EDC is shorthand for everyday carry, describing both the procedure and choice to carry useful tools and other gear on your person daily, but also describing the things that are carried, for instance your EDC knife, EDC gun, etc. EDC has also been picked up as a sort of “movement” where advocates and enthusiasts try … Read more
BOBs, or bug-out bags, those big packs preppers keep loaded with all manner of vital survival equipment and provision, feature so centrally in prepper doctrine and planning that you’d understandably think them utterly vital to survival. BOBs are important, no doubt about it, but how important are we talking, here? If a bug out bag … Read more
Ruger is one of the most iconic and popular of American firearms manufacturers. While they may not have the cache and history of Remington, S&W or Colt, they have carved a place as one of the most innovative and market-disrupting of the “Made in the USA” gunmakers. Starting from literally nothing with an idea for … Read more
Bug-Out Bags form a sort of central hub of prepping. A bug-out bag, or BOB, is a self-contained survival stash containing tools, weapons, clothing, shelter material, medical supplies, calories, a way to get clean water, a way to start a fire and many other items essential to human survival when the niceties of civilization give … Read more
It will be a rare shooter who born in the 70s or 80s who will not admit to falling madly in love with a bullpup of one kind or another. Or at least falling in love with the idea of a bullpup. Admit it: the compact, menacing appearance. The invariably futuristic lines and curves. Bullpups … Read more
If you are reading this article, chances are you have made the decision to start living a life of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility. Congratulations! While sometimes derided as paranoia or doomsday prophesying, prepping is really just a modern resurgence of specialty skills that would simply be called life skills a few generations ago. Even so, … Read more
You have all seen the Gadsden flag, whether you know it or not. On bumper stickers, on patches, on signs and on flag poles, the Gadsden is an icon of Americana and remains a powerful symbol today. The highly distinctive yellow field with a coiled rattler poised and ready to strike above the admonishment of … Read more
There is something primally appealing about tomahawks. Something about a crescent blade on the end of a stick that gets the blood up. Maybe it fires the imagination with a vision of a lone, rugged individual making his way against nature. Perhaps its history as a vicious and brutal close combat weapon is an object … Read more
It is a common refrain: “I wish I knew that before I…” Hindsight is always 20/20 as the epigram goes. It’s true. You just don’t know what you don’t know. Worse, ask anyone with a little seasoning and they’ll usually tell you how often the wisdom they try to impart to the new and the … Read more
by Tim Makay Smith & Wesson makes all kinds of nice guns these days, even rifles, but to the faithful the name conjures images of only one thing: revolvers, and damn good ones. For 100 years S&W has been making wheelguns that have served citizens, cops and soldiers continuously all over the world. They continue … Read more
One of the “joys” of prepping is digging into all the varied and spectacular ways that life as we know it and the benefits of civilization can come crashing down in a blink, like a game table being flipped by an angry cosmic force. Regional, national and even global cataclysms are definite possibilities, you know! … Read more
by Tim Makay. It’s true that having a gun beats no gun at all, but that does not mean that any gun will do as well as another. In fact, guns, as with all tools and products of man, suffer from their fair share of losers, lemons, bad-ideas and poor performers. In fact, just like … Read more
by Tim Makay Discussions or guides that offer recommendations about what supplies and items you should have in what quantities in to order to survive a given type of disaster are common. No two crises and climates are alike, and so this format has merit. Differing climates and situations mandate different approaches. I myself might … Read more
For many in dire circumstances, just living day-to-day is very difficult. Working in a low-income area with many who are homeless, I routinely see examples. Others I know are unemployed, or if they work, they do so part time and/or below their skill or education level – just to survive. Although these people have roofs … Read more
When you think of emergency preparedness, food, water and cash are probably the first things you think of. However, having the right clothing and tools is equally important in order to keep you and your supplies safe from the elements. Most of us have a wardrobe full of cotton, which is not the best fabric … Read more
What are critical survival commodities and how do they affect you? First there are many things that are commodities today that will not be survival commodities like computers, and other consumer electronics. But what are they, I think a good definition might be “any necessary consumable material that because of it means of production or … Read more
Your smartphone can be a vital survival resource in multiple ways, but probably it’s most obvious utility is the purpose for which it is primarily designed, that of communications. Despite the hand ringing and doom-mongering that some in the preppersphere drape phones with, you should know that, in reality, your cell phone is likely to … Read more
“Each trooper will be charged with responsibility for preserving water. Our existence as an operating army depends on these following water saving procedures. Remember, water is life.” Dune (1984) Frank Herbert’s Sci-Fi classic Dune showed us a world with very little water, where even the moisture of your own breath was captured and retained as … Read more
Bugging out is something that you must consider as a prepper. When a situation becomes unsalvageable, or the danger of staying put or bugging in entails risks that you are not willing to take, it is time to get out of Dodge. Many preppers plan to bug-out using a personally-owned vehicle of some kind but … Read more