Hagwood Firestarter Kit

Recently I was contacted by Chris at Hagwood to check out his Firestarter kit, I of course jumped on the opportunity since I like to have things in my bug out bag that will help my family and I survive longer. I was very intrigued with the idea of a fire starter that would burn even when it was wet, not that I have to worry too much about that here in OK, but knowing that I would be able to do so is still very cool.

When the package showed up I was really impressed with the attention to detail that was put into packaging up all of the individual pieces of the kit, even the packets of sawdust were in there own neat little packet so they can be used individually. 

I was very pleased that the entire kit was vacuum sealed and as small as it is, when I tossed it into my bag it takes up very little room. I am sure that the new tins are pretty cool also, one is on my list to pick up soon.

I was curious to see if the wood actually lit when wet so I dunked it in a cup of water and let it sit for a bit while I was getting some stuff done around the house. I can tell you that it for sure will light even when wet and it will continue to burn, needless to say I was really impressed with that. 

I had also heard that it had a distinct smell when it's burning, and people have asked for a candle to be made with that smell in it. I agree, I would also like to have a scented candle that smells like burning Hagwood, it's hard to explain the smell but I can tell you it is very pleasant.

Overall, if you are looking for a great fire starter kit to have in your B.O.B. I would highly suggest grabbing a kit from www.hagwoodusa.com you will be glad that you did.

SpartanTC81 Sticker Orders

You can order your stickers using the "Buy Now" button below. I am placing the order for the stickers today and should have them ready to ship within a few weeks.

They are 3" Round Vinyl Stickers made by Weapon Stickers.

Stickers

1 Sticker $2.00 USD 5 Stickers $9.00 USD 10 Stickers $18.00 USD

War Sport AR Case

 

 Today I received the War Sport AR case with pre cut foam, and to say that I was impressed would be an understatement. At the price point of $75 I was a little skeptical that it would be any better than the cheap cases you see at Walmart or the local gun shop, but this case is far better.

As soon as I removed it from the shipping box I noticed that the case was well made and just discreet enough to not scream "LOOK AT ME I'M CARRYING A RIFLE!!". There are multiple places on the case to put locks on if you are planning to travel with it, and the case seems rigid enough to withstand the abuse that most luggage sees during air travel. While it's not the quality of a Pelican case, it is much better quality than the usual cheap cases that are out there.

When I opened up the case I was impressed with the high density foam that was used inside, and that the cutout would work for nearly any AR load out that I currently have setup, or most any load out I have seen posted on various forums and pages. Having messed with the foam for the pelican case I use for traveling with handguns this was a breath of fresh air. Not having to mess with cutting or pulling foam is awesome, it's nice to just  remove the sections that I will be storing items in and not have to worry about over cutting a section.

Here are some of the specs directly from War Sports for the case-

Pre-cut cavities for the rifle, two mags slots (fits 2-3 mags each slot), suppressor slot, ammo/misc slot.

Weighs only 8 lbs.

Internal Dimensions are 41 x 13 x 4.5 

Fits most stocks and barrels up to 20"

As you can see in the above picture the inside of the case is universally cut, but still fits my rifle well enough to keep it from moving around when it's closed up. Needless to say, I would recommend this case to anyone who is looking for a nice case on a budget. I am personally thinking there will be a second one on order for my Blackout here in the very near future.

Chase Tactical QRK (Quick Response Kit)

Over the past few months I have been looking for a medical kit that I can keep in the car and grab whenever I head out to the range. With the variety of kits that are currently out there on the market there were quite a few options that caught my eye, yet one of the biggest issues that I kept running into was the price. The average "pocket" medical kit is running around $150 plus shipping costs, while they are all very comprehensive they are still out of the price range that I could afford. (Quick Disclaimer: Make sure to take a first aid course and become properly trained on the uses of the items included in any kit that you decide to get.)

Recently Chase Tactical announced that they would be releasing the QRK (Quick Response Kit), and I was happy to see that the price of the kit was much less than the other "pocket" medical kits out there without sacrificing the quality of the actual kit. At the price point of $98.95 plus $6 for shipping costs the price was within the budget that I had set for myself, and I was happy to see that there were a few items in the kit that I had trained people on when I was instructing Self Aid Buddy Care (SABC) with the California Air National Guard.

After talking with Chase Tactical about the kit a few times I was happy with the construction of the kit and the thought that was put behind each piece of that is included in the kit.

Items Included:
2 Pairs of Nitrate Gloves
1 M.A.T. Tourniquet ( MAT Tourniquet video )
1 Blood Stopper
1 QuickClot 25 gram Sponge
1 Triangular Bandage with 2 Safety Pins
1 Roll Krinkle Gauze
1 Emergency Blanket
2 Sudecon Wipes

When the kit came in earlier this week I was excited to break it down into all of the separate items and reacquaint myself with the uses of each one. While it has been a little over 2 years since I last taught an SABC class I am still very familiar with many of the items in the kit and their uses. After I had opened the bag and set all of the individual components of the kit out I was happy to see that this kit is very well thought out and in the event that something terrible were to happen, this kit would give you the ability to save your life or the life of someone else.

The M.A.T. Tourniquet was one of two items in the kit that I have not seen before. The first aid kits that I used for training in the Air Force were C.A.T. (Combat Application Tourniquet) which is a very light and small piece for the kits, but is not as advanced as the M.A.T. (Mechanical Advantage Tourniquet) which seems to be much easier to use one handed. You can see how the M.A.T. is applied in this video.

The Sudecon Wipes were the other item in the kit that I have not had any experience or training with, but after doing a little research on them I thought that they were a great addition to the overall kit. Sudecon wipes are used to neutralize pepper spray and tear gas in the event that you do not have running water available, the reason that the kit comes with 2 wipes is because the process of using them generally requires that you use both for the decontamination process. With the uncertainty of what accidents or attacks could possibly happen in today's world I feel that these are just another great item to have in your kit.

There are a few items that I will be personally adding to my QRK that I feel will just further the effectiveness of the overall kit. The first will be a good set of Medical Shears to help cut away clothing that could possibly get in the way of a wound, and also to cut strips of clothing to be used for slings or splints. The second will be a pack of Oral IV to help replenish electrolytes and aid in hydration in a stressful situation where being alert is very important.

Overall I am extremely impressed with the QRK that Chase Tactical has put together, even though there are a few items that I will be adding out of my own personal preference, it is a great emergency kit that with the proper training could possibly save your life or the life of someone else. I highly recommend checking out their Facebook page Chase Tactical, and if you are interested in getting this kit contacting them to get on the pre-order for it.

First Aid and EDC Kits

For the past few months I have been thinking about whether or not I had all of the items that I would need if I found myself in a situation like the Boston Marathon bombing, or the Aurora CO movie theater shooting, or any other disaster where people are seriously injured. Sure I have a first aid kit in the car but what good would that do me in the event of something happening ? Granted there might be time to run to the car and get the kit, but would someone's life or death hang in the balance? I have also thought about whether or not my first aid training is still fresh enough in my mind that I could apply it in an emergency situation.

The questions above are just some of what I have been asking myself over the past few weeks, and I have forced myself to take a long hard look at what the answers really are.

When I was in high school I spent a couple summers working at the local water park as a lifeguard, the amount of training we went through to become certified was sufficient enough to possibly save someone in the event that they were drowning, or had injured their neck, and a variety of other possible scenarios. Thankfully I never had to use any of the training in an actual situation, but the lessons that I learned 15 years ago still bounce around in my head because I had some great trainers who wanted to make sure that we wouldn't forget what we had been trained to do if we had to act in a stressful situation.

Later on when I joined the Air Force I received basic Self Aid Buddy Care training, while not extremely in depth it was a training that I was required to go through yearly. There was a lot to be learned and I can remember when I was a younger airman thinking that I would never have to use any of the information that was being crammed into my head. Fortunately to this day I still have not had to use any of the training, but I am still glad that there is the information in my head on how to apply a tourniquet, how to apply quick clot, or even how to treat a sucking chest wound.

I believe that it is very important for everyone to have some sort of training in life saving techniques because there may come a time where you are the first to respond to a tragedy or event that has happened around you, and the application of basic first aid may just save someones life, or maybe even yours.

Over the next few weeks I will be gathering more information of items to put into an EDC kit that you could possibly keep in a cargo pocket, or a purse. I will also be reviewing the QRK (Quick Response Kit) from Chase Tactical, and hopefully getting my hands on a few other kits from companies. I ask that you bear with me in the process of this as it may take awhile to gather up all of the information and links that I need to write the posts.

For now I leave you with this question. What have you done to prepare yourself that in the event you or others are injured?

CMMG Conversion Kit

With as much as I like to head out to the range I knew that there was one of two things that I could do to ease the pain of ammo prices. The first was get back into reloading and get setup to load .223, and the second was to get a conversion kit to shoot .22LR out of my AR-15. Since I already have a Dillon Square Deal B for reloading 9mm getting a setup to do .223 would have required a completely new press and that is a pretty generous setup cost to get started. The choice was very clear which route I needed to head, so I started looking to see what conversion kits were actually in stock and available.

The two that I was able to find were the CMMG Alpha and the CMMG Bravo both had pretty decent reviews on the forums that I was able to find, and I already had experience with the Alpha kit from a prior build that I had done using it. When I had the Alpha kit I put around 450-500 rounds through it and saw a fair share of failure to feed and failure to ejects from it, and I also had to sand down the side of the mag to get it to work correctly with the lower. Needless to say those two things were a problem in my book, the feeding and ejection issues more than the mag of course.

So I went with the CMMG Bravo Stainless Steel kit, at the price point of $229 having the bolt group be stainless is a big plus, much smoother finish and a lot easier to clean. The conversion kit comes with 1- 25 round magazine (if you are in a state that limits CMMG does offer other magazine size choices) and the Stainless Bolt Group.

When the kit arrived I opened it up and checked everything out like I do with all new parts that I order. I was immediately impressed with how much better the stainless steel felt and looked compared to the Phosphated bolt I had with the Alpha kit. It doesn't feel slick like Nickel Boron, but it does allow you to slide your finger across the surface without feeling like it's gritty. The magazine was the same type as what I had received with the Alpha kit, but surprisingly this time it fit perfect into the magazine well without having to sand it down, so I was pretty happy about that.

First time I dropped the kit in at the range, everything fit perfectly and my Geissele trigger even functioned with the kit installed. During that trip to the range I had put about 3 magazines worth through it just to test it out and make sure that everything was functioning as advertised. During those 75 rounds I did not have a single failure to feed or failure to eject, The one issue I did have with this trip was the fact that the CMMG brand magazine is a bit finnicky and the rounds sit kind of loose when loaded into it. This did not affect the function of the kit whatsoever but it was just a bit of a gripe that I have with it. After this trip I decided that with as dirty as .22LR is I wanted to see just how many rounds could be run through the kit before it started having any malfunctions.

Today I went out to the range and used the kit, this was the fourth trip out and I had a box of CCI AR Tactical .22 and 3 magazines worth of just random .22 that I had sitting in a box from a previous trip to the range to make a grand total of 450 rounds that I planned to send down range. The bolt group still had not been cleaned and the other three trips to the range I fired 3-4 mags worth each time so I knew that this trip would be pushing the bolt group close to 800 rounds without cleaning it. My buddy Joe went with me and we took turns loading the mags and emptying them shooting at the big hunk of metal the local range has setup at 100 yards (and surprisingly hitting it a lot more times than expected with the wind blowing). We rapid fired through mags and would put another one in right after and rapid fire again, and the bolt group just kept eating all of the ammo we were feeding it. Finally after about 8 mags worth we experienced one failure to feed, I am willing to say that it was not the conversion kit that caused the problem but the CMMG magazine. Once that malfunction was cleared we ran the rest of the ammo through it and there was not a single malfunction after that.

When I removed the bolt group from the upper receiver it was really dirty and was a bit stubborn to get out, but it was still functioning perfectly and still eating what ever brand ammo we were feeding it. It seems that the stainless steel does a much better job of self cleaning than the phosphate bolt group did, it also had a much smoother charge than the bolt group from the Alpha kit, even after 750-800 rounds being put through without cleaning.

When comparing notes on the two different kits there is no doubt in my mind that I would make the choice to pay a little more for the Bravo kit, it is overall a much better bolt group and for only $30 more it works much better than the Alpha kit. The greatest part of either kit is the fact that you can still get out to the range and enjoy shooting your AR, but for a lot less cash spent on ammo. Also with the market being like it is currently I know that I am glad to have stocked up on a lot of .22LR beforehand because with this kit I am able to conserve the small amount of .223 I was able to get before it was all sold out.