Water and Boating Safety

As summer arrives upon us, folks naturally start heading for the water. Be it beaches, boats, or the local river, water recreation is one of the most popular ways to beat the heat. Unfortunately, tragedy always seems to follow this exodus. In an effort to stem some of that loss, here are some ways to remain safe on and around the water.

On this week's Gunblog Varietycast, Erin went over some good water safety tips. Some of her links are so important that they bear repeating:

• 8 Signs of Someone Drowning
• Recognize the Signs of Drowning (video)
• Break the Grip of the Rip (PDF)

In addition, there are several other ways to prevent or mitigate accidents while recreating on the water.

Don't drink and boat
Many folks who would never drink and drive don't draw the parallel to drinking and driving their boats. Not only is it usually illegal, it is invariably dangerous. Behind the wheel is behind the wheel, and the risks are exactly the same. Just don't risk it.

Life preservers save lives
The US Coast Guard estimates that 80% of lives lost in boating accidents could have been saved by proper use of a life jacket. They provide an excellent guide for life jacket use and selection here.

Install barriers or covers around pools
Keep unsupervised children away from danger by limiting access.

If your boat has an accident, stay with it if possible
Shore is often deceptively far away, too far to safely swim. Also, your boat is larger than you are, and easier for searchers to locate. If you must swim for shore, try and get some kind of flotation device from your boat before you leave it. Life jackets or throwable floatation aids can make all the difference in getting to shore.

Keep noisemakers handy
Air horns and emergency whistles carry much further than the human voice, with far less effort. Emergency whistles can even be attached to life jackets, so that they're always at hand. Blow three short blasts to signal distress.

Reach or throw, don't go
Use a pole or flotation device and rope whenever you can to aid someone in distress. Getting into the water greatly increases your odds of becoming another victim.

Keep the group together
If multiple people need help on the water, stick together. Groups are far easier to find than individuals, and can help each other keep going until rescue arrives.

Keep your head above water.
Lokidude

Sharpening a Case Trimmer Cutter

If you hand-load ammunition, one thing you occasionally have to do is trim the cartridge cases; they stretch a bit over time, and there's a maximum length. Fortunately, they make case trimmers for this situation.

The case trimmer, like this one by Lyman Universal, has a 4-flute cutter. And like any cutting tool, with use it eventually gets a bit dull. It might even pick up a nick on an edge.

http://tinyurl.com/oj6jajt

You can buy replacement cutters. You can even buy a carbide replacement for some. Or you can be cheap, like me, and sharpen it. Here's the cutter, which screws out of the trimmer shaft:

http://tinyurl.com/oup95o9

You can see the four cutting flutes(the hole in the center is for a pilot that keeps the case centered).  While there are several ways to do this, I'm doing the 'all by hand' way*, which starts with some type of sharpening stone.

Depending on just how dull the cutter is, you might be able to get by with just a fine stone; if it's really dull, or has nicks, start with a medium-grit; it'll cut faster.

In this case I'm using a ceramic 'stone' with a medium grit;

If you're using a standard sharpening stone, use plenty of oil just as you would with a knife. Start with working the head in an oval, making sure it stays flat. After 6-10 loops, turn it 1/4 turn and repeat. Wipe clean and examine. The freshly-cut areas will be much brighter than the untouched areas, and you'll be able to see how much you'll need to do. If yours was only slightly dull you might already see the whole of each cutting face bright; if you've got areas still dull, or nicks to remove, go back to work with the stone.

At this point, start working the cutter in a figure-8 pattern. Every few cycles, turn the cutter a bit. And occasionally reverse the pattern, too. Do everything you can to make sure it keeps cutting evenly all around. Check regularly. When the whole of all four faces is bright, you're done with this stone. If you started with a fine, you're done with the main work.

If you've been using a medium, go to a fine or very fine and do it again. At this point you'll want to examine it under a strong light so you can see when you've removed all the marks from the coarser stone. When they're all gone, this part is done.

After medium grit.

After fine grit.

You can take it to a finer stone if you wish, though for this it probably won't make a noticable difference. You have one final step: Just like with a knife, sharpening will leave a bit of a burr or 'wire edge' on the cutting edge, where traces of steel rolled over and the stone wasn't fine enough to remove it. They've got to be removed, and that's simple: get a fine stone small enough to fit, hold it square against the face of the flute, and draw it down, making sure it stays flat. Just a few strokes on each face will do. Good chance you'll be able to feel the difference between the first stroke and the last as the burr is removed.

Don't have a variety of sharpening stones? You can still do all of these steps: just use wet/dry abrasive paper, found anywhere from Wally World to auto parts shops. This stuff can be had in grades anywhere from very coarse up to X000, a grit so fine it doesn't really feel abrasive (seriously, some of this stuff is so fine it feels like copy paper). For this, the finest you'll need is 400 to 600 grit, with 180 or 220 as the first step to clean up the faces.

• You need a flat, hard surface to use it with. 
• Cut a sheet in two so you have a 8.5x5.5" piece to work with. 
• Soak it in water for ten minutes or so before using. 
• Put the paper on the hard (and waterproof) surface, and start working the cutter on it with light pressure so it doesn't cut or tear the paper. 
• For cleaning up the burr, cut a strip and back it with something like a small, fine file.

That's all there is to it. Clean it off well (I like to take stuff like this outside and blast it with brake cleaner), dry it, put a dab of oil on to prevent rust (don't forget to put a bit on the threaded shank!) and give it a try.

Gun Blog Variety Podcast #42

Adam and Sean bring you another fun filled episode of The Gun Blog Variety Cast!

• Erin Palette talks summer water preparedness.
• Nicki Kenyon discusses the FIFA scandal.
• Special Guest Kelly Grayson tells us about this one time he found himself laying on the local mortuary's embalming table.
• Barron B. reminds us that you never have enough time to do something right, but you always have time to do it over,
• And Weer'd catches anti-gunner Joan Peterson whining about a Minnesota auto dealer's gun giveaway.

Thanks for downloading, listening, and subscribing. And don't forget to share with a friend!

Listen to the podcast here.
Show notes may be found here.

Product Review: Recharging Cables

Picture by KJ Photography

& is used with permission.

Last week's post on the Etón FRX2 felt like it was missing something, and now I remember what it was: a good charging cable.. or three.

• If you wanted to charge your FRX2 from an outlet or USB port, you'd need a USB to Micro-USB cord. Fortunately, the FRX2 comes with one of those. 
• Handily, this cable can be turned around and used to charge a tablet from the FRX2's battery. Hooray for double use!
• But if you wanted to charge your iPhone from the FRX2, you'd need a USB to Apple 30-pin connector. 
• And if you have a camera or other device that uses a different kind of adapter head, you need one of those as well. 

So now you're carrying several cords to charge your devices, and while not heavy they are bulky and likely to get tangled with each other. If only there were a way to combine their functions into a single cord!

Fortunately, there are ways. Two of them, in fact. 

Power Practical Fast Charge 3 in 1 Cable

The first solution comes from Power Practical: a 9 inch long cord with a USB plug on one end that branches out into three flat cables ending in Mini-USB, Micro-USB and Apple 30-pin connectors.

http://tinyurl.com/oucu25n

I received mine when I got the Power Pot for Christmas, but you can also buy it separately from Amazon.

Not only does this nicely consolidate the most common cords you will need for using your FRX2 (iPhone 5 users will need to buy a 30-pin to Lightning adapter for $10), but these cords are also optimized for power transfer and do not transfer data. That last feature can be a big help if the only place you have to plug in your smartphone is a computer, and you either don't want it to start synching or you're concerned about viruses from one getting onto the other. 

I keep mine in a a Ziploc bag alongside my FRX2 and several packets of silica dessicant to absorb moisture. 

Highly Recommended. $12.00 from Amazon. 

But what if you need to charge something that uses a more specialized tip? Say, a Nokia or a Samsung phone? No worries, Goal Zero has you covered. 

Goal Zero Medusa USB Universal Adapter

http://www.goalzero.com/p/203/medusa-usb-universal-adapter/

This beast has no fewer than ten separate tips:

1. Micro-USB
2. Mini-USB
3. Nokia N90
4. Nokia 8250
5. Samsung D800
6. Samsung 1900
7. PSP
8. LG
9. Apple 30-pin  (sorry, iPhone 5 users, you still need to buy that 10 buck adapter)
10. USB Female 

The cord itself is 5.5 inches long and comes with a male-to-female USB whose cord is almost two feet long, but when stored (by wrapping the cable around the hub) it reduces to only two inches in length.

I am a bit annoyed and perplexed at the USB female adapter. I suppose that is to allow daisy-chaining of more cords, but I would worry about too much drain on the charger/not enough power for the device if that approach was used. Personally, I would have replaced the USB female with a Lightning adapter.  

That said, I still like this cable very much, and it too does not synchronize data. I keep mine in my bug-out bag so I may recharge a variety of things with my solar panel (also a Goal Zero). Keep in mind, though, that if you plan to bug out with both a laptop and iPod/iPhone/etc then you need to pack a sync cable as well, or else you're stuck with whatever music you already have loaded on your device!

I bought mine on Amazon last month for $25, but the storefront seems to be out of stock with plans to get more any time soon. Goal Zero's own website lists them as unavailable. however, they can still be found for online purchase if you know where to look. 

Also Highly Recommended. $25 online.   Availability might be an issue for some and the price too much for others, but if you need a plug and don't want to carry a dozen or so cords, this is the one to get.

Happy recharging!

Obligatory FTC Disclaimer: I bought this with my own money. Go away. 

Conditioning

I recently read a blog post about self defense training and the difficulty that instructors were having breaking the social conditioning that we all have. That post is here if you're interested.

The quote that got me thinking was "Nothing about survival or self-protection or self-defense or whatever you want to call it is difficult or unnatural. This is exactly the problem we were evolved to solve. Not being a victim is part of our deepest wiring. Mind, body and spirit have all the tools."

If you think about it for a while, he's right.

Our bodies haven't changed all that much for the last several thousand years, so we all have the same basic equipment for survival that our ancestors did (if they didn't survive, they wouldn't be ancestors). All of our senses are tuned to hunt and forage for food, and with the invention of glasses and such we can maintain our abilities longer in life than ever before. We still lead the rest of the animal kingdom with our opposing thumbs and large fore-brains. We have all the basic tools issued at birth (excepting those with medical conditions) to eat, drink, walk, communicate, and fight. Training will hone those tools into what you may need to stay alive in an emergency.

Our minds are slightly different from those of people who had to live hand-to-mouth. We still have some of the basic instincts, like the desire to hoard and gorge whenever possible. Our brains keep trying to tell us when danger is near, but most of the time we ignore it. Fear is something that is so far removed from most peoples' lives that we have to watch movies or visit a haunted attraction in order to feel scared. Those scares are the same as they were a hundred years ago; we just have better special effects now. This is one of the reasons people "freeze" during an emergency: they are completely unprepared for what they are seeing and have no clue as to how to deal with it. At worst, they'll try something they saw in a movie and end up making things more dire than they were.

Our spirits, though, have changed the most. People have been taught that they can eat and drink without having to think about it, and it has made them lazy and dependent. Hunting is looked down upon by a large segment of society as a barbaric tradition that should be abolished now that we have grocery stores. Going 24 hours without food is considered abuse or torture now, instead of being considered "cleansing" or a beneficial thing. A 24 hour fast will not kill you unless you have one of the rather extreme medical conditions, but if dinner's an hour late you'll hear all kinds of complaints. Our spirits have gotten soft.

Our souls are not really involved in survival. They'll still be around after our physical bodies have quit working. I'm not sure if our souls are subject to the same kind of changes that have impacted the other three parts of us.

Another line from the article is "Almost all of society is set up to perpetually brainwash them so that they never remember their own power."

Again, he got it mostly right. I think a better way of saying it would be , "Almost all of every society is set up to keep them brainwashed so they can never find out what they have lost." Society, by definition, places more emphasis on the group than the individual. Individuals with the ability to survive without, or outside, the group become a threat to the group because they may show others how to live outside it. If enough people leave the group, it is no longer as strong and may not survive. Groups have survival instincts just like individuals, and groups tend to outlive individuals. Society is always going to try to control the ones on the fringes and stomp on any information that may weaken the society. It's a matter of self-preservation.



Learn to use what you've got. Research what the human body can actually do. Never sell yourself short and always keep struggling towards something better. Humans have been through a lot in the time we've been here, some of us will get through it again.

Prudent Prepping: EDC in Baby Steps

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Now we concentrate  on what to do in, and how to plan for, the long term via Prudent Prepping.

Introducing a Novice

 to Prepping and 

Every Day Carry

I have a friend who isn't really into disaster preparedness here in America, but who is at least acquainted with the concept from her time 'back home' dealing with historical civil strife and yearly bad weather. I'm trying to communicate to her that America being a land of plenty is not at odds with the mindset of "we can have disasters here, too, and they can and should be planned for well in advance." Prepping food is not a problem; her culture stresses having extra on hand for both charity and storage for bad times. The problem, at least for now, is the idea of keeping equipment at hand for emergency use -- not only at home, but in the car and carried with her. Which brings me to:

EDC in Baby Steps
The job where she works is required to have a basic First Aid kit and keep it stocked. I have suggested that she get a small kit for her car, to which she responded positively. However, she balks at carrying items close at hand, like in a purse or other bag. To overcome this I've started small, uncomplicated and safe by suggesting a flashlight as the first addition. 

I selected this, a Coast G25 slim light. (The link is to the factory for information, since Home Depot has them cheaper than Amazon.) I've had one of these lights in my various EDC bags for over 2 years, and other than having to make sure the on/off switch doesn't get bumped, there have been no problems. It is light, weighs under 4 ounces, and is slim enough to fit anywhere -- like the bottom of a purse, with lots of other stuff. Budget is always a factor, and $15 dollars is an acceptable amount for either one of us to pay.

http://tinyurl.com/ppe3glm

I won the discussion for this light to be kept in her car, but not as an item for personal carry. My next suggestion will be a Coast G19, a single AAA battery light whose size might suit her better. I did make a winning suggestion for a keychain light, like this one from Energizer, so I have hope.

What did surprise me was how easy it was to sell her on the idea of having a small knife, since in her culture knives are not carried openly and rarely by women. This is also going to be a bit of a learning experience, since I have very definite ideas of what she should have, and these need to be balanced with what is comfortable for her to carry and use. I can live with it being a Swiss Army knife, but if it is something like a Kershaw Chive, then I'll call that a definite win!

Her birthday and Christmas are both coming up, and so is the possibility of adding to her EDC supplies...

Wish me luck.

Lessons Learned
When introducing a new idea to someone, start small. Make sure the reasons are clear and the items practical.

Purchases This Week

• One Coast G25 flashlight from Home Depot, $15.03

As always, if you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.   

Slow Cooking and Marinade: Recovering Foods from Freezer Burn

Last week I mentioned that one of the concerns with freezing foods, particularly meat, is the risk of freezer burn. When foods are not properly sealed, being frozen renders them dry, tough, and with questionable flavors and textures. While they're still safe and nutritious to eat, they're far from pleasant.

Thankfully, there are a couple simple ways to salvage freezer burned meats. The goal is to add moisture, tenderize the meat, and impart flavor. Both slow cooking and acid-based marinades accomplish these goals. (Be forewarned, trying both at the same time leads to disappointing results.*)

Slow Cooking
Using a slow cooker is incredibly convenient, working well with folks on a busy schedule: you simply add your ingredients, turn the cooker on, and come back later. On the low setting, meals are cooked in the duration of the average American workday.

Slow cookers work best with good quantities of liquid, be it broth, sauce, or just water. Because of the long cooking duration, they allow seasonings and spices to impart good flavor to proteins. The low, slow heat serves to tenderize damaged meats, and is also useful to make tougher, cheaper cuts much more palatable. Briskets and butts are far cheaper than filet, but can taste every bit as good.

Vegetables can also be added towards the end of cooking, to make a complete meal in one pot. Potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions all work very well for this, and beans can be cooked in this way. Let your main protein cook until it is fork-tender throughout, and check that it has attained an appropriate internal temperature.

Marinading
Acid-based marinades, be they citrus juices, soft drinks, or certain vinegars, can also serve well to tenderize tough meats. Be careful with vinegars, as it is very easy to go too far and impart a bitter flavor to your food, a lesson I've learned the hard way.*

• Put your meat in a dish that can be covered and sealed, and add your liquid, as well as any seasonings you want. 
• Try to cover the meat as much as possible with the liquid. If you cannot cover the meat, you'll need to turn it once or twice as it marinates.
• Let it sit at least a few hours in the refrigerator, turning as needed to make sure that it marinates thoroughly. 
• If possible, let marinate overnight.
• Pan fry or grill your meat, or roast thicker cuts. Again, internal temperature is the key to doneness.

*And Now the Embarrassment
I tried both methods at once, using a pretty heavily freezer burned pork roast. I used apple cider vinegar, hoping to add a nice apple flavor, and ran it on low in my slow cooker all day. The end result was disappointing: too much vinegar flavor and a fairly "dead" texture. I learned a few lessons from this experiment:

1. I overcooked the meat. I blame this primarily on my wife and I having work schedules that are temporarily at a level that is nuts. The meat spent roughly 11 hours in the cooker, which is too much. Some the cookers are programmable, and would have solved this problem.
2. Dilute your vinegar. I ran mine full strength, which added both the apple flavor I wanted and a vinegar bite that I did not. Cutting the vinegar with water will correct this.
3. Don't combine both methods. While either method works wonderfully on its own, combining them ends up being too much of a good thing.
4. Ingenuity saves the day. I still wasn't about to let this roast go to waste. Thankfully, barbecue sauce and a pair of forks can cure many sins. The difference between pulled pork and a slow cooker roast is a bit of sauce and some shredding. You can recover from a multitude of stumbles if you are willing to punt. 

Stored foods really are as easy to use as they are to store. Happy eating!

Lokidude