What have you experienced as positive and negative things about including paracord in your survival gear?

50 feet of 550 paracord gives you aprox 400 feet of usable cordage.

Lee

Invaluable. So many uses, whether together or as seperate strands! Being creative and finding used for it while it awaits use (a la Kevin G) is a valuable art!

As per personal carry,There are No cons for Paracord!

Well, I love 550 as much as anyone but I will stir the pot here and post some sacrilege.

1) "550 can be opened up to yield a bazillion feet of cordage" - yeah, but if I need a 3 foot piece of thin cord, do I really want to open up & destroy a full piece of 550 to get it? Sometimes I think we'd be better off with a larger stash of something like Kelty TripTease plus a wad of mason's line.

2) "550 is considered useful by military survival doctrine" - yeah, that's because it's what a downed pilot has oodles of laying around after parachuting down. If it was 330 cord or 128.482 cord instead, that's what they'd be using for their shelters and fish nets, and that's what the masses would find in the surplus stores and in Uncle Hank's army box in the attic.

There are always outliers, but IMO about 94.55% of the time 550 is overkill. It is heavy and bulky for most of the jobs we use it for. When you have to carry your gear on your back and fit it in a limited space I think there are better options.

Excuse me while I put on my fire resistant internet suit...

Pro: it is thick and soft enough to act as decent padding for handles.

Con: it tends to stay wet once it gets wet.

No suit needed. I have been phasing out, or at least supplementing, paracord with both woven mason's line and trip tease, both of which are lighter, less bulky, and function quite as well for many purposes.

Any marine supply store will offer many alternative small lines which also give you some nice options. The thing about paracord and other nylon lines is that they are elastic, which is good or bad, depending upon the application. Paracord is not optimum for use as a halyard, for example, where some of the stuff from a marine store would be much better.

The biggest drawback to paracord is the proliferation of cheap, substandard varieties. It also isn't available in hues that color coordinate with the rest of my outfit.. so tacky!!!

Yes it is handy, and I carry several lengths of it, daisy chained for ease of deployment without tangling. I have some short and some long. I refrain from cutting unless absolutely necessary, but I have the shorter lengths for the smaller jobs. It is very susceptible to melting, so you can't use it around fire (suspending a pot to boil water). It is not the best cordage available, but it does work. When I am traveling for business I actually carry unwaxed dental floss. You can carry a hundred yards of it in a very small package and it is pretty strong. 550 cord raises eyebrows when in a business suit going through airport security.

positive as others have said; negative - perhaps weight when compared to thin mason line or other twine.

I prefer mason line although it doesnt hold knots well due to its slickness from my experience.