You have $500. Make your go bag and list it here. Include the bag price in your purchase. Any insight as to why you made your choices is a plus.
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I have 3 go bags, each mission specific. EDC is a 10 hour 5.11. I carry a couple 30 rd Magpul mags, a couple Sig 20 rd 9mm mags. Extra knife and light. Water bladder. Snickers bars. Blowout kit and a fews booboo items. Boresnake and a couple cleaning rods. Letherman Mutt. A back up phone charger with the cord. Ear Pro. Some spare 123 batteries. Tactical pen and waterproof pad, which is kinda obsolete since smartphone tech, but never know. Not sure but I bet that’s getting up to around $500. Maybe a bit more, actually, but close.
Edit: My reasoning is that the 5.11 bag is holding up very well, and wasn’t too expensive, maybe $100, but durable. Extra ammo, obvious. Extra light and knife-2 is 1, and 1 is none. Snickers are quick energy, and this is just a get out of trouble bag, not a long term thing. And probably the rest is self explanatory.
Are you LEO?
Nope. I live in a rural area in Colorado, and I’m on Search and Rescue with the Sheriff’s Dept. There is a slim chance to get called upon for help in an LEO capacity. But I was in the infantry, just like being prepared.
Don’t get sucked into the “Go Bag fantasy.” A lot of guys buy expensive things that sit in an expensive bag because it allows them to live out some sort of SHTF fantasy and feel better about spending their money. Same can be said for the way people buy rifles and other gear.
I’m not saying being prepared is a bad thing, just be realistic about it.
I keep some gear with the idea of getting me home from wherever I am. My typical travels average around 20 miles from home. My bag is what you’d see for an overnight hiking bag with a couple extra “emergency” items tossed in - A spare G19 mag and a handheld radio. Everything is selected (or withheld) based on its likelihood of being used, weight, etc.
Proper clothing/footwear and a lightweight bag is king, IMO.
Basically, live your reality and weigh every option (literally a figuratively). Then weigh it again. Then go use the gear at your local hiking/camping trails to see what works and what doesn’t.
I don’t expect to be fighting hordes of people with my uber folding 50cal sniper assault rifle. I can forsee a traffic grid closure, vehicle problem, or something else forcing me to walk home. Those are the events my kit is built around. YMMV.
TomF which handheld radio did you go with and why?
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Couple of bags of Snickers, some Oreos, scan or two of Weenie Beanies a bottle on water and Swiss Army knife with all the goodies!:dirol:
That makes more sense.
That’s definitely my method of thinking with this stuff. I keep an emergency bag in my vehicle. Its mostly in case I break down somewhere remote.
I have a Yaesu VX-6R. I kind of fell into a deal on it when I was getting started in HAM and have since learned it’s a pretty good choice. I don’t expect to be communicating with the world, but I see having local radio stations, NOAA weather, and maybe a local ham or two as a good thing. The VX-6R has a wide receive range, is waterproof, is adequate for local communication and can be powered by AA batteries (though your transmit output is diminished). I see myself listening a lot more than talking. In a situation like Atlanta the news stations have choppers in the air and I can at least learn how big the problem is. If you don’t want a ham radio a basic pocket AM/FM radio is available for as cheap as $10. Or you can get them with solar panels, hand crank knobs, etc.
The cheapy Baofeng UV-5R will do FM radio, NOAA and local HAM as well. It’s not waterproof and doesn’t receive as wide of frequencies, but it’s a pretty functional radio for $35. Each radio has their own quirks in regards to menus and what not, so a cheat sheet is probably a good idea for each.
If listening is your goal, there are a number of scanners that do that job as well.
I’m not a “radio guy,” I just play around with a couple handhelds. The above two work for me.
Thanks TomF. I am new to all of this so I find your write up helpful.
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When I first got started it was hard to decipher all the lingo, filter it through my needs (or what I think I needed at the time), compare radio models, etc.
The sky is the limit (literally) in who you want to talk to on a radio, but my goal(s) are information gathering. Weather, news, AM/FM radio, local dispatch centers and the HAM repeaters in the area accomplish that for me. There are a lot of radios that fit those categories. I take mine hiking and listen to FM radio in the evenings as well. The Yaesu is durable and waterproof (but spendy).
A Uniden Bearcat scanner will accomplish a lot of information gathering as well. eham.net has product reviews for just about everything. aesham.com and universal-radio.com are good retailers.
Hope that helps.
If you want to save some money and not have a portable radio look into this app.
http://www.echolink.org/faq_iphone.htm
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Certainly does thanks Tom
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For the guys with a bottle of water in their bag: last year I did a “return to home” experiment to try to make it home from my normal daily activities, which are 21 miles away. I drank 2 gallons of water and a bottle of powerade, and was still dehydrated. One bottle of water is a drop in the bucket. Hopefully you don’t need to walk more than a couple of miles. I went about 4-5 miles before I needed water, then I started sweating. I was sipping until about the 10 mile mark when I started chugging. I’m trying it again this spring, and will be taking more water.
Everyone is different. I end up hiking 5 miles, gaining 4-5 thousand in elevation with a 40-50 pound pack, grabbing a body, with other guys of course, and hiking back out around 0400. I usually go through a half gallon of water. I’ve gone through more ( w/iodine or filter ) or less depending on the weather. This happens about once a year.
Water can be a challenge in colder weather. A frozen chunk of ice is heavy and useless (at least at the moment). In warmer temps I think it makes sense to have a good supply of water on board, but I think it’s also important to have a quick way to drink questionable water.
The Frontier Pro filter, the Berkey water bottle and a host of others can do that. 2.5 gallons of water is about the weight of my full pack, and where I live finding a stream or a lake to dip a water bottle in is never difficult to find. As with everything else, YMMV.
I like carrying just a little bit more water than I need with an option to gather more. Getting out and using your gear (see a trend here?) will help you identify how much water you really need. I grew up with the mantra “the best place to store water is in your gut,” so an extra liter in your car you can down before setting off might be useful as well.
I went through the full planning exercise to realize I’d be out of water, then socks, and finally TP in that order, long before I can’t get by with any of the stuff I had installed in that bag.
Instead, I found it to be much more useful to do iterative day hikes, and I’m now to short overnighters - I bring as little as I think I can, and anything that went unused (that isn’t a first aid, light emitting, or safety item) gets tossed. Socks, a beanie, and packable jacket are worth way more than I gave them credit for.
Honestly, aside from the two rather specific pump apparatuses and the chain breaker on my multitool, I’d get the most use out of shoving my nightstand gun and it’s loaded spare mag into the backpack I take mountain biking, despite having a designated go-bag standing by.
Bingo. Same here except for backpacking rather than mountain biking.
I would look at some kind of small pack unless you plan on traveling a very long distance. In it I would look at putting 3L of water, some high energy food, water purification equipment, 550 cord, tape, zip ties, light, multi tool, space blanket, ammo, mags, knife, batteries, map, compass, notebook, pens, markers, fire starting equipment, first aid kit, and socks. Get a food saver and shrink down as much as you can. Load it up and it should not me too heavy with all of this in it. Look at the bag below and you should be able to get the bag and fill it for much less than $500. Just to remember to change out the water in the Blatter ever so often and maybe add some bleach to it to keep it longer( just a very small amount as you do not want to get the runs while on the move).
http://www.greyghostgear.com/packs/stealth-operator-pack-litelok
$500 huh, well start with a quality bag. I have found all my bags; London Bridge, Kelty, and Eagle Ind on the cheap. What I spent on my bags most will spend on some imported POS made from inferior materials. Shop around, look for deals, and sign up for emails from vendors and you will score some quality kit.
Water is zenith, so I would spend half that budget on a filter of known quality. I’d go with a Katadyn Pocket Water Microfilter, shop around you can find them under $300. Everything else you need you can literally find at Wal-Mart for under a $100.