The Superior Hat

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography.

Used with permission.

That title isn't my opinion; it's literally called the "Men's Superior Hat" over at Duluth Trading Co., but I do have to say that it is pretty nice. 

Ladies, don't let the name put you off from this hat. Despite the name, you'll look good in it too, and since the reviews state "It runs small, so order a size up" I'm certain that a medium or large size will fit you. 

I bought mine so long ago that I can't recall when it was; it was after I moved back to Florida in 2005, but before I started this blog in 2014. It was available in other colors back then, including forest green (the color I have), camouflage, khaki, and I think red. These days it only comes it black, which is a shame, but it likely keeps the cost down and black does go with everything. 

https://www.duluthtrading.com/s/DTC/mens-superior-hat-11106.html

I haven't used it often, as this is a cold-weather hat and Florida doesn't get very cold very often, but I'm always happy to have this hat when it does. 

Here's what the Superior Hat has:

• The exterior is hard-working and hard-wearing firehose cotton. Considering I've had mine for 15-20 years and it still looks new, that's a testament to its toughness. 
• The fabric is treated to be water-repellant, and I've never had it leak on me. 
• There's a fold-down flap that can cover my ears. 
• The 150-gram Thinsulate insulation keeps my head and ears toasty warm in even the coldest of Florida weather (which is, let's face it, only about 30° F).
• In case I get too toasty and start to sweat, there's a moisture-wicking sweatband built into the buttery-soft polyester fleece liner. 
• All this for only $30 (today's prices; I think I paid $20-$25 for mine.)

Since I don't live anywhere it snows, I don't know how well it would keep you warm in truly wintery conditions. However, the first page of reviews shows four star ratings from Michigan and Oregon, and the only reason they didn't give it a full five stars is because they ordered their regular size, found it to be too tight, and had to exchange it for the next size up. I figure if it's good enough for them, then it ought to be good enough for anyone not living in Alaska. 

https://www.duluthtrading.com/s/DTC/mens-superior-hat-11106.html

My Rating: A+

It does everything it says it will do, and has done so for over a decade without showing signs of slowing down. I recommend this for all preppers.

Even if you have a winter hat you already love, or need something more robust where you live, at $30 this is something you can keep in your car for emergencies or let friends and family borrow if they're caught in the cold. 

You'll get your money's worth out of it, and more, for a good long time. 

Rifle Gunpowder: Ball vs. Stick

When it comes to reloading rifle ammunition, the first choice to be made is whether to use stick or ball gunpowder. (Handgun ammunition is nearly always ball powder as we generally don't reload for long range pistol accuracy.) What follows is my own opinion, based on my decades of reloading rifle ammunition.

Why Two Kinds?

There are actually more than two kinds of gunpowder shapes, but stick and ball are the most common and effective for reloading. These powders have different burn characteristics due to varying compositions and grain sizes. 

• Stick powder, aka extruded powder, has larger rodlike grains. Think of how a spaghetti noodle is made, but chopped very short. Because of its surface to volume ratio, it needs fewer burn retardants to produce a smooth pressure curve. 
• Ball powder is made up of small, roundish grains whose volume are easily measured. Ball powder has more surface area that stick powder, so to mitigate its faster rate of combustion, powder manufacturers vary the amount of burn retardants to make the powder's pressure curve suit its final application. For an AR-15 this includes a maximum chamber pressure and a maximum and minimum gas port pressure. 

Image found on Reddit

Cost

When I started reloading decades ago, the cost difference between stick and ball powders for use in rifles was fairly close. However, current market conditions have made ball powders the “economy” option. For instance, an 8 lb jug of Winchester StaBall 6.5 Precision Rifle Smokeless Powder is currently $323 at Powder Valley Outdoors, while stick powder costs hundreds of dollars more: Shooter’s World 4350 costs $510 and IMR 4350 costs $462. This is primarily because of exchange rates and import costs. Ball powders are manufactured in the United States by the St. Marks factory in Florida, as well as around the world, such as Ramshot TAC from Belgium. 

However, stick powders aren’t manufactured in the United States at this time. The IMR line of powders comes from Valleyfield in Canada, and Shooter’s World Powders comes from Lovex in Europe. Other European powder companies include Norma, Vihtavuori, and more, and the Hodgdon Extreme line comes from ADI in Australia. 

This means that prices on stick powders will always fluctuate quite a bit with exchange rates between the Dollar and the Euro or the Australian Dollar, but only some ball powders will feel the impact of exchange rates. Exchange rates aside, the cost increases due to “supply and demand” seems to hit all powders equally. 

Accuracy

While ball powders are generally more cost-effective, stick powders tend to be slightly more accurate. The accuracy improvement isn’t  enough to matter for hunting, but may be just enough to score a few more points at shooting competitions.

For hunting, you want a rifle that will consistently place five shots under two inches at 100, and ball powders can easily achieve this with a standard workup. I know that a two Minutes Of Accuracy rifle and ammo combination sounds pretty lousy here in these days of “Sub-MOA Guarantee!” written right on the box holding your new rifle, but hunting bullets are designed for controlled expansion to provide good terminal performance, whereas match bullets are designed to make nice round holes in paper. In other words, they’re just built differently, so it’s useless to compare their performance. If your rifle can hit two MOA all day long with your hunting load, then you can make a “boiler room shot” on a deer out to 300 yards with confidence. 

Temperature Stability

Stick powders will generally be more temperature stable, meaning they exhibit less velocity shift with ambient temperature changes than ball powders. 6.5 StaBall is advertised as temperature stable, but in testing I found that it had significantly more velocity shift than Hodgdon’s H4350. However, 6.5 StaBall is more temperature stable than Reloader 15, a stick powder used in match ammunition, including M118LR sniper ammunition for the Department of Defense.

Final Recommendations

If you’re just starting in reloading, I recommend beginning with an economical ball powder as it’s easier to use with powder measures to get consistent charges. I’d be very surprised if you didn’t end up with a load that can consistently put five shots under 1.5 MOA after a normal load workup.

The time to spend the money on a premium stick powder is when you start winning competitions and still want to get better, or you’re going on that “hunt of a lifetime” in Africa or Alaska where you want your ammunition to perform more consistently across wild temperature swings.

Shuffle Steering

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography.

Used with permission.

When I was a member of Sheriff's Explorers in high school, I was taught shuffle steering. I picked it up pretty quickly and have been using it all my life. 

Put simply, shuffle steering (also called push-pull steering) is a method of holding the steering wheel such that your hands never cross the 12:00 and 6:00 positions on the wheel. I was taught that this allowed you to retain control of the vehicle because both hands were on the wheel at all times, but another reason to use it is to prevent you from striking yourself with your hand or arm should the airbag deploy. 

Let's say I need to make a right turn. Using shuffle steering, the technique would look like this:

1. My hands start at 3 and 9 (or 10 and 2, or 8 and 4, depending on the steering wheel configuration). 
2. As I begin the turn, my left hand grips the wheel, turning it until the hand reaches the 12:00 position. 
3. My right hand remains loose, allowing the wheel to move smoothly through it but able to grasp it for control when needed. 
4. As my left hand reaches the 12:00 position, my right hand slides up the wheel to meet it. 
5. At 12:00, my hands "hand off" steering, and now my right grips the wheel and pulls it down, with the left hand loose and allowing the wheel to traverse through it. 
6. If the turn is sharp and my right hand will cross the 6:00 line, my left hand slides down to receive the "hand off" and continue the turn. 
7. When the turn is complete, loosen both hands to allow the wheels to return to a neutral position. This is known as the "caster effect", and it's the same principle that makes the front wheels of grocery carts point ahead when you're pushing them. 
8. Your hands should now be at your  3 and 9 (or whatever your home position is). 

It may sound complicated, but it's not hard to learn and it's super easy to use. This professional driving instructor will show you how it's done:

I've found this technique very useful when driving though the high winds and wet roads of Florida's summer storms. I have no experience driving on snow and ice, although I assume it would be just as effective there. 

The best way to prepare for an accident is to prevent one from happening in the first place, and maintaining control while preventing injury is a great way to do that. 

Drive safely, and don't forget to shuffle. 

Portable Propane Heaters

Winter camping can be miserable, and I’ve winter camped in Washington State in the snow and the wet and the cold as a Boy Scout. Now I’m camping in Georgia year-round with my son’s Trail Life Troop, and “below freezing in Georgia” is just as miserable as “below freezing in Washington.”

There are two schools of thought among the adults who provide some level of safety for our troop. One is “I need to be able to carry all my kit long distance,” and the other is “What the heck, I own a truck, and I’ll carry my gear from the truck to the campsite.” The first group doesn’t use any artificial heat sources, and the second group does. At the last campout, the second group was more comfortable than the first group because they had bigger, roomier tents. In two of those tents were Mr. Heater Portable Buddy Heaters, and I got to enjoy them simply by being there.

https://amzn.to/4hJdxY7

In Use

First observation: even the smallest Mr. Heater product is plenty for a tent that a single person can pack. The advertisement says “up to 225 square feet” which I think is a bit generous for most tents, but in a well-insulated room or small cabin it would make sense.

Second: plan to use one 1lb bottle of propane per night, or six hours of burn time. You can get an adapter to use any size of propane bottle you want if you need more than six hours of heat production. 

Note: while commercial locations won’t refill most 1lb propane bottles, you can buy adapters to refill them yourself.  This is obviously discouraged by single-use propane vendors, but there are  refillable bottles on the market.

Pros and Cons

A Mr. Heater is a bit of a luxury item for camping in Georgia or Washington, even in the winter time. But as a survival/resiliency prep it has a few things going for it. 

1. If you have a gas grill and adapter hose, or a few 1lb propane bottles on hand, you have a safe indoor heating in a pinch. 
2. A heat source can be used to heat food. One YouTuber I watch routinely opens canned food and gently heats it using his Mr. Heater in the depth of Canadian winter, and toasting frankfurters or marshmallows is very similar to using a campfire.

Is it perfect? No, not really.

1. It takes up space when not in use. Not much, but some.
2. Unlike a rocket stove or Solo Stove or Kelly Kettle, it uses a fossil fuel that may or may not be easy to get in an emergency. If you live in an apartment where wood or twigs aren’t plentiful, that might be a positive rather than a negative.
3. It’s big enough that I wouldn’t bother keeping one in a full size van unless the van had been converted into a small camper. In a large camper, a Mr. Heater makes quite a bit of sense.

Should You Get One?

I’m not in a hurry to go out and buy a Mr. Heater of my own, but if I see a good sale I’ll probably snag one. They run very quietly, and in an elevated deer stand in the winter where I sit still for hours on end, it might be really nice to not feel the cold so deep in my bones.

Also, don’t underestimate the value of the “nice to haves” in a situation where you have to rely on your preps and not public infrastructure. The little luxuries can make all the difference between a miserable experience and a merely inconvenient experience.