EDC and Get Home Bag Thoughts
[On a tangent I just don’t have enough good things to say about that bag or the company in general. They do not seem to make the exact bag I have anymore though it seems to have been slightly updated as their modular operator pack. Also this is a darn good lesson along the “buy nice, once” school of thought. My bag cost $110 approximately 8 years ago (the comparable bag now sells for $200ish, another lesson maybe). I remember because it was a huge sum of money to me back then. That being said 8 years later I am still using it happily. Theft, loss or massive damage via fire or shrapnel damage aside I think getting about 10 more years out of it is likely. I have never had an issue with the zippers despite literally shoving the contents down with my foot and forcing them closed a few times. The straps have never had issues despite carrying far more weight than is reasonable for such a bag. Aside from a few dirt stains I am too lazy to scrub out, slight smoothing out of the little fibers on some straps and some scratches on the buckles it looks just like it did years ago. It has never failed me despite being pushed beyond the reasonable limits of what is essentially a beefed up book bag. (Not saying this bag is somehow inferior to anything on the market. Quite the opposite in fact; I would give it even money against all comers. What I am saying is that the “assault pack” category of bags are essentially overgrown beefed up book bags and we all need to have realistic expectations about what they will do. If you expect them to do what a 4,000 cubic inch bag with a full frame and heavy hip pad will do then disappointment is in your future.]
Like any company I cannot say every product Tactical Tailor makes is for you. I can say they do not skimp on any part of the process from planning useful well thought out gear, buying good material to properly assembling it. My only relationship with them is that over the years I have spend a few hundred dollars on their stuff. The reason I went on this tangent is to A) to mention that I really like this bag, B) point out the benefits of buying quality gear and C) to recommend a source for said gear I have been very pleased with. End Tangent.]
I have talked about get home bag’s before 1, 2, 3and John Mosby chimed in on the topic also. No need to totally retread old ground. Check out the older posts if you have not read them already. Anyway like I said before getting all distracted I have been doing some thinking.
First after a lot of consideration I do not see any reason to spend a bunch of money on a bag that is basically just going to sit in my car. Especially since a very nice bag is usually there anyway. Even if money wasn’t an issue it just doesn’t make sense. My plan is to put together a nice little get home bag in the used alice pack I bought. I will take the basic packing list from my last one (things get disassembled when you move) and build on it to make a more squared away one. Not a full up 45 pound BOB but a bit more than a running home bag. Not exactly sure how that will crack out but that is a problem for another day.
As to the TT bag I EDC it can use some work also. I am just tossing out ideas here but if it has a personal survival kit,a steel water bottle and cup, an IFAK as well as a bandaid and asprin style boo boo kit, a poncho an all weather blanket (like the good space blankets), say 2k calories in food and a spare pair of socks that would be pretty awesome. If I do it right then most of the bag will still be available for everyday junk AND I will have a nice setup if I need it. I envision it almost like a light long hunter/ bush craft type style setup.
Really the ideal situation for me (aside from living a charmed life where I do not need this bag at all) would be to transfer whatever everyday minutia and work junk is in my TT bag to the car or whatever and empty the contents of the ALICE bag into my preferred bag. That being said both my EDC bag (albeit as a much smaller system) and the GHB need to be able to stand alone. I do not want to depend on anything in the EDC bag because while it does come with me very often it stays at home sometimes too.
Anyway that is where I am with bags and kits today. As always input is appreciated.
Vehicle Kits, Get Home Bags, Modularity and Systems
My get home bag tends to live in our vehicle because it is how I get places and I am rarely far from it. If riding in a carpool it and my normal EDC bag of junk like a coat, lunch, etc get combined and a few things might get stashed at work, like a spare functional set of clothes and footwear.
I do usually keep some stuff in our vehicle. There is a Rubbermaid tub with a flashlight, spare batteries, some tools, coats, some water, some oil and coolant, first aid kit, warning triangles, etc in the back. We also each have dedicated bags with things like a knife, light, lighter, etc. To be honest at some point I went a bit overboard. The back of our full sized SUV is almost full of “my crazy stuff” as Wifey calls it. Things definitely need to get pared down however considering our timeline here it is more like they will be reassembled leaner and meaner on the other end.
Honestly I focus a lot more on the ‘kit’ than the vehicle part. The vehicle is where this stuff lives as it is a good place to haul stuff and is usually pretty close at hand. I think the contents of a “vehicle kit” could be easily broken down into stuff for you and stuff for the vehicle. The contents of both kits should logically flow from your overall situation. If you might get stuck for 4-5 days in the hinter boonies during a frigid winter a lot more kit is required than if you work 5 miles from home in balmy South Carolina. Your vehicle side of the kit’s contents will depend on need and skill. If you are a mechanic who regularly drives a 30 year old truck in very isolated areas it would be hard to have too comprehensive of a kit. On the other hand if you aren’t very handy and drive a newish reliable car on frequently traveled roads very little stuff is needed.
Back to Get Home Bags. John Mosby recently talked about a personal shortcoming in the GHB/ vehicle kit area. Definitely worth reading and if it applies to you taking action. Read about my GHB development here. I think the concept of a get home bag is sound. However, it’s contents need to fit your situation and the distances you travel from home. My get home bag will shortly be put into a dedicated bag whose entire job is to sit vigilantly in my vehicle. Some basic survival stuff will still live in my EDC bag because I haul it around a lot. A knife, flashlight, lighter, matches, a few granola bars, etc do not take up much space.
My get home bag is really stripped down and minimalist. This works because I stick pretty near home far more often than not. If I worked 50 miles from home or regularly traveled long distances a more substantial kit would be necessary.
I think different kits might fit better for different situations. I have a stripped out assault pack right now just so I could be a bit more comfortable on a long walk home. If I was going 50-100 miles from home something more akin to a backpacking setup/ BOB/ rucksack would make sense. The kind of thing that has a couple days of water, food for several days and enough clothing/ gear to meet all of your basic needs for a pretty long time. Maybe I don’t want to keep that bag (and the one for the Mrs.) in our vehicle all the time since we really don’t need it that often. If we went driving across rural northwestern Canada in the winter more gear would be prudent.
I think that using systems which already exist may be the best way to fit this need. No point in reinventing the wheel here. Sticking with EDC/GHB a la assault pack/ BOB aka rucksack somewhat layered systems may be a good way to fit a wide variety of potential situations/ needs.
Anyway those are my thoughts on kits today.
Get Home Bag, Walking and Life Update
We have been walking a lot lately. The weather is good now and it is a solid way to get out of the house and doing something. I do not recommend walking as a form of exercise unless you are A) elderly, B) recovering from a serious injury/ illness, C) crippled or D) seriously overweight and or out of shape and working towards running a la couch to 5k or a similar program. However that does not mean walking is not without benefits. Most of the benefits are not really physical. Getting outside and spending time with your family in the area you live in is a good thing. If somebody told me they walk as a form of exercise who did not fit the above categories I would try to coach them towards a better path, potentially with some mocking involved. If somebody told me they walk regularly to get outside and for active recovery from more strenuous workouts like running or rucking or for some additional low impact/ intensity cardio I would say that was a great plan.
My get home bag setup needs some work. The primary issue is that I really like my Tactical Tailor bag and use it regularly. I like that bag for the task but it can’t be in two places at once. This makes having it in the car with a variety of stuff loaded into it problematic. I have a couple of ideas. First a couple side pouches to hold 1 quart water bottles will help free up space in the main compartment for normal life stuff. (Regardless of what I do the bag needs this MOD anyway.) Second sooner or later I need to swap out that bag or get a replacement for normal everyday carry use. Something I have considered is putting most of the stuff that is in my GHB into something else like a wet weather bag or trash bag and then putting it into my TT pack if needed. Mostly this stuff is a full set of clothes with boots, socks, gloves and a hat. I keep this stuff in there because regularly I go on short trips in less than fully ideal clothing and the option to change into suitable clothes for walking is a good thing. I mulled this a lot but despite being an easy and ideal solution it came up short because while I carry the TT bag around a lot while using it as a normal bag it doesn’t ALWAYS MAKE IT INTO THE CAR. Inevitably the day I needed it is the day it would be in the hall closet. So the question is what to do. The short term answer is pretty much covered. I ordered a used medium ALICE pack awhile back for $10. It will be a very inexpensive solution and such will likely fit for awhile. Not as nice or comfortable but for $10 instead of $150 that is to be expected. Still a rugged bomb proof pack. Down the road a nice high end bag like the TT or something from Hill People Gear would be great in this role but I will not be able to justify the expense for awhile. Likely I would use the TT for a GHB and something a bit smaller for typical every day type use. Since I don’t see any traction on this for at least 6 months or more likely 12 there is some time to think about it.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Running to the Store, Vehicle Kits and Cases
I have had some serious good fortune to stumble into some quality cases lately such as a hardigg footlocker, and a genuine halliburton briefcase. The fundamental purpose of cases is, just like any sort of packaging, to contain and protect things. Different stuff has different needs. Ammunition and food need to be protected from moisture and oxygen. Ammo cans and big plastic buckets fill these needs nicely. Neither of these products are particularly vulnerable to impact or shock (like bouncing around the back of a truck, not electric) within reason.
However some items are and they require different sorts of containers. Of course you could say wrap an item in bubble wrap and stick it into an ammo can or pursue some other home solution. I can speak about pelican/ hardigg cases with some experience. These products are great but rather expensive. There are other companies like Otter that offer seemingly comparable products at slightly lower prices but I have not used them.
I look at containers as insurance for the items inside. As such it is worth paying attention to the costs involved. A $20 case to hold a couple hundred dollar camera makes sense, especially if the last camera and maybe one before that would still be alive if it had been in such a case. A couple hundred dollar case to protect a hundred dollar Mosin Nagant wouldn’t make sense like it would for say a Steyre SSG with a Night Force scope.
Like a lot of folks I have accumulated a few fairly expensive electronics. A GPS, some radios and a solar charger to be specific, as well as the usual camera, video camera, laptops, kindles, etc. Probably a few thousand dollars in stuff and we don’t have anything really cool like Gen 3 night vision, FLIR, etc (yet!). If we had to leave in a hurry during a nasty storm or whatever a big pelican case to put that stuff into would make the odds of our equipment surviving go up significantly. For small items that you want to use a lot like camera’s a little case is pretty darn handy. Also they are lockable and fairly secure which could be useful.
Personally most of my case needs are met for the time being. I would like a nice rifle case big enough to squeeze a pistol and just maybe a second long gun in. Being able to securely move around a couple guns and have them take some knocks with minimal risk of losing zero appeals to me.
Anyway you might want to put some consideration into how you will protect valuable and useful but relatively fragile stuff under less than optimal conditions. A few cases may be in order.
What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?
The biggest thing of last week is that I got back to a pretty normal exercise schedule for the first week after getting sick. Running, sprinting and lifting. Good times.
What did you do to prepare this week?
A Week in Preps, Free Downloads, Kits and Other Stuff
This week I finished up the kit/ bag that I have been working on. That meant buying the last few things like plastic bags and granola bars, digging around closets and storage to find things and just taking the time to get it all put together. We will revisit this later. Also we put some more money into our emergency fund. In the last couple months we have increased it by about 40%. Mostly this was needed for the fund to keep up with our family and life situation.
Today I noticed that John Galt’s The Day The Dollar Died blovel is being offered as a free PDF download. I really enjoyed reading it the first time. Being able to read it at my own pace, not all broken up, will be nice. I strongly recommend it. Now onto kits.
So like I said I got done building the kit I have been working on. It started out to be a get home bag. I am not exactly sure what it turned into. Maybe there was a sort of mission creep but it definitely got bigger, heavier and more comprehensive than I planned. While it fit into my Tactical Tailor assault bag it was too heavy for such a bag and carried badly. I put the contents into one of the smallish packs I got from REI awhhile back. What I have is sort of straddling the fence between what I would consider a pretty comprehensive and relatively heavy get home bag and a slightly minimalist bug out bag. It has stuff to purify water, change clothes, sleep in reasonable (spring/summer, winter would need a different module) comfort, treat a variety of injuries and all of that good stuff.
I am not sure if I am thrilled with it or unhappy. In any case it definitely did not fit the intended purpose. If I commuted 50 miles one way to work every day it would probably live in my vehicle. However I do not do that. I do like the setup but am not entirely sure what I will do with it. Maybe it will stay the same or change or get parted out. For the time being it will be my bugout bag. Down the road I think it might get slightly tweeked and become Wifey’s bag.
After putting that bag together and realizing the problem we just talked about I immediately set out to making the sort of get home bag that I actually need. So I put together a pretty light get home bag. One that fits my life. I was determined not to let it suffer from any sort of creep. Basically I took my TT assault pack, tossed in a pair of boots, socks, some water and a bunch of various bars to munch on. Of course the usual suspects like a knife, compass, fire making stuff, etc are present. Much more geared toward a 25 mile walk than a multi day treck.
Thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.
I may get around to doing posts on these. However I want to mull recent developments and maybe fill some gaps first. It might be awhile as I am lazy when it comes to that sort of posts.
Gas prices are down some here. About 30 cents from the high if memory serves me correctly. I noticed that gold shot up a bit recently but silver is still well under $30 which is a pretty good deal. It may stay there and may not, I can’t say.
Anyway that is about all I have for now. Hope Monday wasn’t too painful for anybody.
What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?
Also we seem to be fiddling some with alternative transportation. I got a bike, though sadly not a sweet Harley. Also I found a small wagon, like to pull the kid around in. It is pretty cool. It has little seats and a place for him to put a sippy cup. We took it out this weekend and he really liked it. Being able to move him and a bit of stuff in a way that he is happy with is significant. Also the wagon led to a slew of Oregon Trails jokes which was big fun. These little steps may just take us somewhere.
Anyway that is what we were up to this week. I hope you all did some good stuff. Remember it isn’t just about buying things. Exercise, learn and practice new skills, network and build relationships, work on your tribe. Just do something that makes you more prepared than you were last week.
Random Thoughts on Kits
I have noticed a few things about kits lately that seem worth discussing:
The name a person uses for a specific kit almost meaningless but we have covered that already. It’s purpose is probably a lot more meaningful anyway.
There seems to two sort of schools when it comes to kits. There is the “generic” kit school and the specially designed school. The generic kit folks would say that a get home bag aka GHB should have these things. The specially designed folks would want to know a bunch of stuff like where you live, how far you are trying to go, what your plan is, etc. I think they are both sort of right. The generic kit folks are right in that they probably give a 75% solution for most people. Kits need stuff like a knife, fire, water and water purification, shelter (clothes and or sleeping), etc in varying quantities. The specialized folks are (outside of a rare person with terribly unrealistic plan) right in that kits should be driven by your skills, situation and plans. More often than not, excluding a rare person with a really unique situation, the specialists just end up adding and/ or subtracting a few things from the generic kit lists anyway.
In putting things together I have definitely realized you need redundancy in common items. I do believe in a sort of modular nesting concept where your EDC blends into a sort of survival kit, which flows into a get home bag, maybe all this contributes in some way to a BOB, etc. However life doesn’t always work that way and each kit should be able to stand alone, certainly in key areas.
That means you probably need stuff like knifes, flashlights, water bottles, etc in some quantities. Not necessarily the same exact items but broad areas to fit different kits. The perfect flashlight to be on your key chain is not the one you want to use to set up camp at midnight. This means you probably want to think about the roles and expectations of tools in different kits.
To further complicate things you really want stuff in kits to be dedicated equipment. To me the whole point of a kit is having a thought through and organized set of stuff ready to go and in the right place when you need it. Otherwise you don’t have a kit so much as a bunch of good stuff strewn all over your house, car, storage area, etc all. This means you either need to be really good about borrowing and replacing stuff, which nobody ever actually does, or have additional redundant stuff for common use.
The exact bar for what to get a spare of and what not to is based on our situation. For most people I think something like $50 or so makes sense. So that means the knife/ flashlight/ socks/ waterbottle/ etc all in a kit need to stay there. Certainly in the case of big ticket items like GPS’s, guns, sleeping systems, etc common sense dictates some things may have to be added to the kit before taking it out or borrowed as needed. A big prominent tag on the front of a bag that says what to add and where it is located is a good way to make sure you remember those items.
Since most of the stuff we are talking about here is fairly inexpensive this redundancy really isn’t a big issue. Also it is helpful with overall redundancy in that if you have 4 good knives the odds you will end up losing or breaking them all is slim. The process of figuring out what works well for each nitche could help the old “equip a friend” stash. A knife/ flashlight/ pouch which is slightly less than perfect for your situation is a lot better than no knife/ flashlight/ pouch.
Another thing that it is worth remembering is that you don’t have to get the absolutely perfect best stuff on the market right away. I certainly do not recommend junk as it is alwys false economics. The thing is that you can replace servicable stuff with better stuff piece by piece over time. A $40 knife can be replaced by a better (or maybe just cooler if we are being honest) $85 knife around your birthday or a $75 on sale pack can be replaced by a perfect $400 pack when you have taken care of some other things and have the ever rare surplus cash lying around. This will also help with the whole redundancy thing and the “equip a friend” stash.
Even if you are not so worried about getting home or bugging out or whatever putting together kits is a pretty good way to really look at what you need in context instead of just a bunch of stuff on some big list.
In terms of general themes on the short term you are mostly looking at disposable stuff. You are carrying food to get you to wherever. Water is sort of an exception because it is so darn heavy. For just about any sort of plan you need to be able to make questionable water safe to drink. TP, baby wipes and generally stuff that is going to be consumed is the short term answer. All kits need some of this stuff if just for emergencies and convenience. However at some point a plan just cannot be supported by stuff on your back and you need to transition to things to get food, make shelter, etc.
Maybe you have a ridiculous cross country bug out planned. Of course you hope to use a vehicle and may even have some caches but the odds of that failing or needing to take substantial detours are high. In any case for this type of situation stuff like a .22 rifle, fishing gear, some traps, etc would probably be good to have. Even if you are super duper prepared and live at your “retreat” having a “grab in case of being overrun” bag is probably smart. Anyway that is all I have to say about that.
Thoughts?
Happy Mothers Day and a Week in Preps
Very little happened this week. I have been fighting a nasty cough. Focusing has been difficult and I have been sleeping a lot. As such not a lot got done.
I added a few things to the ghb that is being built. Mostly stuff that has been lying here or there around our place. Also I picked up a handful of snickers bars for the bag. Next week I am going to order a few odds and ends to complete the kit.
Anyway that is what has been going on here.
I hope you have a wonderful mothers day and did great stuff this week.
Total Survivalist Blog 