In this Fundamental Friday episode, Chris breaks down two survival kits: the Entropy Survival Bag and the ESEE Survival Tin. Learn what gear is truly useful, what falls short, and how to build a kit that will actually hold up in the outdoors.
This week on Fundamental Friday, we’re doing a hands-on comparison of two survival kits—the Entropy Survival Bag and the ESEE Survival Tin kit. From tourniquets and ferro rods to whistles, filters, and emergency blankets, Chris reviews the strengths and weaknesses of each kit to show what’s worth carrying when it counts.
Whether you’re new to bushcraft or refining your emergency loadout, this episode will give you real-world insights on survival gear.
this is the best article on how to use a compass I have seen
Compass Link: How to Use a Compass: The Ultimate Guide to Navigation
All right. Welcome back to the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft podcast, and today is, uh, fundamental Fridays. So what I thought we would do today if you're watching the video, is we're going to go through some survival bags or survival kits. If you're listening to the podcast, follow along and I'll describe everything step by step, what you see or what you should be seeing throughout this little 10 or 15.
Minute bonus video. I couldn't get the words out. So first up, we have the entropy, entropy survival. This was sent to me by the Entropy Survival Company and they, uh, wanted me to review this bag, and I really enjoyed this bag. This bag is great. Uh, this whole episode is not scripted. Everything here is just straight off the cuff and what you see is what you get.
So I did a complete review on it, on Spear Outdoors, and that's on my YouTube page. Spear Outdoors. But right here we have a tourniquet. And let me tell you something about tourniquets. If you have a tourniquet in the plastic bag, go ahead and take it out of the plastic bag because, and here's why. Once you get to a situation where you have to use a tourniquet.
You usually have gloves on. The gloves are going to, uh, be covered in blood, and the blood is gonna make this impossible to open with gloves on. So go ahead, take it out of the plastic bag if you can, and have it ready, or you know, just learn how to just pull it apart like that, you know, it's still gonna make it difficult because everything's gonna be slippery.
So anyway, a tourniquet. A tourniquet is a must have in any first aid kit, no matter where you're at or what it's for. It's a great idea to have. Speaking of, we have the first aid kit in here is a bunch of bandaids, some antiseptic wipes, some iodine pules, and some safety pins that look like. And I'm bumping the everything.
So there we go. That is your first aid kit and then down, oh no, under there I took it out. So down under there I had something else, but we're gonna leave it as is for now. That was a modification that I had added to this little kit, and I found it to be extremely. Effective. Now on the outside here we have little Velcro carabiners or you know, like little clips.
Then we have a emergency light on this side. And this thing is pretty cool. It's pretty bright. It has a flasher on there that flashes SOS, and I thought that was pretty cool. And let's see, where is it? Right? There's a flasher. Now the flashlight itself flashes the SOS. This does not. So then you have a multi-tool in the pouch here, and this knife here is pretty cool.
It has everything that you need to do multi-tool tasks. It has pliers, the knives, the files, the screwdrivers, the little attachments that go on it. Cool. Then I have a knife. It's got a regular, it comes with a knife here on the outside. A belt knife. I'm pretty sure it is a half tang knife. It is not a full tank knife, but it's still a knife and it'll work in the event of emergency because this thing, what did we talk about last week?
The best tools to have with you is the tools you have on hand. And you know that it seems to be a motto now coming up, or one of these new episodes coming along is gonna be about a compass and a map. This is a military style compass and this thing is pretty cool. And if you have not been to Ethan Shaw's website or article on um, Ethan Shaw, I'll put the link in the description of this video.
But his articles are amazing about how to use a compass with a map. You have a fire starting rope in here. You have the flashlight that I was talking to you about while ago. It has light on off and it's got different functions and you barely tap. And then it is got different, there's your SOS where it's blinking, SOS.
Now this thing is an amazing little flashlight. I really do like that. Then in here deeper, we got a Pharaoh rod, a far aserium rod. If you watch my channels, you know all about fer sirium rods. Then it has a little, uh, bellows where you can blow. Fire. You can get some oxygen to some coals, and it's collapsible like a drinking straw, and you can actually probably use it as a drinking straw.
I don't know. I have not done that. That'd be probably a good video idea on here. This is an emergency whistle, another flashlight. It's a real cheap flashlight, but it'll help you. It has a very cheap compass on here. And the most important thing on this entire thing besides the whistle is the thermometer.
That way you can tell how hot it is outside, and that is a pretty neat. Little gadget to have with you when you're into great outdoors. And I know, yes, it looked like a toy, but it does have some effective tools. On here, you have a water bottle holder. You just take this off, wrap this around your, the neck of your water bottle, and then clip it back in here and you're good to go.
Getting on the inside of the bag. Now I put this little light on the outside in between these little tags here, so it will keep it from unzipping and something falling out, so nothing's gonna fall out in here. I have put a emergency water filter. This is the membrane solutions straw type filter, and it is great for emergency situations.
I also put a small little bag in here. This bag is for a meal bank bag. This is for filtering out sediment so you can. Drink it through your membrane solution, water filter. Then I've added some cordage. I went and I got some uh, paracord to put in here and the paracord is amazing stuff everybody knows.
Then it has four or five packs of the emergency drinking water, and these are. Let me see. Contents is 4.225. Fluid ounces of water. So this is not an entire water bottle full. There's 1, 2, 3, 4, there's four of these, so it's gonna come out to 16. Yep, right here. 16 ounces of water. 16.9 to be the exact Mundo.
Then one of the good things that it has in here is, if I could get it all out, is an emergency food ration, and this has 2, 4, 6 emergency food ration bricks in there that you can eat. It has a five year shelf life. It has, uh, let's see, the entire, the entire thing each serving, each brick is 400 calories. So that's gonna get you through, you know, six days, six, 12 days, 15 days, something like that.
If you had to ration it out every other day, that's gonna help you. Then it has emergency Mylar blankets and uh, it has emergency tube tent, and it has. Uh, let's see, what else did it have? An emergency tube tent and an emergency Mylar blanket itself. Now that's it for this survival kit. Now this is a, um, ready, this is the ready bag.
Ready one bag, something like that. And this kit is great because what it does is this is for people. That are typically not survival. Ready? This bag is for someone to take with them. If you have a group of people that don't typically know survival very well, this bag is one to have with you. You can keep it in your car, you can take it with you into the woods or anything like that.
We gotta hurry. We're getting down to the 10 minute mark and I said I was gonna keep these things to 10 minutes. Look at there. I've already talked. Too long and we ain't even gone over the second kit. Now this kit is something else. Let me show you what's inside this kit. This is the ESEE - E-S-E-E. This is a.
A little survival kit, a little survival tin that I picked up at the Smoky Mountain Knife Workshop. When I was up there, it was like $15, $18, something like that, just for the tin. And this tin acts as a plate and it acts as a container to cook stuff in. But inside this, my niece a couple years ago had given me a survival kit and this kit.
It has a bunch of stuff in there. Now we're gonna go over it and I'm gonna let you know would I use it, would I not use it? You let me know in the comments. Would you use it? Would you not use it? Eh? All right, so here we go. Now that didn't come out too well, like I planned it to. Now, here we are. We have an emergency pen, an emergency ink pen, a survival ink pen.
Why would you have an ink pen? Why would you need an ink pen? Hmm, maybe. So you could write down like, I've been to this location, did this keep notes, do whatever. But on this side here, it has that little glass breaking point that you can break glass on a car. So that is okay. All right. Whatever it is what it is.
It came with the kit. I'm not cutting it. We have an emergency blanket, a Mylar blanket. This little thing's folded up all nice and neat. For those of you that are listening, it's silver and it's, uh, silver on both sides. It is 130 by 210 centimeters. Hmm. It's made by showtime emergency blanket. So, all right, so these are cheap, these are small.
They are effective if used correctly. But once you are already freezing cold, it's already too late, it has a couple bandaids. It has a two by two gauze, and it has two 70, 70% isopropyl alcohol. So. You can start a fire with the pads. You can use it to disinfect. You got some bandaids there so they're not, this is real low on the trauma scale Here in this little baggie right here, we have four pieces of, it looks like some kind of natural rope or wicking wax dip tender that you could start a fire with.
It is a fire starting. Fibers that you can fray up and throw a feral rod to it and it'll last longer than just some. It won't last longer than fat wood. If you can find fat wood and if you're anywhere you can find some fat wood. So, but anyway, that's neither here nor there. Now we have a little baggy here with some weights and a couple of little shrimp and some fishing line.
It looks like a couple of fishing hooks in there so you can go fishing, catch you something to eat while you're out in the great outdoors. Now if, if I was to use this, I would add a couple more fishing hooks in there because the weight is negligible. You can add a a thousand hooks in there and it's still not gonna be very heavy.
But I mean, come on. Don't hold me. Do that. You have a wire saw. I do not like wire saws because in my experience they do not work or they break. They always break. But this would, could be handy. Uh, I, I, I reckon if you're cutting something green, because the green will cool it off the liquid inside the green will cool it off.
But anyway, you know, a wire saw. Okay, you have a survival bracelet inside. This bracelet is a bunch of para cord. Uh, you have, it looks like a ferer. It does. It's a ferer rod. It throws some sparks, then it has a whistle, and it has a compass. What else is it missing? That's it. That's all it has. All right.
Ranger I called Ranger to me. Then we have a compass. It is the, uh, it is a very simple, very basic compass, but it does have a, a bezel that turns and you can box your needles and you can give you a bearing. So it has a very basic, simple compass that you can actually, it's better than the one that is included on the survival bracelet, and it's better than the one on the whistle.
Now we have a fer serum rod. Now this fer serum rod, I believe. No, I have not. I get so many of these. You can start a fire with this. You're going to start a fire with this. You can start a fire with a fer serum rod. You can start a fire with any Ferris serum rod.
You have, this is pretty neat. This is a little bit of flashlight. It is a little LED flashlight that you would just hold together and it just provides enough light to give you a little bit of light. It is not a bright flashlight. It's not gonna shine the world out, but it, it'll give you enough light in a dark space to where you can see if you are in a position where you have to have a light at night.
This. It'll work and it'll work. So that's pretty cool. Now you're not gonna travel long distances with that little light. Now it's, it's one of those, it looks like it has a button, uh, a button battery inside it, and it actually has a lock here. It looks like that you can lock it in place and lock it on. So you have to be cognizant of that.
But it's a push button where you just squeeze it together, and it's hard for me to describe it for the listeners, but it's just a little push button flashlight with an LED on one end, on a key chain on the other. So there you go. Now. Getting down to the gritty knit. We have a key chain here with a Phillips head and a flathead screwdriver on it.
And these little items right here are very handy because those are the two most common types of the. Of screws that you will come in contact with and if you need to have a tool, these items are handy. So yes. Alright, we have a carabiner here and this carabiner, it looks like it's the screw on type where it screws on and locks so you can lock it in place to where it will not come undone.
Now typically. Right here it says not for climbing. So why would you put it into the bag if it's not for climbing? Hmm. So, like I said, this kit was one of those little survival kits. As you get online, it has a real compact folding pocket knife. If this is the only knife you have, this was the only knife that'll work.
This thing will work. And uh, yeah, that thing is pretty nifty. Now if I can figure out how to undo it. It does not lock, so be careful. It does not lock, but it has a carabiner on one end, so you can clip it to your outer clothing or something of the such. And then it is a very, it is a very small metal handle, skeleton frame knife, and it is flat ground and it is, it does not have serrated edges on it.
It is. That's the best part about this knife is that it does not have serrations. Most knives these days that are marked quote unquote survival have serrations on it. It is serrated blades. I can't stand that now. It has a little bit of cordage here. Maybe this is six feet or so, and it is very cheesy cordage, but you can use that to start a fire with or tie some stuff up if you needed to.
It has a bellows where you could blow. Let's see here. If you can hear it. There you go. It has the, where you can blow some high pressure air into the fire and get some oxygen in there and let the fire start building up from that, then we have a spoon and lucky there. You pull the lid off of it and it is a knife.
It has a handle type deal that goes over it, and it's a knife inside there. But then, wait, that's not all. On this end, it is a whistle, huh? So you could blow a whistle and
draw some attention. There we go. Okay, so that's got a whistle in it. Last but not least, we have this little card thing. It is a multi-tool type deal. It looks like it could fit in your wallet, and it has some instructions here. It looks like, let's see what it says. It says the multipurpose pocket survival two, tool two.
Number one is a can opener and all right, so number one, and let's see. Number one right here is a can opener. Number two is a knife edge, so it has a cany blade right here. All right, so it is not very sharp, but it is a sharper edge. Okay? Then you have a screwdriver on this side right here. This corner right here is filed down to where it could be used as a flight, his screwdriver.
Then you have a ruler, and it does not have, I mean, it's just got ticking marks on there. It don't have numbers, so you have to use it. However you can use it, then it has a can opener. Okay, we got the can opener thing going. We got the four position wrench. Okay, right here we got it. Looks like it's not even a size 10 millimeter, but smaller than that.
Small, various size nuts and bolt heads. Okay, number seven is a butterfly wrench. What is that? Where's number seven? So number seven is this little line right here is a butterfly wrench. So you can, I guess, I don't know what that would be used for. Then you have a saw blade, which I would probably never use, but it's still there.
In the event of now a direction, ancillary indicator number nine. So that is the sun. Alright. You look at the sun and you can tell which way is going somehow through looking at that. Alright, well, whatever floats your boat. Then a two position wrench down at the bottom for small nuts and bolts and a lanyard hole for, okay.
That's what the, that's what the rope was for, is to put this around your neck. So essentially. It's useless, but if you were in the event of a complete. Meltdown of society, and that's all that you had then that tool right there could, could possibly be used for something. Notice I said possibly. And notice I said could, but all in all, now this, we're take it all out again.
And I had some foam padding that was inside the original kit that, uh, it kind of broke. One of the latches broke, so that's why I put it in here. And I was like, Hey, let's put it in here and let's. See if we can put a kit together. But this pot that the SA survival kit comes in, has a handle and it's kind of reminiscent of the old field kits or the old mess kits where you can cook your food in and.
Looks like it's got a good three or four cups of water that you can boil at a time. You know, maybe, maybe 24, 20, 24 ounces of water, something to that effect, and it'll make a survival kit so you can actually use that. And then you can use the lid to cook stuff as a skillet lid, or you can use it as a plate in the event that you need something to hold your food.
But all in all, that is it. And that is two little survival kits that I have here on hand that I wanted to go over with you today. If you found anything, pretty cool. If you found anything here useful, let me know. If you found this useless, let me know and leave a comment if you like it. Go ahead and send it to somebody else, an outdoor enthusiast that likes this kind of stuff.
Go ahead and share it. If not, then go ahead and share it. Anyway, I appreciate the support and hey, I hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you next time and all your ways acknowledge him. God bless you.