Table of contents for August/September #50 2022 in RECOIL OFFGRID

Call them what you want — brass knuckles, knucks, knuckle dusters, brass paper weights, and so on. You know what they are when you see them. They make for a small, easily concealable close-quarters impact weapon, particularly the ones we’re going to look at. Commonly and incorrectly, they’re often portrayed as the weapons of thugs or bad guys or someone who doesn’t fight fair. At one time, knuckles were commonly found in general stores and department stores. Buying a set and carrying them was about as commonplace as a pocket knife. Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguard was known to carry a set. Many more went off to war with our soldiers, sailors, and Marines well into the 20th century. Yet, that’s when we saw a change. During the moral panic concerning switchblade…

EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the third and final part of our Tailor-Made ARs series, a conceptual approach to building task-focused, performance-driven rifles for emergency preparedness. Several RECOIL OFFGRID writers will each take a unique path to designing an idealized AR for survival and crisis response. We’ll examine how each weapon is tailored to the user, and how it can be creatively adapted to a multitude of dicey situations. We hope these builds reinforce the importance of choosing every component wisely with versatility in mind. When it comes to survival tools, there’s an old saying that “two is one and one is none.” The intent of this saying is to reinforce the importance of redundancy — if item A breaks or is lost, you still have item B. However, this logic…

Maintaining the health of an off-grid community involves suppressing infections and keeping wounds clean. For these, you’ll need antibiotics to destroy bacteria within the body and antiseptics for use on the skin. More, however, is needed to assure you’ll avoid contamination that could lead to epidemic disease among your people: you’ll need disinfectants. A disinfectant is a substance used to eliminate diseasecausing organisms (called “pathogens”) on inert surfaces such as countertops and medical instruments. If these surfaces aren’t disinfected, they can be teeming with germs. Contaminated instruments and sick room surfaces can get the entire group infected. The off-grid medic needs to have disinfectants on hand that can assure the health and safety of the people in their group. Some disinfectants do double duty as antiseptics, but many are too…

Whether you live in a rural area year-round or just travel to one on occasion, wildfires can be a major source of concern. These fast-moving natural disasters can crop up with little warning and sweep across the landscape obliterating everything in their path. Wildfires often cause devastation that affects the surroundings far beyond the point of origin. If you only had a short time to prepare to evacuate or possibly stay to battle an inferno, do you have a battle plan in mind? Are irreplaceable belongings stored in such a way that they can be quickly loaded into a car? Have you thought about how to defend your home proactively by preparing items such as a pool pump, fire extinguishers, or sprinkler system? Have you taken the time to create…

If you’ve ever tried wearing modern night vision goggles, you’ll understand why they’re often described as a superpower. Although it’s not quite as impressive as flying like a speeding bullet or lifting a semitruck, the ability to see clearly, identify targets, and shoot accurately in a nearly pitch-black environment feels like an unfair advantage. However, like most superpowers, night vision comes with some inherent drawbacks. It requires a substantial amount of gear — for starters, you’ll need a helmet, shroud, mount, and goggles or a monocular. The cost for these items adds up quickly and can easily exceed $5,000 or $10,000, and that’s before you consider common accessories like helmet-mounted lights, strobes, battery packs, and ear protection. Refer to RECOIL OFFGRID Issue 43 for several in-depth articles explaining the basics…

You might think that anyone who served as a combat sniper in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming a cop in the second-most populated city in the United States might be a grizzled old man with a chip on his shoulder. With a father who earned three purple hearts in Vietnam prior to entering policework on the infamously tough streets of Gary, Indiana, it might be in Victor Lopez’s DNA to serve others and stay humble doing it. “He’d tell me, ‘Treat everyone with respect regardless of what status you think they have,’” Lopez says. That same focus on patiently solving problems hasn’t only helped Vic earn respect in his careers, but also motivated him to teach others to avoid getting bogged down by ego and pride. Instead, he reminds students…

When Hollywood isn’t recycling and “reimagining” movies from yesteryear with unlikely cast lead actors/actresses like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as everyone, they occasionally get something right in the survival genre. Hollywood films have incredible reach and one blockbuster has the potential to create a whole generation of new outdoorsmen from its viewers. For all the good influence movies can have on inspiring the audience, there’s also plenty of bad as the collective efforts of writers, directors, and technical advisors frequently fail to hit their mark with respect to accuracy, safety, or plausibility. We’ve taken six Hollywood survival films and broken them down for their solid survival practices as well as the scenes that make us cringe. The Right The Edge (1997) “What one man can do, another man can do!”…

Preparedness is a highly individualized pursuit, with very few provisions being universally agreed on. But one principle that remains essentially beyond question is the utility (and value) of a good knife. Whether dressing out game, shaving down sticks for kindling or clipped to your pocket for everyday jobs, there is a knife for every situation — many of which are purpose-built to the task. The Tempest by Crane TEC (Tactical Everyday Carry) is a perfect example of an edged tool that arose directly from a specific need to fill a capability gap. Crane TEC’s founder, Hugh Crane, is a martial artist, self-defense instructor and former corrections officer. He has spent years refining an edged weapons defense system that is simple, easy to learn and integrates into existing hand-to-hand and defensive…

Hiking the Grand Canyon from the south rim to the north rim is a challenging hike that'll test you mentally and physically — perhaps even spiritually — but will compensate you with an experience steeped in unique natural beauty. At the end, it'll fill you with a feeling of accomplishment that’s almost overwhelming. Most people who've hiked rim to rim will break it up over multiple days to lessen the physical burden and to take more time to enjoy the journey. That’s the wise way to do it. Three fellow firefighters and I decided we were going to take things a step further and hike rim to rim to rim — across the canyon and back. Not only that, but we did the initial south-rim-to-north-rim trek in one day, and…