by Claire Wolfe

Earlier this year, the dogs and I got taxed out of Cabin Sweet Cabin. With a little help from our friends, we packed a small trailer with our dog bowls, our six-gallon superpails of lentils, and even a few clothes. And off we went.

High desert was where we landed—because that’s where a welcoming mini-community awaited. But oh my goodness, this place is six thousand feet too high and more than 1,000 miles from all I once held dear. Sometimes I’m convinced it’s on another planet.

My idea of “country” is blue-green, dripping woods, tall trees, and earthy scents. Moving from my Pacific Northwest home to the brown, sharp, and pointy desert has required some serious adjustments.

Take altitude, for instance. Do you know the difference between sea level and more than a mile high? Feeling like an 80-year-old with emphysema, that’s what. Never mind the fact that everybody who moves here from a coast goes through it and eventually acclimates. No matter how much pride you take in your physical condition, moving to the high desert from low altitude will definitely humble you.

This is what the locals—with straight face—call a tree.

And how about terrain? Last Chance Gulch (what I call this place) is surrounded by miles of wide-open spaces and a surprising variety of wild landscapes. But they’re all…well, desert. And the local frame of reference is…unusual. My neighbors keep talking about the “trees.” I look around and don’t see a tree anywhere, all the way to the horizon. Not one. “You mean those stubby little bushes?” “Yeah. But they’re trees. They’re junipers.” “Oh. Coulda fooled me.”

Still, the vistas are sweeping, and offer their own gaunt sort of beauty. And I never know what new wonders I’ll find around the next corner. Late last summer, when an evening breeze made the temperature reasonable enough for the dogs to slouch out of their tiny patches of shade, I joined one of the human gulchers and a crowd of canines in a walk. My friend offered to show me a field of petrified wood. Then he stepped off the road.

Over a ridge and along a precarious deer-path of shale we went. Into an unexpected canyon swimming-hole went the dogs. We climbed and climbed and climbed some more. (Remember that gasping 80-year-old? Well, that was me.)

But finally…our reward. We emerged on a rock-paved plateau, littered with bits of petrified trees everywhere we looked. There were even trees embedded in thick slabs of sandstone—just to give you an idea how old that landscape is.

“You won’t find this in your precious Northwest,” my friend crowed. “And I’ll bet you never had a canyon in your front yard before, either.”

Then there’s water. Or rather, there isn’t. “Water, water everywhere” is just not a phrase you hear around these parts. You hear about the dangers of dehydration. And the costly depth of wells. And how some lucky so-and-so actually got drinkable water from his drilling (a thing that doesn’t happen often). And whether you should pump your well with solar power or a generator.

Where I used to live, all the water you ever wanted—and then some—fell from the sky, year-round. Not here. At Last Chance Gulch, the ghastly well water goes to dogs, trees, and dishwashing—and leaves lime and rust stains on anything it touches for more than a few minutes. We have two barrels that we trailer into town and fill up for drinking. Then we use a small electric pump to empty the barrels into portable drinking-water containers.

No water, right? But still, they have floods! It’s nuts. Back home, we had water. Here, perpetual drought. But back home a flood was a rare disaster. Here? Well, let me tell you: We have to cross five wide washes to get to town. And I don’t mean on bridges. The washes are part of the local dirt-road system. On the rare occasion it rains, those usually dry washes turn—in seconds—into torrents that can sweep away dogs, cows, and pickup trucks. Even after the flood recedes, you don’t go anywhere for 24 hours. Not unless you want to end up axle-deep in mud.

Homegrown power. I have three words for those of you who envision traipsing off to the backwoods (or back-desert) and living free and easy on solar or wind power. Those words are: HA HA HA. Or maybe: “Get a generator.” A big generator. You’re gonna need it.

Okay, it’s true I speak from a somewhat jaundiced perspective. The solar power system at Last Chance Gulch was set up about five years ago by (my friends learned later) a charlatan who would have cheated his own mother on her deathbed. So the system that was supposed to be sufficient to run a small village can barely creak its way through a sunny summer day without the inverter detecting a low-battery state and shutting everything down.

Furthermore, it’s guaranteed that this shut-down will come at the worst possible time. When you’re in the shower, for instance. (The propane water heater goes on working; the pressure tank giving you water says goodbye.) Or when you’re on the wifi network and the satellite Internet connection, meeting some vital Backwoods Home deadline.

At Cabin Sweet Cabin, I had grid power. Yeah, I was spoiled. But you know what? I liked being spoiled.

Now, maybe your solar power works like a charm. If so, I don’t want to hear about it, okay? Because here at Last Chance Gulch, the very mention of functional off-grid power causes blood-pressure to spike and people to run for their Prozac.

We are resolved to have this problem fixed by the time you read this article. It’s a resolve the Last Chance gulchers have made before. But this time we have real expert help. We really do. Our helper this time is somebody with an arm-length list of degrees from MIT. Seriously, after five years with a crippled system, we’re all convinced that’s what it takes to understand off-grid power. Electricity is complicated. And expensive.

Getting drinking water around here is a far cry from simply turning on a tap.

Then there’s the damn weather. It’s so hot you want to shove a dog out of the only patch of shade, dig a pit in the dirt, and snooze. Then—bazam!—It’s so cold you’re slamming windows shut, donning jackets, and stuffing old tee-shirts into cracks in the walls of your trailer. (Everybody here lives in trailers, though several houses are on the drawing board.)

And that’s summer.

Winter? Don’t even mention it. I’ve been here in the winter before. Winter means snow. It means metal trailer doors freezing shut. (You have to unfreeze them with a hair dryer—IF the inverter hasn’t shut the electricity down). Winter means valves on blackwater tanks freeze shut. It means that the stuff inside blackwater tanks freezes.

Yeah, like I said, don’t mention winter. My friends from the Pacific Northwest have fantasies about venturing down here in December or January for extended stays. I tell them, “Nooooooo, not really the best idea you’ve ever had.” But they think, “Desert. Sunshine. Warmth. A handy opportunity for snowbirding.” “But it’s more than a mile high,” I tell them. They still look at me with that “70 degrees in winter” gleam in their eyes.

I should let them come. Then they’ll see…

Predators. I knew Toto and I weren’t in Kansas anymore when one of my fellow gulchers came to me and said I should stay armed while he was away on a trip because “the coyotes are funny lately.” He didn’t mean they’ve been practicing comedy routines.

All Last-Chance gulchers go armed, at least with pistols and sometimes with bigger artillery, any time they leave their yards. It’s not something we do for fun, or to make a point about the Second Amendment (although that, too). It’s because at any time we might need to shoot something. Not anything cool like an elk or a mountain lion (though both are certainly around). But a pest, a varmint, a nuisance, or some deadly critter whose attitude is strike first and ask questions later.

We’ve got eight dogs at the gulch now, and most are remarkably good about avoiding the deadliest local varmints. But just a few days ago, the newest dog here stuck her lovely, city-bred snout right into a rattlesnake. And the nearest reachable vet is 45 minutes away. Uh oh. Poor pup had a head like a basketball by the time she got there. She was lucky, though; the snake got only one fang into her and apparently didn’t inject a huge dose of venom. A few antibiotics and steroids and she was fine again (though with maybe a bit of scarring, since rattlesnake venom causes nerve damage).

The truth is that when the gulchers go armed with their dogs, they’re more often defending the dogs than themselves. Dogs raised in the desert are predators too, and sometimes need to be protected from their own poor manners. If a pack of dogs corners an outraged varmint in a pile of gully rocks, you try to get the dogs away with no bloodshed on any side. But sometimes a dog-owner’s choice comes down to killing a poor, innocent critter or rushing a wounded dog to have its gashed muzzle or missing eye sewn up. Dogs are not always sensible creatures. Humans sometimes have to make unpopular choices.

And yet… This column isn’t about “Things I Hate About the High Desert.” I did say I was learning to love it.

And I am. Even some of the very same things you hear me grousing about.

Altitude, for example. The thin atmosphere makes for the most incredible sky. Step out on any clear night (and most nights are clear, unlike back home). Look up, and you will see a thing that will take your breath away. The Milky Way, as bright and distinct as anywhere on earth, is only the backdrop for all the wonder of the nighttime sky. If you’re used to living in cities (or cloudy places like my former Home Sweet Home) you barely pay attention to the phases of the moon, and can rarely even make out the constellations, let alone get to know them. Here, they’re constant companions and the moonrise is almost as significant as the rising of the sun. Night isn’t just a time to huddle indoors with the lights on.

The terrain is severe and gaunt, it’s true, and the plants are more likely to puncture the skin than delight the eye. The animal life is more likely to bear scales than fur and even the hoppy toads are deadly poisonous. But the desert is every bit as alive as the woods, and you feel the age and raw, primal violence of it everywhere you go. The constant cycle of life and death is everywhere evident. Life moves at a grander pace. To see signs that, millions of years ago, huge trees reigned on what is now a rocky plateau, died and were buried and turned to stone, well, like my friend said, how many people have that in their front yard?

On every morning’s dog walk, you can come around a corner and find evidence of a violent past and a violent present—tumbled rocks, igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary—water-worn cliffs—fanged, clawed, venomous hunting animals.

If you look past the notion that what the locals call a “meadow” is a few patches of dry grass on a clay plain, you see evidence of life everywhere in it. Fresh sign of elk and deer, rabbits bounding away from the enthusiastic dogs, wild coyotes and wild cats disappearing over that rise over there. It’s wonderful, and it’s ennobling to stand with it.

This is a wild place. This is a place that can’t be tamed by concrete and electric lights. People sometimes build big houses here, bringing a bit of suburbia to the wild. And that’s fine, but the wild remains and will never be, can never be, banished. Humans have a place here, but only if we make it ourselves, and only if we fit ourselves to what the desert permits.

Starbucks and McDonalds will never intrude; I’ve the sense that they’d sink right into the ground if they tried. Or maybe they’d be carried off by coyotes.

I stand on a tall ridge and feel both humbled and ennobled by the grandeur around me: Grandeur that I must adapt myself to live with. The nobility comes from the fact that, as a homo sapien, I can adapt.

Even the water, which is so difficult to get and which seems like such a limiting factor, is that same sort of ennobling influence. One very young neighbor recently finished installing the solar-powered pump, cistern, and piping that brings water out of his well. It’s such a commonplace thing anywhere else: Open a spigot and water spills out. It seems like nothing unless you see what it takes to make it happen. Here you see all the work, all the ingenuity, all the study and expense and labor that went into that simple miracle of opening a valve and having cool, clear, sweet water spill over your hands, or through pipes that bring the water to an actual faucet over an actual sink inside the house that this young man is also building. Such a marvel he’s creating, at such a tender age! Anywhere else it would only be a faucet in a house. Here, it’s a man-made miracle.

The floods are harder. I don’t like being trapped in my yard by what, anywhere else, would just be a rain shower. It didn’t help that my first flash flood happened only days after my arrival here, when I was still stressed out and shellshocked, wondering whether I’d made a terrible mistake. I went out with the others to watch the water flow in the wash that virtually surrounds Last Chance Gulch, feeling imprisoned.

A few of the former denizens of Last Chance Gulch

Then one of the others pointed at a seemingly insignificant grotto across the wash: Just a pile of rocks, really. “See, Claire!” he said. And I looked, and I saw a waterfall! A cascade gushing from rock that had been arid only minutes before. The cascade was gone in minutes, too. But it was wonderful. That little gully has been cut over centuries by such brief spasms, mostly unobserved by humans. But now I had this privilege of seeing it happen. And I understood that the most obvious result of the floods—that I couldn’t use the roads for a day—was insignificant.

Off-grid living can be taken as a perennial nuisance—which it is because something always needs tweaking or maintaining, even on a better system than ours. But it can also be an opportunity to shine. Because convenient as the great centrally-controlled power grid can be, it infantilizes us. Grid power lies beneath the surface of every moment of most people’s lives, encouraging us to put our trust in unseen others for the things we need. That’s fine as far as it goes. But what happens when that grid goes? Mostly, as we see all too often on the news, people whine like babies when all that nice power—provided by somebody else—goes away, even for a little while.

The beauty of a home electrical system, when it works and even when it doesn’t work all that well is that you built it. (Or, in my case, my friends did and I get to help solve its puzzles.) It only works if you stand on your feet and do something about it, ignoring a lifetime’s indoctrination that you shouldn’t worry your little head because this is a job for the big boys. That, to me, is more precious than electric lights at night. Er, well, almost as precious. I really do like those lights.

Sure the nearest decent small-animal vet is 45 miles away and so swamped you might have to sit outside his front door for an hour, waiting for your appointment. But you can buy a big bottle of penicillin over the counter for less than ten bucks at the feed store, and they’ll throw in a handful of syringes and order pretty much any other vet supplies you want, including things that would give a government-approved people-doctor the vapors.

You can walk down the sidewalk in the nearest town with a firearm on your hip, and it’s a rare day when anybody will even bother to notice.

If you’re the sort of person who pulls building permits, you can get pointers on how to quietly and cheaply avoid problems with the building inspector—from the building inspector himself. This just isn’t the sort of place where nannies carry much weight. After my all-too-recent experience with the government tax-o-crats, that is a blessing indeed.

Even the unfriendly animal life is a blessing of sorts. Life and death are close to the surface here, and unlike in cities, you can’t ignore the fact that you’re a participant. They are real and solid things, not the fuzzy hypotheticals that “civilization” makes of them. Here there are eaters, and there are the eaten. Sometimes they switch places without notice, but they never stand outside the drama. Here, the wolf can literally be at the door, and he’ll want to know what you’re prepared to do about it.

There is something terrible about that. There is something beautiful about that. You can move to the desert, but that’s not the end of the story. Next you have to earn the right to live here.

Whether I can earn it still remains to be seen. But with a little help from my friends, I’m glad to be trying it.

From SurvivalBlog.com

Introduction

Imagine this situation: All of the media outlets have gone to commercial-free coverage. They are reporting that the Dow has dropped 2,000 points and trading has been suspended on Wall Street. The Chinese, along with other countries have transferred their reserves from the US Dollar. Oil futures climb $50 a barrel in hours. A national bank holiday shuts down the financial system on Main Street. Within 24 hours the grocery stores are cleared out of all food stocks. The gas pumps dry up in 12 hours. Trucks delivering goods are stuck at truck stops waiting on fuel that may not be available in days; 18-wheelers that have enough fuel to get back home are doing so, with the trailer left on the side of the road. Inner city areas are turning into war zones with looting and random acts of violence occurring between rival gangs. The Interstate System becomes a parking lot with the suburbanites trying to “get out of Dodge” (G.O.O.D.). With no more fuel supplies people become stranded and forced to flee on foot, with panicked people who are usually rational and moral, now acting immorally and irrationally; doing what it takes to get their family to perceived safety.

Moral of the story is simple – given an emergency where you will be cut off from the comfort of the complex supply chain, utility grid, and police protection, could you take care of you and your family? Could you do it for a week, for a month, or even a year?

I know this has more than likely unnerved you. Do not panic! Simple planning can help you get where you can take care of yourself and your family. We are going to try to guide you step-by-step in your path to peace of mind. Look at this plan as purchasing an insurance plan. You pay hundreds per month to insure yourself and your belongings, and investing in preparations may be the best policy you ever purchase. This will be covered in several areas:

• Money
• Food Storage
• Security
• Self-Sustaining Lifestyle

It may be advised to keep your preparations confidential. Use discretion as much as possible when you make your acquisitions. Also note that there will be some sacrifice in making your targets. The items we are suggesting to buy in this document are costly, but remember what we said earlier about this being an insurance policy for the safety and security of your household. Try to think of others that may join you if they are displaced by a disaster. We will cover this in detail throughout this work.

Money/Finances

Most of the families in this country are trying to figure out how to make ends meet in these troubled times. The first thing you need to do is do a household budget with your family. You should put a total of what is coming in and the fixed bills that have to be paid out monthly. Write out your variable expenses for six months and see what you can cut to contribute to your monthly “insurance” expenses. There are many plans out there to help you with this. There are many ways to cut corners; you just have to be creative. 25-50% of the “insurance” fund should be used to pay down debt, with the remainder directed at your preparations. Use one month’s “insurance” allotment to purchase 90% pre-65 silver coins, which have intrinsic value with the silver content in them, or 1 oz. silver rounds from a recognized mint.

Water

Water is crucial for healthy living and survival. 80+% of the human body is water and must be replenished regularly. I human being can go on weeks without food, but without water, a person will perish in days. Each person will need three gallons of water per day to stay cleaned, fed, and hydrated. Invest in a high-quality gravity water filter. The British Berkefeld or Berkey Light (starting around $200) is recommended for its timeless design and filtration level. Rain collection and other sources of water must also be considered.

Food

In today’s just-in-time society, our logistics system is so finely tuned that the slightest hiccup in the system could cause massive trauma to the supply system. 3 days of delivery delays could interrupt the system for a month. How much food should be stored in reserve? Well, as much as space in your house and your pocket book will allow. 60 days will be your starting point. Remember to eat the elephant one bite at a time. Allocate an extra $30 per week to your grocery budget. Sit down with your family and make a list of what foods they enjoy to eat. Make a menu and look at the ingredients needed to make the dishes. Create a special storage area in a closet or basement for food storage. When you go to the grocery store by double the ingredients and put the excess in your storage closet. Keep an inventory and check off items when you meet your goal level for that particular ingredient. A starter list is included in this work.

If you have the funds, try to stock your shelf with freeze-dried foods designed for long-term storage. These are items are pricey, but worth it on that rainy day. If you have a Mormon contact, you can go to the Provident Living centers to can food at a reduced cost compared to other commercial sources.

Two Month Supply for Two People of Shelf Stable Grocery Store-Purchased Foods:

Read the rest here (highly recommended and worth the time).

by Melanie G.

An important resource to have in times of need is a good food storage.  When I have talked to others about having an emergency supply of food in place, I have received laughter and ridicule.  I even had a neighbor to tell me when he needed emergency food, he would just come to my place.  I jokingly informed him not to bother as I had a supply of ammunition as well.  Too many people have come to rely on the grocery store.  But the threat of a snow storm here in Kentucky clears out the milk and bread in record time, this should be a testament of what it might be like should the trucks not come.

From childhood, my parents taught me the importance of having an emergency supply of food in place.  I grew up in eastern Kentucky where jobs were not plentiful.  As a result, my father changed jobs a few times.  Fortunately, the pantry that my parents filled in times of feast, fed our family of five in times of want, until my father found the next job.  If there was such a thing as unemployment or food stamps back then, I never knew.  My dad would go out and find work quickly and mom would continue to squirrel away food to feed us.

There are some guidelines for emergency food storage.  It is recommended that you have two weeks of water per person and year’s supply of food, clothing and if possible, fuel in your storage.  A first aid kit is also recommended.

An important part of any food storage system is to have on hand the basics:  flour, grains, beans/legumes, oils, rice, salt, sugar/honey, and water just to name a few.  These basics can help you to sustain your life if you are prepared in every needful way.   

My mother taught me to store items, in addition to these that families will eat every day.  Therefore, my storage not only contains these key items, it contains items that are foods we eat every day.  I store condiments, peanut butter, soups, jams, jellies, canned vegetables (both store bought and home grown), cake mixes, pasta, pasta helpers, nuts, fruits, crackers, oatmeal, canned meats (store bought and home canned), etc. etc. 

The key to a good food storage is usage.  If you store something you don’t use or eat, it will eventually go bad and you will have to replace it.  If you store something you use, then you will just replace it as you go along and your food storage will stay fresh and replenished. 

Replenishing your food storage, especially in light of rising food prices today, can be an expense.  I have my pantry to a level where most of my replenishing can be done cheaply.   I get the sales ad and purchase what is on sale.  If ketchup is on sale, I buy several.  We use this item, so it won’t go to waste.  If cereal is on sale, I get several boxes.  If ground beef is on sale, I load the cart down, go home and prep several meatloaves and throw them in the freezer.  Then over the next couple of weeks, while these items are no longer on sale, my pantry is stocked with them and I can go to the next item.  Let’s say next week, pasta is on sale, or sugar.  That is the week to stock up on that item.

To make the deal even sweeter, you can go online to your favorite coupon list and search for coupons that you can trade for and use on the sale items.  Before you shy away from this, read on.  With a good sale and coupons, you can save thousands of dollars over time.  Once, I went to Kroger’s and using coupons, I actually walked out with $100 worth of groceries and $30 more in cash than I had when I walked in.  This doesn’t normally happen, they normally won’t give you cash, and I asked the head cashier repeatedly if she was sure she could give me money.

Also, the Kroger’s supermarket cash registers print coupons out at the point of sale.  I have found free drinks, free eggs, and other items free or cheap.  There are a lot of complexities to using coupons that I haven’t even explored myself.  But it is a good resource.  Check out www.mycoupons.com,www.hotcouponworld.com and there are so many more free sites.

Another good thing to do is utilize your own back yard.  It doesn’t matter if yosu own 100 acres or a back door terrace, grow something and preserve it for later use.  Or, better yet, eat it now to save your reserves.  Fresh grown vegetables are so good for you and they don’t have all the chemicals and preservatives added to them.  You know what’s in them, because you grew them.  Nothing tastes as good as something you grew yourself. 

Even in a small confined space, you can grow in containers or boxes.  For years, I have grown straight from the bag.  I take a bag of dirt and cut an “X” in it, flip it over and cut the plastic out.  Nestled up against my house or out building, I plant two tomatoes in the bag.   I add composted manure to the dirt in the bag.  I also place worms there to enrich the soil.  I also grind up my kitchen scraps and pour around the soil.  I repeat this process every year and eventually I have built very rich vegetable beds.

This year my husband and I canned several jars of green beans, pickles, pickled okra, tomatoes, salsa, strawberry jam, grape jelly, beef, pork, chicken, soup and chili.  It was so much fun and fills you with pride knowing you have actually put away healthy food without harmful preservatives for your family. 

Another trick that will add to your storage preservation is eating your weeds [from un-sprayed areas].  A lot of the plants that are found in the wild are partially edible.  I have just begun researching this and have discovered several varieties of wild plants in my yard that are edible.  My backyard is covered in young poke salet, which I have tried.  My mother in law used the young leaves and cooked it with eggs.  This is a traditional dish in eastern Kentucky.  I am very leery of this plant as it can be very toxic is not prepared correctly.  Perhaps this is a plant to put on the “If there is nothing else to eat” list.  There are many other plants that are edible, and this would be a good skill to learn in order to survive.

This month, we will be getting a local raised cow.  The cost will average $2 per pound.  This will be mostly canned, but some frozen for later use.  Another advantage to canning meat as opposed to freezing it is that you can open it and eat the meat straight from the jar.  If frozen, you will need to thaw and cook.  If we are in times of survival, having the meat ready to eat can mean life or death.  I have friends who told me they have stored canned meat for eight years and counting and it’s still good.

If you watch for good deals and sales in the stores, use coupons and augment your stores from growing, local food, and even eating your weeds,  you can have a wonderful food storage that will sustain you and your family through most any crisis.

by David Calderwood

When it comes to choosing guns, thirty years of hits and misses has taught me that a gun I don’t like to shoot won’t accompany me to the range. Comfort is thus a key consideration when choosing a firearm.

Especially with handguns, accuracy is required for effect. Every handgun cartridge has documented instances where a determined attacker absorbed hit after center-of-mass hit and kept right on being a threat. The reality is that even someone with holes in their heart can keep going long enough to kill. Only solid hits on the central nervous system are decisive and instant fight-stoppers.

People who buy someone else’s favorite hand cannon (sorry for the offensive T-shirt in the link), shoot it a couple times and put it in a drawer to gather dust may not be helping themselves. It’s not much better if the shooter develops a flinch from anticipating recoil, muzzle blast or being hit by ejected cases from their gun.

For many, the answer lies in choosing guns that are not so powerful as to discourage practice. Among handguns a great example is the 9mm Luger. When loaded with 124 grain or 147 grain jacketed hollow points this cartridge typically performs well in gelatin testing.

There are many great gun designs (here, here, here, here, here, etc.) that chamber the 9mm. My favorites are theGlock and (cover your ears, Mr. Browning) and model 1911-A1.

The Glock pistol chambered for 9mm is simplicity itself, reliable, relatively easy to master, has magazines of capacities varying from 10 rounds to the 33-round version essential for battling zombie hordes (legality depending on where you live), and is surprisingly customizable.

1911-style pistols often have among the best triggers of all repeating firearms. Most 1911 pistols are chambered for the original 45 ACP cartridge, a wonderful round designed around military specifications set in the last days of the horse cavalry. It was intended to equal the 45 Colt revolver cartridge, useful for among other things shooting horses weighing half a ton from under their riders.

While there’s nothing wrong with a 45 ACP that shoots a 230 grain bullet at about 900 feet/second, the same gun chambered for the 9mm Luger, shooting a 147 grain bullet about 980 feet/second makes for a much more enjoyable experience. That often translates to more range time.

Until recently the 1911/9mm combination suffered from reliability problems; some would feed, fire, and eject without fail, many would choke periodically. One manufacturer, Springfield Armory, redesigned the magazine under the guidance of legendary competitive shooter Rob Leatham and now the1911 in 9mm is as reliable a combination as can be found.

Finding one is the problem. They remain rare although more companies are making them now than ever before (hereor here, for example). Some makers offer downsized versions of the 1911 (here, here, here), reduced to fit the smaller cartridge from the ground up. They’re quite pricey, but get rave reviews.

Regarding shoulder-fired guns, a good defensive carbine (a rifle with a shorter barrel and less powerful cartridge) can be just as good a fight-stopper as a shotgun at short range but contains a whole lot more rounds in the magazine, not to mention the carbine’s usefulness at longer ranges should the unusual need arise.

A breakthrough in this area is currently in process.

The effectiveness of a rifle bullet apparently has much to do with fragmentation. The “old” military load for the M16 was a 55 grain bullet moving about 3240 feet/second when it exited a 20 inch barrel. Within about 125 yards the bullet was still moving fast enough that upon hitting a person the bullet would break into two or more pieces and each fragment would sow a separate path of destruction through tissue and potentially hit an important anatomical target.

Recent changes toward shorter-barreled weapons and a heavier, longer bullet led to concerns about performance. Fragmentation occurred less often and only at shorter ranges due to the slower velocity of the bullet.

A “fix” that started within the Army was to develop a new cartridge that addressed the shortcomings of the 5.56 NATO round and improved upon the 7.62×39 cartridge fired by the AK-47. The result was the 6.8mm Remington SPC cartridge.

This new cartridge has seen its share of controversy and growing pains and its widespread adoption by the military is unlikely, but it is gaining a committed following among civilian shooters and hunters. In properly set up rifles (usually variants of the AR15) it hurls a bullet twice as heavy as the 5.56 NATO at nearly the same velocity when both are shot from handy 16 inch barrels. Depending on the specific bullet used, it offers fragmentation out to 300 yards and retains the ability to penetrate common barriers like car windows and doors.

The 6.8 shoots soft, carries up to 25 rounds in a magazine, is often exquisitely accurate, all in a design that is thoroughly proven and user serviceable. Its major drawbacks are ammunition availability and cost, with factory-loaded cartridges running around a dollar per shot (about the same as 308 Win and twice that of cheap 5.56 NATO FMJ practice ammo). Since I believe it’s folly to plan on fighting the Next American Revolution, I consider these issues negligible.

The 6.8 deserves serious consideration by anyone looking for a long gun. It is effective from zero to 300 yards, easy on the shooter’s shoulder whether being fired or carried, and customizable to most persons’ tastes and budgets, plus it meets one of the most important criteria of all: it is still fun to shoot after a couple of magazines’ worth of rounds are expended.

Examples of the 6.8 SPC AR15 are here, here, here, and here. These last three sell only the expensive part, which is the upper half of the rifle; the lower half of any AR15, regardless of manufacturer, simply snaps on and must be purchased through a licensed firearm dealer, for a total cost around $1,000 to $1,200.

One of the best aspects of the AR platform is how any home hobbyist can buy a quality strippedreceiver from a gun shop and mail order all the other parts to assemble one at home. When it comes to the 6.8 SPC, my strong preference would be to assemble the lower myself and buy a quality complete upper receiver from one of the firms with an overall rating of “A” on this chart.

Guns of other calibers have merit; I just wish I hadn’t spent so much money these past 30 years on guns I learned to dislike shooting. Give me a 9mm pistol or the newest 6.8 SPC any day.