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Thread: Training Kits vs. Survival Kits

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    Never tasted Quiche! Artifice's Avatar
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    Lightbulb Training Kits vs. Survival Kits

    Theres a huge differance between what I consider to be my Training Kit and Survival Kit. We all know a Survival Kit is meant to give you the resources and tools needed to keep your *** alive long enough to be rescued. A Training Kit is a kit used to practice the tecniques needed with these tools to better your skillset for when you really need it.

    Could I survive on my Training Kit alone? You bet I can. But its not built like my Survival Kit. My Survival Kit is not built to get the job done at my best but rather to get the job done when Im at my worst. When your not at the top of your game and your cold, battered, beaten...possibly injured, you dont want to be fiddling with a fire trying to get it started. You want sure fire! Which is why I keep Mini Inferno and Wetfire in my Survival Kit at ALL times! Its a bag built on the "lets not mess around and get it done" philosophy. Everything I put in that kit is tried, tested and assured by me and me only and tailored to my personal needs and skillset to save my *** when I am at my absolute worst.

    Furthermore, the items in my PSK may not be whats best for you. Whats good for one guy will kill the guy sitting next to him. I prefer using an Aurora Fire Steel. That might not be the Fire Steel you are prone to using. I carry a Becker BK-2 with my PSK. You may not be skilled with that sort of knife and prefer a Wetterlings Axe or a Machete. But THAT is the whole purpose of the Training Kit! To take the gear out into the woods and get actual field time with it to determine whether you think it would serve you in a real life or death situation.

    In conclusion, my Survival Kit is a kit that when I go camping, hiking or whatever it is that Im doing that comes with me and is staged and forgotten until that time comes when I need it. And my Training Kit is there to determine how that kit evolves.

    So the question is, are you out to build a kit based on the least amount you can carry or are you out to build a kit that is the most practical and functional that it can possibly be?


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    Senior Member natertot's Avatar
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    I have many kits and often times one kit will contain multiple smaller kits. For example, I have a car kit. In the car kit is a tool kit, first aid kit, a fire kit, a food kit and a water kit. At home, I don't have a tool kit because my garage supplies the need there, but I do have a power out kit which wouldn't be too useful in a car.

    As far as having a seperate kit for training and practice aside from your primaries, I do not. If it works for you, good on ya. In the Navy we were always told "train like you fight, because you'll fight like you train". I still apply that concept in that I have my kits for their purpose and I practice with what I'll actually have. I then evolve my kit from there.
    ”There's nothing glorious in dying. Anyone can do it.” ~Johnny Rotten

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    Never tasted Quiche! Artifice's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by natertot View Post
    I have many kits and often times one kit will contain multiple smaller kits. For example, I have a car kit. In the car kit is a tool kit, first aid kit, a fire kit, a food kit and a water kit. At home, I don't have a tool kit because my garage supplies the need there, but I do have a power out kit which wouldn't be too useful in a car.

    As far as having a seperate kit for training and practice aside from your primaries, I do not. If it works for you, good on ya. In the Navy we were always told "train like you fight, because you'll fight like you train". I still apply that concept in that I have my kits for their purpose and I practice with what I'll actually have. I then evolve my kit from there.
    Yea thats cool. Ya gotta do what works for ya. I always saw a survival kit as a staged collection of gear that you trust and is ready to go when you NEED it. Me personally, I dont go into my survival kit to use things unless I were in a situation where I had to use it. I already know how to use the gear in that bag and I know it all works the best for me.

    But I use my training bag to try diferant configurations of gear, test new gear, test scenarios with gear that I would be without...things like that. Id like to think of my training bag as just 1 giant tool.

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    I just start out small, keep adding stuff, till it get too big, then put it aside and start over.......
    Then again I'm a big pocket guy.......
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    Never tasted Quiche! Artifice's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hunter63 View Post
    I just start out small, keep adding stuff, till it get too big, then put it aside and start over.......
    Then again I'm a big pocket guy.......
    You must have a lot of kits lol

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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Artifice View Post

    In conclusion, my Survival Kit is a kit that when I go camping, hiking or whatever it is that Im doing that comes with me and is staged and forgotten until that time comes when I need it. And my Training Kit is there to determine how that kit evolves.

    So the question is, are you out to build a kit based on the least amount you can carry or are you out to build a kit that is the most practical and functional that it can possibly be?
    What is the ratio of your woods time vs time spent in the real world? many people spend a disproportinate amount of time preparing for the woods they never get to visit.

    When one heads for the woods the presumption is that they are already equipped to be in the woods. That renders the PSK useless and/or redundant once one leaves the vehicle that brought them there.

    The "Kit" needed until that moment one steps into the forest is a completely different group of materials and skills, necessary for real world life but useless in the forest, where you have just gone on purpose.

    Training kit? Does that not fall under the catagory of "gear to test" and that gear either passes the test and is included in the overall load or rejected as useless? The other branch of this "kit" being skills one develops or things one makes on the spot and keeps or discards after use, like snares, traps, dabris shelters...

    Oddly, none of my "survival gear" has ever been used in the woods unless I was using it in your "training kit" senerio. My "survival gear" has been used many times to counter real world disasters and give me and my family comfort during "normal emergencies" such as fire, flood, blizzard, hurricane and tornado.

    I have never had to stay alive in the woods with what I could stuff in an altoids can.
    If you didn't bring jerky what did I just eat?

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Artifice View Post
    You must have a lot of kits lol
    Naw just a couple.....My definition of "kit"

    "Kit" something packed but never used.
    "Stuff", same kind of stuff in a kit, but used all the time

    Well, I do spend a lot of time hunting, so that would be "hunting stuff'....or fishing, so that would be "fishing stuff", foraging stuff, several different kinds of camping, so that would be "camping stuff'....or boating/canoeing, "boating stuff"....and every so often staying in a hotel, so that would be "hotel stuff".....and I am working on a "going to great big outdoor flea market, on a hot/cold day, and might rain... stuff"

    Then there is the carry around in the cars/trucks, "stuff"........
    Add tools everywhere, trailers, tractors, sheds.....yeah, a lots of "stuff"

    I have an Altiods tin as well, has these little mints in it......strong little suckers...maybe some day I'll get it empty and use it for something.
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    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    I don't see the difference, personally. My kit is what I use in the woods. Period. I don't train for anything. I just go and do my thing. Brush up on some skills from time to time just to do it. But you don't practice survival. At least I don't. I like the modular approach because I can pack us much or as little as I need. For example, I can set up a base camp and do a day hike and still take some things without having to hoss my full pack.

    Quote Originally Posted by Artifice
    are you out to build a kit based on the least amount you can carry or are you out to build a kit that is the most practical and functional that it can possibly be?


    Both, actually.
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    One step at a time intothenew's Avatar
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    I'm a modular and lab rat sorta guy.

    Modular so that I can pack for the given season or particular task. I don't carry my fly pole when deer scouting, nor a rifle when bluegill fishing. The tent/tarp/blanket/sleeping bag arrangement is much different in June than November. But I do have a core set of items that are common to all scenarios, and it is carried unchanged. I pull maintenance on them at the end of every trip, cleaning, inventory, rotation, etc. I use them often enough that the maintenance cycle takes care of anything before it is dated. I know where everything is, it's second nature to find it. I know how everything fits, with a long sleeve shirt or with a down coat.

    Lab rat in the sense that before anything will change I use it inside/outside the back door of the house, and at the hunting cabin. Only after passing muster there do I make the decision to can it, add it, or replace an existing component. That can take a year or more for lab approval.

    That approach allows me to go intothenew with confidence. Withnewstuff is reserved for comfortoftheporch.
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    Never tasted Quiche! Artifice's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by intothenew View Post
    I'm a modular and lab rat sorta guy.

    Modular so that I can pack for the given season or particular task. I don't carry my fly pole when deer scouting, nor a rifle when bluegill fishing. The tent/tarp/blanket/sleeping bag arrangement is much different in June than November. But I do have a core set of items that are common to all scenarios, and it is carried unchanged. I pull maintenance on them at the end of every trip, cleaning, inventory, rotation, etc. I use them often enough that the maintenance cycle takes care of anything before it is dated. I know where everything is, it's second nature to find it. I know how everything fits, with a long sleeve shirt or with a down coat.

    Lab rat in the sense that before anything will change I use it inside/outside the back door of the house, and at the hunting cabin. Only after passing muster there do I make the decision to can it, add it, or replace an existing component. That can take a year or more for lab approval.

    That approach allows me to go intothenew with confidence. Withnewstuff is reserved for comfortoftheporch.
    This is defiantly the way to go in my opinion. Great work man!

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    Member tj922's Avatar
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    I grew up on a farm in northern Michigan, and trained a bit in the US Navy.
    I'm a take what you think you will use kind of guy. I like the Old Mountain Man saying "the more you know the less you have to carry". On a day hike, water,compass, first aide, a way to make a fire,(Usually a lighter, but I always have my magnesium block, and flint) 25 feet of 550 para cord, fishing kit, slingshot, and Gerber multi tool. If it is somewhere that I don't know the area well, I will add my survival knife, and a couple of mountain house freeze drieds. If there are meaner critters than me, the .357 Mag loaded with two speed loaders, (18 rounds ought to cover it).
    If it is a disaster, I'm going to stay put as long as I can, then take what I can carry, or the Jeep can carry, and head to where people aren't.

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