OldIronFan

There are just so many scenarios that a single "plan" will never be feasible or sufficient. Just a quick survey of all of the doomsday movies or TV shows will highlight that fact. An off grid sustainable property or community is virtually worthless in the face of an extinction level event such as a meteor strike with the subsequent atmospheric effects even if the strike was many thousands of miles away. They are also fairly useless in the face of any significant nuclear war without extremely robust and costly hardened shelters. In the face of all out civil war, world war, and societal collapse virtually any shelter, off grid property, or sustainable community is going to be overrun by marauders eventually unless you have the means to create something completely isolated and unknown to the outside world. Even then you could never leave it for fear of being discovered. The likelihood of being able to remain unfound, secure, and supplied is slim in my opinion long term. Extremes in our climate, either due to naturally occurring cycles/shifts of the planet or the effects of mankind on the planet, are a real threat. The increased intensity and frequency of significant storms, heat, drought, wildfires hurricanes, tornados, flooding, and sea level rise could easily make large chunks of the planet temporarily or permanently unlivable. They would impact resources like power, potable water, and food for a not insignificant portion of the population. This strain on resources will push the displaced into smaller and smaller less affected areas concentrating the population. You can try to predict where the zones that will be safest from such natural elements or events might be but it would be impossible to predict with certainty so your planed and prepped bug out location may be worthless in the end. When it comes to biological events or a significant global pandemic with no cure or vaccine in sight and with high mortality initial isolation may be the best bet but if the event is significant enough it will eventually lead to societal collapse. If COVID taught us anything it is that a massive portion of our population is not even remotely prepared to handle short to medium term isolation. Most people have such limited supplies even a week isolated at home would stretch their resources. It also taught us how quickly our emergency response systems and medical facilities can become overburdened. I foresee again that any shelter, sustainable property or community would, over the long haul, not be able to remain isolated or keep something like a virus out, maintain its resources, or remain secure from potential marauders. Personally I have no illusions that I would survive long term in a significant event, long term meaning multi year here. My tiered plan has always been to have enough supplies including food on hand to survive in my home for at least 30~60 days at a relatively normal comfort level. Have a means to evacuate by vehicle with enough supplies separate from the household supplies to last another 30 days with a slightly reduced comfort level (roughing it / MRE / camp food / camp equipment). Finally that proverbial bug out/bush craft /survival phase where I have the supplies I can carry in a pack to survive a couple weeks. All of that includes the tools for personal protection, basic first aide/medical, hunting, and gathering for longer term survival but this would honestly be a stretch. The reality is, at my age and health level, I would probably not make it past a year in the face of any real threat. I would likely succumb it illness, injury, or a hostile threat. If whatever befalls our world lasts longer than a year or two I am probably not going to be around to rebuild things, and that is ok. Honestly I would probably not really want to suffer, claw, and scrape along in misery just to prolong my life a bit longer. It would not be much of a life at that point and I have had a pretty good one so far. I simply don't need to be the last man standing. The far more likely scenario is much less extreme than all of the above and that is significant political and societal issues causing more isolated conflict and resource strain. I think in that more likely scenario it will not be about how much you have prepped or how many supplies you have stored but how you can adapt that will determine your future. If the market and dollar collapses and society is in turmoil but not truly collapsed (think great depression) how will you handle having no financial means? Can you adapt to a lower standard of living. Can you adapt to self sufficiency and things like a barter system. This may be where the self sustaining/off grid properties and communities would actually be a smart idea. No illusion of doomsday survival but establishing self reliance with a reduced dependence on modern infrastructure, food distribution, and municipal/government resources. This is where the linked article really hits the mark. The ultra rich preppers are not only potentially contributing to that most likely of scenarios with their manipulation of markets, acquisition of extreme wealth, and driving the population toward dependence on their technology they are going about "prepping" the wrong way in my opinion. Sure the author may be a self proclaimed Marxist but they do make a few solid points and astute observations.

That is going to be a tough one in Tennessee. Lots of great trails, hikes, and developed campgrounds but there are just not that much expansive public land without restrictions. The ratio of private to public land is just not conducive to really remote dispersed/primitive camping and trails here. Out west you have a lot of BLM land that works better for that. WMA land is not a great idea right now with fall turkey and deer season starting up. Plus camping on WMA land is by permit with restrictions including no carry, even if licensed, unless on a hunt. Great Smokey Mountains National Park land is out since no pets/dogs are allowed, no fires other than in designated camps in existing fire rings, and no motorized vehicles in the backcountry allowed. Big South Fork is also probably out since they have leash requirements everywhere in the park including back country. Cumberland Gap has lots of backcountry options but they are established sites that require a reservation. I am pretty sure you can do day of or day before as traffic is not high but it is still probably not what you are looking for. I know that David Crockett State Park, Montgomery Bell State Park, Bledsoe Creek State Park, Cedars of Lebanon State Park, and Henry Horton State Park have primitive sites but most are a not that remote and some are hike in only so you would not be able to get a vehicle to anything other than the developed (and sometimes crowded) tent and RV campground sites. Pretty much any state park is going to have leash requirements. I know I have been out hiking at Henry Horton and seen off leash dogs so it is not always enforced but it is policy. I don't think I have backpacked, camped, or hiked anywhere in Tennessee that I did not see another person or group during my trip. Some places and times are busy, some are not but even off season or off peak I typically see others. I don't think I have had a truly isolated backpacking trip since Bankhead National Forrest in the early 90's down in Alabama. Went 6 days without seeing another soul other than my hiking partner. Good luck in your search but you may have to put some miles under the tires to find anything truly remote. (side note: with current drought conditions there are going to be be some restrictions on open fires in many locations as well. No real rain in the forecast for most of October either so that is not likely to improve.)

If they are transportation/car/motor people and Nashville ends up being the choice you can try the Lane Motor Museum. https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/ They have some really off the wall and quirky stuff there that is pretty interesting. Not just a bunch of muscle cars or high dollar super cars. They have planes, boats, micro cars, amphibious cars, motorcycles, and motorized oddities from all over the world.

I like my ribs dry rubbed, my pulled pork with vinegar base ( and a little spicy), my brisket heavily peppered with some Memphis style sauce on the side, and hate all you want but a good homemade (tangy) Alabama white sauce on some smoked chicken or turkey is great. Memphis is finally turning a corner with BBQ but for a long time they lost their claim as a BBQ Mecca in my opinion. In the 80's and early 90's things were great. Late nineties and well into the 2000's were a sad sad period of time. Any decent place either shuttered their doors or went the way of over commercialized/franchised corporate BBQ. Food costs skyrocketed and margins shrank so corners were cut like lower quality cuts and getting rid of seasoned wood. I left in the mid 90's but family still there kept me coming back 8-10 times a year and honestly we stopped going to get BBQ very often around 1998 or 1999. Anything left was just crap. The last several years (pre covid) were starting to be pleasant surprises. In contrast Middle Tennessee really saw BBQ take off and flourish in the same period with some real standouts starting up and gaining traction in the early 2000's. Sadly I am seeing some of the same downward trends in Middle TN that I saw in Memphis in the 90's with over commercialization. I will still choose several spots in Middle TN over anything Memphis has to offer but I fear the lines on the graph are close to reaching an intersection point.

Well the previous record that was broken was also achieved on the 69th attempt so it is in line with the accepted norm at those distances/records I guess. LRI Barrel, Cadex chassis, McMillian action, Timney trigger and a Vortex Razor. Rifle chambered in .416 Barrett. Just a simple low buck ELR build How about that 350 MOA mount/rail though? That thing looks crazy.

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C64 was my first and I held on to it far to long until we got a Windows 3.1 machine, might have been a somewhat early Dell. I had that thing loaded up with the tape drive, two disk drives, the Koala Pad, joysticks, more than two dozen cartridge based games and probably close to 200 on disk (most pirated). Ahh the memories. I actually wrote a program in BASIC on the C64 for my final project in a civil engineering course in college. It was for calculating compressive failure loads in concrete core/cylinder samples if I recall.

I would not ride it. Looks uncomfortable and awkward. Hard to say how it will behave in the wind, especially a crosswind fully loaded. If you have a way to ditch the low (small) swing arm bag and get traditional side bags that is the route I would go. Then lower the rear bag to seat height as a back rest. I would loose the handle bar bag as well or at least scale it significantly down. Looks like way too much weight to have on your suspension and bars unless you have your down pillows stuffed in there. The above setup was 9 to 10 days including camping gear, extra cold weather gear, and rain gear. I over packed and should have left the tank bag at home. The passenger bag is simply a cover to hold a small 6 pack cooler for drinks and snacks. The left side case had tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, camp towel, tool kit, tire kit, camp knife, and spare light. Right case is a go bag of clothes that I can pull right out and take up to a room if I am staying in a hotel rather than camping. That bag has all of my clothes for the trip. Also in that right case is a spare pair of street shoes and a pair of flip flops if I need some for a camp shower. Finally there is rain gear in there as well. Rear trunk has spare riding gloves, ball cap, first aide kit, jetboil stove, coffee, tea bags, snacks, food, face shield cleaner and microfiber towel, spare camp towel, hoodie or pullover jacket, spare knife, spare flashlight, and plenty of space for road souvenirs. I ended up buying a few t-shirts and a hoodie for gifts along the way and they went in there. Like I said I could have left the entire tank bag at home. I could have left a few changes of clothes at home. All in all I could have dropped another 10lbs off the bike easy, maybe 15 or more.

Yes and no. From my limited research on the topic you have to get paperwork approved first but you can in some cases bring a firearm in with you. A traditional hunting rifle is fairly easy. Bolt action, lever action, single shot and Shotguns are not a major issue. You can pretty much forget about any type of semi auto long gun, especially anything that resembles an AR platform weapon. Handguns are extremely limited. Anything with a barrel length less than 4" is strictly forbidden which knocks out a bulk of what we in the US consider a carry gun. You could take in say a 6" barreled revolver fairly easily as long as you file the paperwork for approval first. Also take note that Canada has an issue with many knives as well. I did not take my normal EDC folding knife. Fixed blades are ok but anything that is spring assisted, has a pin/post/thumb knob to assist in opening, or can be opened one handed via gravity or flipping/inertia is forbidden. I took in two fixed blade "camp" knives with my gear. Valid since I was in fact camping and had camp cook gear with me. They are used to and good with hunting so firearms and knives that would traditionally used by hunters are not a problem. Stray much beyond that and you will not have a good day at the border.

Don't be jealous, join in. I did this (and many of my trips) solo but am always looking for riding partners to take part in my craziness. Next year is Trans Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia. 2024 is Tuktoyaktuk, Dust to Dawson, Top of the World Hwy, and Deadhorse, AK. I may actually leave my bike stored in the PNW for a year and fly back out in 2025 for Vancouver Island, BC, and the Pacific Northwest. Get yourself one. They are soooooo comfortable. If you have the inseam to handle it or get a lowered version they make trips much more enjoyable. I actually bought this one because I had lost some of my interest in touring due to the comfort level of my other street bike. I have a sport touring bike, Honda VFR800, and I loved it for 200± miles but doing multiple 300 mile days was just not enjoyable anymore. I am actually going to take all the luggage and touring accessories off of the VFR and just return it to fun weekend corner carving duties. This bike makes even 500+ mile days easy. I would often find myself with the fuel light on (220 to 240 miles) before I was ready to stop. I could outride the tank if you will. Previous bikes I was looking for a stop and stretch break at 100~150 miles. It has renewed my passion for motorcycle touring. I had not even cleaned up my unpacked gear before I had the mapping software open planning my next multi day ride.

So the answer to the question that probably no one asked... Where has Oldironfan been? I mean He has not posted in close to two months and only visited once or twice to read the goings on. I bought a new bike and took off for a few weeks to ride. I had been planning a fly and ride trip over the Spring. I knew I had some time to take off work around the first of June so I was looking at big bore adventure bikes in Texas, Colorado, Oregon, California, and even a few in the northeast. The plan was to fly out and buy a bike then take the long way home over a couple of weeks. All that went out the window when I found a bike about an hour and a half down the road near Cookeville, TN. I picked it up near the end of May and promptly tore it apart to set it up for my needs and wired in some accessories. I then quickly revamped my plan for a ride during my time off. Should I go out to the east coast and places like Cape Hatteras? Nope, the weeks following Memorial Day and the official start of summer beach season would mean traffic and tourists, lots of them. That was out. Should I go south to ride the Florida Keys. See above plus it was going to be hot and swampy down there. Should I go West toward the mountain passes of the Rockies and the deserts of Arizona or Nevada? Maybe, but the heat would probably be high in the desert and my comfort level off road with narrow mountain passes on a new bike might be an issue. North was the only option that made much sense so off to Canada and the Great Lakes it was. I decided I would ride around the perimeter of all the great lakes. I did make the executive decision to ignore lake Michigan and Michigan all together. Too many trips to Detroit, Grand Rapids, Benton Harbor, and Chicago for work made spending much effort on seeing Lake Michigan seem pointless. I needed to dip a toe in Superior, Huron, Ontario, and Erie. So June 1 I set off and headed for the west side of Lake Superior. About 10 days later I returned home with an additional 3200 miles in the bike and a bunch of memories to go with the pictures. My route was Nolensville, TN > Rockford, IL > Stone Lake, WI > Thunder Bay Ontario CA > Wawa Ontario CA > Manitoulin Island Ontario CA > Wiarton Ontario CA > Kingston Ontario CA > Niagara Falls Ontario CA > Erie, PA > Cleveland PA > Columbus PA > Nolensville, TN (home). Through it all I managed to get in about 250 to 300 miles of gravel and forest service roads in Northern Wisconsin and Canada. I camped a few night, stayed in a cabin and a bunkee a couple nights, and hit a few hotels on the way up and back. Also had to hit a hotel in Niagara Falls as there were not many camping options close by. Also snuck in a ferry crossing although it was not as enjoyable as I would have hoped due to rain and upper 40º F temperatures. My steed for the ride and my new commuter is my '05 BMW R1200GS that my wife has nicknamed Tucan. In addition to the 3200 miles on the trip I have put a about 1800 miles on locally bringing my total for the summer to 5000ish miles.

Hello and welcome, Darrell is correct. Nashville is heavy in health care and health insurance with several major players being headquartered and having a large corporate presence here. My wife works in Healthcare IT and has worked for several of them. The greater Nashville area is pretty much awash in hospitals, specialists, and large specialty practices. Get out side of the metro area and things get more difficult. There is a real problem with hospitals, clinics, and rehab centers being closed down in rural counties, often leaving behind huge gaps in available care for residents to navigate. I will add that Tennessee is not necessarily a milder climate we just shift our extremes the other way. We may not get the cold and snow you do but our summers (sometimes our springs and falls also) can be brutally hot with ridiculously high humidity. If you can tolerate 90+ degrees with 80%+ humidity better than you can snow and cold then it might be for you.

Antioch is going the same way as all Nashville neighborhoods, gentrification and development. They are spending millions in Antioch right now. Very steadily pushing property values up and those so called "undesirable" elements out. I am in no rush to move to the area, mostly because it is Davidson County, but I worked, ate, and shopped in Antioch regularly up until about two years ago. Never once had an issue and saw some of the early signs of the reclamation and redevelopment of the area.

A polymer 80 Glock clone takes me about 15 to 20 minutes. The first one I did I took my time so it probably took closer to an hour. I work in the firearms industry as an engineer, I was a machinist for many years, and I play around as an amateur gunsmith on the side. I built dozens of AR platform weapons from billet, 20% forgings, 80% lowers, and stripped lowers before I did a polymer 80 build. The P80 stuff is dead simple and can be done with hand tools in a matter of minutes. Fret cutters or end cutters similar to the ones linked below really make the job easier. A rotary tool makes things easy as well. https://www.amazon.com/KNIPEX-68-01-160-Cutters/dp/B005EXO6TO/ref=asc_df_B005EXO6TO/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312003160272&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16580136110054556434&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9013095&hvtargid=pla-454741761013&psc=1

Many times I drove straight into Mexico without a single LEO, agent, or official glancing my way much less stopping anyone to check documentation or cargo. There were not even any gates or stops, just rolled right on through. There was far more scrutiny when arriving by air. Getting back into the US is a different story. Even learning the tricks, times of day, and best locations it was usually a 45 minute to 2 hour ordeal with a ridiculous line on the bridges. Add in that at least 30% of the time our vehicles were pulled to the side and searched and it is pretty clear who is somewhat serious about border security. I could have driven a truck full of weapons, ammo, and explosives into Mexico at anytime as long as I came back with an empty vehicle. Man I do miss the tacos though...

Slightly unusual I know but if anyone still has one of the TOZ 35 Single Shot 22LR Free Pistols kicking around unloved in your safe please let me know. I am interested in picking one up. Hoping to find one locally before I go through the risk and hassle of finding one out of state and doing the transfer. I am in Middle TN but would make a bit of a drive toward the east or west side to get one, especially if it is a nice day and I can ride the motorcycle. Would really prefer the full kit but if you have the pistol only or pistol with some parts and no box we can talk.

Your internals and major G3 components are compatible. Things like grip plugs, flared mag well inserts and grip overlay textures are not compatible. There are P80 specific versions of those available from some sellers. There is some slightly difference geometry in the grip. Most holsters are fine or at least have more than enough adjustment in the retention adjustment screw (kydex type) to accommodate the P80 frames. I did one of the SC (26) P80 frames some time back and there was one spring that was not compatible with the off the shelf 19/17 kits but that was likely due to the subtle differences between 26 and 17/19 internals not P80 vs OEM Glock.

In general exposed rim cartridges don't feed or load all that well in box style magazines. Traditional cartridges' and shotgun shells from the period of transition from percussion fired weapons (powder, patch, ball) were typically straight wall and with an exposed rim. These feed just fine from a tube magazine and a lift mechanism or could be easily extracted/ejected from a break action. As higher power "modern" cartridges came into play things shifted. Now there was a concern that the modern jacketed and point tip bullets were not safe in a tube magazine however with their traditionally rebated rims they would load and feed in a box style magazine. The spring loaded box magazine lends itself to bolt action as the bolt will compress the magazine spring when closed and then strip that next round from the magazine when cycled. You can do this with a pump action but there would need to be a rotational aspect designed into the action, such as a cam, to rotate the bolt and lock the lugs into the barrel/extension since you do not have the manual rotation of the as you would in a bolt action.

Yep, The tear in my right knee started aggravating my left knee, my right hip, and my lower back. I have never had back issues like so many friends and family members so I was concerned. After fixing the knee and getting everything strong again it all went away. Years later and no lower back pain, no knee pain, and no hip issues. I was surprised at how much hip strength and flexibility affected knee function. I did not really think of them as all that related or connected until I started focusing on my hips in physical therapy to strengthen the upper leg and knee. The big trigger for me to finally break down and have the surgery was when my knee would just buckle at unexpected times. All those other muscles that are compensating for your injured knee can just basically give up for a moment. It really liked to do it when I was going up stairs. I dropped my motorcycle once when I put my right foot down and the knee buckled. Parked the bike, started physical therapy, then scheduled the surgery right after that.

Tore my meniscus and fractured the head of my tibia running more than 10 years ago. I had to wait for the fracture to heal up before I could contemplate the meniscus repair. Once I had waited the knee felt ok'ish enough that I put off surgery. It continually got worse though and it began to limit me in my daily activities. I still tried to avoid surgery with about 8 weeks of physical therapy. Of course that did not help since meniscus do not repair themselves so I finally had the surgery. It was instantaneously better. Very little pain after surgery. I had it done on a Wednesday and was in physical therapy again that Friday. I was on crutches for 7 days but they were slowly getting me back bearing some weight through that week. By the following Wednesday I was off crutches, walking 1+ miles a day, and hitting physical therapy 3 times a week. I could have gone back to running inside of a month if I had wanted to. My take away points; Do as much physical therapy (strengthen and stretch the knee supporting muscle structure including your hip) as you can before the surgery. I firmly believe it greatly reduces recovery time and complications. Do as much physical therapy after surgery as you can. Same reasons as above. Do not wait to have the surgery any longer than you have to. My biggest complications were lots, and lots, and lots of scar tissue that had to be removed from previously unaddressed injury. I was also compensating for the weakened knee causing misalignment and increased strain on other supporting muscle and structure. I should have done it as soon as my fracture healed. I went to Vanderbilt Bone and Joint in Franklin. Surgery took a few hours and was outpatient. I was home in my own bed that afternoon. The surgeon that did my repair is no longer there at Vanderbilt but I still have good things to say about them in general. I have been back to a different doctor for a hand injury and they are very thorough and efficient.

I was all set to upgrade this year after holding off last year until things settled down. It appears I will keep holding off until 2023 or 2024. I have a low 2006 F150 with only 80k miles on it. It was not the truck I really wanted though as it is 2wd and the extended (supercab) not supercrew cab so no rear seat. I wanted the true 4 door, rear seat, and 4wd but I got this one so cheap I could not pass it up. It has served me well for a few years but I always thought it would be a temporary place holder. Now I am thinking of spending a bit more on some preventive maintenance, detailing, and some new tires to keep it going for another few years. I have a car that gets decent mileage and will haul 4 people comfortably, 6 in a pinch, so I wanted to get rid of it and the F150 so I could replace two with one nice truck to cover all my needs but I refuse to pay $50k+ for a used truck and $60k+ for a new one. I have been seeing $40k+ for trucks with over 100k miles, just insane.

Quit my six figure job that had me working 50+ hours a week with 75%+ travel. I was on the road 38 to 42 weeks of the year. Great corporate gig with good pay, great benefits, solid company with no signs of potential failure at the next economic down turn. It was still worth it for me to take a pay cut and a role with a smaller company that had less than stellar benefits. The pay has worked out fine since I have seen more in bonuses and perks than I did before. The benefits have not been an issue since my stress, blood pressure, and general health is much better these last couple years. There was certainly some risk involved in the change but my family is better off as a whole because of it. On the other side of that is my wife still works less hours in a week, works from home 100% of the time, and she makes twice as much as I do. She is certainly smart, experienced and hard working so she did not get the role just handed to her but I still look back and wonder how I managed to decide to get into engineering and manufacturing when I could be doing software development from my home office right now.

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Military designation will be 6.8x51 Sig has a commercial version that is .277 Fury

That entrepreneurial initiative is exactly what drove the creation of the 80% market. There has been multiple fairly large and profitable business ventures based almost exclusively on 80% receivers. Back when I started machining AR lowers from raw forgings (what came to be called 20% receivers) there were no readily available 80% receivers and certainly no easy jigs that would tooling kits that would let you finish the work with a common wood working trim router. Then you get into the Polymer 80 craze. No one fronted the money for the tooling to produce those if they did not expect a significant profit on the back end. The 80% market exploded and it was made "easy" for the common handy person to complete one. The entrepreneurs created the reality that the ATF is fighting back against now. The same thing is happening with Form 1 suppressor kits. There was a legal avenue to produce and register your own suppressor. Entrepreneurs saw a completely legal window of opportunity to create products that while incomplete/non functioning could be completed by the end user easily. It is really no surprise that a percentage (debatable how large) did not care about the legalities of ATF form 1 submissions and purchased their products with zero intention of every following those laws. It is also no surprise that some people see and 80% receiver and related parts kits as a way to produce firearms for profit or for illegal markets regardless of the laws.