LND: Nonsense Guns.

   And now we break for just a wee bit o' nonsense...

   There are very real reasons for a doomsteader to own guns, and a number of firearms that are of practical utility.

   There are also a lot of guns on the market which are essentially range toys and conversation pieces.  And that's okay!  Nothing wrong with buying a gun just because it's awesome looking and fun to shoot.  'MERICA!

   But many of preppers confuse the playthings with essential tools, which can be a problem if the latter are neglected in favor of the former.

   Keep in-mind that "impractical" is not the same thing as "useless".  You can certainly shoot game or a bad guy with a novelty gun.  But there are better, usually cheaper weapons that put you at less of a handicap.

The Mare's Laig.

   The poster child for Hollywood contrived guns, from the heyday of TV westerns, when producers made their protagonists stand-out by giving them distinctive weapons.  Bounty hunter Josh Randall of Wanted Dead or Alive carried a big-loop Winchester lever-action rifle that had been cut down at both the barrel and stock so that it could be used as a sidearm. 

   In reality, this is a pointless gun.  The handgun-level 44-40 Winchester cartridge, fired out of shortened barrel, would have been slightly inferior to the typical .45 Colt revolver in power, and no better in accuracy.  The Winchester uses a tubular magazine, which gets cut down along with the barrel.  This leaves the Mare's Laig with the same capacity as a six-shooter.  All in an excessively heavy gun with an obnoxious overall length that takes two hands to use, with a higher probability of malfunction and slower rate of fire than what all the other horse-opera guys were shooting!

   To be fair, Wanted Dead or Alive didn't even try to pretend this was a particularly good weapon.  In the first episode, Josh Randall found himself at a noticeable disadvantage trying to work the lever from a prone position, then managed to hit a physically unimposing adversary (none other than the future Little Joe!) with a round that didn't take him off his horse or prevent his escape.

   Yet, due to it's badass appearance and association with Steve McQueen, who played Josh, and whose picture was in 1960s and 70s dictionaries next to the word "cool", people still love the Mare's Laig.

   Getting one used to be a problem, since cutting down a rifle makes it subject to registration and taxation under the federal National Firearms Act, which most people don't want to mess with.  But it finally occurred to someone that a Mare's Laig manufactured as such from the start (rather than being modified from a rifle) would technically be just a handgun, not restricted by the NFA.   New manufacture Mare's Laig (Ranch Hand, Mare's Leg) pistols are widely available at this writing.

AK/AR "Pistols".

   So, if we can get away with selling a cut-down 19th Century lever-action rifle as a handgun, why not do the same with modern, semi-auto rifles?

   Building the AR-15 and AK-47 with short barrels and no shoulder stocks has become a popular way to get around the NFA.  Of course, you loose considerable of power and accuracy with the short barrel.  These weapons are bulky and poorly balanced if you actually try to shoot them like pistols, and awkward to hold and sight rifle-style without a stock.  A more conventional pistol in 9mm +P with a 33 round extended magazine would be handier, and would have the advantage of being a normal, holster-friendly sidearm when you switch back to a 17 round mag.

   Now there are new, adjustable 'wrist braces' (wink-wink) on the market that make these AK/AR shorties a little more shootable.  But, if you need something that fires rifle rounds, a 16" barrel is already pretty handy.  Seems like the main purpose of these guns is to say "up yours" to the bATFe...

   Which is pretty good justification, come to think of it.

Pistol Grip Shotguns.

    Shotguns had stocks long before 1934, when the Feds started regulating this sort of thing.  And for good reasons...  The stock helps you manage recoil, acts as a spacer to put your eyes in alignment with the sights, and gives you a more stable hold on the gun for accurate shooting. 

   Replacing the stock with a pistol grip throws all that away in exchange for making the shotgun compact enough for... What?  Hiding under your coat on the way to a mob hit? 

   "A great truck gun!" I've heard some say about stockless shotguns (as well as Mare's Laigs and AK/AR pistols).  But what does that mean?  If it's a gun you carry in your truck, why would it need to be truncated?  Trucks have lots of room, and don't get tired from carrying a full-weight shotgun.  If it means you're gonna shoot it from inside the truck, an awkward, two-hand weapon is a poor choice.

   "Home defense!"  Really?  Shotguns are indeed the obvious go-to for home defense, but how does lack of a stock help you there?

   There's this notion that shotguns produce a wall of devastation, so you don't really need to aim them.  But shot patterns are actually pretty small at defensive range, even with a short barrel.  It is quite possible to miss, especially when you are just pointing, rather than properly aiming.

   Mossberg has figured out how to exploit loopholes in the law in order to produce a 14" barrel shotgun (er- "firearm") with a pistol grip that avoids NFA regulation.  I'm half-tempted to get one myself, just because it looks badass and I like the rule-bending aspect.  But, if there's real shotgun work to be done, I'd leave the novelty gun alone and grab my full stock 12 gauge!

Gimmick Shotguns.

   I remember watching the old Looney Tunes and thinking that Elmer Fudd had a heck of a shotgun, as it appeared to be a double-barreled, pump-action, semiautomatic, with a huge magazine capacity!

   Well, modern manufacturers aren't content to leave Elmer's gun in the realm of cartoons.  They're selling dual-tube magazine shotguns for umpteen round capacity, pump-action double barrels (rack once, shoot twice), Assault Rifle derived semiautomatics that can be fed from a big drum with dozens of rounds, and more.

   Tacti-cool as these scatterguns are, they are complex in design and function, which reduces reliability.  And they are expensive.  As in, you could buy multiple Mossberg 500 or Remington 870 tried-and-true shotguns for what one of these things costs, and have change enough left over for a steamer trunk of shells.

   A long sequence of blasting away nonstop with a shotgun is a 'Going Out In A Blaze Of Glory' climax scene in a zombie apocalypse movie.  The half dozen rounds in a conventional shotgun is probably sufficient to convince more realistic threats to find an easier target, at the very least.

.410 Revolvers.

   These are on the bubble of practicality.  The Taurus Judge was initially promoted as an automobile defense gun.  And the concept has some merit.  A load of birdshot to the face would no-doubt be substantially more effective against a carjacker, over-the-line 'protester', or road-raging nut than pepper spray.  All with substantially less risk of serious collateral damage than flinging bullets around.  Plus, the Judge (and the S&W Governor it inspired) can have the first chamber(s) loaded with .410 shotshells, and the remainder loaded with .45 Colt or .45 ACP, just in case the threat at hand is a psycho, crackhead, or Moro Tribesman who won't back-off after being hit with pellets.

   What keeps these revolvers from qualifying as practical is the fact that you can get revolvers to do essentially the same thing at half the weight and price.  Shotshells can be purchased (or hand-loaded) for revolvers in several popular calibers.  These rounds may not have the payload of .410 shells, but we're not shooting quail at 30 yards with them.  At the short ranges at which you'd use a birdshot revolver, the snake-shot should be an effective deterrent against ordinary thugs.

   Pulling .410 Revolvers even deeper into the novelty category are the many .410 gimmick shotshells that have been introduced for them.  Slug and buck, disks and BBs, etc.  Kind of misses the original point.  If you're going to fire projectiles more substantial than birdshot, why not just use good old BULLETS?

Super-Magnum Handguns.

   In the 1971 film Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood pointed a .44 Magnum revolver at Albert Popwell and told him that it was the most powerful handgun in the world, and capable of blowing his head clean off.  While not entirely correct, this moment of Hollywood badassery started an unending quest among gun nuts to own the most wrist-breakingly, eardrum-burstingly overpowered gun they could get their hands on.

   The .44 Magnum is on the uppermost tier of powerful practical sidearm cartridges.  Much more, and you'll need a revolver so large and heavy to make full use of it that you'd may as well carry a long gun.  Even .44 Magnum class cartridges are mostly wasted on muzzle flash in popular compact revolvers, and provide only a modest firepower advantage over sub-magnum rounds like the .44 Special.

   Still, practicality doesn't figure into this sort of thing.  So we've got a whole slew of cartridges that make the .44 Magnum look like a mouse-gun.  But they're far better suited to something like an updated Winchester 1886 rifle than any handgun.

.50 BMG 'Sniper' Rifles.

   In the wake of World War I, John Moses Browning decided to radically scale-up the standard US infantry rifle cartridge for use in his new heavy machine gun, creating the .50 Browning Machine Gun round.  It wasn't long before someone realized lighter rifles could be built around this powerhouse cartridge.  These have gained considerable popularity since the 1980s.

   A .50 BMG is the most powerful rifle you can legally own without registering it under the NFA as a "destructive device".  It has an effective range of well over a mile, and can punch through medium armor and considerable hard cover. 

    They also cost ten to twenty times as much as a practical precision shooting rifles, weigh four times as much, and use ammo that costs five times as much, and require special equipment if you want to roll your own.

   In skilled hands, an 'ordinary' bolt-action with decent glass in common calibers like 30-06 and .308 can reliably take out targets at over a quarter of a mile.  There are few realistic scenarios in doomstead defense that would require more than that from a 'sniper' rifle.

-Back to LOW-NONSENSE DOOMSTEADING Index.-

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LND: Arcane Firearm Nomenclature.

   Essential to the safe use of firearms is knowing exactly what you're doing when it comes to what ammo goes into which guns.  With about a zillion different cartridges out there, it is very possible to chamber and touch-off a round that was not designed to be fired in that particular weapon.  Depending on the combination, the result could be anywhere from poor performance to a zero-delay hand grenade.

   You'd think it'd be simple.  Make sure the head stamp on your ammo matches the markings on your gun and you're good, right?  But no.  Due to the long and complex development history of firearms, it's kind of a mess.

Caliber.

   Even the term "caliber" is a bit murky.  It usually means diameter in inch measurement with implied decimal, as in "forty caliber" meaning ".40 inch".  Sometimes it means a specific cartridge.  For an assortment of reasons, it is almost always used nominally when referencing loaded ammunition.  Most .45 cartridges use slightly larger than .45" diameter bullets, while most .44 cartridges actually use bullets just under .43", and .38 cartridges use bullets less than .36".

   Sometimes an extended caliber is a way to distinguish a cartridge, like the .307 Winchester, which uses a .308" bullet like most other nominal .30 caliber rifles.


Grains.

   A "grain" is tiny unit of weight (1/7000 pound) traditionally used to measure both gunpowder and bullets.  It does not refer to a particle of powder.


Caliber - Grains.

   One common way to identify cartridges in the 19th Century was by nominal caliber and powder charge in grains.  The 44-40 was a .44 bullet loaded over forty grains of gunpowder. 

   This naming convention worked well when cartridges were loaded with black powder.  But the rise of smokeless propellants at the end of the century meant that there would be far too great a difference between the various powder choices to give a simple load weight.  Only a few of the very earliest smokeless cartridges (like the 30-40 and 30-30) used this style of designation.


Caliber - Year.

   When it became clear that powder charge wouldn't work for smokeless cartridge designation in the early 20th Century, the number after the hyphen was switched to the last two digits of the introduction year.  This convention didn't last long, but did yield the still-popular 30-06 cartridge.  (Thirty caliber of 1906.)


Metric.

   Since firearms are marketed internationally, metric designations, given in millimeters, are common.  Sometimes just the diameter, but more specifically diameter and case length, as in 9 x 19mm. 


Diameter, then Words and/or Initials.

   There are lots of cartridges with the same diameter bullets, and more than a few with the same length case as well.  So a straightforward way to identify them is with a name based on the company that developed the round, some practical description of the ammo, or the nation of origin.  Occasionally, a wholly contrived name will be applied.  These descriptors are often abbreviated, since there's just so much room on a head stamp.

   In addition to every imaginable company and country name, cartridges are commonly identified as short, long, special, magnum, auto, super, belted, rimmed, rifle, pistol, etc.   Examples include the .38 Long Colt and .30 Remington.

  
Brundlefly Naming.

   As if things weren't already confusing enough, some cartridges, especially those based developed from older rounds, mix and match naming conventions.  For instance, the 6.5-06 A-Square is a (nominal) 6.5mm bullet in a necked-down 30-06 case developed by the A-Square company.

Gauge (aka Bore).

   Shotguns and the shells they fire are usually designated by gauge, which is determined how many bore-fitting round balls can be made from a pound of pure lead.  The bigger the shotgun, the fewer balls can be made, and the lower the gauge number. 

   The 12 Gauge is the most popular modern shotgun size.  The smaller 20 Gauge is also fairly common for youths, ladies, and anyone else who might be recoil-sensitive.   10, 16, and 28 Gauge shotguns are still around, but no longer common.  Most shotgun shells are nominally 2 3/4" in length.  Many guns are chambered to accept 3", and some newer models will take 3 1/2".  Shorter shells, including 2 1/2" and 1 3/4" mini-shells can safely be fired from the longer chambers, but may not cycle reliably in pumps or auto-loaders.

    Of course, somebody had to go and muddy-up the world of shotguns with the .410, which is not technically a gauge, but an inch caliber.  I guess "68 Gauge" just didn't sound right.  This is the smallest shotgun commonly available, and has often been a beginner's gun for children.  Standard .410 shells are 2 1/2" long, but 3" shells have recently been introduced for revolver use, of all things.

Shot.

   The pellets used in shotgun shells are identified by two number scales, buckshot and birdshot, both of which are counter-intuitively numbered highest for smallest.  Buckshot shells are usually marked with the number of pellets, while birdshot shells are marked with the total weight of shot.   The smallest shot (#10 - #12 on the birdshot scale) is called ratshot, suitable for close-range use on small pests, like rodents and snakes. 

   Birdshot shells are often marked "target".



Multiple Identity Confusion.

   Politics, language, common usage, and parallel development often result in the same cartridge getting alternate designations.

   Companies like to put their names on cartridges, like the .30 Winchester Center Fire.  Other companies don't like stamping their rival's name on ammo or rifles, so they label it something like 30-30.  Eventually it becomes known as 30-30 Win.

   Other companies were also reluctant to stamp their rival's name on the .380 Automatic Colt Pistol cartridge, preferring to call it .380 Auto.  But that was just the start, since it was also known by it's metric designation as 9x17mm...  Having less case length than most of the other 9mm cartridges rising at the time, it was also called the 9mm Short...  And, being used around the world, that became 9mm Kurz/Corto/Court... 

   Which is all the more confusing since, in America, we usually think "9mm" means the 9x19mm.  Which itself is also known as the 9mm Parabellum/NATO/Luger.  You might reasonably expect this round to also be known as the "9mm Long/Largo".  But that designation was used by the Browning 9x20mm Long... And the 9x23mm Largo/Bergmann–Bayard/Bayard Long...  Which must never be confused with the 9x23mm Winchester...

Exceptions to the Rule.

   Despite the dumbfounding confusion of cartridge designations, you must never, EVER use a cartridge for which your gun isn't specifically chambered...  Except that sometimes it's perfectly okay to do so.

   This is frequently the case with revolvers chambered for straight-walled, rimmed, lengthened versions of earlier cartridges.  A .357 Magnum can fire .38 Special ammo.  .44 Special works in a .44 Magnum.  .45 Colt works in a .454 Casull.  .22 Short works in a .22 Long Rifle revolver...  But, just to mess with us, .22LR shouldn't be fired from a .22 Magnum cylinder, since the latter cartridge is derived not from the .22 Short/Long/Long Rifle, but the nearly forgotten, larger case diameter, .22 Winchester Rim Fire.


Coping With The Madness.

   The saving grace in this swirling jumble of nomenclature is that you only have to know the details for the guns you shoot.  Can you fire a .357 SIG in a .357 Magnum handgun?  It doesn't really matter if you own only a .45 ACP!

   Though it might be wise to learn a bit about the more common cartridges, even if they aren't used by any of the weapons in currently in your collection.  You never know what you might come-across in the future, when you might not have access to the Internet for technical data.



Possible Appendices...
   Overview of Common Cartridges.
   Don't Try This At Home:  Firing the wrong cartridge. What happens?

Back to LOW-NONSENSE DOOMSTEADING Index.

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LND: Fences.

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   Of course, you don't want to keep the livestock in the barn all (or even most) of the time.  So you're going to need fences.

   Most farm animals are capable of jumping, crashing down, climbing over, burrowing under, or crawling through any fence that would be economically feasible to wrap-around a large area.  So fences actually work by creating a kind of psychological boundary.   Some combination of visual and tactile aspects has to convince the critter that it's not worth it to get to the other side of the barrier.

   I'm going to skip right over board, split rail, vinyl, and other expensive / cosmetically appealing fences for our purposes.  Kinda' defeats the purpose of a doomstead to have it look like a well-off show farm worth looting!

   Barbed wire is a relatively cheap, old school, and effective means to contain stock.  It is physically fairly strong, and has sharp projections every few inches that will stab or cut anything that comes into contact with it.  This usually discourages beasts from pushing into or leaning across it.  It tends to be long lasting and requires little maintenance.

Fence tensioning tool.

   Barbed wire needs to be stretched quite tight with a tensioning tool, so reinforced corner posts are required, and sometimes pull-to braced posts if there is a long distance between corners, or non-straight fence line.  The rest of the posts can be lighter, since they serve mostly to counter sagging and maintain spacing between the strands.   Usually four to six strands of barbed wire is used.  With tougher-skinned animals, posts have to be placed closer together keep the critters from spreading the strands apart to crawl through.

   Strands of barbed wire are often used to augment other fence that might otherwise be pushed-down or crawled-under.  

   Barbed wire should not be used for horses.  They are too thin-skinned, and prone to get panicked and tangled in the stuff, resulting in horrific injury.  Yeah, I know that (Insert Name Here) used barbed wire horse fences for years and nothing bad happened.  People get away with foolishness all the time... Until they don't.

   Field fencing, aka hog wire, is a mesh of steel wires knotted to create a pattern of rectangles.  (There is a similar form using welding rather than knots, which is generally unsuitable for livestock.)  It must be stretched tight between reinforced corner and brace posts, and held upright by lighter posts, much like barbed wire.

   Field fencing wire is probably the physically strongest practical material for livestock enclosure, especially in terms of being able to withstand a straight-on collision with a large animal.  But is not painful to touch or lean-across.  So it can be crushed down, or rooted up, trod upon, and thus rendered ineffective.  Supplemental barbed and/or hot wire is often used to prevent this.

   Hot wire is usually relatively lightweight, smooth wire (although barbed wire is sometimes used) attached to the fence posts with plastic insulators.  A fence charger sends a very high voltage, low amperage pulse of electricity out through the fence about once per second.  The return path for the current is through the earth to the charger's grounding rod(s), so anyone completing the circuit by touching the fence and ground (even if indirectly) when the pulse goes through will get an unpleasant, but harmless shock.  Solar powered charges are available for your off-grid needs.

   The light weight and tension needed for hot wire makes it easy to install and mend, allows greater distance between posts, and does not require braced corner posts.

   When in good repair, under most conditions, hot wire is quite effective.  But it is higher maintenance than barbed and field fencing wires, because green, wet foliage or a single downed strand will short-out the fence and greatly reduce shocking power.  Drought conditions can reduce the topsoil conductivity, also weakening the zap.  Fortunately, once they've learned not to touch the hot fences, most animals won't challenge it during transient current failures.  But they will figure it out after a while, so keep it checked and maintained!  (Most chargers have some sort of gauge that will alert you to ground-outs.)

   Lightning can travel through electric fences and damage your charger.  Simple lightning arresters are available and can be installed on the fences to prevent this. 

   The biggest drawbacks to hot wire are that it tends to by physically fragile and nearly invisible, so animals often crash right through it.  This is why it was often used in conjunction with tougher and/or more visible fences like board, split rail, and field fencing.  But the development of electrified poly tape and rope has solved these drawbacks.

   Multiple conductive wire threads are woven into a polymer web tape or cord, which is then installed much the same way as hot wire.  The polymer portion adds thickness, bright color, and physical resiliency that wire alone lacks.  It is nearly as easy to put up and repair.  UV-resistant tape with stainless threads has proven to have a respectable service life.

   Wood fence posts, soaked black with creosote, were the go-to back home in the Lowcountry.  I think those are considered too toxic for use anymore, but wood posts treated other ways are still commonly used.

   I understand that driving wood posts into the ground is a common practice in some places.  We always dug post holes and set/packed them in.  I imagine attempting to drive a wooden post into the ground up here in the hills would reduce the thing to splinters.

   Wood posts have the advantages of accepting nails and staples for fence attachment and being relatively safe for livestock.  On the down side, they are subject to rot and breakage.

   T-posts are made of steel to be driven into even very hard ground with a purpose-specific form of hammer.  (A heavy steel tube, closed and weighted at one end, with handles welded onto the sides.  This is slipped over the top of the post and repeatedly slammed-down.)

   T-posts are generally much faster and easier to put-up.  Unless you're dealing with a salt water environment, they'll long outlast wood posts.  Even when hit with a truck, they will usually just bend over rather than break.  (They can be unbent.)  Barbed and field wire are attached with simple wire clips.  Various types of snap-on hot fence insulators for t-posts are widely available.

   Because of their somewhat jagged, absolutely unforgiving tops, t-posts do pose a hazard to animals who might try to jump or climb over them.  Horses are particularly prone to severe cuts and even lethal impalement due to their thin hides, height, and inclination to jump obstacles.  T-post caps should always be used in horse fences.  Post-top insulators do double-duty, making the posts safer and providing an attachment point of hot fencing.

   Brace posts are used where great strength and rigidity are required.  The corners of high-tension wire fences.  At gates.  At intervals or at bends in long stretched of wire fences.  An extremely strong post, like a utility pole, railroad tie, large bore steel pipe, or reinforced concrete culvert can simple be sunk deep and set in concrete to do the job.  A more traditional approach is to sink strong, wood posts about 8' apart, with another post placed horizontally between them near the top, and a diagonal cable twist-tightened to lock them together.

   Where heavy wooden posts are employed, the tops can be cut off at a shallow angle and/or coated with tar, paint, aluminum flashing to reduce water soaking into the end grain of the wood and speeding rot.

   Before building our doomstead, we had the opportunity to try electrified poly tape fencing (a new product at the time) on the old farm, and decided it was the fastest and most economical approach for our needs here.

   We selected half-inch, white tape with stainless threads.  Half inch is wide enough for good visibility, but narrow enough to fit through insulators designed for wire.  The ones designed specifically for tape had proven too flimsy.  The narrow tape is also less subject to fluttering in the wind.  We make splices with aluminum wire wrapped and pliers-crushed flat to try and contact all the metal threads in the tape.  Aluminum is easier to work with, and doesn't rust-burn the tape like steel wire eventually does.

   The light weight of the tape allowed us to set t-posts at 20' intervals.  Domed insulator caps on the top of each, with a regular insulator snapped-on about a foot above the ground.  Since the tape needs only hand-pulled tension, no brace posts were required.  Four strands of tape were run.  One at the top, one at the bottom, and two diagonally, forming an X between each pair of posts.  This arrangement allowed four strands to be run with only two insulators per post, and the crossing created more intersections of tape, helping to keep the voltage distributed to all strands.

   Because the thin, stainless threads seemed to be poor long-distance conductors, we added an aluminum carrier wire along with the bottom strand.  Every 100' - 150', we added a vertical 'jump wire' which connects the carrier wire to all tape strands.

   Spring-loaded, insulated handles make it possible to open gates on live, hot fences without getting shocked.  It's best to install the gates so that the juice comes in from the wire loop the gate handle hooks into, so the gate goes dead the moment it's opened.  That way you don't have to worry about getting accidentally zapped, and you can toss the handle down onto the ground without shorting-out the fence.

   Folding the end of the gate tape and splicing it back to itself creates a loop that can slipped onto to an insulator (not otherwise attached to the hot fence) for an easily removable gate, handy for allowing animals to move freely between paddocks.

   To keep voltage going across the gate opening regardless of whether the gate is closed (which may be necessary to keep sections of the fence alive), an underground connector cable can be buried.  This needs to be very high voltage insulated wire, not household extension cord wire, which is only insulated against a couple hundred volts.  Fortunately, the proper stuff is fairly cheap and available from livestock product suppliers.   Be sure to bury it deep, as livestock going through the gate will wear a path.

   When we started this doomstead, we had only mature, sane horses who had already become accustomed to hot fences.  So the four-strand X pattern was sufficient.  Foals and calves are more likely to try to slip through the spaces between the strands, so we later reinforced with additional horizontal strands.

   Adapting for an ornery bull was not quite so easy.  We pulled the tape fence down from one paddock, then added new t-posts between the existing ones, giving us 10' spacing.  Since this was only a one acre enclosure, with relatively short corner-to-corner runs, we made brace posts by driving extra t-posts in a few feet down the line from the corner posts, then bending the new posts to be affixed to the corner post as diagonal supports.  (We did this with lots of heavy wire.  But it turns out that there are couplers made for exactly this sort of thing.)

   We pulled heavy gauge field fencing to replace the tape, kept the insulator caps and ran an electric wire to discourage reaching over the fence.  Extended insulators a foot or so above ground level are used to suspend electrified barbed wire several inches inside the fence line to keep the bull from rooting under the field wire.

   Bulls are more trouble than they're worth, but that's a story for another chapter!

BACK TO LOW-NONSENSE DOOMSTEADING INDEX.

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LND: The Barn.

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   People tend to overdo it with their barns.  After all, the barn is kind of the centerpiece of any sort of working farm or ranch.  If your operation involves interaction with the public, like a boarding stables or training facility, it makes sense to have an impressive structure...

   For strictly practical purposes, it's a bit of overkill.  People think that their critters are as uncomfortable in chilly weather as we are.  But, unless you live way up north where the temperature slips well below zero and the wind chills even worse, most farm animals can tolerate the cold pretty well.  (Except for sick, geriatric, or newborn specimens.)

   In this part of Dixie, the more common problem is that Winter isn't cold enough.  25F and snowing wouldn't bother any of the livestock.  35F and raining is murder...  And Summer heat is inevitably brutal.  So all animals really need is a roof to keep off the freezing rain or provide some shade.  The walls need not be solid, as free-flowing air is usually tolerable in Winter and absolutely essential in Summer.  The best design may be little more than a row of covered corrals.


   First thing to decide is where to put your barn. (See the Layout section.)  It needs to be on high, solid ground.  Animals will turn anything else into a muddy mess that'll suck your boots off.   You also need to keep possible future expansion in-mind when selecting a site.

   The proper first step to construction is to get a bulldozer and render your building area perfectly level...  What you'll more likely do is find the flattest area available, then do the best you can to scrape down bumps and fill in holes with such tools and equipment as you have on hand.

    If you have a perfectly flat foundation, you'll want to build professional style, keeping everything as close to true level as you can.  This will look neat and tidy.

   If you try building true level over an irregular foundation, you may find that you wind-up with low ceilings and head-bumping doorways in some places.  It may be better to follow the lay of the land, making each vertical post the correct height relative to the floor.  This could create a slight roller-coaster effect to your barn roof, but your head clearance will be more consistent.  And looking a little shabby may not be a bad thing.  (See Security section.)

   A simple row of stalls is usually a good starter barn.  It can be built quickly and economically, then easily upgraded and expanded as the need arises.  12' x 12' stalls are big enough for all but the largest of draft horses, and can be subdivided for smaller animals.  8'6" height at the front and 7' at the back provides adequate head room and draining pitch.  You don't want to go too high, or rain will blow under even in mild storms.  Doors always need to be at the front (high end) of the stall both for head clearance and to avoid the knee-deep muck from animals walking through the runoff-softened ground behind the barn.

Side view of stall row.

   It takes five posts to build your first stall, then three more for each additional stall in the row.  I've seen utility poles and railroad ties used to good effect.  4" x 4" lumber will do.  I used treated 4" x 6" here.  Depending on the post length available and nature of the ground you're building upon, it might be a good idea to set the posts in concrete...  But I'd suggest waiting until you get some, maybe all, of your horizontal boards into place before doing so.  Very difficult to re-position a post after the concrete sets-up!

   While sinking your posts, you will be determining the width of your stall doors.  I went with 6'.  Narrow barn doors can get you into a wreck with bigger critters.

   Your walls are basically just stout plank fences.  I suggest 12' x 2" x 6" boards. (Rough cut is sturdier, if you can get it.)  Spaced a board-width apart.  Five planks will give you 5' in wall height, which is usually sufficient.  If not, you can always add more planks to add height later.  You can also fill-in the gaps between the planks with more boards should you need a solid wall for some reason.

Two stalls.  Front view.

   An extra plank of 12' x 2" x 6" board at the top of the posts, inside on the front, outside on the rear, will serve as the beams to support the roof.  Six 16' x 2" x 4" boards will be placed on-edge, equally spaced across the beams to act as rafters for each stall.  (One rafter flush with the each end of the beam, the others on 28.4" centers starting from the center of the end rafter.)  I like to secure these with simple, steel hurricane tie straps fastened with wood screws, as it's easier to avoid knocking the rafters off their marks that way, and toe-nailing always seems a little sketchy to me.  Have the front of the rafters overhang the beam by exactly two feet. Irregular overhang will mess with you when putting up the battens.

Hurricane tie.

   You may note that, where stalls meet, you wind-up with two rafters side-by-side.  This will make it easier to nail the ends of the battens.  It also keeps the roof framing modular, making the addition of future stalls to the row simpler.

   Six 12' x 1" x 4" boards nailed flat-down across the rafters, equally spaced, will suffice for battens.  (One flush with the front ends of the the rafters, another flush with the back, the rest on 37.6" centers.)

Posts & beams, then rafters, then battens.

   Now comes the "tin"...  Actually galvanized steel panels.  I prefer corrugated (continuous ripple pattern) over 5V (flat with a ridge in the middle and two at each edge) because of its versatility.  More options for nail placement and overlap.

Corrugated

5v

   The wide-spaced rafters and battens don't make for a structure you should be walking around on.  But they do make it possible to work from an A-frame ladder, popping up through the framework to nail the tin to the battens.

   Start at a corner of the barn and put a panel into place on the low end of the roof.  (Remember, lower panels must go on first, so that the panels uphill won't drain UNDER them!)  Position it so that the tin overhangs the frame evenly by a few of inches at the edges of the barn. 

   Nailing roofing tin is a little challenging.  You have to figure out where the batten is. (X-ray vision would be a boon!)  And you have to drive the nail into the metal at the peak of a ripple, not down in the valley.  Water is going to be flowing down there when it rains.  You need your nails punching through on the 'high ground' where they won't make leaks.  You may want to hold the nail in-place with pliers, because you kinda' have to hit hard to get the point through the tin.  Roofing nails for this application usually have rubber or lead washers to act as gaskets.  You want to drive the nail just until there is solid pressure on the washer, NOT far enough to crush the tin flat into the batten.

   The next panel goes just above the first one, with at least a few inches of overlap.  (The more the better.)  Depending on the length of your corrugated panels, it may take either two or three to get to the front of the barn.  Once they're secure, start over from the low end, overlapping the first panels by a ripple or two.  If you find yourself with a partial panel-width of frame to cover as you approach the finish of the job, you can increase the overlap to 'use up' the extra.

   If you somehow got a bit out of square anywhere along the line, and the tin doesn't want to go on perfectly straight, don't sweat it too much.  Just try to keep your sawtooth effect consistent.  Pretend you did it on purpose!

   What I have detailed here is the economical roofing I've seen serving well on countless barns in the South and Mid-Atlantic, and what has worked on our barn for twenty years and counting.  You can, of course, upgrade if you feel your circumstances warrant it.  Heavier lumber, more rafters and battens closer-together.  Plywood rather than battens.  Shingles instead of corrugated.  So long as it's you doing all that ladder work and not me!

   Back on the ground, be sure to hing your stall doors so that they can swing 180 degrees and latch open, flat against the wall.  Running (or being slammed) into an open door edgewise is hard on your bones.

   Ideally, stall floors should be reinforced concrete with heavy rubber mats.  But that can get expensive, so most folks go with the natural ground with any holes that develop packed with pit gravel.  This usually works acceptably well for horses, goats, etc. if you do regular upkeep and the weather isn't godawful.  Cows, however, will turn any unpaved stall or corral into a septic swamp.  They're gifted that way.

  
   One great thing about barns is that you don't have to go too big at the start.  With foresight, you can begin with a modest structure and expand it later.  The obvious way to do so with a simple barn is to add more stalls onto either end.

   Another way to expand is to build a second mirror-image stall row parallel to the first, creating an aisle between them.  You can take this up a notch by extending the roofs of the stall rows until they meet at a peak over the aisle, giving you a nice, covered area that comes in handy for all sorts of things and eliminated rain blowing into the fronts of the stalls.

   Lofts are a common addition to barns.  Traditionally used for hay storage.

   Lofts are good for reducing hay loss to weather, rot, and rodents.  But I've become rather uncomfortable with storing tons of highly flammable material in the same building with valuable animals, tack, tools, and equipment.  I think it's better to store the hay away from the main barn.  But a loft can be useful for other things, including living quarters.

   The loft-over-aisle design became popular in the 20th century, with the transition to baled hay.  It's relatively easy to construct and, I think, aesthetically pleasing.  But it does tend to leave you with a relatively low ceiling over the aisle, and does not easily lend itself to discreet access from a floor-level tack room as the other loft styles do. 

   The lofts-over-stalls design gives you a very high roof over the aisle, and can provide trap-door access directly into the stalls below.  Particularly handy if one of those stalls has been remade into a feed or tack room.

   The loft-over-all design created the maximum loft space.  This was very popular in the old days when hay was stored loose.  If your place already has an old barn of this style, use a bit of caution with the loft floor...  It may not have been built to withstand concentrated loads like a full loft of baled hay.


   A few closing notes on the subject of the barn...

   If you install electric lighting, make sure that it is impervious to the animals or out of their reach.  It's really safer to have portable lights that you can take out with you rather than permanent fixtures in the stalls.  I like to have all the power come through one heavy extension cord to an external outlet on the house so that I can completely disconnect the barn when unattended, and easily plug into an alternate source when the need arises.

   Many farm animals are easily capable of breaking down stalls.  Strategically placed hotwire is trashy-looking, but usually discourages barn wrecking. 

   Some barns use steel tube corral panels instead of board walls.  We're experimenting with this as well.  So far, our draft-cross fillies are beating the panels up pretty good.  Something tougher may be in order.

   Install good latches and hinges.  Then back them up with safety chains.  Some animals can channel Houdini!

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LND: Glossary.

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BAU:  Business As Usual.  The perception that things are normal and there is no imminent crisis.  People are going to work every day.  Utilities are running.  FRNs still spend.  Still stuff on the shelves at Mega Lo Mart.  Beer supply unimpeded.

BOB:  Bug-Out Bag.  A handy container packed with emergency supplies and tools kept ready in case one needs to evacuate with little warning.

BOV:  Bug Out Vehicle / Vessel.  A conveyance kept loaded with emergency supplies, tools, and fuel for immediate evacuation.  BOV strategy may be based on getting away from a trouble zone rapidly despite traffic, long distance, and blocked highways (motorcycle, 4x4) or the vehicle itself serving as a shelter (RV, houseboat).

Cornucopia:  The modern petro-industrial world in which unlimited supply is considered the norm.  Scarcity is perceived as only a temporary result of sudden increase of demand or market manipulation.  Named for the equally mythical Horn of Plenty.

cornucopian:   One who dwells in the firm belief that the cornucopian era will last forever.  Anything having to do with Cornucopia.

doomer:  One who recognizes that Cornucopia cannot long endure.  This does not necessarily mean they see the extinction of humanity or life on Earth as a fast-approaching inevitability.

doomstead:  A rural farmstead equipped to remain viable even as cornucopian infrastructure fails.

doomster:  A doom-hipster who cheers for the demise of Cornucopia, especially capitalism, usually while remaining fully dependent upon cornucopian resources and using a corporation-logo electronic device to post criticism of practical doomsteaders on forums via a network created by the Military-Industrial Complex.

fedghetto:  An urban center.  Especially one that is highly dependent on support from the central government.  Not officially a prison.  But their dependence leaves inhabitants no choice but to tolerate considerable loss of liberty in the name of order and security.

FRN:  Federal Reserve Note.  The debt-based financial instruments rather deceptively called "dollars" and used, by fiat, as United States legal tender. 

green:  An object or practice which is supposed to be beneficial (or at least less harmful) to the environment.  In Big Picture terms, many things touted as green are not.  Solar panels seem green because they produce electricity without burning fuel or producing exhaust, but the amount of consumption and pollution involved in constructing and installing the panels may be greater than what the utility company would have done to provide the same amount of power for many years.  Tuning-up and driving an old compact car may be far greener than manufacturing a new hybrid.

JIT:  Just In Time.  A now-popular approach to the import, manufacture, and distribution of goods.  Things go from their source to the retailer just in time to replace what has been sold.  This minimizes the expense of warehousing and maintaining large inventory, but leaves little buffer should there be disruptions in the supply chain.  This is particularly troubling when it comes to essentials such as food and fuel, which modern Americans often keep in very little household supply.

LATOC:  Life After The Oil Crash.  A website and very popular online community dealing with the effects of the decline in easily available, inexpensive, light crude on Cornucopia, and strategies to cope with same.  After a half decade, the forum wound-up overrun with doomsters and various strains of nonsense, so the owner of the site decided to abruptly pull the plug and move on to other things in 2010.  Members of the old community still remain active on various forums and groups dealing with the ongoing collapse and prepping today.

moonbat:  A person who spouts Leftist dogma without regard to reason or reality. 

MRE:  Meal, Ready to Eat.  Prepackaged military field rations designed for durable, lightweight, long-term storage without refrigeration, and consumption with little or no preparation.  Similar products are also produced for civilian markets.

MZB:  Mutant Zombie Bikers.  Tongue-in-cheek term for groups of people who may pose a threat after SHTF.

prepper:  One who actively acquires the knowledge, tools, supplies, and resources they think will aid them in the event of future emergencies and lapses in infrastructure.  Not always a doomer.

SHTF:  The semi-solid waste initiates violent contact with the proverbial high-speed rotary device.  A catastrophic event that substantially disrupts BAU.  It is a quirk of many doomers to expect such an event to provide a clear delineation between Cornucopia and TEOTWAWKI, despite the historical tendency of civilizations to undergo less abrupt collapses.

survivalist:  Someone who is both doomer and prepper.  Term tends to imply a more hardcore, militant attitude.

TEOTWAWKI:  The End Of The World As We Know It.  Note the "as we know it" qualifier.  The term does not necessarily refer to the end of the world on the whole, just a discontinuity between the world we know now (Cornucopia) and what comes afterward.

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LND: The House.

   There are many things I will miss when the Cornucopian paradigm collapses.  Little Tin God bureaucrats will not be among them.  Even out in the boonies, there is no shortage of professional busybodies who insist that every single thing you have, build, raise, or do needs to be licensed, inspected, regulated, permitted, and monitored.

   Usually, these pests can be ignored.  They can't deny permission if you never ask for it.  So long as your activities don't harm your neighbors, nobody cares about permits out in the country...

   Unless you're building a house.  Then they've got it set-up to where a whole bunch of inspections, permits, etc. are all interdependent on one-another, and you'll have State, County, and/or Municipal code-enforcers crawling over your property like fleas on a hound.

   When we started this place, we thought grid electrical and telecom service were still worth the effort, even though that meant we were going to have to do the house all legal-like.  The fastest approach was to set-up a site and bring in a manufactured home.  That way, we could play-along with the code requirements until the power was on, then put up a gate up by the road and do our thing without constant statist meddling.

   If we had it to do over again, the gate would have gone up first, we'd have built from the ground-up, off-grid from the start, bureaucrats be damned.

The Doomstead House.

   Bigger is better! Tiny little micro-cabins are a trendy concept among Doomers.  Seems like they would be efficient and 'green'.   But trust me, you don't want to live in a phone booth long-term.  You don't have to heat and cool the whole of a large house.  Close off 'extra' rooms for walk-in pantry, general storage and stockpiling.  You will need more space than you think.

   If you have to start with something small due to preexisting structure or budget constraints, plan on future expansion.  I remember my great-great aunt's farmhouse, and the way it was obviously built in segments as the need arose over the decades.  A lot of old homesteads were that way.


   Floor plans are just a suggestion. We chose a place with what was supposed to be a big Living Room.  But you won't find a home entertainment center, couch, or Barcalounger in our Office/Workshop we have instead.


   Wall-to-wall carpeting has no place on a doomstead! Or any farm.  Or...  Well...  Anyplace, really.  Thanks to our old friend Gravity, everything ultimately winds-up spilled, dropped, dripped, leaked, bled, and tracked onto the floor.  Including flea eggs, which can lead to a really stubborn infestation if there's someplace for them to take 'hold.  What imbecile thought this would be a good place to glue-down an absorbent material?  Sure, you can vacuum and even steam clean carpets.  But on a farm with animals, mud (term used euphemistically), grease, etc. getting everywhere, all the time, you'll never stay ahead of it.

   Hardwood (real or faux), tile, or other flooring that can be swept, mopped, and disinfected are the way to go.  If you can't stand walking on a hard floor, get some slippers or flip-flops.  If that's not good enough, use area rugs.  At least you can take 'em out for beating and airing.


   You need ALL the windows. Air conditioning is awesome, but gobbles up a lot of expensive electricity.  Especially if you're trying to run it off-grid.  Lots of big windows can make houses tolerable even in the Dixie Summer.

   Preferably windows with inner and storm window glass, with blinds and heavy curtains.  And good screens!  Some builders like to omit screens, especially on the front windows, because it looks a little 'cleaner' from the street that way, and a lot of people never open windows in the age of Climate Control.  With the ability to strategically open windows to get air flow-through, close blinds to reflect heating sunlight, close windows and curtains to hold-in heat, you'll have a lot of ways to efficiently maintain comfort inside.


   High ceilings are cool. Literally.  Having greater air volume in the house will keep it from being so stifling in the hot seasons.  Also allows for a ceiling fan to keep air circulating.


   The kitchen is a big deal! Generations that have grown up 'popping something in the microwave', replenishing prepackaged supermarket food supplies on a weekly basis, swinging-by McDonald's or ordering pizza for half their meals may not remember, but the kitchen used to be the heart of the household.  And it regains that status on the doomstead.

   You'll not only be cooking meals from scratch, but also processing raw ingredients.  You may need meat grinder and grain mill.  If you are buying a modern-design home, you'll need to add a big working table in the middle, as the puny amount of counter-top preparation space considered adequate these days absolutely is not.  Dairy processing alone will take up a huge amount of real estate.

   You'll want a big refrigerator and a chest freezer...  Probably more than one of the latter.  It's good to have the know-how  and equipment to do old school food preservation, like jerking/drying, pickling, canning, salt-curing, and smoking.  But the deep freeze really beats them all.  Modern refrigeration is one of the oft-overlooked reasons for the increase in lifespan for the average American over the past century.  It is one bit of Cornucopian technology that is worth holding onto as along as possible.

   Speaking of tech, don't discount Space Age appliances like the microwave and induction cooktops.  They are handy, and often the more energy-efficient way to get stuff hottened-up!


   Fire suppression becomes far more important on a doomstead. In the Cornucopian world, we're told to get out of a burning home, call 911, and remember that things can be replaced, especially since you probably have insurance.  But that won't be the case after a serious collapse.  Invest in multiple fire extinguishers and place them strategically through the house.  Then get some of the little, disposable aerosol can extinguishers for good measure.

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LND: Layout.

   I've lived on about a dozen farms, and worked on hundreds of others.  This experience has taught me that overall layout is one of the most important, yet overlooked features of a working farm or ranch.

   People tend to go with what they know.  Given fifty acres, folks who didn't grow up on farms will tend to stick a typical half-acre, suburban home right on the road frontage, then fling a fence around the rest of the property.  After that, it's usually catch-as-catch-can.  Stick a barn out there somewhere.  Paddock here.  Corral over there.  Round pen off yonder.

   And it's a mess.  Always inefficient, often dangerous.  Having to drive through pastures on the way in and out from the house. (Risking livestock escape every time you go through the gate.)  Having to go through multiple occupied enclosures to retrieve an animal from another.  Thigh-deep muck around the barn from critters hanging around there.  Inability to do a head-count because half your 'pasture' is forest.  Trucks getting stuck, or stuff getting run-over because there was no decent place to turn-around.  Lack of security and privacy.

   Being an Old Horseman, my layout preferences are a bit on the equestrian side.  Shown here not as a template, but to demonstrate how a bit of forethought pays-off.

   Notice that the working part of the doomstead is well back off the road, surrounded by woods, out of sight and mind as far as passers-by and even neighbors are concerned.  (If you can see anything but trees or an old gate on a beat-up rocky road, you're already trespassing.)  Trees around the perimeter of the enclosures provide shade for our animals without making it hard to locate them.

   The five adjacent paddocks can be used as five one acre paddocks, one five acre paddock, or any configuration in-between.  The gates separating them are easily removable so they don't create any hazard to the stock when left open.  None of the gates are in the corners, where the 'pressure' from animals is often greatest and gates are more likely to be forced.

   The main pasture opens into a smaller holding paddock.  It's much easier to lure or drive hard to catch animals into the holding paddock than it is to get control of them in a huge enclosure.  (This is the one place where there's a corner gate, so that such animals can be 'funneled' into the holding paddock.)  The holding paddock can also act sort of like an airlock, so that you can get animals, vehicles into and out of the main pasture without the critters therein escaping into the barnyard.

   The barnyard itself is the primary 'airlock'.  All the enclosures have gates directly into the barnyard.  You never have to go through one paddock to get to another.  Animals pushing through a gate are still contained in the barnyard.  (Still amazes me how common it is for places to be set-up so that one unlatched gate or slipped halter lets animals make a break straight out to the highway!)  Yet the barnyard is normally free of loose livestock, so that the area around the buildings doesn't stay churned-up by hooves, the solar panels don't get wrecked, etc.

   There's room to turn-around trucks and tractors in the barnyard, as well as at the 'front' gate.  Every enclosure has a 20' wide gate for vehicle access.  Just because you don't see why you'd want to get a big truck in there right now doesn't mean the need won't arise in the future.

   The well house is in the middle of the barnyard, so that you can reach the barn and most troughs with the minimum amount of hose drag.  (More on that in the Water section.)

   Any layout will need to allow for later adaptation.  For instance, our holding paddock was reinforced for double-duty as the the nursery paddock for mares with new foals.  Paddock #5 was re-fenced as the dedicated bull pen.

   Of course, you may not be starting out with raw land.  (And having some of the fencing and building already there can be a nice head start.)  But try to think ahead as you add to the place, so that each modification will contribute to a functional overall layout as you go.

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