07:10 – The great ammunition shortage seems to be ending, other than .22 rimfire, which is still hard to find and extremely expensive. Bricks of 500 selling for $50! Ten cents a round is outrageous, but the problem is that ammunition makers aren’t willing to build expensive new plants to address what they consider a temporary shortage. They’re working around the clock on existing production lines, but they’re not going to build any new ones.
Interestingly, most common rifle and pistol calibers are readily available at high but not outrageous prices. I just saw one site, for example, that was selling Russian steel-case .223/5.56 in bulk at 22 cents a round, and even name-brand US-made brass-case .223/5.56 was available for not much more than 30 cents a round in bulk. I also found .40S&W cheap stuff for about 23 cents a round, which was cheaper even than .38 Special. At some point, if we start shooting a lot of pistol at the range, I may get us each a .40S&W just to be able to use the cheaper ammunition. I suppose it makes sense that .40S&W is cheap, given that the federal government buys the stuff literally by the ton. I’d guess that ammo makers probably have production lines devoted exclusively to that caliber, so it makes sense that they’d have a lot of overruns to get rid of, keeping prices down. Barbara and I both like to shoot, and we’ll probably be doing a lot more of that once we get relocated.
The latest thing in shooting ranges seems to be “guntry clubs“, which apparently appeal particularly to young people and women and even liberals. Fine. I’m in favor of anything that encourages people to take up shooting as a hobby, even those ridiculous pink pistols. But I’d really rather shoot at a range that’s intended for Good Old Boys who drink plain old coffee and would be flummoxed by Starbuck’s offerings. One of the gun stores in Jefferson that we drove past is also an old-fashioned diner, which is more my speed.
My time this week was occupied almost exclusively on science kits, but I did spend some time in the evenings doing prepping research.
- I spent a lot of time researching relocation issues. I now know more than I ever wanted to know about Internet service availability in Ashe County. Standard copper-cable service is available in some scattered areas. Fiber broadband up to 1 Gb/s is available in much of the northern through southwest areas of the county, although the service map looks kind of like a doughnut, with no service in towns of Jefferson and West Jefferson. The fiber infrastructure is being built out under a federal grant, and I suspect the terms of that grant mandated bringing service to the remote areas of the county before they deployed fiber in the towns.
- I read four or five PA novels, all of which sucked except Ken Benton’s SurviRal, which I bought a week ago on Jen’s recommendation when it was on sale for $0.99. Despite the hokey title, it was actually decent. That author released his second PA novel three weeks or so ago, so I’ll get it as well. Oddly, his two PA novels are not the beginning of a series. The second one has a complete different location, set of characters, etc.
- I read a half dozen prepping-related non-fiction titles, including one on solar power that was written by an engineer and looked that way. Right now, we have just enough gear to keep a bunch of NiMH rechargeables charged to power things like radios, LED flashlights and lanterns, and so on. If we end up in a house that depends on well water, I want to have sufficient capacity to power a well pump, which is one reason I’d prefer a spring as our water source. That’s pretty common up in Ashe county.
- I was able to get an hour or so in on the prepping book, mostly just jotting down notes about stuff I want to write about in detail. I emailed Pournelle yesterday to ask him if he had time to write a Foreward for me. Couldn’t hurt sales to have his name on the cover as well as mine.
Neither Barbara nor I has ever lived in a home that didn’t have municipal water and sewer, so there are a lot of things we don’t know. For example, my reading tells me that a lot of wells have over-size pumps installed. They might have a 1-hp or 3/4-hp pump installed where a 1/2-hp or even 1/4-hp would be more than sufficient. That doesn’t matter much when you’re on utility power, but it makes a huge difference if you need to drive the pump on solar power. The start-up current draw with one of the large pumps may be two to four times what it would be on a smaller pump, which means you need a much larger, more expensive inverter to meet the current demands of the larger pump. If we end up with a well rather than a spring house, I’ll probably buy a smaller well pump and put it on the shelf. They’re not that expensive, and it’d be a good idea to have a spare, just in case.
So, what precisely did you do to prep this week? Tell me about it in the comments.
11:28 – In praise of mature women. FTA:
“We have to tolerate young girls because we need them to breed. Outside of that, they’re pretty much worthless until they get some laugh lines and a couple crow’s-feet.”
Just the other night, Barbara and I were watching a program that featured Sasha Alexander, who was in her late 20’s at the time, and Jessica Steen (Lisa on Heartland), who was in her late 30’s. No comparison. Jessica Steen is a much more attractive woman, and that remains true now that she’s about to turn 50 years old. Mature women rock.