Bullet Proof Bushcraft on a Budget Cover

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Tags: Dave Canterbury,Survival,Bushcraft,Wool Blankets,Tarps,MMS System,Sleeping Bags,Trail Tarps

Video Transcription

morning guys Dave Canterbury the Pathfinder school back through the video in our bulletproof bushcraft on a budget series I think today what we're going to cover is cover and I want to go through it kind of extensively with you we're going to talk about things that are maybe things that people wouldn't consider necessarily common man but I have to understand that when I say common man on a budget that means that sometimes you've got to save up for things that cost a little bit more money if they are bulletproof so not everything that you can do on a budget and do effectively is really what I would consider cheap some things are more expensive but I'm going to show you some options that are fairly inexpensive then I'm going to show you some upgrades that may be a little more expensive but understand that you know if you're going to invest money in something number one your cutting tool should be it that should be where your biggest investment in terms of monetary value goes and beyond that sleep is one of the most important things that you can get in any emergency situation or even just out camping and tramping and hiking around if you look through history those guys didn't mess around with sleeping sleeping and eating we're two things those guys specialized in and a good night's sleep can do a lot for you we're going to talk about ways to effectively get a good night's sleep some of them on a very inexpensive budget some of them on a little bit higher budget we're going to talk about all those things today so stay with me guys okay guys I've got three examples of tarps here now the one example I don't have laying here is a still night tarp so my tarps are definitely lightweight but most of the time unless you make it yourself and buy the material they're fairly expensive when I say fairly expensive I mean they're going to be in the 65 to 100 dollar range most of the time sometimes even more you can check our website we've got a couple tarps within that sixty five to a hundred dollar price range made out of silicon or trail tarp and the adventure 2 tarp or both in that price range I believe if you really want to go budget budget you can just get a regular polypropylene cart this one happens to be camouflage it's 4 mil it's six by eight you want to stay away from three mil three mil is a little bit too thin for a good bulletproof shelter unless

something very very temporary and if you're going to go three mill in that case you might as well just buy a painter's dropcloth because you're going to do a lot more for your money out of that then you would have tarp but for mill is a pretty good thickness that will last you pretty much at least a season if you had to leave it up it's going to get ripped up and tore up in the wind but it will last a pretty good season if it has to this one six by eight this is about four to five bucks depending on where you buy it this one came from my nards I think and it was about $4.99 somewhere in that neighborhood for six by eight they go up in price from there but you can buy these all the way up to like 12 by 16 18 by 20 but then you're up in the price range but you're also up on the amount of cover that you have so it depends on where they're trying to go lightweight or not six bytes big enough to cover one person easy enough and for an emergency shelter you know this thing is going to fold up very very small to put in your pack and doesn't weigh anything so if you're looking for small amounts of weight or you're worried about the way you carry or you have a handicap or a condition that prevents you from carrying a lot of weight this is a decent way to carry a budget cover type element or microclimate that doesn't cost a lot of money the other way to carry something light would be go to sill line which again is going to cost you a little bit more money the other two tarps I have sitting here are both canvas tarps and I used canvas tarps as an example because there are lots of canvas tarps on the market and in some ways you get what you pay for in some ways you're just trying to get by this tarp this green tarp again it came from Menards it's a canvas tarp it has grommets in about eight or ten places on the tarp it has stone in triangles to reinforce where the grommet holes are at it's not real thick heavy canvas it's pretty thin canvas probably nine ounce and it is pretty lightweight a tarp like this and this one here I believe again is a six by eight tarp this one is about thirty-five dollars but for thirty-five bucks are getting something's going to last a lot longer than the season now how waterproof is this thing probably not very because it's going to be untreated canvas it's going to be waterproofed at a point where the fabric swells up and holds a little bit of water but it's not going to be waterproof it's going to be water resistant

it's probably not treated with any kind of flame-retardant so it's going to be susceptible to flame the bad thing about tarps like the polypropylene and the Sun is they are very very susceptible to flame if a spark hits it it's going to be a whole get out the duct tape something like this you've got a little bit more time to get rid of that spark before it's going to burn a big hole in it but something that's not treated it's not a fire retardant canvas it's still going to burn eventually but again sometimes you get what you paid for 35 bucks you're getting a decent tarp with a decent weight ratio between too heavy and too light and you're getting it for a good price so there are disadvantages you have to understand too that this tarp is Derrick farías woodland woodsman trail tarp this one is 8 foot by 8 foot it has tie outs instead of grommets and again normally if you're going to get tie out on a tarp you're going to pay more money for the tie outs then you're going to four grommets so you have to think about that this one is probably 12 ounce canvas you can tell that it's treated it's very waxy feeling so it's going to be water retardant it's probably going to be or water resistant probably going to be flame retardant I actually have tarps made out of this material that have had water sitting on them for long periods of time that did not leak water even in a puddle of water so they're very very water resistant they're going to be more flame resistant obviously than this because they're probably treated with a flame-retardant as well and the difference in weight between something like this and something like this is probably almost doubled even though this is a 6 by 8 this is an 8 by 8 this is a bigger tarp but it weighs double what this one weighs so if you're worried about weight this is going to be a concern but if you want bullet proof this is it this is bulletproof

but again price point wise budget wise you're talking about something that costs $100 versus something that costs $35 so again you kind of get what you pay for now you can get heavy canvas tarps like this with grommet holes on them with grommet holes in them like this off the internet for the 50 dollar range somewhere in that neighborhood 50 60 dollars so you can get this tarp cheaper if you're willing to forgo the tie outs the tie outs make just think more bulletproof because you don't have any grommet holes they're going to tear out over time or in wind or by being stretched whereas these you have a possibility the grommets tearing out on this one you probably don't because it's got tie out sewn into it alright

it's got heavy-duty nylon tie outs on it so I wanted to go over those cover elements with you to make you understand a little bit or help you understand the things that I've learned over time that you know something like this will last you for a season is great for an emergency it's great if you're on a budget but it's not a very bulletproof solution something like this is more bulletproof so lie is more bulletproof but both of these are going to be susceptible a little bit to flame too so my very susceptible to flame this one is going to be heavier than silly but it's going to be a heavy duty or fabric and more heavy and resistant to winds and things like that and probably keep the warmth in butter if you have a reflector fire going obviously then something that's made out of nylon something like this is going to be probably your most bomb-proof solution other than a canvas tent would be a heavy duty canvas tarp it's made out like a 12-ounce treated canvas that's waxy feeling so you know it's going to be water resistant you know it's going to be flame resistant you know it's going to last a long time doesn't have any grommets in it so do I buy three of these over the next three years at 35 bucks apiece or do I buy one of these that lasts me for ten years that's the difference between common man and common sense common sense tells me spend the money now and have them for a long period of time and have something I know is going to be good now if I can't carry this much weight then I've got to change my options a little bit but that depends on you and what you're looking to carry so now we've talked about a microclimate let's talk about blankets for a minute versus sleeping bags okay guys so let's talk about wool blankets versus sleeping bags for a minute okay don't kid yourself and believe no matter what you've heard or what anybody tells you or what you've heard me say in past videos or talk about that when it gets below freezing you're going to be very comfortable in just a wool blanket because you're not okay you can't get good high quality wool blankets that are very thick and very big that you can wrap up in and you can be pretty comfortable below freezing but once it gets down below 20 degrees you're going to have problems getting real comfortable in just a wool blanket unless you spend the money and I mean spend the money on a good one so for this series let's just talk a little bit about that

let's talk about wool blankets first versus sleeping bags what's the advantage of a wool blanket versus sleeping bag well if it's not 100% wool there's not a whole lot of advantages because it has to be able to be fire retardant it has to be water-resistant it has to hold its insulative value when it's wet and that only can be accomplished by a hundred percent wool if it's not 100 percent wool you're not going to get that so things like this casualty blanket that are 70/30

while this thing is going to be really nice and warm especially when it's you know 40 degrees or whatever the case may be 4550 degrees this thing is going to be plenty toasty and it was 15 bucks once it gets cold not so much if it gets wet not so much it's not going to be water resistant it's going to absorb water because cotton absorbs water whereas wool doesn't wool repels water so you've got to think about those things as well so if I'm going to carry a blanket I want to get something on a budget and I can find a 70/30 like this casualty blanket it's going to keep me warm in fair weather but it's not going to keep me warm and drastically cold weather the other side of that coin is you're probably not going to find a blanket like this not even an army blanket that is the size of a handmade wool blanket or like a six-point Hudson Bay blanket that's a queen size or a king size blanket and that's a big key element with wool blankets to keep warm your colder weather is they have to be large enough that you can't roll up in them and overlap the fabrics and create dead air space and we've talked about that in other videos on how to use a wool blanket properly I have a video where I talk to West Virginia EMS wilderness survival for an overnight rescue and we talked about wool blanket so we showed how to wrap up in a wool blanket and the big advantage to a large wall blanket is you can do that so if you've got a blanket like this I would suggest buying two but just hope that it's not going to get too damp because it will keep you warm if you roll up into an overlapping material but it's not going to keep you dry that's important to understand it's not going to keep you warm when it's wet I shouldn't say it's not going to keep you dry it won't keep you warm when it's wet at all this is a military wool blanket okay in a military wool blankets are very very thin even if they're hundred percent wool which this one is they're very very thin so again take two these are twin size blankets they're not Queens or not Kings they're twins get two of these things and some together if that's what you have to do so that you can wrap up in layers of wool and you'll be better off another big advantage to a blanket is I can throw this thing over me for another piece of outerwear I can sit in front of the fire with this thing around me it's fire retardant because it's made out of wool this one being hundred percent is going to be very fire retardant so if a spark hits it or something like that it's not just going to burn a hole straight through it I'm not going to wrap up my sleeping bag in front of my campfire so this is a big advantage over wool you can also use this for a shelter if you had to being as water-resistant it will pre create a semi microclimate for you to keep you warm or to keep weather off of you to some extent by using a wool blanket as a tarp so there are big advantages over over a sleeping bag with wool blanket as long as you understand the limitations of the wool blanket you have now a wool blanket like this this is a handmade hand loomed out of virgin wool blanket this is not factory loomed this is a hand loomed will blanket and you can see the difference between the size of this blanket rolled up and the size of this blanket rolled up is a huge huge difference ok this is a queen-size hand-woven wool blanket this is an heirloom type thing you're going to pass this down to your grandkids but the price of this is way up there ten times or more the price of a blanket like this fifteen dollars three hundred and fifty dollars this blanket will keep you warm below freezing if you wrap up in it like I've shown in other videos and overlap the layers this blanket is never going to keep you warm when it gets below freezing so again you have to understand limitations and you have to take advantage of them or you have to spend the money now this thing is way beyond common man as far as that goes but again sometimes you get what you pay for you can find Hudson Bay blankets if you find a good six point on eBay sometimes you can find them in 150 to 200 dollar range worth every penny of it if you can find one that big for sure I would never say don't buy that even if you're on a budget save the money up for a goodwill blanket if that's the route you want to go okay

so that covers wool blankets advantages disadvantages the one disadvantages to a wool blanket over sleeping bag is the size the bulk the weights not much different if you get a good sleeping bag like an MS sleep system we'll talk about in a minute the weights not much different this blanket right here doesn't weigh any more than mms sleep system does for sure the bulk is about the same as an amendment sleep system and it has advantages but it also has disadvantages where it's not going to keep you as warm as that mms sleep system don't ever let anyone fool you an MMS sleep system will keep you warm just about no matter what okay so let's talk about sleeping bags this is my mms sleep system you can see how big it is now bulk it is in its smallest element now I do not use the green bag the mms sleep system or the modular sleep system for the military uses three different components it has a bivy bag which is a waterproof gore-tex bag that's called the bivi and it looks like this it's camouflage it's 100% waterproof you can lay in a puddle with this thing and you're not going to get wet I've done it there's no question about it and then it comes with two other bags one of which I don't even have in this bag a black bag which is called the Arctic bag and this is how I use the system I just use the black bag and the bivvy

and I've slept on top of nine inches of snow in minus 13 degree weather with just these two items wearing minus 33 degree wool underwear and nothing else and been plenty warm woke up the next morning with a big ring around my bed from where the snow had melted around me because I was putting off so much heat sleeping bags have advantages of having lofting in them that keeps them warm that will trap dead air space and that's important that's where your warmth comes from is trapping that warm air that your body is giving off inside of something the disadvantage to this the big disadvantage is

number one you're not going to use something like this around a campfire because it will burn cortex well you'll burn a hole right in this you'll burn a hole right in this number two is that when you sweat inside of this thing unless you dry this out every single day the insulation is going to get wet inside here and eventually it's going to freeze so you have to think about those things do I have the ability to dry that back out if it gets wet from perspiration the gore-tex is a little bit breathable but it's still going to hold moisture in here so you're still gonna have to dry this thing out on a daily basis especially in colder weather so that it doesn't freeze up on you but the advantage of something like this is packability and obviously like I said it's not that much smaller than a wool blanket even without the green bag the weight is about the same but I do have the ability with this to just lay on the ground even in a driving rain cover myself up with this baby sack and I'm not going to get wet there's no question about that now I'm going to be warm there's no question about that so again there's advantages and disadvantages to any system that you want to use but if someone was going to ask me what system should I buy or where should I spend my money to get a bomb-proof sleep system now I'm going to get a good night's sleep with I would tell you to buy in the Sleep System and not a wool blanket even though I love using wool blankets you know if you're asking me if I'm buying one thing and I can only afford to buy one thang what am I going to buy it's going to be this now let's talk about the price these things used to be very expensive they were two hundred and fifty dollars plus even on ebay for a long time I've seen these lately at gun shows the entire system the three bags and not this waterproof bag but a compression bag that it goes in this one has to be waterproof for seventy-five dollars so if I spend $75 on that system and then I bucks spend another 25 bucks on a good waterproof bag a 30 liter bag like this I've got 100 bucks in a Sleep System that I know is bulletproof bomb-proof beyond a shadow of a doubt as long as I don't want to use that thing as a shelter system to sit under like I could use it a wool blanket for a tarp I can't do that with this but this is going to keep me dry no matter what it's going to keep me warm no matter what that's a big advantage to the MMS leap sis okay so what else can you do if you can't afford 275 bucks well you can combine a wool blanket with a sleeping bag if you can find one cheap this sleeping bag here is a very good pick and find I guess that's what you want to call it this came from an army surplus store for $20 and this is an e-coat at sleeping bag and they're very expensive to buy they're made for Recon Marines they have the bottom of them opens up so that you can sleep in it with your boots on if you need to it zips completely opened into almost like a blanket and it has a split in it right here so that you can actually use this thing if you wanted to as a poncho liner it's a 40-degree bag that means it's going to be comfortable down to 40 degrees if you put this inside of a bivy you're going to get a little bit more out of it if you put nice warm clothing inside of it you're going to get a little bit more out of it but it's a really nice Brown bag it's got a mummy hood on it it's made by Eco tat and it was made for the military but I got this one for 20 bucks so you can find good deals on sleeping bags if you look hard enough does that mean you're going to find one every day for 20 bucks like this absolutely it does not this could be a once-in-a-lifetime find but their sleeping bags out there you can find at reasonable prices and if you combine this with a small wool blanket of some kind like a military wool blanket then you can take advantages of both systems or both options because you can use that blanket and you can use this the bulk of this is not near what a Sleep System is the weight is not near what a Sleep System is so if you can stuff this into some kind of compression bag like I've got this one in a 15 liter compression bag or dry bag I should say and then you can stuff a wool blanket at the same time or carry a wool blanket then you can take advantage of the best of both worlds and you can keep pretty warm even in below freezing weather with both systems but again you've got to remember that this thing is going to hold moisture and it's got to be dried out in cold weather so if the insulation doesn't freeze up on you that's an important thing to remember with sleeping bags and a big disadvantage over things like wool blankets is that they don't breathe very well most of the time so they're going to eventually freeze up if you're not careful with them alright as you can see this thing pulls up a lot smaller than the mms does if I really want to compress the thing down it'll get really really small and down to freezing I'd be pretty happy with just this and maybe a wool blanket shard like a lightweight military wool blanket that was at least you know 70/30 if not 100% wool and some good undergarments you know I'd be happy with this and this was 20 bucks so you can get budget items that are bulletproof or bushcrafting or for camping or tramping or whatever you want to call it you just got to keep your eyes open but if I had to answer the questions I get a lot on you know PMS and emails of what should I buy to keep myself warm when I'm out you know camping in the woods or whatever the case may be I would tell you that unless you can afford it good wool blanket and I mean a good expensive wool blanket like a Hudson Bay or something that's handmade get an MMS sleep system and be done with it okay guys well I'm Dave Canberra at the Pathfinder school and I hope that this answered some of the questions that I've had about different types of cover elements from wool blankets of sleeping bags I also hope that it answered your questions about what should I buy or what should I use or what should I get if I only have so much money I appreciate you joining me for this video I thank you for anything you do for me for my school for my family for my sponsors of my affiliates and all my friends I'll be back the other video as soon as I can thanks guys

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