Table of contents for October/November #33 2019 in RECOIL OFFGRID

I recently had a chance to interview actress Carly Schroeder in our sister publication RECOIL about her decision to leave a promising acting career to join the Army. After hearing her reasons for doing so and what she told me about the façade of Hollywood’s virtue signaling and shady approach to conformity, it got me thinking of a song called “Smiling Faces Sometimes” by a band called The Undisputed Truth. Stop whatever you’re doing, go give it a listen, and pay careful attention to the lyrics. I’m sure you’ll be able to relate to the message of being duped by someone you thought you could trust. We’ve all met countless people in our lives who came to us with a hardy handshake, big smile, and made us feel good to…

With your friendliest smile, you walked up to the stranded motorist and said, “Hello sir, can I give you a hand?” From the headlights of your own vehicle, you could see him well enough in the darkness. His expression seemed to be one of relief. He pumped your handshake hard and offered his prolific thanks for your help. Instinctively, you profiled the stranger and checked your surroundings. He wasn’t dressed like a country boy (even though you were in a rural area), and you could see numerous tattoos peeking out from his shirt collar and sleeves. A few spider webs and skulls ran across the man’s visible skin. No big deal, you reasoned to yourself. Plenty of people have tattoos these days, you thought. But little red flags kept popping…

Not every self-reliant home is suitable for livestock. You need acreage, and the land would have to support sufficient forage, water, and fencing. You’d need to invest in a working chute to administer vaccines and treat a myriad of health concerns, and marketing the product would require a trailer or a haul bill. But even when cows, sheep, or hogs don’t make sense on a property, bees might. Honeybees can be kept nearly anywhere, even on a high-rise roof or balcony when local ordinances allow it. They yield a sweetener with an indefinite shelf life, suitable for sale or barter. They can provide wax for waterproofing fabric or treating furniture, and they contribute to the pollination of numerous crops within a two-mile radius of the hive. Be aware that beekeeping…

In the years following World War II, a number of unique rifles were developed for survival use by downed pilots and aircrews for the U.S. military. Not intended as fighting weapons, they were more or less designed to help a downed pilot or crew forage for small game. One of my favorites has always been the M6 Aircrew Survival Rifle. This was a superposed combination of a rifle barrel mounted atop a shotgun barrel. The rifle was chambered in .22 Hornet, and the shotgun was designed for a .410 shotgun shell. Each barrel measured 14 inches in length. The M6 could be folded in half for compact storage with nine rounds of .22 Hornet and four shotgun shells (the original loadout specs were two bird loads and two rifled slugs)…

Humanity’s relationship with water is full of cruel irony. Roughly 71 percent of Earth’s surface is covered with water, yet water scarcity affects four out of every 10 people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Too much of it at once, and we drown; not enough, and we die of dehydration. And even when we do have the right amount of water, microscopic pathogens contained within it can cause life-threatening illnesses. The WHO estimates that waterborne diarrheal diseases cause 2-million deaths each year. Waterborne illnesses don’t just affect those living in poverty-stricken developing nations. They’re a worldwide problem. In the United States, the microscopic parasite cryptosporidium affects close to 750,000 people annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other protozoan cysts, such as giardia, are common…

You don’t need too much gear to start home brewing, but here are a few grid-down brewing and distillation utensils you won’t want to be caught without. Non-Electric Scale: For measuring sugar, hops, and any number of other ingredients and adjuncts, a little spring scale is a great choice. It’ll last for years, it doesn’t mind getting wet, and it’s EMP and CME proof, unlike electronic scales. Thermometer and Spoon: Self-explanatory. Stainless pots: Don’t boil your brew in aluminum pots. Stainless is the best choice, unless you have unchipped enamel pots available. Cast iron, copper, tin, and aluminum can react with acid and sugar, creating some unpleasant tastes. Bottle Capper and New Caps: You can keep using beer bottles over and over, so long as the bottle mouth is undamaged…

Wherever there’s money, there are complexities and danger. This is especially true for travelers converting currency. While just about every international traveler must undertake this task, most don’t see the inherent threats that come with it. Before we dive into the monetary aspects of this discussion, be aware that there are places in the world that still have a deeply ingrained bartering culture. Knowing what’s valued in the places you visit is golden. I once paid for a couple of nights of lodging and food with a multitool and a military field jacket. Realize that things are valued differently in different places. Do your homework. Travel forums and backpacker blogs will almost always have some valuable insights on this. Your skill sets can also be a commodity. If you’re good…

It’s no secret that we love an awesomely appointed bug-out vehicle. Our sister publication, RECOIL, covers one in every issue. While these trucks, trailers, and overlanders are lots of fun to look at and drool over, most of us would have to win the lottery to be able to afford one. With price tags that routinely blast past six figures, ground-up custom vehicles for survival and preparedness are a bridge too far for most budgets. According to AAA, the average American spends nearly 3,000 hours behind the wheel each year. With this in mind, it’d behoove us all to treat our vehicle as not just a mode of transportation, but a valuable tool that can provide all kinds of support in case of a crisis. Simply pulling out of your…

When preparedness enthusiasts start talking about SHTF barter items, the list almost always includes alcoholic beverages. Diversified preppers often stock up on liquor and wine, since they age well, and some even dabble in storing beer (which needs to be rotated, aka consumed, before it gets “skunked”). Since all good things come to an end, at some point your stocks would run out. In the event of a drawn-out economic crisis or grid-down scenario, the value and importance of alcohol would likely increase. But what’s your resupply strategy? Have you ever thought about making your own wine or beer? It’s not as hard as you might think, and you don’t even need much in the way of supplies. I’ve been home-brewing beer, wine, mead, and hard cider for years, and…

The concept of being a “gray man” is often referenced in survivalist circles, but after seeing the term misused countless times, we’ve come to realize that it may need some clarification. The author of this article, and several RECOIL staffers, spent their previous lives skulking around third-world cesspools serving God and country in a capacity that required them to blend in or become “gray” — nondescript passersby who garner little to no attention and are quickly dismissed by those they come into contact with. The ability to become transparent in a hostile environment is important not just to accomplish a mission, but also to protect oneself and one’s family after the job is over. This is all well and good in theory and in conflict zones, but how can those…

“There is nothing that sharpens a man’s senses so acutely as to know that bitter and determined enemies are in pursuit of him night and day.”— Frederick Russell Burnham, Scouting on Two Continents Tracking is more than an outdated science seen in movies or documentaries about Native Americans. Its applications span centuries; tracking was employed in the tactical arena from the American Indian Wars to Vietnam, Rhodesia, and Afghanistan, to name a few. It continues to prove its value on the battlefield and in search-and-rescue (SAR) operations, even compared to more sophisticated methods involving high-cost assets, such as helicopters, drones, and working dogs. Man-tracking can be used to great effect in preventing criminal and terrorist actions in an urban environment. We tend to think of tracking in the context of…

Here’s the scenario: It’s 5:30 a.m. and you go to the fridge to grab some milk, only to notice it expired a day ago. You hear a disturbance from the other room and, soon, in rushes your wife in a panic, “Don’t drink that! It’s gone bad!” Without even stopping to breathe, she grabs the milk and pours it down the drain. In the same household, if you go to the medicine cabinet, you’ll find medications that expired years ago. Why is it that food is immediately thrown out the minute it goes beyond the expiration date, but we keep expired medications “just in case?” Perhaps the easy answer is that we can always go to the store and get another gallon of milk before the sun comes up. The…

Although social media often seems like a vast wasteland of trolls and never-ending feces-flinging, it occasionally offers thought-provoking insights into the 7.5 billion humans we share this planet with. I recently found one such discussion on AskReddit — a sub-section of Reddit.com, where thousands of users respond to various open-ended questions. This question asked, “People who were adults during Y2K, what was the most radical action someone you know did to prepare for the ‘apocalypse?’” For any preparedness-minded individual, this is an interesting topic for a few reasons. First, we know exactly how Y2K ended — in retrospect, many people would consider it a false alarm driven by a snowball effect of hype. However, this was arguably only the case because that same hype drove businesses and governments to spend…