I was rereading some old posts and realized that it was just over twenty years ago I got the bag that I now use as my Bag O’ Tricks(tm). At the time, I opined that the build quality seemed very good and that time would tell in terms of resilience. Well, twenty years has come and gone (ah, youth….), and I’m still here and so is the bag. Both a little worse for the wear, but still capable of carrying on as needed.

The bag is Tactical Tailor’s Three Day Bag. TT has undergone some changes since then and this bag is one of their ‘legacy’ products. There’s a newer version, and maybe I’ll get one just to have an extra. (Interesting to note that my ODG color is not offered.)

How has the bag held up over these two decades? Well, in spots its a bit dirty but who cares about that? Gear is meant to be used, my friend. It has gone on hunting trips, airline flights, been bounced around in trucks, and carried by me almost every work day for the last twenty years. In fact, even though I am at work sitting at a desk staring at three monitors worth of spreadsheets it is sitting behind me in the corner with all my ‘just in case gear’.

In the two decades I have had exactly two problems with it…both were my fault. I got careless and caught a fastex buckle in a closing truck door and broke the buckle. Fortunately a replacement fastex buckle of appropriate size can be found easily. Other than that…this thing is fully intact and ready to roll. No stitching has come apart, no seams have torn, no zippers have failed… other than some dirt and grime it’s in almost perfect condition.

I know that I’m not alone in having a bag like this, full of items and gear that might come in handy in a crisis, among survivalists. Some are more discreet, some less. Over the years I can tell you that I have learned that there are some features or qualities that are very much worth having.

A good, rock-solid carry/drag handle on the top of the bag is a must. When that bag is wedged in a vehicle with all your other crap crammed against it, you want something where you can grab and yank as hard as you can and pull it free from the pile. There have been times where I’ve been out hunting and had to clip a carabiner to the handle to affix the bag to a length of paracord to haul it up a cliff. More often than not, I clip (with a carabiner) it to a tie down in the back of the truck to keep it from flying. And, speaking of flying, sometimes you need to wing that sucker up to or over something…and grabbing it by the handle and swinging it like a hammer is sometimes the best way to hit escape velocity.

One of the things I liked about my ancient Dana Design (now Mystery Ranch) pack was that every closure had a secondary method of securing it. Any zippered part had a strap or two going over it so that if the zipper failed you could use the strap to secure things..at least, thats what the guy who designed the bag told me when I bought it from him back in the ’90s. Keep an eye open for that sort of engineering.

While the pack has webbing to attach pockets, I’ve always tried to avoid adding stuff to the outside of the bag. Ideally, I like the bag to be narrower than my shoulders or hips so I can get through doorways and other spaces in a hurry.

Straps need to be at least double- or triple-stitched.

All these features come down to build quality. Every manufacturer makes an ‘assault pack’ or ‘three-day’ backpack and they all usually have the same features. What sets them apart is the build quality. Don’t be afraid to reinforce the gear yourself. When I was a kid I used to have some cheap Jansport (remember them?) backs and I’d reinforce the strap and webbing attachment points with a speed stitcher. That stitcher, by the way, should be in every survivalists tool cabinet….its a handy little geegaw.

The TT bag cost me $110 twenty years ago. The newer version is around a hundred bucks more but, jokes on them, my bag seems to be a buy-once-cry-once that will outlive me.

I mentioned a few posts back that I have a glow-in-the-dark (which I am just gonna simplify to ‘glowie’) tray that I keep my bedside gun on so I can find it in the dark. It’s a fairly simple thing…you have the lights on in the bedroom and when you turn off the light to go to bed, the glowie tray has absorbed enough light to glow gently through the night. As you know, most glowie stuff loses its brightness as the night wears on…thats fine because as the night goes on your night vision becomes better. As a result, a faintly glowing object is plenty bright to your just-woke-up-at-3am eyes. TPIWWP, so:

I got mine from the always interesting CountyComm website. I’ve been quite tickled with it and find it to be an excellent way to keep my important bump-in-the-night stuff in one place where I can find it easily.

Sadly, even in what should be a tightly knit community like ours, there are still divisions. There’s one side that thinks that there is nothing wrong with spending big bucks on purpose-built or purpose-designed items versus those who believe that the cheapest alternative is ‘just as good’ and the other side is a buncha ‘yuppie survivalists’. A good example would be water containers. One person will say that anyone who uses anything other than recycled 2-liter pop bottles is not a ‘working man’ and is a fool who is throwing their money away, whereas the the other side will say that anyone who compromises on quality/engineering in order to save a few bucks is cutting their own throat with false economies. Both sides can get pretty vocal and, honestly, both sides kind of annoy me. It’s like two people standing on the deck of the Titanic arguing about rearranging deck chairs while the ship lists.

There won’t be any award given out for people who made it through the apocalypse using the cheapest gear or spending the least resources. If you can afford an advantage, take it. If you can’t, do what you can.

Which brings us to todays soon-to-be-beaten-to-a-lingering-death topic……….

Two things I keep in my gear: writing paper and writing utensils. Why? Because when things go bad, either on a personal small-level SHTF moment or the big epic one, you’re going to need to make notes…of gate combinations, mile markers, GPS coordinates, radio freqs, coded notes for meetup points, phone numbers, addresses, rendezvous times, and a zillion other things that are too important to commit to your already overburdened memory.

My line of reasoning is that in a crisis, if something is worth writing down its worth staying legible and intact until it is no longer needed. Now, I could just grab a ninety-nine cent pocket notebook, a plastic bag, and a ballpoint pen, and throw them in my bag. Or, I could spend the money and buy the paper that lets you write on it even when wet, the pen that lets you write upside down and with ink that won’t smear, and package it all in a handy cordura case that holds the paper and writing instruments together until such time as they’re needed. When that dark and stormy night comes and you need to leave a note tacked to your door telling your separated loved ones where to find you, the last thing you want it for that note to have become a spongy, pulpy mess with unreadable, streaked, and smeared ink.

Look, you do you. But I don’t mind spending money on the purpose-built, purpose-designed materials (or materiels) that fit my needs. Which leads me to these:

What youre looking at is a bunch of ‘Rite In The Rain’ products. These are the guys who are most noted (get it?) for their paper that…well…lets you write in the rain. But paper is only half the equation, the other half is something that will let you write in those circumstances. Remember thos Fisher ‘Space Pens’? Really, all they are are pens that use a pressurized ink cartridge. The RITR guys sell those too. Since I’m a suspenders-and-a-belt kinda guy I include a pen, pencil, Sharpie, and maybe an extra pen or two. Here’s what I’ve found that works for me.

I use the 3×5 notepads. I find them to be the best combination of utility and compactness. Additionally, 3×5 seems to be the most common size for accessories like covers and cases for the pad. RITR sells them, sometimes as a package, but other companies make similar products. I like one-stop-shopping whenever possible, so I just get it all from RITR. I used the grid paper rather than the usual lined paper because…well..its seems more useful if I have to draw a map or other graphic representation of something.

For actual writing instruments, it’s pretty much a no-brainer – go with a pen (or two) that use a pressurized cartridge containing a good waterproof ink. Again, I just get the RITR ones but there are some ‘tactical pens’ out there that also used pressurized cartridges. Might wanna get a spare cartridge or two as well.

In my line of work, we use a lot of mechanical pencils and I’ve come to eschew regular yellow No.2 pencils for any serious use. You can go down a major rabbit hole when it comes to mechanical pencils, leads, etc. For instance, I prefer a .5 lead, and I have a lovely .2 Japanese-made model, but in a tough world I want something less delicate. RITR has a 1.3mm that is really nice. It gives a thick easy to read line with a lead that is thick enough to not break easily. And the pencils themselves are pretty slick too. For scrawling a note to leave on a windshield, on the side of a box of ammo, or on the doorjamb of a house..I really like these. (And the three-pack comes in Black, OD, and FDE…nice.)

An interesting take on the pressurized space pen are these little things from Pokka. Their claim to fame is that they are two-piece compact pocket pens. One half acts as a sheath for the other half, take it apart and click them together to get a full size writing instrument. Handy for keeping a pen in your pants pocket without stabbing yourself in the thigh or painting your clothes with ink. Drawback is that the ink cartridge is necessarily half the capacity. But when you want a compact package to save space but still need the performance, its a good compromise. Other drawback is that it appears they are disposable, without replacement cartridges available. Assess for your needs accordingly.

And, of course, a Sharpie is never a bad idea to keep on hand.

As you think about it, there’s probably a couple additional things to keep handy in that same vein. The one that springs to mind first, for me, is a big chunk of sidewalk chalk and an equally as big crayon. I haven’t seen anything a crayon won’t write on.

Tucked away into a cordura pouch to keep everything collected and protected, it takes up about as much space as a cellphone. Nine times out of ten, I just use them for taking notes at gun shows. However, I also use this stuff for leaving notes on my truck when I go hunting in case something goes wrong, jotting down GPS coords in the field, and that sort of thing.

Can you achieve the same results with a ziploc baggie, a dollar notepad, and a cheap Bic? Yeah, probably. But I could also probably get the same results in New Orleans after Katrina using a Mosin Nagant and a HiPoint…but I’d probably rather have every advantage, real or imagined, on my side that is afforded by the stuff mentioned here.

As I said, it’s a subjective thing…what we determine is or is not worth dropping our hard-earned coin on. For me, since I don’t drink, smoke, or have expensive non-survivalist-related hobbies, I can spend a little money on stuff that someone else might think is an extravagant or unnecessary purchase. To each their own.

A while back I decided I wanted a belt to keep a ‘ready’ amount of gear on. The sort of thing that you’d grab to go investigate something rousing the dogs in the yard or that sort of thing. Regardless, I wanted something where I could just wrap a belt around my waist and have the basics.

I wound up purchasing the Viking Tactical Skirmish Belt.  In conjunction with my Safariland holster its a very nice combination. But..I need a couple mag pouches for the AR and G17 to add to the belt. (I’ll also be adding one these .) So what pouches? Well, I wanted something without the usual over-the-top retention bungees. So I looked around and found what seemed like a good choice. Wound up with the High Speed Gear Tacos .

I rather like these. The MOLLE attachments are easy to use, the retention tension is adjustable, and there’s a good bit of rigidity to the pouch but the magazines pull free easily. I’ll need to take this setup to the range this weekend and play with it a bit, but I’m rather impressed with the HSG product. Made in the USA, which puts it a notch of Blackhawk and a host of other pouch makers.

I’m not looking for a Batman-belt of every possible survivalist advantage. I just need something with a gun/holster, some extra mags, a first aid kit with TQ, and maybe a flashlight and multitool. Thats it. If I need six AR mags, three Glock mags, a huge sheath knife, radio, medkit, and a dump pouch…well…thats a whole different bunch of kit. I just want a fairly straightforward rig for when you want something a bit more robust because the times have gotten a bit more interesting than usual.

But..this is about the pouches. I’ll be playing with them at the range shortly, but so far they look like theyre exactly what I’m looking for in this particular usage.