"Minute Bag" suggestions

\"Minute Bag\" suggestions

I just got a new bag, made of really nice sturdy material. I will obviously be putting most of my unused lights in it but what else? It would be for the last minute camping, hiking, being shot at by the mafia and gotta go(So Hollywood!) etc... You always forget something when you go camping, so those things should be in here. Perhaps dry food, water, TP, batteries, what kind of first aid stuff(?) What do you suggest? Make a big list, give little tid bits, whatever makes you happy. I just need some more ideas. Perhaps we can make the official "CPF Suggested Minute Grab Bag." So give me what you think, everything you think! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif Thanks
Cameron

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

simple compass
firestarter/magnesium
small single cell led light like CMG infinity(ultra)
waterproof notepad/pen/pencil
small multitool
paracord
couple of those antibacterial wipes
couple of bandages
couple of ibuprofen(come in little packets of 2 in first aid kits)


.....still thinking.......

im actually wanting to put together a kit myself

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

Here are some of the things in our various bailout bags:

Multitool (wave, paratool, swisstool)
Folding knife (vesuvius, endura, grip)
Incandescent (E2e, Scorp, G2)
LED (Ultra-G, Arc AA, SL Jr., X5T)
Tom's PSK (StarFlash mirror, 4X Fresnel magnifier, 18 inch duct tape, antiseptic swabs, alcohol swab, safety pins, hydrocortisone cream, antibacterial towelette, 24 inch double strand stainless steel wire)
Brunton compass
Lifeboat matches
Windproof matches
Bic lighter
Fox 40 whistle
EVAC-U8 smoke hood
Rain poncho
Disposable hand warmers
Space blanket
Space bag (like a sleeping bag made of space blanket)
N-95 foldable respirator mask
Foxlabs pepper spray
Sudacon wipes
Flex cuffs
First aid kit (Adventure Medical)
Small sewing kit
Soap/Purell/alcohol wipes
Binoculars (monocular)
Paracord (20-25ft x 2)
Batteries (123, AA, AAA, lithium AA)
H2O (pouches, treatment pills, filter)
Platypus 1L collapsible bottle
Rite in the Rain pad
Fisher space pen
$1 coinlights
GMRS/FRS two way radio (Motos)
AM/FM/SW radio (CountyComm GP4)
Cash
GPS
Gloves (heat resistant/cut resistant, work, exam)
Ti crowbar or prybar
Small folding stove + fuel (Esbit)
Mess kit
Power bars
Can opener
Change of clothes
Road flares

If you put it all in one place, it will be too heavy to carry, unless you leave it in the trunk all the time. Then you worry about someone breaking into your car.

So what are you going to fill it up with?
daloosh

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

You gotta say where you think you'll use it, where you're gonna store it, what kinds of situations where you think you might need it. For example, you're in Houston, and it's always reasonably warm there, right? I mean, in Alaska in the winter, your main concerns are going to be stuff like fuel, firestarters, insulation. In Houston I'm guessing you can sort of forget about that. But water will be a lot more important in that dry Southwestern heat, than it would be in a cooler place where there's lots of lakes nearby.

Also, what do you mean, you're going to put most of your unused lights in it, but you're also going to take it hiking/camping/whatever? If you're like most CPF'ers, you probably have dozens of unused lights--do you really want to take them all with you on a random hike?

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

above list from daloosh looks pretty good. I'll add:

wet ones/baby wipes
mirror (to see your own face and neck, could be on folding compass)
paper towels
femine products (if your lucky enough or cursed to be around women)
chap stick
sun screen
folding wood saw
hack saw
bolt cutters
wire cutters
channel locks
cresent wrench
small shovel
wire ties
duct tape

sorry... kind of got into 4x4 mode a little bit there

I also like to carry some small cord and a (hank/bobbin/whatever-you-call-it) of bailing twine. Of course it helps to know knots and know how to frap. I do and love to use it. So I can build stuff out of sticks or limbs or tie stuff to the top of the Jeep.

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

Great! Thanks for the suggestions, I couldnt have thought of all that myself. And will I take all my lights with me? No, but if they have room in the bag, I might as well stick them in there right? Just incase batteries tucker out too fast, or whatever, and just to have them and do beam comparisons in the pitch dark country. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif But mostly I will only put essentials in the bag as far as lights. Other lights will be put in a back pack. The BailOut bag will only be stocked with what I need, not want.
Cameron

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

hehe, not all that daloosh. That requires 3 duffle bags, I have one bailout bag. I will put as much as possible in it I am sure. Some of that I need to get, I dont own but a crappy knife that was sent to me with my dads companies name on it, trying to get him to buy more, so I need to upgrade that area more. I will get some food bars I am sure, water(anyone tried the dry stuff that you add just the tiny-est amount of water and it multiplys? -- Dehydronated Water I think it is). And as for road flares, where can you get those? Walmart? If you do a simple online search, all you get are LED flares lol. I wouldnt mind some of the real ones, I am sure they are a bit cheaper each. I need to print this out and hit up a local walmart for some of it. Thanks for the suggustions too.
Cameron

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

Geez man, skip the road flares and everything else like that. Put stuff like that in your car, not your go bag. Going camping with bolt cutters is ridiculous. Remember you have to actually carry all this stuff. And if you're keeping it in your house, the terrain where you're most likely to use it is precisely the terrain that's near your house, so it's misdirected for you to prepare for some totally different terrain. You're not going to be suddenly teleported to Gilligan's Island where you'll need equipment to make radios out of coconuts.

Put in the stuff that you'd normally take on a hike, plus a few other things. E.g., for Texas, forget all the firestarters. Think more like stuff to keep you cool and unburned: baseball cap, bandanna, sunblock lotion, sunglasses. Aside from that: sure, a compass, pocket radio, some first aid stuff, water (say a few 0.5 liter bottles), maybe a filter or purification pills, stuff like that, plus maybe your cell phone if it's not usually in your pocket.

Ease up on the flashlights. PT Aurora is about my favorite these days for this kind of thing (3LED 3AAA headlamp). You can use it as a handheld flashlight or as a handsfree light or as a signal strobe. I'd be comfortable with just that light and no additional ones, but if I wanted another, I'd take something brighter, either a PT Rage (4AAA xenon) for battery commonality, or a UKE 2L. Might also throw in a red-led coin cell light for skulking around in the dark.

Take a look at www.equipped.org if you want to see a site full of folks who are into this stuff. It has a forum sort of like CPF too, and a number of CPF'ers hang out there (I occasionally post there but am here a lot more).

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

[ QUOTE ]
paulr said:
in that dry Southwestern heat


[/ QUOTE ]

It is NOT DRY heat here in Houston. You can usually SWIM in it!

Otherwise, YES water is a good thing!

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

I guess my "minute bag" doubles as my EDC "from the truck to the office" bag. Just to get this out of the way, I have with me as standard equipment, on a daily basis. This stuff is just part of getting dressed for me.
· Keys (which contain ASP Eclipse led, Swiss Tech Utilikey, and Wenger small classic knife), cell phone, and any of a variety of rugged diver / multifunction watches.
· Front Right Pocket: Victorinox money clip knife, Any of a large variety of assorted Victorinox pocket knives, pocket coin change, and Arc AAA
· Left shirt pocket: Cross pen, pencil, fat roller ball matching set, and Starrett # C301R pocket ruler
· Front Left Pocket: Inova X1, business card wallet, and any of a small pocket micro tool, such as Serbertool or Swiss Tech
· Back Left Pocket: REKAT locking folder
· Back Right pocket: wallet
· Belt: any of a large variety of large multi tools Leatherman, SOG, etc. and any of a large variety of lights (usually 2x123 lithium + xenon variety)

My bag that I use to and from the truck is an Austrian combat pack. It is olive green and measures about 15 x 13.5 x 4.75. In it I carry stuff that can be considered redundant, but I like having it with me anyway.
· Pelican Pocket Saber 2 C
· Garrity Bullet Lite 3xAAA Single LED (5 modes)
· Coleman Hard Koozie, camo
· Bottle opener / can opener
· Bushnell compact 10x25 binoculars
· Hat
· Casio scientific calculator
· Small leather memo book / business card holder with pen
· Small basic Silva compass
· Meyerco small Blackie Collins folder – "Strut-n-Cut"
· Extra Zip 100 MB disk
· Smith and Wesson Special Ops Tanto Knife (legal!)
· Carrera Sunglasses (spares)
· Spare set of keys to house & truck
· Boker Snack-n-Pack utensil set
· Pigskin gloves

That is what I consider my "grab and go" bag. It has some stuff that is useful and other things that are duplicates or redundant, but I like it. This is not a "what if" for every situation bag. I have that outfitted and rides in my truck full time, along with a very complete full set of tools and emergency equipment. The truth is I don't need any of this junk, but I like having it.

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

paulr,

I agree, camping with bolt cutters would be ridiculous. So would camping with channel locks or a pry bar. But he mentioned camping, hiking, being shot at by the mafia and gotta go. Sometimes when I 'go' it is by jeep and I had to use bolt cutters when I got some old wire fence caught up in my under carriage.

Like you said, will you use it, where will you store it, will you need it in your situation.

Besides I would think someone involved with the Mafia might have use for some 'entry tools'

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

Hey Cameron

Well, I hope you've got some ideas for different situations, and I'm sure you realize you have to tailor the bag for the potential SHTF situation.

For example, my wife's bag has an intermediate first aid kit while mine is small and light (so I can fit more lights and knives). Our extensive first aid kit has it's own bag, but we may forget it in an emergency, so the redundancy may be necessary.

My office BOB has cut resistant, heat resistant kevlar gloves to handle broken glass or hot surfaces; and it has several small lights in it to give to coworkers. It has no water in it because bottled water is in large supply in the office.

The car bag has water, and road flares and a 24/7 and tools, because that heavy stuff can sit in the trunk. You can get road flares at hardware and auto stores. I think big box stores like Target and Wallyworld may not carry them because they are fire hazards. (There's one guy on the internet who puts road flares in his Halloween pumpkins!)

If your BOB is too heavy or bulky, you'll never carry it, and it won't be handy when you need it. So then your EDC needs to be optimized...

daloosh

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

I have a small (2 fl oz) bottle with a little re-sublimated iodine and a thermo-strip attached to detect the temp of what's in the bottle. With it I can make an almost never ending supply of a water purifying concentrate that will do a very good job of treating 3000 gals of questionable water in a pinch.

Saturated solutions of iodine are really pretty dreadful and not at all suggested for routine use, but it is great to have as a last resort option, for brief to intermediate use. Aside from killing run of the mill things like giardia, it even kills the pesky amoebas that Halazone tabs or chlorine bleach miss.

I've lugged mine around for 25 years. The brand name is Polar Pure. At the same time I bought a bottle of iodine tabs that were supposed to do the same job, but the iodine rusted away the un-opened steel cap after about five years of carry in my kit.

TIP: Keep the cap on really tight, and maybe inside a couple of zip-lok freezer bags to keep the iodine vapors from tainting anything else in your kit over the long haul.

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

I have a lot of my stuff stored in bags, but watching the news showing pics from Florida I'm starting to think about a pelican case, something that will keep stuff waterproof or protect it if I dropped it. Problem is the pelican cases are worth more than the gear I have to put in them.

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

I made a small checklist of stuff I think I would like in the bag. Some of which I will need in any case, and others that I almost know I wouldnt need unless the I did indeed get into a true SHTF situation(which would be a cool thing to get into once in your life I would think). Tommorow I will be making a trip to WalMart or Target and just walk around with the list and decide what I really want in the bag right now, then I will add on over time. Again, where can you dependably get dehydrated water, and is it as cool as it sounds? heh. As for those Pelican cases, they do sound very neat from what I read a few weeks ago. Kinda bulky though, and to be waterproof, they obviously have to be hard plastic or something of that sort, which is kewl, but better if it were foldable or form to where it has to be put.
Cameron

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

BTW, the cost of the items in your BOB should not be measured in dollars and cents, but in the value of what they are worth when you need to have or use them.

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

I keep thinking about putting a light in there, but then again, I'm somehow reluctant to put any of these lights which I really like into a bag where I can't see them, much as I know that in the event of an 'incident' occuring, I would be very grateful to have them... I'm hoping that I'll be able to grab a couple of lights from the table if I have to leave in a hurry. What if I'm outside? I'll have my EDCs. The bad part is that you won't know whether you've packed everything you'll need because there is no way in advance you can know - that is the nature of a BOB. If we could know, it would be called "camping"/"travelling" or something else /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Ziplocs are wonderful things for waterproofing a BOB. I plan to ziploc most of the stuff, it would suck if your lithium 123s or small radio are flooded when you need them.

What about heat related issues? I usually end up parking outdoors and the heat can *REALLY* build up, regardless of heat-deflective treating on my windows, because the car is sitting out there for the better part of the very long workday. Heat can really trash some of the stuff in your bag..

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

Oh, a flashaholic like yourself certainly has plenty of perfectly good lights that aren't your favorites. I'd say toss one of them in there, so it's there if you need it.

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

[ QUOTE ]
KevinL said:
I keep thinking about putting a light in there, but then again, I'm somehow reluctant to put any of these lights which I really like into a bag where I can't see them, much as I know that in the event of an 'incident' occuring, I would be very grateful to have them... I'm hoping that I'll be able to grab a couple of lights from the table if I have to leave in a hurry. What if I'm outside? I'll have my EDCs. The bad part is that you won't know whether you've packed everything you'll need because there is no way in advance you can know - that is the nature of a BOB. If we could know, it would be called "camping"/"travelling" or something else /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Ziplocs are wonderful things for waterproofing a BOB. I plan to ziploc most of the stuff, it would suck if your lithium 123s or small radio are flooded when you need them.

What about heat related issues? I usually end up parking outdoors and the heat can *REALLY* build up, regardless of heat-deflective treating on my windows, because the car is sitting out there for the better part of the very long workday. Heat can really trash some of the stuff in your bag..

[/ QUOTE ]

If you dont want to leave lights in there but have your EDCs with you all the time, then put in some batteries instead. Normally LIthium 123s and AAs are a good bet for shelf life and extreme heat exposure, so make sure your EDCs use those batts as well. Same goes for leaving the bag in your car, I think Lithiums will be able to hold up to the heat well enough w/o losing any charge/effectiveness.

About waterproofing stuff, if all your stuff is gonna be in the bag, then either wrap it all up in plastic bags or put all in a big garbage bag, and on top of that wrap the whole bag with another garbage bag. Redundancies + you could probably use some plasitc bags for collecting water, etc in an emergency anyway...

Just my HO... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Re: \"Minute Bag\" suggestions

uh, put a light in it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif