Goodbye Apocabox...

Exactly!

A lot of survival tools are tools used by men who work with tools. Those are the ones to buy; to hold close and cherish.

 

My father says "always go with quality, you will never wonder why."

 

lol it came in pieces, i had to sand the crap out of the rod and to get it to go in and out easy. Then superglue it all together...honestly it sounded like a pretty cool contraption to be able to see the ember start when you compress the air since it was acryllic and see through...but ya not the best production of all the pieces. The awl was kinda saddening...i know now ill have to buy myself a good awl instead expect some company to make me a good one that they say is good...

 

very good advice.

 

lol, doubt it'll make that big of an effect...I wish! But I do know they provide their box free of charge to channels that have "sufficient subscribers" and for sure those channels give good praise to these boxes...

 

nice review @phorisc thank you for another great video on bad survival gear!

 

I wanted to update you on this. So Creek was really cool and commented on the video. He said he would replace the two items which were faulty and include them in my april box. So I give them a positive review on their customer service side of things. Ill definitely run test the two items out again to see that they perform. I don't retract my opinion of the items being less than satisfactory that are in the boxes though. I suggested to creek that perhaps he should include one real high quality item instead of 2 or 3 average or less than average items.
Ill probably will do a followup review on the April box to test those items out again.

 

Typical of Creek Stewart. Sad.

 

Creek is still doing the Apocobox but he is starting few other monthly subscriptions.

Snipped from the e-mail I received this week:

With Survival Skill of the Month Club, I teach a new survival skill each month in unprecedented detail, using never seen before macrophotgraphy and step-by-step instructions. These are full color printed skill sheets that are shipped to your doorstep and a custom 3-ring binder is also included to store them in. Details can be found here: http://www.survivalskillofthemonth.com



Wild Edible Plant of the Month Club is designed for people who want to take their foraging knowledge to the next level. Through this service, I teach one new wild edible plant each month in extreme detail with high resolution, full-color photography and descriptive text. These identification sheets are mailed to your doorstep each month. Details can be found here: http://www.wildedibleplantofthemonth.com.

I signed up to get more info on the wild edible plant of the month. There is no cost mentioned but I am sure there will be some sort of fee. The survival skill of the month sounds cool but the words binder and shipping makes me think it may be more costly then I would want to spend. Plus, we here at the monkey could do survival skill of the month.

 

Impatience doesn't pay . Hi carbon steels are brittle and need to be handed as such, like glass.
It's easy to snap a file, exactly the way the awl was handled in the video .
I have similar tools and know their strengths and weaknesses and don't expect more out of them than designed .
A brittle tool keeps an edge better, but not designed for prying and striking .

As for the fire piston, I might use something more designed for handling that kind of abrasion . dry rubber non plastic would be like throwing sand on your wind shield wipers.
A silicone lubricant might have allowed the O ring to fit in the tube better. Not PJ.

Bottom line, for a lot of things like this is to make them your self , that's what I do.
I learn more about the process I'm after, and better appreciate the value of the tool.

 

A lot of survival things are a paradox. Knife is simple, can make it out of metal, stone or ceramic if you wish. But!! it has to be hard enough to sharpen and hold an edge, but soft enough to not be brittle and break, may or may not rust or corrode, may or not fold, be concealable, come with a sheath, be any of dozens of styles, have any of a dozen handle materials, may attach to a rifle or a stick, and you may select which of the many factors you wish to optimize. A machete and a pen knife have slightly different styles and uses, and are not interchangeable. A fire piston looks simple, but how well do most seals withstand the temperature changes of going from a possible 5 below to several hundred above in a few hundredth of a second and a pressure of hundreds of pounds? Lubricate it with the wrong material and you may have a miniature single cylinder diesel engine instead of a neat little ember of fire to place in your tinder. Then add the requirements that it be small, inexpensive, usable by amateurs, have a company making it with packaging and shipping abilities, and in this day and age, liability insurance, and concise instructions in several different languages, etc. Almost everything I use is a paradox, I know of no light weight, non corrosive, fold able cast iron cook ware, but I love it, a Kelly kettle is not collapse able, mine isn't Teflon lined, if I were stupid enough to make soup in it, I would never get all the corners clean, but I have found nothing better for boiling water. I personally, and this is just my opinion,have found anything better than a military style poncho and liner, a couple of wool blankets, a canteen and cup, a military style mess kit, a small high quality tarp, a good small axe, a good compass, the best shoes I can afford, and I have now added a good foam sleeping pad, proves I am getting old and feeble, and my favorite weapons are still a Buck knife, a 45 ACP, and an 06 Springfield. But I am not in New Jersey, Utah, Arizona. or Alaska, and I am sure that if I were to go into the woods in any of those places I would have an entirely different set of favorites and these are also the things I grew up with. Guess my take on any selection of survival objects would be, "Whose selection?". as each of us have different goals and objectives. Now if Bishop were to offer the "Primitive weapon of the month" I might be tempted just for the thrill of trying out things that I can not find locally and honestly didn't even know existed or how to correctly use them. In a survival article of the month, the same criteria may work and for the beginning prepper, it may even be worth joining. I find it hard to criticize the gentleman for trying to preform this function, but I know that I don't have the skills to do it.
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