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Cleaning brass casings the old fashioned way.

Filed Under: Reloading by The Crimson Pirate — Leave a comment
February 19, 2012

One of the big reason to get into reloading is to save money. (Or to be able to use casings you scrounge out of the ruins of civilization after the apocalypse, but I digress) Brass is the most expensive cartridge component and it can be reused many times. This can translate into either a big savings or the ability to shoot a lot more if you continue to spend the same amount of money. I did the math in my post about Almost Reloading about a year ago. After the first use of the brass, subsequent reloads would cost about $1.90 per 50 rounds for 9mm Makarov. Compare that to the best prices you can find in stores or online. The savings will be comparable for other calibers, but the specific prices will vary. Larger calibers use more powder, though almost all common handgun calibers use the same primers.

Of course you can buy new brass from any number of sources. Cabelas, Gander Mountain, and Bass Pro Shops all sell brass. Many local gun shops such as Shyda’s Gun Shop here in Lebanon also carry brass and other reloading components. You can also order fired brass from a number of places online many of which I have listed on my Reloading Suppliers Page, among the links up at the very top of this blog.

But if you really want to save some money, or maybe just cannot afford to buy brass, then range brass will be your salvation. Range brass is brass that you pick up off the ground at the range. A lot of shooters don’t reload and many don’t bother to pick up their brass. So when you go the range pick up any and all brass you find. If you find brass in a caliber that you don’t reload pick it up anyway. You might reload for it one day, or might have a friend or family member who shoots it. If not then you can always wait until you accumulate a bucket of brass that you don’t need and recylcle it for some quick cash. The same goes for non reloadable Berdan primed brass, and for steel casings. The recyclers are paying pretty good for metals these days.

Either way range brass and fired brass that you purchase will both need to be cleaned before reloading. Cleaning the brass will prevent dirt and crud from getting into your dies, and prevent anything harder than your dies that might be on the brass from galling the dies. Range brass gets notoriously dirty, especially if it is an outdoor range and if there has been any rain since it was left.

Most experienced reloaders end up getting a tumbler to clean their brass. However those on a tight budget and those new to reloading may not have a tumbler, or may not be able to get one for quite a while. Never fear, early reloaders got by for decades before the first commercial tumblers came on the market. How did they do it? By washing their brass.

WHETHER YOU TUMBLE OR WASH YOUR BRASS IT NEEDS TO BE DECAPPED (DEPRIMED) BEFORE YOU CLEAN IT

Things you will need to wash your brass:

  1. A bucket or similar container. Popular containers include buckets, plastic bins, and coffee cans.
  2. Hot water. You do have hot and cold running water, right?
  3. Dish soap. Ordinary liquid dish soap like Dawn, or any of the other brands.

Additional things you might want include vinegar, laundry detergent, and salt. There are a number of recipes for the cleaning solution and a number of methods of washing. Here are a couple of popular recipes I pulled off the web:

Recipe 1

  • 1 QT hot water
  • 1 Cup Venegar
  • 1 Tablespoon laundry detergent
  • 1 Tablespoon salt

Recipe 2

  • 1 Pint hot water
  • 1 cup venegar
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon dish detergent

There are many others. There are as many recipes as there are old reloaders who have been doing since before tumblers were invented. I just use hot water, and dish soap. No salt, no vinegar, no laundry detergent though I guess it would work as well as dish soap.

Brass before washing 02/11/2012

Brass before washing 02/11/2012

WHETHER YOU TUMBLE OR WASH YOUR BRASS IT NEEDS TO BE DECAPPED (DEPRIMED) BEFORE YOU CLEAN IT

Once you have your dirty brass casings place them in a bucket or other similar container. The picture is one of my buckets with about 548 brass casings in .38 special.  If you don’t have a container or bucket they can be acquired for free.  Get down to your local grocery store or supermarket.  Go to the bakery section.  Ask them if they have any leftover buckets.  They will give you them for free or tell you what time of the day to come back to get them for free.  All of their stuff arrives in buckets and they throw them away when empty.  Independent bakeries, chinese food places, pizza shops, and similar places are also good for free buckets. The buckets are typically 1.5, 2, or 3 gallons. If you want 5 gallons you will probably have to buy it. You will have to wash the buckets. They will have residue of batter, dough, and frosting that will need to be cleaned out before using them.

Ordinary Dawn dish soap 02/11/2012

Ordinary Dawn dish soap works great for washing brass, and cats 02/11/2012

Next get your solution or dish soap. I just use regular good old fashioned Dawn. We have it around because we use it for dishes (oddly enough), and it also is the best and safest flea bath for cats. Take the bucket and dish soap (or solution) to your bath tub (or kitchen sink). I like ot work in the bath tub. It gives me more room to work, a larger area to make a mess in while keeping it contained, and a bigger faucet that puts out a larger volume of water. It’s also less likely to be full of dishes when I need it.

Brass being washed 02/11/2012

Brass being washed 02/11/2012

Start the water (or add the solution if you pre mixed one). Get the water as hot as it will get from the tap. Steaming is good. Squirt some Dawn into the bucket full of brass and shove the bucket under the tap. Let it fill until the water (not just the suds) are an inch or two above the brass casings, then pull it back. Whether or not you continue to let water run into the tub is up to you. Now comes the hard part.

You have to agitate the mixture. There are several ways to do this. You can place a stick, pole, old spatula, etc into the bucket and stir the brass around. You can reach in and do it by hand, though if you pick this method wear some of those big heavy household cleaning gloves. Primers contain lead and other nasty chemicals. Bullets also contain lead. Some residue gets left in the primer pockets and and the mouth of the casing. It then gets washed out by the hot water/soap mixture. This can leach into unprotected hands and may cause problems. Especially if you do this for decades. You can also just pick up the bucket and swish it around vigorously. That’s actually kind of fun.

Whatever method you choose, give the brass a good agitation for a few minutes and then put it down and go do something else. Watch TV, go for a smoke, whatever. Come back in 10 minutes. Don’t wait longer than 20 minutes as lead residue suspended in water can electroplate onto the brass. Yes electroplating can be that simple. So make sure you are back in 10-15 minutes.

Brass after washing 02/11/2012

Brass after washing 02/11/2012

Drain out the soapy water. Turn the tap back on, hot or cold is your choice, and rinse the brass thoroughly. You can agitate the brass during rinsing to both increase cleanliness and speed rinsing. Keep rinsing until all of the soap is gone and then drain as much water out as possible. Voila, there you go. A whole buch of clean but wet fired brass. Almost ready for reloading. On to the next step, drying. Well, not yet.

Our purpose here is to clean your cases. We don’t want dirt, mud, crud, lead, nasty chemicals, or other debris on the brass. We don’t want to gum up or damage our dies. Dies are way more expensive than casings and if cared for properly will last a lot longer than we will. However we are not trying to make them bright and shiny like new again. Brass will tarnish, it will discolor, it will stain. If you want shiny bling then go drop the money on a tumbler. Or sit there with stea wool and brass polish hand polishing each casing. I want brass that will work. I don’t care if it is dull or even has turned green. Damaged brass should be tossed in your recycle bucket. Undamaged but not pretty brass should be kept and reloaded.

Drying washed brass 02/11/2012

Brass spread out on an old cookie sheet for drying.

Before your begin reloading your brass it must be completely dry. There are several methods for drying brass. One common method is to spread it out on old newspaper for 1-3 days. Placing it in the sun may speed this process. In a hot arid climate it may dry in hours by this method. In damp or cold climates it may take a few days.

Another popular method is to dry it in the oven. If you choose this method make sure the brass is completely cool before you begin reloading it. I use this method. Old cookie sheets that your wife no longer uses are perfect for this. You definately don’t want to use a cookie sheet that might get used for food. You could potentially contmainate something and you will definately piss off your wife. You could buy new cookie sheets just for this purpose, but if you want to spend money just go buy a tumbler. I have a bunch of old cookie sheets and baking pans that I use for all sorts of stuff, like trays for holding sprouts and seedlings when gardening. In fact I save every pan or cookie sheet the wife is going to throw away.

Place the brass on an old cookie sheet. Make sure it is spread out and not piled up. Place the cookie sheet in the oven on the lowest setting. Most ovens have a setting at 200 or 250 degrees F. This is perfect. It takes about 155 degrees F to drive loosely coupled water molecules off a surface. Pre heat the oven for 10 minutes (turn it on while you are taking your break during the washing part). Place the pan of brass in the oven for 10-20 minutes. Then turn the oven off and let it sit in there until it cools down. Voila, clean dry brass ready to be reloaded. Make sure it is completely cool before you reload it.

You will hear a lot of talk about oven drying being dangerous due to annealing the brass. The annealing point for brass starts at 300F-350F (~180C) and it takes at least 12 hours at that temp to start to anneal the brass. 600F takes about an hour or so to anneal brass, 650 takes a few minutes, 850 takes seconds, 900 anneals it pretty quickly. My oven only goes up to 500 degrees F. I only dry brass at 200-250 degrees for 10-20 minutes. It will never get close to annealing under these conditions.

Throughout this process you should be inspecting your casings. Inspect them when you pick them up. Inspect them when you put them in the bucket. Inspect them when you rinse them. Inspect them when you put them on the pan to dry. Inspect them after drying. Any casings that are cracked or split or have other signs of damage should be tossed in your ecycle bucket and not reloaded.

Well, there you go. A cheap, easy, quick method of cleaning those nasty but free casing you picked up at the range.

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Family trapped in car in snow for 2 days

Filed Under: Emergency/Disaster by The Crimson Pirate — Leave a comment
December 22, 2011

It happens every year. Sometimes several times a year. Some family gets unlucky, makes a wrong turn, or makes a bad decision and finds themselves stuck in the snow. OK, actually it happens thousands of times a year, but most of these incidents end with a call to a friend or relative with a big truck and a chain. But a few each year become more serious.

Such is the case with this story http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57346922/family-trapped-2-days-in-car-by-snow-drift/. A family driving through New Mexico is caught unexpectedly in a blizzard. They suffer bad luck, spin out, and slide down an embankment. It doesn’t take long for the doors to be blocked by snow, and then the windows.

Fortunately they were found in time. Under 4 feet of snow. Let me repeat that UNDER FOUR FEET OF SNOW. That’s 4 feet of snow from the top of their car to the surface. They had food. They had water. They had ways to keep warm. But it is quite likely that they were running out of air.

Of course I’m going to plug having a vehicle emergency kit in your vehicle all of the time. I’m also going to list the vehicle emergency kit contents again.

  • 6-12 liters of bottled water
  • Water filter and/or Purification tablets
  • 12-24 Canned food or MREs
  • 2-4 Emergency blankets
  • 2-4 Rain Poncho
  • 2 Regular blanket
  • 2 Waterproof match cases with matches and a striking surface
  • 2 Disposable lighters
  • 2 Flashlights
  • 2 sets of Batteries
  • 2 Knives
  • 2 Hatchets
  • 2 Multi-tools
  • 2 Handguns, 5 loaded magazines and ammunition for each (This is where a .22 survival rifle is really good too)
  • You regular meds, plus your spouses
  • First aid kit
  • Baby supplies if needed
  • Motor Oil
  • Brake Fluid
  • Transmission Fluid
  • Tape
  • Fix a flat
  • spare tire
  • Tire iron
  • Floor Jack
  • Gas Can
  • Belt
  • Hose
  • Cable or zip ties
  • Battery or crank cell phone charger
  • Battery handheld CB radio

They had food and water. If they hadn’t had food or water they still would have been unlikely to die of thirst in two days, unless they had some other condition exacerbating the lack of food or water. The Rule of Threes is in play. You can live 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. Always have 3 sources of light, 3 sources of fire, and 3 knives. In this situation the air was becoming a serious concern and it is one often overlooked.

The windows were up. Nessecary to keep out the accumulating snow, and to lose less heat. And everyone knows cars are not air tight. But the accumulating and self compacting snow was beginning to act as seal. When found the family was lethargic. The exhaust pipe was blocked so while they were able to keep the car running for a while, it is likely exhaust was getting into the passenger compartment.

I keep a collapsable snow shovel in my vehicle. I use it to dig out of snow at work. But even a hatchet or machete could help one dig oneself out. Or at least dig a vent hole through which to get air in and out. That could be all it takes to make the difference between living and being found dead. This family was blessed. If they weren’t found when they were it could have been much worse. If they had no food or water it could have been worse.

Even Mr. Higgins advised “Throw a case of water and a sleeping bag in the car. It will be there if you need it. I could see if we weren’t half as prepared as we were, it could have been a worse outcome.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57346922/family-trapped-2-days-in-car-by-snow-drift/

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Gun Owners of America Year in Review

Filed Under: Law/Poly Ticks by The Crimson Pirate — Leave a comment
December 20, 2011

Gun Owners of America has posted and sent out their year in review. It is a compilation of accomplishments in the area of the right to keep and bear arms in 2011. Whether GOA is wholly responisble for all of these, they were involved in all of them.

Here they are.

January

* One of the first acts of the Congress in 2011 was to read the Constitution aloud, for the first time in history, on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte led the effort in the House and credited GOA for helping make it happen.

“I want to thank Gun Owners of America for early support of the idea to read the U.S. Constitution on the House floor and for taking the lead to rally the grassroots in support of the Read the Constitution effort,” Goodlatte said.

Of course, reading the Constitution is one thing, abiding by it is another. And that is a battle GOA brings to Capitol Hill on a daily basis.

*GOA began a year-long effort to call attention to Fast and Furious. This operation that was run out of the Justice Department helped criminals buy guns “legally” from American gun stores -­ with the hopes that the ensuing violence would drive calls for more gun control.

February – March

* GOA began warning its activists that anti-gun Democrats might try to attach gun control restrictions on a bill to reauthorize funding the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). These proposals included a ban on high capacity magazines; restrictions that would end gun shows; and, potentially, a provision stripping millions of gun owners of their rights by placing them on “watch lists” without any due process of law.

GOA worked on the Hill by putting pro-gun amendments into the hands of certain Senators. Our efforts to counter these disastrous proposals with pro-gun initiatives backed the gun grabbers into a comer and stymied their plans.

*GOA and its activists won temporary victories when the House voted to repeal the anti-gun ObamaCare law and to adopt the Boren-Rehberg amendment — which would defund ATF’s latest gun registry.

Gun Owners of America contacted every member of the House of Representatives prior to winning the votes on ObamaCare and Boren-Rehberg. Sadly, both of these victories were temporary, as the Democrat Senate refused to go along.

* GOA began a national campaign to defeat restrictive legislation introduced by New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D). Her bill, HR 308, would resurrect the ban on high capacity magazines which passed during the Clinton administration — but later sunset in 2004. (GOA will spend the year mobilizing gun owners against this threat, and can thankfully report that, by year’s end, her bill has remained bottled up in committee.)

April-May

* After President Obama nominated Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, GOA worked hard to alert Senators to his extreme, anti-gun record. Like many radical progressives, Liu believes that while our Second Amendment rights might have been necessary in the 1700s, they are no longer needed today. Thanks, in large part, to Liu’s radical views on the Second Amendment, his nomination was narrowly defeated.

* Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tied the Senate in knots for more than a week fighting for a GOA­backed amendment which would have protected 4473’s and other gun records from blanket searches by the ATF under the so-called PATRIOT Act.

Because many leaders in his own party refused to back him, Sen. Paul was not successful this time, but he put a marker down that gun rights would not be violated without a fight from the pro-gun community.

Sen. Paul thanked “Gun Owners of America for their strong support of my amendment to protect the privacy of gun owners.”

June – August

* GOA activated its grassroots members in opposition to S. 679, the Cover-up Protection Act — a bill that would exempt hundreds of federal appointees from Senate confirmation, thus allowing the President to stack his administration with flaming anti-gunners.

This battle underscored the power of the grassroots — and the effect that phone calls and emails can have upon their elected officials. After hearing from thousands upon thousands of GOA’s activists, Capitol Hill staffers confided to GOA that key Senators reversed course and decided to add amendments which would require the most important Presidential appointments to still be approved by the Senate.

* The crescendo over the Operation Fast and Furious debacle continued to build. Dubbed as Obama’s Watergate, Fast and Furious highlights the extent that his corrupt administration will go to demonize gun owners. GOA has spent the first half of the year educating the media and the grassroots over Fast and Furious — and for its part, CBS and Fox News lead the media in covering this fiasco.

September

* GOA began to energize its grassroots in favor of concealed carry reciprocity bill introduced by Georgia Rep. Paul Broun. His bill (HR 2900) will allow law-abiding gun owners to carry out­of-state without requiring them to possess a concealed carry permit in the state they are visiting.

*Gun Owners of America briefed an important case before the U.S. Supreme Court earlier in the year — and, in September, we won! The Court handed down its decision in Bond v. United States, where the U.S. government had made a “federal case” out of a domestic dispute involving a Pennsylvania woman who injured her neighbor.

There was absolutely no reason why the federal government should have been prosecuting Carol Bond, as opposed to the local authorities. So GOA got involved with the intent to help drive the federal government back into the parameters as outlined in the Constitution — a result which will, most definitely, benefit gun owners.

October- November

* In late October, GOA began pressing hard for congressmen to start petitioning for Eric Holder’s resignation. Within a week, the number of Representatives calling for Holder’s resignation rose to more than two dozen — and the number has since doubled to more than four dozen.

* The Obama Administration issued regulations earlier this year requiring agencies to lie to the public under certain circumstances. GOA alerted its grassroots in October to these regs and urged Congress to defund the administration’s ability to enforce them. The Administration pulled the regulations within the week.

* In November, Gun Owners Foundation won a Supreme Court case in defense of a gun owner in Virginia. Russell Ernest Smith had been wrongfully convicted of “willfully and intentionally” making a false statement on his 4473 form when purchasing a firearm. But GOF believed that the government’s argument against Smith was specious.

So Gun Owners Foundation prepared its amicus brief and submitted it on behalf of Mr. Smith. GOF was the only group making the case that Smith’s conviction should be overturned. After waiting several months for the verdict, the Virginia Supreme Court announced its verdict … and Smith emerged victorious.

What’s both interesting and exciting in this case is that, in overturning Smith’s conviction, the judges used an argument that GOF had made — an argument which his own lawyer did not even make. GOF is clearly making an impact upon the courts in defense of gun owners’ rights!

* Concealed carry reciprocity legislation passed on the floor of the House by a 272-154 vote. Representatives had two bills to choose from — although the weaker bill passed. The battle now moves to the Senate, where GOA will work to amend the legislation with the provisions of HR 2900, the “constitutional carry” friendly bill.

December

* GOA worked hard this year to stall (or defeat) the nomination of anti-gun judges. One of Obama’s picks who stalled out was Caitlin Halligan, a judicial nominee with a history of anti­gun activism. But with most of the nation focusing its attention on the upcoming holidays, GOA had to call the troops into battle after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to ram through Halligan’s confirmation in early December.

* The response of Gun Owners of America members to the GOA alert was overwhelming and played an important role in defeating the confirmation of Halligan. On the Hill, Gun Owners of America briefed Senate offices right up to the time of the vote about the danger of confirming Halligan. Thankfully, in a procedural maneuver known as a “cloture vote,” Reid fell six votes short of getting the needed votes to move the nomination forward for a final vote.

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The Walking Dead Season 2 Spoiler alert

Filed Under: Uncategorized by The Crimson Pirate — Leave a comment
October 24, 2011

Well I finally got to see the first episode of season 2 of The Walking Dead. And then the new episode. So here are my thoughts. Warning, if you have not seen the first two episodes yet this post may contain spoilers.

OK, this post and any that follow may contain spoilers if you have not seen the episodes yet. So if you don’t want to know stop reading now.

Quote from: jayphailey on October 19, 2011, 08:23:58 PM
Hey, Crim, did you see the season premiere? What did you think?

I don’t think I’ll get to see it for a bit.

You can watch it free on AMC’s website

http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-walking-dead

Combining the two episodes thus far. Pretty good. The story is good. It has good production values for low budget TV, and there is lots of good human stuff. I don’t watch this stuff to be scared, or for the zombies. I watch this stuff because I have a deep interest in what humans do in extreme situations. Walking Dead has a lot of that.

A lot of it never happened in the comic. I need to reread the comics again to stay clear on the differences. Of course these people are still idiots and they have not tightened up their operation at all. I know they are doing the whole ‘there is no zombie mythos in this world’ thing, but you’d think they would learn from their mistakes.

Daryl is my favorite character. He knows what he is doing. He thinks ahead. He has skills, gear, a wide range of experience, and mentions needing a plan a couple of times. Andrea is my second favorite character for standing up for herself and clearly explaining why helping someone isn’t always really helping them.

I’m pissed at Dale and Shane. Taking Andrea’s gun away was wrong. The bullshit excuse about “I have training” pissed me off a lot. As an OCer I have heard that crap from cops before. When I had my little Home Depot run in I asked the cop standing with me what he was carrying and he had to bend over sideways and look to see what it was. Most police departments require 18-51 rounds (empty the gun and 2 reloads) a year to qualify and that is all the majority of cops shoot. 200 rounds is a short range trip to me, and I damn well know what is on my hip. So that whole ‘we’re better because we’ve been trained’ thing is extremely annoying.

The gun was given to her by her father and it’s sentimental value cannot be overstated. It’s her private property and taking it for any reason is wrong.

Trying to protect Andrea from herself was wrong. It was her decision, and she covered it pretty well in her tirade at Dale. Violating someone’s natural rights to protect them is still wrong, and once you start doing that you can use protecting people to justify all kinds of wicked shit.

I would have chopped Dale with a machete if he didn’t give me my gun. I like to think I’m a nice guy. I like to think I’m understanding, forgiving, and compassionate. But someone would have died over this if I’d have been in her place.

As usual I think a supressed .22 would solve about 80% of their problems. Being more organized and having a plan would cover most of the rest. Of course we know that, in the comics anyway, that doesn’t even begin to happen for a long time.

I snerked at Gerber sneaking in their produt placement. When I caught the second half of the first episode I was thinking “What, is every sharp object in this a Gerber? They must have gotten a sponsor.” Then when I watched the first half of the episode online the product placement is clear.

The medical terminology is appallingly bad. They need a consultant for medical stuff. If they already have one, he is an idiot. Please don’t ever use the words ‘respirator’ or ‘endo tracheal intubator’ in public. The words you are looking for are Ventilator and Laryngoscope.

Still like it. Still will follow it as much as I can. Still looking forward to the next episode.

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I, Caveman and survival shows

Filed Under: Emergency/Disaster by The Crimson Pirate — 2 Comments
October 3, 2011

I was channel surfing last night and ran across I, Caveman. It is a 2 part “documentary” in which a group of 10 people are left in the Colorado wilderness with technically accurate neo lithic gear. They have to survive using only neo lithic tools and techniques. Initially they are given some basic gear. They have to make fire and anything else they need.

OK, so the premise of I, Cavemen isn’t can we survive, or how to survive. It is were we better off then, what value does that lifestyle and skill set have that we may have lost, and how hard is it to transition back or recapture some of that lost value. But that quickly gets lost in the how to part by the participants.

I get it, but I still see it through the survival prism. These people are their own worst enemy. They pass right by valuable resources and go hungry because they unwilling or unable to adapt to their situation. They have no plan, no organization, no division of labor, and I’m shocked that any of them have ever been in the outdoors before. They have limited gear by design.

The reason we always advocate having emergency gear is precisely so that you don’t ever have to do what they are doing. You should never have to start a fire with a drill, or knap flint for a sharp object. If you do, then you are already way behind the eight ball and might need to reevaluate your entire thinking on the topic.

In addition to I, caveman there are a plethora of survival shows on now either in production or in reruns. One is worthless. One is good. One is mediocre. And one is patently dangerous. The last one is, of course, the most popular.

From best to worst

Survivorman- Les Stroud. The first of the genre and the best of the bunch. Real no nonsense advice and you get to see the application of it. Spends 7 days in a location/situation with realistically minimal gear. Packs his own cameras and stuff. No staging, aside from the situation premise. He usually tries to establish a reason for the situation and that may provide a little realistic salvageable equipment. For example in one of the northern snow survival episodes (Winter Plane Crash) he posits a small plane crash in the Canadian wilderness as the cause of the situation, and is able to scavenge bits of the small plane. Good, because my chances of getting lost in the Canadian wilderness are pretty slim right now. I’m not going to wind up there by making a wrong turn on the interstate. But if I ever manage to get my pilots license and a full time job then a fishing or hunting trip to Canada would be well within my means. Watch this show and Les Strouds other specials.

Dual Survival- A redneck and a hippy try to duplicate Les Stroud. They do OK. Too much drama, too much disagreement in approaches and too many stereo types. You’re not going to learn anything here for the most part, but every once in a while they give you a gem of new information. If you are totally new to survival or outdoors and backwoods activities in general then it certainly wouldn’t hurt to watch. But if you have done any hunting or fishing or hiking or camping then it’s pretty much going to be stuff you know already.

Man, woman, wild- a self styled outdoors man tries to teach his elitist wife to live off the land and eat things she thinks are disgusting. A waste of time unless you like drama and reality shows. You’re not going to learn anything, unless it’s how a lot of women (and men these days) react to nature. Honestly it really makes one think about the possible utility of shooting one’s spouse and any non outdoors types at the outset of any survival situation, so it is probably a good show to avoid. Watch it with your wife to get an idea of what you might be in for.

Man Vs Wild, Born Survivor & Ultimate Survival- Bear Grylls- A man lies prolifically about his military background and presumes to amaze and astound the audience by advocating the most extreme actions he can think of as survival techniques, and hocking merchandise. Heavily staged with a full production crew. He juices water from elephant poop to drink. Need I say more? Bear Grylls is dangerous. This man is going to get somebody killed. Don’t watch it, and don’t buy any of the products. The only things that save him are that most of his audience will never be anywhere near the wilderness, and anyone who dies by following his advice won’t be able to tell anyone about it.

Most of my survival focus is on short term disaster. The stuff that happens to everyone sooner or later, and is happening to someone somewhere all the time. So wilderness survival is not a direct correlation to what I talk about. But it does have a lot of overlap, and many of the tools and techniques are similar. So it is entirely worth it to watch some Survivorman.

Plus the most common individual disaster survival situation is getting lost while driving. Every year a couple of people and families take a wrong turn in the snow or the woods and are missing. They run out of road, run out of gas and then have to survive on their own. Sometimes they are found alive, sometimes dead, and sometimes they are never found at all. This particular disaster, while individual in scale and of little impact to society as a whole, is certainly a wilderness situation. And while society may not notice or pay much attention, if you are the person in this situation then it will damn well be a big deal to you.

Well, there it is. My take on the shows that have value and the ones that should be avoided.

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