Maybe this weekend

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Well, Im hoping the weather is nice this weekend. I’d really like to be able to get up to the Beta Site without needing the SxS. If I can get up there in my truck, then I can really start pre-positioning a few things up there. (Well, more than a few, really.)

Still need to get more cameras set up, another game feeder, and a few other things. It occurs to me that I need to dedicate a game camera to watching the creek so I can track the seasonal flow remotely. Tracking how the water supply, creekwise, changes up there throughout the year is going to be rather important. I’m also going to borrow one of these from work and calculate where along the creek I get the most drop.

And, honestly,  I just want the satisfaction of sitting under a tree, hearing all the nothing, and daydreaming about putting what where.

The goal for this year is, at the moment, fairly simple – build a small little structure to give me a roof over my head and a little security when I’m up there stomping around. Just a place where I can put a folding cot, sleeping bag, some supplies, and be out of the weather. Some place where I can stay on-site when the real building and construction starts.

Its a tricky situation…temper the desire to do everything at once with the need to be careful and strategic. I often say that I can only afford to do this once, so I need to make sure of where I’m placing my feet before I commit to the next step. I’m getting there, but sometimes I also just wanna sit under the trees and indulge myself with just the tiniest little bit of back-patting.

So…we’ll see how the weekend shapes up.

Video – Unsubscribe podcast w/ Tony Moon

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Its the anniversary of the 1992 riots in LA that gave us that unique subset of Americans – the Roof Korean. I have mentioned Tony Moon here before. Short version is that Tony is the OG Roof Korean. What I didn’t know is that he had no idea of his meme-ness until a few years ago. He’s leaned into it though, and apparently has a book coming out.

Anyway, he wound up being a guest on the Unsubscribe, which is a podcast of a roundtable of guntubers. An interesting watch for some of the back history from the Rodney King Riots over 30 years ago.

What really makes Moon’s, and the other Roof Korean’s, story so interesting is how it fits almost perfectly into the narrative about how ‘no one is coming to save you’ and that sometimes you need to ‘be your own first responder’.

And, according to the interview, Mr Moon still has his Daewoo rifle three decades later.

Its always fun, and low-hanging blog fodder, to laud the Roof Koreans but their actions and what they represent transcend racial identity. It’s less about a particular demographic group and more about how a community had a shared value that worked in a crisis.

49 days and a headache

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The simple version is this – somehow the markings on the two Uzis didn’t match up with the markings information I submitted. Probably an oversight on my end… I’ll resubmit but I was really looking forward to having the Uzis in their short configuration. On the other hand, it’s not a dealbreaker because one of those approvals was for one of my PTR MP5 copies. Any circumstance where I need the Uzi can be met with the MP5.

The other submission was for my Ruger PC Charger…which means I now have two of them SBR’d.

Still waiting on the CZ Evo that I submitted a few weeks after this last batch. That was the gun I bought because I never thought I’d be able to get an MP5 clone. And now I have three MP5’s. But, the CZ Evo is a nice gun with good ergos and a ridiculously simply blowback action.

Curious what a $0 tax stamp looks like these days? Here you go:

An observation about caching

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I stashed a Monovault full of supplies and gear at the Beta Site ‘just in case’. Seems a reasonable thing to do, yes? When packing gear for something like that, I use the scenario “I’m dropped in the middle of nowhere, naked, at night, in the winter. What do I need?” And that pretty much covers the ‘worst case’. I mean, it may be a warm, sunny summer day when I have to beat feet with just the clothes on my back. Or I may have the luxury of rolling up with everything I need packed in the truck. But since I don’t know, I have to assume the worst case…the dark and stormy night.

As such, I was imagining the wet, cold, muddy scenario and it occurred to me that when you have a tightly packed stash of gear and goodies, the items you may need immediately might not be on the top. Since you dont know the circumstances under which you’ll be accessing this cache, you cant really predict what to put at the top of the pile. You may have to dig down through several layers of gear to get to what you need immediately. And, as your digging down through your stash of gear, where do you put the gear that you are digging down through? I mean, clearly the scene would be you huddled over your cache, pulling items out to get to the one you need immediately. And that gear youre pulling out…where are you putting it? Youre just putting it next to you on the ground…the wet, muddy, snowy, icy ground. Where it sits and gets snowed and rained on as your working your way through your cache.

Which got me to thinking that I need to re-arrange things so that the very first thing on top of the pile in the Monovault is either a rubberized poncho, or a waterproof backpack, so that as I pull stuff out I can keep it dry and protected as I unpack the Monovault to get to what I need in that moment. (well, that and a flashlight.)

And, as an aside, I packed an empty large backpack in there specifically because just because you’ve made it to your cache doesn’t mean youre going to be staying there. Might be a circumstance where you need to grab your gear and keep moving along…in which case being able to shove it all into a rugged bacpack will be a handy option….because trying to juggle all that gear in just your bare hands while running through the woods is no ones idea of a good time.

Bargain – T3 Gear…sitewide 50% off

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Got a notice in email of a 50% off sale at a vendor I like. Passing it on to you guys.

A small shop that makes a couple items that I very much like. The first is their T3 Bolt Bag, an ‘active shooter’ style bag. Carries spare rifle mags on a removable panel, has pass-through on either side of the bag to access a holster, and is lined with velcro for things like mag pouches and whatnot. I have one of these for each ‘ready rifle’, and it holds mags, a Glock, spare mag, Stop The Bleed Kit, and a few other niceties for when bullets start flying. I’ve got one for the AK, AR, and HK91. At 50% off, these are a good piece of kit.

Other item is this buttpack. Used in conjunction with a ‘battle belt’ and suspenders, this is a nice way to carry essentials in the field. It also has D-rings so you can use it as a sling bag, but it really shines as a buttpack. Again, at 50% off…totally worth it.

I’m passing this along to you guys because I find these two pieces of gear to be quite handy and well-thought out. I’m getting no piece of the action on this, so my motivation to pass this along is strictly out of ‘satisfied customer’.

Discount code is: THISISNOTADRILL

Weather or not

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Montana is one of the most unpredictable climates I have ever been in. This state holds the world record for biggest temperature swing in the one day..over 100 degrees. Going from -54 to 49 in the span of 24 hours. We also had an honest-to-Crom blizzard on the Fourth of July. The point being that weather, in this state, is so unpredictable that I genuinely believe local news weather forecasts could be like this – “And now todays weather. Might be sunny, might not. Back to you, Ted.”

Here’s a gamecam shot from a week ago:

And a week later:


Thats a 50-degree change in less than a week. I’m hoping that the roads are now in such a condition that I can get up there in my truck rather than having to take the SxS. I’ll head up there this weekend in the SXS and see how the roads look. If theyre good, then the weekend after I’ll go up in the truck and take some camping gear and spend the weekend out there.

So that’s done….

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“Remember this Saying, That the good Paymaster is Lord of another Man’s Purse. He that is known to pay punctually and exactly to the Time he promises, may at any Time, and on any Occasion, raise all the Money his Friends can spare. This is sometimes of great Use: Therefore never keep borrow’d Money an Hour beyond the Time you promis’d, lest a Disappointment shuts up your Friends Purse forever” – Benjamin Franklin

I had mentioned a while back that when I purchased the Beta Site in December I was a wee bit short and had to borrow $30k from someone. They were very generous and supportive, and loaned me $30k for three years at 6%. No paperwork, no signatures, just a handshake and a solemn promise. Clearly someone had some trust in me…which kinda surprised me, but whatever.

And…paid the last of it today…31 months ahead of schedule.

So that means the Beta Site is 100% mine..so Ive got that goin’ for me, which is nice. But more importantly, it means that it frees up the money that I’ve been throwing at it every week. Think about that for a minute..how fast, and how well, could you appoint a piece of bare land when you have a chunk of money every week to put towards it? And, that was the only debt I was carrying sooooo…..a good bit of freedom to spend as I see fit.

I try not to pat myself on the back because I know my history has more than enough failures to keep me humble, but I am a little pleased with myself in this particular episode.

Video – Building the ULTIMATE 4-Season Tiny Shelter (Packed with Survival Tech!)

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Once in a while I get email from readers pointing out things that they think I might find useful or that I might want to be aware of. Interestingly, many times its something that I just recently became aware of myself. Rarely, I get multiple emails from different people all pointing me to the same thing. That just happened this week. The item brought to my attention:


An interesting product, to be sure. If someone were looking for, literally, just a ‘lifeboat’ sort of thing to hide in the middle of nowhere, this might fit that need. It appears to be constructed of rigid foam. This would seem to suggest that the insulative qualities of this thing would be rather high. When you’re hiding from something in the dead of winter, that could be pretty important.  What I find a bit of a turn off is that…it appears to be constructed of rigid foam. While there is some utility and handiness in terms of insulation and lightweight portability, I am not keen on trusting my safety to what is essentially a large beer cooler.

I suppose that you could build a ‘doghouse’-type structure to slide this thing into in order to afford it some protection from the elements and things like falling branches, but I’d still have some concerns about durability. However, the more I think about it, the notion of ‘sleeving’ this thing within some hard, protective shell has some interesting appeal.

However…the idea thats presented here in the video has some value and is worth consideration. That idea being that a small, easily hidden four-walls-and-a-roof that can keep you warm and sheltered. This might be a very good ‘turnkey’ option for someone who doesnt want to go through the expense and hassle of building something.

Additionally, once you get past the shelter itself, some of the things shown in the video, used in conjunction with the shelter, are very interesting and worth me following up on. Most notably the heat system.

I want to thank the several people who sent me a link to this. Although I don’t think its something that exactly fills my needs, it does send me thinking in a different direction than I was before…which is useful.

Movie Trailer – The Dog Stars

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I had no idea this was being made into a movie. I first read this book when a generous reader sent me a copy in 2020. I enjoyed it immensely for how relatable it was in terms of dealing with loss, grief, and loneliness. It was about going on after everything you’ve loved has left and died, and you’re still here.

The movie, if the trailer is anything to go by, will clearly deviate from the book. Most notably, there are virtually no scenes in the book that involve more than seven people in the moment at once. The trailer clearly shows groups and gatherings of much more than that. However, I understand that you have to tweak out the source material if youre gonna put meat in the seats at the Odeon.

I am curious how Brolin does conveying Bangley’s taciturn lethality, and how Pops, the other lethal old timer, will be represented. Clearly theres already been a cast change since Jasper, the dog, was a beagle in the book and in the trailer appears to be a Malinois or similar.

Also, its directed by one of my three favorite directors, Ridley Scott. (Michael Mann and Luc Besson  being my other faves.) Scott has had some stinkers in his career, but when he succeeds, he succeeds in a big way. I’m willing to see a movie of his even if I’m not sure I’m interested in the story.

Still, I’ll go see this and hope it doesn’t colour my enjoyment of the original material.