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The Survival Rule of 3 – Become A Smart Prepper
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We recently posted an article about the philosophy of “What’s Important Now”.

Today’s article will discuss a system of priorities called the The Survival Rule of 3.

Basically the Rule of Three is a convenient way to memorize the order of importance of basic necessities.

If you really want to get in the weeds you can add seconds. If you are in a blind panic, you can run off and get killed instantly. This means you can only live 3 seconds without thinking.

Obviously this is an approximation, and is only designed to help you remember your priorities, but as a planning tool its valuable as many people add what is important to them, or what makes them feel safe without regard to the realities.

In the video I say that too many people buy a AR-15 before a water filter. That’s not to say a defensive tool is not important, but for thousands of years, billions of humans have lived their entire lives without AR-15s, but nobody has lived more than a few days without water.

When you are looking at what is important right now, or what is important for you to plan for or acquire keep this in mind, and balance your resources with your threats to what you actually NEED for survival.actually NEED for survival.

You can only live 3
- seconds without thinking
- minutes without air
- hours without shelter
- days without water
- weeks without food
- months without hope
September 16, 2011
W.I.N. Whats Important Now

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Today’s post is about mindset, because I believe mental flexibility and preparedness is more important than equipment or even skill acquisition. If your mind is right you can work on everything else, and it’s the one thing that cannot be taken from you.

I use an idea that originated with Notre Dame Football coach Lou Holtz. The idea is a simple acronym W.I.N. It stands for what’s important now. Coach Holtz mad his players ask themselves this 35 times a day, no matter if they were in the classroom, the sidelines, the weight room, or in the game, He wanted his players to be able to learn to focus on what mattered most at any given time.

My first experience with this was when I was serving in the Marines, and my mentor Sgt. B asked me this one day, and then choked the fire out of me when I answered wrong… Believe me, it stuck. Later while looking through the archives of a law enforcement training organization’s website, I became reacquainted with this idea through an article by Brian Willis.

I now try to pass this idea on to my wife whenever she is stressing over an issue that is major to her, but minor in the scope of things. (For the record, I don’t use Sgt. B’s method)…

When She calls me that the rabbits have babies or hail has dented the car, or the washer is making a funny noise, I just ask her to take a deep breath and tell me if anyone is dying, hurt, or about to be hurt or killed. If not then the issue is not of immediate importance. That’s not to say I ignore the problem or its not serious – just that we have some space to think of an appropriate solution.

What this philosophy does is allow you some thinking room to solve the immediate problem rather than get bogged down in the details and minutiae. By concentrating all your effort on what we need to do RIGHT NOW we can focus on specifics and shelve our fears about things we cannot change or that are not pressing concerns.

I find the concept of W.I.N. is a powerful tool in my preparedness arsenal, and coupled with the Rule of Threes (covered tomorrow) gives us an essential tool for both planning and response.

September 15, 2011
How to Clean Brass Shell Casings
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If you’re already a reloader, then this post probably won’t tell you anything, but if you’re considering reloading then this is a topic you will need to become familiar with.

Unless you buy shell casings that are new, then your going to have to clean the residue from them. Burnt powder as well as dirt and grime will impact the finished bullets.

If you don’t clean the casings you could have a foreign object stuck inside the casing cause a hang fire.

Additionally, it is more likely would be that grit on the outside of the casing would damage your expensive reloading dies or the chamber of you firearm.

The process to Clean Brass Shell Casings is Simple.
- Sort out your brass by size and type.
  - if you do this after you clean you may have small cases nest inside of larger cases and if bits of cleaning media get involved the cases can wedge together. (that why we did the shell sorter review first – to emphasis sort before clean).
- Put brass in a vibratory tumbler (think big rock tumbler).
- Add media
- Add cleaner chemicals if desired (I don’t)
  - Make sure it’s formulated for cleaning brass, ammonia based chemicals weaken brass cases.
- Tumble the brass until its clean
  - This can take hours depending on dirtiness of the casings, cleanliness of the media, and the capacity of the tumbler.
- Once the brass is cleaned to your satisfaction you need to separate the media from the casings.
THIS MAKES A MESS IF YOUR NOT CAREFUL

All sorts of commercial devices are sold to help clean cases. But you don’t need them. For the first couple years I used a big bowl and a colander . Just make sure never to use this for anything else as it will be contaminated with lead.

I now use my shell sorters since the are designed to let everything smaller than the shell casing fall outside of the sorter.

Once this is done, you can lube your cases and begin the reloading process

Types of Media:

There are many types of media used to clean shell cases, and it can get pretty expensive. Personally I use walnut hulls that were ground up for use as sandblasting media because I got a BIG bag pretty cheap at a local cheap tool place.

Corn Cob

Corn cob is probably the most common media. It is less aggressive than walnut media (meaning it takes longer to clean). But it most think it gives a better shine.

Corn cob material is available from reloading supply outlets but also may be available from pet supply dealers who market it as bedding. Just make sure it is ground pretty fine as the large particles can not only get stuck in the cases, but don’t clean as well.
The corn cob material can be reused a few times before it becomes too dirty to be effective.

Walnut Hulls

Walnut hulls work in a manner very similar to corn cob. The organic materials rub against the brass during the tumbling process and clean residue from the exterior of the brass shell casing.

Some people use both either as a mix 50/50 corn/walnut, or clean with walnut and then polish with corncob. I like nice shiny cases, but since I like it simple, fast, and cheap – I normally just go with one or the other depending on the easiest media to get.
The walnut hulls can be reused a few times.

Additives

If you search on the various reloading forums you will find lots of opinions about cleaning of your brass. Some swear by the use of additives like Flitz polish, NuFinish, or Turtle wax. Just be careful of things like Brasso, as I have said the ammonia can weaken the case so that it cracks easier.
September 1, 2011
Wouxun Programming and Unlocking Programs

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You can find these Wouxun Programming programs pretty easily on the internet. However, you may have to log on to a forum or a download site to get the unblocking program.

As a service, I figured I would put them all in one spot. My radio is the KG-UV3D model, but I am told the UV1 and UV2 models are the same. They just have different firmware – so the programs should all work on earlier models…

If you unlock the frequency ranges in your radio, you can then transmit on frequencies you probably aren’t licensed for. This is illegal and can get you in trouble. Also, while you can unlock the public safety channels, if the agency your trying to communicate with is using digital radios or a trunked system, your not going to be able to communicate.

Know What You Are Doing…

The software is for windows, it may work on a mac with a windows emulator, but I haven’t tried it. Also the programming software has to find the right port, so you may hook it up and get an “failed” message, if that happens try again. It is not uncommon for me to have to try to download the radio setting two or three times to get everything connected. (You also need to buy a programming cable…)

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August 25, 2011
How to Deprime Shell Casings

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How to Deprime Shell Casings is something that really probably does not deserve its own post. If you cannot figure out how to do it your probably shouldn’t reload your own ammunition. However, I do have a couple things to say:

You Can Deprime in Bulk

I ended up with lots of brass before I started reloading and I wanted to deprime them in anticipation of reloading but I did not have a press. What I did was find a socket that fit the case, and inserted a long finishing nail into the case and into the flash hole. A wack with a hammer drove the primer out. I bent a lot of nails until I decided to ground a larger nail tip down. This is not something I recommend, but it worked for me, and is pretty much the process used by the Lee hand loaders.

Boxer vs Berdan Priming Systems

The only problem I had was with reloading surplus WWI and WWI rifle rounds, sometimes I have Boxer (single flash hole) primed rounds, and other times I had Berdan (double flash hole) primed rounds. Due to the case neck, I never really looked into the rounds to check and I screwed up many Berdan cases. That was no big deal as I couldn’t reload them anyway.

I have, on rare occasion screwed things up (Okay so maybe not so rare) and had to deprime a live primer. Most recently I reloaded a couple hundred .223 and found out I resized them wrong. I prefer to pull the bullet and powder, and just fire the primer so it’s inert, but for pistol rounds I have gently and smoothly pressed the live primer out. Either way I don’t reuse the primer as I want to make sure my rounds are going to fire, and I a worried about damage to the primer anvil.

I Often Use a Lee Handpress

Most of the time I deprime my cases separate from reloading (before cleaning). I like to use a Lee Handpress and a Lee universal decapping die. It is a simple process to with those tools. I can change cases and only have to change shell holders.

This process is one of the few reloading steps I feel comfortable doing while having a distraction in the room. (specifically watching TV, but on occasion this could mean having the wife in the reloading room talking about her day….)

Spent primers are small, and tend to get EVERYWHERE if you’re not careful. Most presses have a small collection cup under the ram that collects the primers. If you keep this clean, you can just dump out the primers every once in a while. A hand press doesn’t do this, and tends to keep the primers in the ram. Either way, your wife will be angry if you leave them in the carpet for her to vacuum up. I have heard you can recycle them, if your patient enough to collect up a LOT of them, but I never have.

Reloading is not hard, especially if you pay attention and get some good advice from a mentor. It’s not something that leads itself to learning on your own, as mistakes can be costly, but this is not rocket science if all you want to do is make some inexpensive target rounds.

August 25, 2011