Welcome to corporals corner. Here's a quick question. What does $250 with a Walmart survival gear look like
Stick around we'll find out
One thing I've had asked over the years
Is to put together some type of video for beginner push crafters or people just starting out in survival
what gear do I suggest and I've kind of steered away from that for years because
Where I live is different than where you live and my financial obligations might be different than yours
You might be lower than mine or even higher than mine and for me to suggest. Hey, go get this
280 dollar pack might be outlandish to somebody so I thought why not use some research on this
So in that research I came across quite a few of these Walmart survival challenges
some are good some are bad and
To be honest a lot more bad. It was a people with very little or no experience
People have very little or no skills. Just pulling things off the shelves and
Try and make it work and that saw one pack with gigantic pack
And then this guy's trying to carry a tent with them and the pack was bigger than him and I thought you know
the idea is sound
Going to a Walmart and because in my country Walmart's regular and people on a fixed income or low income
Tend to shop there. So the idea sound
Just the way they went about it was wrong. It's like I thinking about it
I thought why not put together some type of day bag?
That can double as a get home bag or even a bug-out bag that allows somebody on a fixed income or low income
to go out three to five times a year and
enjoy themselves and as they progress in their skills and they can save money they can swap out one item for the other and
build a sound kit
Start now with the basics. Let's go ahead and break open this bag. See what I got for $250
Let's go and kick this off with the core or the foundation of our kit and for me that's always going to be the 10
C's of survivability
Next we have the redundancies meaning multiples of certain items and lastly
We have the health and comfort items meanings blankets shelter food these tencel's so on and so forth
For me and somebody starting out I suggested they get a full tang knife meaning the blade passes all the way through the handle and
Unfortunately at my local Walmart, we had two knives to pick from and unfortunately again, both of them are stainless steel
This one here is the gerber prodigy
non-serrated
The other one that pick from was an old-timer
I was kind of like a
Fillet knife type deal had a three-inch blade on it
And so this one here, I think was four and a half inch blade. So I picked this one. It was a higher-end purchase
But it feels good in my hand against full tang and I'm quite sure that for someone just starting out
Going out three to five times a year
Practicing bushcraft skills spend the night out in the woods. You should be fine with this
It's got a nice sharp 90-degree spine on the back
It's real light a processed material as well as scrape a pharisee am rod and get sparks
Good to go seems to be pretty sharp
And yeah, just thinkin hair up my arm
Well, okay good to go
We have this Molly. She's I'm not a fan of these
But you know
Never floats your boat overall
Again for someone starting out should be good to go
So we have our gerber prodigy as our go-to primary cutting tool
now for a redundancy cutting tool to be an Ozark Trail folding saw and
What I like about this already is that's locked in place. The blade will not come out of course the button
locks in place
But the same size the bahco laplander, but it resembles a silky gone boy
The teeth are very aggressive and it appears that they'll cut bring the push as well as the pull
Taking my piece of wood or my branch coming up wedge it between my calf in my thigh, u-sub call a plumber's vise
Now it's locked in place I can stabilize with my non-dominant hand
And now I'm cutting outside of my body keeping it safe
Next we have our combustion device and I bought a pack of five pick lighters a good idea is flick it
light something first time every time
This survival becomes real don't wanna mess around with something else. Let's go ahead and click my bitch done deal now for our redundancies
I have a
UST spark force which is basically had mini strike force
And like I mentioned before our UST spark force resembles a strike force, but it's half the price
It houses a built-in Pharisee M rod and striker
So all you got to do
either push forward
or pull back
And now for our cover element and this year was a great disappointment Walmart Ellen carries these plastic or polyethylene tarps this one here
I think is a
Six by you know, sorry
It's a ten by twelve. I
Believe and they come in two colors blue or gray blue is a medium duty and gray has a heavy-duty tarp
The price is the difference is prob about two or three dollars
Depend on the size did you buy and it's your ordinary run-of-the-mill tarp you use to cover your wood pile or your pickup truck?
the better your pickup truck and
Is this my first choice most likely not?
but think about this a beginning bushcrafter somebody who has low-income fixed income and they're going out three to five times a year just
to cover a hammock
Depend on where you live. You might not even need it
So if I could last you to at least the season so for ten dollars
Why not?
Now our next e is a container and
The number one way to keep water safe meaning free of viruses
Bacteria protozoa and parasites is to disinfect that water by boiling it now for some reasons
most of the local Walmart's that I went to
Have cut deals with their stainless steel bottle makers to wetherall's double walled vacuum insulated. Which means
Basically, there's a bottle inside the bottle with the air space in between what's a vacuum sealed and once that bottle is exposed to flame
It tends to crack or pop
render him useless
so
What's the point of getting a stainless steel bottle to try and disinfect the water? It was gonna ruin the bottle my process
So the second alternative is to get your 1 liter or 1 quart water bottle and a nesting cup or Sierra cup
This cup is 18 ounces
Allow me to disinfect my water pour it into my container
Until it cools down then I can drink it and just repeat the process
Now option number 3 or a redundancy now
2 disinfecting the water is to purify the water. I can do that using a live straw
But in a pinch or bind you're out here this is all you had you don't want to boil water
It's too hot to boil water. It's a healthy alternative
or a good backup plan
This next see our cordage that's gonna vary from state to state
Now I chose paracord 550 paracord. It's military-grade paracord
there's six strands or seven strands inside of this sheet right here this nylon sheath and
Supposedly the break strength is 550 pounds, but I found that paracord will stretch around 300 before it breaks
so be aware of that now I
Mean by a varies from state to state is some states carry something called
Bank line or tarde Bank line and basically what that is
It's a trotline for fishing and it's number 36
Which it's got about 380 pounds of break strength and a 1 pound roll you get probably around 300 400 feet
Versus a 50 foot roll of this there's more bang for your buck with that, but I can't find that every single state
Someone had defaulted the paracord now for me most of time
The paracord is gonna be for original light for your shelter for your tarp
So I want at least a hundred feet of that
25 foot to 50 foot section for my ridgeline and I want to spare cordage as well
It's going to move into our second half of our ten seas now
Kick this off with our candling device or headlamp
This right here. Nothing special. It's an energizer. It's a hundred lumen
headlamp
It's got a low and a high
Takes three Triple A batteries. It's water-resistant
Again, it's nothing special
But I believe for the nine dollars I spent for it other choice was a Ozark Trail and that was seven bucks
Energizer battery company here. Why not?
Moving on to our compass now, it's important to know where you're going at least the general direction north south east west
There were two to pick from both are by UST and
Like our tarp, this is a great disappointment
The other one was a baseplate
Compass mean the compass itself was mounted to a piece of plastic and it kind of resembled something that came out of a cracker jack
box
Said no to that immediately
This one here resembles a lensatic compass from the military this whole green metal coming accompanies it
Is that accurate I checked it, but my question is how long was too accurate for?
the north east south and west indicators on here
they are made of phosphorus so you can charge them up in the Sun and they should glow in the dark and
Doing basic land navigation with this I believe is possible
So for someone starting out wanting to learn this
By all means go for it
But like we talked about earlier about the one-for-one exchange as soon as you could afford it
As soon as you can afford it
The first thing I would do is get rid of this and invest in a either a Silva or an Suunto mc2
You
Next we have 200 percent cotton bandanas. I believe these are 2 by 2 and you want a hundred percent cotton for several reasons
Most important though is that way you can make a charred material for your next fire tear a piece off
Fill it inside of a metal container put a lid on it for it with a metal lid or a large rock
Place that into your coals it chars up take it out
Let it cool down make it your oxygen does not get to it and looks like a piece of charcoal
Then you take your strike force or your spark force
One small spark on our flint and steel it takes it immediately
You can then transfer that into a tinder bundle or a bird's nest blow it in flame and you a fire
It also use this to wipe up messes pull yourself down
First aid et cetera. The list goes on and on
Our last two seas kind of go hand in hand first, we have a one inch roll of guerrilla brand duct tape
Followed by a canvas needle or sail needle now Walmart did not have sailing also they had Dahl needles
And there are large diameter needles with large gauge needles and you can use these in conjunction with your inner strands your paracord
Feed it through there. You can recur your clothing your gear hammock tarp, etc. And the list goes on and on with this
Same with a duct tape or grill a brand duct tape
I can take this roll into a ball light on fire now have a flame extender can burn for several minutes
Well building my fire lay on top of that or getting my tinder ready
I can take this I can seal wounds. I can actually my tarp starts to leak
Have a hole in my clothing same with this the list goes on
You
All right now we're getting somewhere we talked about our tendencies and redundancies
Let's go ahead and move on to our health and comfort items mean shelter blanket food
utensils things like that
Let's start off with our equip one person travel hammock
I'm told as Randy for former pounds about nine and a half feet long
Accompanying this we have our adjustable hammock tree straps that are good for 300 pounds per straps. You have one strap on each side
That's 600 pounds followed by four pounds. We're looking at a thousand pounds total. It sounds pretty good to go
Our next health and comfort item is this Ozark Trail
Packable blanket. It measures 70 inches in length and sixty inches in width and it kind of resembles a military poncho liner
Check it out here
Yeah
And I chose this over a sleeping bag because a person who's starting out with skills
Most likely they're gonna go when the weather is warmer
Like I said three to five times a year probably late spring and maybe a few times during that summer
So why carry a heavy suit bag when you can grab something like this stuff it into a pack
Put it your hammock and you're good to go
We got four plastic tent stakes and nothing special there like seventy-nine cents, eh, whatever and
Until you increase in your skills or what you get better you might want to make your own stakes that we have to carry them
But it's always good to have these at peace the weather turns bad all of a sudden you can just count them in the ground
Get under that tarp. It's a done deal
Now for our food and this one here is always open to debate
Either you like them or you don't
mountain house
This one here is chili mac with beef
for the obvious reasons and
I got some classic utensils here. Nothing special. Is that real cheap plastic?
Add your hot water to this and you got food tonight. This is actually two servings, but guess what? I'm gonna eat them both
And last thing we want to talk about before we go and set up our shelter and
Get settled for the night is our pack and I chose an Outdoor Products
29 liter backpack and it's got multi straps on it here several pockets and pouches zippers everywhere
bottle holder right here on the side
carry a handle on top
I'm gonna strap across your chest right here. Keep the straps inward
he's gonna want to pull back on you or slide off your shoulders and
To be honest, it's very comfortable
comes the mesh here on the back help it breathe and
For someone who's going out three or five times a year or just hiking that quick trail?
I don't see why the win last you a good year to
it's very affordable and
The best part is all the gear that you've seen fits comfortably inside here with room left over
Let's go and talk briefly about shelter location looking for four things four WS wind water wood and widow-makers
I want to look around right now. It's by eighty five degrees with a nice cool breeze blowing through here. I'll take that breeze
It's not gonna concern me at all. Good to go. Check number one
Number two water. Am I close to a water source or my shelter next to a water source
Like I resupply if I need to there's a Creek right over there. We'll go to that later. Check number two good to go
next one
Wood. I'm looking around here. Is there enough wood where I can sustain a fire to disinfect that water or cook my food?
There's wood everywhere check number three lastly
widow-makers
meaning any dead trees or branches
That could fall and injure me or crush me in the night. We're looking around you went over head check
Check number four. We're good to go. Let's get that hammock up
Now before we can hang our tarp, we need to create a Ridgeline. So to do that grab 150 foot lengths of paracord
Select one of your ends and tie a bowline. What we're gonna do is rotate it over
Take your end come out of that hole
Go around the tree and back into your hole
Pinch it pull it tight
Taking your two pieces that are fingertip to elbow on length we're going to go ahead and tie a fisherman's knot
So lay one on top of the other
We'll start with the one on top go over
Around and then back through and it forms a pretzel nut or overhand knot
Now the one from the bottom same thing go over
Around and
Back through
Then pull them tight
Now taking both of our loops that were created using a fisherman's knot
We're going to type rustic loops or prusik knots to our ridge line to do that
Take your loop place it over and inside of itself
That creates a larks head knot
Now you do that two more times and you have a prusik knot or a prusik loop
There's two
One more mix three
Tighten it down and dress it up
And there you go
Now the true beauty of a prusik loop is that you can slide it and eat a direction
But once you place tension on it
It won't slip the opposite way
And it's perfect for a tarp on a Ridgeline
Now I want to show you how to Hank your cordage so you can store it away until you want to use it
Go ahead. Take your hand do the old Spock from Star Trek
Slide your prusik loops down to your bowline
Place that between your fingers now between your thumb and pinky simply wrap a figure eight
When we move it, I'll wrap it around
Your top loops down to your bottom and then tie it off the clove hitch
When there's your clove hitch now you take this and toss into your pack until you need it
And by placing a toggle through our prusik loop we can now pull it tight
On each end and it won't pull back on itself
Oh, yeah
Smoothing the baby
Not bad at all
Not bad for Walmart
Let's talk about a couple of things number one rule hammocks only hang that bad boy
Off the ground as far as you were willing to fall
For me. It's about 18 inches of 2 foot no more than that
Now in our tarp, I showed you I make your ridgeline
I'm missing over here. We've got a trucker's hitch
Creates a quick release pull that cord
The end should drop this end over here. Use your a bowline got the round turn into a modified Marlin spike hitch
And now for the real test
My plastic bottle place it inside that pouch
now the weight of that bottle with water inside a channel drape this side over me and keep it closed and
No mosquito net will be needed
With my boots off it should work
but to be honest
It seems a little bit small for me and some of my size to 36 foot maybe 6 foot 1 somewhere in there
You might want to go with a double meaning built for two people or an extra large
This one here is a one person travel hammock
And I think for you know, someone smaller than me or you be good to go
but honestly
Doesn't feel any different than a regular hammock. They might you know or a DD hammock like
Use of this
Here's our energizer headlamp on the low setting
Now switch to high setting or 100 lumen
Not bad
That time
Zero 552 another night
Welcome back Walmart survival was outstanding. Let's talk about a couple of things first off
This video is geared towards the beginning bushcrafter
Someone just starting out or somebody on a fixed income or has a low budget to work with
number two
Think about that one for one exchange that we talked about
It seems you can afford some type of item. That's a higher quality swap it out for the one that's lesser grade and move on
And lastly a very worst case. Let's say you only go out three to five times a year during the warm season
That bag and those items can double as a get home bag or a bug-out bag think of your comments view support
Thanks for watching. Get out in the field have some fun. I'm gonna catch you
next time
