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Reply to: IFAK first aid kit list Posted April 27, 2021

I can concur w/ regard to compression-only CPR too, not from a class, but from having been instructed by a 911 operator during an emergency. I don’t know if they tell people about this in classes, but the thing you really need to prepare yourself for psychologically is the feeling of the other person’s ribs cracking under your hands when you start compressions. That haunted me for weeks.

Reply to: Best survival knife Posted December 18, 2020

FYI: the Fiddleback Forge Duke has been discontinued. Or at least the “mid-tech” (a.k.a. “affordable”) version has.

Reply to: Has anyone actually made their own soap and liked it? Posted December 18, 2020

Hi Robert, You’re welcome! And I would be more than happy to look at a recipe for you. That said, it’s honestly hard to go wrong if your recipe comes out with an INS near 160. BTW, I’ve used lard many times in recipes, and it makes nice soap. I’m sure tallow would too, I’ve just never used it because lard is cheap, and they sell it at my grocery store. 🙂 Anyway, now that coconut oil is available in most grocery stores, I’d suggest using at least a little of it in your formulations. It’s great for boosting INS, and helps soaps lather well. Palm oil is good too, if you can find it. One more thing… Once you’ve cut a fresh batch of soap into bars, there’s no benefit to curing it for more than a month or so. Happy soaping! -Chris

Reply to: Has anyone actually made their own soap and liked it? Posted December 5, 2020

A good online resource for soap makers is Miller’s Homemade Soap Pages

Reply to: Has anyone actually made their own soap and liked it? Posted December 5, 2020

Hi Robert, As you’ve discovered the hard way, soap recipes where polyunsaturated fats predominate make poor soaps. This is for two reasons: The soap produced is soft/mushy, has an unpleasant greasy feeling on the skin, and doesn’t lather well. Because all home made soaps are superfatted (formulated with excess oil that is not saponified), combined with the fact that polyunsaturated fats are the most prone to oxidation, over time the excess fats in these soaps will go rancid, making them smell terrible. Besides reading up on soap making, the best suggestion I can give you is that when you’re formulating a recipe on soapcalc.net you should shoot for an overall INS value of about 160. By doing so, you more or less guarantee you’ll get a good balance of saturated/monounsaturated/polyunsaturated fats. Higher is OK, though the higher you go the “harsher” the soap will be, but you don’t want to go too much lower. By way of illustration, your 95% canola/5% castor recipe gives an INS of 58, which is NOT good. When you read #2 above, you may be tempted to change the superfatting percentage on your recipe to zero. Do not do this. The SAP values used to calculate the lye required for a recipe are based on “typical” values for a fat, but the actual SAP values for the particular fats we have on hand are almost certain to vary somewhat. By superfatting we guard against the case where the actual SAP values of our fats are lower than what is typical, which would otherwise result in a soap containing excess (unreacted) lye, which is undesirable for obvious reasons. In a well-formulated recipe, the unsaponified fats that remain in the finished soap will almost never be a problem. The worst that usually happens is that over an extended period of time the bars may develop what is commonly known as the Dreaded Orange Spots (DOS), a sign that the some of the excess fat has oxidized. I hope this helps!

Reply to: Guide to buying an AR-15? Posted October 14, 2020

Just to toss in an alternate perspective, if someone’s breaking into your house, they’re not there for tea and krumpets, but they are almost certainly there for your flat screen TV and your wife’s jewelry; i.e. it is unlikely they’re there to murder you. Don’t try to be Rambo when the tactically smart thing to do is barricade your family in a room (with your HD gun) and call the police(*). By all means, anyone trying to come through that door is asking to be shot, but there’s no reason risk your own life, or kill another human being, unnecessarily. Of course if it’s a true SHTF situation, and their thievery actually threatens your life, then all bets are off. * This is the theme of a different WPS video that I don’t remember the title of off hand.

Reply to: Guide to buying an AR-15? Posted October 9, 2020

You weren’t asking me, but I’ll throw in my 2 cents anyway, because hey, that’s how I roll. 🙂 There’s no benefit in terms of reliability or accuracy. Replacement parts for a direct impingement gun will be vastly easier to find than for a piston gun, and cheaper. Generally speaking, they cost more, so given #1 and #2, why spend the extra money? It’s my understanding that – all else being equal – piston guns are marginally less accurate, though not so much that it would make a practical difference in the most likely scenarios; i.e. if you need minute-of-man accuracy, you’re good either way.

Reply to: Concealed carry while wearing a backpack? Posted July 3, 2020

Those look like really nice chest packs. Unfortunately, it seems to me it’d be difficult to draw a firearm from one with any kind of speed.

Reply to: Concealed carry while wearing a backpack? Posted July 3, 2020

In the detailed description of it, they say that among other places, you can wear it “on very wide and thick backpack hip belts”.

Reply to: Preps of shame? Posted July 2, 2020

Not a true SeaBee? Well, nobody’s perfect. 🙂 LOL! I’ve definitely been there (over dressing for cold weather). The thing that bugs me though is that I already knew better when I bought that stuff for my BOB. I still don’t know what I was thinking.

Reply to: Concealed carry while wearing a backpack? Posted June 30, 2020

That looks like another great option. I’ll have to try this one out too. Thanks!

Reply to: Concealed carry while wearing a backpack? Posted June 30, 2020

I will absolutely do that.

Reply to: Best emergency water storage containers for your home Posted June 29, 2020

In normal use the hot water that comes out of the tank is drawn from the top of the tank, which is why all that sediment can gather at the bottom, and the water you get at the tap looks “clean”. You wouldn’t want to drink the sediment, but you can easily filter it out with a filter like the HydroBlu or Sawyer Squeeze, or whatever. In theory we’re all supposed to flush our hot water tanks about once a year to remove the sediment, for the reason that the sediment buildup at the bottom decreases the heater’s efficiency over time.

Reply to: Concealed carry while wearing a backpack? Posted June 27, 2020

I find much to agree with in their design philosophy, and their customer service is certainly on point. I’m afraid I’m going to have to start saving my pennies to try out more of their gear.

Reply to: Emergency radio Posted June 27, 2020

This is terrific information. Thanks for sharing! I’d been looking at these types of radios, but didn’t know where to start.

Reply to: Concealed carry while wearing a backpack? Posted June 26, 2020

I just ordered the kit bag from HPG, so we’ll see how that goes.

Reply to: How do you (safely) access the water in your water heater in case of outage? Posted June 26, 2020

In order for water to flow out of the tank, something else has to flow into your plumbing system to displace it. Ordinarily that would be fresh cold water entering the tank through its supply line, with that water ultimately coming from your water main. If no water’s coming in from your water main however, the only other option is for air to displace the water in your pipes (or tank) to allow that water to flow out. If all of your taps are closed when you try to drain the tank, then the only place the air can enter your system is at the tap on the tank itself. You know how when you try to pour water out of a jug it goes “glug, glug, glug” as it alternates between water pouring out and air getting sucked in? That’s what will happen when you drain the tank, unless you open a hot water tap somewhere else in the house, in which case water can drain from the tank, and air can enter the plumbing system simultaneously, which is much more efficient.

Reply to: Concealed carry while wearing a backpack? Posted June 25, 2020

I think your suggestion is excellent. Thanks!

Reply to: Concealed carry while wearing a backpack? Posted June 25, 2020

Hey Matt, I’m going to try out one of those kit bags from Hill People Gear that @kismet and @woodswalker suggested. They look like a nice option. Here’s a video of drawing from the bag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssjLQhhzEa8 Later, Chris

Reply to: Concealed carry while wearing a backpack? Posted June 25, 2020

Hi @kismet, It’s funny that you should bring up chest carry. I’d been looking for something like the HPG kit bags, just for hiking, but hadn’t found anything I liked, and hadn’t even thought about it as an option for concealed carry. These HPG kit bags, though, look brilliant. Thanks for suggesting them! After doing some research, I think the Original Kit Bag (v2) is the one for me. Here’s my reasoning: I want a bag I can use for concealed carry, and for carrying a few smaller items I’d like to have more accessible; e.g. phone, wallet, multitool, flashlight, pen/pad, etc. According to info I found on the site, the small footprint bags (6″x8.5″) are only just big enough to hold a G19, and not much else, without turning the bag into a “brick” that can ride uncomfortably on the chest, and is hard to put things into and take things out of. The large footprint bags (7.5″x11.5″) are big enough to hold a full size gun, and all else being equal, that’s what I’d rather carry. The only reason I was planning to carry the G19 was because it’s the largest gun I have that’s still fairly easily concealable at the waist. The Recon and Runner’s bags, at 1″ depth, are too thin for how I want to use the bag. A gun larger than a subcompact will print, and there’s nowhere to put much else without overstuffing the bag. I don’t need or want PALS on the front (too “tactical” looking, and I won’t use it), so of the thicker bags, that leaves just the Original (v2). Also, FWIW, I wrote customer service to ask for an ETA on when the color I want would be back in stock, and I heard back from them in under an hour (thanks Kevin!). It’ll be back in stock tomorrow, so I’m going to put an order in then, and if anyone’s interested, I’ll post a review here after I have a chance to try it out. One last thing… HPG also offers a 5% discount to veterans, law enforcement, first responders, and SAR personnel. Later, Chris