soldier’s groin area in the event of a blast. Those wounds are not only painful but can lead to deadly infections. The piece is meant to improve on the groin-protecting flap that comes with a body armor kit, which can only protect against a fragmentation explosion from the front, said Kristine Isherwood, a mechanical engineer at NSRDEC and the project’s lead, in a Tuesday phone interview with Army Times. “It’s meant to mitigate not so much a life-threatening situation as a quality of life,” she said. The harness does, however, cover a good portion of the inner thigh, protecting the femoral artery and making it look like a very short set of chaps or a pair of shorts rather than the diaper-like design of some other blast protectors on the market. That design was the key to the whole project, said lead designer Cara Tuttle, because they knew if it looked too ridiculous, soldiers wouldn’t wear it. “The shape of the design came about due to considering soldier acceptability. If something isn’t designed with this sort of ‘cool’ factor, then soldiers are less likely to wear it,” she said. “The factor that it looks like a harness and not a diaper, for instance, helps make it more acceptable to soldiers to wear.” The team decided early on that it should be worn outside the uniform, rather than as an undergarment or built into uniform pants, for several reasons. “One clear thing is hygiene issues,” Isherwood said. “It’s easier to have a separate piece where the guys can launder their trousers separate from this protective equipment. And you can visually confirm that yes, they’re wearing it, they didn’t forget it over at the laundry.”

The good news is that it is detachable and therefore doesn’t necessitate the purchase of one per pair of trousers as some security devices may. We look forward to seeing these on the shelves very soon.

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THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL; USING MILITARY SURPLUS FOR THE ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME

Photo By: romanticasheville.com

If you’ve ever dreamed of testing yourself to the fullest, and you haven’t hiked the Appalachian Trail, you should consider all or a portion of it as one or more of your coming summer adventures. Though the trail is roughly 2180 miles long and it encompasses 14 states, it has many numbers of accommodations available for travelers. Many travelers along the Trail have found that used military surplus and tents have come in quite handy while traversing the trails. It stands to reason that military equipment would be quite well suited to travelling the Trail. Military backpacks and clothing, not to mention wool blankets and portable cots were designed to offer the best comfort and greatest mobility. In the summer months, there are thousands of volunteers who commit thousands of hours of community work to the trail. This includes upkeep on the more than 250 three sided shelters which are available to those who do not want to pack the weight of a tent around. If you are a novice hiker, then Maryland and West Virginia offer the easiest parts of the trail to hike, and if you are a hard core adventurer with granite thighs and stainless steel sinew you should jump in at Maine or New Hampshire, where the hard parts are. Those who have traversed the Trail from Georgia to Maine are said to have at some time or another been in the company of black bears, Moose, porcupines, snakes, woodpeckers, salamanders, foxes, chipmunks, bobcat, and whitetailed deer. You’ll meet plenty of other hikers too. Two to three million hikers walk a portion of the Trail every year, and there are literally hundreds of access points. Of those that try to hike the entire trail from Georgia to Maine, (usually about a six-month journey), only one in four make it, (no, they don’t die, they just give up). You could be that one in four, especially if you give yourself the advantage of gearing up with used military equipment before you start out. The time is nearly upon us as we start planning our coming Summer endeavors and this one is a dandy.

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