Rather than do a separate review for Delta Press I decided to make it a preface to reviews for the books I purchased from them. I started receiving the Delta Press catalog in the mail and found it very intriguing. Lots of books in the catalog are of interest to those heavy into guns. Their other catalog, Delta Force, has all kinds of accessories for firearms that many find hard to acquire on a local scale. As many of you know I am not an advocate of massive firepower but have no criticism of those that do stockpile such material.

My rating of their catalogs is 8 on a scale of 10. I recommend anyone that is looking for information on survival topics to refer to Delta's catalogs.

I was concerned though about privacy of the transaction. This is because of questions brought up by readers of my page. I asked these questions because of concerns emailed to me by readers of my page.

So I sent the following email to them:

This may be sort of a strange question but how do we know that ordering from you will not put our names on some government list somewhere? I have heard so much about government fronts and businesses cooperating with the government by providing name and address of customers buying certain text and so I am becoming leery.

I do plan on purchasing a few of your books (which will probably be reviewed on my home page http://www.gate.net/~dlpaxton) and may even attempt doing it on the net with credit card. (something I NEVER do) but the books I will be purchasing are definitely not the "red flag wavers" that would warrant my name on a list. Before I tell my readers on my page about your catalogs and available materials I want to know I am not waltzing them into a trap. One of your own books is about the BATF entrapments.

I may even do a short review of your catalogs soon.

I may also provide a link but with a warning about what I have just mentioned.

Thanks

To witch they replied:

Mr. Paxton,

We are delighted that you wish to review our catalogs (and books) on your site and would like to ease your mind on this government issue - we have been in business for over 20 years now with Deltapress and even have a sister catalog now called Deltaforce. We have never had any ties (other than tax season) with the U.S. government or any branch. We're just a business, providing informative material for educational purposes only. We hold our positions with our customers very seriously and hope you'll be one in the future.

Thanks, Delta Group

I then sent them additional email:

I have placed an order. Nothing that would be of interest to anyone anyway but the question still sits in the back of my mind. No doubt you keep records of Mr. X purchased books X,Y,Z and these records sit in your files. If the government (say under martial law or some sort of gov't witch hunt) marches into your office and confiscates your files they can do a search of all people ordering a book on C4 or Silencers or whatever and compile a list without your help. Hey, crazier things have happened in history! I guess someone could find a way to anonymously order if they are interested in such books. I'll have to admit, even though I am not interested in the use of C4 I was made curious about whether or not it would be as easy as the book claims. AND C4 could be used agriculturally for clearing land and blowing holes in rock.

Dave

After receiving no reply I sent a follow up message:

2 things that I wanted to tell you. First of all I realize the last post sent to you may have sounded paranoid. What prompts my statement is that the presidential orders on record to suspend the constitution and another to turn over control of the US to the UN IF in both cases a national emergency is declared. If the Y2K thing is a major event some yo-yo in the white house might declare a national emergency. Thus the question about how your records are kept and could they be searched to find the recipients of "controversial" literature in times of no Constitution and UN rule.

(A deletion for privacy of second point)

Dave

P.S.: how long does it normally take to get books delivered after an order is placed. I did not ask for rapid shipment because I wanted to see how long it takes.

No replies were received! You decide for yourself how you want to handle your order.

The books arrived by mail the next day . (almost 2weeks)

I asked these questions because of concerns emailed to me by readers of my page.

Now…. On to the book.

At first look I was put off by the fact that the whole book is about fallout shelters. This is a good book if you are concerned about nuclear war or nuclear incidence. My personal opinion is that if there is a nuclear war, or even nuclear terrorism, that there is little hope in my opinion of survival. If you have a shelter your life will be prolonged for the amount of time you can stay in the shelter. However, you have to come out sometime and from that point your days will be limited. I see no means of surviving such an event.

However, after considering the book for a while I decided that much of the information can be adopted to use in a shelter from other events. So, I looked (in more detail) again at the book. I found a great deal of semi-technical information. There are lots of good ideas and I will incorporate some of it into my shelter design. However, if you are trying to stay legal and get all the permits and inspections necessary you will probably have to get an engineer to sign off on any drawings you have made using this book as a guide. Also, you will have trouble with local regulations about entrances and windows required by law. The only way out might be if you are in a rural area and if discovered you can claim you are building a root cellar. Many agricultural areas allow such to be built without permits and inspections.

The underground shelters are nice but rather small. If you had to spend very long in them you find them extremely cramped but doable. Again, following the bomb shelter strategy, there is information about air filtration and circulating systems. I found the patio on the roof of the underground shelter a nice touch.

There is also a discussion of military type shelters. One kind of reminded me of the old under ground Kenedy Estate bomb shelters in West Palm Beach, Fl. They kind of look like a Quonset hut on steroids.

If you are interested in shelters designed as bomb shelters this is the book for you. I do not agree with most of the "in basement" bomb shelters drawn in this book. They were low ceiling cramped little "shock shelter" devices that you would not be able to spend weeks in let alone months! They would be good to ride out the initial shock of the atomic disaster but would not be a good place to sit and wait for the fallout to subside. Radiation levels will be to high to venture outside for some time. The cramped little "crawl space" shelters would be difficult if not impossible for a long term waiting period.

There is also a section on caching methods including tubes like I mentioned in my downloadable files from my homepage. This chapter alone is worthy of the price of the book if you are just getting started and want to know the basics of "hiding" your supplies.

All in all, I would rate the book an 9 on the 1 to 10 scale.

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