I've studied Doug's evaluation of personal survival kits enough to have an idea of what is a good or poor survival kit. What I got out of it is, it takes more than just quality items to make a good kit, a good kit must have all the right items. Over the past few years I have seen kits with a lot of stuff but the quality was not there. Just recently I came across the Deluxe Survival Kit and it does not fit with anything I have seen before. All of the items in this kit would probably be rated as "Excellent." However, this kit covers two areas: fire and signaling. It also addresses shelter to a point.

How does one judge a kit with such quality items but lacks so much?

Jeanette Isabelle

Not really a "kit" IMO, they just threw a couple of their own product in a blown mold box.

Pretty big and heavy (1 lb!) too, for only 5 items.

Overblown hype. I have a Blast Match - rarely used because it is so heavy compared to such items as a Mini Bic or plain old matches. At one pound, it is incredibly heavy.

You can do better or just as well going lighter and cheaper. You can even include some first aid, shelter, and water purification items.

Just because there are several "excellent" items does not mean the kit is rated excellent. There are many areas this kit does not address.

At best I would rate it marginal - weight being the first criteria.

I know. I already said that.

Jeanette Isabelle

That kit is all container and no kit . . I've got one, save your money.

JI,
That is a good kit for what it is, they make excellent products.

I look at a kit to address 10 areas, but that number depends on how you categorize things. These are the areas I want covered:
SECURITY - protect you from predators.
MEDICAL - repair/maintain body.
SHELTER - protect you from mother nature.
WATER - obtain/make safe/carry
FIRE - to make fire when desired
TOOL - construct what you need; maintain/repair what you have
REFERENCE - protable memory
COMMUNICATIONS - to communicate with others
NAVIGATION - to help you see where you need to go
FOOD - to maintain nutrition

They are organized, depending on your situation, of what can kill you the quickest. These are the physical parts of the kit, your mindset, experience and behavior complete your kit.

Walking off cliff will kill you as quickly as a bear attack...

You don't always need every item of kit or every kit on an outing, but you don't know til it's over.

hth - ymmv

An area I have discussed with a friend recently is something specifically for barter or bribe, especially when in other countries.

... and yet, another edit: here are some photos of how to mod a $2 mil surp knife to fit that kit or an altoids tin: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44316389@N03/sets/72157623604443459/

They appear to be out of sequence and it looks like you need to cut and paste the address.

It looks like decent products if you like that particular stuff. I prefer to buy items individually so I can use stuff without the consequence of breaking up a pretty kit. Also, can you honestly say each one of these items would be your preference if you bought individually?

It's not that. I was looking at different kits for ideas for a custom kit and I came across this one which is so different from the others.

Jeanette Isabelle

As a survival kit as its self with no adding or changing anything in it I would rate it poor. My Survival kit weights 2 pounds 11 ounces (Im sure many would yell out yikes at that) But it covers every single angle and more with redundancies and spare items for an ideal two person situation. This kit barely covers anything and already weights 1 pound which is not impressive.

A chainsaw style handsaw weights alot more then a folding saw (Coghlans makes a tiny model that is about the size of a leatherman kick =D) and is most likely the bulk weight. Even without a saw I would prefer that dead metal weight in a nice blade. I honestly think even for its quality a cheap folding saw beats it. Which sounds easier? Using one hand with slight pressure in a back and forth motion or two hands with a ton of pressure in a rolling back and forth motion?

The second heaviest item would be the blast match, a gimmick in my opinion, and can easily be replaced with a spark light which in my opinion is a excellent product more worth purchasing. Wetfire isnt impressive to me either. I purchased their titanium triad stove that comes with a piece of it, the foil pouch it was in was worn out and riddled with holes (OUT OF THE PACKAGE!) and the wetfire refused to light with anything including a jetflame lighter.


Overall I think its all gimmickie as with most of their products.

Different rarely means better. Most products especially in the survival world feed off being "different" and Eye catching. And as with any other product most the time this leads into a lacking ill thought out item that looks pretty.

I think there is a law of diminishing returns on emergency equipment. Good reliable cutting tools and firemaking equipment could be accomplished with a Morakniv 2011 with less expenditure of weight and bulk. There is a point when it comes to survival kits that i expect at least a brewkit if not a few meals. In vehicle, vessel and aircraftkits that might be a goodstart bit an entire kit in that weight class will be bulky and reduce the likelihood of successful egress in an emergency.
This is simply my opinion, since you asked

BlastMatch™ is not the fire starter I would want to use but Doug did rate it as "Excellent."

http://www.equipped.org/pro_master_kit.htm

Jeanette Isabelle

I could see this going on a hunters 4wheeler but thats about it.

One, I did not say it was better or eye-catching. Two, I explained why it is different in the opening post.

Jeanette Isabelle

One, I never said you said it was eye catching. Two, I was stating my opinion towards the word different. Three, Please stop attacking every post made as if it was a personal attack towards you and your opinion. No one here is attacking you and simply stating their opinion as you infact asked them too do.

Given what has happened in the past in this forum I have to put up my defenses if I see a thread heading in a certain direction.

Jeanette Isabelle

Im sure this would be the wonderful administrative staffs job to keep threads civil and Such and in which case they do a fantastic job. Just because a thread Does not go exactly the way you wished or planned it to does not mean you should start attacking peoples posts. So far the thread has been on topic and at that the topic while now mostly negative towards the product is still civil.

That is not what I am talking about.

Jeanette Isabelle

*sigh*

-Sheriff Blast, watching.

Does the kit meet your needs? Is it within your budget? Is a homebrew kit or different prefab kit a better solution to your challenges?

Simplicity itself. I'll tell you what beer or champagne to buy for a given situation, but I will never, in any way, tell you what kit to purchase or what to put into a homebrew kit. You know that much better than I.

It's not really a "personal" survival kit. "Personal" being defined as something that you slp in a pocket. DRSK, Altoids tin kit etc.

This kit is more for use with a car/boat/aircraft based kit. As far as it goes, it is an excellent kit. It needs adding to. Shelter items, waterbottle and something to boil water in but I have - and have used- every item in that kit. My only real concern with it is that the saw requires two hands to use.

If I was building a bail out kit for use on a boat, RV etc then I would give this kit very serious consideration.

I certainly wouldn't place this kit as a "personal" survival kit. There are some nice items, but I wouldn't want to be carrying this in my backpack. Maybe for car camping it would provide a "step up" to some basic gear, with a focus on fire starting.

I'm definitely not a fan of the tinder. I could never get it to light in "scenario" conditions. The Blast Match is not bad, but bulky. Would rather carry a Spark-Lite and its tinder.

That being said, Doug's PSP or PSP+ is a far superior kit from a survival aspect. I used one as the basis of building my own kit.

I personally find that by assembly your own kit, you take a bit more pride and caution in what you put in it. Most of all, you should be familiar with the use of everything you place it in. If you don't know how to use it, why are you carrying it?