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HomePosts Tagged "Prepper" (Page 3)

When we are planning for our family’s safety, preppers employ a wide spectrum of ideas, plans and approaches to getting their family out of danger or protect them from danger in the first place. This is a noble goal and one that I myself strive to achieve in some way daily. When you are planning on surviving though, it is important to take a minute or two and consider the people you are trying to protect. If your grand prepper plans for keeping the family safe or healthy are for whatever reason abhorrent to the same members you are trying to save, what good is that?

Analyze your family’s strengths

When I first started getting into the subject of Prepping and learning everything out there that formed my thought process around threats, I was full of energy and ideas. I just knew I had the perfect plan to protect my family and I just needed the time and money to implement all of my ideas. Some of what I had hoped to do wasn’t really possible or practical with my family. For instance, I don’t live with Seal Team 6 so a highly dynamic, crack team of trained professionals wouldn’t be there to help me secure my home in the event of a collapse brought on by any number of natural disasters or man-made events. Now that I think about it, I am not sure I really want my wife to be able to kill me that easily…

Your family has strengths that you need to consider and this can apply to anyone. Just because you are the father of younger children, that doesn’t mean you are up the creek, but you do need to adjust your strategy and take advantage of these strengths. As an example, my wife is very smart and analytical. I try to run every idea past her that I have. This sometimes doesn’t go as planned but she has on many occasions pointed out flaws in my preps. Had I been Johnny Ranger and tried to do everything by myself, I would have made some pretty significant errors.

Make sure you plan for your families strengths while being mindful of their weaknesses.

Your team is more than yourself and as a whole you need to make it through whatever crisis you are faced with. Your children might be too young to take a highly active role in defense of your home for example, but they can do other things. Maybe while you are busy boarding up windows and doors, they can load magazines or gather supplies. I wouldn’t plan on defending against an army anyway, but your kids could be on lookout and report back using radio to other members. Maybe instead of giving them all rifles and expecting them to shoot the bad guys they would take care of the animals or smaller children or cook. Everyone who is past toddler stage can contribute to your family’s success.

Analyze your family’s weaknesses

There are good and bad traits in everyone and I am not excluding myself from this. For some reason I get irritated at some of the stupidest things and it doesn’t help getting mad at inanimate objects no matter how righteous you feel. As an example, sometimes when I am walking through my house in a certain pair of pants, they get caught on the door knob jerking me backwards or like yesterday when I didn’t have the right sized allen wrench to take the handle off a leaky faucet I got irritated. I didn’t throw chairs or scream, but I know I should have more patience and that could be a weakness in me. I know I need to work on that. If I am going to lead my family in an effective way, I want to analyze my personal hang-ups and develop a plan that mitigates those weaknesses or at least doesn’t rely on my not showing my ass at a crucial moment.

Your family has weaknesses too. For children the obvious are weaknesses that are through no failing of character like mine, but exist simply because they are young. Young children aren’t as strong, don’t see the bigger picture in most cases, tire and get scared more quickly. In a lot of cases, they are going to need more than they are capable of contributing to your survival efforts so any plan that assumes they will barrel head long, full speed ahead with you into the abyss might need to be rethought. Like the guy building the tree house, you should first figure out if anyone in your family is afraid of heights. Do you plan on going down to your bunker? Is anyone claustrophobic? Is your plan to bug out on foot for several, maybe dozens of miles? Are your family members going to be able to go that long?

One of our readers who have small children has already purchased a game cart that usually helps you get deer out of the woods much easier than dragging or carrying them. This is his plan for his children and bugging out. If needed, he will stock his game cart with gear and throw the kids on top and I think this is a great idea. Is it the best plan? No, but I think it is obvious that he is thinking about his family and knows what he will need to consider if the time comes when he needs to travel long distances on foot.

Plan for the future

Another aspect of planning is for the future. If you are a young family do you plan to have more children someday? Maybe children arrive and they weren’t in the plan. It may be harder to visualize something horrific like a disaster and small children but it happens every day. Your plans for living out in the woods might work for two healthy and competent people, but what if eventually there are three of you?

Maybe the lesson in this is that life changes and you have to roll with it in order to survive and thrive. Our plans are nothing more than a rough draft – sketches on a napkin that sound great until life steps up and changes the rules for you. The more prepared you are the better you will be able to pivot when changes cause your formally brilliant plan to end up in the trash pile at the end of the street. Plan for people to get a vote too because your ideas are only as good as the situation you have planned for and everyone else’s willingness to go along with them.

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When we are planning for our family’s safety, preppers employ a wide spectrum of ideas, plans and approaches to getting their family out of danger or protect them from danger

Imagine a gathering of 10,000 preppers at a convention somewhere in the heart of Las Vegas and at that convention every single prepper had brought their own fully stocked bug out bag. The same bug out bags that each person had diligently packed using checklists gleaned from various prepping blogs, YouTube videos and their own personal experience. I would bet that a high percentage of them, maybe 90% or greater would have one very simple piece of gear in there somewhere along with the fire-steel, water filters, emergency blankets and survival knives. They would all have a survival fishing kit.

The survival tin, which is usually the container for the survival fishing kit is I think one of the most discussed pieces of gear in prepper circles. A quick search on YouTube finds well over 100,000 videos of preppers showing the contents of their tins, opening up the survival tins they receive from internet shopping and discussing the range of life saving implements they have been able to squirrel away in the confines of these small boxes.

I think the survival tin is so popular for a couple of reasons. They are really simple to make, just grab an assortment of items that you think can help you out if you are ever faced with some life or death survival scenarios. All you need, generally speaking are items that many of us already have lying around our homes somewhere. I put the contents of a sample survival kit below.

Most of us can see the utility in having these items in our possession. The survival tin is designed to hold this potentially life-saving gear in a relatively compact form that is easy enough to slip in your pocket everyday as you head out the door. This is a mandatory part of many prepper’s EDC gear and I agree that if you had this in your pocket and were dumped in the middle of nowhere, next to a river at 0 Dark 30, you would be much better off than someone who had nothing. At least you could use the flashlight to see your way to using your flint and tinder to make a fire. Then you could take the survival fishing kit to catch a nice big trout for your sustenance. But for the rest of us who aren’t subjected to the life of a hypothetical Bear Grylls episode and aren’t dropped anywhere, does a survival fishing kit make much sense at all or is it wasting space in our bug out bags, backpacks and pants pockets? Is it giving you a false hope for food that might never materialize?

A survival fishing kit doesn’t have to be complicated or take up too much space.

Does it make sense to have a survival fishing kit in your Bug out Bag?

I am not a big fish eater to be perfectly honest, but I grew up fishing with my friends in the neighborhood where we lived. In our area we had two fairly decent sized lakes within a short walk through the woods. In these lakes, we caught plenty of brim, crappie, bass and even a catfish or two. I completely understand the rationale behind having a way to catch fish as food and if you get lucky, a decent sized fish or even several smaller fish could provide a nice meal which if you are starving, could save your life.

There are dozens of survival fishing kits already assembled.

But fishing isn’t just as simple as throwing a hook into the water. Along with that survival fishing kit, you need the right bait, a good bit of luck and a small amount of skill and patience. Come to think of it, a lot of hunting activities share those traits. I think that many preppers assume that if they only have that handy little survival fishing kit in their bags they will be bringing a feast back to the campsite with ease. This is yet another one of the myths that I think preppers believe about bugging out to the woods.

I think that having the ability to even try your hand at fishing during a survival situation is going to come down to several factors but the top two that come to mind are your location and your availability to fish. Are you bugging out where there are any lakes, ponds or rivers with fish in them? Are you on the move? Can you stop and risk the exposure of fishing? Can you afford to alert others with a fire and the smell of fresh fish cooking? How large is your group?

You might argue that the supplies you need for a good fishing kit are so small and insignificant when it comes to weight that they are good to have anyway. I can buy that, but I think that some people are hanging their hopes on their perceived ability to put food on the blanket and simply having some hooks, weights and fishing line in your survival tin doesn’t guarantee you will catch anything or even find a place to fish in the first place.

What goes into a good survival fishing kit?

The contents of a survival fishing kit are pretty basic and true to the survival tin idea, they don’t need to take up much space. Could you fashion your own hooks with a soda can tab or natural materials and leave the fishing kit at home? Sure but for the size and weight I would rather have the real thing. Fishing line is hard to replicate in nature and it really doesn’t cost much at all to put these supplies together.

A good survival fishing kit should have at a minimum:

  • 50 ft. of sturdy mono-filament fishing line. 20lb test or higher will reduce the chance of it breaking. You can use a stick to wrap your line around similar to how a kite string works.
  • Assorted hooks for the fish in your area
  • Bobbers or you can use any material that will float like a piece of Styrofoam or wood.
  • Sinkers
  • Fishing lures or fake worms, whatever works best for your area. If you don’t know just ask the guy behind the counter at the place you are buying the fish hooks.


If you have fishing supplies at home, this should be easy to pull together or if you would rather buy a pre-built kit they have plenty of survival fishing kits online and most are less than the price of a meal out. Knowledge of basic knots that won’t come undone easily will help you here also. It would really suck to finally catch a nice fish only to have the hook come off the line as you are nearing shore and your dinner swim away into the deep.

So what is my answer to the question I posed at the beginning? I think because they are so compact and could give you the ability to catch fish if the right situation presented itself, a survival fishing kit makes a good addition to your bag. I would only expect to be able to use this in certain situations/locations though and not as a reliable source of food for survival. It’s the same with snares and traps, they can catch game for you but you have to be incredibly lucky to have an animal wander through the woods to your trap in the first place so don’t bet the farm on these two methods unless you are already living remotely well before the collapse. These make good supplies to have in my opinion, but not realistic food gathering options unless you are extremely lucky in a bug out scenario. Once the dust has settled and you are all living like nomads, then a good fishing kit would be a great idea.

What do you think?

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Imagine a gathering of 10,000 preppers at a convention somewhere in the heart of Las Vegas and at that convention every single prepper had brought their own fully stocked bug

Spring is in the air and with it comes yard work. For some we have already started planting our gardens, others are tending to their chickens and most have to start cutting the grass. I know you may hear the Home Depot song playing in your mind as you think of mulching and planting and sprucing up after winter’s snooze but I have already been cutting my grass and it is due again for another visit with the lawnmower.

As I started to think about getting out there and cutting the grass, I wondered if there would be a use for items like my trusty lawnmower when the grid goes down. Why? Because if you are like me, the last thing you are going to worry about is a nicely trimmed yard. Heck, we all might need to tear up the pretty green carpet to make way for additional garden capacity and if that happens, what could we do with that mower? Even if we didn’t have a grid-down emergency what other purposes could our mower serve?

You will need the following tools/parts:

Lawn Engine motor

The generator project will require a vertical shaft gas engine from a lawn mower. The typical lawn mower engine will be 3 to 5 horse power and will have a 7/8″ shaft, with a 3/16″ key way and a threaded hole in the bottom of the shaft. Most of these engines have either 3 or 4 bolts holding them down to the existing lawn mower base.

Alternator – A GM 10SI or 12SI style automotive alternator.

The alternator will fall into one of three categories:

A) External voltage regulator type.This type of alternator does not have an internal regulator and must have one connected externally to control the alternator field intensity and thus the output voltage and current of the alternator. The disadvantage in using this type of alternator is that connection is a bit more complicated and the regulator is an added component that must be mounted and connected properly. This type of alternator is typically less expensive than the other options shown below, but like the model with an internal regulator, it too requires an external on / off switch or the alternator and regulator pair can discharge batteries when it is not charging and the switch is left on.
B) Single wire connection type with internal regulator.The single wire connection type alternator automatically starts producing output power when the RPM of the input shaft reaches a minimum speed. And, when the RPM drops below a preset speed the output stops. A big advantage is that it does not require a switch to isolate the alternator from the battery source to keep the alternator from draining the battery when not in use. The disadvantage in using this type of alternator is that the alternator will start to charge the batteries as soon as the minimum speed is reached, and will place a load on the engine as soon as the minimum RPM is achieved. In some cases, you might need to throttle through this minimum RPM range to insure that the motor does not bog down at low RPM when the alternator begins to produce power. Another disadvantage is that these alternators are more expensive than other options, but it provides a very simple connection method.
C) Internal regulator type with external control switch.Another option is to use the type we used on our last project. This alternator has an internal voltage regulator but requires an external switch to start or stop power production. The advantage in using this model is that the alternator can be switched off while the motor is still running and power output stops. This aids in connecting and disconnecting batteries or other loads.
One note in the Single wire connection type with internal regulator:

We found that the single wire configuration is not ideal for this application. Because the lawn mower engine mentioned above doesn’t have much throttle adjustment, if a single wire configuration is used with a 2 1/2 inch pulley on the motor the alternator doesn’t kick in without manually moving the throttle butterfly to a higher setting and then releasing. This problem might be eliminated by using a 3″ pulley. However, a single wire configuration can be used on our last project using a horizontal shaft engine. The problem we have right now, is that we don’t have all the answers yet for this configuration. Feel free to experiment, but with the motor we used and the pulley we used, it wasn’t convent in that you had to reach under the carburetor to throttle up manually to start generation.

Electrical Wires – Think wire harness for your car battery

 

A positive and a negative car battery cable is needed, as well as an alternator connector and associated wires. The alternator wires are not needed if a single wire alternator with built in regulator is used.

A belt – An A Style Industrial Belt to be more precise

The V-Belt transfers power from the pulley (which will be mounted) on the motor to the pulley on the alternator. Various belt lengths can be used if your mounting system provides for several inches of belt length adjustment. Keep in mind that the belt length should be kept to a minimum to reduce belt slap and associated wear.

We have found that the Automotive V-belt used on a standard alternator is not compatible with the industrial “A” size belt that mates with all pulleys you will find for the motor. However, if you use an industrial “A” style V-belt, it will provide an exact fit for the motor and an “OK” fit for the alternator. Replacing the pulley on the alternator to match the pulley on the motor is an option (a more expensive option) but would be the ideal solution.

Cast Iron Pulley

The motor pulley needs to be high quality cast iron. The mass of a cast iron pulley tends to act as a flywheel, taking the place of the mass of the lawn mower blade. Remember that most lawn mower engines have a very light aluminum fly wheel and use the steel blade as part of the effective fly wheel mass. The added weight of the cast iron pulley (compared to the mass of an aluminum pulley) helps the engine idle smoothly and helps keep belt slap to a minimum.

Mounting Bracket

The mounting bracket is the most complicated part of the project. The great thing about the bracket is that it’s Universal in design and allows use of a wide variety of engine manufacturers and engine models.

It not only eliminates hours of time figuring out the bolt pattern of your motor, but also eliminates the trial and error guess work in finding a belt length that will work once the motor and alternator are mounted. Additionally, the bracket can be bolted down to a simple base of your own design and the rest of the work is done!

Detailed instructions on how to work on this project:

The first step is to remove the motor from the lawn mower base. Typically, there are 3 or 4 bolts holding the motor to the base, but before you remove them, you will need to remove the mower blade and the shaft coupler that holds the blade on the motor shaft. Getting the blade and the coupling off is a bit of a pain. Removing the blade is not nearly as difficult, but still requires a bit of ingenuity to figure out a way to “jam” the blade so it won’t rotate while you remove the bolt which holds it in place on the motor shaft.

We found that we had to use a “pulley puller”, to remove the shaft coupler after the mower blade was removed. A “pulley puller” which can be rented or purchased at most auto parts stores. Removing the coupler is difficult to impossible without use of this tool.

The next hassle will be in finding the required pulley. Our research indicated that nearly all the motors used in vertical shaft lawn mowers have a 7/8″ shaft, and a 3/16″ or 1/4″ key way. However, horizontal shaft motors under about 7 HP use a 3/4″ shaft. The 3/4″ pulleys can be found at most hardware stores, but the 7/8″ pulleys are impossible to find. What we had to do was to set up an account with a company that supplies Heating and Air Conditioning Systems, Motors, Blowers and Components to be able to order the correct pulleys.

Another catch is that a 3/16″ key way is not standard on cast iron pulleys. What we found was that a 1/4″ key way is the norm because most high horse power AC motors use a 1/4″ size key way. A pulley with a 3/16″ key way is not typically available in a 7/8″ shaft diameter configuration. It is possible to use a pulley with a 1/4″ key way on a motor that has a 3/16″ key way provided that the set screw is on top of the key on the motor shaft and NOT on the shaft itself. If close attention is paid to this detail the pulley will stay in place without vibrating or loosening.

The biggest problem is figuring out how to bolt everything together. Because each type of mower had different a base, we ended up concentrating on coming up with a universal base that just about any motor could fit on. Our base had to allow rotating the motor by about 30 degrees, and allow positioning the motor in any of the 90 degree quadrants. That allowed the motor to be in any position with clearance for the alternator and a method for hooking up the belt. We also wanted to allow the alternator position to be adjusted allowing for several belt sizes to be used. The bracket also has an integral belt adjustment slot which allows the alternator position to be adjusted, which also serves to tension the belt.

The lawn mower engine

The lawn mower we used had a 3.5 Horse power Briggs and Stratton 4 stroke gas engine. That particular model motor has a safety shut off lever on the lawn mower handle which has a cable attached to the motor, and the attached cable must be activated to disengage the motor shut off break and to allow spark to reach the spark plug. What we decided to do was to cut the cable off and deactivate the motor shut off feature. If your motor has this feature, you will need to spend some time looking at the cable and the levers on the motor to figure out a way to deactivate or preserve the feature. In either case the motor will not start unless something is done about the cable and levers.

We found that there was a small hole in one of the lever plates on the side of the engine, and after pulling the cable, a small nail can be inserted into the lever to keep the mechanism from retracting and shutting off the motor. Like I said, it will take a bit of time to figure out how your motor shut off mechanism works (if there is one installed on your motor).

Most of the lawn mower engines you will find have a 7/8″ shaft and a 3/16″ key way cut into the shaft. They also have a threaded hole in the bottom of the shaft.

Pulley Size and Type

The vertical shaft motor from this lawn mower would not throttle as high as the same horse power motor we used in the horizontal shaft generator project. That motor was from a lawn edger, and could be set to a higher maximum speed. After talking with some lawn mower experts, we were told that the throttle mechanism on the lawn mower has the maximum throttle set to be about 75% of the maximum butter fly valve position of the carburetor. We were told that the lawn mower manufacturers set the throttle mechanism that way so there is extra throttle capability for when the mower hits some heavy or wet grass. The motor could then self throttle to a higher setting if necessary, then throttle back to the pre set throttle setting.

The reason we mention all this is that the pulley size we used on the horizontal shaft motor project would not work on this project. In testing this motor with the throttle set as high as possible without modifying the carburetor, and using a 4 3/4″ pulley on the motor (similar size to the one on our other project), the motor would bog down and die with a 39 Amp load on the alternator. Without modifying the carburetor, we couldn’t keep the thing running when the load was switched in with the large size pulley.

We had excellent results with a 2 1/2″ pulley. It allowed the alternator to output voltage at even half or lower throttle settings at a slightly lower output current. So, with less than full demand, the motor speed could be reduced without killing the motor, and providing fuel savings.

Mounting the Motor and Alternator

Mounting all this stuff is the tricky part of this project. But to make things easy, we designed and manufactured a bracket to make the task simple.

The bracket is made from 1/8″ steel and has provisions for mounting the motor and alternator, and additional holes for mounting the plate to a base of your own design.

What we did for the base was cut two 2×4’s the length of the bracket, and another 2×4 as a cross brace to be installed under the bracket at the bottom of the long 2×4’s. Imagine the base as being an H. The two long pieces were installed so that the base was 4 inches in height, and the cross brace was installed on the two length wise 2×4’s at the bottom, and on it’s side so that it stood 2″ in height. That provided the necessary clearance for the belt and provided stabilization of the two side pieces. A further improvement would be to install two more short 2×4 at each end of the assembly to completely box in the rotating pulleys (for added safety).

We elected to mount the alternator in such a manor that it actually runs backwards. This simplifies the hook up and it still works. The fan still functions, but instead of pulling air through the back and exhausting through the front, the air flow direction is reversed. Also, the fan blades are not as efficient when running backwards so air flow is reduced slightly. But, remember that like in the other project, the alternator is mounted to a steel plate which also serves as a large heat sink. And from the two hour test run at 39 Amp output, the alternator case temperature was only 148 degrees (ambient temperature was 80 degrees). So, I guess what I’m saying is that it really doesn’t matter. These alternators normally spend most of their lives under the hood of cars stuck in traffic jams on hot days, and see temperatures much higher than this.

Now, getting back to the mounting issues: The lawn mower engine has a longer shaft than the alternator, and if the pulley is installed in the ideal location on the motor shaft the two pulleys do not align. So, what we found was that the alternator needs to be mounted flush on top of the bracket but the motor needs to be spaced 1″ above the mounting plate. This is easily carried out by using 1″ longer bolts, and 1″ long spacer tubes. Then the alignment of the pulleys is correct.

Wiring it up

The wiring depends on which alternator you choose. All three alternator types are shown.

Do not wire the alternator unless you are sure about what type you are using. If you make a mistake in the selection of the alternator or wiring diagram you run a very high risk of damaging your battery, electronic devices, or worse yet causing personal injury! Consult a parts professional for additional information!

This tip is intended for educational purposes only. No guarantees are expressed or implied as to the accuracy of information presented here! Consult with an automotive wiring expert before attempting to carry out any wiring.

If you are using an alternator that requires an external switch, you will need to turn off the switch prior to attempting to start the generator. If the switch is on, the generator will try to output voltage while you are pulling the starting cord on the motor. You will find that it will be nearly impossible to pull the cord! If the switch is off, then there is little to no resistance from the alternator. Once the motor is running, the switch can be set to the on position.

 

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Spring is in the air and with it comes yard work. For some we have already started planting our gardens, others are tending to their chickens and most have to start cutting

Knowing how to build the perfect campfire is one of the main ingredients of a successful camping trip and of survival in general. The campfire is at the apex of any backwoods gatherings. You will most likely need it to prepare food, keep warm, ward off predators, and maybe even purify drinking water, as well as to just create that ambiance for the bringing people together. In case you have never built one before, or you are an old hand at it, everything can be a bit more involved than it appears on the surface. A “must have” skill for ALL preppers, you may find some valuable takeaways in this article, especially if your wood is poorly seasoned or the prevailing weather conditions are all working against you.

The key to success in building the perfect campfire is to have the right supplies, skills and patience. You must also have in the back of your mind what you will need the fire for so you can start and maintain the perfect campfire (given Mother Natures changing moods.)

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

Tinder: These are the tiniest of fire igniting materials. Examples include wadded newspaper, wood shavings, cardboard, wax, commercial fire sticks and dryer lint.
Kindling: It is consider just tinder that is bulkier and more substantial. Good examples are twigs about the thickness of a pencil.
Firewood: Well seasoned firewood somewhere up to 5 inches in diameter. You should split larger-diameter logs to make them easier to handle and burn more efficiently, however that also means they are consumed faster.
A Fire-starter: While you can use matches, lighters tend to do better jobs in the wilderness. A flint rod may also do for camping fires as well as a number of methods you have seen on this site in the past. Add fire-starters that you are experienced with at your discretion as these may be better saved for use when your tinder is wet or green.
A Shovel or Spade: A shovel or small spade may be necessary if you will need to create a fire pit from scratch. Also handy for extinguishing a fire as well as leaving as little trace of your passing as possible.

STEPS TO FOLLOW TO BUILD A PERFECT CAMPFIRE

Step 1: Check If Campfires Are Permitted if You Are Simply Camping

Before lighting any fires, you must determine whether campfires are permitted in your camping area. Look for posted signs in the campsite warning against starting fires. You can also ask the campsite host or a ranger for any such laws prohibiting fires. Avoid any assumptions from what you see and ensure you get necessary permissions before you start a campfire. The beaches of California are littered with fire pits from a by-gone era (just a few years ago, until things started getting ridiculous.)

Step 2: Pick an Appropriate Fire Spot

Established campgrounds usually already have fire-rings or fire pits. This will make your work easier. If such rings are nonexistent, choose a spot that is about 15 feet from your tents, trees, shrubs and other inflammable materials, if at all possible.

Look for a natural, or man-made windbreak. These will make your efforts easier, provide some cover, and draped with a emergency blanket may even make your fire more efficient at heating the surrounding area. If such a place does not exist clear any dead leaves, grass, and other vegetation to create at least a few feet of bare soil. Also, dig down a few inches to create a pit that’ll contain the fire. This will protect the hot coals as well making stoking the fire for a longer burn much easier.

Step 3: Choose the Type of Campfire to Build

Campers can choose between three different campfires depending on their needs. We will discuss the steps necessary to make perfect fires of each of the three types. The types include a teepee campfire, a lean-to campfire, and a log cabin campfire.

  1.  Teepee Campfire

  • Step 1: Centralize Some Tinder in Your Fire Pit

All campfires tend to begin start with a foundation made of tinder. To accomplish this, gather a portion of your tinder. Bundle them and put them at the center of the pit. A trick to make the tinder material easier to bundle, try to lay it on top of some piece of a well-dried tree bark.

  • Step 2: Build a Teepee

Use a portion of your kindling to build a cone-like teepee shape with some of the tinder in its center. Use just about six of the kindling pieces. Add a layer composed of firewood to build a wider teepee around your first one. Stick smaller branches or twigs into the ground around the teepee to secure it.

Do not forget to leave a gate in the teepee. Later on you will use it to ignite the fire. Ensure the gate or opening is on the side of the teepee facing the direction of the wind. This will provide your young fire with the air it needs to burn well. Similarly, leave spaces between the pieces of firewood to promote air circulation.

  • Step 3: Light the Tinder

With a ready teepee, place a match or lighter beneath the centralized tinder and strike or ignite. The teepee structure will encourage the fire to burn vertically from the tinder to kindling and then to the firewood. If the flames fail to fan, light the tinder again.

  • Step 4: Add Kindling and Firewood As Needed

As your fire burns, the firewood would be consumed and eventually, the teepee will collapse. At this juncture, add more kindling and pieces of firewood to maintain the fire. A teepee campfire is suitable for cooking because as it burns elegantly and steadily for a limited period.

      B. A Lean-To Campfire

  • Step 1: Place Kindling With Tinder beneath It

To make a Lean-To campfire, start by placing a long piece of kindling in the dirt at a 30-degree angle to the ground. Bundle some kindling and put it beneath the lean-to kindling. For the purpose of a lean-to kindling, a thicker stick or a small/medium size log will suffice. The end of the kindling should point to the direction of the wind.

  • Step 2: Add Tinier pieces of Kindling

With your lean-to kindling ready, place additional pieces of kindling in your fire set-up. In this case, use much thinner sticks than those serving as a lean-to. Place them against the lean-to and tinder bundles. Make a tent-like shape by leaning kindling against the lean-to. Create a second layer by adding a little bit larger pieces.

  • Step 3: Ignite the Tinder

Ignite tinder just like we discussed for the teepee type. Once the tinder catches fire, the rest of the kindling will follow to create larger flames. Add more kindling as well as some well-seasoned firewood to fan the flames. Begin with a single piece of firewood and increase the number appropriately. This is the best campfire type for cooking.

      C. Log Cabin Campfire (Pyramid)

  • Step 1: Create a Small Kindling Teepee

Use the first step in making a teepee campfire in this step. The only difference is that you will need just two layers of kindling around the tinder bundle at the center of your fire pit.

  • Step 2: Setup 4 pieces of small logs around the Teepee

Gather four pieces of well-dried firewood and set them around the teepee. Use two of the largest pieces on opposing sides of the teepee and then set up two smaller pieces on the remaining sides to make some sort of a square structure with the firewood. The smaller pieces must rest over the larger pieces for the log cabin to be steady. Ensure you leave a gate on the side that faces the direction of the blowing wind.

  • Step 3: Lay More Firewood

Continue laying more firewood over the four pieces of firewood. In this case, use smaller and shorter pieces in a similar pattern to the square. Your goal would be to create a structure similar to a cabin around the initial teepee.

  • Step 4: Invest Smaller Kindling On Top Of the Cabin and Ignite

Once your log cabin is ready, place some of the lightest kindling on top of the structure to close off your structure. Only then can you use a lighter or a match to ignite the fire. Light the fire from several sides in order to encourage your fire to burn. Create a log cabin type of campfire if you want fire that will burn for longer and therefore keep you warm for longer periods.

EXTINGUISHING YOUR CAMPFIRE

Besides knowing how to build a perfect campfire, you also need to know how to extinguish it. The simple option is cutting off its supply of oxygen. You can put out all types of campfires by pouring water on to the fire, stirring the ashes and then applying more water. You should repeat this process as necessary until the ash is cool to touch. The bare minimum is to ensure that the fire and its members are out and utterly cold before you leave the camp.

Water will cause smoke – a better method is to bury the fire with dirt. It does not cause smoke and generally hides the evidence of the fire being there in the first place.

 

CONCLUSION

No matter the type of campfire you intend to create, you now have the right information to help you do it right. Ensure you never leave the fire unattended and you must put it out before you leave to prevent unnecessary accidents.

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Knowing how to build the perfect campfire is one of the main ingredients of a successful camping trip and of survival in general. The campfire is at the apex of

I have been a prepper for several years now and have been on both sides of probably every argument out there in some form or another at one point in my life. I don’t have the same perspective on life that I used to when I was 22. I would imagine that not many of us do still think the same way when we are in the midst of raising a family and can look back on our 20’s from a couple dozen birthdays. The music that rolled out of the radio when I graduated high school is now considered classic or vintage or my favorite, retro. When I was younger my outlook on life was almost the polar opposite from what I think now and I like to believe that I have grown up a lot. Maturity can make a big difference in a person, but I guess experiences, character and who you surround yourself with all factor in their own heavily weighted portion of influence as to who you end up becoming.

I won’t go into everything I believed as a young man in my early (young and dumb) twenties but let’s just say I leaned a lot more to the left back then mainly I think that was because I only cared about myself. Then I met my wife and had some of those life experiences I mentioned (kids, several career changes, someone to worry about besides my sorry self) and my perspective changed almost completely with time. After several years of being the complete opposite of my younger self in terms of social and political outlook, checking a new box at the polls and more life experiences I have settled into what I believe is my true skin for lack of a better phrase. The closest you could now classify my outlook on life politically speaking anyway is Libertarian. That’s a pretty big turn from someone who voted for Clinton, twice.

But this article isn’t about politics, it’s about why I’m a Prepper and that introduction was really all to say that I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I had the brain, maturity and perspective I had in my twenties. If I hadn’t gone through the experiences that impacted my life and met the woman who completely changed everything I could be an entirely different person.

Fast forward from my relatively worry free twenties to the responsibilities of a father and husband. Around 2008 I started to think that something wasn’t really right. I have discussed this before, but it was a gut feeling that I needed to take extra steps to make sure my family would be protected. Protected from what? It was my perspective on life and what I was seeing that was stirring a sense of urgency to learn more about what other aspects of life there were that perhaps I wasn’t aware of. It was the urgency to protect my family that led me to research a wide variety of subjects which eventually led me to prepping even before it was a cool term on National Geographic.

The concepts of prepping made so much sense to me because I had people that I cared for and I didn’t want to see any harm come to them. It was logical to want to protect them from hunger, lack of water or intruders. I could easily see both the usefulness of prepping supplies to help my family out while at the same time looking much more broadly at our society with a new understanding about how things are run and presented to us. It was around this time that I started to research for myself the things I was being told and asked to accept without question.

These clowns wouldn’t last a month

Everyone comes to this subject of prepping from different paths but I would expect that anyone who has even lifted the covers ever so slightly on the wide open world that falls under the blanket of the word “prepper” has heard detractors. It doesn’t matter what you are prepping for there will be people who emphatically argue that you are crazy to prepare. These same people get downright belligerent that anyone would be so stupid as to think about their own survival or self-sufficiency. All you have to do is go on any YouTube video that has anything remotely resembling prepping and there will be lots of comments to the effect of “These clowns won’t last a month” or “you people are all idiots for believing anything bad is going to happen”. I am not surprised at this response but I can’t really understand it.

Preppers that I know almost universally are simply trying to make sure they are prepared if something happens. It is this process of preparation that they are undergoing to in some way make their lives better in their opinion if a crisis happens. All of these people who mock preppers are saying that the preppers are foolish for preparing or that they will die regardless of their preps so either way they are idiots.

These nut jobs should not be encouraged.

There are still others who view shows like Doomsday Preppers and Prepper Conventions all over the US as somehow encouraging bad behavior. As if watching people on TV is going to make someone a nut job. These nut jobs are just trying to protect themselves or their family. What about all the other TV shows? Do they encourage the nut jobs too? What about Reality TV shows that have people running around naked? Do they encourage the exhibitionist? What about Sports programs that feature athletes who abuse their family? Do those encourage the wife beaters? What about movies that encourage all manner of evil things? Do those encourage terrorists?

Besides the obvious aspect that preppers and their detractors are looking at the world with a different perspective, I think that there is one key difference between preppers and the people who think we are crazy. Preppers for the most part seem to be preparing for an unknown future. They take steps to stock up on food and water should they need it. Preppers learn skills and purchase weapons to defend their families if a situation arises where their lives are in jeopardy. Preppers don’t know what is coming, but they prepare for the chance that something will. Why? Because tragedy has happened many times before.

The people who call preppers “nut jobs” seem to know everything. I say this because they can easily spout off how nothing bad will ever happen, or how the US is “the richest frickin country in the world” and that we will never see anything like chaos here. EVER! Or if anything does happen it will be “nuclear war that will wipe everyone out anyway”. The detractors know everything and the preppers know nothing in their eyes. It reminds me a lot of how I was when I was much younger. Not that everyone who thinks prepping is wrong is a young whippersnapper, but their opinions and attitudes match mine at a much younger age.

I started prepping because to me it is simple common sense and I have people that depend on me. It’s common sense because I have been to the grocery store when it was closed and I needed something. I have run out of gas on the side of the road. I have been lost without a cell phone and I have experienced needing something I could have easily acquired ahead of time. I have seen winter storms block roads for days. I have also seen so many times where things don’t end up all right. I have seen riots, looting, famine, ethnic cleansing, civil wars, hurricanes, depression, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, economic collapse, virus outbreaks and all forms of evil perpetrated by one man against another. That “gut feeling” I had in 2008 hasn’t gone away, it has only gotten harder to ignore.

I have a responsibility to protect my family and I have taken a lot of steps over the years toward that goal. These steps would probably make a lot of people out there call me a wacko but I’m OK with that. I have said before that I would rather reach the end of my days as a very old Great Grandfather with all of my family surrounding me talking about how crazy I was than to have a single person who calls me crazy now admit that I was right all along as we stare at disaster.

Prepping isn’t crazy, but believing you know everything and that nothing will ever go wrong might be. I’m going to stick with my approach and we’ll meet up later and see who was right. Good luck to you.

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I have been a prepper for several years now and have been on both sides of probably every argument out there in some form or another at one point in

For years I have been fascinated with hanging. Yes I realize how morbid that sounds and no I never tortured animals or smaller children in my youth or any other time for that matter. I am talking about the hanging you see in old western movies where bad guys are dealt with at the end of a trial. The act of hanging is both brutal and efficient. The quickness of someone simply taking a short fall into oblivion almost makes the act itself a little less horrific – that is if you can discount the cause of their actual demise and overlook the sound that must accompany their bodies reaching the end of the rope as it were.

I may get some push back on this post, but there are times when I feel our justice system is too complicated, corrupt and doesn’t do one thing that it was designed to do and that is act as a deterrent. Trials go on for years, appeals spawn other appeals and the whole time we are paying for criminals to get an education, to have access to internet, to workout and learn other crimes. In some cases, a simple length of rope would be faster, more efficient, infinitely cheaper and would bring back the public execution that surely would act as a deterrent again. Nothing like watching some bad men hung in the public square to make you think twice about killing someone.

Before I get the angry emails about how many people have been found innocent and are exonerated by DNA evidence let me clarify what I am referring to. I realize that the death sentence isn’t applicable for every crime and I am not suggesting otherwise. I am not advocating we round up some people we think are guilty and find a tall oak tree. I am also not advocating any violence against any person for any reasons other than the proper (community agreed) dispensation of justice after a fair, open and legitimate trial by elected representatives. I am not advocating lynching or terrorizing anyone with this post.

On the other hand in a TEOTWAWKI world which is one we frequently hypothesize about on Final Prepper and other survival blogs –  if we are to have some semblance of order we will have to have justice. If society and our framework of government is destroyed, who will dispense with justice? Will we have jails for someone to serve life in prison? Who would pay for that to happen in the first place if we are all scratching to survive? If the grid ever collapses, one way to prevent violence or brutality is to punish those who visit violence upon our community. Hanging might make a comeback.
This is all a theoretical exercise I know but for anyone who was curious like me of how to tie a hangman’s noose, I found the following video.  If nothing else, you can learn how to tie this famous knot. You never know if you will need to use it one day.

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Before I get the angry emails about how many people have been found innocent and are exonerated by DNA evidence let me clarify what I am referring to. I realize

A key but often neglected part of having firearms in your prepping plans is practice. Many people purchase thousands of dollars worth of weapons with the intention of using these in a life and death situation. The truth of the matter is that when you are actually in a life and death situation, your skill is dramatically reduced. The confidence you had with that weapon is gone and fear and stress kick in big time. It is at this most critical time that your skill level and proficiency need to be the highest they can be, but the reality is we are able to muster only a fraction.

Practicing with your pistols before there is an emergency is vital to improving your chances of successfully living to talk about it. If your going into a gunfight, you need to be training for a gunfight. Bruce outlines some steps and exercises you can follow below to become more proficient, to increase muscle memory and hopefully increase your odds of hitting what you are shooting at, before it hits you. Practice these drills as often as you can. They could mean the difference between life and death.

The Crush Grip

The crush grip is one of the elements of Massad Ayoob’s five-point “pre-flight checklist” comprising the fundamentals of solid combat handgun marksmanship (Ayoob, 2012). When a shooter uses a crush grip or hard grasp on the handgun with the thumbs curled down, the curled thumbs promote a stronger and tighter grasp. Thumbs curled down do not shift the windage on one’s muzzle direction. My experience and the results with my students validate that one can shoot with combat accuracy with such a grip.

Furthermore, as demonstrated in Massad Ayoob’s Stressfire combat handgun training program (www.MassadAyoobGroup.com), when a shooter intentionally “gorilla grips” the handgun to the point of tremor, the resulting “wobble zone” results in shot groupings on target at combat distances that are still within a combat accuracy acceptable 3 to 4 inches.

However, there is yet one other essential point. The harder you grasp the handgun, the better you will control the gun. Also, the harder you grasp, the easier it is to isolate your trigger finger. Just perform this little experiment:

Full combat grip on holstered gun.

Make a loose fist with your dominant hand and keep your thumb pointed forward. Now, extend your trigger finger and press your trigger finger to the rear just as if you are working a trigger. If you watch your hand as you do this, you may notice that as you work your trigger finger, your other fingers are also moving. You have not completely isolated the movement of your trigger finger from the rest of your hand. This is called “milking,” and if you do this while you are shooting, it typically results in shots that are low and to the left.

Now make a much tighter fist and curl your thumb down. When you extend your trigger finger and press it to the rear now, as if you’re working the trigger, you will notice that your other tightly clasped fingers do not move in unison. You have isolated your trigger finger. This is one advantage of a crush grip.

The importance of a combat shooting program emphasizes techniques that depend on simple gross motor skills as opposed to complex fine motor skills, since fine motor skills deteriorate under life and death stress.

It is my position that we should practice defensive shooting in ways which are consistent with what happens physically and psychologically if we were fighting for our life. These techniques should feed off of the effects of the body alarm reaction and become more effective under stress. They must be simple gross motor techniques that can withstand the tremors and increased physical strength attendant to the body-alarm-triggered adrenaline dump into the bloodstream. A “crush grip” does this.

Can we and should we train for a gunfight?

My position on the matter is that we can train for when the proverbial balloon goes up and that we should maximize our training time by building skills that we might have to use in a deadly force situation. After all, we carry guns because we just might have to use them in defense of life. Therefore, we had better prepare ourselves by running drills that build skills we might actually use for real.

How to Train for the Gunfight

I have developed a practice drill regimen that runs through some of the core elements of combat shooting. It is doable in a lane in an indoor range. I use this practice drill regimen for my own skills maintenance, and I teach it to my private students. I will outline it here. It requires 100 rounds (two boxes) of ammunition.

Training for a gunfight means building skills you will need if you are in an armed confrontation. First and foremost, you will need good basic marksmanship skills because advanced combat shooting skills involve solid applications, and in some cases, modifications, of the basic skills. Thus, you must master the basics.

These include a solid (power) stance, a solid and stable (crush) grip on the gun, acquisition and maintenance of good sight alignment and sight picture, good trigger control and trigger reset, and good follow-through. Second, you will need good point shooting and retention shooting skills. There will be no time to take your time. You need to be able to fire multiple shots fast and accurately close in, because most gunfights happen within nine feet. And third, you will need to move! The person who stays planted is going nowhere fast, and in fact, may get planted. Conversely, the person who moves rapidly is more likely to emerge from the fight alive.

Drill 4: Elbow Up. Elbow Down.

Drill 1. Basic Marksmanship Drill: Two-Handed Grip (30 rounds)

Every trip to the range for practice should include practicing basic marksmanship to refresh and strengthen the fundamentals. Advanced skills build on the basics. This first drill is a primer. I typically run at least 30 rounds through my primary defensive handgun at five, seven, ten, fifteen, and twenty to twenty-five yards. The handgun is brought on target either from the low ready, combat ready, compressed combat ready positions, or the holster. Typically I begin shooting close-in to build confidence and then increase my target distances.

Basic marksmanship means employing the fundamentals; power stance, hard two-handed grasp on the handgun, good sight alignment and sight picture, good trigger control and follow through (give the bullet time to leave the barrel before the trigger reset and preparing for the follow-up shot). For this drill, I am aiming for precision accuracy. I am essentially running the “one-hole drill” or “focus drill” that I have described in previous articles. This is a take as much time as you need drill to get all shots in one hole using the basics of good marksmanship.

Drill 2. Basic Marksmanship Drill: One-Handed Grip (20 rounds)

This drill is the same as the above drill (incorporating all of the fundamentals) except that now you are shooting one-handed at various distances, alternating between your dominant and non-dominant hands. When you shoot one-handed, it is important to grip your handgun even harder, as you have only one hand on the gun. The harder you grasp, the better you will control the gun. Also, the harder you grasp, as we illustrated above, the easier it is to isolate your trigger finger.

Movement

The above two drills use up a box (50 rounds) of ammunition. The drills to follow require another 50 rounds. The following drills should incorporate movement at least some of the time that you run them, to the extent that the range will allow. Obviously, if you are working in an indoor range in a lane, your movement will be minimal. Basically, when you are not shooting, you should be moving. As noted defensive firearms trainer, John Farnam is fond of repeating, “Don’t just stand there like a potted palm.” If you present a static target in a real fight, you just might get planted. So, movement should be incorporated into your gun presentation (your draw from the holster) and movement should follow each string of shots.

Drill 3. Draw and Shoot Two-Handed from Compressed Ready to Full Extension (20 rounds)

DRILL 5 as you aim through point shooting at the target, you are shooting up the target from your initial point of aim/point of impact, sort of like a zipper.

In a real gunfight, you will be firing multiple shots. Typically the fight will begin close in. To prevail and survive, you need to get hits on your assailant before he hits you. And you need to move away from your assailant as you are doing so. Distance is your friend. This drill is

One-quarter hip retention point shooting position.

run at three, five, and seven yards. You begin from two-handed compressed ready. When you give yourself the go signal, start shooting from the compressed ready and fire two to three additional shots as you push your gun out to full extension.

In a fight, you would be extending the gun as you fire and simultaneously move away from your assailant. Note: Your first shot at compressed ready should be taken with your hands at least six inches in front of your chest so that the rear end of the cycling slide will not hit your chest.

Drill 4. Elbow-Up/Elbow Down One-Handed Point Shooting from the Hip (10 rounds)

In this drill, I practice drawing from the holster (strong side) and shooting from retention (which in this drill is the one-quarter hip retention position), as soon as the gun is pointed at the target. A total of 10 rounds are fired. This drill should be perfected first without movement. Once you are comfortable with the drill, then you can incorporate movement. However, if you are shooting on an indoor range in a lane, it may not be safe to incorporate movement into this drill. This is the flow sequence broken down into steps:

  1. Acquire a combat grip on the holstered handgun.
  2. Your elbow swings up as you draw the gun up vertically and clear the mouth of the holster with the muzzle.
  3. Your elbow swings down as you rock your forearm up toward the target with your arm in the one-quarter hip retention position.
  4. You fire one shot as soon as your muzzle is pointed at your aim point on the target.

It is very important to maintain a crush grip on the gun as you run this drill. By doing so, you will have more control over the gun.

Drill 5. “The Zipper” (20 rounds)

This drill is an extension of Drill 4. In this drill, I draw from the holster (strong side), begin shooting from the one-quarter hip retention position as soon as the gun is pointed at the target, and continue firing as I push the gun out toward the target through the half hip, three-quarter hip, and full extension positions. This drill is called the zipper because as you aim through point shooting at the target, you are shooting up the target from your initial point of aim/point of impact, sort of like a zipper.

DRILL 5 as you aim through point shooting at the target, you are shooting up the target from your initial point of aim/point of impact, sort of like a zipper.

Here again, we are practicing getting multiple shots at speed into our assailant. You should start running this drill slowly, and gradually build up speed over several sessions. It is important to do it smoothly in one continuous flow. Here you should “flow like water.” Remember that initially at least, slow is smooth, and eventually, fast, effective and coordinated is always smooth.

Recognize that in reality, you would only extend your gun as you are firing as far as you safely can in order to maintain good gun retention. If you are too close to your opponent and you extend your gun too far toward your opponent as you are firing, you may end up giving your gun to your assailant or his partner.

This drill should be performed without movement while you are shooting, as with all of the above drills. Give yourself time to become proficient at this drill before you incorporate movement into your draw from the holster. Again, if you are shooting on an indoor range with lanes, it may not be safe to incorporate movement into this drill. Again, it is very important to maintain a crush grip on the gun throughout the shooting sequence. Especially when you are practicing this technique, if you do not gorilla grip your handgun, you will not have as much control over it as you need to have.

This is the flow sequence broken down into steps:

  1. Acquire a combat grip on the holstered handgun.
  2. Your elbow swings up as you draw the gun up vertically and clear the mouth of the holster with the muzzle.
  3. Your elbow swings down as you rock your forearm up toward the target.
  4. You fire your first shot as soon as your muzzle is pointed at your point of aim on the target and when your arm is in the one-quarter hip position. You continue firing as you push the gun out toward the target through the half hip, three-quarter hip, and full extension positions.

Summary

Training for a gunfight means practicing drills that incorporate skills you will need if you are in an armed confrontation. First of all, you need good basic marksmanship skills. Advanced combat shooting skills involve solid applications, and in some cases, modifications of the basic skills. You must master the basics as discussed above. That is why my practice regimen includes a basic marksmanship component.

Second, you need good point shooting and retention shooting skills. Armed confrontations and gunfights typically happen in seconds. There is no time to take your time. You need to be able to shoot multiple shots fast and accurately. Most gunfights happen within nine feet. You will most likely be fighting one or more assailants who are coming toward you, so you will need to hold onto your gun tightly (crush grip, retention position) and fire multiple shots.

Third, you will need to move, so you need to incorporate movement into your drills! The person who stays planted is going nowhere fast, and in fact, may get planted. Conversely, the person who moves rapidly is more likely to emerge from the fight alive. The drills described above incorporate all of these elements.

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A key but often neglected part of having firearms in your prepping plans is practice. Many people purchase thousands of dollars worth of weapons with the intention of using these

In a perfect world, one would like to think that when disaster strikes, people would rush to help and support each other through it. And while people certainly will, such catastrophes unfortunately sometimes bring out the worst in many people as well. And these opportunistic predator types don’t target strapping he-men either. They’ll be looking for what they think are vulnerable victims; the elderly, the disabled, and women.

While in these more enlightened times few people still think of women as the “weaker sex”, most men still retain some advantages in physical height and strength.

Fortunately, there are a number of self-defense tips and techniques that can level that playing field and allow women to protect themselves and those that they are responsible for protecting. Some of them involve an outlay of money, some involve exercise, some involve surprisingly simple preparation, but all of them should be considered now, not after the worst happens. Below are some of the more effective ones.

Get And Stay Physically Fit

The healthier and more physically fit you are in the aftermath of a crisis, the better.

You’ll be able to run from danger. You’ll be able to run and get help and possibly track down prey.

Weight lifting will allow you to…well…lift weights.

Rock climbing and ropes courses now may help you to extract yourself and assist others in escaping from collapsed buildings, scale cliffs, and climb trees.

And the great thing about physical fitness programs is that they need not involve memberships at expensive gyms. An exercise regime as simple as daily rope-jumping may have you putting others to shame when trouble strikes.

Don’t Be Afraid Of Fear

It’s a perfectly natural emotion, designed by nature to help you avoid serious problems. But there’s a fine line between breaking down into hopeless hysteria or running blindly off of the edge of a cliff, and making your fear work for you.

Don’t be crippled by fear, but do listen to that little voice warning you when going into unfamiliar areas, encountering strange groups, etc. And remember that the adrenaline produced when you enter the “flight or fight” mode actually increases your physical strength. Use it accordingly.

 

 

Face to face with a street thug? Do THIS
Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like we’re living in America anymore, with…
• Outraged alt-left mobs who burn any American flag they come across…
• Trigger-happy thugs who have ZERO regard for human life…
• Radical terrorists plotting to murder Americans right here in our country…
That’s why an ex-CIA Officer made this brief self-defense video and he’s sharing it FREE with all law-abiding American citizens.

Every Heel Has His (Or Her) Achilles Heel

Even physically fit women may not prevail in a confrontation with a man that involves running or brute force. So don’t let him get the upper hand, but calmly and effectively go on the offensive by attacking him in areas that will hurt, with blows and kicks to the:

  • Eyes
  • Groin
  • Kidneys
  • Nose
  • Adam’s apple (that “bulge” in the throat)
  • Shin
  • Instep
  • Solar plexus (between the sternum and stomach)
  • Knee
  • Nose
  • Jaw
  • Sternum (the flat bony area in the center of the chest)

Make sure that these blows are hard, and yes, they work just as effectively on women. And in situations like these, biting is absolutely fair play, and effectively painful. For some defense moves that you can try out, check out this article on The 3 Essential Self-Defense Moves.

Take A Class

There are a couple of reasons to take formal self-defense courses now.

The first one is that you will be learning in a safe and comfortable environment with professional instructors. This guarantees that you’ll be learning how to use techniques effectively, having questions answered by knowledgeable sources, and reducing the chances of injury to yourself or another student.

The second reason is that retentive learning of this nature tends to go better in a group situation, with the positive feedback, support, and hands-on learning opportunities offered by this type of classes.

Join A Shooting Club/Go To A Firing Range

Waiting until the apocalypse is nigh upon us is a bad time to become comfortable with using a firearm. It’s also possible to receive instruction at these locations to insure that you know how to effectively protect yourself with a firearm against attackers.

Other (Non-Lethal) Firearm Knowledge That All Self-Defenders Should Have

Neither the survivor party that you’re trying to protect nor the gang of slobbering attackers that you’re facing will be too impressed if your gun jams or you shoot yourself while firing it, now will they?

The Israeli Woman Teaching the Art of Stiletto Self Defense

Survivalists or preppers who know or think that they will be handling guns should:

  • Know how to load and unload various types of firearms
  • Know how to clean and perform at least minor types of other maintenance on guns
  • Be conversant with various parts of firearms
  • Know how to correctly wear a holster, as well as correctly drawing from and returning a weapon to it

It would also be very helpful to master the not-difficult but time consuming art of reloading, or manufacturing your own ammunition.

Prevention Is The Best Cure

The most effective self-defense? Avoid putting yourself in situations where you have to use self-defense!

Avoid traveling by yourself, traveling at night, or traveling in exposed or isolated areas. Sometimes of course, one has no choice. In such situations, keep a straight, tall posture, walk quickly and purposefully, and keep weapons out and in your hand.

Use Caution In Making New “Friends”

Until you actually get to know them, all unknown parties should be treated with caution. This means maintaining a distance of a couple of meters when meeting and speaking to them. You say this seems rude? Consider this. It buys you some space if the “friend” goes into attack mode, and allows you to observe what most vulnerable body parts the attacker (see #3) is exposing to you.

Maintain Self-Confidence

It can be hard to keep a stiff upper lip during the End of Days, but remaining calm and assertive will not only help you combat depression and feelings of self-hopelessness, it will make you appear less of a “mark” to attackers and other unsavory types.

Hunker Down At Home

If the crisis is short-term or there’s no immediate danger, like Dorothy said in the Wizard Of Oz, “There’s no place like home”. Make sure that your palace is a fortress though, by pre-stocking plenty of non-perishable foods, potable water, and medical supplies. Regardless of weather, all unused doors and windows should be secured. Install an “alarm” system even if it’s just a dog, and if possible, create a well-stocked “panic area” in the home where you can flee from intruders, and they can’t follow. Better still, be cautious about admitting any strangers to your home.

Wrapping Up

What do you think, are there other important factors women need to keep in mind to be able to effectively defend themselves? If you have some thoughts on the subject, please share them with us by commenting in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you!

Face to face with a street thug? Do THIS
Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like we’re living in America anymore, with…
• Outraged alt-left mobs who burn any American flag they come across…
• Trigger-happy thugs who have ZERO regard for human life…
• Radical terrorists plotting to murder Americans right here in our country…
That’s why an ex-CIA Officer made this brief self-defense video and he’s sharing it FREE with all law-abiding American citizens.

 

1 Comment

In a perfect world, one would like to think that when disaster strikes, people would rush to help and support each other through it. And while people certainly will, such

The bottom just dropped out all of your warning triggers are telling you that it’s time to pack everyone into the family bug out mobile and leave town before it gets worse. Much worse. You thought ahead which is fortunate for you and your family. You have a vehicle adequately equipped for the journey to your bug out location with essential gear, plenty of fuel with extra in reserve and everyone in the family has their bug out bags stowed safely away. Nervously, you pull out of your driveway in the middle of night to avoid most of the trouble already brewing. This may possibly be the last time you see your home and just like every trip before, you have that nagging sensation you forgot something.

Many disasters that preppers think and plan for could require you to leave the safety of your home, possibly forever. In a situation like this, your well stocked bug out bags and any other gear and supplies you are able to load and carry could be the sum total of all your worldly possessions. Some disaster scenarios assume the worst, a complete destruction through various means that leaves the civilization as we know it destroyed beyond repair for years. In a complete disaster like that, we make assumptions that normal commerce as we know it would effectively be over so the subject of bartering after SHTF comes to mind.

In other scenarios, which some might argue are many times more likely, the world won’t just stop spinning overnight. Every store won’t be closed and you will be able to buy supplies with whatever monetary instruments you have on hand that are still worth a commonly understood value. For most of the world, certainly here in the US we look to cash as the main fallback, but some people are saving precious metals as well to hedge against a currency collapse where that cash you are stowing away is worthless.

Assuming that money in the common forms we are talking about here (cash, precious metals) is able to be used to our benefit during a bug out scenario, have you ever thought about how much you need to put into your bug out bag?

A reader asked me about this subject today and after he pointed out that I hadn’t really addresses the subject on my site, I decided to write an article.

Question from Sam:

I have one question, how much money or other valuables (gold, silver, etc.)do you have in your bug out bag to buy/trade or barter with? I have looked on many prepper sites and have not found an answer to this. Can you please give me some guidance or advice for me?

First, let me thank Sam for this great question and I would encourage anyone else who has questions, or comments about anything you have seen or not seen addressed on Final Prepper to please contact us.

Back to Sam’s question, so how much money do you have in your bug out bag? That part is simple. I have as much “money” as I can carry but I will break this down into specifics with my reasoning why below.

What are some reasons to have money in your bug out bag?

Why have any money in your bug out bag in the first place? Well, there are many good reasons I can think of. Imagine a scenario where the power is out, possibly for weeks. You wouldn’t be able to use ATM machines because they rely on power. Stores couldn’t run credit/debit card transactions without power because they all go through the internet now which relies on power. If the electricity is out, the way we commonly get access to our money or conduct electronic transactions is gone until the power comes back.

You could just drive to the bank and pull out as much as you need, right? Not necessarily. You only have to look to the people of Greece who still can’t get more than roughly $50 out of the bank each day. Would you want to have your cash reserves limited by what the banks could or would allow you to take out? No, I wouldn’t either and that is the main reason why I advocate keeping as much money as logical for you personally out of the banking system.

So having a supply of cash makes sense for the simple fact that you might not be able to get it when you need it most, but what could you possibly need cash for if you were a good prepper and have your fully stocked bug out bag and your BOV with a full tank of gas? I can see situations where a cash bribe might get you past security or could buy your temporary safety. There could be checkpoint guards who could be swayed to let you past if you empty out your wallet and having some cash could facilitate your escape. What about being able to purchase a ticket on a train, plane or some other means of transportation out of a country that is collapsing? It happened all of the time in Germany back before WWII. There isn’t any reason to think we in the US would be immune from needing to migrate ourselves if it got bad enough.

Cash might still be able to be used to purchase supplies if you were out ahead of the panic or were prevented from leaving. If you needed to purchase additional fuel along the route for example and you found a gas station that was only accepting cash, you would be in luck. I think the majority of people might not realize the effects of a currency collapse or revaluation of the dollar, but if you were on top of your gain, you could find someone still accepting cash that could for all intents be worthless.

How much money do you keep in your bug out bags?

I try to keep as much cash as possible where I can access it relatively quickly without needing to go to the ATM or bank. If I had to bug out I would be taking all of the cash I had with me. I don’t have tens of thousands of dollars or anything like that so weight isn’t really a consideration. Money in smaller denominations will probably be better to take with you on one hand because people might be less likely to make change. I don’t imagine anyone is going to worry about getting change for a dollar back but if you needed something that cost $5 and you only had a $100 bill that might hurt a little more. $20, $10 bills seem to make the most sense for regular day-to-day transactions where in a society like Greece, the stores are open but capital controls are keeping you from freely accessing your cash. You could use these small bills at stores to purchase food, pay for meals etc.

In a total collapse though, $100 bills might be needed or could be used more appropriately for extreme inflationary prices. If gas went to $100 a gallon, and you could find someone selling, that $100 bill could spend nicely. Flashing a $100 bill to buy your way through a checkpoint is instantly recognized and might get you through faster than a stack of $20s. I keep a mix of both, but the overwhelming majority is smaller bills ($20). I think if I had $1000 in my bug out bags that would cover me for most conceivable disasters so that is what I plan for.

I would not keep all of your money in whatever form together. I would store some in a shirt pocket maybe. Some in one pants pocket, some in the wallet, maybe more in a fake wallet, maybe a shoe or elsewhere. You don’t want to get robbed of all of your cash in one instant. Diversifying where you have your money could allow you to act like you are giving a bad guy or even a someone driving a hard bargain that you have given them all you have.

Should you take silver coins in your bug out bag?

Is silver and gold a good idea for your bug out bag?

But the other part of Sam’s question had to do with Gold and Silver. Do precious metals make sense for your bug out bag? I think they could, but the situation would need to be pretty unique I think. Some advocate buying 1/10 ounce gold coins because they are worth less than a standard 1 oz coin and they rationalize that one of the biggest complaints about having gold would be reduced. Most people would have a hard time bartering a 1 oz gold coin because they are worth about $1200 each today. Can you imagine trying to get some groceries and giving the person at the register a gold coin? Even if they knew what it was and the worth of it, do you think their manager would allow them to take the coin in the first place, much less give you the accurate change for your transaction? I don’t see that happening.

The 1/10 oz. gold coins are worth about $130 now so the change factor might be lessened, but you would still likely not be able to purchase anything at a traditional store with Gold. What about Silver? The benefit of silver is the value is much smaller. The lesser value makes this precious metal easier to purchase for preppers with limited funds and would seem to be easier to trade with because the change factor wouldn’t seem to be as prominent. You go buy $100 worth of groceries and give the person at the register 5 Silver coins. However, I still think you would have the same problem using these after the grid goes down, at least for a very long time.

Do I keep precious metals set aside for bugging out? Yes I do but I am not counting on using them in the short-term. I probably wouldn’t take more than 10 coins per person with me for the reasons I mention above and their weight.

I know that some will say that Gold and Silver always have value so their worth after a collapse would only go up. I disagree with that from the standpoint that anything you are talking about only has value if the person you are trying to conduct business with agrees with you on the value. A gold coin might be worth $10,000 after an economic collapse, but what good is it if you can’t get anyone to give you something worth $10,000 for it?

If you are talking about taking a box with all of your precious metals to another country and finding someone to give you fair market value, then that does make sense, but getting back to the Bug Out Bag scenario, I think precious metals have a low potential for usability in the days and months after some calamity and that is why I am not taking too many along with me.

That’s what I think anyway. How much money do you have in your bug out bag?

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The bottom just dropped out all of your warning triggers are telling you that it’s time to pack everyone into the family bug out mobile and leave town before it

A common question when preppers begin the process of accumulating supplies and knowledge is How much ammo do I need for SHTF? Of course, if you don’t have any firearms, the question is more likely, how much ammo do you need meaning the person like me? Because anyone with a gun, in their opinion doesn’t need it, and any ammo except maybe a single box is too much. That box should also be registered with the local sheriff and kept under lock and key preferably at the Sheriff’s office.

For the rest of us who are able to keep firearms (for now) and who don’t have a problem with firearms, I wanted to give my take on how much ammo to keep. The typical SHTF scenario is not a limited disruption in services or power like what you can expect from a weather event. Although, there are a lot of cases recently where Hurricanes disrupt a community for years. (Haiti, Hurricane Sandy, Katrina) so to some of you this could be a real SHTF scenario in its own right. I am not really speaking to this threat, but you can glean some information for those who do find themselves in a weather caused event I think.

My scenario for this post is a real SHTF type of scenario where for whatever reason, any resemblance of normalcy has been thrown out the window and there is no Rule of Law or Law and Order is severely diminished. Economic Collapse, Mutant Zombie Bikers from Mars, Global pandemic; pick one. The point I want to get to is if the stores never opened again, if you couldn’t walk down to Walmart ever and get more ammo; how much would you need on hand before the collapse?

Let me first preface this with the following. Everyone’s situation is different so this is just my idea of the recommended minimum amounts. If I haven’t taken into account some of your realities, please let me know. I think this post can be a forum where we can all get more perspective from others out there.

What are the recommended minimums in your favorite calibers?

Next, this is not assuming you are going to bug out into the woods. I can already hear people saying “How are you going to carry all of that” and I completely agree that you would never be able to on foot. I am not planning on bugging out; this is my minimums for bugging in. Additionally, there will be people who say things like, what if you get killed and you have all of that ammo? The bad guys are going to get everything you have. True, but I could get killed falling down the steps or eating some bad spaghetti sauce and the bad guys would get it anyway. Any plans I make are for living, not dying. I think it’s stupid to plan for dying. Let the people burying you worry about that.

How Much Do I Need?

So, to get to the point, I mentioned in another post the Top Five Firearms You Need to Get Your Hands on, so that is my battery of arms. This included one Shotgun, One Battle Rife, One Long-Range (Hunting) Rifle, One pistol and One small game rifle. For these weapons, I have the following recommendations.

  • Shotgun
    • Small Game – 500 rds.
    • Defensive – 500 rds.
  • Battle Rifle AR or AK – 2000 rds.
  • Long Range Rifle – 500 rds.
  • Pistol
    • Defensive Hollow Point– 1000 rds.
    • Practice (Ball) – 2000 rds.
  • Small Game (.22) – 2000 rds.

For the ultimate in capability, look into reloading.

I will go ahead and explain my reasoning for these numbers and please feel free to comment with your own opinions and suggestions. I am just like every single other person in the world out there. There aren’t any SHTF experts so it is just opinions all around. You may have a lot of experience in the Army, or the Police Force but that doesn’t make you an expert any more than anyone else.

Shotgun – This weapon has two uses so the count is fairly high. 500 rounds each for hunting game and defending your home should last a long time.

Battle Rifle – This to me is your go to weapon of choice in any type of SHTF scenario and your magazines will hold more than just about any normal magazine of any of my other choices. A decent combat load is 12 magazines at 30 rounds each (12 X 30 = 360) and that is just what you can carry on you in your vest or LBE. 2000 to me is the minimum I would strive for.

Long Range Rifle – Again, this pulls double duty along with the Shotgun. A well sighted .30-.06 or .308 can reach out and touch a lot of people at a respectable distance if they are handled correctly. This can be the weapon that bags deer for dinner or picks off a zombie at 600 yards.

Pistol – This weapon is not as powerful as the battle rifle, but it will be on your side more often I imagine. Spare pistol ammo can be bartered in a pinch, but only if you have more than your minimums.

Small Game – This is my .22 and it can be used to practice with, take smaller game and varmints if you are a good shot. This ammo is still considerably cheaper than just about any other too.

Now that I have my minimums out there, how do you get started? If you had all of these calibers and had zero ammo I would try getting a little of everything as your finances allow. Don’t stock up on rifle ammo and forget everything else.

What should you do when you have the minimums? You can keep going to further ensure you will have enough or move on to your other preps that you need to check off the list. As long as you have the minimums I would spend my money on other necessities before I add more ammo.

How many magazines do you need for each weapon?

That is another excellent question. I would say 4 magazines for each pistol at a minimum and 10 for your battle rifle. You don’t have to worry about shotguns and rifle magazines are costly too. I would say 4 magazines for your long-range rifle too but that is only after you get everything else first.

Have some ideas of your own? Id love to hear them in the comments below.

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A common question when preppers begin the process of accumulating supplies and knowledge is How much ammo do I need for SHTF? Of course, if you don’t have any firearms,

They’re powerful, unpredictable and the most destructive weather system on Earth. Tornadoes can devastate a town in a matter of minutes, ripping away rooftops and sending pickup trucks through the air. According to the National Centers for Environmental Information (NOAA), the United States has an average of over 1,000 tornadoes recorded each year. Every state in the U.S. has experienced a tornado at some point or another, as they’re not limited to one specific geographic location. But states like Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma are hit harder than others. If you’re moving to Tornado Alley, you’ve got to be prepared for the worst. Keep these tips in mind as you set up your new home:

Plan for Shelter

Keeping your family safe when a tornado strikes calls for a durable storm shelter. In-ground and above-ground shelters offer complete protection from the elements when inclement weather rolls in. Based out of Oklahoma, storm shelter company, Family Safe, offers certified in-home storm shelters that have been F5 certified, giving you complete protection from tornadoes. Family Safe also meets the FEMA criteria concerning reliable storm shelters. Just because they’re based out of Oklahoma doesn’t mean they can’t install a shelter at your home. Family Safe has storm shelter dealers across the U.S. and they’ve installed shelters in Dallas, Texas, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Joplin, Missouri.

In addition to providing shelter from Tornadoes, these sturdy structures can also provide a safe room environment.

Shelters like this one in the garage can be installed after your home is constructed and could double as a panic room.

Plan for Communication

There are many things that should go into your survival kit, one of those items is an Iridium satellite phone. When communication goes out, your smartphone won’t be much help. Having a satellite phone in your bug-out bag is essential when it comes to weathering a storm. Iridium satellite phones rely on ground networks and 66 low Earth-orbiting satellites to establish a connection. A report by Frost & Sullivan found that the Iridium network offers the best call quality and call completion rates when compared to competitors. This is one of the reasons why the U.S. military relies on Iridium’s network. A sat phone is your lifeline in the midst of disaster. You’ll be able to call for help and check in with family and friends to let them know that you’re safe.

Of course only relying on technology is a short-sighted plan because things do go wrong. Have a back-up communication plan with relatives or neighbors to get the word out should something happen.

In addition to letting others know about your status after a tornado, it is important to receive as much advance warning of any approaching weather as possible. A good weather alert radio can warn you even if you aren’t watching the news or checking your smart phone. If you live in areas prone to tornadoes, a system like this is essential.

Practice your plan

Once you hear that tornado warning, you’ve got to take action. Having a well-established plan outlined before disaster strikes is critical to survival. Sketch a floor plan of your home and walk each room with your family to discuss how and where to seek shelter if you don’t have a secure, dedicated room described above. Identify second exits throughout the different areas of your home. Make sure that everyone knows where the fire extinguishers and first-aid kits are located. It’s also a smart idea to teach your entire family basic first-aid skills. Keep a list of important telephone numbers and contacts in a waterproof container inside of your survival kit. Store important information like the ownership certificates for your car, truck, RV or boat, your family’s birth certificates and social security cards and insurance policies in there as well.

When the sky turns dark and you spot a funnel cloud, you must take shelter immediately. Most tornado related injuries and fatalities are caused by flying objects, according to the CDC. Practice what you and your family will do to take shelter ahead of time. A tornado can happen anywhere, that’s why it’s also important to go over the best place to seek shelter, whether you’re at home, work or school.

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They’re powerful, unpredictable and the most destructive weather system on Earth. Tornadoes can devastate a town in a matter of minutes, ripping away rooftops and sending pickup trucks through the

Many times through the years I have stumbled into prepper articles or discussions about the best firearms to have for SHTF. There are always different perspectives and I myself have shared my own opinions about what I think are the top 5 firearms every prepper should have. Naturally this assumes firearms are available to you legally and you don’t have any ethical problems with the thought of using them if needed for their intended purpose. Training in the proper use and safety of these firearms should go without saying.

But invariably, somewhere in the conversations about the best caliber or whether or not the AK is better than the AR, someone will bring up the concept of air rifles as an alternative to more traditional firearms. For many years I dismissed this advice out of hand because I assumed that anyone who thought it was a better idea to use an air rifle for survival was either anti-gun or had some element in their personal lives that prevented them from owning a firearm. A real gun instead of a toy…

I never really delved into this subject and it was a recent email from a reader of Final Prepper that prompted me to look into this topic further, if for no other reason than to fully state my opinion and let the world give me their thoughts on this subject.

Sam writes:

There are many that would like to make a bug out bag but can’t because they may be on a fixed income or in debt e.g. college students or retired. However, Harbor Freight Tools offers some free stuff using coupons that can be used to put in a bug out bag, and anyone can buy a good pack back at any second-hand store for $3 to use. I give Harbor Freight 5 stars for having up to 12 free things that can be used in a bug out bag.

Any prepper should be able to have a high power air rifle if they can’t afford a .22 or other if they chose to bugout so what is a good inexpensive air rifle that someone on a fixed income can buy to use in a SHTF or to bugout with? I would like to know what TPJ recommends or do a story so everyone can read.

First of all, thanks for the email Sam! I always appreciate good information, like the tip about Harbor Freight and for the question about the air rifles. So as I read the question from Sam, I think he (I assume this is a he and Sam is not short for Samantha. Damn both our gender confusing monikers!!!) is bringing up a couple of points. First, that a high-powered air rifle is a cheaper alternative to even a .22. The second is that this high-powered air rifle will be used in a SHTF/Bug Out scenario. I am sure there are other issues and I will try to address my thoughts around each in this article.

Why do so many people recommend an air rifle for survival?

Cost – Air rifles for survival seem to make sense to a lot of people for some very compelling reasons. Most air rifles do cost less than even the lowly .22 Rimfire rifle out there. You can get a brand new Ruger 10/22 Semiautomatic for between $250 and $350 depending on where you shop, but I have found sales on brand new, perfectly capable .22’s for much less. You can also find deals at gun shows that are even less than that. I picked up a perfectly good .22 at an auction for $100.

Air rifles come in a wide array of calibers just like regular firearms but for the purposes of this discussion I’ll stick with .177 calibers. That is the size most of us young kids grew up shooting in the back yard. Why not go up in size to .22, .30, .045 or even .50 caliber (yes they make .50 caliber air rifles)? For a couple of reasons; first off, in some locations; when you go over .18 caliber the local law enforcement usually considers that to be a “firearm”. Some locations regulate according to the muzzle velocity. For an air rifle to fly below this requirement you are looking at muzzle velocities generally below 500 feet per second in some areas. There are air rifles that are much higher power than that, like the Gamo Whisper Silent Cat Air Rifle which has a muzzle velocity of over 1200 FPS!, but if you are purchasing an air rifle that is viewed by law enforcement as a firearm, you are filling out paperwork just like you would have for a .22 so one advantage of the air rifle disappears. Additionally, the larger calibers go up in cost considerably and we are trying to stay on the more economical side here for Sam. I don’t consider the Benjamin Bulldog .357 which is arguably “high-power” and able to take down larger animals in contention for this article for the main reason that its cost is right about $1,000. Not ideal for the prepper on a fixed income.

1200 FPS with a scope for less than $140.

Quiet Operation – Air rifles use compressed air generally or a spring mechanism in some cases but usually in both they are far quieter than a regular rifle. Some models like the Gamo above even have a suppressor included making them even more quiet. An air rifle, it would seem would allow you to hunt without making your presence known in a wider area and this could have great benefits to the average prepper who is trying to stay on the down low. You wouldn’t want everyone who is hungry and possibly starving themselves to hear a loud gunshot and lay in wait for you to come walking back to camp with your prize only to take it away from you.

No license/background check required (normally) – This goes back to my previous point above. As long as you aren’t going into the more powerful air rifles which demand higher muzzle velocity, there isn’t usually a background check for someone buying an air rifle. This could have advantages to people who due to their background may be prevented from legally purchasing firearms.

What is an air rifle good for?

So the first question comes back to do you need an air rifle for survival and to answer that question, I want to look at some things air rifles are good at. The first is hunting small game. By small game and in consideration of our caliber limitations that do not require licensing (with caveats) that means birds, squirrels, possibly rabbits and other animals in that size range. For someone living in a city that has an abundance of birds or rodents, an air rifle could make an excellent choice for a survival tool especially if that state doesn’t allow firearms of any kind or severely limits your ability to purchase them.

880 air rifle kit includes safety glasses, 4×15-millimeter scope with rings, 500 Daisy pellets, and 750 BBs – $60

Air rifles are great to practice your shooting skills or to teach younger shooters the fundamentals without too much worry of accidents (“You’ll shoot your eye out kid.”). Shooting air rifles is a low-cost sport too because the pellets can be purchased for less than $5 for 250. You can purchase 2400 BB’s for that same price and as far as I know, the government isn’t stocking up on pellets and BB’s just yet.

Quiet operation is another non-trivial benefit of air rifles for survival situations as stated above. You don’t get too much quieter even with sound suppressors than air rifles.

What is an air rifle not good for?

Going back to the initial question about great air rifles for survival and in consideration of something that is cost-effective and doesn’t require licensing, what are the arguments against an air rifle? Do air rifles make a good bug out survival option? I don’t really think so in most cases for the following reasons.

Not good for long-range – This is subjective I know but most air rifles in the category we are talking about above aren’t going to be highly effective past 50 yards. Even at 50 yards, you will have drop on that pellet so you will need to know your weapon and compensate accordingly. Could you kill a rabbit past 50 yards with a pellet gun? Maybe and I know that some of this comes down to the skill of the shooter, but the weapon does have limitations. I think the rabbit would take off before the pellet reached it because sound travels faster than the average muzzle velocities we are talking about here, but again I am generalizing to some extent.

Not good for larger animals – You simply aren’t going to be killing larger animals with the lower caliber (cost-effective) air rifles. Could you shoot birds and squirrels all day and feed yourself? Sure you could, but what if birds and squirrels are few and far between? What if it’s winter time?

Velocity of up to 1,200 fps with PBA Raptor ammunition; 4×32 air rifle-scope – $99

Not acceptable for self-defense – Firearms for me, even more so in a SHTF scenario when I am forced to bug out are primarily for self-defense. This is the two-legged kind of predator I am talking about here and you aren’t going to defend yourself with a pellet gun. You might fool someone from a distance, but you would have to be extremely lucky and that luck would run out if you had to shoot at someone and all they heard was pftt.

Firing multiple rounds quickly – For shooting a single squirrel in a tree or a bunny sitting there next to your garden, single shots are fine in most cases. Most air rifles are single shot. You have to pump them or cock the charging handle after each shot. There are some manufacturers that have something resembling a magazine so you don’t have to reload, but you aren’t able to fire semi-automatic. Also, your velocity can decrease if you shoot too many shots too fast. Rapid fire isn’t recommended.

Air Supply dependent – Some models used compressed CO2 air cartridges. What if you run out of cartridges? Other models use a pump-action and I personally have witnessed these wear out over time and become less effective. That was with me shooting my air gun occasionally. If this air rifle is your main source of food, could the seals and parts wear out more quickly? Additionally, temperatures affect the air cartridges. Ideally, they are used in warmer temperatures, but not too warm or the cartridges can explode.

I do believe air guns have their place. I have one in my home, so I guess I would have to answer the question two ways. I wouldn’t ever choose an air gun as my go-to bug out firearm unless I had no other options whatsoever. Actually, if this truly was a SHTF scenario and I had no firearms, getting my hands on a weapon would be just about my first priority.

Do I think an air rifle for survival would be better than nothing? Yes, and there are some good models shown above, but I think even a .22 would be better and with some searching you can find a .22 rifle (maybe used) for about the same price as a good air rifle. At least you would have something more suitable for self-defense and taking larger animals.

Now its your turn. What do you think?

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Many times through the years I have stumbled into prepper articles or discussions about the best firearms to have for SHTF. There are always different perspectives and I myself have