Building an AR pistol part 1

As I grow as a shooter I expect my firearms to grow with me. One of the beautiful things about the AR platform is that you can create anything from a 458 SOCOM moose exploding rifle to a 5.56 AR pistol all using the same exact components aside from some caliber specific upper parts.  Hell, you can even use the same lower receiver group and magazines for the .223, 5.56, 300blk, 25-45 sharps, and the 458 SOCOM!

Combative Pistol 1 with ORS

This is just a brief summary of the pistol course I took with ORS recently. I trained with Olmsted Risk Solutions about 8 months ago at the Defensive Preparedness Summit; you can read the summary of that here. This course was different in that the focus was on pistol employment in a day to day scenario.

I left my AR for an AK

WASR 10/63 in action

For the past 12 years I was a die hard AR fan boy, but was never a hater of the ultimate rival of my go to rifle. I just didn't pay any attention to it, similar to an annoying younger sibling. After some extensive research and peer pressure by Olmsted Risk Solutions I decided to go to the dark side

DIY Gun Painting for under $75.00

I decided to hop on the gun painting bandwagon and have my S&W M&P 15-22 painted a cool and functional pattern, until I saw the price tag. For what some of these companies charge for a paint job, I could buy an entirely new gun. In addition, the durability of some of these coats is highly

Trading Tradition for Function

1911 on bottom was traded for the AK

I recently traded my S&W 1911 for a Yugo M-70 AK-47. Some of you may believe I made a good move and some of you are considering tracking me down and kicking my ass. I debated doing this trade for quite some time and took quite an emotional beating from a good friend of mine when I told him I made the trade. Putting aside bias towards a certain platform and nostalgia for a tried and true piece of Americana, this was a smart move on my part.

Bugout Bag = Get Home Bag

As a self-proclaimed minimalist when it comes to all things prepared I wanted to give my 2 cents on the Bugout Bag and the Get Home Bag.

These two items seems to have quite the debate on what the contents should be and the more pushy types on the forums tend to be of the mind that if you don’t use the same designer bag as them that you are woefully under-prepared.

Are Preppers actually Prepared?

Jungle Run at the Big Run Ranch 

When thinking of a prepper, most often we picture a person who has some sort of room in which they store massive quantities of supplies such as food, water, methods of self-defense and tools for hunting. They may have some limited training on survival or bush-craft and hopefully can properly utilize the firearms they spent all that hard earned money on. Ask a prepper what they are preparing for and they will mostly likely draw up some specific event or collapse of some kind. They may even go into their plans on how to survive it.

That sounds like a great plan right?

My week at the Big Run Ranch

I was fortunate to be invited to the Defensive Preparedness Summit hosted by ORS to share ideas and philosophies on defensive shooting tactics and wilderness survival in a practical application environment. The ranch facility is a sprawling hilly terrain which is perfect for anything ranging from shoot and move drills to shelter building and animal tracking.

People who believe in “Absolutes” have not been in enough danger.



Lance (right) and I



Greetings, I consider myself to be a lifelong student because I firmly believe that once you stop learning you have stopped growing and have ultimately started your decline towards death. I do a fair amount of networking through electronic means and the old fashioned hands on approach as well and what I have come to learn is that there is no such thing as an “Absolute”.

Is the “Warrior Mindset” dangerous?

I recently signed up for the Survival Summit from an email I received from the American Preppers Network. The lineup up blew me away and seemed to have some great learning opportunities for the full spectrum of the prepping and survival community. I found this summit to be an absolutely fantastic idea and I have so far learned a great deal of information that will be of great use for my future prepping endeavors. The one issue I had with this summit had nothing to do with the hosting site but with what their star host had to say.