After a recent SAR call-out I decided that I needed to waterproof my All Purpose EDC pack. We were deployed two hours away from home. We stepped into the woods at 2200 and walked three miles into the woods in pitch darkness. After a Blackhawk helicopter had hoisted the patient and the rescue was over, we walked back out. After about 12 hours total I got home around 0730. It wasn’t the rain that made me realize the need for waterpoofing, it was the river crossing.
BSR Accident Avoidance Training AAR
This article is a guest post from Frank. Frank contacted me a few weeks ago and told me he had attended a defensive driving class at Bill Scott Racing (BSR). Having attended some training at BSR myself I was interested to hear his take. I was also extremely gratified that my writing nudged someone to get vehicle training! Frank was gracious enough to write this after-action review of his experience. Hopefully it encourages a few more of you to seek driving training. Enjoy!
Defensive 1911: Dropping the Slide
The 1911 design is, as most of its more emotional followers are quick to point out, over 100 years old. Mostly I don’t care about that at all. It’s interesting but it’s not better because it’s ancient any more than your Glock is better for being filthy or Austrian or grey in color. However, I do care about that in as much as the old design requires some special considerations in use and handling. Today I’m going to talk about one of those: dropping the slide on the 1911.
Defensive AR Setup 3: The Rifle Itself
Many of you are probably wondering why I chose to write about accessories (Part I, Part II) for the rifle before writing about the AR-15 rifle itself. I have been operating under the assumption that most of you reading this already own your rifle. I realize that is not the case for everyone, so today I am going to talk about a few considerations in regards to the selection of your carbine.
Streamlight TLR RM-2 Long Gun Light
As I wrote recently, I am a big fan of the Streamlight TLR-1 weapon-mounted light. Many of Streamlight’s successive WLMs have held little appeal for me, trending generally smaller and intended for EDC handguns. That’s not universally true, but there hasn’t been much in Streamlight’s line that has really excited me until recently. Earlier this year Streamlight introduced a crop of new lights including the Streamlight TLR RM-2.
Defensive 1911: Cleaning & Maintenance
The 1911 is not a platform that suffers long periods of inattention gracefully. It has to be cleaned and lubricated at least somewhat regularly in order to keep running efficiently. This is in contrast to a lot of guns that will keep running notwithstanding a dearth of maintenance. Let’s look at cleaning and maintenance of the defensive 1911.
Defensive AR-15 Setup 2: Everything Else
In my last post on the defensive AR-15 I talked about sighting options for the defensive AR. Today I am going to talk about the only other accessories you truly need on a defensive AR. This is just my opinion and reflects my experience with the platform and my personal preferences and biases, so they may differ from yours. Also, I know this ground has been covered, but I haven’t had my say yet, so here it is.
The Venerable Streamlight TLR-1
If you go looking for a holster to accommodate a weapon-mounted light, there are two lights you will see repeated over and over again: the Surefire X300 and the Streamlight TLR-1. I own several Streamlight TLR-1s and have used them across many different applications. If you’re looking for a do-it-all light I don’t think you could go wrong with this one.