Urban Survival Tools - Guns Cleaning Kit

Firearms maintenance is essential if you would like to have a gun that functions when you need it to. This means regular cleaning and maintenance and for that you need firearms cleaning kits.

We feel you need several kits all capable with tools and material to service all your guns. We’ll concentrate on two of these kits; a small portable kit for your Survival Bug Out Bag and a larger kit for your house. The Bug Out Bag Weapons Cleaning Kit ensures you have the tools and material to service and clean your firearms when in the field, on the run or when just mobile. The Main Weapons Cleaning Kit is the kit you will routinely use at your house during periodic maintenance or when you come home from the range.

We are not fans of the duel purpose solvent-lubricants. We believe you use a dedicated solvent for cleaning and separate, dedicated oil for lubricating and protecting your firearm. If you use an all-in-one solvent-lubricate, you’ll get less than optimal results in cleaning and lubricating.

On a trip to Amazon.com or to your local gun or sporting goods store you should see many decent and inexpensive gun cleaning kits that usually consist of sectional rods to put together to make a longer cleaning rod; different end pieces such as a bore brush (to clean the barrel) or patch jag (to hold patches as you push down the bore/barrel after your clean it); bore solvents or cleaners; lubricating oil; general nylon cleaning brush (looks like a toothbrush); and patches. Add a general mechanics rag to your kit and this is basically what you minimally need to perform routine cleaning and maintenance on your guns.
Outers and Hoppes (as well as others) manufactures small, inexpensive cleaning kits for specific calibers and type of guns (e.g.. pistols or rifles). Ensure the kit you buy has sectional rods long enough for your barrel(s) and has separate solvent and lubricant.

For the Survival Bug Out Bag we like the small compact kits like the OTIS Deluxe Law Enforcement Cleaning Kit. This kit comes in a small round zippered bag that contains a plastics coated flexible rod section with extenders; several different sizes patch jags; four bore brushes; and unfortunately a combination solvent-lubricant called O-85 cleaner-lubricant. However, in a pinch, we would not hesitate to clean then lube our guns with this product, it’s just better if you could add two small bottles, one of solvent and one of lubricant to this kit. There are many good solvents and lubricants, however if we narrow down our choices to which ones are in compact, plastic bottles then we would recommend Hoppes Elite Gun Cleaner or Remington Bore Cleaner as your solvent and Hoppes Elite Gun Oil or Remington Rem-Oil as your lubricant.

The OTIS Deluxe Law Enforcement Cleaning Kit is designed to clean and maintain 9mm through .45 caliber handguns and .223 caliber to .308 caliber rifles and 12 gauge shotguns. Brass scraper and handy picks will help you get the carbon and junk out of hard to clean places. A really handy item is the cut down toothbrush that is used with an extension rode. First class kit!

Survival Product Review - Mainstay Calorie Bars

We recently had a chance to re-evaluate the latest Mainstay Food Ration Bars.
Which are vacuum packed, nutrient rich emergency food bars with a 5 year shelf life. They are available in 1,200 calorie, 2,400 calorie and 3,600 calorie bars intended for 1, 2 and 3 day rations in a survival situation.

The mainstay bars are advertised as cholesterol free and non-thirst producing. The low protein and low sodium content also reduces water requirements and the feeling of thirst during consumption. In a hard dough type consistency and a light lemon taste, these food ration bars are actually not bad in the taste department.

Each pack is made up of 400 calorie pieces, easily to break apart from the rest of the bar. They are affordable enough to order a case of what size you think is convenient, placing a few days worth in your survival bug out bag and storing the rest with you other food supplies.

We see an advantage in using the Mainstay bars to serve as your emergency food supply for your survival bug out bag due to it durable packaging and long shelf life, as well as for other applications (caches and general food supply).

Survival Chronicles of Jim – Chapter 2

Getting home from work tonight I was greeted on my computer the news that stocks tumbled after the Obama administration announced a proposal to increase regulation of the nation's biggest financial firms. This was the biggest one day drop since October.

Now I know that if you were to regulate your life by the market, you would constantly on a pogo stick and drive yourself crazy. However this news did serve to re-orient me back towards thinking what my next steps would be in survival planning and preparation.

I began thinking that my next general steps should be to secure and stock a Survival Bug Out Bag like what the Survival Cadre previously created a post on. I own a couple hiking style day packs, but now wanted to center my Bug Out Bag around a back pack that includes a hydration or water bladder like the Camel-Bak systems. I really like the military style and uses the MOLLE style webbing on the outside which allows for placing additional pouches on the outside of the bag. After a little research I am partial to the Camel-Bak BFM or Mother Lode style packs, but the Spec Ops Brand T.H.E. PACK also looks like a winner. I’ll make my decision by tomorrow and place an order.

I started looking on-line for a couple low power AAA or AA battery powered flashlight to go with my Surefire 6P 50 lumen flashlight the Survival Cadre had given me. I settled on ordering one of the Smith & Wesson dual red-white LED lights listed in a previous posting on Flashlights and two of the smaller LED flashlights that would certainly come in handy for mundane tasks. On my next trip to Lowe’s I will pickup some extra 123A Lithium batteries for the Surefire and look for an AAA and AA battery charger and slowly start buying packages of rechargeable batteries. My research told me that Energizer makes a good re-charger that can be used on a wall outlet or in your vehicle with a cigarette plug adaptor that the Energizer kit comes with.

The survival boys also told me that maybe a AAA or AA powered headlamp would come in handy. They said Pelican Products makes Model 2680 LED Head/Harness-Head Lamp that was hard to beat. Coming from my perspective when I did not even own a flashlight last week to buying several and planning on buying a re-charger, I think I’ll wait on more flashlight on concentrate on some other procurements. Be safe - Jim

Urban Survival Bug Out Bag Medical Kit

The Survival Bug Out Bag Medical Kit is necessarily a fairly small Medical Kit as it needed to fit inside a bug out bag. Items that should be included are, but not limited to, small, medium and large bandages for cuts, gauze pads, antibiotic ointment, Betadine and alcohol pads for cleaning wounds and cuts, couple rolls of medical tape, self sticking ace wraps, disposable rubber gloves, CPR Mask (protective barrier to give CPR rescue breaths on a patient without body to body contact), bandage scissors, tourniquet, quick clot powder or bandage, Vaseline bandages for burns, eyes ointment and eye patch bandages, aspirin and/or Acetaminophen tablets, possibly some Ibuprofen (Motrin) tabs as well, any medications you may need, like allergy tabs or bee sting kits, tweezers (excellent for pulling thorns or cactus spines out of people).

When in a survival mode, you should treat even the smallest cut as the potential for infection is too great to take a risk in assuming that you are needing the kit since the current infrastructure including medical care have all but disintegrated.

A great idea would be to invest in some medical training as well. Such as a CPR course, local Red Cross or YMCA first aid course, as well as a good medical reference book on hand.

We prefer to make our own first aid kits and in fact have several kits, each of which complements each other. However if you are inclined to buy a ready made kit, a good buy would be the Elite First Aid M3 Medical Bag with Supplies, GI Style Issue and also buy two of the Adventure Medical Kits QuikClot Sport - 25 Grams that we are highlighting in the Amazon link below: