Review: United Cutlery M48 Spear

Here's a fun item that I've had sitting by my front door in the umbrella stand for a while, and thought I should give it screen time. I've had a soft spot for spears for a long time, perhaps not as long as with swords, but still, a good long while. My first spear was a Kenyan Maasai spear, and I've previously shown off my Cold Steel Boar Spear which is as impressive a spear as you're likely to ever wave around and at 208cm (82 1/8"), it's not something you carry around lightly.

This is the M48 Kommando Survival Spear, by United Cutlery. This is another of the M48 family, which I have covered before with the Walking Axe and the very handy Ranger Hawk.
Sharing the same 30% fiberglass haft as the Walking Axe, which measures 92cm (36 1/8”) this is actually quite short for a spear, and reminds me of the Zulu Assegai and Ikiwa spears.

As with the Walking Axe, the haft is about 10-15cm too short for me to use as an effective cane, unless I wanted to grasp the head, never a good idea, really.

With the molded finger grips at the head end, and flared throat to prevent over penetration, the spear itself balances nicely when held here, one handed. Two other grip points, in the form of a series of inset groves about midway and at the butt-end allow for a number of different holds.

 Certainly in the places I'd want to be grasping a spear for close fighting, or in a shield wall, if that were my thing.

With a 20cm (8") head, featuring a rather impressive flat grind bevel on both sides. It manages this by being extremely thick, at almost half an inch at the middle, which features some fluting and holes through the spine, which drops the wight a little.

All up this piece weighs 1kg (2.2lbs), mostly at the head. Given the solid design of the head, I expect that it would take a lot more abuse than the head of the Walking Axe, which as you may have read, experienced some structural failure (but not catastrophically) on my last camping trip, chopping firewood.

I expect the M48 spear to pack a lot more wallop, but a spear is not an axe. I'll have to give some thought to how to demonstrate this effectively. Once again, the length of the spear gave me pause. Longer than a knife, longer than a sword, but not really long enough to keep a foe at more than "arms length". The other option was hunting medium sized game.

I haven't had a chance to go out far enough away from prying eyes to fling it around, but at 1 kg, it makes for a pretty dense package for a thrown weapon. It would make a very substantial club though.

Still, it's size allows it to go a lot of places a full length spear like the Cold Steel Boar Spear just can't. Like across your back whilst scrambling up a ravine, or climbing through a building.

It will fit in a car boot, or even lashed to a bike. That big broad head isn't suited to spear-fishing, but I can imagine that in survival situations it would work nicely for both sea-side wildlife and deterring land predators.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of this spear is its cross section.

I used a pizza box to demonstrate the cross section, and you can see just how solid the M48 blade is. This thing pokes big holes.Perhaps not as wide or deep as the Cold Steel, but certainly broadly.

I've not really had much opportunity to put it thought its paces, the fox that took my last bunch of pet rabbits hasn't been back since I threw the Walking Axe at it (close is NOT a hit, in this case) but I think that local livestock protection and vermin control might well be the best option for this piece, until it comes time to go house-to-house and ventilate a horde.

Home Front: Bug Out Jar

I've been looking at putting together Bug Out Kits, to offer online, and possibly put up on Kickstarter, to get out to a wider market.

I've been thinking about what to include in such a kit, and what to put it in. My thought was to have something that could rattle around in the boot of a car, in the corner of a ruck or by the front door at home. It needed to be small and unobtrusive, rugged, easily identified but not standing out as a prize.

I happened to have a stash of bio-bottle containers, not unlike the Patho-Pack containers (or as we call them at home, "Dead People Jars"). The Bio-Bottles are biohazard rated, air and water tight shipping containers, 850 ml capacity, with a "size in carton" of 12cm x 12cm x 17cm, which meets UN3373 regulations, meeting 95kPa pressure testing. Good solid containers!

The contents of the kit I have been pondering, based in part on my own EDC and adventuring kits in past, and my experiences camping, LARPing and travel around the world. I have also been working on a tight budget, so have kept the items pretty generic where possible.

I've included in this beta version:
A wire saw
A space blanket
A fire starter (which includes a button compass)
A 100' length of paracord
A knife (which includes a rescue hook/strap cutter)
A steel paracord shackle
A WTF multitool
A multifunction spork
A 850mL Bio-Bottle

I may include some other contents as options, including a couple other excellent items, as well as carry-pouches, and even upgraded, expanded kits. Hopefully, there will be some interest in these, and I'd love your feedback as to contents, carry and packing thoughts and I can make this happen.

[EDIT] Check out the jars, now in my online store, for sale!

Review: Original SOE Gear - Combat Cock

Awaiting me when I got home recently was a package from Tay of Hornest, Singapore. Tay and I have worked together looking at some cool kit previously, like the Helinox Packable folding chair, the Jil Lite UV light and the Jil Lite Constel LED lantern as well as a bunch of other cool things.

This most recent item is a lot of fun, just for fun. It's time to rock out with my cock out, behold, the SOEGear Combat Cock.

Crafted from 1000d cordura nylon, the Combat Cock is fitted with a length of 1" webbing and a tri-glide buckle under the tail-feathers to facilitate attachment to any number of items.

Each flank of the Cock is fitted with a 75mm x 50mm (3" x 2") colour-matched loop field for attaching your favorite patches, I've thrown on one of my also-new MOTUS/Hornest exclusive patches.

With drainage grommets for eyes, and a hook-and-loop opening on the underside to access the stuffing, for either re-fluffing, or replacing it with what-have-you. It could make an innocuous stuff-sack for secret needfuls, even SERE gear.

I've been thinking about stuffing mine with a Headover to give it double duty as a fun accessory, storage as well as an impromptu travel pillow.

I really like this little guy, and look forwards to photo-bombing a bunch of things, places and events with my khaki Combat Cock! Get yours now, we'll see who's has been more places ...

Review: Tactical BBQ apron

I've been holding off posting on this one till an appropriate juncture, and I think this day has arrived.

This is the Tactical Chef Apron by ThinkGeek, and I just had to tell you about it today.

I'm all for being equipped, and being caught out at the fire-line without the right loadout can mean the difference between slabs of hot steaming, bleeding meat, and charred inedible ruination.  That is when having this kind of kit is essential, if not life-saving.

Made of 100% cotton, you can expect the apron to protect your thorax and groin from all but the worst boiling-oil splashbacks, and flare-ups, and perhaps even the exploding kernels of maize.

Featuring a top section of 6 rows of MOLLE loops, with 6 usable channels in the mid chest, and 10 channels at the rib-line, and a further three rows of 10 at the bottom of the apron, this is a modular combat chef's dream.
Twin sets of triple D-rings, mounted  at the upper regions allow for a variety of hung items, and twin snap-clasps at the the waist line give direct attachment and retention options. Three PALS/MOLLE compatible hook-hand-loop fastening pouches, one triple set and two larger sets, one with a look-filed for ID, unit or morale patches offer a variety of mission specific load-outs.

The lower section of the apron features three dump-pouch pockets, for a variety of accessory and brain-grenade carriage capacity.  Watch out for the pocket stitching cutting through MOLLE loops though.

The wide shoulder straps are not adjustable, but come "hero-sized". Fastex style clasps secure front and back, with webbing sliders expanding to allow for the more substantially proportioned combat-chefs.

The back features even more MOLLE loops as well as a broad loop-field for further ID and insignia.

 

Click the picture to be taken to ThinkGeek to buy one!

This is a fun piece, which I enjoy throwing on whenever I face flames, steaming flesh and the wailing of mouths, screaming for blood.

Review: First Spear - Walt holster

I had a flash of madness a while back, and bought myself something fairly silly, for me. A very specific purpose piece with very little chance of cross-purposing. But so damn cool looking.

This is the Walt torso holster from First Spear. I've been extremely happy with my First Spear OAGRE vest, which I've taken with me on my adventure and obstacle runs. These folks make some good gear, well thought out and put together.

The Walt will apparently fit the 1911, M9, 226, Glock, M&P, XD and other similarly sized pistols, none of which do I own, or have any reasonable expectation to do so any time soon (awww).
That said, its a really nice piece, and I wanted to have it to have an alternative to my Hazard4 RG Harness or the venerable EDC harness before that.

The holster is skinned in a grippy hypalon, which keeps it snug and slip free in position, and is lined with a micro-suede finish. Sewn to accommodate the trigger-guard, but reported not to take any optics or lights, a shock-cord and hypalon tab is set up for weapon retention. I found that the holster took my Strike Industries iPhone 5 SHOX case nicely.

Loops on the top and side of the holster are to affix the ITW G-hooks which give a quick but secure attachment for the baldric which as it happens, is set up with a single row of PALS/MOLLE loops along its length, until the webbing finishes of in an adjustable loop, for fitting. I mounted my awesome little ODDJob knife by SAR GlobalTool to mine, because it was a perfect addition to the rig, for the uses I have been putting it through.

The holster is designed to be worn under the right armpit, giving a left-hand pistol draw, which I thought was a little odd, but that's where I put my phone, anyway, so it worked out nicely for me.

I'd have to put the question out to the serious pistol carriers out there, as to your thoughts on this kind of set-up.

The bottom of the holster was open, to allow for longer barrels, and options for those of you who don't want to disturb your neighbors when shooting geckos and the lowest edge is set up for belt connection with the same kind of Quick Release buckle as seen on the OAGRE chest rig, being a looping hook-and-loop with press-stud to ensure a very secure connection, especially of the belt you are wearing features loop-fields to do just that.

Between the materials, the construction and the form, this is a pretty cool holster, with the gnarly First-Spear logo on the side, and its wrap-around PALS/MOLLE loops makes this a sadly under-utilised addition to my collection, but I like to pull it out from time to time when I can get away with a bandoleer ...

Review: MSM KA-BAR knife

This is an exciting piece, the first collaboration between gear-maker, patch creator and all around barrel of fun MilSpecMonkey and world famous knife makers extraordinaire KA-BAR . The moment I saw it come up, I jumped on the chance to get one, via a fun bunch of people, TacticalShit, and was delighted when it arrived.

This is the KA-BAR / MSM 001 knife.

The first thing I noted was that, not unlike the KA-BAR Zombie Killer line of knives, is the weight. This is a dense, broad blade, weighing in at XXXXX which is surprising given its size, at 9cm (3.5") blade-length, 21cm (8.5") overall and 8cm (2") broad. This is a solid piece of SK5 steel.

Thicker than pretty much every knife in my collection, even the "Famine" tanto, it features some really nice design points. The large crenelated thumb ramp, which gives excellent grip, both in a forwards grasp, and also against the knife edge of the hand, in a reverse grip.

This is a hefty blade made for hard use, and one of the occasions where I wouldn't cringe in using a knife as a pry-bar. SK5 steel is reported to come with a Rockwell hardness of between 52-54, which is nice for a high-carbon steel knife, without getting into the brittle side of things.

Essentially this means this blade can take a beating but still stay sharp. I like the sounds of that. The blade is powder coated with a black bead, for rust-prevention and glare-reduction, much like the Zombie Killer knives

Also included is a polymer sheath, Short Malice clips, mounting hardware along with a Torx tool, and webbing loop for a PALS/MOLLE mounting, although I haven't worked out what to do with this yet.

This view shows off both the thumb ramp and the width of the blade, as well as the second set of crenelations midway along the spine of the blade, beside the false-edge, which MSM suggests would be easy to sharpen after-market, but that they didn't, to avoid local legal issues for users.

I liked the mounting options, the sheath has holes and options for mounting left or right handed, horizontally, vertically, blade-up or blade down, and even diagonally. The thumb-ramp is accessible immediately on the draw, and the foreguard is significantly curved and projects nicely to catch the hand into a good grip on the draw. Twin lanyard holes in the butt-end, which is also textured for gripping on a reverse grip, offer more customization options. Thew paracord wrap adds a great body and a good grip.

With its robust design, keen edge, and well thought out functional production, this is an excellent piece, especially considering the price, and people behind it. If you need a small, rough-use knife, this is an excellent piece.

Home Front: Influenza vaccination

It is the onset of the Flu Season here, and a fringe benefit of working in Medical Science IT is that I am eligible for free vaccination, as I have been for the last 15 years. I have gotten my flu-vaccination, as well as every other vaccination that had been offered to me, since birth, and considering some of the places I've lived, I'm rather grateful that I have done so.

I actually fell ill with the Swine Flu in 2009, despite vaccination, (more on this later). The key for me is to be as best prepared for a possible widespread, possibly devastating pandemic .

There has been a lot of controversy about vaccination, and perhaps this might go some way to indicate some of the technical advantages and aspects of this vaccination (and others).
My FluVax was the GlaxoSmithKline 0.5mL dose of FLUARIX containing 15ug of each of the three types of influenza virus fragments. •A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)-like virus, •A/Texas/50/2012(H3N2)-like virus, •B/Massachusetts/02/2012-like virus. The H3N2 is a virus antigenically like the cell-propagated prototype virus A/Victoria/361/2011.

Each year the vaccines are designed to meet the predicted strains of interest,  and they work by causing the body to produce its own antibodies against those types of influenza virus, but not against other strains or other flu-like infections.



Protection from these three strains is reported to occur within 2 to 3 weeks of vaccination, and is expected to last for 6-12 months. This protection has been found to be 65-100% effective.

This kind of vaccination is generally injected into the upper arm muscle and is produced in chicken eggs, which the virus has been concentrated and purified by clarification, adsorption and centrifugation.

The purified whole virus is then treated with the detergent sodium deoxycholate and again centrifuged, and the resulting antigen suspension is inactivated with formaldehyde.

As with all medication, there are potential side-effects, and the vaccination process can even illicit illness symptoms, as the body fights off an apparent (but inactive) infection. However, given the debilitating severity of influenza, even with low case fatality rate strains, I think that part of my preparation regime is to be as well vaccinated as I can be and it's well worth those risks. What you can't see CAN kill you ....