REVIEW: Survival Hax Fire Starter Flint w/Waterproof Tinder Holder

Here’s the recent review on the Survival Hax fire starter flint w/waterproof tinder holder by our guest blogger OmegaMan:

We recently got to try the new survival hacks firestarter flint and waterproof tinder holder kit. It doesn’t yet have a fancy name but that’s what it’s called.

Survival Hax

It came in I slim 1″x 1″box that is 6 inches long. Inside it contained a 6 inch long/quarter inch thick spark stick rated for 20,000 strikes!

It comes with a beautiful durable para cord wrist strap. We wish it would’ve said how long the para cord is if you unwind it.

Attached on the wrist strap is a handheld stryker tool with a concave edge to easily slide down the rod without slipping off. Also on the striker tool is a built-in can opener stamped with a small ruler. Because the striker rod comes with a beautiful black coating on it we found it took a few strikes to wear off but finally produced some amazing sparks by holding the concave edge of the striker tool and running it down the side of the rod. We also sometimes achieved  better sparks by just using the flat edge of the tool against the striker rod.

We got a kick out of the bright orange whistle, which lets out an ear piercing shrill when we tried it.

A bonus surprise was a little black tinderbox keychain about the size of a pill holder. Inside it was filled with a little supply of tinder. We’re not sure what type of tinder but possibly a waxy substance.

As with most of the products we tried from Survival Hax, once again this is a nice little durable survival tool. We do wish there was maybe a few more instructions that explained everything a little better besides just a few comments on the outside of the box.

This tool speaks for itself and could definitely save a life out in the wilderness.

Here’s a link to check it out with a nice discount code if you’d like to further enhance your survival kit:

Survival Hax Fire Starter Flint w/Waterproof Tinder Holder

use discount code SH50FIRE at checkout

What Do Rat Whiskers And Surviving Have in Common?

by Guest Blogger OmegaMan

Psychiatrist Curt RichterEver heard of Psychiatrist Curt Richter? He studied the consequences of emotional stress when trying to survive. He noticed that when living things are subjected to great pressure, many will just give up and die. If the stress was psychological, then why did the subjects mind and body appear to collapse?

In short, Richter was experimenting putting rats in a tub of water. At room temperature the rat could swim about 80 hrs non-stop before giving up. If he stressed the rat by lowering or raising the water temperature or even blowing air into its face, a rat could still swim between 20 and 40 hrs. He also found that once a rat picked its direction, it would generally stick with either a clockwise or counter clockwise direction without changing. Many things from ants to lobsters will do this if one or their antennae or whiskers are cut also.

Richter decided to study the effects on direction by cutting the whiskers on just one side of a rats face. By accident…guess what they discovered? The rat swam for only a few minutes, gave up and sank to the bottom! Just for the record, they actually rescued it.

How could this happen? What effect could cutting whiskers have on survival longevity? Well, upon investigation, it wasn’t so much in the cutting of the whiskers as it was in the procedure. He found that his assistants had un-intentionally frightened and stressed the rat by first capturing it in a firmly held black bag and then dropping it into water. It was the “trauma” induced fear response that had sent the rat into over stimulated exhaustion.

Curt Richter also found if he removed the rat just before sinking, let it rest for a few minutes, the rat would relax and seem to realize it in fact that it could survive. If thrown back into the water, it could swim for hours. If it was allowed to play with the stressful black bag first and then thrown back into the water and rescued several times…its survival training would cause it to perform better than those rats without training. Interesting how this relates to the survivability of humans thrown into their own survival situation.

In summary, it was concluded that momentary “HOPE” had an extreme influence on helping the body & mind, cope with an adverse survival situation.

Remember…Never panic! Never give up…!