Friday is upon us again! I don’t know about you but it has been a long week. Lots going on and no hope of that changing anytime soon. Prepper juniorette had her seventeenth birthday this week. I’m sure many of you will be able to relate with how I feel… “How in the heck did this happen?” ” How old do I have to be to have a 17 year old daughter?” I remember just yesterday I was 17, OH NO that means she’s probably around 17 year old boys – sheesh, that makes me uncomfortable… Just kidding, sort of, I do feel like the time is going by to quick and she will be out on her own in no time flat. Mrs Prepper and I have been preparing her for that eventuality for years and she will be able to handle herself fine but she’s still our little girl and life will never be the same without her! Pretty soon some snot nose punk will be knocking on my door, asking to take her away from me. At least he better be asking me – lots of wide open spaces around the BOL and seems the country folk practice the three “S” principle… Shoot, Shovel and Shut Up – so I’m obviously among friends!

   We have a long list of criteria for that young man to meet before he gets to marry my young lady. When I say we that includes, said young lady. I have always made an effort to show her an example of how a man conducts himself with a woman, especially with a special woman… Opening doors, allowing her to be first to order and so on. I have not only done this with Mrs Prepper but her as well… I wasn’t sure if she would know how to operate a car door handle on her own as I had ALWAYS opened it for her and I still do at every opportunity. I don’t even want my ladies to pump their own gas, they know how to and will of course if I’m unavailable to take care of this for them but its my goal to have this handled ahead of time… Even though they both are competent shooters, we don’t need to try them out at the local mini mart…

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   I digress, I actually had something I wanted to show all of you today. Not everything has to be serious all the time, sometimes things are just fun or more fun than practical. Thats what I have for you today, something that isn’t really necessary but still inside the overall theme of prepping.

   As a guy I enjoy my gadgets. I remember having alot of fun with my first cars, I would always look for ways to customize stuff and really make it my own. I know nobody else ever did that, right? Yes you did, don’t even try to fool me. I bet there’s alot of you that were just like me, found every nook and cranny or hidey hole to store things in. I know there are some of us that had already been bitten by the prepping bug all the way back in high school.

   I wanted to show all of you an upgrade I made to the BOV. I spend alot of time on the road and its not always comfortable to keep my carry gun in its holster at all times. Even sometimes when I’m just out off roading in the toolies I want an alternative to just laying it on the seat next to me. I had done this exact thing on one occasion and shortly afterword found myself stomping on the brakes for one reason or another, only to have my gun fly off the seat onto the passenger side floor. At that point if I had needed to reach my gun I would have had to stop the car and lean way over before getting my hands on it. Any alternative I would come up with was considering the gun must remain secure and be ready at a moments notice.

   Here’s what I did, I went out to the local sporting goods store and found an inexpensive Kydex holster. I had a bit of an idea of what I would need and was able to find one made for a Glock model 17, I carry a model 19 but the 19 is just a shorter version of the model 17 and so would still work just fine.

   I also was thinking that it would be nice to have a way to keep a couple spare magazines handy as well. I knew that just putting them in the center console or glove compartment loose wasn’t going to work well. So I found a 2 mag holder from the same company that makes the holster and headed home to start working on some customization.

   I wanted to find a way to have the gun ready at all times without being readily visible from any other cars near me on the road or even in the event of being pulled over by the police. I located the perfect spot, low down on the side of the center console. This was low enough that even if a truck pulled up next to me they wouldn’t notice the firearm and it would be completely invisible from the drivers side window.

   Knowing roughly where I thought that this would be mounted I had selected a lefty holster for the project. This would allow me to remove the belt clip assembly and then after it was mounted in place me being right handed would have easy access. This was not a difficult task and came off with out a hitch… Well, almost without a hitch. In the original configuration the holsters belt clip was screwed together from the clip side. When I disassembled the holster and held it in place where it was to be mounted I could see the screws would have to go into place from the holster side this time. This wouldn’t have been an issue but the screw holes were down inside the holster, Hmm! No biggie, this thing is just made out of a fancy plastic material. I just drilled a couple of access holes in the outer side of the holster to line up with the holes on the inside. You know the old saying, “cut to size and file to fit…”

   Alright, holster down and mag holder to go… I wasn’t initially sure where the mags would go. I was fairly certain that I didn’t want the mags mounted to the outside of the console like the holster was. I examined the glove box but gave that thought up right away as to put them in there would require that I sacrafice all use of the area. The clearance would be all wrong and the mags would still be somewhat hard to reach in an emergency. This left the center console… I emptied the current stuff out of it so I could get a real good idea of what might be possible. It was looking like this was a bust as well. There were CD holder slots in the bottom and this was preventing the depth I needed to make the holder fit and have the ability to close the trap door while the mags were in place.

   I kept looking for a viable setup when I realized I could take the back plate of the carrier. This was the part that created the slot for a belt to pass through, enabling the user to have the mag holder on the opposite side from the holster. Once this plate was removed I saw that I would be able to mount this much the same way. Screwing it to the inside of the console would be made possible with the same access holes drilled to allow me to get a screw driver onto the screws and tighten them down. 

   I went to work and with a little fine tuning was able to get this mounted also. Both of these upgrades came out very smooth. It looks as thought these items belong right were I have them located. I hope that the photos due them justice…

   Well, that wraps up another week here at Prepper Nation, now get out there this weekend and get something done. You might consider telling a friend about this really interesting blog you’ve been reading… Help me spread the word! Thanks

Prepper