Matches for Survival Waterproof, Stormproof and Standard Match Test

Fire starting is an essential skill for survival and there's a lot of different methods and ways to do it. Probably one of the biggest beside the big lighter is the match. And having different matches are great, but they're very vulnerable to the elements. Whether you have wet conditions, wind, a lot of things can affect a match. So today we're going to take a look at some different match alternatives. Of course, we're going to look at the standard match. We're going to look at waterproof matches and also stormproof matches. And we're going to look at some homemade matches with wax on the end. And this is just basic survival skills, but guys, you need to know this. If you ever find yourself in a survival situation, guys, fire will keep you warm. It'll boil your water. It will cook your food. It'll keep predators at bay. And also it's just good for morale. Now there are strike anywhere matches. These are getting more difficult to find. This one's empty, so I'm not going to be able to demonstrate it, but you can strike this on any kind of surface like concrete or something that has a rough texture to it. Now, again, we have just the regular matches. These are Ohio blue tip matches. I love it because they have don't tread on me on the box. Now let's try it in water. And we're going to take the blue tips first. We're going to dip them in the water. And so if it's in a pack and it gets wet, we're going to see if we can get these to light. And you want to get the excess water off of them. Can't get it to light at all. This box seems to have a better striker. There we go. But you can see it just goes quickly out. Next, we're going to try the waterproof safety matches. We're going to drop them into the water. Again, we're going to take off all the remaining excess water and we'll see what we can do. All right, we got it to light. It lights really well. Now, if you put it in the water, it just goes out. So this is not really waterproof as in it'll keep burning. It just allows you to light this even if you're in wet conditions. So you can light it, get your tender started. And so this is a good option, better than the standard matches, which just will not stay lit or will not even strike hardly. And if they do, it'll go out quickly. Now, these are matches that have been dipped in wax. They're kind of just regular matches and the head's been dipped. These are really just to keep them from getting wet and you can use them. I wouldn't say they're necessarily waterproof, but they are resistant to water. You just need to make sure you get that wax off the tip. I'm going to drop them in the water. Now it's just the tip that's been dipped. And so it may be that you needed to put the whole thing in wax. Get the excess water off. Let's see what we can do. So we've got it to light and it's staying lit pretty good. So once that fire starts, it'll dry that wood out, looks like. Yeah, it's burning even with that wet wood, but the wood hasn't been soaked all the way through. It's pretty much on the surface. It's still doing pretty good. This is obviously an inexpensive way, but matches are pretty cheap already. But if you're at home and you just have matches and you don't have the waterproof, that's a good surrogate. Now, these are my favorite for survival kits. And this is the stormproof matches. They are windproof and waterproof. We're going to test that. In fact, we're going to test wind on all these, not just water, but they're large. They have this orange color to them. And this really, we've tested these before. I mean, they are really impressive. One thing you need to make sure is you have some kind of way to strike it, because that is definitely something that you need to take care of. Yeah, that lights up really well. Got a good bright flame and it burns all along this. I mean, that helps to make it burn. One thing that I really like about the stormproof matches, it's already in this bag. So that's going to help it just on its own. We're going to dip it in the water. We'll get the excess water off of it. Let's go ahead and light it. Oh yeah. Look at that. Flames right up, but this is the cool thing. We dip in water and then it comes right back. And that is really the big thing about the stormproof matches. And it burns. It just has that accelerant to allow it to burn longer. Now let's test the wind. And we've got a little wind tunnel, homemade wind tunnel here. I'm going to turn this fan on. So we have quite a bit of a breeze. We're going to go ahead and do the standard match. It goes out really quick. And now we're going to drop it down to the low setting and it goes out too. And that's not much of a breeze. Now we have just the waterproof matches and we're going to see how these lights, sometimes they can be a little difficult because of the coating they have on them. So I'm going to kind of give it a little bit of a, just brush it off. These can be a little difficult to light. We're going to use the box for the stormproof matches. Seems to have a better striker. Okay, we have it lit. Let's cut on our wind. Yeah, it blows it right out, even on low. These are the matches that we actually covered in wax. And again, I'm going to get that tip, give it its best chance. And again, we're going to use the box for the stormproof matches. We've got it lit. Let's go ahead and turn on our wind. Blows it right out. That's no surprise. Now we're going to try the stormproof matches. Of course we get it lit, turn on our wind. It accelerates the flame and it definitely burns out quicker, but this will stay lit even in this wind. Now with the standard match, it performed the least and we kind of expected that. With the wax impregnated, which we just dipped it in wax, it did pretty good, you know, as far as getting wet and it seemed to burn. And then of course with the waterproof matches, they burned about the same as the wax tip. There's something also in this wood here to help as well, but the stormproof matches are definitely far and above all of these. Being able to take on the wind, the water, and it just burns longer. It's a longer match. And so hands down, this is my choice. And I think this is really what would be the best option because when you are in a wilderness, you know, wet conditions can happen, windy conditions. And so your best chance is to go with something like this. And I think this would suit even better than a lighter because a lighter will also go out in windy conditions, unless you get one of the torch type lighters and there's other things. But this will just give you an idea of some of the match choices. And I think that the stormproof matches or lifeboat matches are really the only way to go. And no, I'm not connected with UCO who makes these matches. I've been using these things for years and they just work. Now with standard matches, you can feather the match and this will actually help it to burn, especially when it gets down to the wood. It'll help it from going out so quickly. Just add a little feather. Be careful when you're doing this. Obviously you don't want to slip your finger, split your finger. And that gives it just a little bit more to burn. Let's check it out. It does weaken the head a little bit, but once it starts burning, it's going to allow that flame to continue to burn longer. Unfortunately, you can't do that with the stormproof matches, but you could do it with these others, but it does weaken the tip. So be careful when striking. Have a little bit of Vaseline and cotton balls. You don't even hardly need it to get that started. That's really impressive. Guys, just some basic skills for survival. Things you need to know. Because again, matches are very vulnerable to the elements and having the right matches can mean the difference between staying warm and freezing to death. If you're serious about prepping and survival, check out Survival Dispatch Insider. One of the best and most credible sources on the web. They use a lot of the top names in the survival and prepping world. We upload one video that's exclusive to the Insider every week. I'll have a link down below in the description. It's well worth checking out. Be strong, be of good courage. God bless America. Long live the Republic.