What commercial kits don't include...

Buying a pre-made kit is great, but its good to understand their limitations.
What does a pre-made first aid, go bag(72 hour) or survival kit lack?

That depends on the first aid or survival kit.

Jeanette Isabelle

depending upon your hobbies: an "oh crap" in mine can be serious

CAT tourniquet

Israeli or Olaes bandage (Olaes has the occlusive film to cover a punctured thorax)... minimum of two for a through and through

petroleum gauze to cover a punctured thorax

Kerlix gauze and roll bandage

hemostatic gauze

nasal pharyngeal airway

good cling tape

good EMT shears

Each of us is trained to different, varying levels of capability and for that matter, each of us has favorite tools and procedures. Our kits should be fine tuned to meet our needs.

Too many kits include lots of band aids and similar boo boo items and leave out critical (often expensive) items that are really useful for serious injuries (big dressings and elastic wraps,for instance.

You often want to specialize your kit for different activities - a kit for an alpine climber will be different from that of a deer hunter.

LesSnyder,

Your kit is excellent. I do have a few recommendations.

I understand that petrolatum gauze is no longer recommended by CoTCCC for a possible pneumothorax, a dedicated chest seal such as the Hyfin Vent is preferred.

If you're trained on them, a 14ga decompression needle is also recommended.

I've added a flat fold ACE-style bandage to each of my IFAKs, along with a stubby Sharpie.

My preference is to have boo-boo and OTC med supplies in a first aid kit, with a separate kit kept on-body for these more immediate concerns.

Just bought new AMK kits; they have nice flower opening; the pouches flip out and are labeled...something I recommend.
Adding:
More otc meds,
small flashlight
additional exam gloves
more masks

might add hand sanitizer

Most 'survival' kits lack both matches and a lighter.

I add 2x2 and 4x4 bandages or pads to most of my kits..

I've seen off-the-shelf trauma kits that come close. Those have a chest seal instead of petroleum gauze.

Jeanette Isabelle

If he was trained to use one, wouldn't he already include it?

Jeanette Isabelle

I was talking to a representative of a survival kit company. The reason his company does not include a lighter is due to the cost of shipping and shipping restrictions.

Jeanette Isabelle

I just checked th fire lighting materials section of REI and i am in the process of ordering item lbeled "shipping restrictions apply". Those restrictions must be rather trivial because my order is going through at the usual rate with standard delivery. It is an interesting gadget which ai will report on when it arrives....(and I get my second covid shot).

Interesting that these survival gurus cannot manage to provide a very important, if not the most, fundamental capability in the survival process. Fire starting is the one area where I favor redundancy - I pack matches in a waterproof case, a lighter (also waterproofed) and a ferro rod and striker. A couple of times I have been very glad I did.

Does seem odd.

Can order a tin of Zippo lighter fluid directly (not a third party) from Amazon UK. But not BIC lighters.

In the U.S., DOT restrictions are different for filled lighters and fuel. I ship my kits with an empty lighter and a cylinder of fuel and it's a cinch. Just gotta get the labels right and ship ground. Including a filled lighter of any kind leads to a whole PITA of issues.

The laws don't necessarily always make sense! But you do what you must regardless.

It appears BIC US will happily ship them.

https://us.bic.com/en_us/bic-classic-lighters-orange-12-pack.html

No lighters to be found on BIC UK nor France.

https://uk.bic.com/en

In Germany vendors at Amazon send BIC lighters. They even send to DHL package stations.
I got these when the lighters where almost impossible to get in offline shops:

https://www.amazon.de/BIC-Feuerzeug-Reib...C176&sr=8-5

No affiliation, just a happy customer.

note: I use a rubberband under the tab to keep my bic in the off position.