So I’ve pretty much hit the highlights, but there’s still a dozen or so small items that aren’t really worth their own post but they are worth mentioning since they may nudge your thinking in a direction it hadn’t previously gone.

So what else? Well…entrenching tool, esbit stove/cup with tabs, spare batteries in a case, Maglite w/ spare batts, pocket AM/FM radio (with battery commonality with the flashlight), a few ration bars, water pouches, first aid kit, TP, a good book, space blanket (for use as a ground sheet in case you have to kneel out there on the wet snow to change a tire or something), sheath knife, notepad and pen, and a few other items. It’s not hard to imagine…just think, if you were sitting in the dark and cold overnight what would you want to have with you while youre tucked away in your sleeping bag? Go from there.

Depending on your preferences and tastes, this can be as much or as little stuff as you think you need. And it can be as expensive or as inexpensive as you’re comfortable with. Me, I’ve got no problem paying extra $$$ for the name-brand quality stuff. When it’s -10 and I’m huddled in a sleeping bag trying to make it through the night I doubt I will be patting myself on the back for saving a few bucks by buying the Walmart-brand batteries and flashlight. You can buy the Made In China bargain parachute, not me.

But, as we all know, the first rule of disaster survival is: don’t be there. If it’s calling for 10″ of snow and high winds….stay home. Open a can of chicken soup, sit on the couch under a blanket, and watch Big Bang Theory reruns.

I know, you’re thinking “Dude, unless you’re driving naked why would you need to pack clothes. You’re already wearing clothes!” True, but think of the circumstances…maybe youre on your way to/from the office Christmas party..you’re in your nice slacks, dorky sweater, loafers, and a too-light coat…after all, you only were going to be outside for the time it took to go from the parking lot to the restaurant. Annnnnnd..Murphy happens: you get stuck and you’re out there trying to shovel your stuck vehicle out while youre wearing loafers, thin socks, slacks, a light jacket, and probably no hat and gloves. Owie. Or you tried to shovel your way out of your situation..now your shoes and socks are soaked, pants are wet, and youre missing a glove. Wouldn’t dry clean clothes feel good right about now?

So: pack extra clothes. You’re smart, you know what you need. But, if not, imagine this: you’re dropped naked into an abandoned car in the middle of winter. What do you need? Footwear, warm socks, long underwear, winter undershirt, long pants, heavyweight shirt, coat, gloves, scarf, hat..at least. You might add extra socks and extra mitts to swap out as they get wet.

I pack a complete change of clothes, plus winter coat, plus ‘accoutrements’ (scarf, hat, mitts). Everything that can, gets vacuum sealed. This serves two purposes: it keeps everything dry and clean, and it helps to keep things compact to fit in the Box O’ Gear. If you have them, and I highly recommend these, pack a set of insulated Carhart bibs. Wear these under your heavy coat you will not know cold. Theyre bulky, so they don’t fit in my Box O’ Gear, but I just roll ’em up and throw ’em in the back. I have worn them while working in -15 weather and they kept my legs, thighs, and abdomen just toasty as can be.

Don’t just go to your closet and pull out some old clothes and throw them in your vehicle. Use some common sense and think about the circumstances you’ll be using those clothes under. Don’t pull out those old hunting boots with the torn eyelets, the wool pants that ‘shrank’ in the waistline, and the mittens grandma knitted for you. You’re in a car trying not to freeze to death…wear clothes that fit, are well made, and made for cold weather. Good boots, wool socks, polypro undergarments, heavy shirt, heavy coat, thick hat, several pairs of warm liners for your mitts, etc.  Vacuum seal as much of it as you can to save space.

Wool, polypro, whatever…just make sure you’ve got a couple layers. And while I always recommend staying with the vehicle, it’s a good idea to pack clothing as if you weren’t going to stay with the vehicle.

I’ve no desire to freeze to death or lose some fingers/toes to frostbite. I pack the warmest clothes I can find and then I add one or two extra pieces ‘just in case’. It’s a bit of work fitting all that in the Box O’ Gear but on some late night on the side of the road when it’s blowing -10 (much like it is outside right now) that little bit of extra might mean the difference between an uncomfortable nights sleep and physical therapy for the nubs where my fingers used to be.

Friend Of The Blog, Tam, over at View From The Porch is doing one of her revealing 2000-round handgun torture tests. Succinctly, over time shoot 2000 rounds of a variety of ammo through the chosen gun, with no additional cleaning or lube, and chronicle the results. What has been fascinating, to me, is that as of late she has been noticing that steel-cased ammo, in certain magazines, is having issues where the rounds bind up and rattle around in the mags. As best I can tell from reading her posts, this is a problem that doesn’t seem to happen with brass-cased ammo..at least, not nearly as often as with the steel stuff.

Why is this interesting? Two reasons. First, steel-cased stuff is often a tad cheaper and when you’re laying back a lot of ammo every dime matters. Secondly, same rule for mags…sometimes the non-OEM mags are cheaper than the factory ones. Combine those two statements with a crisis where you may or may not have any choice but to use whatever magazine and ammo you can scrounge up and you have a potential for a pretty significant failure point.

As I’ve been reading the posts, it appears that the problems have been in the non-Glock mags. Of the non-Glock mags, the Magpuls perform best but are susceptible to an infrequent issue with the steel cased ammo. The factory Glock mags seem to do just fine.

The obvious lessons would seem to be: don’t shoot steel cased ammo if you can avoid it, and use factory Glock mags. But, as we know, here in the real world we’re faced with ugly choices.

I’m a snob. For my autopistols, the preference is: US brass ammo, quality European brass ammo (S&B, Fiocchi, Norma, etc.), and at the bottom…this stuff. But…if it’s all you can get…….

My own policy with steel cased ammo is to shoot it only in guns designed for it…basically Commie calibers in Commie guns. I’ll shoot steel 7.62×39 out of an AK with no reservations at all…but I’ll only shoot brass 5.56 out of my AR’s. (Yes, I know, I know…everyone says it’s fine to shoot steel cased ammo out of your AR.) For me, between reloading my own ammo, and having career goals that are a bit higher than WalMart shopping cart wrangler, I can afford to lay in a few cases of brass-cased ammo. But…as I said…sometimes ya gotta shoot what’s available. So, from that standpoint, it looks like the only reliable way to have the best of both worlds, brass and steel, is to use the factory Glock mags. Fortunately, we’re past these days and you can get a nice, shiny, factory Glock mag for about $20. So…go get a dozen.

I hope Tam explores this sort of failure further in her shooting adventures. As far as I can tell, it’s not something I’ve seen mentioned anywhere else. Some US manufacturers like Hornady are offering steel-cased ammo these days and I’d be curious to see if the problem persists with their offerings.

They are bulky and eat up a lot of space, but when you’re stuck in an unheated vehicle for any length of time they will be your Best Friend. I keep a military Modular Sleep System in the Box O’ Gear but it really doesn’t end there. Rolling around in the back of the vehicle is also one of the older style GI extreme cold weather sleeping bags. Both bags are bulky but since they are pretty much not going anywhere except in the vehicle, who cares? And, broadly speaking, bulk equals warmth.

Get comfortable. You’re going to be here a while.

The MSS is nice and very handy, but for some reason I really prefer the older GI extreme cold weather bag. Don’t know why. I’ve tested both bags in 0-5 degree weather by stripping down to shorts, t-shirt, and socks, climbing inside one of the bags, and trying them out. Both function well and while you may not be comfortable in the 0-degree weather, you will be warm enough to keep your toes and not die. I keep both bags in the vehicle because I can and I like to be prepared. Plus, if you get stuck with more than one person in your vehicle it would be nice to not have to listen to them complain. The MSS has one very nice feature…since it is a bag-within-a-bag system, it lends itself to summer emergency kits as well. Using just the patrol bag will be more comfortable in the summer than using the whole system. (But, obviously, keep the whole system together in the vehicle.)

I also keep a surplus wool blanket in the vehicle as well. It’s a distant choice for when  you get stuck, but for those long roadtrips where someone is cold and want’s something less involved than unrolling a sleeping bag, it’s a good choice.

Both bags get rolled up and crammed into protective stuff sacks. If your vehicle goes sliding off the road at any speed there’s a good chance you’re going to come to rest, suddenly, against an object that’ll bust out a window or two. If that happens, you’ve got all sortsa weather suddenly coming into your vehicle and it’d be nice if your critical gear was protected. (Thats why the Pelican case.) Even just stuffing the rolled sleeping bag into a couple layers of heavy duty garbage bags and wrapping them in duct tape will do the trick.

You can use whatever sleeping bag you think works best. I went with the uber-bulky military bags because they’re cheap, durable, really warm, and I’m not worried about their portability. All that matters is you want the warmest sleeping bag you can come up with. Sure, maybe you’ll get too warm…big deal, open the zipper a little. Ten below zero, the rear window on your vehicle is shattered, you’re in the barrow pit, and the road is a skating rink….at times like that there is no such thing as a ‘too warm’ sleeping bag.

Years ago me and a buddy had to drive to Helena, a couple hours drive, in the middle of January, in his vehicle that did not have a working heater. I was amazed..astounded, really…at just how cold an unheated vehicle can get when you have to sit still in it for a couple hours. I had assumed that having the engine going would provide at least some level of warmth. Nope. And that was with the windows rolled up and us bundled up. No lie, man….it gets downright cold in a vehicle when it’s the long, dark, night of winter and there’s no heat.

As I said, I go for overkill. Two sleeping bags and a good heavy wool blanket. Do not carry just a blanket. Whatever you get, wrap them in some sort of protective material or container to keep them dry and clean. (As pointed out in comments, stuffing a seeping bag into a five-gallon bucket and sealing it up makes an outstanding sleeping bag protective container.) If you have to spend two days huddled in your sleeping bag in the back of your Subaru the last thing you want is that bag soaked in old Pepsi, motor oil, and any other fluid that exploded out of the containers you keep in the back of your vehicle.

Counting down to the inevitable “It’s crazy to let people take guns on planes…” narrative in 5..4..3..2..1…

Dude, getting stuck in the cold is no joke. The weather here in Montana changes so fast you would not believe it. In the time it takes you to go pretty much anywhere out here the weather can go from clear, sunny, and above freezing (in winter) to blinding, blowing, and scrotum-shriveling cold in less time than it takes you to pass a few exits on the interstate. Getting stuck is some serious business. Death is the second worst thing that can happen to you, IMHO…first worst is losing your feet, hands, ears, and perhaps nose to frostbite.

I tend to err on the side of overkill. Hey, why not? I’m pretty big on looking out for Numbah One. I keep a few of the following in the Box O’ Gear:

• Road flares – Just the usual variety. I vacuum seal them to keep them dry.
• Parachute flares – Just two oughtta do it.
• Hand flares – And two of these
• Smoke device – And one of these. For when you’re really stuck and they’ve got helicopters locating stranded folks.

(Signal mirror? Uhm..no. There’s at least three or four mirrors already monted on the vehicle. Why use a playing-card sized ‘survival mirror’ when I can just yank a larger one off the windshield?)

And those are great for signalling and whatnot but they are rather ‘active’…you need to be waving them around or actively using them. For ‘passive’ signalling, the Streamlight Siege or any other battery-powered LED light with a blinking or strobe function will do. Make sure you’ve got batteries for it, secure it with some paracord so it doesn’t get lost, and set it on the roof of the car as you sit there patiently waiting for the highway patrol or a snowplow to come by.

If you’re just tooling along I-90 you’ll probably not even be out overnight. Someone in some sort of 6-wheel automotive T-rex will come along and ask if you need a ride. (Accept graciously, offer to pay for their gas, and come back and get your vehicle in a day or two.) If you’re traveling on some of the smaller roads or byways of Montana, well, you better err on the side of overkill. You’re going to want road flares, high-intensity strobes, lotsa batteries and anything else thats going to draw attention.

Cell phones are awesome but we all know that there are places where, sometimes, there just isn’t a signal. Don’t count on your cell phone. Let folks know where you’re going and what route you are taking to get there. That last part is a huge deal. And, most importantly, if it looks like icy weather, blowing snow, deathly cold, and that sort of thing – stay home. Why buy trouble? First rule of surviving any disaster: Don’t be there.

(By the way, while looking for images for this post I discovered that Rule 34 applies to cars getting stuck. NSFW here. I..I..have no words.)

I have absolutely no doubt that someone will chime in with “I bought a bunch of tea lights at WalMart for a dollar! You don’t need any yuppie survivalist candle holder!” May be. But there won’t be any awards given for the person who went through a crisis and survived using the cheapest gear. I mean, let’s be realistic…when you need gear in an emergency don’t you want the best quality you can get? Or, put another way, you’re on a sinking ship…would you like the ‘Made In China’ lifejacket that was on sale at WalMart or would you like the USCG-approved, meets-SOLAS-requirements, double-stitched, inspected-once-a-year lifejacket? Thinks fast, both are sitting on the railing in front of you and the water is sloshing around your knees. Which one do you grab? Yeah..I thought so.

The candle lantern is in the Box O’ Gear because, to me, it seems a good choice for when you’re stuck in the snow and cold in a vehicle. It provides light, heat, warmth, and is just generally soothing. Yes, there is a carbon monoxide threat, I suppose, but cracking the window just a tad should cover it. They usually come with a nice length of chain so you can suspend it from your rearview mirror…the nice thing about that is the heat will rise and keep a spot on the windshield clear of ice and snow so you can see what the heck is going on out there.

The reason I prefer the candle lantern over a bare candle (because someone is going to say ‘just get a plumbers candle and a mason jar!’) is that I don’t feel comfortable with a naked flame in a closed environment where it would be too easy to knock the damn thing over. At least with the candle lantern, you can knock it over onto a pile of newspaper shreds and still be safe. Additionally, used with a canteen cup or similar container, you could melt small quantities of snow as needed.

Possibly the difference between a cold and dark night of misery in a stuck vehicle or a safe and reasonably not-unpleasant night. Add wine and a morally-challenged coed to create your own romantic experience.

Sitting in the box is:

• Candle lantern
• Reflector
• Overhead reflector
• Extra candles
• matches
• Stuff sack

I’ve used these candle lanterns and been very pleased with them. They are clearly no substitute for a good LED light in terms of lumens, but the heat and other benefits make it an excellent choice for when you’re stuck in a vehicle. The reflectors are, admittedly, luxuries but they came with the bundle and they do help make the most of the light the candle provides.

A word about the knock offs: don’t. As with any good idea, the Chinese jumped on it and started making their own copies. The ones I’ve seen have sharp metal edges, loose fitting parts, and are generally not something I’d want to trust my safety and comfort to. Spend the extra bucks and get the real deal. Make sure you remove the candle from the lantern to extinguish it…blowing into the lantern to put out the flame will blow wax against the glass and it is a major pain in the ass to remove it.

The stuff sack has enough room for extra candles, matches, cigarette lighter, and any other goodies you want to add. But, really, who cares? If the supplied stuff sack is too small go grab a Crown Royal bag or a small cardboard box. It’s about what works for you.

Like all gear that you think you might need in an emergency, test the stupid thing. Don’t just jam this stuff into your box o’ stuff and think you’re done. Put it together and make sure you know how it works, make sure all the parts are there, and make sure you know what you’re doing with it.

REI or just about any camping store will have these things but for one-stop shopping you may as well swing over to Amazon and just get the whole kit and caboodle.

(Although, honestly, I might rework that to ‘save those worth saving’)