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Temperature in the upper 40's so I did some yard work. A lot of branches down. My Dog is in her Spring mode so I took her on some walks to get the energy out of her but the woods are still treacherous with melting ice under the remaining snow. I shot the P-01 and CZ 97b using up the carry ammunition, cleaned them and reloaded with new ammunition. I do this every month. I'm hoping the suppressor arrives this month but I'm not holding my breath. All of my brood are healthy except for my Grandson getting a broken bone in his hand during a Dodgeball skirmish. I'm having second thoughts about selling one of my SKS's they really are perfect specimens and I hate selling them.
 
Blew all and maybe went over my "gun and related gear" budget.
Ordered a set of RCBS Carbide Dies in .45ACP plus 500 small primer cases for .45ACP.
Yeah I know many detest them but I've got small pistol primers on hand in both Standard and Magnum.
And if they work okay for this project I might buy more. And buy one primer type by the case or two vs. two different sizes.
 
I love small primer brass for my .45 acp. I use it in "lost brass" matches when I don't have the opportunity to recover brass off the ground. Waste not, want not.
 
Well, it will be for use after I move. Even tthough I'll probably have time for load development beforehand.
So losing brass ain't a heart breaker. It's also a good way of helping to keep my brass sorted for different loads. These will be exclusively used for the critter self defense loads and I don't want any mix ups with my or anyone else's brass.
And I probably won't be reusing them at all.
I'm not going to replicate a "Melvin Load" but I am going to work up something on the warm side.
Then I'll have standard practice loads with the same cast bullets, with normal brass. That, as I used to, intend to reuse several times vs. once or twice as with these.
 
Discussion starter · #245 ·
Found out we're having a very rare (and likely very small) gun show in our area this weekend, and I may check it out to see if I can sell off some more stuff. Have four 9mm pistols I'm wanting to sell, and haven't put them on consignment because the LGS is over-stocked with 9mm pistols already.
 
Discussion starter · #246 ·
Sold five more guns today. There was a gun show near us this weekend, which is a rarity. Sold both of my g26’s, the Performance Center M&P, ruger sp-101 4-inch, and the rare & lovely Haskell 45acp. (Believe Haskell; maybe Stallard, not positive. They’re both just previous iterations of today’s Hi-Point.)
 
John,
Well, I just had a duh-oh! Moment.😁
There was one up here too and I should have taken one of my rifles over there to see if I could find a buyer.
I may end up going to Armslist or something similar but I'd rather not.
I have been sorting through stuff that's extra myself and seeing what's worth eBaying, gunbrokering or just donating to places like Potters House or Salvation Army.
 
Discussion starter · #248 · (Edited)
Still no firm closing date on selling off a big chunk of the business, but did get quite a few smaller things done over the past few days. Went through my truck’s toolbox and sorted, streamlined, and organized things; some just normal tools, but a lot of get-home and emergency stuff. Replaced the old mountain house foods, batteries stored with the get-home stuff, along with some other things that have limited shelf life. OTC pain pills, vitamins/supplements, etc. I still drive a bunch, but my commute is much shorter than it was up until three or four years ago, plus it doesn’t involve going through any towns between work and home. So I eliminated a few things that I used to carry because of the added distance and additional populated areas. Not counting the gun and ammo cable-locked in the vehicle itself, got the GHB pack down to just 21 pounds, and even that is probably substantially more than would be needed for 2-3 days of getting home.

Also upgraded the first aid kit in the storm cellar. In going through it a week or two ago to make sure it hadn’t been pilfered and depleted, I decided to increase its scope and scale both somewhat.

Got the permanent cap installed on one of the storm cellar wall penetrations; a small three-quarter inch sleeve through the wall specifically for allowing the remote probe of a survey meter to pass through the wall, in case someone goes full retard and radiation monitoring becomes a real-life concern. The penetration has been there and usable the entire time but had just been living with a temporary/interim cap on it. Used a galvanized flange and threaded cap for the permanent seal, and also attached a wrench to one of the anchors with a wire, to eliminate the risk of not having the right wrench on hand when needed:
Wood Rectangle Font Door Pattern
Wood Door Grey Nail Fixture


Also a handful of other, smaller things; but some of those are as much regular maintenance as they are prep-related. Adding a 60-foot HDMI cable, switch, and splitter to get the security camera feed to the main screen in the storm cellar, and a few other minor things like that.
 
Went to the bank this morning and got a bank draft for $1,200.00, mailed it 10 minutes later. In about 5-6 weeks my new (to me) .38 Super, Kimber Stainless II should be in my mailbox after all the government hoops are jumped through with the registration. If I had bought it from a local dealer it would be a 1 or 2 day thing. Now to start buying brass, dies, bullets, spare mags while I wait. I've been looking for what I want for 2 days surfing the net so its time to bend the Visa Card tomorrow morning.
 
This evening I've been playing "musical chairs" parts swapping and adding so to speak with AR's.
I now have a full on dedicated .22lr AR and I'm getting parts lined out to Form 1.
But unfortunately I now seem to have some personal issues cropping up with a former friend.☹
And I was until this late evening hesitant to use the term former.😡
Oh well... this is an ongoing issue that dude has had with responsibility in his free time.
And I don't want to be anywhere near him when he crashes and burns.
 
Enabling a friend, always works out badly, for you.
 
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Well, I know. And the problem is this person is a relative of a friend who doesn't need the stress, the later who is my age.
In fact no one needs it really.
His cousin is +/-10 years younger. He's got a combo of a high stress job and two radical/liberal parents.
Problem is if he keeps it up he's going to loose his job, his son and the decent side of his family, plus his firearms.
And I'll probably lose his older cousin as a friend too.
That is it the latter one's choice but it is his to make.
I told him I had enough of his cousin's antics and want nothing whatsoever to do with him until he dries out.
There's drinking and smoking and then there's drinking and smoking. Besides the crossed up legalities here in the states I happen to be allergic to it.
The dude is going to crash and burn if he don't ease up and I ain't going to be around when it happens. Which it will at the rate he's going.
He's reminded me of another friend who I lost a couple of years ago around this time of the year who had at one time a promising computer programming job but couldn't lay off the sauce or the saucier women. I'm way too old to be hanging out with people like that.
And I've reached my limit. I've reached it 8 months ago.
 
Discussion starter · #253 ·
...issues cropping up with a former friend.

...And I don't want to be anywhere near him when he crashes and burns.
Exactly; you really don't. I took a short, fairly superficial two-day FBI/CJI hostage negotiation class years ago, and the first thing they stressed and then kept referencing through the whole thing is that you have absolutely no sway with the hostage-taker unless he has (or you can create in him) a strong will to live. If he doesn't WANT a way out without shooting, there will be shooting.

I hadn't thought of it in those terms before that, but it's true and blindingly simple. You can't help someone who fights against help. Doesn't matter if they're drowning, smoking meth, or eating themselves to death - if they want to stay in the cesspool, that's where they're going to stay until they decide they want otherwise. You can't pull them out against their will, and if you try, you usually end up being dragged into the same mess you were trying to rescue them from.

Enabling a friend, always works out badly, for you.
Sad and frustrating but true.
 
Yeah, and worse it's really two people who are involved and good or bad since they are related, blood is thicker than a water.
So.....I'm backing off away from both.
 
Discussion starter · #255 ·
We got our tax paperwork back and partly because of a refund coming, went ahead and ordered backup power for the storm cellar. We already have backup power in the form of a couple generators, but ordered a medium-scale battery backup along with a controller/inverter that can charge the batteries from grid power, from the generator, or from solar panels. Don't have solar panels on the house yet (and may or may not ever put them on), but this will let us power the storm cellar constantly with a worst case of just running the generator 4-6 hours a day to replenish the batteries, instead of running the generator non-stop 24/7 during power outages.
 
Wiring and power is something I'm going to have to consider for my "tiny home-hernit- bachelor pad" ideally I'd like to be 100% off grid. But budget wise I'm not sure how realistic it will be. Depends on how the sale market is and raw property plus buildings and building materials.
 
Discussion starter · #257 · (Edited)
Ed - the up-front cost is high on that stuff, but we had a few parts of it already in place, and prices have dropped a LOT since I initially looked into it. Sounds weird to talk about prices dropping right now with inflation being the way it is, but it's been several years since I looked at it. If you use good components (especially batteries), it should be much cheaper in the long run, but you can get by for a year or two on cheaper batteries if need be.

There are several good youtube channels on it; I especially like this guy's channel. He's young, but seems to have been doing solar stuff for a long time; at least a long time for someone of his age: https://www.youtube.com/c/WillProwse

It was largely due to his tests that I went ahead & ordered lithium-iron-phosphate batteries instead of lead-acid. Instead of $2064 for 14400 watt-hours of lead-acid, I spent $2430 for 9600 watt-hours of the lithium. Lead acid, you really should only use down to ~50% of their capacity, and the lithium let you go around 75-80% without damage; so they both represent ~7200 watt-hours of useable power. Plus the lithiums should give around 5,000 charge/discharge cycles before having to be replaced vs. 800-1000 cycles for the lead-acids, meaning you'd have to replace the lead-acids several times before replacing the lithiums even once. So in the long run, the lithiums are much cheaper, but even in the short term there's not nearly as much difference as there used to be. Plus the lithiums don't outgas nearly like the lead-acid do, they're less volatile when being recharged, and hugely lighter. Just 193 lbs vs. 770 lbs that the lead-acid would have been.
 
Discussion starter · #258 ·
One more gun probably gone. The 681 on consignment at the LGS was put on layaway by someone on friday, saying they'd pick it up this week, so we'll see. Really wish I could find a Taurus 692 in stock somewhere at a decent price. Only had two .357 revolvers (the 681 being the second one), and if it does sell, I won't have a .357 handgun at all. In fact, the only DA centerfire revolvers left at that point would be two, both in 45 caliber. The 692 would be a great replacement for the .357 revolvers because it would be a good accompaniment for the .357 carbines and also allow shooting 9mm in easier-to-police moonclips. Best of both worlds functionally, but for over a month now, not in stock anywhere.
 
Discussion starter · #259 ·
And the 681 is sold, picked up the money today. Paid (I think) $349 for it either just before or just after we moved to arkansas in 93, and sold for a little over $600 now. Not quite enough to keep up wi5 inflation, but pretty close, plus getting nearly 30 years’ use and enjoyment out of it, so not complaining at all.

Gotta start focusing on long guns now; pretty close to my cutoff on what handguns I want to get rid of.
 
Spent the afternoon cutting up a fallen tree that was blocking my trail onto the woods. I was impressed by the Ryobi 16 inch electric chain saw. Cut up the whole tree with it like a knife through butter. It still had almost a full charge when I was done. I'm waiting for Cabela's call that my Sig P322 is in. It's a 70 mile hike so I want to combine it with any shopping my Wife want's to do and eat in a good restaurant. Still waiting on the suppressor. Blasted out my 9 MM and .45 "carry" rounds and reloaded with fresh rounds. After all these years I'm still impressed with the CZ P-01 and the CZ 97b is sooo sweet to shoot.
 
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