Survival Basics Part 1: By Sgt. D

There is a lot of information in this topic. So I decided to break it up into a more easily handled size. Here is part 1.

When I worked in law enforcement I tried to anticipate the things I would need to consider when I responded to an incident. The important thing is to have a plan ahead of time. This plan for natural disasters can be used for large groups of people or just for yourself. From my experience this is a good order in which to consider the different issues. (I am sure others will disagree with me about what should be considered first).

Evacuations:

-Uninjured People
Get those people, including yourself, who are not injured to safe locations to prevent them from getting injured. Uninjured people are much more mobile and easy to deal with than injured people. They require less assistance.
-Injured people
Can they be moved without aggravating their injuries?
How much risk do they face in their current location?

Once you have taken measures to deal with the at the moment life threatening problems, you now need to consider some of the long term survival basics.

Water:


The truth is that you cannot live long without fresh water. The hotter your climate, and the more work that you are doing, will increase your need for water.

In terms of water consider:
How much fresh water do you have access to right now?
Don't forget what is stored in toilet tanks, hot water heaters, and the pipe system of a house or building.
Can you easily access more fresh water?
How long will it be before fresh water supplies will be restored?
What do you have to store water in?
What do you have to make bad water into good water?

This is by no means a complete list, but it will start you thinking about the issues involved with water.

Shelter/Protection:

Do you have buildings, houses, or other places to get out of the elements and to provide a safe place to rest? Finding shelter will help keep people from getting sick or sustaining heat or cold injuries.

This also involves clothing as well. The ability to retain body heat can be a life saver.

These are three very important topics to consider in the first few moments of a survival situation.

We will consider more tomorrow.

There are some great books out there about survival. Once you get motivated about how important this topic is, these books can provide a lot of help in getting ready, and can be a great resource once the situation occurs. Think about having several around.

Plan for survival from all of us at "If It Hit The Fan".

The Mosin-Nagant 91/30: By Mr. H

Powerful, affordable and reliable. The Mosin-Nagant 91/30 is a Bolt Action Russian surplus rifle that served in various forms from 1891 until the 1960s in many Eastern European nations. Chambered for the 7.62x54r rifle cartridge, the Mosin has more than enough power and accuracy for hunting, self defense and sporting applications. 

The Mosin has a 5 round internal magazine that can be loaded via stripper clips or by individually loading cartridges into the magazine. Ammunition for the Mosin is very inexpensive, a surplus Russian sealed tin or "spam can" of 440 rounds can be purchased for $79 to $139(plus shipping). Links for ammunition: Ammunition To Go and Cabela's.

 

The Mosin-Nagant can be purchased for $99 to $159 in most sporting goods stores like Big 5 and Cabela's. They also can be found at gun shows, pawn shops and most gun stores.  Keep in mind the Mosin can be fitted with optics and refurbished and/or polymer stock kits. I even found a website with a bull-pup style stock kit: Center Balanced Systems. I prefer to keep my Mosin stock.

This particular Mosin was manufactured in Izhevsk, Russia in 1933. It has an Octagonal, or more commonly referred to "hex" receiver and brass fittings. Most Mosins come with a sling, bayonet, tools, oil can and two belt pouches for stripper clips.

 

The Mosin can be field stripped for cleaning quickly, by opening the bolt and pulling the trigger while moving the bolt out of the receiver, then removing the bottom of the magazine.

Our choice for your first survival rifle the Mosin-Nagant is an extremely powerful, affordable, reliable and functional piece history. Go and get one of your own! Thanks from us here at "If It Hit The Fan".

It Could Happen To You: By Sgt. D

In my years of living I have come across people who seem to have this strange ability to not believe that bad things can happen to them. Unfortunately these people seem to pass this trait and attitude on to others around them. It seems to be the thought "Oh this won't happen to me/us. It only happens to others."

To help visualize the problem lets list some disasters both natural and man made.

Automobile accident far from civilization
Major Snow storm
Flooding
Crime
Katrina
Mexican Drug Wars
Haiti Earthquake
Russian Forest and Wild Fires
Mount Saint Helens
Chinese Earthquake
Tsunami Southwest Pacific
Drought in Africa
Riots in American cities
World War 1
World War 2
Spanish Civil War
Soviet Revolution
Finnish War of Independence
San Francisco earthquake
3 wars between India and Pakistan

There are thousands of other examples large and small, ancient and modern that I could list. One example that happened to me was a major snow storm which knocked out all electrical power for seven days. It took a long time after that for the roads to become passable again. A second was when I was trapped in a hotel in Hong Kong during the communist riots in the 1960's.

Now I was very lucky that my parents were the descendants of American pioneers who moved out west in the early 1800's. We always had food set aside for emergencies. We always had a tent, sleeping bags, weapons, and the attitude that "you better be able to take care of yourself, because other people may not know you're in trouble, or may not care what happens to you".

I believe it is important to promote the survival attitude to help my family, friends, and others get through the hard times. When you believe that it can happen to you, then you can survive, because you are prepared. Without this attitude you are allowing yourself to be a powerless victim of circumstance.

May wisdom be with you; from the folks here at "If It Hit The Fan".

The Knife - An Important Survival Tool: by Sgt. D

In order to keep as wide and audience as possible, we will rotate the topics that we talk about.  We also believe in providing information in bite size chucks.  I have been training people for decades, and it is easier for people to learn and retrain information in smaller amounts.

One of the most important tools for survival is a knife.

My opinion is that you should plan to care more than one.  How many knives your decide to carry is up to you and your situation.

Knives can perform to a number of different survival related jobs.  We will explore these later in later posts.  We will just talk about the basic design of knives for now.

Remember: Look for quality and value in the tools you choose.

There are basically two major categories of knives:

Fixed blade knives
Can be stronger that a folding knife.
Requires some kind of sheath to hold it when not in use.

 


Folding bladed knives
Can be easier to carry, because it does not require a sheath.
Some folding knives have a lot of tools that could be useful.
May require two hands to close.
Can be more dangerous to handle because it could close unexpectedly.

Note:  Multi-tools will be discussed in a different post.

One of the next considerations should be weight.  If you are stationary it is not much of a consideration.  If you have to go mobile then the questions of weight starts to become more important.  If you have a vehicle, it becomes a question of how much space you have, and how much cargo you need to move.  This question of weight really becomes important if you are carrying everything you need.  So keep this factor in mind.

Start thinking about your survival knife, so you will be ready "If It Hit The Fan".