Survival Equipment

Now you have a place to start in building your ultimate go-bag. Let’s look at getting the right survival equipment items together as the seed for all your go-bags that you are going to build. Here’s the products I trust and recommend.

Weapons
Food and Water
Medical Supplies
Communications

Weapons
My favorite topic. All the survival preparations in the world count for nothing if you are unable to protect yourself. You must be able to stop bad people from harming you. Nothing works better than pure, raw, naked, deadly force judiciously applied. The most popular, effective and deadly of hand weapons are guns and knives. The choices for these weapons are guns and knives. The choices for these items are almost overwhelming. Having choices is a good thing, unless your are paralyzed be them. Here is what I recommend to get you started. My opinion. Yours may and probably will differ. Handguns. The short course: Get a Glock. Are there other guns as good? Probably. Why? They work. They are reliable. They’ve been stress tested under horrific conditions. They’re stupid simple to operate. Point and click. They digest most any ammo manufactured. Available in a wide range of calibers and sizes to fit most any mission. Lots of used Glocks out there. Of just about any semi-automatic handgun, Glocks are most likely NOT to let you down when you need it the most. If your going to get a gun, make at least one of them a Glock. Are they my favorite gun to shoot? No. But they are my favorite go-to gun.

What about revolvers, you say? Nothing wrong with revolvers. Get a Smith & Wesson or Ruger. They are well made. They are readily available on the used market. These are quality guns. Shotguns. Get a pump action shotgun. Remington 870 or Winchester 1300 Defender (if you can find one - not currently being manufactured). Inexpensive and effective. Pump actions are less prone to jam and can be more easily cleared if they do, compared to a semi-auto shotgun. Rifles. A semi-auto battle rifle in .308 winchester. Some suggestions (Any of these will cost you. What’s your life worth?): Springfield Armory M1A FAL (the most expensive one you can afford = reliability) Heckler & Koch HK91 Now, beware. Be knowledgeable about the gun laws in your state. How and where you store and carry your weapons varies greatly in each state. It is up to you to ensure you do not violate any gun law, no matter how stupid and ill-conceived they are. Something that is okay in one state becomes a felony in another. I would never encourage anyone to break the law. Do your due diligence on what you can and can’t legally do.

Knives
You WILL have a knife. No excuses on this one. Make that plural - knives. Have more than one. My suggestions: Swiss Army knife. Victorinox or Wegner. NO knock offs. Buy quality. Gerber “Bear Grylls” survival knife. Comes with fire starter, sharpening stone, and whistle. 4 3/4” fixed blade. "Gerber folding knife. Won’t break the bank, large selection. Kershaw folding knife. Same deal as Gerber. I have all the above. They all work for different purposes. A knife is probably the most important tool and weapon to have. The knife to bet your life on (and expensive too), get a Mad Dog SEAL ATAK if you can find one. Extremely low production and rare. Other style Mad Dog knives may be easier to find. OC spray. That is, oleoresin capsicum or commonly called pepper spray. A non-lethal solution to many sticky situations. While having deadly force available, it is not always the best solution. It rarely is the best solution. OC spray makes a dandy alternative. If you can’t run, and deadly force will cause more problems than it will solve, the OC spray may be the best answer to your situation. Works great against big angry dogs. Ask me how I know. Doesn’t work so great against hyped-up meth addicts. Get some and rotate your stock. The pressure in the can may bleed out over time. Can be found at bike shops as dog repellent. Kimber Can be found at bike shops as dog repellent. Kimber America makes a device called the “pepperblaster” which is a bit more powerful than the bike shop spray cans. The Kimber device is designed to stop the 2-legged animals.

Watch this survival equipment video to learn more:

Food and Water
You should have a minimum of 3 days food and water available where ever you are. Why 3 days? That’s what FEMA and Red Cross say. They’re a little conservative. Have both a water filter and purification tablets or solution along with water bottles or collapsible bags.

What I like:
First Need water purification system. Never gotten sick using this in South America. Can pump a large amount fairly quickly. Filters out cysts and chemicals. Iodine. 2% five drops per quart. Easy to use. Good for some radiation protection (potassium iodide). Tastes funky. Household bleach. 2 drops @ 5-6% hypochlorite per quart of water. Cheap! Micropur MP-1 tablets. Chlorine Dioxide. Kind of expensive compared to above. Least offensive taste of the chemical treatments. Get MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and dehydrated packaged food. Check the shelf life. MREs seem to be typically 1-5 years. Other packaged food can have shelf lives up to 25 years. How much do you need to store? How much to put in your go-bag? A lot more than the 3 days recommended by our government. A year’s worth at home and a week’s worth in your go-bag if you can fit it. Depends on what you’ve decided is important to you. Start figuring it out.

Medical Supplies
Trauma, broken bones, infection... Survival equipment is not complete without medical supplies. The condensed version here is to have material to treat blood loss, splint broken bones, and take care of infections, both viral and bacterial. Have emergency blankets to keep warm. Have reference material for specific ailments and trauma. Have training to use all these things. Check out First Aid and First Responder training in your area. If none are available, plan now to take some time off and attend a class somewhere! Do it!

Communications
Cell phone. Get a pre-paid cell phone. This is in addition to your regular contract phone if you have one. Why a pre-paid phone? Traceability. Why make it easy to find you if you are on the run. Today’s smartphones are easily tracked. If you don’t want to be found, turn off your contract phone and pull the battery. Pull the battery! Buy your pre-paid phone with cash. Doesn’t matter if it is on as it is not traceable to you. This all pre-supposes that the cell phone infrastructure is working. If not, then... Ham radio. Get a ham radio license, or not. But get the radio. Know how to use it. A handheld transceiver like a Kenwood TH-22AT (now discontinued) that I have, is highly portable and can be modified to extend its frequency range to extend into the commercial bands. Well known brands include Alinco, Yaesu, Kenwood, and Icom. Get involved with the ham radio community. They are dedicated to helping people in emergency situations. Could be very useful. This then, is the core of any of your go-bags. How much of any of these items will be determined by the job you have assigned to your go-bag. It is up to you to make sure your bag meets the job description you’ve given it.