Survival Scrapping... - Page 3

Originally Posted by smashing

Unless it's fast zombies -} then we're screwed......

Holy crap! There are fast zombies??!!!!

Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot

I agree on having ammo, but for it to come first over EVERYTHING is kind of silly.

You can't eat your ammo.

You can't drink your ammo.

You can't be healed with ammo.

You can't shelter in ammo, unless you want to live in a house made of things meant to be shot an that explode when near heat sources.

An while your ammo could keep you warm, but..is that really practical?

Is ammo on the list sure is. So is food, water, medicine, etc.

Good luck saying you'll just hunt for food, cause if the **** hits the fan like everyone says nature won't be much better. Wildlife will die in a nuclear assault, or you know asteroids falling from space, or super volcanoes, or or..<insert end of the world theory here>.

Not trying to rain on the survival parade, I also believe in being prepared, but again..I can't eat shot gun shells an bullets.

Jus' saying..

Sirscrapalot - You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it. - Bill Cosby

In times of a societal collapse, people turn feral in around 24 hours. First and foremost you need protection from those feral creatures that will kill you and your family to take what you have. There's a lot of scum out there that will find it easier to go after the perceived weak than it is to actually work for their food and supplies. Once the urban area's empty and starvation starts to set in for millions of people, I think the defense of friends and family will be first and foremost the most important thing to focus on.

I have no illusions that hunting for food won't be extremely difficult in shtf / teotwawki situation and that is certainly not what I was saying. I think my foraging and gardening skills are probably better than my hunting skills anyway. The hoard of ammo I talked about is more for defense than anything else.

Originally Posted by t00nces2

[SIZE=3]Holy crap! There are fast[
/SIZE] zombies??!!!!

Scarry as heck!

:

Originally Posted by JustInTime

In times of a societal collapse, people turn feral in around 24 hours. First and foremost you need protection from those feral creatures that will kill you and your family to take what you have. There's a lot of scum out there that will find it easier to go after the perceived weak than it is to actually work for their food and supplies. Once the urban area's empty and starvation starts to set in for millions of people, I think the defense of friends and family will be first and foremost the most important thing to focus on.

I have no illusions that hunting for food won't be extremely difficult in shtf / teotwawki situation and that is certainly not what I was saying. I think my foraging and gardening skills are probably better than my hunting skills anyway. The hoard of ammo I talked about is more for defense than anything else.

It's problematic. Let's take something real life that's going on today as an example: Ebola has broken out in some areas. What there is of a government has instituted a quarantine where people are not allowed to leave the region.

The U.S. government would do the same thing in a similar circumstance. It's MUCH better equipped and the the Department of Homeland Security already has contingency plans in place. It's already got staging areas for refugee camps along with crematories built. They're seven steps ahead of you. By the time you figure out that it's time to "bug out" it will probably be too late.

Have you ever been caught in gridlock traffic ? Maybe a semi trailer truck jack knifed across the highway five miles up the road ? Now imagine every exit out of the city & suburban areas being like that. Your only option would be to throw a 60 lb pack on your back and hoof it out to the rural areas. What about the weakest members of your family ? Would they be able to make the trek ? How long would the be able to live out in the wild ?

See what i'm saying ? Most of the survival scenarios that people have in their heads wouldn't work in a real life situation.

Besides .... all that ammo is heavy as hell to lug around.

Ya'll can refer to Scrappah's post about living on a Island. I'm exactly like him to a degree. Fresh water, seafood, even gator! Can even get a garden going if need be.

Nice thing about my sandbar..it's been lived on since 1587, an before that(Native Americans lived all through the Sandbar an surrounding areas). So yea..one could make do fine here without access to the mainland. I don't have an urban area..I got a sandbar with houses, hardly anyone living on it. Urban worries will be on the mainland.

If anyone plans to visit have a boat, cause I'm sure the bridges would be dropped an taken out if the **** ever hit the fan. Swimming 2 miles in the sound would likely ruin your ammo, an other goodies. So save a boat an some fuel!

Your SMF secret decoder ring will help to, so I know your ok. If you got a Sirscrapalot fan club decoder ring, your good.

Sirscrapalot - Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live! - Bob Marley

PS - Smashing(i think it was) you can come stay with us, I'd appreciate your brewing skills.

Lol. One of my favorite things is sharing the beers I brew

Personally, I'm a big fan of being prepared, and I'd like to use some of the profits I make from scrapping to rebuild my stockpile.

My husband (a born & bred "city boy") used to always laugh at me and the weird stuff I'd do. I always tried to keep it pretty negligible. When I had a little extra cash, I'd stock upon pastas, flours, baking goods, spices, and some dehydrated foods. My local WM sells #10 cans of survival-type dehydrated foods, and while I'm not a huge fan of it, I'm always on the lookout for shelf-stable protein options. In addition to the normal peanut butter stuff, I love stocking powdered eggs, powdered milk, and (my latest find from Winco!) cheese powder. So I would stock up on stuff like that and my husband used to tease me for it.

Then we quickly and unexpectedly left the military (he was active duty; I've been out of the AF for over a decade now). We moved, and when we started unpacking after spending all our money on the move, he discovered my boxes of random food stockpile stuff. So he doesn't tease me for buying my "apocalypse foods" anymore, because those apocalypse foods have saved our bacon before! (Not bacon, mind you, but they've definitely saved our huevos!)

What I want to do is set aside some e-scrap and just smelt some of the gold from it. I've found a few tutorials that even teach you to refine it up to about 22K, and you get a nice small gold nugget for your troubles. I'd love to just do it once a month or so and gradually build up a small stockpile of those small gold nuggets in case we run into a TEOTWAKI event. Seems to me that the small gold nuggets would be far more useful than ingots or even coins. And the best part? If you smelt it yourself, nobody has to know you have it! Maybe it's the crazy conspiracy theorist in me, but I worry because if you buy gold from a gold dealer there's a record of it, but if you smelt it at home from scrap, nobody will ever know.

Gee .... when i watch the news it's a crazy old world. I guess that's what's normal and it's always been that way throughout the history of mankind. It's nothing to worry about really. You just to have to learn to live with it being the way it is.

Just right off the top of my head:

There was that earthquake in Haiti. One of the poorest nations on earth and already afflicted with a high rate of affliction of the AIDS virus. All of those lives lost and their bodies hauled off to the landfill mixed in with collapsed building debris. It's as if they never were. Life did go on. The sun still rose and the birds sang their song the day after the disaster.

Hurricane Katrina hits the gulf coast and destroys a good chunk of New Orleans. Social disorder follows but after awhile things returned to normal.

A tsunami hits a nuclear power plant in Japan. Vast tracts of land rendered unusable. A nuclear plant meltdown in the former USSR with the same result. Populations permanently displaced from their homes.

Most recently civil war in Syria followed by the invasion of ISIS into the region. People fleeing for their lives. Over 150,000 refugees sitting in camps just over the border in Turkey.

It must have been " The end of the world as they knew it" for all of those people. Most especially the ones who survived .....

================

It's probably not a bad idea to have a " Bug out bag " prepared just in case you need to leave in a hurry.

Precious metals might be good because they're considered to be portable wealth. That way you would have something to start a new life with in a new place. It's probably better to stay with easily recognizable coins that were issued by a reputable government. It's sort of a built in " Certificate of Authenticity ". They're much easier to use in trade because there's no question about the karat value & purity of what's being offered.

Private party transactions between buyers and sellers are one way of keeping Uncle Sam out of your business.

~ Just a thought ~

I have one of these in a warehouse ready to go.

Does the Japanese army want it back???

Japanese army?

I built that bad boy outta shred!

I'm partial to Rawles' Survival Blog myself. Also Modern Survival Blog. I've found that secondary income streams make it much easier to save/prep and I have been able to repurpose a number of items that were in other people's garage sales. The ability to turn other's waste scrap metals & electronics into hard assets like silver for my families future is a plus. My grandfather's both instilled in me a hard work ethic learned from living through the Great Depression. One tried to teach me the need for a hard currency, and while it took me many years to understand what silver or gold truly mean in the world economy, I am much more comfortable now that they will hold some value in an economic calamity than I am a stack of funny money or stocks will. And when the zombies start to roam, I have stockpiled lead & brass combined in just the right manner. I just have to lead the fast zombies a little more.

From a person who has dealt with a disaster. I have seen what happens when a riot happens, a earthquake and major wild fires, it's scary as hell! You have to be prepared, but being afraid of people? Yes and No, from my experiences friends, family, neighbors and even complete strangers pull together and help each other. As this is what civilized people do, but you do need to fear others. There are people who will take and hurt you, these are criminal opportunist. Without a disaster these people are just plain criminals, during a disaster they are deadly. I personally know that you need to be able to protect yourself, family and others. The police will not be able to protect you, a riot taught me that! As far as "bugging out", forget it, in major city it becomes impossible. Hunker down protect yours and life returns to normal with those who are civilized. From experience riots are far more of a threat than most people understand. As always the problems with humans are humans!

Originally Posted by bigburtchino

From a person who has dealt with a disaster. I have seen what happens when a riot happens, a earthquake and major wild fires, it's scary as hell! You have to be prepared, but being afraid of people? Yes and No, from my experiences friends, family, neighbors and even complete strangers pull together and help each other. As this is what civilized people do, but you do need to fear others. There are people who will take and hurt you, these are criminal opportunist. Without a disaster these people are just plain criminals, during a disaster they are deadly. I personally know that you need to be able to protect yourself, family and others. The police will not be able to protect you, a riot taught me that! As far as "bugging out", forget it, in major city it becomes impossible. Hunker down protect yours and life returns to normal with those who are civilized. From experience riots are far more of a threat than most people understand. As always the problems with humans are humans!

Yes, I believe that probably the best EOTW prep is to make yourself as helpful and known and liked by those who live around you.

Your kind of prepping is a reasonable thing to do, but some people just go crazy. I find living in the moment is the best thing to do, some people are crazy and spend half there life preparing for something they may never live to see. I live life 1 day at a time, and whatever happens, happens. This is not to say I wouldn't have a fund for in-case something goes wrong like a rainy day fund. If you have the space to store that kind of stuff and know its secure all the more power to you.

Originally Posted by DevinThaScrapper

Your kind of prepping is a reasonable thing to do, but some people just go crazy. I find living in the moment is the best thing to do, some people are crazy and spend half there life preparing for something they may never live to see. I live life 1 day at a time, and whatever happens, happens. This is not to say I wouldn't have a fund for in-case something goes wrong like a rainy day fund. If you have the space to store that kind of stuff and know its secure all the more power to you.

Where do you live? Is there no chance of an extended period of loss of power? Ability to use your home? Basic supply chains being cut off? Neb... A tornado couldn't change your lifes realities in a minute? Do you have any kind of disaster preps at all? Extra food in the pantry? Generator? 72hr kit? A little bottled water?

Just curious. I started prepping to accommodate a hurricane problem and I added to my preps a little at a time.

<<Just curious. I started prepping to accommodate a hurricane problem and I added to my preps a little at a time.>>

Yep, Hurricane Katrina was what woke me up way back when. I saw a major American city turned into a 3rd world country in a day.

When Irene hit my neck of the woods and we were without power for 3 days, and my wife started to panic when we couldn't do x that first morning without power. I just went into the stockpiles and pulled what we needed and we were basically camping for a few days. Learned a ton, and refined based on that and then the NEXT year when we were without power for a full week because of Sandy, it was much easier. But the cold snap that came through right after made me realize that our current home was unlivable in cold weather without power. Luckily we'll be into better home soon and as an added bonus, I have much more room for my scrapping and preps as soon as we put up a new garage.

The key word "PANIC", that's when everything that you and yours took for granted starts going "south" in a hurry!