They are extremely simple to make – you just take a used 2-3/4″ 12-gauge shell, punch the used primer out of it, and fill the hole with hot glue. And voila! There you have a 3″ practice shell. Note, it’s a 3″, not a 2-3/4″. If you want to make a shorter shell, just cut off the ‘frilly splayed’ end of the shell with scissors or a saw.

Q: Why would you want practice shells? A: to practice loading, cycling, clearing and otherwise using the firearm. You need to be VERY careful when doing this to make sure that a live round doesn’t accidentally end up in your pile of practice shells!!

Q: Why the hot glue? A: it isn’t good for most firearms to be ‘dry-fired’, or ‘shot’ without something in the chamber for the hammer to hit. The hot glue fills the hole that the primer had previously occupied, and is springy, so it absorbs the shock of the firing pin, and then returns to its original shape, so it could be reused.

Q: Why practice? A: if you’re in a situation where you feel you need a firearm, you need one quick, and it needs to be functional (ready to fire) as soon as possible. Loading multiple rounds into a firearm quickly takes practice, and practicing with live ammunition would be extremely dangerous, hence the practice rounds.

Drawbacks: the practice rounds are more difficult to load than are live rounds. They tend to hang up when trying to load into the magazine tube. They also tend to hang up while ejecting. But they’re better than nothing, and in my opinion, better than commercial dummy shells, which run about $8 a pop, and have irreplaceable parts that break after some use!

It boiled a saucepan full of water in about 2 minutes – more than adequate for my camping needs!

Coke Can Stove

Here’s a little trick I picked up while browsing the web at one point – a camping stove made from an old soda can! I put this together for a grand total of $3.29 – the price of a 1ft by 2ft piece of hardware cloth!

Part 1: The Stove

Take a can of Coke/pop/soda (depending on where you are from), and, using a Dremel, cut out most of the top, as shown in the picture. Then drill a bunch of small (~3/32″) holes in the sloped part of the can. I think I tried for 16 holes, and did it by eye. I probably ended up with 14-15 of variously sized holes. That doesn’t really matter though.

Next, carefully Dremel a roughly 2 inch section out of the middle of the soda can. Recycle this, or keep it for shim stock for other projects.

Now, carefully put the left over bottom and top halves together. In my case, this took Dremeling a slit on one side and forcing the two halves together, but if you can do it without making slits, that’s better.

Voila, there you have your stove! I sprayed it with flat black bedliner, just to make it prettier, but you don’t have to. Fill it with rubbing alcohol, light it (I don’t recommend lighting it Hibachi-style by dipping your finger in alcohol, lighting that, and then dipping your burning finger into the stove ), and enjoy!

Pot Holder Parts. Click to Enlarge.

Part 2: The Pot Holder

Get a small amount of 1/2″x1/2″ hardware cloth. I got galvanized and then spray-painted it flat olive green. The alternative is to get the green-vinyl-covered kind and save yourself the work.

Cut four pieces as shown in the picture (note that I left the ‘ends’ on the top and bottom left ones, and then bent them over into hooks. TIP: after cutting, about 10 minutes with the Dremel would be well spent smoothing off the cuts, so the sharp edges wouldn’t snag things in your pack. When you’re done, paint the hardware cloth if you like, and assemble the four pieces into a box shape, checking that you can fold the assembled box flat into your pack.

Try it out!

Trying to Boil Water

Stick a pot on top of the holder, light the stove, and see if you can boil some water!

I tried, using isopropanol (rubbing alcohol) with marginal results. The water started steaming very quickly, but after 10 minutes, still hadn’t boiled a few ounces of water. Also, at the end of the exercise, the bottom of the pot was just coated in black, with some soot coming up the sides as well.

So, don’t expect to be able to boil water on this little stove (at least using rubbing alcohol), but it can definitely heat water up enough to distill!

Future Research

Since I work in combustion engineering (mainly in Diesel engines), naturally, I’m curious as to what would improve our little stove. Some thoughts:

• Decrease the percentage of water in the alcohol. Standard rubbing alcohol is usually about 30% water by volume, and all that water does is sit there sucking up heat that could be being transferred into the bottom of the pot.
• Switch to vodka or ethanol-based rubbing alcohol. I would be surprised if this helped much, if any, as there will still be water in the mixture, and in the case of vodka, there will be more water than in isopropyl rubbing alcohol.
• Try different, cheap, flammable, household chemicals. This would have to be done very carefully, because of obvious considerations — safety and health concerns. Could I burn gasoline or brake cleaner in my little stove? Yes. would it be smart to have explosive carcinogens that close to my food? Unless you hate me, no; and if you do hate me, why are you exposing yourself to me by reading this?
• The soot on the bottom of the pot means that my stove is burning very rich. I could try to increase the size of the holes in the stove, or otherwise improve airflow, so the air-fuel ratio would be closer to stoichiometric (neither too much fuel, nor too little fuel). Things usually burn hottest near a stoichiometric air-fuel ratio.

I’ll experiment some more and post up what I find!

Everyday Carry Kit

From the top of the picture, going clockwise, there’s my Gerber Evo Mid knife, cell phone, Zippo lighter (I’m not a fan of camo; I may try to repaint it someday), keyring with compass, whistle and can opener (wrapped in a rubber band to prevent poking pockets), and lip balm.

The Evo Mid is pretty self-explanatory. If, however, you need some explanation as to why many men carry a pocket knife, I recommend this article. In fact, if you have several days’ worth of spare time, read as many articles as you can get through! I also did a little reviewing of the Evo Mid in my post about knives.

Yes, the iPhone is a survival tool; as is any cell phone; even a prepaid cell with zero minutes on it. All cellular phones can make calls to 911, even if you are out of minutes.

The ‘survival’ function of the Zippo is to help me start fires, but it has been useful for several other things as well – melting the ends of synthetic rope and melting insulation off very thin wires, to name two. There’s nothing magic about the Zippo brand, other than that I like it. A BIC lighter will do just as well for a fraction of the cost.

The compass on my keyring isn’t necessarily very accurate, especially because it spends most of its time in close proximity to steel (keys and can opener), but I can at least use it to get a general idea of where I’m going if I ever get lost.The can opener is nice to have if I ever need to open a can, although I probably won’t use it very often. It could also be used in a pinch to drive screws.The whistle is a good signaling device, if I ever need to get someone’s attention.

I keep the lip balm with me mainly because about 6 months out of the year, I need it, but in a pinch, it could also be used to get a particularly tough piece of tinder burning, so I could start a fire.

The final part of my kit (not shown) will be a paracord belt, similar to the paracord sling that I put on my shotgun. It’s always nice to have some cord on hand, and a belt is a great place to keep it. I just need to buy the paracord and buckle, and then spend an hour or two braiding the belt up.

At some point, I’ll post up a more complete survival kit that I normally keep in my Jeep, and share some principles to think about in designing a kit, that I have picked up in my reading…

Step 1:find 3/8″ steel rod and bend.

Bent 3/8" steel rod

I used a stainless steel rod (don’t do that if you are planning to blue the bolt, as the bluing properties of stainless steel vs. regular steel are VERY different), and heated and bent it with an oxygen-acetylene torch.

Step 2: cut the bolt. I used a Dremel with a cutoff wheel, and cut the knob off as close to the bolt as possible.

Step 3: mock up, and trim the bent rod as necessary.

Mocking up the Cut Bolt. Click to Enlarge.

In the picture, I have already trimmed half of the stainless rod, and you can see a scribe mark where the other half of the trimming will occur. Again, I used a Dremel. NOTE: the closer to a right angle you can make the bolt, the better, especially if you’re bending the bolt to fit a PU-style scope.

Welded Mosin Bolt

Step 4: Weld. Do yourself a favor and take the bolt apart first. I destroyed my firing pin spring by welding the bolt while it was still assembled, and had to buy a new one (Mosin parts sold here). I TIGged mine, as I am most proficient with a TIG welder.

Step 5: Grind away weld fillets until smooth and pretty. It’s worth spending time on this. I know it sounds scary to grind away your weld, but if you did it right, the weld bead should have penetrated into the steel just as far as it sticks out. If you did it wrong, better to find out now than later…

Step 5a: While you’re grinding and polishing, you may as well do some smoothing of the action of the Mosin. These two videos will help you make your Mosin a TON nicer to shoot, and only take a few minutes and $2 worth of sandpaper:

• Sticky Mosin Part 1
• Sticky Mosin Part 2

Finished Bent Bolt

Step 6: Blue. Since I used stainless steel, chemical gun blue solution wouldn’t work, I heated the oven up to 550 F and put all the parts in until they turned a nice blue.

Step 7: Reassemble the bolt. Buy a new firing pin spring if you were dumb enough to heat the spring up and warp it, like I was. Put the bolt back together, and enjoy!

Mosin Nagant 91/30 and accessories

I got it on sale at Gander Mountain for $100. The rifle comes with the sling, oil container, cleaning pouch and kit, bayonet (yes, bayonet), and two ammo pouches. I bought a Limbsaver butt pad and an ammo sock, along with the ammo belt separately.

Mosin 'head cracker' Butt Plate

A little history on the Mosin (you can get all of this and more on 7.62x54r.net). The rifle was designed in 1891 by Sergei Ivanovich Mosin and Leon Nagant, and was still in use by some snipers in the Korean War, and is occasionally STILL being used in Iraq and Afghanistan today! This makes it the longest-serving battle rifle in history. And for good reason – as a fellow Mosin enthusiast and friend of mine is fond of saying, the Mosin was designed to be operated, cleaned, and fixed by illiterate Russian peasants, with almost no tools. It’s an extremely simple, but deadly weapon.

The Mosin is one of only a few firearms to shoot 7.62x54r ammunition (the SKS and a couple of lesser-known guns use it as well) (EDIT: the SKS shoots AK rounds. Thanks Anders for catching that mistake!). When designing the AK-47 (the Mosin’s replacement as the standard issue military rifle), there’s a reason why they opted for the

smaller 7.62×39 round: the Mosin round is VERY heavy-duty, and is not pleasant to shoot, especially in only a T-shirt! To make matters worse, the end of the Mosin’s stock is fitted with a steel ‘head cracker’ strap for use in close combat. The first time I shot my Mosin, my shoulder was black and blue for a week afterward.

As I mentioned before, the Mosin is very easy to disassemble and clean – and you better clean it often if you shoot military surplus rounds, as they are slightly corrosive, and can destroy your barrel if not cleaned properly! The rifle has a cleaning rod that screws into the stock and sits right under the barrel, and each gun comes with (from left top, clockwise in the picture) a barrel guard, t-handle nut, t-handle, cleaning jag, oil/cleaning solution container, pouch and screwdriver/bolt clearance checker/bayonet remover. It takes me about 5 minutes to field strip my Mosin, and about 10 minutes to clean and lubricate it.

Mosin Rounds - left to right, soft point, surplus corrosive, jacketed.

You can get several different kinds of ammo for the Mosin. The cheapest and easiest to find is military surplus full metal jacket rounds. Some stores sell them in packs of 20; others will sell you a ‘spam can’ full of 440 rounds, in 20-rd packs. You can also get a non-corrosive full jacketed round, and a soft-point round. I’ve never seen them, but internet legend has it that you can even find 7.62x54r tracer rounds if you look hard enough.

The Mosin holds 5 rounds at a time, and can either be loaded manually (take a bullet, put it in, put another on top of it, etc., or with a ‘stripper clip’. The stripper clip allows you to load 5 rounds just by pushing down on the top round, although in practice, it takes a little bit or art to do.

I have modified the bolt on my Mosin, so the knob is turned back and down, as opposed to the straight bolt on a stock Mosin. This modification, along with drilling and tapping the receiver for a scope mount are the only two differences between a standard-issue battle Mosin and a sniper Mosin. Will I eventually install a scope on my rifle?

Mosin Ammo in Stripper Clip

That is about a $500 question, and between that price tag and the fact that this is a $100 gun, I probably never will. But someday, I may change my mind…

And yes, the bolt modification will come in another future post

If you are interested in Mosins, check out 7.62x54r.net as I mentioned before (this site has more about Mosins than you ever wanted to know), orcheck out a few videos a friend of mine made about them:

• Mosin Teaser Video
• Mosin Video Part 1
• Mosin Video Part 2

And the obligatory firearm photo gallery:

There are several different ‘kinds’ of survival scenarios that people on the web like to talk about:

• I got dropped out of a plane into ??? and I need to find my way back home.
• The U.S. Government just collapsed, there is widespread panic, and I want to be safe from looters/gangs/miscellaneous bad guys. (Or, similarly, the sky just collapsed on my city and I want to be safe from looters/gangs/miscellaneous bad guys.)
• I want to be safe from a zombie apocalypse.

When I discuss survival, I’m discussing #1 almost exclusively. Despite the current political climate, chances are the USA will remain the USA for a good many years, and again, there’s no such thing as a zombie, despite all the politicians’ appearances. And in my area, natural disasters come almost exclusively in the form of tornadoes or snowstorms. For all the problems tornadoes and snowstorms can cause, looting isn’t one of them.

Past that, since I am not likely to ever get dropped out of a plane into some foreign land, I am mainly interested in being prepared for the kind of little emergencies you might run into on a camping trip: no more matches, wet firewood, forgot to bring the food bag, water bottle developed a leak, left the tent in the other car, a bear is too interested in my leftovers, etc.

So keep that in mind when reading my posts. I am not a end-of-world-as-we-know-it kook; I am not a tacticool zombie slayer; nor am I Bear Grylls. I’m just interested in being able to walk into the woods up nort der, with as few provisions as possible, and have at least a halfway nice camping trip despite the lack of Primus stove, beer, and Hamburger Helper.

On second thought, maybe I should add some beer brewing equipment to my surival kit……

Let’s reach back to Biology class for a bit. Your eye has an aperture (pupil) through which light travels. That light then goes through a lens, which focuses the light on the back surface of your eye (the retina), which contains light receptors (photoreceptor cells) which convert light to neuron impulses, which your brain ‘reads’ via the optic nerve. If you’re like me, you remember that there are two kinds of photoreceptors: rods and cones. If you’re like me, you also remember that they make you see different things, but you don’t remember exactly what.

That’s ok, because unlike you, I just went and looked it up, so you wouldn’t have to. According to Georgia State University, you have about 5 million cones and 120 million rods in each eye. There are three different types of cones, which let you see color (nerd fact: unlike an red-green-blue computer screen with red, green, and blue LEDs, your eye needs all three types of cones to see each color). The rods are much more sensitive to light intensity, but they can’t decode colors. The rods are what we use to see at night (scoptic vision), and they are most sensitive to shorter wavelengths.

The rainbow goes from long to short wavelengths.

Actually, it turns out that they are most sensitive to cyan-colored light. For the non-graphic artists, cyan is that color between green and blue that has had pretty much every imaginable name given it at some point. A graphic artist I dated at one point called it ‘seafoam green’.

Rods are also the least sensitive to red light.

So we should use cyan or green light if we want to see best at night, right? Actually yes! So why is my (and the military’s) preferred might-time color red?

Apart from being incredibly sensitive, your rods also take a very long time to adjust from high to low light levels. I’ve heard a lot of people say that it takes 30 minutes for your eyes to completely adjust to darkness. For me it’s more like 10 minutes, but if you’re trying to be useful in the dark (in the case of the military, engage in combat; in my case, not fall into a hole on the way back to my tent), you can’t afford to let your eyes sit there for up to half an hour, adjusting, so once you have it, maintaining your night vision is essential. Maintaining your night vision means not exposing your eyes to very intense light, and if you need to use light, exposing your eyes only to wavelengths to which your rods aren’t very sensitive.

Which means using red lights whenever possible.

If that doesn’t make sense, feel free to post questions and I’ll do my best to answer/clarify!

The NEF/H&R Pardner Pump Protector 12ga

The Pardner is basically a Chinese Remington 870 knockoff. It’s been around for around 10 years, and has gained a very solid reputation as a cheap, reliable, no-frills ‘home defense’ gun. I am clearly very

Sling made of 'paracord'

worried about home invasions, hence the Pardner (not). The main reason I bought the Pardner is for use while camping. It’s short (hence the ‘home-defense/tactical’ label) so it can be tucked away in the Jeep amid a ton of other gear. It’s pretty bulletproof (no pun intended), so I don’t have to worry toooo much if a little dirt gets on it, and it’s a 12 gauge, so it can perform some pretty heavy duty behavior modification on such bad guys as coyotes, bears and zombies. Again, because campgrounds are just infestedwith zombies…

The shotgun came with quick disconnect sling studs, so my first project on the gun was a sling! It is made of ‘paracord’, and woven

Sling attachment with wire. Click to enlarge.

such that, if you untie/cut one knot, the whole sling unravels into about 50 feet of cordage. I say it is made of ‘paracord’ with quotes, because it’s not ‘real’ mil-spec 550 lb test parachute cord. When I order some, you can bet that I will remake the sling with it. For now, this is 300 lb test OD green rope (not for climbing), but it’s better than nothing.

If you’re interested in making your own, this videoteaches you how to make the weave.

Fiber optic' front sight. Click to enlarge.

The sling is attached to the sling studs with Uncle Mike’s 1″ quick-disconnect hardware and thin green garden wire. The main reason for this is that the ‘paracord’ is very difficult to tie into a small knot, and I couldn’t figure out how to weave the cord into the swivel. Real 550-paracord may be easier to knot and/or weave.

The Pardner came with a brass bead front sight, and no rear sight. I didn’t really like the brass ball, so I replaced it with a small ‘fiber optic’ (I’m not sure if it really uses fiber optic technology; I doubt it) sight that screws into the same hole as the brass bead. I honestly am not that impressed with the fiber optic sight. I haven’t had it out at the range, but from just looking at it and sighting in objects around the house (I do observe all firearm safety rules), there doesn’t seem to be much, if any, improvement over the brass bead, UNTIL……….

Shot shell sock

I modified a small (2 AAA) MagLite to fit on the Pardner. I’ll probably dedicate a whole post to the MagLite, but basically, I switched the incandescent bulb out for a super bright red LED, machined a clamp out of aluminum, and mounted it using an old scope mount to the Pardner’s magazine tube.

Before anyone starts screaming tacticool, I added the flashlight for two reasons. First, this shotgun is meant to be something of a (wilderness – this may need to be a separate post) survival gun – I wanted as much survival gear packed into/onto it as possible, and a flashlight definitely counts as survival gear! Second, it would be used mainly as a wildlife deterrent, and a large portion of wildlife-related emergencies will happen at night.

Why red? Not because I’m trying to be tacticool, but because the military (and I) use red lights for good reason – red light doesn’t destroy humans’ night vision. The physiological explanation of this will probably make it into yet another blog post in the near future……and in the meantime, it turns out that that almost-worthless green fiber optic sight really glows when it’s lit from the side by the flashlight!

The stock hides a few survival items.

One of my first additions to the gun – along with the sling – was a 5-round shot shell sock that fits over the butt. I had to poke a hole in it for the sling stud to work, but that minor modification doesn’t seem to have caused any problems. The sock allows me to keep 5 assorted rounds on the firearm at all times.

I put a Weaver sight rail on the receiver as well, but I’m not sure if/when/how I’ll ever use it. It may just come off again. We’ll see.

My last modification actually required no modification to do! If you remove the butt pad from the back of the stock, there is a small cavity in the stock which is perfect for storing a couple of small items. Right now, I have my hacksaw blade knife, a small compass/thermometer, a few sinkers and hooks, and some fishing line, a small BIC cigarette lighter, a large nail (for punching out the trigger assembly pins), and a facial tissue (for blowing, wiping, padding, tinder, you-name-it).

My future plans for the Pardner include an ATI stock with pistol grip, a 6-shell side saddle, a shortened forend (the 6-shell saddle won’t work with the ‘stock’ H&R forend), and possibly more ‘permanent’ shell storage on the new stock.

Here’s an image gallery of my firearms:

Top to bottom, Gerber Crucial, Gerber Evo Mid (L), hacksaw blade survival knife (R), Sawzall blade survival knife (L), Sheffield folding knife (R), Winchester fixed blade knife (L)

In addition to these, I have most of a large Swiss army knife (the plastics broke off from being thrown across the yard), two ‘normal’ Swiss army knives, and a tiny Swiss army knife, all Victorinox. I’m not a huge fan of them, with the notable exception of the wood saw attachments, so I won’t discuss them much.

I got the Gerber Crucial so I would have a pair of pliers in my survival kit (I’ll post about that soon). Attachments include pliers, wire cutters, Phillips and flat head screwdrivers, a partially serrated blade, and a ‘strap cutter’. The pliers are a little thin, but seem to work well for light duty. Many internet reviewers say that the Phillips screwdriver is pretty much useless. To me it’s useless for a different reason – I haven’t needed to drive a Phillips screw with it yet! The blade seems ok. I’m not really a fan of serrated blades, mainly because they are more difficult to sharpen. The lock on the blade is a little tight, and it takes some effort to lock the knife back. The ‘strap cutter’ is razor sharp. I haven’t used the blades enough to tell how well they keep an edge, and honestly, don’t really plan on finding out. As I mentioned before, I was mainly interested in having pliers in my survival kit.

The Gerber Evo Mid seems to be a great little knife. I got it ‘free’, in a kit with the Crucial, so I wasn’t really expecting much out of it, but I’m starting to really like it. Unfortunately, it is partially serrated, but, with a little honing, the plain part of the knife will shave hair. The knife itself is a little small for my liking – maybe the full size Evo would have been a better option – and the blade lock took some getting used to. The knife is almost silent when flicked open. The tanto blade also takes a little getting used to if you usually like a drop point. The Evo Mid is becoming my everyday carry knife.

(I’m intentionally skipping the two homemade knives. I’ll discuss them more at the end of this post)

I picked up the Sheffield folding knife for $9 at Sears. I absolutely love this knife. The handle is black anodized aluminum, and the blade is black powder coated. The blade is 4 inches long (I like a big blade) with a drop point, and it opens with the smallest flick of the wrist. However, the blade is made of complete junk steel. The knife just refuses to hold an edge. What I would give for this exact knife with a good carbon steel blade……

The Winchester is my pretty knife, but it is also my survival kit knife. Like the Sheffield, it is also a 4″ blade. The blade is fixed, with full-tang construction. It looks to have been ground from 1/8″ steel stock, and it is pretty heavy for a knife its size. But it’s so well balanced! The whole knife has a bit of an arc to it, which takes a little getting used to, but it makes the Winchester the perfect knife for camp chores, cooking and detail work. The handle fits great in my hand, but if you have very wide hands, you might find it a little small. The Winchester holds a decent edge, but not like the Evo Mid seems to.

And now, the sawblade knives.

Homemade sawblade knives. Click to enlarge.

I made the bottom one first. It is simply half a hacksaw blade with an edge ground onto it, and cord wrapped onto the back end to make a handle. I really wouldn’t do too much heavy work with this blade, as it could snap in half very easily. However, the tip is extremely sharp, and in an emergency situation, this little knife would make a great scalpel. It also fits nicely into the stock of my shotgun (future post), as part of a mini survival kit that I keep there.

Small sawblade knife. Click to enlarge.

The top blade is a little more interesting. I made this knife out of a roughly 10-inch-long sawzall demolition blade. It holds a razor sharp edge. Coincidentally, it took FOREVER to shape, since it was apparently made from some very hard steel alloy. It’s a neat knife, and could be quite useful, but I haven’t really used it that much, for two reasons. First, it’s long. Carrying this knife in most public places WILL draw attention. Second,  it’s a little narrower than I would like. When holding it, it has more of the feel of table cutlery than of a tool to be beat on.However, like the small hacksaw blade knife, it’s quite thin, and can fit into a survival kit very nicely, and take up very little room.

Right now, I like the Evo Mid for everyday carry, although I wish it were a little bigger, and maybe had an assisted opening feature. The Winchester is great for more detailed camp chores, and I’m still looking for a good, large utility blade. I am leaning toward a cheap kukri ‘machete’. Whatever I end up getting, I’ll make sure to post here!

Image gallery of my knives: