John D. McCann, whom you may recall has recently been a contributor recently ITS, has just released a new book called Stay Alive! Survival Skills You Need.
You may remember towards the beginning days of ITS when I mentioned the Mini Survival Kits I built based on John’s first book, Build The Perfect Survival Kit. He’s been one of my favorite authors for a long time and I was stoked to have him contribute to ITS Tactical.
I’m even more excited about this new book, as it keeps in line with what I love about John as an author. He takes a no-nonsense, anal-retentive look at survival as a whole and breaks it down for everyone to understand. I hope he doesn’t get upset with my description of his writing, but it’s something I can totally relate to and fully appreciate. [Read More…]
I’m sitting at my desk as I feel the floor gently ‘bounce.’ I work on the 11th floor of an office building in downtown Washington DC. Being at the top of the building and next to a small bridge, it’s not uncommon to feel small ‘shutters’ of movement as a large truck passes by.
Was this a truck? An earthquake? An explosion? The bounce subsided for a few moments as my coworkers and I stood and stared blankly at each other.
[Read More…]
Even though we just reviewed the near identical twin brother of this kit, the sixth kit in our Pocket Sized Survival Kit series is the Pocket Survival Pak Plus from Adventure Medical Kits.
As the name implies, it’s quite similar to the standard Pocket Survival Pak. But this kit has some tricks up its sleeve.
What I like about these past two kits from Adventure Medical Kits & Doug Ritter is that the packaging includes a section on “Improving The Odds in Your Favor.”
It urges you to not only go over the survival instructions before stowing your Pak, but to also practice with it beforehand.
The advice makes sense no matter what Survival Kit you’re using, you can never practice too much before you’re in the situation where you “have” to use it.
[Read More…]
While the definition of Wilderness Survival means many different things to many different people, today I’m using it in the context of a recent Boy Scout Campout I went on with my son and his troop.
Each year our troop, which my son has officially been part of for just about a year, holds an annual Wilderness Survival Campout they call McGyver. They call it McGyver because it’s a one night campout in January with nothing more than what you can carry in your pockets.
When I heard about the premise behind this campout, I was thoroughly impressed that the scouts have this rare opportunity to get out into nature and truly experience what it’s like to be out in cold weather with close to nothing with them for shelter. [Read More…]
The fourth kit in our Pocket Sized Survival Kit series is the Ultralight Survival Kit by Lifeline. You may remember the low scores I gave the last kit by Lifeline, so you can understand my apprehension when I found out that this one was from the same company. But looks can be deceiving and I was willing to put this kit through its paces.
I like their tag line on the front of the packaging:
“A mixture of essential items to help you survive if lost or stranded in the outdoors.”
That’s the key thing to remember with all of these kits. A good kit should include some of the basics and have multiple uses for each item. There is no true ‘one size fits all’ kit, but most do contain a few truly essential items that, when paired with your creativity, can help you survive in an otherwise difficult situation. [Read More…]
How many here remember having to carry a signal mirror in their military E&E kit? How about all the boaters, skiers/snowboarder, PSD or SAR types out there that are carrying one now?
Whichever category you might fall under, I’m sure you also know how much space those can take up and that they can potentially break, crack or become a safety hazard to your fingers. I’d like to introduce you to the future in survival gear with the SAR Eclipse Signal Mirror and Eclipse Micro Pendants.
Now you can have a signaling device on you anytime, no matter where you are. Whether that’s walking in Wal-mart or trekking through a mountain range in Afghanistan. Designed by a fellow veteran Spencer Reiter who runs SAR Global Tool. These are specialized pieces of equipment that everyone’s end of the world go-bag should include. [Read More…]
Most people reading this article are interested in personal protection and preparedness. Sometimes people fixate on a specific threat, whether it be an armed attacker or a weather emergency.
They go overboard in anticipation of that one thing happening, to the exclusion of everything else. For example, students show up to a firearms course without the appropriate first aid gear to deal with a gunshot wound.
Let’s talk about some common scenarios and the time you have to deal with them. [Read More…]
The third kit in our pocket sized survival kit review series is the Weatherproof Survival Kit model 4434 by Lifeline.
This kit was interesting. When I stumbled across it, I found it odd that it was so inexpensive for being so full featured. Since it met our research criteria we went ahead and ordered it off of Amazon, but is it truly a pocket sized survival kit?
Some things may surprise you as we take an in-depth look into this kit.
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Continuing our series on pocket sized survival kits, today we are taking a look at another sardine can style kit. This one is the ‘Survival Kit-In-A-Can’ by Coghlan’s.
Just by reading over its list of contents you’ll quickly notice that it has an impressive amount of gear inside. The question, though, isn’t really about quantity, but quality.
[Read More…]
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