The Loadout Room
Professional Gear Reviews
A compass matters. A good compass is not hard to come by, but often times they can be something of a pain to deal with. This is especially true during squad movements. As a backup navigator, I’m constantly checking my buddies heading to make sure he’s good to go and that we’re on course. Pulling […]
One of the most important pieces of a survival kit is your fire-starting gear. As with any essential piece of gear, it’s also important to have contingency options. For example, my fire-starting gear consists of a Bic lighter, ferro-rod, and UCO stormproof matches. If and when one of these options fail, I can rely on […]
Give your campfire skills an edge. With the new Black Pearl CampKit, there should be no reason at all for not being able to get a fire started. Light My Fire has created one of the best all-in-one kit available for getting a sustainable fire started, no matter the weather condition. We’re going into the cold weather season soon […]
I served in the Marine Corps back in the 1990s and was issued this exact gear for all training deployments and field exercises. We used the 782 gear loadout for desert warfare, jungle warfare and mountain warfare. We didn’t have different loadouts for different environments like they do now. We used the same gear and […]
On the list or survival priorities, fire is one of the big ones. Fire helps with the other three, those being food, water, and protection from the elements. You can cook, boil water, and stay warm with a fire. When it comes to lighting a fire you need to have rock-solid means of lighting that […]
During the course of my career as a Green Beret, I was issued many things, some I was made to turn back in to the Army and others I was allowed to keep. My Pelican 1020 Survival kit was one of the items I was allowed to keep: originally intended to keep a soldier alive […]
The crash through the ice was surprising. The chest constricting cold hit you immediately as the water flowed over your Gore-Tex soaking your insulating layers. With extreme perseverance and strength, you manage to pull yourself onto the bank of the stream, you lay on the bank for a moment as the water begins to freeze […]
PACE stands for (Primary, Alternate, Contingent and Emergency). For those of you military guys that will sound very familiar. In the Marine Corps, they constantly drilled into us being prepared and having multiple contingency plans. The theory behind the PACE lid is to have a place to keep those needed items in the event something unexpected happens and […]
If you’ve been prepping for a little while, you’ve probably got the basics covered. You have a bug-out bag, a decent stash of MRE’s or #10 cans of freeze-dried food and a plan to keep it all secure once you’re hunkered down. What’s next? Besides piling up more supplies, what else can you do to […]
Water: a basic necessity for survival, but often enough treated as an afterthought. When heading out camping, most usually grab a gallon of it in a jug and go. What happens when you need more? You can drink from a stream, never-minding the pine needles and floaties, and pray that you don’t get crippling diarrhea. […]
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