Just posted a new Survival Kit, this one is made around a Metal Water Bottle. It contains a survival knife and enough fire lighting gear to make a difference.



The Article can be found at Water Bottle Survival Kit

As many of you know, I have a great dislike for small compact survival kits that lack Critical Items. This has caused me to rethink where I should build a survival kit and when I need to simply take along the items necessary to survive.

This kit was designed originally for my Brothers Quads. I mounted one on each. Since we do not know who will be riding which one and where they will be going, this kind of kit makes sense. It also fits perfectly in my Mountain Bikes second water bottle holder so I kept one form myself.

It is built around the bottle, which is therefore the pot and contains a knife, whistle, binding material, and fire lighting gear. A First Aid Kit and a Bow Saw are already in each Quads so duplication makes no sense. The Quads also ready have a multi-tool a few other items that are cross purposed for repair and survival.

Take a look and see what you think. Remember that part of the innovation process in what we carry is to ask why and where. As well part of what each of use has to do is improvise, so everyone's kits will be slightly different.

Looks great! Thanks for sharing!

If you can't get a fire going with that kit you're either under water or something is wrong with ya.

Nice kit!

You have a large trash bag in there for shelter? They work good in Donner Party
snow country.

A variation would be a standard water bottle, say a one liter Nalgene, nested inside a cup/small bowl with the rest of the kit inside the canteen. Since you are putting it on a Quad, weight isn't an overwhelming consideration, so you could throw in a small canister stove as well, along with a light tarp.

The only thing I do differently is that I use a Maxpedition bottle holder; that way I can have a 40oz bottle full of water, a pot and all of the survival stuff in the pouch. Plus, I use the MOLLE to attach the knife to the side of it.



Sorry for the crappy pic; it doesn't really show the gear. Guess I need to take a picture of the contents. But it give you the general idea.

If you sharpen/grind the back spine of the Mora into a hard 90* edge, it should be able to be used as the main scraping/sparking tool for the ferrocerium rod. I've done that to a couple of my Moras and the difference is incredible with way more sparks than supplied striker. I've also been told that it works well with natural flints as well. You could drill a lanyard hole in the handle as well.

I put together similar content kits for a couple of my nephews several years ago as Christmas presents except that I used 1 litre Nalgene bottles. It's contents started out as inexpensive Walmart kits but were then packed full with more of the 10 essentials. I like the idea of the metal bottle though because it doubles as a container to boil water in over a fire. It appears that the split rings on the rim of your bottle combined with some wire would make an effective bail to hang the bottle over a fire -- that's very good!

It would need to be a carbon Mora for natural flint as the spark is made up of the knife steel, not the rock?

I really like a set-up like this. It's easy to start creeping up in size and weight, but I really like the idea of having a bag to carry the kit in. It gives you somewhere to put the contents when you use the bottle. If you're carrying it on an ATV/Boat or something, weight is less of an issue, and adding a couple more items gives you a few more options. Carrying something for shelter is hugely important in these parts, for instance.

I would also include a container or bag to carry all of those contents when you fill the bottle with water.