Navigation

Archive | Survival

Equinox Monarch Ultralite Travel Bag

By on January 10, 2012 in EDC, Survival, Tactical Gear

Kevin at Advanced Outfitters first told me about these Monarch Ultralite Travel Bags from Equinox. These versatile bags are perfect for a number of different uses.

The Monarch Ultralite Travel Bag has 5 internal pouches of varying size and there is still enough room to store items loose inside the clamshell opening bag. The pockets are made from mesh so that you can see what they contain at a glance. The body of the pouch is made from ultralight 1.1oz silicone impregnated ripstop nylon to keep the weight to a minimum and provide some water resistance.

These make great first aid kit bags or gear organizers. I like to organize my smaller gear in this type of bag so that I can easily move it from one bag to another. The Monarch Ultralite Travel Bags are perfect for this “bag in bag” organization style because they don’t add much weight unlike other organizers made from heavier materials. They also come in several colors so that you can easily color code your gear.

The Equinox Monarch Ultralite Travel Bag is made right here in the USA. Check them out on the Equinox website.

Emberlit Stove

By on January 9, 2012 in Survival, Tactical Gear

I have come to the point in my life where I do not relish the idea of rucking all of the tools necessary to process large pieces of wood for a cooking fire when I am in the woods. This means that I have to carry a stove of some kind to heat my meals. Carrying a stove means have to buy and carry fuel. In the end, I often just end up eating cold food on the trail. Fortunately, I recently came across the Emberlit Stove.

The Emberlit Stove is the best designed wood burning cooking stove that I have ever come across. It assembles and dissembles easily and packs almost completely flat in its disassembled state. In its assembled state, it allows you to build a clean burning, efficient, contained wood fire to quickly heat your trail food using only the fuel that can gather on the trail. All it takes is a handful of wood to boil water. You can easily process all the wood that you will need with a good field knife.

It may sound silly, but I think I am most excited by the fact that the Emberlit stove actually has a feeding hole. Most stoves of this type do not have this which means constantly having to lift your cooking container to add wood through the top of the stove. With the Emberlit stove, you can just add fuel through the feeding hole when means you can keep the temperature more constant.

The Emberlit stove can also be used with trioxane, Esbit tabs, and even candles to heat your food. You can carry a back up fuel source just in case your find yourself in a spot where you can’t harvest wood. That is a very nice bit of redundancy.

The Emberlit is made in the USA and is available in either a stainless steel or titanium version. The stainless version weighs a fairly scant 11.3 ounces and the Ti versions weighs an amazing 5.45 ounce. It collapses down to a mere 1/8″ thick for packing. There are also a handful of accessories available. You can check them out on Emberlit.com.

Stay tuned to Jerking the Trigger for a full review of the Emberlit Stove.

Benchmade 8 Hook with Glass Breaker (BLKWMEDR)

By on December 12, 2011 in EDC, Knives, Survival

Benchmade Safety Cutters are some of my favorites pieces of gear because they just work so well. Their reliability and cutting power amazed me when I reviewed them. Now Benchmade has expanded the Safety Cutter line with the new 8 Hook BLKWMEDR which features a carbide glass breaker.

I keep a Benchmade 8 Hook in my truck where I can reach it easily in case I need to cut my seat belt in an emergency. This new 8 Hook incorporates a carbide glass breaker which makes it even more well suited to emergency use in a vehicle. It gives you the ability to cut your seat belt and break a window to extract yourself from your vehicle in an emergency – all in one simple to use tool.

Check out the 8 Hook BLKWMEDR and all the other 8 Hook Safety Cutters on the Benchmade website.

Fire Ant Red and Venom Green ESEE Izula from BladeHQ

By on December 8, 2011 in EDC, Knives, Survival

My favorite compact fixed blades are the Izula and Izula II from ESEE. They fit the hand well, are bull strong, have a great warranty, are made right here in the USA, and come with a very versatile sheath system. The Izula may be small but, 99% of the time, it is all the knife that I need.

Small knives like the Izula are easy to carry but they can also be easily lost. BladeHQ has teamed up with the folks at ESEE to offer exclusive Izulas with high visibility coatings. They are offering a bright red color called Fire Ant Red and a fluorescent green color called Venom. These bright colors make it easy to find the knife whether you are rummaging through your pack, searching on a forest floor, or even if you drop it in water while crossing a creek.

High viability colors make a lot of sense on a survival tool as important as your knife and, let’s face it, they look pretty darn cool too. Check out the Fire Ant Red Izula and the Venom Green Izula exclusively at BladeHQ.

Blind Horse Knives Outdoors Machete

By on November 22, 2011 in Knives, Survival, Tactical Gear

I am a big fan of machetes as survival tools. Many people think that machetes are only useful for the thin, springy vegetation found in tropical environments but that isn’t the case at all. They can be use for many of the same tasks that you would use a hatchet for while still being useful for knife tasks. One of the more interesting machetes that I have seen lately is the Blind Horse Knives (BHK) Outdoors Machete.

BHK has machete blade blanks made to their specs from 1075 carbon steel which is a great steel for machetes. They finish the blade with a great edge, micarta handles, and a very nice kydex sheath. The sharpened edge is 12 3/8″ long and the overall length is 19 3/8″ long.

The Outdoors Machete has one of the most versatile handle shapes that I have ever seen. It is extra long so that the user can hold lower on the handle to increase chopping leverage. It also features finger grooves that allow you to choke up for finer, more detailed cuts. The handle also features two different lanyard attachment points – one close to the butt of the handle and one closer to the blade.

BHK also brings the sharpened edge much closer to the handle than is typical for a machete. This greatly improves the ability to make controlled cuts when you are trying to do tasks like notching a stick for a dead fall or making a feather stick for fire prep. The blade shape itself should lend itself to many tasks and the spine is squared for use with a firesteel. Many machetes have rounded spines that won’t spark a firesteel.

As you can see, a lot of details went into this design to make it better than the average machete as a survival tool and that is really saying something since just about any old $5 machete is a pretty darn good survival tool. If you are looking for a machete for your next woods bumming trip, check out the BHK Outdoors Machete.

Powered by WordPress. Designed by Woo Themes