At CANCON West 2026, @BallisticAviation stops by TENET Suppressors to see the company’s newest line, the Buckskin series. Co-Founder Mike explains that TENET built its name on lightweight hunting suppressors for long-range and backcountry shooters, and the Buckskin is aimed at a different hunter: the whitetail crowd. The series launches in three models: the Buckskin 30, 360, and 460.
Rubber bumpers at both ends, recessed rear window, and checkered flags on the fender rather than a "Stingray" badge mark this as a 1977 Chevrolet Corvette in Corvette Bright Yellow.
The hood badge proclaims the presence of the optional L82 performance engine, which was at something of a Malaise Era nadir for the '76-'77 model years, producing only 205 horsepower.
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I have not been ignoring y'all, I just haven't found anything that piques my interest enough to write about. This morning, though, I found an email from Jacob at Wideners. They have done a deep dive on the .300 Blackout. For those of you unaware, the .300 Blackout is a niche cartridge designed to run through a standard AR platform. Some folks really like it.
For those interested, the link is here. It looks fairly interesting, and there is a lot of information there.
In other shooting mews, I'm having trouble with the Winchester 94 I mounted the red dot sight on. Mainly, having trouble scheduling range time. Life keeps getting in the way of range time.
Fr those of you, who like me, are not particularly interested in watching the clock, I am reminded that once again this weekend, we are going to do the whole "Fall Back" thing on Sunday morning. I don't recall when this foolishness started, but I would not be averse to seeing it end. Pick one and stick with it, but don't make me change my clock twice a year.
BASC has launched a new campaign inviting women from across the shooting community to share their personal stories, celebrating the diverse pathways into shooting and inspiring more women to get involved.
FAST Idaho is in the books, so I sat back down with Russell Phagan to talk through the weekend at the Parma Rod and Gun Club. Last time he was on the show , we covered the Auto-Rifle division before it had ever seen a stage. This time it's the after-action version. We dig into why FAST matches are built the way they are, how Russell lays out a stage, and what competitors should be thinking about when they pick their gear if they get lucky enough to land themselves a spot in a Firearms Action Shooting Trials match.
Quote of the Day AI has just as much subjective experience as we do. A recent paper showed AI changes its behaviour when it thinks that it’s being tested, it’s aware it is being tested. Now, normally, when you say …
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We spent another weekend in Blacksburg recently, enjoying plenty of good food and drink and, of course, Hokie football. As usual, I packed a few cigars just in case an opportunity arose to enjoy a smoke or two. Although the weather forecast for the weekend kept changing, rain appeared to be a sure thing. But one never knows.
After enjoying an early dinner and some good beers at
Eastern Divide Brewing, I headed out to the hotel patio with a glass of
Maker’s Mark Bourbon from the hotel bar while the rest of the family rested in their rooms. One last check of the weather app on my phone showed that rain wasn’t expected for another three hours.
I lit one of the
Surpassion Half Track cigars I had picked up at the
Hogshead Cigar Lounge event
last month. I figured the short cigar would provide a pleasant smoke before the rain arrived.
As luck would have it, no sooner had I applied the flame than I felt the first raindrops. I quickly relocated to a table with an umbrella and hoped the rain would be minimal.
The Surpassion Half Track is a limited-edition extension of the company’s King of Battle line. Measuring 4 x 53, it’s a short robusto that uses the same American Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, Mexican San Andrés binder, and blend of Dominican and American fillers as the King of Battle. The Half Track is exclusive to Hogshead Cigar Lounge in Fredericksburg.
The cigar starts with a nice blend of espresso and cocoa, accompanied by a dose of black pepper. As the smoke progresses, the fudge-like sweetness and bitter espresso remain in a pleasing balance.
The bourbon selection at the hotel was limited, and I had neglected to bring along a bottle of my own. However, Maker’s Mark proved to be a very satisfactory choice that paired well with the Half Track. The bourbon’s soft vanilla sweetness complemented the dark fudge notes of the cigar, while its mild character allowed the cigar’s flavor profile to remain in the lead.
As I smoked, the rain began to fall harder. The weather forecasters had gotten this one wrong. Fortunately, tucking myself close to the table under the umbrella blocked most of the rain. The occasional mist that blew through was tolerable, and the cigar remained unaffected.
As I approached the end of the surprisingly long smoke, nearly an hour had passed. The rain began coming down more heavily, and I was quite happy to have gotten in an enjoyable, relaxing smoke at the end of a long day of travel and dining.
Cheers!
(AmmoLand.com)-An official National Park Video shows double meaning, irony, and tragedy, in three screenshots.
Link to video by NPS Glacier National Park on Youtube, created November 19, 2017 The video is only two minutes and 39 seconds long.
Link to the original video with text showing at the Glacier National Park site.
On July 25, 2014, Brian D. Murphy used both bear spray and a .357 magnum revolver to stop a charging grizzly bear. He probably shot the bear in the face. The shot stunned the bear, stopped the charge, but did not kill the bear. Murphy shot the bear after it had charged through the bear spray. Murphy helped keep other hikers safe. He immediately told park rangers about the incident. All the physical evidence was consistent with Murphy's account. The bear had left by the time the rangers arrived, but blood and hair and DNA confirmed it was a grizzly bear. Murphy was not charged by the investigating officers. His firearm was not taken. Two months later, he was charged by officers of the National Park Service. Murphy hired an attorney who took the case before the local federal judge and the local Assistant United States Attorney. The case was dismissed with predjudice on October 9, 2014, meaning Murphy could not be charged again.
Murphy's case made the local media and was widely known as a case where bear spray failed and a .357 magnum shot to the face worked.
On November 19, 2017, Glacier National Park created an official video titled: Using Bear Spray. The video is 2 minutes and 39 seconds long. According to the description, it is in the public domain. The same two actors are seen in at least one other video where the uniformed actor is identified as "Ranger Simpson" and the non-uniformed actor identified as "Buddy". They star in a series of videos created in 2017. Sam Simpson identifies himself as a ranger with seven years experience. The video was written and produced by Scott Holmes. Scott Holmes is an independent music composer who also contracts nature films. A year after these videos were created, Scott Holmes Music was created in Scotland, UK.
It would be difficult to believe the park rangers were not intimately familiar with the Brian Murphy case. It seems likely why they were laughing at the obvious double meaning at the end of the video. It may come from a lack of knowledge by Scott Holmes or it may be intentional. It could easily have been avoided by using the word "spray" to substitute for "shoot". The text at the end of the video could have been "if you spray a bear in the face."
In the Brian Murphy experience, bear spray failed to stop the bear. A shot from a .357 magnum to the face at 7-10 feet worked extremely well. With this context, it is easy to see why the statements are funny in a video on how to use bear spray.
The irony is palpable. A video showing how to use bear spray, saying it only is effective with a (gun)shot to the face of the bear.
The screen shots are from Glacier National Park Video. The text in screenshots is in the original video. In the outtake, the crew laughed at the above statements, as shown in the screenshot from the outtake below:
The phrases, funny in 2017, when considering the Brian Murphy case, reflect tragedy in 2026.
In 2026, Anthoni Pollio appears to have been killed by a grizzly bear on May 3, 2026, close to the same spot where Brian Murphy stopped a grizzly bear charge with his .357 magnum in July of 2014. Both were on the Mount Brown trail. The trail is only 4 miles long.
Would Pollio have acted differently if the National Park Service were not so intent on promoting the use of bear spray? Would Anthoni Pollio still be alive today? We can never know.
In North America, as of May, 2026, there have been nine people who were killed by bears after bear spray was used as a defense against the bears. There do not appear to be any people killed by bears when a handgun was present and fired against bears in North America. One person who fired a .22 caliber handgun in defense against a polar bear in the Svalbard archipelago was killed in 1996.
In November, 2017, the statistical evidence supporting the use of handguns in defense against bears had only been building for a year. In 2026, the statistical evidence is well developed.
©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
“Two individuals who knew each other had some of type a dispute,” Kochis said. “They engaged with each other at the Taco Bell. One person pulled out a weapon. Another person pulled out their own weapon, which was a firearm, and shot the person in the shoulder. Thankfully it was non-life-threatening injuries. We’re working with the commonwealth attorney now to determine appropriate charges. But on its face, preliminarily, it does look like self-defense.”
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eputies said they were called to Port Royal Road for a domestic-related shooting incident that ended in a death on Sept. 30.
The Anderson County Coroner’s Office identified the victim as 44-year-old Adger Luther Stamey.
(snip)
An extensive investigation found that the shooting was justified.
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Springfield Armoury has announced a major European law enforcement contract win with Spain’s primary police force, the Policía Nacional, selecting the Echelon 4.0FC as their new standard-issue sidearm for uniformed officers. The Policía Nacional consists of over 70,000 officers, primarily tasked with policing Spain’s urban areas; they are currently equipped with the HK USP Compact.
As both lovers of liberty and followers of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, one of our favorite quotes (and Bible verses) is Jesus’ statement in John 8:32 of the New Testament: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall …
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One of the debates in the firearms world is on-body vs. off-body concealed carry. Simply choosing to carry a firearm with you everywhere you go already seems like such a complex task, and then you have to consider how exactly you plan to carry your firearm. Most likely, you’ll also have solicited and unsolicited input from those around you, saying how you should, or shouldn’t, carry what works for them and why it will work for you, and why the way so-and-so chooses to carry is wrong. All the noise can be overwhelming and frustrating to someone who just wants to find their best way to carry safely.
Some pistols get a new set of sights and call it an upgrade. Others get the full treatment. The SIG Sauer P226-X AGENCY belongs firmly in the second category. Unveiled at SIG NEXT, it brings together two names that need little introduction in the handgun world: SIG Sauer and Agency Arms. The result is a full-size 9mm P226 with a distinctly custom look, finished in Bronze Cerakote that makes it look right at home in a collection where ordinary black pistols might struggle to get noticed.
Welcome back to TFB’s Wheelgun Wednesday. Today’s installment is a new product announcement: Taurus has added a shorter 8 3/8" barrel to its 350 Legend Raging Hunter that joins the 10-inch and 14-inch versions already in the line. TFB covered the 350 Legend Raging Hunter in another Wheelgun Wednesday , and this is the version that finally looks like a revolver rather than a carbine that lost its stock.
Hitting a drone with gunfire is hard for an unglamorous reason: by the time the bullet arrives, the drone has moved. SIG Sauer's answer is the XRAY9-CUAS, a counter-unmanned aircraft systems electro-optic unveiled at AUSA, and the idea behind it is to let a soldier point and shoot while the optic works out where the drone will be.
Canik has spent a decade building pistols that undercut what people expect to pay for the feature set, then added suppressors , and has now launched CANIK OPTICS with four pistol red dots across two families. Let’s take a detailed look at the new red dots.
Bear Creek Arsenal added a bolt-action twist to its sprawling AR catalog on October 27 with the launch of the Bear Bolt Pro Series, a run of bolt-action AR uppers and complete rifles.
There is something faintly amusing about an Italian company making grips for the pistol that the U.S. military replaced with an Italian pistol, yet here we are. WOOX has added 1911 grip panels to a catalogue that until now has been rifle stocks, axes and knives. They are handcrafted in Italy, offered in Claro grade American walnut or Micarta, and come in three textures: Plain, Diamond and X-Grip.
Echelon gets adopted by Spain's National Police! Let's take a look at the details.
As we get into the colder fall weatherI dust off my "fall/winter" comfort food recipes. When you wake up and it's in the 30's, you don't look forward to salad for dinner.
If you are like me you probably have a collection of ground meat in the freezer, beef, veal, pork, venison.
Moosellaneous? Easy to thaw and serve, but you can only do meatloaf so many times on these increasingly colder days.
How about a walk on the Canadian side.
Pâté chinois is a French Canadian dish similar to English Cottage Pie, Shepherds Pie or the French hachis Parmentier. Something I learned to cook from a family member, as, there is a Montreal branch of the Range clan through marriage. I'd posted the recipe on the sidebar, and a quick link a while back, but not all of you may have seen it.
I can also teach you some common French Canadian sayings (which I picked up with the cooking and could be useful in both cooking AND in today's election)
Va pèter dans le trèfle.
‘go fart in the clover’.
Baise-moué l’ailKiss my garlic
Il lui manque des bardeaux.
'He’s missing a few tiles'.
Reçu comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles.
'Welcome as a dog in a bowling alley.’
La rondelle ne roule pas pour lui.
'The puck isn’t going his way'.
Grosse Corvette, p’tite quéquette
‘big car, little uh. . . (euphemism here)
Avoir mal aux cheveux
'To be so sodden with booze and hung-over on the morning after that you are having a ‘hair ache’.
J’ai vu neiger.
I’m not just off the boat.
Ah, but back to the intent of this post.
DINNER!
Pâté chinois
I make this several times a year, especially when I have quite a bit of leftover mashed potatoes. It's a wonderful, easy meal for a chilly, overcast day.
To make from scratch: Boil chunks of 5-6 peeled potatoes and mash with a little butter and milk Just regular mashed potatoes, make your favorite recipe but you're looking for enough to serve 4-6.
Next, chop and saute a large sweet onion in a little olive oil until just starting to soften and caramelize. Add in a pound and a half of ground meat and three to four roasted and chopped cloves of garlic (or about 1 full Tablespoon of the jarred minced garlic) and cook. I used ground sirloin as I was out of venison. If you are using cheap cuts of beef, drain off any large amounts of extra fat.
In the last few minutes of cooking, add in 2 pinches (roughly 1/4 teaspoon) of cinnamon (yes, cinnamon), the same amount of black pepper, a dash of white pepper (if you have it), and a few shakes of salt and one small squirt of Srirachi (or Ketchup for the meek). Heat on low/medium for a few minutes as it finishes cooking. Spread the meat in a deep casserole or a pan that's 13 x 9, or the next size smaller.
Then, spread over the top of the meat, about 3 cups of corn mixed together (I used 1 cup of creamed corn and 2 of regular corn). Spread on the meat. Cover with the mashed potatoes and sprinkle generously with Smoked Hungarian Paprika. Bake at 375 F for 35-40 minutes, until bubbly.
I'm not sure how the name was coined as the French version of "Chinese pie", but one popular theory is that it was introduced to Chinese railway workers by Canadian cooks during the building of the North American railroads in the late 19th century. These cooks made it under instruction from the railway bosses (who were mostly of English descent) as a cheap and easy to make version of the popular cottage pie with the sauce in the tinned creamed-corn serving as a substitute for the gravy.
click on pictures to enlarge, if you dare.
Allegedly, The French Canadian railway workers became fond of it and brought the recipe back with them to their home communities
However the name was derived, it's good. It's often served with ketchup on the side and maybe some pickled beets and a maple cookie. Or just plain.
Either way, it's comfort on a plate. And memories of the good kind of family, whether related by blood, marriage or simply by being a long time friend-- those people you just like and admire.
ZeroTech Optics USA has added the Thrive X 3-9x40 to its hunting riflescope lineup, offering the familiar 3-9x40 format across four reticle choices and two turret configurations. For hunters who want to pick an aiming system without juggling a different scope body for each one, the line keeps a single optical platform under all four options.
In this featured post from The Survival Mom, she explains how to be more frightening than Count Dracula on a moonlit evening, all in less than 5 seconds.
Quote of the Day Republicans lead Democrats by 31 points among Jewish voters on the congressional ballot, according to a McLaughlin & Associates poll that points to a potential shift among a group that has long favored Democrats. The poll …
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The US Air Force has undertaken some limited testing of what appears to be the MCK EVO from CAA as the Isolated Personnel Lethality Optimization, or IPLO, device. A USAF release reported that nine Airmen from various Air Force units tested the IPLO system at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawai‘i.
Troopers were called to the 700 block of Walnut Hill Road in Georges Township around 1 p.m. for a reported domestic incident and shooting.
They found a man who’d been shot down on the floor of a home. He died on his way to the hospital.
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Later on, during the same night, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, at 3 a.m., Ashe County 911 Center received a call from a female stating a male subject kicked down the door to their Airbnb, and she had shot the suspect when he entered the home.
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And, I guess, that would include most muslims. And if they are Somalis, they are doubly untrustworthy. So put them together and we have a Somali muslim who is also in a position of power in a Maine school district. Abdullahi Ahmed, the Somali-born assistant superintendent for student, family and community partnerships at Portland Public […]
Another anthem worth reading and listening to. Not precisely or exactly about liberty, but closely connected. As readers probably know, Amelia is a goth, purple-haired, mini-skirt-wearing AI avatar originally created by a British NGO (with lots of G [government] involvement, …
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How do you defeat enemies with level IV body armor? This is the question the Canadian Armed Forces have wrestled with when tackling the replacement of their venerable C7 and C8 rifles. It’s a question that many major armies will have to find an answer for as they come to replace their current generation of small arms. The US Army has opted for power and penetration with the Next Generation Squad Weapons program and the new 6.8x51mm round. Earlier this month, at a range day in Copenhagen, Colt Canada explained their answer to the question.
If the Vikings had access to AR-15s, things might have gone a little differently. Judging by these images from Viking Brutality 2026 , they would also have needed a good pair of running shoes. Among the competitors at this year's event was a Viking-inspired shooter carrying an axe in one hand and an AR-15 in the other. Somewhere between a historical reenactment, a modern shooting match, and a fever dream after watching too much Vikings, this look managed to steal the show.
At CANCON West 2026, Russell Phagan set up a miniature FAST stage at the Boulder Rifle & Pistol Club in Boulder City, Nevada, so attendees could get a taste of what his Firearms Action Shooting Trials matches throw at competitors. I stopped by the stage to talk with Russell about what he packed into the scaled-down version and what shooters can expect at a full match.
Every AR-15 since the original has relied on a pair of takedown pins to hold the upper and lower together. The X-Ordnance X1-15 drops them entirely. Its patented quick-release system lets the rifle be fully assembled or taken apart in seconds, with no traditional takedown pins to push out or get stuck.
One of the quietest pistols of the Vietnam era had a trick that had nothing to do with the suppressor: the slide could be locked shut, so the action did not make a sound. It was nicknamed the Hush Puppy, and the idea has mostly lived in history books and collector displays. Shark Coast Tactical has now put it on a modern carry pistol and named the result the Shark Puppy.
Hurricane season has reached the firearms industry, and it is carrying a US Palm logo. Long known for AK pistol grips, magazines and soft goods, US Palm is now entering the rifle and suppressor markets with a two-part launch: the CAT 4 Storm series of rifles and the EOS series of suppressors. Both debuted at SHOT Show 2026 in Las Vegas, and both are now available.
At CANCON West 2026, @BallisticAviation talked with Justus Hall of BOE Suppression about the company’s IncoLite line. BOE is the suppressor brand of C Products Defense, the company behind Duramag magazines. Its first can, the Mod 1, pairs a printed core with a serialized outer sleeve. The IncoLite series is fully 3D printed from Inconel 718, with geometry that adds strength where it’s needed and cuts weight where it isn’t. The lineup has three 9mm models, all 1.5 inches in diameter and threaded for 1.375" HUB/Bravo mounts.
Glock 17 Gen 6 owners who wanted a compensated, threadless barrel have been waiting while Radian started with other models. The Afterburner + Ramjet system launched first for the G19 and G45, with a G17 variant to follow, and that G17 version is now official. It comes in three colorways, including black, grey (below) and bronze (above).
At CANCON West 2026, @BallisticAviation talks with Jesse of Wraith Metalworks about the Wraith Modular Suppression System, which builds suppressors as configurable platforms instead of sealed, fixed units. Its interchangeable baffles fit across three tube diameters: the 1.88-inch Sentinel, 1.575-inch Ambush, and 1.45-inch Raider. Users can combine tube lengths, extensions, baffle stacks, and end caps to tune for sound, gas blowback, recoil, flash, length, or weight on a given host. Even Wraith’s pre-configured models can be broken down and rebuilt into a different setup.
I was drifting off to sleep last night and I felt something odd on my belly. A little itchy lump like a small scab except it would not scratch off. Yes, a tick. We put in a plastic bag. From the pictures, it appeared to be a deer tick and a rash was beginning to bulls eye around it, so we ran off the an ER about 10:30. There was no waiting get in. They confirmed it was a deer tick. The doctor said Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever are pretty rare here from ticks (he has never seen either) but to be sure, I was given two doxycyclines and a tetanus shot. He used some lidocaine and a scalpel to remove the head which was still in my flesh. I had taken all my evening medications just before getting into bed so I was on the edge of sleep the entire time.
Truthfully, IMO, the SuperBowl half time shows have completely sucked since 2019. Not coincidentally, that’s when the NFL gave Mr. Beyonce aka JayZ’s company, Roc Nation, control over the content. Let’s revisit, shall we? 2026: Bad Bunny 2025: Kendrick Lamar 2024: Usher with Ludacris, Lil Jon, Jermaine Dupri, will.i.am, Alicia Keys, & H.E.R 2023: Rihanna […]
Quote of the Day It takes a special kind of arrogance to ignore a court order and continue enforcing a law that has been ruled to be unconstitutional, yet here we are. The state is doing nothing more than wasting …
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Jackie Richardson's shelter pup, Duke, loves the freedom to run on her 10 acre property in the country. Jackie discovered a solution for keeping him safe from the surrounding livestock and busy road: the PetSafe Guardian GPS Dog Fence.
The legal firearm inside an Echelon weighs 3 oz (85 g) and measures 4.3 x 1.9 in (10.9 x 4.8 cm). Springfield Armory is now selling that piece on its own, which means you can buy the serialized heart of the pistol and build everything around it yourself.
NEW from Benelli comes a freshly redesigned shotgun gas system on the M2 platform. How does it stand up to the other Benelli Tactical shotguns?
The homeowner told officers he was awakened by an unusual noise coming from his living room and, when he went to investigate, encountered an unknown male inside the home. Police said the homeowner fired, striking the individual.
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While deputies were en route, the caller reported that Creekmore had forced entry into the home. Harris said a woman inside, whose name is being withheld, fired the shots that killed Creekmore. Deputies arrived and found him deceased from an apparent gunshot wound.
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By Dave Workman A recently-released analysis of childhood fatalities upends a long-standing assertion by the gun prohibition lobby that firearms are the leading cause of death among children. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, California-based attorney Kostas Moros, SAF director of Legal Research and Education, posted a Fact Sheet which, among […]
The post New SAF Analysis of CDC Data Upends ‘Child Death’ Mantra appeared first on Liberty Park Press.
Daga faces up to 40 years in state prison.
On October 25, 1415, the Battle of Agincourt (aka Azincourt): Henry V‘s forces defeated a larger French army as the longbow overcame the French armored knights. — October 26, 1774: Minutemen were organized in US colonies. — October 26, 1881: Perhaps the most famous shootout in the history of America’s Wild West took place at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. On the one side stood the so-called forces of law and order: Wyatt Earp, his brothers Virgil and Morgan, and Doc Holliday. By reputation these were power-hungry and ruthless men. Opposing them were the outlaws Billy and Ike Clanton, …
The post Preparedness Notes — October 27, 2026 appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
A voluntary association begins when two or more people agree to pursue a common purpose together. That arrangement can be remarkably simple. People who already buy many of the same necessities, possess different skills, or have resources that complement one another, can decide to cooperate rather than approach every need as an entirely separate and individual household problem. The significance of that decision is economic as much as organizational. When individual households combine a predictable demand, they can sometimes obtain purchasing opportunities or services that would be difficult to obtain separately. If the resulting savings are retained rather than immediately …
The post Voluntary Associations – Shopping for Survival, by W.T. appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
During the summer of 2025, I was enjoying a picnic in a park with my wife, “Kari” and my youngest daughter “Rivka.” Part way through the meal, Rivka commented, “Wow, the cicadas certainly are deafening. My immediate response was: “What cicadas?” In the days of my youth, we had access to earmuff style hearing protection. The problem was that they were dumb muffs. They prevented the wearer from hearing both what he wanted to hear and what he did not want to hear. Therefore, I didn’t wear hearing protection whenever there might be something that I wanted to hear. I …
The post Otis Technology EarShield Ranger RE 23, by Thomas Christianson appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
Today’s graphic is a map that shows every license plate reader volunteers have mapped in the US: 144,000+, 81% of them are Flock cameras. Note the dearth of ALPR cameras in the American Redoubt, in most of Nevada, and in the Dakotas. (Graphic courtesy of Reddit.) The thumbnail image below is click-expandable. Notes on the available data: OpenStreetMap via DeFlock (mapped by volunteers, so it’s a floor, not a census). An interactive version with city/county/state breakdowns: https://takip.dev/country/united-states/flock-cameras The densest big city per person is Sandy Springs, GA (~193 per 100k); the most in absolute terms is Houston …
The post SurvivalBlog Graphic of the Week appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
In Economics & Investing Media of the Week we feature photos, charts, graphs, maps, video links, and news items of interest to preppers. The thumbnail below is click-expandable. (Graphic courtesy of Reddit.) Economics & Investing Links of Interest Housing Starts Collapse Near COVID Lows As Homebuilder Confidence Crashes. US pending home sales tumble to record low in September. Zillow: United States Housing Market update. Streaming Now Costs $144 a Month. That’s More Than Cable Cost When You Cut It. JWR’s Comment: This ties in to my recent article: Endless Expenses: Modern Life in The Subscription Model. Feds Say Bank Of …
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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, some more technological risks. Sleepwalking Into World War III? Are we sleepwalking into World War III? Riots are Spreading Across Western Europe Reader D.S.V. suggested this New York …
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Our weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters. — Ukraine carries out first ever aerial drone evacuation of a wounded soldier from the frontline. JWR’s Comment: Drone medevac may soon become the norm for all but the most severe trauma cases. o o o A practical essay by our friend Patrice Lewis: The power of repurposing. o o o Reader Tim …
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REDOUBT NEWS LINKS This weekly column features media from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. Oregon Father Tracks, Kills School Shooter in Bend. (Kaylub Giamanco is pictured above.) Note that this is the second time in four months that armed citizens in The American Redoubt have stepped up to save lives when psychopaths opened fire on innocents. – JWR) Video: Interview: Bend father who fatally shot teenage school shooter. And in related news, D.S.V. sent this: Parent Who Stopped Oregon School …
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To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year. We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those — or excerpts thereof — in the Odds …
The post Editors’ Prepping Progress appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
The latest meme created by JWR: Meme Text: There Is Artificial Intelligence… And Then There Is Genuine Stupidity Notes From JWR: Do you have a meme idea? Just e-mail me the concept, and I’ll try to assemble it. And if it is posted then I’ll give you credit. Thanks! Permission to repost memes that I’ve created is granted, provided that credit to SurvivalBlog.com is included.
The post JWR’s Meme Of The Week: appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
“The relative freedom which we enjoy depends on public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.” – George Orwell
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Ruger is one of the world’s premier firearms manufacturers, and certainly one of the USA’s – and it has been much in the news today. First, the allegations that Italy’s Beretta was trying to take over this quintessentially American company, and second, the sudden discontinuance of some of Ruger’s most classic models.As to the latter, […]
Went up to theBeta Site yesterday to go hunting. How’d I do? Didn’t see a thing, and enjoyed every moment of it. Why wouldn’t I? Im doing what I want, how I want, where I want, and every single thing …
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The Second Amendment Foundation put all their infographics on a single web page: Just the Facts – Second Amendment Foundation
Government-run, tax-funded schools are the “standard” – even today, most people who home-school their children, or even who use private schools (including parochial ones) are looked on as being abnormal. While there are many problems with the GRTF schools, here …
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I can’t say this without aging myself, but the MP5 started it all for me when I first saw Charlie Sheen’s portrayal of the insubordinate Lt. Dale Hawkins in the 1990 movie Navy SEALs . Nothing in the world seemed cooler at the time than waking up hungover on a beach, jumping out of a moving Jeep off a bridge into the waterway below, crashing through the doorway with a suppressed submachine gun, smoking a few bad guys, heading home to play a round of golf with the boys to the tune of The Boys Are Back in Town, and saving my vehicle from being impounded via a daring bicycle rescue from a moving tow truck.
Colin Chapman built Lotus around one stubborn rule: simplify, then add lightness. Somewhere in Herstal, Belgium, the engineers behind the FN EVOLYS clearly got the memo - just some 70 years later. Belt-fed firepower has always come with a bill, paid in kilograms and sore shoulders. The EVOLYS was developed to shrink it.
Savage’s hiatus from the lever gun scene lasted about 25 years. Their last model made in the 90s, the Model 99 , was hailed as both a commercial and technical success, with many calling it “The Jeep of the Gun World” or sometimes “The King of Lever Guns.” Now, more than 25 years later, the company is three models deep in its rimfire lever comeback, and the newest one is one I think has been long overdue in the rimfire industry. The Revel Tactical was announced on October 8th, and it replaces the walnut of the Revel Classic and DLX with an MDT synthetic stock, a factory Picatinny rail, and functional M-LOK slots. After a handful of range sessions and several bulk boxes of ammo through the rifle in this month alone, I can say Savage got most of the fundamentals, and the requests we’ve all had right. So let's dig into Savage’s new tiny tactical lever gun.
It was also the day of discovery for broken parts, fortunately none optical. The amount of force involved in the moving truck guillotine our dining room table. It is no surprise other parts experienced unreasonable forces.
The upper cage of Big Bertha has a diagonal mirror assembly that reflects the light from the primary mirror into the eyepiece focuser. There are four screws at the top of the cage. Three are collimation screws for making very subtle adjustments of diagonal mirror position. Like half a turn of a 32 threads per inch screw (.031" per turn). There is also a center screw that positions the whole diagonal mirror holder fore and after in the tube. This has an adjustment knurled nut. The screw was bent about 60 degrees. One I extracted it from the diagonal holder, I put it in the vise wrapped.in rubber and clamped it in two axes until straight again. To my surprise, it all worked perfectly.
At the stern, there were several weights to improve balance, held in a 1/4-20 thumbscrew which was hideously bent. If i had another of these unusually long brass thumbscrews, i would have just replaced it. It is a weird size and i picked brass to avoid chewing up thr aluminum mirror cell into which yhis screws.This time I both straightened it rethreaded it by first two axis squeezing in a vise wrapped in rubber sheeting, then holding it by the thumb end in the vise and turning a steel hex nut down its length until any thread discrepancies were turned out. (I thought i took a picture of this. )
Another disappointment was that the 5" refractor got banged hard enough through all the foam rubber for the diagonal and focus knob to get shoved into the tailpiece (thr human end of the tube) so hard that the thumb locking screw that prevents the diagonal from falling out was so hopelessly bent that the focus knobs would not move the focus tube out. When I tried to usei pliers to unscrew the locking screw it broke off where it turned into the focuse tube. Oh no
The tailpiece is held in the tube by three machine screws. I removed them expecting that the broken locking screw could be removed with a screw extractor, which I hate to use. To my pleasure, just enough of the thread body was proud of the tube to get my fingernails on and unscrew it. Now the focuser tube comes out. The hideously expensive and clever Ukrainian chromatic aberration corrector was not damaged; it cost more than the rest of the refractor and made it equivalent in optical quality to some that cost $3000
Problem solved, right? No. The rack and pinion assembly was also beaten up. Once I opened it, the shaft on which the pinion gear sits was bent as was the metal plate that holds the pinion gear at the right tension to the rack.
Back to the vise to straighten the shaft and bend the metal plate back to the original shape. It looks right but it does not turn as smooth as it should.
I had thought a while back of replacing the focuser with a dual speed focuser. These have different speeds on the ends of the shaft and are really nice for getting very sharp focus. Instead I replaced one of the focus knobs with one I turned in aluminum twice the diameter. This almost the same result because you can make very tiny movements of that bigger knob to get almost the same result.
I guess i now have a reason to do that upgrade. The GSO dual focus tailpiece has a 112.5mm outer diameter flange. The interior tube diameter is 125mm. I just need to turn a piece 112.6mm ID and 124.9mm OD to adapt it.
The final fun of the day was putting the 8" mirror back in its tube. This is hard for several reasons.
1. The cell is perhaps 1/8" smaller diameter than the tube ID. If you are not exactly square going in. It will get stuck.
2.The holes into which the machine screws turn that hold the cell in the tube are not easy to find once the cell is approximately the right position.
3. When I drilled these holes in the 1990s, I had no terribly precise way to get holes exactly 120 degrees apart. I used a tape measure and I am very close. You still need to remember not to tighten down any screws until all are started.
This is always a pain to do but Rhonda has the patience to help me do these hard tasks.
The day was not over. Big Berrha is a half-Surrier truss Dobsonian. There is an upper csge with eyepiece and diagonal and a lower cage holding thr mirror. They are held at the right distance by 6 1" diameter aluminum poles forming three triangles for light stiffness. Unless you are eight feet tall, putting the upper cage on top of those poles is difficult especially poo especially because those six poles look like you are wrestling a confused insect.
Rhonda has much better spatial reasoning than me so she figured out that it made more sense to put the upper cage on the poles and lower the poles into their lower cage receivers.
Big Bertha is reassembled; she collimated more easily than I expected. Tomorrow i will collimate the 8". I am hoping the concrete pad where the telescopes will roll in front of the shop will be done setting by Wednesday.
Best known as Pavel Chekov on the original Star Trek, Walter Koenig also did a stint as the sinister Bester, a Psi-Cop on Babylon 5. He was 90 years old.
The Vickers Machine Gun is one of the weapons we instantly associate with the World War One but did you know it was in service with the British Army for 56 years? Well, this was the recent focus of the Vickers MG Collection & Research Association’s first major exhibition.
At the beginning of 2026, the UK took a fresh approach to equipping its armed officers. The Metropolitan Police ran the Police Primary Carbine System Framework , which selected 6 carbines which could be procured directly by other UK police forces.
ZeroTech Optics USA has introduced the Thrive HD Reflex Sight 3 MOA, a compact 1x optic designed for compatible pistol, rifle and shotgun mounts. The sight uses an RMR mounting footprint and ships with both low and high Picatinny bases in the box.
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Next, chop and saute a large sweet onion in a little olive oil until just starting to soften and caramelize. Add in a pound and a half of ground meat and three to four roasted and chopped cloves of garlic (or about 1 full Tablespoon of the jarred minced garlic) and cook. I used ground sirloin as I was out of venison. If you are using cheap cuts of beef, drain off any large amounts of extra fat.
I'm not sure how the name was coined as the French version of "Chinese pie", but one popular theory is that it was introduced to Chinese railway workers by Canadian cooks during the building of the North American railroads in the late 19th century. These cooks made it under instruction from the railway bosses (who were mostly of English descent) as a cheap and easy to make version of the popular cottage pie with the sauce in the tinned creamed-corn serving as a substitute for the gravy.
Allegedly, The French Canadian railway workers became fond of it and brought the recipe back with them to their home communities
