NRA survival kit review
reviews, survival 4 Comments » Courtesy of the American Bushman, at the end of last year I received a NRA survival kit and Bark River PSK sample. Over these few months I’ve been looking closely at the contents and have already done a review of the BlastMatch. I will do a more detailed review of the PSK later, but now is the time to look at the kit all together.
First of all, I consider survival kits as an absolute necessity if you spend anytime in the outdoors. A survival kit must at the very least contain something to make a fire, start a shelter and attract attention. Any subsequent content will then depend on the area and conditions e.g. in dry areas or conditions you would need to gather water. After this, I believe it’s all a matter of personal choice. Do you take twine or a basic first aid kit. Do you make room for fish hooks, or wire for a snare? How big should the kit be? Rucksack size? Pocket size? Vehicle size? Perhaps now you can understand how difficult this can be.
So let’s have a look at the NRA kit starting at the container. This is what’s described as an OtterBox which is quite expensive in itself. The box is 6in x 3.5 in. and I would describe this as rucksack size, being slightly too large for regularly carrying in a pocket. This is probably the first minus point for me. I would prefer a basic survival container to be pocket size to fit in a belt pouch or jacket pocket. No chance of it being unavailable in an emergency situation. ‘Otter’ equals ‘water animal’ equals ‘waterproof’. Time for some extreme testing. I left the container and contents buried in a muddy pond last week and extracted it today. I also buried my bare hands in the same pond for a painful 5 minutes to simulate a possible survival scenario of a dunking whilst crossing a river. I was pleased to notice that the box floated which would be a distinct advantage if faced with the afore mentioned scenario. The two front opening clasps were easy to open even with numb hands. The contents were 100% dry. What a great start. Would it stand up to a bit of rough handling though? A tentative kick around produced no adverse effect. I lobbed the whole thing at a tree, not with a huge amount of force it has to be said and…ooops! The whole container burst open and spread the contents around the muddy ground. On inspection I immediately found the problem. The hinge protrudes at the rear obviously to ensure a waterproof seal around the box and being made of plastic it’s particularly vulnerable (pic). The lob might have been the equivilent to dropping the container about 10-15 feet on to a hard surface. It was probably unlucky to have landed directly on the hinge, but nevertheless, not too impressive if the survival kit container can’t survive.
Still with numb fingers, I tried out the WetFire tinder and what looked like a mini hexamine block. I soaked the WetFire tinder and applied the BlastMatch spark after preparing a minimum amout of kindling with the PSK. One push down on the BlastMatch and..bingo! The tinder caught first time. I fed the Hexamine on to it followed by the kindling. Objective achieved.
I’ve already looked at the BlastMatch, but I should reiterate that this is an excellent piece of kit. The main advantage is that it can be used one handed (great if you have a hand or arm injury). It does have a design fault but the main draw back is it’s size. To be incuded in a pocket/rucksack sized survival kit is, to say the least, a bit of an overkill. This thing is heavy, and takes up a third of the Otterbox (RIP). I would prefer to replace it with the Scout sized firesteel that American Bushman also kindly supplied.
The other contents of the kit are a JetSream whistle and a signalling mirror. The JetScream is brilliant. Extremely loud and and high pitched enough to be heard over a howling wind. I must say that I haven’t tried it’s range, therefore I cannot give a particulalry informed opinion. I can say that it certainly works when it’s muddy and wet (doesn’t taste so good though!) Again, the signalling mirror hasn’t been tested at all. The principle of a sighting hole is sound, but the proof will be in how long it lasts. I’ve had a BCB mirror hanging outside of my house for 15 years, and it’s only just getting tarnished. I would like to see something else on the NRA supplied mirror. The BCB mirror has a thermometer and a chart of wind-chill factors included.
