Any fellow survivalists utilize their truck?

It's important to mention that you want to practice using ferrosteel or magnesium firestarters on a nice warm summer day when you won't die if you can't master the trick. Using these things takes practice, and you don't want to have to stop & read the instructions or try and figure out how they work when you're soaking wet and freezing in the middle of nowhere. Obviously making them spark is easy, but prepping the tinder and directing the sparks for a successful ignition is more difficult. Trying to do it with tinder that's not perfectly dry on a windy day can be nearly impossible.

 

^^^^
Good Point!!!

 

Sadly, the voice of experience. Fortunately not in a survival situation. I decided to give it a try on a breezy day while we were camping, and it was a fairly frustrating hour before I finally got a fire going, haha!

 

So in my three years of guiding I had one instance like this. 32 degrees and pouring rain harder than I've ever seen. Had a guy severely hypothermic and I had to bust out the mag stick and get a fire started. It was much easier with some hand sanitizer on the tinder. So having hand sani for cleanliness but also cause it is flammable and can be ignited with sparks

 

Now what is hard, try bowdrilling a fire in the pouring rain during the winter. That is the tough one. My last job would only allow fires made primitively unless if there was a health risk

 

Lol. At least running the bow drill would warm you up in the meantime.

 

one of this will go in the truck

 

Wish list for a survival bag.

 

Road flares are cheap and will start a fire anytime, anywhere.

 

Honestly it's the truth. I did that every morning to warm up out of the sleeping bag and to have a fire while packing up.

 

True but hard to justify packing one of those when you're already carrying 70lbs of gear and hiking 7-8 miles a day lol. But not to say a few in the pickup would be a bad idea! I may have to try to hunt a couple down.

 

I just bought a pair of this, I think will serve me well in a survival situation here in AZ:

 

^^^^academy?

 

If you are hiking you should have a firearm with ammo, and a multi tool of some sort. One .45 acp round contains enough smokeless powder to get the job done. Just pull the bullet out of the case with the multi-tool, then dump the powder onto a sheet of TP, then build your tinder teepee around it and ignite. I know, safety third and all that, but it works in a pinch. You also pack some sort of stove, no? I used to fight with primitive fire starting in bad weather, especially at high elevation with cold hands but then I realized it's not "cheating", it's survival. It's good to know the old ways to get a fire going, it's bad to rely on the old ways when your life hinges on a warm fire.

 

not yet, I'm thinking about it.

 

Reported

 

Check this out guys very cool item. Smart solution
http://www.vsslgear.com/pages/shop-vssl

 

Cool gadget, for gadgets sake. But that's about it.

 

Yea I agree but the times I was talking about I was working so no guns or ammo for me .

When I hike on my own it's a completely different story

 

For firestarting, especially when camping with the Webelos, I carry Vaseline cotton balls and a magnesium firestarter in a WWII 1911 mag pouch.

The pouch carries (2) 7 round mags on the belt. For firestarting, I have Vaseline soaked cotton balls in a pill bottle in one slot and the (NSN) magnesium in the other. Its small, compact and waterproof. The Vaseline has several other uses and magnesium shavings can be used to conserve the cotton balls.

When i'm camping, I also carry a regular butane lighter and egg carton firestarters. These are the easiest and give the longest flame when trying to light wet wood.