45 Survival/SHTF Tips!

If your zippo lighter has run out of fuel, don't worry about it because you can still make a fire with it. Take out the cotton from inside the lighter and use the flint to ignite the cotton with a spark. Carry some aluminium foil in your bug out bag. The reason for this is if the ground is damp and you can't get a fire going because mother nature hates you that day, lay out the tin foil and you'll have an instant dry platform to build your fire. Placing some masking tape over your torch reduces your profile but still gives you enough light to work with, a handy trick courtesy of the SAS. If you carry a functioning analogue wrist watch, then you can use it to find your north and south line. A little known trick but very handy. Hold your watch horizontal and point the hour hand towards the sun. Bisect the angle between the hour hand and the 12 o'clock mark to get the north south line. North will be the direction furthest from the sun. Navigating terrain at night without a compass is simple, the stars themselves will guide you, like that Coldplay song. If you're in the northern hemisphere then the north star aka Polaris will guide you to true north. If you have a basic understanding of stellar constellations then it's very easy to find. First of all, find the big dipper aka Ursa Major or the plough which it's more commonly known by and follow this line. This line leads straight to the north star. Having a guitar case as a bug out bag is quite unconventional but very effective in its own right. You have the opportunity to pack a lot of gear without sticking out like a sore thumb. No one's going to pester and beg a guy for supplies if they think he's just a loser carrying around a guitar. If you can't afford stab resistant vests or sappy plates, homemade ballistic protection can be made with carbon steel tenon saws. Several saws combined together with duct tape can create a stab proof, fragmentation and arrow proof plate to put in a plate carrier. It has also been demonstrated in some cases that it will stop a .22 long rifle bullet. Household bleach can be used to purify water. The ratio of bleach to water is two drops of bleach to purify one litre of water. Toothpaste can be used to treat bug bites and insect stings. Also, gotta stay minty fresh when you're out on the trail. Tent pegs laid across two logs can be used as a makeshift grill. Get yourself a tin can, a fawn and some string and you have yourself a hobo fishing kit. In wet conditions, tinder can easily be gathered by shaving off strips of the inner bark of twigs and logs. Large rocks placed around a campfire will absorb heat and even when the fire dies down they will still radiate enough heat to keep you warm. Also, the hot rocks can be placed in a cup of water and the heat from the rocks will begin to boil and purify the water. If you're purifying water, say from a swamp, but it smells absolutely dreadful, add some charcoal into the water while you're boiling it and it will remove the unpleasant smell and slightly improve the taste. The inner strands of 550 paracord are strong enough so you can tie equipment to your bag and make shelter without using up all of your paracord. A foil blanket duct taped to the inside of a tarp shelter can massively increase the heat retention of your shelter. These are called super shelters within the survivalist community. Glow sticks should always be carried just in case you need to be rescued. Tie 3 feet of paracord to a glow stick and swirl it around in a circle like you're at some rave hopped up on Smarties to create a 6 foot disc of light which will make it easy for rescue to spot you. A disposable raincoat or poncho is a very useful multi-purpose piece of equipment. 1. It can obviously be used as a raincoat. 2. It can be manipulated to make a makeshift shelter. 3. It can be used to create a solar still to gather and purify seawater and 4. It can collect rainwater for drinking but I heard that's illegal in some states in America so unlucky. Don't rely on boiling water alone as your method of purifying water as you may not always have the luxury of a fire. Pack water purification tablets. Barbed wire can be turned into makeshift fishing hooks. If you happen to carry pliers with wire cutters in your kit then simply snip off the barbed wire and fashion it into a hook and attach some paracord. Never under any circumstances use untreated water to clean wounds. It's common sense but I've seen a lot of people wash their wounds in a river. Also don't submerge your hands in water if you have any cuts or lacerations. Animal entrails that you would usually throw away should be kept to use as bait for fishing, traps and snares. Always process your game far away from your camp as you don't want bears or other predatory animals picking up the scent and sniffing around your camp looking for the animal carcass. If you are stung by stinging nettles remember that the stinging sensation is caused by the needles injecting an acid into you. Combat this by spitting on the area immediately and scrubbing it hard with a piece of clothing to get the acid off and out. Don't waste time and valuable energy by chopping up logs with an axe or a machete. Just give them a swift kick and snap them in half by force. You are not making furniture, it does not have to be perfect. You may think you're king of the jungle but you can't always prevent yourself from falling down a rabbit hole or scraping your arm on a tree branch. Pack a first aid kit. Don't forget to include important documents in your bug out bag. Birth certificates, insurance details, medical records etc etc. Remember to pack a modest amount of cash in your bug out bag. McDonalds and Burger King will surely still be open in America despite all hell breaking loose. When setting up shelter you need to keep off the ground. Laying on the ground is going to suck all the heat out of you and you'll end up freezing your bollocks off. Laying on a ground sheet or poncho isn't enough I'm afraid. You need to elevate yourself off the ground. You can either make a platform out of logs or gather up a bunch of leaves and weeds and create yourself a soft padded raised bed. Or you can use both the logs and the leaves in combination for maximum effectiveness. Alternatively a hammock will save you all the trouble. When packing your rucksack always put the light stuff on the bottom and the heavy stuff on top to maintain your centre of gravity. Set the rucksack up so it sits as high up on your back as possible and don't forget to tighten the straps up like a ************. If you're planning to move a lot around while outside you should wear less clothing than you think you actually need. As long as you stay in continuous motion and keep your head, hands and feet covered and dry you can drop nearly all of your extra layers and still be comfortable. The key is to avoid sweating in cold weather as your clothes will get damp, your clothing will lose it's insulating qualities and you risk hypothermia. Not the nicest thing to have. Always carry a pack of cigarettes, even if you don't smoke. Offering people cigarettes can help you make friends or calm people down if they're suffering from stress or nicotine withdrawal. Smoke is a natural insect repellent. If you have a fire going then wave your jacket, your trousers, your sleeping bag, your poncho etc around in the smoke to keep the mosquitoes and ants from eating you alive. Also, fire is a natural predator repellent. It will stop a bear from stealing your bag and your girlfriend in the night. Always pack spare socks, at least two extra pairs. Socks can be used to filter the dirt out of water, keep animal guts suspended in a tree and of course prevent you from getting trench foot and blisters. If you do get a blister, thread a needle with some string or one in a strand of 550 paracord, drain the blister with the needle and put the thread through the blister so it runs straight through. The two holes you created allow the blister to drain and the thread keeps the holes open and sucks up any excess moisture. With this method your blisters will heal faster. If you feel you're getting a blister, or what is commonly known as the hot spot, take a big piece of duct tape and slap it right over the area. The tape will eliminate the friction and stop blisters from forming. The chewing gum in MREs contains xylitol which has a mild laxative effect. Trust me, you'll need that after consuming an MRE. Don't discard it. If you drink too much water on an empty stomach, your body chemistry will get messed up due to the imbalance of electrolytes which may cause you to go into shock and suffer brain damage in the long term. To avoid this, make sure you're eating enough food and getting enough salt during the day. Make sure you are balancing your water intake with your food intake because too much of either is bad. With that in mind, don't eat food if you're dehydrated. The food will soak up whatever water is left and it will just dehydrate you further to the point where it could be fatal. It's very important to know how to make the SOS signal, both in sound and in light. SOS looks like this. Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. The dots signify quick signals, whereas the dashes represent slow signals. Practice tapping the rhythm on a table. Tap tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap tap. It may seem tempting to set your camp right up next to a body of water, but it's a bad idea since bugs that hover over the water will eat you alive in the night, especially if you're set up next to stagnant water. Set up camp on elevated ground a modest distance away from water sources. Raising both arms up in the Y position and moving them erratically up and down is the international distress signal. If your signal fire has caught the attention of rescue services, make sure to use this signal. If you don't, you run the risk of the helicopter pilot just assuming that you're an ordinary camper just chilling or a douchebag starting a forest fire. Depending on your global position, it can be confusing to translate kilometres into miles off the top of your head. A very simple way to make this translation is to divide the amount of kilometres in half, then add the first digit of the kilometre. This will give you a close estimation. For example, 50 kilometres divided by 2 equals 25 plus 5 equals 30 miles. 50 kilometres equals 31 miles. Very close indeed. Tobacco decreases stamina by limiting blood and oxygen to the brain. It also interferes with healing and blood clotting by destroying the platelets in your blood. Nicotine limits blood and oxygen flow to extremities, which makes it more likely to catch frostbite. It also reduces night vision because it causes constriction of the blood vessels in the eye. It also inhibits marksmanship because nicotine causes fine muscle tremors which reduces stability and weapon accuracy. This isn't anti-smoking propaganda, as I'm a smoker myself, but it's good to take into consideration. If you see an animal drinking from a lake, that does not mean that the water is safe for you to drink. Most animals are able to eat and drink something which may be harmful to humans. If you happen to end up stranded on a tropical island, only drink the milk from green coconuts rather than mature ripe coconuts because the milk from a mature ripe coconut contains an oil that acts like a laxative. Diarrhoea is not something you want when you're dehydrated. Carry some tinfoil in your bug out kit. That way if you lose your canteen, then you can shape the tinfoil into a bowl or cup and you'll be able to fill it with a bit of water and lay it beside a fire to boil it. Or you can drop some water purification tablets in it. And that's all I've got. If you know of any more handy survival related tips and tricks, then please leave them in the comments below so that we all may reach enlightenment. Thanks for watching. Good luck in your adventures.