The 5 Essentials to Consider When Choosing Your Survival Gear

In an emergency scenario, the priorities for survival are water, food, fire, shelter and self-defense. Therefore in choosing the survival gear for your arsenal, you need to make sure that these items can help you acquire or build these priorities.

Water

You already know that without water for just a few days, you can die. So knowing how to source water plus having the skill and means to purify water is highly essential. Boiling and distilling are common ways to purify water but sometimes these methods don’t apply especially if you need to stay on the move and you must filter water quickly. You’ll want at least one handy survival gear for water purification.

A portable filter like the SteriPEN Classic created by Hydro-Photon Inc. purifies water within seconds. It also takes up little space and is very light so you will have no problem carrying it with you on the go.

Food

There are lots of uncertainties during an emergency: how great is its extent, what are the actual damages and how long will it last, among other concerns. Most preppers have the ability to stock up on food to last just a few weeks. If the crisis proves to be a long term one, knowing how to hunt or forage for food can extend your food supply. You need to have the kinds of survival gear that can help you feed yourself and your family no matter what.

When it comes to backing up your food source, having a hunting rifle makes sense. A 30.30. rifle can take down just about any game animal; small game, deer and even a grizzly. Don’t forget ammo. Stock up on multiple sizes of ammo to use on different game i.e. 150 grain for deer and 100-125 grain for smaller game.

Sometimes, you need to save ammunition during a crisis so it will be to your advantage to have a backup survival gear for hunting food. The Survival Slingshot can make a good tool for hunting smaller game like rabbits and shooting down birds. It makes use of steel shots but you can use marbles or stones in place of these. This survival gear is customizable with add-ons that enable you to fire arrows instead of steel shots. A lot of practice is needed though to use such an item efficiently.

Fire

You need fire for cooking, purifying water, for warmth, light and even for warding off animals when you are camped in the wild. A good survival gear for building fire is the kind that will enable you to produce a rolling fire fast and with little work.

There are lots of survival gears in the market for building fire from matches to lighters to fire steels. Stock up on more than one kind of fire starter and have backups for your backup. So don’t just have a fire steel with you, you should also have waterproof matches as well as lighters on hand.

For a quick camp fire, a good fire starter to have is the Blazer Self-Igniting Butane Micro-Torch. This handheld torch can get a fire going even when your tinder pile is damp. It can even be used to cook with as it can produce 2500 degrees Fahrenheit flame, just be careful not to get your cookware too close. A means to start a fire really quick can save your life especially if you are at risk of suffering from hypothermia.

Shelter

When trying to survive in the wild or outdoors, your chances are higher if you can avoid getting exposed to the elements. Knowing how to build a makeshift shelter using only the materials in your immediate area is an important lifesaving skill but with the right survival gear, you can whip up a shelter in no time and without exerting too much energy in gathering up materials and putting these together.

Tents are very convenient for camping but hardly during a crisis scenario. If you need to travel from one place to another to get to a safer place, the constant setting up and taking down of your tent might damage it or wear it down. Plus, it could be a hassle lugging a largish tent with you if you are travelling on foot. The effort of taking it down and setting it up can slow you down.

A good, heavy-duty tarp might be a better choice. Tarps can withstand harsh elements better and protect you from rain, wind or snow. Tarps as shelters are also less conspicuous than tents and easier to carry – lighter in weight and can be folded down to small size.

On cold nights, staying warm is paramount so a reliable sleeping bag should also be added to your survival kit. If your sleeping bag must be lightweight, choose a kind that’s filled with goose down but be careful not to get it wet or torn. If weight is not much of an issue – you are travelling by vehicle or horse – then the heavier and more durable synthetic bag is a better option. Both types of sleeping bag can keep you warm on cold nights but on temps below negative 10, be sure to wear additional layers of clothing.

Self-defense

A time of crisis is a dangerous time. Therefore you must have a way to defend yourself, your family members and your survival supplies. Following a major disaster in your area (or nationwide), you should always be ready to defend and secure your lives and your supplies.

A full tang knife can be a good self-defense weapon but only if the other person is unarmed or if you are well-versed in close-contact combat using a knife. It is very important to have a good, reliable survival knife handy in a crisis scenario because it can be used for a number of things including hunting for food, skinning game, creating tools out of wood, cutting things, etc. But for self-defense, the best choice will be a gun.

A firearm is the most effective form of defense after a disaster and lawlessness becomes rampant. Anyone who knows how to fire a gun can use it – pregnant women, kids, the invalid, the elderly, anyone! And it is effective even if the other person happens to be armed – at the very least; this weapon levels the playing (survival) ground. It is a good choice for security because you can warn potential intruders before they can get too close. Choose the best gun for survival and let this article on The Best Guns For Preppers guide you.

Don’t forget ammunition. There’s a big debate in the prepping and survivalism world about how much ammo to store. We recommend starting with 500 rounds per gun and work it out from there.