SERE

The Garmin Foretrex 401 Wrist Mounted GPS

There are quite a few GPS devices out there and several companies who make good ones. However good is subjective and dependent upon what you need it for. When it comes to a GPS unit I need something that is lightweight. More so than that I need something that conserves battery power and can give me accurate readings quickly. I’ve found that the Garmin Foretrex 401 is largely without competition in these categories.

Prior to using the Foretrex 401 I was issued the Garmin eTrex 30 which does offer some advantages (detailed topographic maps installed on the GPS for example). However, I found that for executing missions that required precision the unit was somewhat unwieldy despite some of the excellent holders and pouches that I tried. After moving to the Foretrex 401 I was immediately impressed with the weight (3.1 oz with batteries) and it’s ability to run on 2 AAA batteries for around 9 hours. Due to the weight I am easily able to attach the GPS to my wrist and can pull 10 digit MGRS coordinates whenever necessary.

This isn’t to say that I couldn’t do that with my eTrex 30, but rather that it took more time to take it out of my kit. With the Foretrex 401 I can do my map work and simply rotate my wrist to get coordinates that I need. I’ve found that the Foretrex 401 tends to acquire at about the same speed as my eTrex 30 (which depends on how long it’s been since it was last turned on). On average it acquires within 12-20 seconds and if left on will stay acquired unless bad weather or terrain prevents it from communicating.

The Garmin Foretrex 401 also allows you to track your elevation/elevation change which can be especially helpful when working with helicopters/aircraft. Another great feature is that you can send coordinates between other Garmin 401’s. I’ve found that the unit itself is well sealed against the weather and that the screen does not scratch easily at all. Punching in coordinates is mostly painless and perhaps slightly more difficult than the eTrex 30. Ultimately I believe that choosing a GPS comes down to what you need. The eTrex 30 is handy because you can store topo maps of the entire world, however, if you need your GPS to be wrist mounted then the 401 might be more up your alley.

In the end I’m more of a 2 is 1, 1 is none type of guy and I carry the eTrex 30 in my pack. The 401 is a handy, easy to navigate by GPS that is dependable and reliable. I feel wholly confident in it. If you’re looking for a lightweight wrist-mounted GPS I doubt you could find one quite as good as the 401 at a $150 price point.

Krupto Strategic SERE ankle band: A Crate Club exclusive product

One of the Crate Club exclusives comes from Krupto Strategic. This SERE ankle band is designed to be wrapped around your ankle and to carry the small tools you need to make it home. The SERE ankle band is a simple, but effective idea. It sports three pockets, one large and two small, and is designed to be super low profile. Each pocket sports a simple cover that’s a lot like an AR mag pouch. A little bit of velcro holds the whole closed and secures your goods.

What’s the Point?

It’s a little pouch, and the designer himself has said, “It’s not for your fucking revolver!” The SERE ankle band is designed to hold very small, but important goods. As a SERE kit it’s designed for escape and evasion, so you aren’t packing a fighting load. This Mini SERE kit is perfect for backing some basic essentials for escape in an urban environment. This includes a small knife, a small light, handcuff keys, cash, tools, and anything else you feel you need to escape, evade, and survive with.

Personally, I carry the following in my SERE ankle band:

Crate Club Mini Flashlight
Phillips/Flathead driver
Handcuff Key
Readyman Mini Saws (From ReadyMan card)
P-38 Can Opener
6 Feet or Paracord
1 Small Role Medical Tape
3 Derby Razors

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This isn’t a long-term survival plan, this is you just escaped and need to distance from any potential bad guys. This kit will help you get that distance and allow you to gain that ground. This kits small size makes it easy to hide and allows it to remain virtually undetected.

The small pouches are quite tight but malleable enough to squeeze in your gear. That tight design ensures everything is kept in place and where it should be. The band is semi-elastic and quite comfortable. It’s wide and secured with a healthy dose of hook and loop. The band stretches quite a bit and allows it to fit around my tree trunk of an ankle.

When it comes to all-day wear its surprisingly comfortable and doesn’t sag, drag, or rub your ankle painfully. Alternatively, it can be tossed into your cargo or even back pocket, but if searched it’s much more likely to be found.

The Krupto Strategic SERE ankle band is small, effective and you can store a surprising amount of goods in it. I’m curious to see what our Crate Clubbers store in theirs? Let us know below in the comments what goes in your Mini SERE kit.

To get your own SERE ankle band, visit the Crate Club store

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How to escape handcuffs with a hair pin

Being able to escape handcuffs can be a valuable skill for multiple reasons, the primary one being escaping illegal detainment. Whether traveling abroad as a private citizen or conducting clandestine operations as an elite operative, getting out of a bad situation should be made easier through the pursuit of specialized skills. Getting out of handcuffs is actually a fairly easy task compared to lock picking and other similar problems. There are specialized tools available but for demonstration and practicality purposes, I will be using a run of the mill bobby pin.

First of all, you should be able to access the bobby pin from a cuffed position; If you can, I recommend slipping the cuffs to the front of you because it makes the whole task a lot easier if you can see what you are doing. Keep in mind there are a variety of handcuff designs out there, but I will try to cover the fundamentals while demonstrating on a pair of Peerless Model 700s. There are two options available when using a bobby pin to escape handcuffs, pick the lock or shim past the teeth. Both have their limitations but I find that shimming them is not only faster but often easier to accomplish (especially when your hands are behind your back).

So to knock the hard one out, picking the locking mechanism, you’re going to want to insert the bobby pin into the lock and bend the tip into an “S” shape. From there you use it to first pop the locking pin out if it has been employed, then go the opposite direction and attack the lever that holds the teeth. By applying the right amount of pressure at the correct angle, the bar will lower and the cuff should slide out. Essentially you have created a makeshift key as it functions in the same fashion.

To shim a handcuff is much easier but depending on the shim, in this case the bobby pin, you may need room to tighten them a few clicks. You will still have to defeat the locking mechanism (if it has been engaged) somehow for the teeth to move. Bend the bobby pin into an “L” shape and wedge the end of it in between the cuff’s shackle and the mechanism housing. An important thing to take not of is that this will not work if the bobby pin still has the resin on the tip of it. That will need to either be shaved of prematurely or rubbed against a rough surface to remove it. Once the pin has been inserted, push it in further will simultaneously tightening the cuff for the best results. Eventually the bobby pin will create a barrier between the shackle and the locking bar, enabling the shackle to slide open.

I should note that this is not a skill you want to learn on the fly and practice is going to get you a long way. My disclaimer is that I in no way condone the use of these techniques to break the law or circumvent lawful detainment. That being said, this is a really cool party trick that you can do after a few beers to impress your friends; good luck and you are doing this at your own risk, just saying.

Article written by Kurt T. for Newsrep

5 methods to purify water from a survival instructor

During some training in the military I was sent on a second solo evasion living exercise because I did terrible at my first one. The weather wasn’t terrible and I mostly had sun. The temperature dropped well below freezing at night but I was allowed to have a fire. Life was quite peaceful and I settled into the beautiful mountainside that I had made my home. There was a large meadow perhaps 50 meters from my camp that had an ice cold meandering stream running through it. Disregarding my training because I’m an idiot I looked at the mountains surrounding me, jutting up into the clouds and thought, “This here is pure mountain water, purified by the soil and cleansed by sunshine.” And I happily drank without purifying.

Day 3 of my exercise I collected enough water to make a small journey to see if I could find some materials. I followed the “pure mountain stream ordained by the sun” upstream for around 500 meters before I came to another meadow equally as beautiful as the one I lived next to. I heard a noise moments later and watched a herd of perhaps 80 or so cows cross the stream and shit into it. I was lucky. Purify your water.

In a survival situation you should purify all of your water. Even rainwater as it’s descending to you can hit the tree canopy and collect fecal mater from various animals that live in trees. There are various methods to purify water that include the use of purchased products and ones that need nothing but your ingenuity.

Pre-filtering you water: This is important, if your water is full of particulate matter and other disgusting crap you might want to consider doing a pre filter. I typically do this by putting a shirt over the mouth of my canteen and pouring the water through my shirt. This limits the amount of debris getting into your water and lessens the chance of you getting a water-borne pathogen.

Iodine tablets: Light and portable these are my go to method for purifying water when navigating. The bottle will tell you precisely how much is needed to purify your water. If your water is super cloudy / dirty you can double the dosage of iodine and the time for purification (usually from 30 minutes to an hour). Don’t forget to “burp” your water. Which entails holding the canteen upside down 5-10 minutes after dropping the iodine tablets in your water and unscrewing the cap slightly to allow water with iodine in it to flow through the threads of the cap and purify any remnants of contaminated water in there. A couple of notes, don’t add any powders drink that contain Vitamin C prior to the purification process completing as it reduces the effectiveness of the iodine. Iodine also reduces the uptake of radioactive iodine.

Bleach: Make sure that you purchase bleach without any other fancy chemicals in them. You want bleach that is 4-6% Sodium Hypochlorite. With this percentage, you can use the “You must be 21 to drink” rule. Which is that you need 2 drops of bleach per 1 liter of water. Once the bleach is in, your wait time is 30 minutes. Or if the water is particularly nasty double the dosage and the time. 4 drops per liter and 1 hour.

SODIS (Solar Water Disinfection) method: Use a clear PET water bottle or clear soda bottle. Glass bottles will not work as they block UV-A rays. Remove any labels from the bottles. Fill the bottles with water (pre-filtered) and place them in an area where they will be exposed to direct sunlight. Placing foil behind the bottles increases the amount of light that reaches the water. In direct sunlight, the water will purify in approximately 6 hours. In a cloudy environment, it could take 2 days. This method is most effective in areas with lots of sunlight.

Boiling: An extremely effective way to purify water. Bring the water to a roiling boil for 1 minute to be extra safe. At elevations above 6500 feet you should boil the water for 3 minutes to be safe. In reality, the time it takes to bring the water to a boil is typically sufficient to kill any harmful organisms.

Filters: There are many excellent filters out there. Just be aware that not all virus may be removed and additional purification may be necessary (iodine, bleach, UV light).

There are many more ways to purify water than what I’ve listed here. Lifestraws work, but like any filter additional purification may be needed. I don’t like to take chances with my water and I typically boil or use iodine which are very effective. The best method mentioned above is boiling. It does however take time and energy to get water to boil. Be aware of what dangers lay in the water of the area you are in and prepare your kit according to what you need. Be safe, hydrate and ration sweat, not water.

Princeton Tec Quad Tactical Headlamp

I was shivering uncontrollably. My thin warm weather rip-stop Crye multicams did little to ward off the December chill in Northeastern Washington. It was 2030 hours, well past civil twilight this far north and it had been dark for four hours by this point. We’d been evading by moon and starlight and had settled into our third location for the night. Freezing rain occasionally rifted over us in sheets. We huddled into a defilade to make comms via our PRC-112 emergency radio. We received a text message data burst for our next set of coordinates. However the backlight on our radio was not working. “Jones, turn on your headlamp” I nodded while my teeth chattered nearly uncontrollably and when I hit the button on the top of my headlamp to turn it on, nothing happened. Hissed threats against the headlamp followed as I tried fixing it. However she’d given up the ghost after three days in the field – the plastic frame had cracked from the temperature deviation between the day and the night and water had gotten into it. The headlamp was dead and it was the only light we were allowed. Our operation became much more difficult because of that equipment failure.

Critical gear failing in the field is anyone’s nightmare. I never imagined that headlamps could fail in such short notice until I began to do Survival and Evasion exercises as a Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Specialist (SERE Specialist) for the United States Air Force. My gear needs to be able to survive in all conditions throughout the world. I demand quite a bit. When I finished training as a SERE Specialist I was issued one hell of a headlamp from Princeton Tec known as the EOS and I’ve seen it issued to a variety of other Special Operations forces throughout the military for the plain and simple reason that this thing doesn’t die. I’ve taken the Princeton Tec EOS headlamp everywhere and put it through everything. I have confidence in it to the utmost.

So when I was given the opportunity to review another headlamp from Princeton Tec made specifically for military professionals or outdoors enthusiasts I was ecstatic. I was sent the tan / multicam quad tactical MPLS (Modular Personal Lighting System). What we get compared to the workhorse Princeton Tec EOS is a lighter package, the quad tactical weighs in at just 78 grams compared to the EOS weighing in at 103 grams. With the reduction in weight the quad tactical is outperforming the EOS by emitting 78 lumens compared to the EOS, which emits a healthy 60. Be advised that the quad tactical puts out a wider focused beam that allows your peripherals to work with you compared to the EOS which is more focused beam. In either case I’ve found that I like the wide beam on the quad tactical more. They both take 3 AAA batteries.

The profile on the quad tactical is slimmer and closer to your head / helmet which means I’m not catching this thing on branches or lower overhangs as much. Further the power button up top is much improved in my opinion over the EOS. The power button on the EOS was slightly offset to the right of the top of the device compared to the quad tactical where is it dead center. It’s just more intuitive in my opinion. The headband remains the same between the two lights which doesn’t disappoint me at all. These lights are also all waterproof to one meter. The red filter is interchangeable to three different colors; red, green, blue. Compared to other headlamps that require you to flip a switch a certain way to activate the red light I much prefer pulling the filter over the light – it’s simple and you know you’re going to get red. Plus you won’t be that one guy in the group that accidentally flips to white light and destroys everyone’s night vision.

The quad tactical like the EOS have a variety of different mounting solutions. A NVG adapter is included so that this light can be mounted directly to your helmet. The standard straps can also be removed and attached to MOLLE webbing. Or you can loosen the band and wrap this thing around your helmet and secure with some 100 mph tape (my preferred method).

The headlamp is a simple but essential piece of gear. Make sure you have one that is rock solid. I can’t say enough about the simplicity, reliability and ruggedness of all Princeton Tec designs but also the EOS and quad tactical specifically. Given the lighter weight and the brighter overall output I’ll be sticking with the quad tactical for the foreseeable future.

Loadout Room Tips: Water Purification Tab Storage

One of the tips I picked up in the Marine Corps was how to carry 2 water purification tablets for an emergency. Typically we would just keep the small bottle or individual wrapped ones inside our first aid kits. During a training evolution at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, the instructors would occasionally share survival tips and tricks.

When I was in, we didn’t have access to any fancy water filtration systems like they do now. Our options were to boil the water or use purification tablets. Boiling usually wasn’t allowed for tactical reasons.

One of the instructors suggested we take two water purification tabs and duct tape them to the side of our USGI canteen. This way we always have a few tabs available as we are filling our canteens from a lake or stream. Plus if we had to dump our packs during an E&E (escape & evasion) scenario, we would always have a way to purify our water on the move.

In the above picture, I took two pre-packaged water purification tabs and duct taped them to the side of my canteen.