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Altoids Survival Kit - Blade HQ

Today we're going to cover an Altoids survival kit built by the guys over at Blade HQ for Tim at EverydayTacticalVids. We are going to include their Youtube video and tell you what we think.

NOTE - You can also find our own Dart Frong Wilderness Survival Altoids survival kit video HERE .

Blade HQ's Version

The guys over at Blade HQ built an Altoids tin survival kit and sent it over to Tim from EverydayTacticalVids to test it out and see how it works. He takes it out into the woods and basically performs a field test of everything in the kit. He shows us what worked and gives his thoughts on what could have been done better.


Check out their video:





Our Thoughts

We thought that the did a pretty good job of constructing a kit. They could have improved a few things though. The first thing I think that they missed was something to actually carry water. The kit is really small so it isn't possible to include a bottle but you do need something to hold water. Without a container the water purification tablets are pretty much useless. Tim pointed out that they should have included a plastic bag. He was able to find a plastic bottle by the side of the river which he used to hold water. He was able to use the tablets to purify the water which ended up working out pretty well. He dropped the tablets in the water and left it for about 30 minutes and he was all set. While this was pretty resourceful I think it is kind of cheating. To really test the kit for wilderness survival you should only use what can be found in nature or what is included in the kit. If he were really lost in the wilderness, far from civilization, he probably wouldn't have been able to find a plastic bottle to use.

The fish hook included was part of a flat metal card which also includes an arrowhead . It isn't an ideal hook but it works. Tim was able to sucessfully catch a fish with the hook included but he thought that real fishing hooks would work better. We agree with this. A normal fishing hook would make things a bit easier. We actually recommend bringing a few different hooks of varying sizes since they take up so little space. The kit included a cheeto which he initially used as bait. He had a few fish on the line with it but eventually lost the cheeto. He ended up using a work and eventually caught a fish. He recomended having more things that could be used as bait in the kit (or even a lure). I kind of agree with this. The idea of having a cheeto is actually pretty good since it gives you something to work with which means you don't have to go searching for bait. More bait in the kit could be pretty useful.

The kit included multiple things that could be used to start a fire. One of the items was a Warhead Cylinder Lighter. This is a tiny, refillable, water proof lighter that is made of steel. Tim opted to use the ligther along with some quick tinder to start his fire. He didn't need anything else for tinder, just some small bits of kindling and thats it. Quick tinder (Tinder-Quik) is really neat and looks like a better option compared to cotton balls (bit more expensive thought). It is easy to light, burns for a couple minutes, is waterproof, and burns when wet.

We liked the choice of the Leatherman - Squirt PS4. It is a really nice choice. It beats the multi-tool we selected for our own Altoids survival kit. They also included a nice flashlight, the Fenix E05. The Warhead Cylinder Lighter is pretty neat. It isn't as cheap as a Bic lighter but seems to be way higher quality.

List of what was included: