The perfect everyday carry for all outdoor enthusiasts

In a wilderness survival situation food, water, and shelter are your top priorities, However, not everyone wants to carry a complete comprehensive survival kit with them. Some people would rather carry just the fundamentals. So I got to thinking about my everyday carry which consists of a knife, fire starter, water purifier and para cord. Well actually I carry 2 knives as my everyday carry because I find it difficult to do small precise work with a large knife and hard to split firewood with a small one. This is not to say that it can't be done, it's just not my preference. So with all this in mind, we at Rocky Mountain Survival have developed a survival knife kit. What I used to carry was a crude version of what we are now selling on our site. It took quite some time to find the right pouch to put the contents of the kit in. It had to be durable, the right size (not too big or bulky but big enough for the must carry) and as we learned, it had to have the right type of closure. Snap closures didn't work as they would crush the filter straw if you were not careful and Velcro was a little to easy to come open. We finally found the right size, with the right look. and a snap lock buckle closure from Blackhawk. As far as the contents of the kit, we wanted to keep it small, simple, affordable but most of all practical. The first item was a no brainer. It had to have a fire starter so we added a nice thick flint fire starter. The second item for the pouch we had many discussions about but decided on a water purification filter by Aquamira because we felt that pure water consumption was one of the more important and harder things to achieve. The knife decision was easy. It had to be carbon steel, affordable, and big enough to shelter build, etc. We chose the Cold Steel GI Tanto. A nice 12 inch, thick, heavy knife with a tanto style blade which covers many uses. Lastly we mated the knife and pouch with 10 feet of para cord which left just enough at the bottom to use as the leg strap for the knife sheath. This combination makes for the perfect everyday carry set up that is very practical, affordable and really looks nice as well. This set up has a combined retail value of  $ 72.00 Check out our kit at the bottom of our survival kits page for the price of $ 55.00 with free shipping for a limited time.

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Survival Knives

Well I am new at this Blogging thing, so I figured, I might as well start off with the most controversial thing in survival. Maybe this way I will get some comments. By the way, we will post all comments that are not nasty or derogatory.
 A survival knife is both one of your most important tools in survival and I would say the most controversial. Depending on what side of the fence you are on will generally govern your decision about what kind of knife to carry. You have the people that like big Rambo and tactical knives. This I feel is more for the looks than the usability. Then, you have the group that thinks the more expensive the knife the better the knife must be. In some cases this is true but not necessarily.
 I myself prefer to carry several knives. If I am hunting or just out for a day or two I carry our stage 1 survival kit which affords me to carry several knives. I usually carry 1 large knife for brush clearing, shelter building, etc. and a medium utility knife. If I could only carry one knife it would have to be the Mora bushcraft survival knife. I like the Mora's for several reasons. They come razor sharp and hold an edge very well. They are made well so they hold up to abuse and they don't break your budget.
 My standing on survival knives differs from a lot of peoples but basically my survival knife is to help me survive and not to make me look cool or tough. I have a 200 dollar knife but it is almost always at home, the reason being is in the back country it is easy to loose a knife and in a survival situation you definitely abuse it. So I do not like the idea of carrying around an expensive knife in the wilderness. The other reason I carry several knives is if I loose, damage or dull one I do not have to stop the task at hand to repair the knife. I can simply grab the back-up knife and continue, then repair the damaged knife later when I have time.
 I know that other than the Mora I have not given much in the way of brands of knives. I have done this intentionally as I do not feel that it is as much the brand as it is the style and material of the blade.
Just remember, there are a lot of very good survival knives out there that are not expensive. You do not have to pay hundreds of dollars to get a good knife. Buy the knife for its intended use and keep in mind that Rambo and tactical knives are for defense and not truly designed for survival and as a general rule of thumb the cooler it looks, the less likely it will be practical for a survival situation.
I do have one exception to this rule and that a Tanto blade knife. Tanto's are considered tactical knives but because of the blade design they do make great survival knives. The design is such that if you stab something it is going to go in and its wide tip makes it perfect for digging and prying.

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