Home Front: COVID-19 bug-in cache

With the current COVID-19 pandemic scare going on, I thought it prudent to supplement my food stored in case we needed to enact the self-quarantine the Australian government is recommending in the case of exposure.  I suspected something like this might occur so as soon as i heard of an outbreak in China. Mostly due to the risk to supply chains.  Given the reported nature of the virus, in both infection rates and morbidity and mortality, I'm not overly concerned about the disease itself, but rather the disruption to supply lines.

This is the kind of prepping anyone can do and its as simple as picking up a few extra items each time you go shopping. Long lasting staples.  I chose things I like to eat, and things I will take camping.  I didn't pre-stockpile toilet paper which was the panic-buy item of choice  reported and experienced, but some judicial and crafty shopping saw us stocked without issue. Something to note for next time.

That said, here is a quick look at my very quickly and inexpensively put together bug-in food cache. Nothing too exciting, nor anything that will go to waste. this is all stuff  I will eat over time and replenish and build on as time goes on.

Red Feather Butter cans: Providing energy rich fats and good taste, for frying, baking, spreading on bread.

Spam cans 340g A traditional prepping staple. Long lasting, tasty and versatile, has its own opening  system and a Weird Al song and Monty Python skit. 3 year best-by date.  I prefer it sliced or diced and fried but its palatable enough eaten from the can with a spoon if you're in a bind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully_beef, this mechanically reclaimed potted meat and rendered lard in a can. Bully Beef. Not a very exciting food, nor especially sophisticated but it is meat, long lasting, ready to eat and can be added to many other foods. 'Pocalypse Stew as well as the traditional 'shit on a shingle". (served on toast like pate) It kind of looks like pet food. 

Noodles: Ramen. packs Two-minute pre-fried noodles in a packet.  Comes with its own seasoning sachets. Best eaten as noodles in soup  (ready in just  2 minutes give or take) or eat dry sprinkling the seasoning on top as you munch. They also make excellent fire starters being dry and greasy. I prefer the "mi goreng" flavor which it includes a chili/sauce/oil sachet for added flavor variety and use in other dishes as needed as well as fortifying the meal.

Baked Beans  555g cans: Beans Beans ,good for the heart. Best served hot, "Fine like this" if you shun compromise and wear an ink blot mask. 

Stew cans, Braised steak and onion;  425g cans. A meal in a can, simple and tasty. good texture and serves two per can.

Soup cans, Chunky bacon and potato x3 505g cans. Another meal in a can, though not quite as satisfying as the stew cans. Better when combined with other foods.

Ration biscuits: PRC food bricks

MRE's: from a variety of sources.  Pre-packaged military style meals ready to eat. not fancy but very carefully put together and long lasting.

Water jugs: Every time I go camping I buy one of these 10L-20L bricks and take them to ensure I have clean water for drinking, cooking and even wash-ups. Afterwards I keep the jugs and with some simple cleaning and refilling with tap-water they're good to go for long term water storage.

Powdered Egg mix: 150g, equivalent to a dozen fresh eggs when reconstituted with water. can be used to make scrambled egg or omelette or as a binding agent in baking. 

Sauces/Soup Mix:  I keep the excess sauce packets from fasts food meals and also the soup sachets from ramen packets to act as soup stock and seasoning for other meals, especially the otherwise bland Spam, beans and corned beef. What otherwise might have been throw away I've kept and stored to supplement my meal stores. 

Mac and Cheese kits: x4 boxes 380g "serves 3. contains pasta packet and canned cheese for use as a sauce. Requires only water to cook. The canned cheese can be eaten separately or combined with other supplies. 

Pasta sauce, Jars of tomato paste with flavorsome herbs, good for making stews, pasta and adding flavor and nutrition to any meal.

Can Pie; Steak and Kidney. Pie including pastry in a tin. Designed to be cooked in the tin (Lid off) it is possible to bake the pie in coals, with some coals on top, by partially opening the tin.

In addition to these specific canned good stores i've stockpiled, I have routinely built up supplies, preserved foods like jams and jerky. Dry-goods like rice, beans, flour and sugar i've kept well stocked and stored in DPJ's  along with fruit preserves and even some pickled eggs.

Review: Red Feather Brand canned butter

I had heard and read about canned butter as a survival and prepping resource for years but had never seen it until doing some shopping at my local IGA super market (a small locally owned chain of community oriented markets) where I saw them stacked on a display. I grabbed one and took it home to try and have made a point to pick one up each time I go in as part of my on-going prepping.

This canned butter was from the Red Feather brand, which is an Australian company which takes Australian and New Zealand milk to make fine and traditional butter and have done so for over  70 years. Red Feather butter has no artificial colours or flavours, Each 10 oz ( 340g ) can is made only Pasteurized cream and salt. Sealed airtight for maximum freshness, this canned butter delivers convenience in the form of extended shelf life and easy storage without the necessity of refrigeration, with a manufacturers recommendation of a 2 year use-by, In ideal, cool conditions, an unopened can could be expected to last much longer than that and it is purported to be shelf stable for 10 years. I may put a can aside to see how this holds out. Time capsule anyone?

The can itself  comes with a plastic cap which allows you to re-seal the can after opening with  a can-opener. The conveniently stackable cans have one lip larger than the other.  One thing I found is one end of the can opens better than the other. The bottom end of the can has a better lip for engaging the can-opener and once open, the plastic cap closes the can up to maintain freshness. With regular butter I tend to leave the pat out to stay room temp for ease of spreading. In an Australian summer this occasionally leads to a puddle but being in a lidded can I've avoided this with the Red Feather butter. 

This also makes it camp-safe  to keep bugs and crud out of the butter and  also keeps it dry in you store it in an icy cooler.

 





As far as taste goes, I'd go as far as to say it's sweeter and creamier than the regular butter I buy from the grocery.  It spreads nicely at room temperatures, it fries well and is excellent on pancakes, an essential attribute.

I haven't tried powdered or freeze-dried butter but I think the Red Feather butter would make a very fine addition to your long term food stocks. It's a little more expensive than regular packet butter but the added value of long term shelf-life, stackability and good taste means I will be buying it for regular use as well as prepping needs.

I can believe it's long life butter.

Review:Slughaus vs HUNT22 bull3t lights

L-R; HUNT22, Mr .45, Bullet02

I do not like being in the dark. I like to see where I am going, and what is around me. To that end I collect lights and like blades, I tend to have two or three on me at all times. But flashlights can be bulky so it's handy to have a pocket sized one that you mostly don't realize are there. Dollar store or service station LED lights are cheap and handy, but hardly rugged or reliable.I am also an avid Kickstarter backer. Two such projects came up at similar times that piqued my interest. 

L-R; HUNT22, Mr .45, Bull3t02

These were the  SeptemStudio HUNT22 and Slughaus BULL3T02 light projects. These projects for finger digit sized, high-powered, tough lights. As a bonus the HUNT22  project offered lights in both UV and white light wavelengths. i'm also a fan of alternate wavelengths, IR is synonymous with night vision but UV has its own magic. UV flashlights are benefiting from the LED revolution that has also put sun-bright lights in our back pockets, sidearms and helmets. 

HUNT22 white from the doorway

Traditional UV torches are bulky to carry around and, most keyring UV torches are low quality with weak beam.by taking advantage of LED technology the designers of the HUNT22 light used a100,000 hour lifespan UV LED in the 385–395 nm wavelength with a UV power output of 1–3w . The white light version has a CREE LED bulb which has up to 50,000 hours lifetime for 20 lumens of keychain light. Powered by three  AG3 ( LR41 ) batteries(which i found really hard to source).  

HUNT22 UV from the doorway

T-B; HUNT22, Mr .45, Bull3t02

The HUNT22 is billed as the toughest and smallest UV flashlight you'd ever seen; finger-sized yet with maximum durability and the strongest light beam in any product this size. Here's why they can make that claim: The light body is milled from grade 5 titanium and sitting at a  mere 1.1 x 2.6 cm in size for a hardly whopping 0.21 oz (5.95 g) this 1 inch light has a simple twist-on action. As well as the inherent strength of titanium, just its small dimensions lends strength. Precision engineering and a well fitted o-ring couple to give the light its Waterproof IPX6 rating.

I can't say i've done much to put it to the toughness test other than slinging it on my keychain for weeks and months to no ill effect, even the anodizing has remained unscathed. I don't see myself setting it on fire or using it as a deep sea fishing lure or as the end of a weighted chain  weapon but i suspect it would survive such mistreatment.
Lightly milled rings on the body of the light improves grip for the twist-on action of the light, without increasing snagging. The tail cap features a protruding wedge with a lanyard hole cut into it. This wedge also facilitates the twist on action. The LED is protected behind  a domed  lens and is recessed a little bit in the end, both protecting the lens but also restricting and focusing the spread of light.

HUNT22 light pattern on a tabletop

The UV light is bright enough for close in tasks like watermark assessment ,reading hidden text or spotting if  a scorpion is in a particular hole but is hardly a room-filling tool, nor is it intended to be. 

The white light version isn't a room filler either but is plenty bright enough to light up a room if the power goes out, or finding something dropped in the foot-well of a car. These are just in case, always have with you options, rather than spotlights or searchbeams. The wedge on the tail cap is flat allowing it to be stood upright in "candle mode" to light up a room. 

The second light, the Slughaus BULL3T02 is the second generation light Slughaus have put out.  I had one of the Bullet 01 models but, full disclosure I lost it. (i loose a lot of lights). A little bigger than the Hunt22 light but hardly bulky at only 14mm x 30mm and weighing only  13g in  (6Al-4V)  titanium and 11g in the (T6061) aerospace aluminum option,

Bullet02 light pattern on a tabletop

the BULL3T02 is powered by three  LR44H Button Cell batteries powering a 2mm Nano SMD LE, the LED is behind a flat lens which is recessed only about a mm in the body, but sufficiently to protect the lens from incidental pocket keychain scratches. 

The body lacks the milled ring grip assists the BULL3T22 has but the slightly wider body allows for a better grip inherently.  The cast of the light is quite wide which is good for room filling light without being a lighthouse signal. The base has a pin type post extending to allow the fitting of a simple lanyard loop split ring. This makes it difficult to balance on its tail cap to use in "candle mode."

Both lights function well, though there is a knack to getting them on or off such that they don't accidentally turn on or off in your hand or pocket. The form factor is pretty cool and I liked that whilst close in size and shape neither was close enough that you might inadvertently thumb one into a magazine and have a brown-trouser click moment. Over all I prefer the HUNT22  light, especially for the UV option, though I would like some kind of distinguishing tactile feature on its case to tell them apart in the dark (or in the light for that matter).

camp ideas

So I've been wanting to get a bit more social with my prepping and thought it might be nice to arrange a camping skill-share, where we could get together, make camp, share some ideas and knowledge and practice some skills and test out gear. In thinking about this I got to thinking about skills and ideas for discussion topics.  My thoughts around it revolved around the bug-out decision and what could or would be needed in those situations. 

So here is my brainstorming list of ideas around topics to cover both philosophical topics surrounding TEOTWAWKI scenarios and situations where wilderness bug-outs might be beneficial, and also covering skills and techniques I feel might be worth sharing for a SHTF situation.

 The idea would be to put into practice some of the skills and preps people have gathered and learn new ways of doing things in a relaxed, pressure-free environment.

I don't claim to be super knowledgeable or skilled but I think it would be a valuable experience and a great way to socialize mindsets as well as test out gear. 

To bug in or bug out

- when (depending on the event, there may or may not be a warning, sheltering in -place may be advantageous) (traffic, unrest, martial law, fuel restrictions, road clearance, security)
- how (on foot, in a vehicle, daytime, night-time, overt or covert)

- trigger points (depends on the situation, essential services, social markers (rioting, mobs, looting)

- prep (depending on the situation there may be time to do last minute preps (storm proofing windows, shopping, water storage)

- Where:

Should the decision come to bug-out, one of the first thoughts I think worth discussing was that of site selection. Given the variety of threats that could trigger a bug-out, such choices would need to be suitable for the situation at hand.

As I see it, a site selection depends on four basic elements: 

- access (can you hike to it, does it have road access, do you need ladders, ropes or a boat to reach it?)

- resources (food,  water, firewood, materiale on site)

- physical security (distance, isolation, cliffs, dense forest, rivers, fences, buildings, walls)
- obscurity (is it a commonly known or popular location, does it get plentiful visitors in normal times)

Having settled on a bug-out location and making it there, you are faced with some choices around camp layout that will need to be considered, these apply to any camping situation.

- shelter

- wind

- local hazards (rivers, cliffs, marshes, wildlife)

- areas (sleeping / cooking / fire / toiletries / craft)

- distance to water 

Shelter building. Depending on your situation and expected duration of your stay you may need to take into consideration a variety of elements such seasonal weather and both convenience and comfort. Do you need to build  a log cabin to winter in or stilt house to monsoon in?

- natural

- salvage

- portable

Foraging: Bugging out is usually a limiting idea when it comes to resources. There will be only so many meals you can pack and take with you ,and after that you'll have to fend or yourself. 

- bush food

- salvage (neighboring residences / "abandoned" towns, risks of venturing out)

- hunting

- caching

- farming (crops  & livestock)

Fire craft: Cooking, water purifying, heat, light, craft and security. Fire brings all thee things and there are fewer things that say "survival" more than being able  to start and maintain a fire. But it can be dangerous, time and energy consumptive (fire wood is hard work to chop and haul)

-stoves

- bow drill

- fire steel/ flint / Ferrocerium

- smokeless buried

- fuel (harvesting and storing)

Water: essential for life, for crops, for hygiene and  sometimes remarkably difficult to come across.

- sand charcoal filter

- evaporation still/plant harvest

- streams, billabongs, springs, rain harvest

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

-My Country, Poem by Dorothea Mackeller

Food: Ok ,so, you've got your crates of MRE, your boxes of ramen and cans of beans, and lugged it a ll out to your bug-out location. Now you have to eat it. as a limited resource you want to ensure you waste as little as possible, maximise caloric content and avoid meal-fatigue. 

- - cooking/food/MRE's/rations

- - storage

- - hobo stew

Camp craft: There are all manner of skills to learn and things to make to improve camp living. Some are purely outdoors skills, others are wilderness survival and others just useful.

- travois building

-navigation

travois building
cleaning/ hygiene/ latrine
canoeing/fishing

first aid
sharpening tool/knife

signaling
gadgets

rope, knots, cordage, nets

Security: having arrived at your site, you'll want to establish a perimeter and put some kind of security in place, if the situation calls for it, based on the level of threats expected, you may need to deploy all manner of security to protect your location, your supplies and yourselves.  

traps / tripline alarms / noisemakers

- light/noise discipline

- snares, traps and static defense

- hiking/stealth

- tracking/stalking

  

 

The 5 c's of survival - combustion/cordage/ containers/ cover/cutting tool

Camp stuff aside, there's the whole "when is enough's enough", when to pack up and big out or board up and bug in. Some scenarios are better for bug-in vs bug out and would take some debating to determine what constitutes what kind of risks or benefits. 

Situations leading to a bug-out.

- social collapse: fabric of society in tatters, no law, no services, reliant on pre-established community goodwill if it exists. 

- economic collapse: mass unemployment and poverty, starvation and resource scarcity. law and order stretched thin, but government still operates in some capacity. Profiteering rampant. Currency irrelevant. 

- governmental collapse: formal government dissolved essential services operate on volunteer basis only. Free market economy continues but currency may be unstable .

- natural disaster: devastating and dangerous. depending on the nature of the event the damage may be narrow or widespread, limited or long term.

- - floods

- - dust bowl

- - fires (bushfire, urban wildfire, pipeline / refinery )

- - mega storms (hurricane, typhoon, tornado)

- - geological (earthquake, volcanic, impact events)

- disease  / plague

climate change: I don't need a 16 year old Swede to shame me into being concerned. Climate change could lead to a variety of cascading disasters.

- global warming

- - sea levels coastal shifts inland

- - droughts

- weather patterns

- - flooding

-- EL nino, La Nina

- - crop failures

- armada storms ( if one butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane, imagine a whole swarm or an armada of butterflies and the storm they might create (thanks Peter F Hamilton))

water supply

- Drought

- -domestic water restrictions

- -crop  failures

- - bee pollination collapse

solar flare / increase (Circuitry Man) the day star is an angry friend and can do us harm in more ways than sunburn and drought. A burp of the sun could drop us back to the steam age and we lack the infrastructure to support it.

- grid down infrastructure failure, comms out

- emp

- radiation

- heat

Yellowstone super-volcano

Pacific Rim ring of fire eruptions/quakes

- ash

- tsunami

- plate shift

- reactor meltdowns

polar flip: i'm not convinced this one is really an issue worth listing as a disaster, rather a significant inconvenience and nuisance. 

- navigation

- Van Allen belt holes

power / fuel ( no oil, coal):  Fuel crisis might dramatically cut transportation, distribution and essential services. prices may skyrocket to compensate or they may simply halt

- electrical power grid down

-- water and sewage pumping cut / digital economy / comms

-- transportation / food distribution

international terrorism

- local infrastructure disruption

domestic terrorism :social unrest and instability, cultural shifts and revolutionary. All are disruptive and might warrant  a"get out of Dodge"  to avoid being caught up in or being on the wrong end of.

- religious extremism

- jihad vs crusade

- hate crimes/race war

plague: global Pandemics, sweeping through countries , killing or incapacitating people could lead to infrastructure and societal collapse as well as the direct threat of infection.

- Spanish flu

- red flu ( the Last Ship)

- crop blight (Interstellar)
- livestock blight

war: woah, woah, woah, what is it good for? Not property values that's for sure. Time to Wolveriene's out!

- invasion

- thermonuclear fallout

Crazy Supernatural disaster: I'm not going to shirk from addressing the very dear threats to the movie-going preppers lists even if it's not a credible threat. Worth it for fireside discussion with  a few drinks at the very least.

- zombies

- aliens

- trifids

- kaiju

Would some kind of camping trip with workshops appeal? If you're in my geographical region and would like to hang out do drop me a line. We'll chop some wood and char some food, rig some traps and get our hands dirty.

Wish Lust - Survival Hardware - Baccy Pouch

In  a departure from my usual kind of review item I wanted to show some love for one of my co-authors for Breach Bang Clear , David "Norseman" Williams. Norseman has a very popular YouTube channel that I am very fond of.  

As well as tutoring in outdoors skills, Norseman is also an accomplished smith and leatherworker. His small businesses  Survival Hardware LLC - makes Hard tools for hard times. Based in Idaho, USA.

As well as knives and sheathes, wallets and one such piece is this, the hand crafted Baccy pouch.
 Handmade from rugged pull-up type leather that will give you an appealing aged look.

The cowhide is lightweight, yet very durable, as it is chrome tanned.

The Baccy Pouch is designed as a tobacco pouch, has two generous pockets inside, one to keep your loose tobacco in and your smoking accruments in the other. 

 

Now, I'm not  a smoker and I'm not promoting or endorsing it , but I am an avid tea drinker and I figure this would be a good way of keeping my tea in good order, dry and in one spot. I envisage keeping bags and/or loose leaf tea in one pouch and strainers in the other.

The pouch rolls up and is secured with a leather strap.  It is hand stitched with medium weight, 

4 ply twisted and waxed polyester thread. This pouch should be very long lasting and provide a rustic, aesthetically pleasing storage for all your dried consumables.

 

Movie Reviews : Pandemic, Hell, Ravenous

I took the two weeks after Easter off work to be home over the school holidays. I managed to squeeze some apocalyptic movies into my allotted couch potato time when impressionable eyes were elsewhere. I promptly lost this post...   Here's what I thought:

Title:  Pandemic
Year: 2016
Director: John Suits
Origin: USA
Mood: Grim
Style: dark First Person Shooter, suspenseful
Apocalypse Type: Zombie plague
Apocalypse Level: Almost absolute. Total social breakdown.
Antagonists: Cannibalistic bite-infecting fast zombies
Protagonists: mixed military civilian Search & Rescue crew
Outcome: Grim.

CDC doctor embedded with a military refuge in LA is sent out on a Search and Rescue mission to extract the team send to a school supposedly full of survivors. Its established her family live in LA and she suspects are still alive. The 5 stages of infection are established: 1) Flu like 2)debilitating bronchitis 3)aggressive and conscious 4) death-like coma 5) fast hyper aggressive zombie. Infection is spread by exposure and bites. S&R crews equipped with biohazard suits including suit radios and helmet cams with green screen night-vision option. Teams include a medical specialist, a driver, a shotgun equipped gunner and a red-shirt navigator.

It is established that a vaccine is available to combat a Level 1 infection but is in limited supply and only available for the Dr. The crew is expendable. A “field infection test” gun is available to determine if survivors are infected. The Crew is sent out in a modified school-bus to retrieve the previous crew and any survivors from the school and along the way are attacked by swarms of Level 1-3 infected, including a honey-pot roadside trap. Combat is handled via FPS style helmet-cam vision which is a decided improvement over hand-held “found footage” handy-cam shakey-cam styles often used in the genre.

Relegated to foot travel and separated, the team struggles to make it back to the compound alive, battling the infected with improvised weapons, the crew locates the Dr’s daughter and eventually make it back to the compound in a scavenged ambulance with heavy casualties. An enjoyable if predictable zombie plague movie with some nice hooks, and not too many “close the damn door” stupid movie trope survivor errors. The medical science may have been flakey and the crew certainly wasn’t a front line unit, but they weren’t pitched as one either but it was a realistic enough “get it done” movie.



Title:  Hell
Year: 2011
Director: Tim Fehlbaum
Origin: German-Swiss
Mood: Grim, Gitty  dystopian escape and evacuation road-tip
Style: stark and bleak
Apocalypse Type: Environmental disaster. Drought, famine, scorched Earth
Apocalypse Level: Almost absolute. Total social breakdown. Near total Biosphere destruction
Antagonists: the Sun, other survivors and scavengers
Protagonists: family of survivors
Outcome: Grim.

Final Thoughts: get some effective hand weapons that you can use!

An upswing in solar activity has blasted the Earth, baking the surface, evaporating water leading to widespread drought, famine and death. In typical Mad Max style, survivors scour the wasteland for food, fuel and water in a cramped and stuffed station-wagon with bars on the windows. Goggles and dust masks are all the rage. Desperate survivors battle lone hermits for petrol station supplies and we get an idea that exposure to the sun leads to 2^nd and 3^rd degree burns and blindness rapidly. Some excellent post-apoc scavenging in the checking of toilet tanks and hydronic radiators for good water! Poor personal security movie-tropes made me yell at the screen.

Downed power pylon over-road made for an excellent improv road-block and ambush point, but removing it was not when I would have chosen to teach my child-survivor how to drive. Good scavenge the flipped wreck scene gave an opportunity to “split the party” as well as a chance for a piss-break to establish the adult female got her period and was not-pregnant, contraception being an issue often overlooked in survival movies.  

Raiders kidnap the child and in the ensuing pursuit the male survivor badly breaks his ankle. Taking shelter in a mountain side rail tunnel the female lead sets off alone to rescue her sister and “get help”. She encounters survivors who operate a farm and discover they are cannibals, escaping a “marry-in or get eaten” proposal, the ensuing flight through open ground sheds some of the “sun is a murder ball” tension built up earlier.

The survivors take shelter in a cave in which they find a ready source of water. Survival looks bleak but possible.

Final Thoughts: better married to a cannibal than served to one as dinner

Title:  Ravenous ( Fr. Les Affamés)
Year: 2017
Director: Robin Aubert
Origin: Fernch Canadian
Mood: Suspenseful, realistic setting
Style: believable escape and evacuation road-trip
Apocalypse Type: Infectious Zombie plague
Apocalypse Level: Almost absolute. Total social breakdown. Zombie swarms
Antagonists: Cannibalistic bite-infecting fast zombies
Protagonists: family of survivors with kids
Outcome: Grim.

In the woods in rural Quebec a farmstead is holding out against the zombies by being vigilant, quiet and risk-adverse. Two adult male friends patrol in a pickup truck until lone is lost. The survivor finds a bound woman with a suspicious bite mark who claims it was a dog not zombie. He befriends her and takes her with him. They encounter   a small girl and take her in.  Returning to the farmhouse they encounter a group of zombies building towers out of trash in a peculiar ritual. They accidentally alert the swarm of their presence and their flight leads the swarm to their farmstead. Instead of barricading and bugging-in the opt to bug-out and go cross country to a cold-war bunker they are aware of.

Taking limited supplies from the dwindling larder of the farmstead the survivors make a harrowing flight through woodlands relying on bush-craft and stealth to avoid roaming zombies and other hazards. Good use of hand weapons ( machete and hatchets) to avoid the noisy pump-action shotgun. They escape detection by mimicking the zombies carrying items to the ritual piles and eventually make it to the bunker only to discover its been stripped bare of resources. A note suggesting  a direction to search for more survivors is discovered before the swam arrives and decimates the survivors. (They didn’t close the bunker either).

Final thoughts and lessons: They should have bugged-in where they could. A stocked trap-door cellar would probably have been secure against fast-but dumb zombie swarms.

Review: ITW - Tac-Toggle

Continuing on my theme of cordage, I bring you the ITW Tac-Toggle. Toggles being one of the more ancient button options available to us it'as no surprise that the sharp eyes and nimble hands behind ITW have taken it from antler-tip, bone and stick into the realms of ballistic nylon.

So, what is it? A taper ended cylinder, with moulded-in notches and two holes in a recessed channel. All up it's just 1 1/2" (40mm) long and 6mm x 8mm thick. The holes are sized to accommodate paracord, but it's a snug fit and I found that melting a cut end to taper it to facilitate feeding it through. Thinner cord feeds without any issue and can even be pinched and fed through as a loop to fit to a strung line "on the bight".

As a line ending stopper on paracord, it's just a matter of feeding the line through both holes and feeding it back into itself.  This forms a very sturdy lock and uses very little cord, less than a stopper-knot for sure. The looped cord lays in the recess and holds the toggle perpendicular to the cord. 

As a stopper, the perpendicular end-knot only makes a sturdy gripping point between the fingers held in a fist, but also as an anchor. The width of the Toggle makes it very suitable for holding items in place through PALS/MOLLE channels. Feeding it in is as simple as turning the toggle 90 degrees and slipping it down through the channels. It is snag free and quick to deploy and detach whilst simultaneously being a sturdy attachment system without needing to tie paracord into the MOLLE directly.

Another way to feed cord into the two holes not as a stopper but along its length, such that the toggle lays parallel along the line and sits in place allowing the toggle to act as a hitching point for other lengths of cord. Pulling a length of line through the holes gives you loop of cord to hang things off, a series of these would give you a daisy chain of attachment points for all manner of gear. 

Simply having a toggle at the end of a line can also enhance the pull capability of cordage, with an improved grip on a toggle between the fingers over a knot or just bare cord. good for dressing lashings, hauling loads or compressing bundles. 

So, as well as securing things to to PALS/MOLLE  and acting as a tie-off point or tensioner on  guy line, I use one of the toggles to secure my wallet. I run a length of paracord from my  Hazard 4 Loader harness and have previously just used a stopper knot to secure it through a hole in the middle of the bill-fold section. I replaced the stopper knot with a Tac-Toggle and my wallet has neither slipped loose nor become dislodged. It also means I have a spare toggle in my EDC in case I need to work some cordage. It also wouldn't look out of place

All in all for a small piece of kit I'm impressed. It brings form and function, and the simple elegance of an ancient device in a modern format it brings  a lot to the table.

Fit two and you've got anchorage for a bow drill, or grips for hauling a sled up a hill. Fit one to a line and feed through a button hole for an unobtrusive  "deep carry" for a SERE kit like the Oscar Delta SPD .