Extrema Ratio Scout Review

Extrema Ratio Scout Review

Without question, Extrema Ratio knives are my favorite “high-tech” premium tier knives. The designs are both simple and elegant with a premium tier cobalt steel that delivers an aggressive extremely long lasting edge. 

Extrema is to knives as Ducati is to motorcycles - a premium brand. The new Extrema Ratio Scout carries through that Italian design legacy combining style and function in well executed simplicity and elegance.

Extrema Ratio are not “just” a tactical knife company and offer a huge array of knives from large tactical kurkas, to folders, to chef’s knives and even euro-legal straight razors. They seem to have a fun attitude to design while still delivering on their hard-use focus. 

Extrema Ratio has offered a number of shorter bladed EDC/CCW knives including the Shrapnel and T4000C reviewed previously, however they now are offering a number of knives with slimmer handle profiles to improve concealment. One of those new knives is this Extrema Ratio Scout - a simple 4-inch bladed spear point blade that is perfect for utility, defense and survival.

FIT, FEEL, & FEATURES
Though Extrema knife owners love the hand filling defensive knives, there were a lot of requests for a slimmer knife handle to improve concealment and this new Scout and its Scout 2, Defender and Defender 2 brethren all feature skinny handles as requested. The same stout thick cobalt blades remain, just the handles were trimmed down to about half the original width.

I choose the shorter 4” bladed Extrema Ratio Scout for a number of reasons. The spear point blade is a utility based design that can tackle pretty much any task without being too specific to a tactical focus. The wide blade is just as home dressing a deer as it is spreading peanut butter and jelly on bread and of course the spear point blade is a proven defense profile as well. The other reason I opt’ed for the Scout vs larger Scout is that in most states a 4-inch maximum blade length for fixed blade knife which is still legal to carry concealed (check you local knife laws).

For non-Extrema Ratio fans the design seems a bit futuristic, however once these unique handles and knives are in hand and working on a task, you really appreciate the out of the box thinking ergonomics of the Extrema Ratio design team. The knife feels right and most importantly feels secure.

What I am not a fan of on this knife is the cordura sheath. This is clearly a slim and trim inside-the-waistband knife design, so I was confused why it included a bulky belt sheath. The cordura sheath is really nice quality and MOLLE compatible, but is bulky and feel clunky compared to today’s fast access thin and trim Kydex sheaths. Maybe its an Italian thing. The sheath seemed to be a recycled sheath from one of Extrema’s other knives with too loose of a fit, but the dual snaps are tight enough to keep the knife in place. What the Scout needs is a slim kydex or leather sheath designed for your concealed carry style and placement. My plan is to work up a Kydex or leather sheaths to use with Extrema Ratio Scout as an appendix carry.

The Extrema Ratio Scout features the same Fornprene handle, hardened glass break tang with lanyard hole as the rest of the Extrema fixed blade line. The edge holds extremely well thanks to the N690 cobalt steel. Where some of the Extrema Ratio fixed blade lines are purpose build defense knives, the Scout is a generalist blade shape perfect for utility tasks and bushcraft.

The blade contours are consistent and edge grind is perfect with very minor casting seams on the Forprene handle. The Austrian N690 steel is a cobalt based stainless steel similar in performance to the expensive VG-10 but is actually more expensive. Notably the blade is wicked crazy sharp and it stays that way thanks to that N690 steel. 

In the knife industry, a term “high-tech” is used for the type of knife Extrema Ratio delivers. What makes a knife “high-tech” is subjective, however usually is comes down to combining very expensive premium tier crucible steel such as Austrian N690 cobalt based stainless with a premium finish/milling with design unlike any other knife. Extrema Ratio knives definitely fit into that tier of high-tech knives. There is also the price range of this Italian made knife. Where you could grab a workable $40 knife, this $200+ Scout may seen expensive, but that would be like comparing a Chris Reeve Sebenza to a Buck knife. The Extrema Ratio knives are amazing performing knives.

FINAL THOUGHTS
When reviewing the the tanto blade Extrema Ratio T4000 C I wished it had a slimmer overall handle profile for to allow for more discreet concealed carry. With the Scout I get that wish and would love to see this handle with a 3.5” bladed versions of the Scout and T4000C tanto blades to make it under even more restrictive locals. 

Sure Extrema Ratio knives are expensive, however the knife is the most essential and basic of survival gear and I believe you should always buy the best knife available when your life may depend on it. If you want the best of the best in the production high-tech tactical fixed blade market, Extrema is constantly thought of as the best. I am a very picky guy when it comes to blades, they have continued to impress and refine their designs with every knife.

SPECS SCOUT
Total Length of Knife: mm 215.90 (8.50 inches)
Blade Length: mm 101.60 (4.00 inches)
Handle Length: mm 114.30 (4.50 inches)
Total Length of Knife and Sheath: mm 234.70 (9.25 inches)
Weight of Knife: g 136.08 (4.80 ounces)
Weight of Knife and Sheath: g 201.28 (7.10 ounces)
Blade Thickness (Excludes Jimping Section): mm 4.57 (.18 inches)
Blade Width (Widest Section): mm 28.45 (1.12 inches)
Blade Steel: Bohler N690 cobalt stainless steel*
Blade Hardness: Rockwell 58 HRC
Grinding: Flat grind
Serrations on Blade: No
Handle: Forprene “thin” profile
Sheath: MOLLE compatible Cordura w/dual snaps. Can also carry on your belt
MSRP - $197

SOURCES
Extrema Ratio Knives
http://www.extremaratioknivesdivision.eu/english/index.html

Xtreme Knives
http://xtremeknives.com/

Why I bought A S&W Governor and Review

Why I bought A SW Governor and Review


The S&W Governor was a gun a publically said I would never buy. I thought it was a pointless gun that can shoot a mixed six round cylinder of 2-¾” .410, 45 ACP, and .45 Colt rounds with dubious utility. In essence a Swiss Army knife, not particularly good at anything but marginally handy at everything when otherwise empty handed. 

I thought why would anyone want a gun that shoots .410, 45 ACP, and 45 Colt and none of them extremely well as a dedicated gun? Owners report typical 3” ten-yard groups - not particularly great at all. My accuracy results were about the same, but notably the Governor does deliver acceptable combat accuracy with .45 Colt rounds and some slug shells. With shotshells of shot, buckshot a pattern or hole of some sort is delivered downrange with the accuracy limits of a 5” sawed off shotgun. Of course the droves of Governor owners did not agree with my initial assessment.

Indeed the Governor is not a 25-yard gun and instead a highly effective seven yard gun. You would not want to be downrange when it goes off, but do not be fooled that you are going to drill 25-yard A-Zone groups like with a Glock or shoot clays with any regularity beyond fifteen yards like with any typical shotgun. 

WHY WOULD I WANT THIS?
Maybe I needed something to shoot down misguided drones, use up the surplus ammo from a retired cowboy, or prove to my 1911 friends that the .45 ACP cartridge is not an inherently accurate round. 

Maybe I just wanted the thumb breaking and nail ripping experience of removing spent .45 ACP rounds from full moon clips when I forgot the moon clip loader.

Maybe I wanted to wreak destruction. If you are on the wrong end of the S&WGovernor, the gun can be a nightmare. All of the rounds existing the less than precision Governor are devastating. The gun may not be accurate, but it makes a big hole in anything in front of it.

DUMB TV SHOWS & MY ADDICTION TO THEM
Actually it was the character Daryl Dixon in the stupid AMC Walking Dead television show that made my buy it… that and my dealer had a screaming deal on this used night-sight’ed S&W Governor. On the AMC Walking Dead show, Daryl pulls the gun off a dead bad guy and realizes it is apparently loaded with explosive incendiary rounds and blows stuff up with it. 

The .45 ACP can be shot with full 6-round
or partial 2-round moon clips

Though my FFL did not have any of the explosive rounds used on the show, we did pop off a few buckshot rounds on his range and the raw insanity of the gun sold me. Like many people, I saw a potential survival appeal of having a gun that can shoot three different rounds including shotshells and with caliber conversion inserts can even shoot everything from .22LR to .38 Special. Anyway I have named this ridiculous gun “Daryl” as a celebration of everything that appeals to the redneck in me.

DARYL - JACK OF ALL TRADES MASTER OF NONE
The Governor is not a “master of all” as many would hope. Despite all that lack of perfection, shooting the Governor is a freaking blast. It is a gun which seems to find its way to every less than serious range day. If the 50 AE Desert Eagle had an alcoholic redneck brother it would be the Governor - both are a lot of fun for a few grin filled rounds of jovial shooting but not particularly practical.

Shotshells are the best to have fun with if you can figure out how to manage the sharp recoil of this lightweight 29-oz revolver. To me the .410 shotshell recoil seems similar to a 44 Mag round. Watching fruit, coke cans, water bottles and clay pigeons explode with the shotshell rounds is a laughter producer. The Governor can realistically teach how to point shoot when loaded with some bird shot. Place a few clays on a backstop and hammer through point shooting them and you will become a better point shooter with a pistol.

A mixed cylinder of .45 Colt,
.45 ACP, Buckshot, #4, and slugs

By contrast I own a Thompson Center Contender with a 14-inch .410 barrel and a Bond Arms .410 pistol. The Thompson Center Contender is arguably as serviceable as an actual full sized .410 shotgun. With that long pistol barrel, I can hit most thrown clays, can connect and drop junk birds in flight out to about 20-yards. The TC Contender is useful in real life as a fairly practical hunting shotgun pistol that still fits inside a backpack. 

The Bond Arms .410/.45 barrels delivers the same realm of accuracy as the Governor with about the same level of utility, but the Bond has the advantage that it can also shoot shoot full power hand bruising 3-inch .410 shotshell versus being limited to just 2.5-inch .410 shells like the Governor. This means that the your are limited to the smaller lead shot payload of the 2.5-inch shells on the Governor.

The advantages the Governor has over the Bond Arms derringers are that it has a longer barrel comparatively to the Bond, has less felt recoil (all be not much less), six round capacity, and offer improved control with a full sized grip. #8 birdshot out of either the Governor or Bond spreads out super fast; the Bond maybe has about a 5-yard max effective range and the Governor stretches the effective range to 10-yards with birdshot. Pellets are still going downrange for both those guns, but the pattern opens up so much it becomes more statically luck than skill on actual critters. At 15-yards with either of these guns there are fist and arm sized holes in the pattern with birdshot, so a miss is likely, but it is still fun to practice at longer distances.

AMMO & WHERE IT WORKS
The original marketing from S&W noted “highly accurate with .45 Colt and .45 ACP”, but I would never describe the gun that way. The MajorPandemic.com marketing would have read “Shoots most ammo pretty well.”

The .45 ACPs were some of the least accurate, good plinking rounds, offer really fast reloads with full moon clips, and deliver minimal recoil - if you want to shoot the Governor a lot, you will likely be shooting .45 ACP. Through all my testing, the seemingly giant .45 Colt rounds were by far the most accurate round through the S&W Governor with 3-4-inch seven-yard groups, reliable center of mass hits at 15-yards, and accurate enough to hit a full sized silhouette out to 50-yards. The .45 ACP groups were roughly double the size. Surprisingly some .410 slugs were also pretty accurate, however but the accuracy was still better with the .45 Colt rounds at distance. Though I would not swap my 9mm for the Governor for defense, if I did, my choice would be the devastating Hornady Critical Defense Triple Threat slug/buckshot or a mixed cylinder of .45 Colt and .410 Hornady shells.

For an outdoor trail and snake gun there really is not a better gun for quickly handling everything from snakes to wolves to general personal defense. There is also a lot of utility to being able to easily swap ammo based on the need out on the trail or load a mixes cyclinder of shotshell, buckshot and .45 Colt round. This is where the Governor is like the proverbial Swiss Army knife and handy when you do not want to carry four different guns. Where I really see the lightweight 29oz Scandium alloy S&W Governor as a relevant firearm is in the hiking, trail, packing, or trunk gun category that can be slipped into the pack and deliver a wide array of needs.

Despite being considered “old fashioned” the new breed of defensive .45 Colt rounds are similar is power to the .40 S&W. Notably the Governor is not suitable for the insane 1200 ft/lb Buffalo Bore .45 Colt +P rounds or any other .45 Colt +P rounds, but there are plenty of standard .45 Colt defensive, bonded hunting, and hollow point rounds with energy in the 550 ft/lb+ range.

The Governor can be a small game getter with #4 shot if you are decent at close range stalking. The flexibility of shooting .410 shotshells opens up the Governor to a enormous range of ammo types including birdshot, BBs, slugs, combo defense rounds, survival flares, rubber/plastic less-lethal ball shot, mace/pepper rounds, rock salt, and yes even Dragon’s Breath incendiary rounds. 

The ability to shoot signaling flares and pepper mace, plus deliver a super painful less-lethal rubber or rock salt payload to keep small crowds under control has some appeal in a theoretical sense. In reality, I am betting the actual use of all of the above would be pretty sub-optimal compared to the same rounds in a 12-gauge and risky to try it out. The less-lethal deterrent has some merit in a SHTF survival situation where everyone is going nuts and you are faced with a set of awkward decisions that do not necessitate killing someone. Perhaps a blast in the chest with three or four small rubber balls or rock salt would be enough to ward off an unarmed attacker. Though not the ideal tool, the Governor can be extremely useful tool for a lot of potential situations when you have nothing else.

To carry a variety of ammo simply, a set of Allen 14-round Ammo Much for Rifles makes for a convenience belt or MOLLE compatible ammo carrier in a backpack. I found that each pouch could carry a variety of 14-shotshells, two full speedy loading 6-round .45ACP moon clips, and 2-two round partial moon clips straddling the bottom flap to hold in the .45 moon clips. This overstuffed pouch setup did not add any more bulk and provides a mixed variety of 30 extra rounds that can be easy carried. A fully loaded 30-round pouch of mixed Slug, #4 , #9, buckshot shells and 16-.45ACP rounds plus the Governor loaded with Hornady Critical Defense "buckshot" weights in at only 3.55-lbs - Not bad for a gun shooting some heavy bullets and 36-rounds of ammo. I liked the setup so much I bought a second Allen pouch. 

FINAL THOUGHTS
This is a blast to shoot and I can see it can deliver good enough utility that it is a worthwhile gun. Would this be my “one and only gun”? Emphatically no! I would rather have a high capacity striker fired pistol, AR15, or shotgun first if I could, but the S&W Governor fits into the category of a Swiss Army Tinker knife. A real set of screw drivers, a full sized knife, an actual working can opener, and hole punch would be superior in every way to the Swiss Army Tinker except one. The Tinker allows you to carry the base utility of all those tools in your pocket without a tool belt - the Governor is a lot like that. Toss the Governor into a pack as a survival option with a variety of shotshell, and .45 ammo backing up a hunting firearm or bow or as a camp or trunk defense tool and it is good enough when you have nothing else.

SOURCES

Check BROWNELLS for the best deals on firearms and accessories

Smith & Wesson - www.smith-wesson.com
Allen Cases - www.byallen.com
Hornady - www.hornady.com
Cabelas Herters - http://www.cabelas.com
Winchester Ammunition - http://www.winchester.com

Mirror Polished Barrett REC7 AR15

Mirror Polished AR15 Faxon Superlative DI Build

My FFL dealer acquired some very old naked un-anodized Barrett Firearms AR15 receivers with their original REC7 Barrett logo. The receivers were actually made a decade or so ago by Saber Defense for Barrett under an OEM relationship. This are fun receivers and with Barrett REC7 AR15s starting around $1900 these receivers have some cache’ since you cannot buy stripped Barrett AR15 receivers. 

Just with the name Barrett on the side, any build is cool enough, but I wanted to really make this build shine… literally.

GETTING MY SHINE ON
Getting a mirror polish on aluminum is not hard, but it is time consuming. As long as you start with an unanodized receiver set and have a bench grinder with a set of polishing wheels, the polishing time is under about five hours including the hand final polishing with Flitz polish. In a previous article, I hand mirror polished a completed Matthews 80% billet lower with just a Dremel, Flitz and a rag and that process sucked. This time around I sprung for a $45 Ryobi Bench grinder and a $20 kit of buffing wheels and compound - well worth the investment to polish any metal.
The Ryobi polishing wheel kit includes recommendations for matching wheels and compounds, however after some experimentation, I discovered the hard sewn wheel with stainless polishing compound applied did the best job biting into the oxidized forged aluminum and aggressively smoothing out imperfections. 


Technically hand sanding with increasingly finer grit sandpaper and then polishing would net the best results and a flawlessly smooth finish, but I actually wanted to see some of the imperfections in the receivers to add a bit of character. The second polishing step was to wipe down the entire piece with Flitz, let it dry a bit, buff off with the sewn denim wheel, repeat until the shine started popping uniformly on the receiver and then follow up with a few hours of hand polishing and a coat of oil. The result is a receiver set which has the mirrored appearance of being hard chromed.

THE BUILD COMPONENTS
For this build I wanted a really unique super lightweight AR15 with virtually no recoil. To reduce both recoil and weight, a super-lightweight Faxon 16” Gunner barrel was paired with a Faxon ultra-light BCG and a Superlative Arms adjustable gas block. This allowed the gas pressure to be metered down further to take advantage of the ultra-light Faxon BCG that requires even less pressure to operate. 

An ultra-light Aero Precision ATLAS free-float handguard was added along with an ALG mirror polished stainless brake, James Madison Tactical trigger kit, Brownells buffer tube and AR lower parts kit, Phase 5 And-Plate Swivel, Strike Industries Poly ejection port cover, Magpul trigger guard, Rogers HABU Advanced Charging Handle, and Rogers Adjustable Cam-Lock Stock.

The Faxon barrels have seriously impressed me with their accuracy, quality, and price. These guys are doing a phenomenal job at making impressively accurate light barrels for AR15s, AR10, and even now Glock barrels. If you do opt for a Faxon barrel add on a matched headspaced bolt; my experience is this add-on greatly increases accuracy. Faxon has two lines of AR15 barrels, a 5.56 Nato production barrel models (usually well under $200) and their match grade .223 Wylde models ($200-$300) - both lines are available in a variety of similar profiles from heavy to light weight. 


The Match grade .223 Wylde models are more accurate, but their 5.56 Barrels are phenomenal barrels on almost any build and about half the cost. Faxon created their own unique “Faxon Gunner” profile which is a modified super light pencil profile with a light taper for improved accuracy under extended fire. I have a couple barrels in this profile and love them. No since adding extra weight where it is not needed. Consider Faxon’s BCGs as well. The BCGs are extremely well made and a much higher grade than the $99-$129 BCGs on sale everywhere.

Superlative Arms arguably makes the finest adjustable gas block on the market. The SA gas blocks feature melonited construction, are offered in a wide variety of .623”, .750”, .875”, and .936” sizes with SA’s patented bleed off system which dumps the excess gases. The quality is outstanding and the 30-position detent system allows a lot of fine tuning and prevents the common self-adjusting problem of most gas blocks.

Though I write for Aero Precision, I picked up this ATLAS handguard on sale at my dealer to get this build done. This is my first experience with the ATLAS handguard and I am impressed. Of note, I originally was going to use a Superlative Arms piston system, however of note it would not fit under the ATLAS handguard. 

Look for that system on another upcoming build. The ATLAS has been minimalistically designed to provide the smallest overall diameter while reducing weight. The very unique mounting system on the ATLAS includes a proprietary barrel wrench and a dual detent-ed wedge screw system. Though it took a few moments to figure out how it went together, it is a pretty unique system and is insanely rock solid.

Bill Rogers is a world class tinkerer, inventor and firearms instructor. Personally I think he has made some of the most unique real-world usable products on the market. This Rogers Stock is what I consider the best multi-position stock on the market because it is the only stock which comes with two shims for commercial or mil-spec sized buffers and also can be tightened into position with an intuitive and very fast cam-lock lever. 
When locked down, the stock feels like a rattle-free fixed stock, but hit the adjustment lever and the cam lock automatically disengages.

Yet another build where Brownells came to the rescue, as they are only a two day shipping route to me for most orders. It never fails that I “only need” a few things to finish a build and this case it was the James Madison trigger kit, lower parts kit, and buffer tube assembly. Brownells helped me get this dones before the end of the year instead of sometime in January.


Eotech are always a favorite optic for fast fun shooting and I had an EXPS3 which is perfect for a build like this. The Eotech EXPS3 also has a QD mount which allows me to swap between other optics quickly and still maintain MOA accuracy when reattached. With a mirror finish, this probably is not going to be a hunting gun and just something fun and the Eotech is the perfect choice for taking advantage of the very fast shooting capabilities of this lightweight near recoil-less build.

The grip featured is my own MajorPandemic.com style modification that I have been doing for years. I start with a standard $4 A2 grip, a paracord slot is milled into each side of the grip, and all the existing texture and finger grooves are ground off. I hand texture the grip with a wood burning iron and then very tightly wrap the back of the grip with paracord. These are insanely comfortable grips and always look awesome for about $6 in materials.

FUNCTION, FEEL AND FINAL THOUGHTS
Without the Eotech attached, the final build weight is only 5.65 pounds and the recoil was drastically reduced to almost nothing thanks to the adjustable gas block and lightweight BCG. This build is certainly capable of excellent accuracy, however that was never really the intent of this rifle. For me, this is a fun training gun, plinker, and competition gun to beat on steel and Rubber Dummy targets with that looks different than everyone else’s black rifle… and of course since no one can buy one of these Barrett receiver sets, it makes it all that much more unique. As you can see, a little polish work goes a long way to make something really special and unique.

SOURCES

Check BROWNELLS for the best deals on firearms and accessories

Faxon - http://faxonfirearms.com
Superlative Arms - https://suparms.com
Barrett - https://barrett.net
Brownells - www.brownells.com
Aero Precision - www.aeroprecisionusa.com
Rogers - www.rogersshootingschool.com
Eotech - http://www.eotechinc.com
Ryobi - https://www.ryobitools.com

Bitcoin - Maybe the Best Survival Currency Ever

Bitcoin - Maybe the Best Survival Currency Ever

After three years of saying maybe I should buy some Bitcoin while it was in the $300-$400 range I finally bought in the middle of 2017 at around $4,000 a Bitcoin. As of December 2017 we are now hitting over $19,000 a Bitcoin and it shows no signs of stopping. That investment has of course has done extremely well nearly tripling my investment in less than six months. If Bitcoin continues to raise at the same rate over 2018 year, I could very well be a millionaire by the start of 2019, but that was not why I purchased it. More importantly, I can access the money anywhere in the world… or even space if needed, even if I am stripped of everything. Perhaps Bitcoin may be the best survival currency ever.


WHAT IS IT - THE BASICS
For my “real job”, I create and present on a lot of business solutions and strategies including Blockchain which is the underlying base technology of Bitcoin. The very general concept of all the different blockchain technologies are in essence the same - there are participants which hold accounting-like ledgers and they all share each change to the ledgers on a consensus bases. If one ledger has a block of data chained/linked to it, they all get a copy and have to agree to the change. Usually there are many ledgers, which instills inherent trust among all the participants. The more participants and ledgers the more trust since everyone has to agree on every change to the ledgers - with Blockchain technology, no one is going to pull a fast one and slide something by. Generally all the transactions are encrypted and anonymized.

Bitcoin leverages the Blockchain technology to record the holdings of Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Bitcoin calls the thousands of globally dispersed ledgers “miners”. Miners are all linked, encrypted, and agree on ledger changes. The result is one of the most globally secure currencies ever devised which tracks full or fractional amounts of Bitcoins. In the early days, Bitcoins were actually “mined” or created via a fairly substantial investment of around $1200 considering Bitcoins at that time were selling for under $100. Today that process is so expensive it is less expensive to just purchase Bitcoin. Bitcoin is typically purchased via exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken, Poloniex and others similar to how you would use an online stock brokerage like an Ameritrade or eTrade. Thought the nerdy folks will hold their own cryptocurrency keys (think of them as stock certificates) on some type of USB device, most people have the online exchanges hold their cryptocurrency keys. The online exchanges allow you to buy and sell just like a stock and most allow you to transfer the sales proceeds easily to Paypal or your regular bank account.

Using Coinbase, the process for me was fairly simple. Set up a Coinbase account, verify some deposits on my bank for a wire transfer and deposits on my credit card accounts and then I was ready to buy. I transferred in money from my bank account which is slower, but less expensive than the higher fee credit card cryptocurrency purchases. Overall the process is pretty simple, but not quite as smooth as online stock trade accounts.

Currently there are hundreds of various cryptocurrencies on the market, however Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin are the most popular by far.

THE RISK IS HUGE, BUT THE REWARD INSANE
Early on I made a lot of money during the internet bubble where stocks were soaring, but those valuation increases are nothing compared to what is happening with Bitcoin. I am not a broker, and admittedly willing to throw disposable income at some risky investments. Some investments have panned out and some I lost my shirt, but I have never had an investment that tripled my money in less than six months with no apparent slowdown. I would never have gambled my house payment, or the kids college money, but I wire transferred a fairly substantial amount of cash into an account on Coinbase (think of them as Ameritrade, or eTrade for Bitcoin) and initially purchased three digital currencies. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.

After what appeared to be a stall in Ethereum and Litecoin, I sold them and moved all the money into Bitcoin. In hindsight, it was the right decision and wish I would have dumped all the money into Bitcoin at the start. To date though investments in Ethereum and Litecoin would still have doubled my investment.

THE SAME CURRENCY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD

Sure I hold out hope that the insane growth continues and I and up a millionaire, but the real reason I wanted to have some money in Bitcoin was that it provides a completely transportable currency even if I am stripped naked and walked over the border of another country. That seems like an extreme example, however throughout history and even currently, political refugees are being forced from their homes with nothing more than their clothes.

How would I start over in another country if that happend to me, or suddenly US cash was worthless, or all Gold and Silver was confiscated like in 1933 as ordered by FDR. Just as I have a stash of cash, hold some silver and gold, the prudent option is to have a currency which can be accessed anyplace in the world. A suitcase of $20s and pound of gold at home does you little good if you are stranded far away from those funds.

Sure it may take a week to reset passwords and reestablish my Coinbase credentials if forced to move without my electronics, however the money would still be there and once accessible, I have now have a tidy sum of Bitcoin which can be transferred into any bank account around the world. If you have not considered Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency as Gold/Silver 2.0, it may be the best investment you could make in your survival.

Bitcoin may be the best survival currency ever, after all US cash, gold and silver have not increased in value much over the last decade. Perhaps it is time to think of survival beyond just physical currencies.