Real life survival tips


Guest

Recommended Posts

Hey folks, just thought I'd start a thread where we could post real life survival tips we've come across. A friend of mine came across this one today [bBvideo 560,340:tunvagel]

[/bBvideo]
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A simple piece of tinder that can burn for a couple of mins.

Take a cotton ball, spread it apart and put petroleum jelly in it. Repeat, and put them in an old prescription bottle, or watertight container. The combination of the materials is like a candle.

They will light very quickly, and burn long.

This is my go-to fire-tinder. In a pinch, you can use an article of clothing, and carmex for similar results.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is not a single small tip like those, but something I've gotten in to the habit of, and it strikes me as rather pertinent for survival as well as many things in life!

"Good things come in twos" is a great adage, and in personal defense we're always taught (and I teach others) that there's no possible way you can guarantee that your ONE gun will do the job all the time, or your ONE lock on the door will keep you safe, and this principle can be applied to anything.

I apply this to firearms, yes, but it's rare that here in FL I can carry even ONE reasonable gun, much less two, given the heat for 11 months of the year... Sucks, but it's a fact of life!

I have an alternative in this arena, and that's bladed weapons, and I have a minimum of three on me (or within reach) at ALL times, and only ONE would you ever see unless you were assaulting me. Only ONE is a tool. The others are weapons, and are only to be deployed as such.

Take that mentality to survival preparedness now, and expand!

Do you have a bug-out bag? Only one? Build another, and hide that sucker in a safe, dry place and tell NO ONE (not even your spouse) where it is.

Do you have an emergency cache? Prepare another, and do the same. Make a third, if the money is there. Don't use time as an excuse, because when time runs out, what you didn't expend preparing before will shorten what you will have left because of bad preparation.

There's several reasons for this, and the main one is simply redundancy. There's nothing wrong with having more than you need, and if one of your bags / caches / preps gets compromised or stolen, you always have that other one (or two) waiting for you!

I have four total family sized caches with bags and tools for the whole family unit, as well as some clothing. Unfortunately, as the children grow, that becomes hard to maintain, but not impossible if you're serious.

Heck, one of my BOBs has a hand-build ghille suit and a rebreather apparatus in it! What for, in God's name, you might ask???

I don't know.

But isn't it better that I might never need to know than I have a need and be without?

I'll pop out some one-line tips later too!

Thanks - T

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My next tip, if you have paper matches (like from a cheap matchbook) you can split the match down the middle, and get 2 strikes out of it.

SURV-SPLIT-PAPER-MATCH.jpg

Oh yea. We did that during Communism.

It's not really a survival skill - it's one of these things that everyone should know regardless where they live ;) hehehe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Good things come in twos"

I thought it was threes? At lleast that's how the saying goes here in Holland.

I agree with you on the principle that "one is none and two is one". It's not a bad idea to have more then one of the most essential essentials.

I always carry two or more knives, although as survival tools not as weapons (not that I wouldn't use them as such if the situation calls for it), and I've always got multiple ways of making fire and to navigate as well.

Heck, one of my BOBs has a hand-build ghille suit and a rebreather apparatus in it!

Only one? :P

A simple piece of tinder that can burn for a couple of mins.

Take a cotton ball, spread it apart and put petroleum jelly in it. Repeat, and put them in an old prescription bottle, or watertight container. The combination of the materials is like a candle.

They will light very quickly, and burn long.

This is my go-to fire-tinder. In a pinch, you can use an article of clothing, and carmex for similar results.

Yeah, the petroleum jelly soaked cotton ball is a great tinder for sure. But I find it hard to light them using a spark (firesteel/ flint and steel) if you soak them completely through (although they'll burn longer of course). I only rub the petroleum jelly on the outside so that I can peel them open and expose the still dry and fluffy fibers in the middle. That will catch the spark much easier. (I confess I could use some more practice striking a spark, so maybe that's where the problem lies.)

Something I recently came across and planning to try out is self igniting tinder, using strike anywhere matches, toilet paper/ paper towels and candle wax. Completely waterproof and you don't need anything else to ignite them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@elloco999 -

I have a "tool" knife, a partially visible yet still secure defensive / long bladed knife, and then a LD (last ditch) knife somewhere on my person at all times!

SO at least the "threes" rule can apply there for me, if not other places...

And yeah, that ghille suit was a PITA to make and dye properly (hence why there's only one), and now that we're talking about it, I may need to reassess that, because it was dyed for West Virginia, and I'm back in Florida now...

Thanks - T

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Interesting those self igniting tinders...

Funny thing, strike anywhere matches are illegal to sell in MN.

I tried making the self igniting tinders this weekend. I found out strike anywhere matches are not available here in the Netherlands (not sure if they are actually illegal or not, just not a (web)shop that sells them), and ordering them in the states adds a $15 shipping charge to a $1 pack of matches...

So then I tried a tutorial on making your own strike anywhere matches using regular safety matches. That was a bust... So I made the tinders using safety matches instead.

Turns out that they are really hard to ignite unless there is no wind/ rain, and it takes a while until they get really going. But when they do they do burn for a decent time, but not nearly as long as I expected. And the wind actually blew one out when it had burned for 2/3rds and it wasn't really all that windy.

All in all, I'm still using my trusty old vaseline soaked cotton balls. They are easier to ignite, especially in bad weather and they burn longer. They are a bit more messy though :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Real Life Survival Tips ~ TAKE CARE OF YOUR FEET !!! Dry, Warm, Cut Free, Infection Free and then this transcends to your Boots/Shoes you have. In Survival Situation if you don't have feet to walk on your going arse up. . . .

From personal experience, trudging through the rain forests for 48hrs and no reprieve from swampy, marshy, wet ground, after 48 hrs, we finally got to stop, (got out of the rat infested low ground ~ Rats the size of cats mind you) and i took my boots off and they were White, and wrinkly and soooo sore. I was out of commission for the next 12hrs trying my best to sooth them back to walking condition. But even after that, my feet never completely recovered, so i after that, i always carry plastic bags and elastic bands . . .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Real Life Survival Tips ~ TAKE CARE OF YOUR FEET !!!

From personal experience, trudging through the rain forests for 48hrs and no reprieve from swampy, marshy, wet ground, after 48 hrs, we finally got to stop, (got out of the rat infested low ground ~ Rats the size of cats mind you) and i took my boots off and they were White, and wrinkly and soooo sore. I was out of commission for the next 12hrs trying my best to sooth them back to walking condition. But even after that, my feet never completely recovered, so i after that, i always carry plastic bags and elastic bands . . .

48hrs! that's nuts! where you hunting or being hunted? when I used to play soccer and my feet were in water for 90 minutes (on a rainy winter match day) they looked like cottage cheese, and they would hurt! I cant event think what it looked like if they were in for 48hrs... all i can picture is new England clam chowder soup =)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

48hrs! that's nuts! where you hunting or being hunted? when I used to play soccer and my feet were in water for 90 minutes (on a rainy winter match day) they looked like cottage cheese, and they would hurt! I cant event think what it looked like if they were in for 48hrs... all i can picture is new England clam chowder soup =)

We did a little exercise with the Gurka's and they had us on the run for that long. And I tell you now, you don't stop and sleep with the Gurka on your tail, so we kept in the low wet marshes as it is harder to track us in that environment, and went for hell and leather to our RV.

You are correct, Clam Chowder sounds correct, but what got me was the smell . . . Ohhhh it was terrible, and there is nothing i can compare it with. :((

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Oh the "foot care" thing...

Other than old tales of the stringency of the English and their foot care, I'd never given it a second thought, save the basic "preventative care" stuff in my backpacks and day packs when I was a kid, doing all that outdoor stuff...

THEN. Cobra Down happened.

That was a 30-day continuous training op my unit was a part of in the woods of the Eglin AFB range, AKA the largest continuous-use land tract attached to an active military base in the world.

Then it decided to rain before, during, and after the tropical storm that rolled in, and they said "WELL! This is more realistic! KEEP AT IT, BOYS!"

...And we kept at the training op / sar-ex / EOD+UXO clear / camping trip for the duration of one of the heaviest rainfall periods in N> Florida's recent history...

And I WISH I had permission to carry a camera then, because other than documenting a hell worse than Afghanistan EVER was (I loved what I did there), the insides of our uniforms and boots were just sickening.

Our medic couldn't even look at his own feet, much less anyone elses'... It was psychotic.

Dry, drier, driest!

Good socks, and what some people cheap out on...

GOOD BOOTS.

Thanks - T

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's another survival tip, and arguably the most important of all: stay calm!

Panic can make you do stupid things, and get you into far more trouble really fast. So in almost any survival situation try to stay calm and think before you act. (unless of course waiting to act results in instant death...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting, I'm going to try that. It would be a nice backup heater in case the power goes out for some time in the winter. A couple of years ago we had a power outage for three days, it got pretty cold in the house. Luckily my parents did still have power and they live only 15 minutes away, so we spend most of our time with them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now