RokJok
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2000
- Messages
- 4,198
Below are brief reviews of several survival manuals that I either checked out of my local library or bought. In the reviews an "item" is an aspect of survival like firestarting, finding/purifying water, making a shelter, etc. It is sometimes referred to as a "concept" as well. It will probably take a couple of posts to fit all the reviews into this thread.
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"SAS Survival Guide" Collins GEM small pocket edition
John Wiseman, HarperCollins Publishers
383 pages, 3.5" x 5" x 7/8" thick
Scale of 1-10: 10
This manual is my personal favorite. Thus it will be the standard to which the others are judged. I will admit that I have not read this manual cover to cover. I find myself dipping into it often, but seem to quickly hit "information saturation" because the info is densely packed into the pages. Thus I read bits and pieces of it, put it down while I contemplate as I go about other daily activities the info I've garnered from the book, then come back to to the book to get more info. It is not perfect, but IMHO it is the best survival manual I've seen thus far, partially due to the fact that it is small enough to always have with me and partially due to the fact that there is a LOT of information packed into that small size.
Good Points:
- Very small size. Literally shirt-pocketable.
- Semi-flexible plasticized tagboard covers and rather slickly finished paper pages. This should help prevent the book from absorbing water or water vapor and deteriorating. Interestingly, the two endpapers are of a coarser unfinished paper that, as someone pointed out, can be more readily used as tinder.
- Seems sturdily constructed. For as much as I've hauled this book around in pockets and cracked into it reading, the only wear showing is that the outer cover corners are getting a bit dog-earred.
- Well organized, easily navigable, and clearly marked. Each section title is printed on the outer margin of every page. This wastes some real estate on the page. As a positive aspect, I suspect that making the outer margin larger will minimize blurring of the text & pictures if the book gets wet.
- Comprehensive information. Shows a few options on how to perform each item (fire, water gathering, shelter, etc) for various environments around the world. Does not restrict its info to one climate or terrain type.
- Many enlightening drawings. Some (most?) drawings are not of the finished item. Rather they show the item partially done, which illustrates how to make the inner "bones" of the item, not just what the outer "skin" is supposed to look like when it's completed. Other items will have multiple drawings showing various states of completion to guide you along.
- Colored watercolor paintings to help identify edible plants & fungi, medicinal plants, poisonous fungi, and dangerous animals.
- Cheap. About $10 US dollars.
Bad Points:
- While it is small in size, it is a bit of weight in the pocket. It is heavy enough to weigh down a shirt pocket or, in my case, swing about quite a bit in a BDU cargo pocket.
- No index. Given the size of this manual, that can lead to time-consuming hunting through the pages if the info you seek isn't mentioned in the table of contents.
- VERY small type size. It would be difficult to read in less than optimal lighting.
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"Out Smart In The OutBack" pocket survival card pack
Safari Club International Foundation, www.outsmartoutback.com
33 double-sided laminated cards, 3.5" x 2.5" x 3/8" thick
Scale of 1-10: 8 (high points for pocketability, minus points for lack of comprehensive info)
I paid $8 USD at a hunting & fishing show from Peter Kummerfeldt whose website is www.outdoorsafe.com (good guy & site IMHO)
Good Points:
- Even smaller & more pocketable than the SAS manual.
- Laminated cards will be even less inclined to soak up water than the SAS book.
- Sturdy. The laminated cards are held together with a large plastic rivet in an upper corner of each card.
- Well laid out. One side of each card is medical & first aid info and the other side is other survival info (shelter, fire, water, etc). It's like two single-sided books interleaved together. Thus there is no flippping the cards over to find or follow info on an item.
- Extremely easy to navigate. Three ways to find the card for a given item:
a) Large alphabetical letter in upper corner of each card as shown in the table of contents
b) Colored title bar at top of page with white letters showing what info is on the card.
c) Card page number in lower corner (small number, could be larger for ease of reading)
- High contrast between red letter block & title bar (medical side of cards) or dark green letter block & title bar (survival side of cards) and white lettering used makes them very easy to read.
- Decently detailed and accurate drawings.
- Didn't bother to restrict needed gear to 10 Essentials. They have 14 items on their primary list, then add another 12 items on secondary and tertiary lists.
- Recommends three types of plastic sheeting be included in your kit - black for shelter, clear for solar still (IMO aspiration bag), & Space Blanket. Most manuals will typically have one sheet listed or at most a sheet and a bag.
- Wind chill chart does tell how the numbers relate to skin freezing times.
Bad Points:
- Much less comprehensive than the SAS manual.
- Small type size. Unavoidable in a package this small. Type is as small or even a bit smaller than the SAS manual printing.
- Oriented toward hunters so five cards show how to field dress game - large, small, & birds - but it has no info on fishing.
- No pictures or drawings of good or bad plants. Only one card dedicated to plant gathering.
- IMHO Too many card sides at the outer edges of the pack contain advertising, acknowledgements, & disclaimers (7 cards in all). Five of them contain survival info on the other side of the card, so it precludes them being removed & thrown away.
- Only one water gathering procedure is shown and that is the solar still. No mention of aspiration bags or even gathering dew from foliage.
- No mention of alternate fire starting items. Matches are the only one mentioned.
- For plastic sheeting, recommends 1 mil thick sheet. IMHO the minimum thickness should be 3 mil thickness, especially for shelter building.
***************************
"Northern Bushcraft" paperback edition
Mors Kochanski, Lone Pine Publishing
280 pages, 5.5" x 8.5" x 3/4" thick
Scale of 1-10: 9 (high points for exhaustive coverage of items, minus points for size & info overload)
Good Points:
- Amazingly comprehensive coverage of selected items.
- One word: tools! The author is enthusiastic about his tools and it comes through in his writing about the knife, saw, & axe.
- Always seems to be at least a few options presented for each item or procedure.
- Info for both short-term immediate "staying alive until the posse finds me" needs and longer term living arrangements.
Bad Points:
- Some survival needs like water finding and first aid not covered at all. You would want more than this book to stay alive, even in the specific terrain for which this book is written.
- Fairly narrow focus, exhaustively covered.
- Emphasis and info focused on northern arboreal areas of interest. He warns about this right up front, but one still wishes his intensive focus had tackled a wider field of application so we could have the same comprehensive coverage on more of the earth.
***************************
"Practical Outdoor Survival" paperback edition
Len McDougall, Lyons & Burford Publishers
145 pages, 5.5" x 8" x 1/2" thick
Scale of 1-10: 8 (high points for amount & diversity of info, minus points for size & damage potential)
Good Points:
- Info is geared toward practical applications & available materials. Has tips on how to use materials from vehicles to meet your needs, which many manuals ignore.
- Fairly comprehensive, either offering multiple options for a survival item or offering some not covered in most other manuals.
- Discusses survival firearms, which most manuals avoid completely.
- Relatively up to date info (1992 copyright) up to Maglite AA flashlights (no LED lights though) and Sportsman Blankets recommendation.
Bad Points:
- Disheveled organization. The index helps overcome it. Goes into tools/devices & first aid before addressing "What do I do first?"
- Too big for a pocket.
- Coarse unfinished paper & relatively flimsy materials make me suspect this book wouldn't stand moisture or handling abuse very well.
***************************
"Wilderness Survival" paperback edition
Gregory J. Davenport, Stackpole Books, Greg's website is www.simplysurvival.com
167 pages, 5.5" x 8" x 5/8" thick
Scale of 1-10: 8 (high points for practicality of info, minus points for size & damage potential)
If the info in this book were combined with with that in McDougall's book and the result made pocketable & water-resistant, you'd have IMHO a killer manual for non-jungle regions.
Good Points:
- Well organized and easily navigated. Has an index.
- Like the SAS manual, does not restrict itself to one climate or terrain.
- Drawings efficiently conveyed the concept or technique they were showing. Good clarity of concepts being shown.
Bad Points:
- Too big to fit in a pocket.
- Coarse paper pages would probably absorb water and vapor readily, thereby compromising the books physical condition in wet or very humid conditions.
- Drawings were cruder and rougher than the drawings in the SAS pocket manual & McDougall's book.
- While the drawings were educational, the photos (black & white) were blurry, didn't clearly illustrate the concept they were captioned with, or showed relatively mundane concepts.
- Extremely limited number of knots shown and those in an appendix, not in the body of the book. This placement implies lack of importance for the knot info.
***************************
***************************
"SAS Survival Guide" Collins GEM small pocket edition
John Wiseman, HarperCollins Publishers
383 pages, 3.5" x 5" x 7/8" thick
Scale of 1-10: 10
This manual is my personal favorite. Thus it will be the standard to which the others are judged. I will admit that I have not read this manual cover to cover. I find myself dipping into it often, but seem to quickly hit "information saturation" because the info is densely packed into the pages. Thus I read bits and pieces of it, put it down while I contemplate as I go about other daily activities the info I've garnered from the book, then come back to to the book to get more info. It is not perfect, but IMHO it is the best survival manual I've seen thus far, partially due to the fact that it is small enough to always have with me and partially due to the fact that there is a LOT of information packed into that small size.
Good Points:
- Very small size. Literally shirt-pocketable.
- Semi-flexible plasticized tagboard covers and rather slickly finished paper pages. This should help prevent the book from absorbing water or water vapor and deteriorating. Interestingly, the two endpapers are of a coarser unfinished paper that, as someone pointed out, can be more readily used as tinder.
- Seems sturdily constructed. For as much as I've hauled this book around in pockets and cracked into it reading, the only wear showing is that the outer cover corners are getting a bit dog-earred.
- Well organized, easily navigable, and clearly marked. Each section title is printed on the outer margin of every page. This wastes some real estate on the page. As a positive aspect, I suspect that making the outer margin larger will minimize blurring of the text & pictures if the book gets wet.
- Comprehensive information. Shows a few options on how to perform each item (fire, water gathering, shelter, etc) for various environments around the world. Does not restrict its info to one climate or terrain type.
- Many enlightening drawings. Some (most?) drawings are not of the finished item. Rather they show the item partially done, which illustrates how to make the inner "bones" of the item, not just what the outer "skin" is supposed to look like when it's completed. Other items will have multiple drawings showing various states of completion to guide you along.
- Colored watercolor paintings to help identify edible plants & fungi, medicinal plants, poisonous fungi, and dangerous animals.
- Cheap. About $10 US dollars.
Bad Points:
- While it is small in size, it is a bit of weight in the pocket. It is heavy enough to weigh down a shirt pocket or, in my case, swing about quite a bit in a BDU cargo pocket.
- No index. Given the size of this manual, that can lead to time-consuming hunting through the pages if the info you seek isn't mentioned in the table of contents.
- VERY small type size. It would be difficult to read in less than optimal lighting.
***************************
"Out Smart In The OutBack" pocket survival card pack
Safari Club International Foundation, www.outsmartoutback.com
33 double-sided laminated cards, 3.5" x 2.5" x 3/8" thick
Scale of 1-10: 8 (high points for pocketability, minus points for lack of comprehensive info)
I paid $8 USD at a hunting & fishing show from Peter Kummerfeldt whose website is www.outdoorsafe.com (good guy & site IMHO)
Good Points:
- Even smaller & more pocketable than the SAS manual.
- Laminated cards will be even less inclined to soak up water than the SAS book.
- Sturdy. The laminated cards are held together with a large plastic rivet in an upper corner of each card.
- Well laid out. One side of each card is medical & first aid info and the other side is other survival info (shelter, fire, water, etc). It's like two single-sided books interleaved together. Thus there is no flippping the cards over to find or follow info on an item.
- Extremely easy to navigate. Three ways to find the card for a given item:
a) Large alphabetical letter in upper corner of each card as shown in the table of contents
b) Colored title bar at top of page with white letters showing what info is on the card.
c) Card page number in lower corner (small number, could be larger for ease of reading)
- High contrast between red letter block & title bar (medical side of cards) or dark green letter block & title bar (survival side of cards) and white lettering used makes them very easy to read.
- Decently detailed and accurate drawings.
- Didn't bother to restrict needed gear to 10 Essentials. They have 14 items on their primary list, then add another 12 items on secondary and tertiary lists.
- Recommends three types of plastic sheeting be included in your kit - black for shelter, clear for solar still (IMO aspiration bag), & Space Blanket. Most manuals will typically have one sheet listed or at most a sheet and a bag.
- Wind chill chart does tell how the numbers relate to skin freezing times.
Bad Points:
- Much less comprehensive than the SAS manual.
- Small type size. Unavoidable in a package this small. Type is as small or even a bit smaller than the SAS manual printing.
- Oriented toward hunters so five cards show how to field dress game - large, small, & birds - but it has no info on fishing.
- No pictures or drawings of good or bad plants. Only one card dedicated to plant gathering.
- IMHO Too many card sides at the outer edges of the pack contain advertising, acknowledgements, & disclaimers (7 cards in all). Five of them contain survival info on the other side of the card, so it precludes them being removed & thrown away.
- Only one water gathering procedure is shown and that is the solar still. No mention of aspiration bags or even gathering dew from foliage.
- No mention of alternate fire starting items. Matches are the only one mentioned.
- For plastic sheeting, recommends 1 mil thick sheet. IMHO the minimum thickness should be 3 mil thickness, especially for shelter building.
***************************
"Northern Bushcraft" paperback edition
Mors Kochanski, Lone Pine Publishing
280 pages, 5.5" x 8.5" x 3/4" thick
Scale of 1-10: 9 (high points for exhaustive coverage of items, minus points for size & info overload)
Good Points:
- Amazingly comprehensive coverage of selected items.
- One word: tools! The author is enthusiastic about his tools and it comes through in his writing about the knife, saw, & axe.
- Always seems to be at least a few options presented for each item or procedure.
- Info for both short-term immediate "staying alive until the posse finds me" needs and longer term living arrangements.
Bad Points:
- Some survival needs like water finding and first aid not covered at all. You would want more than this book to stay alive, even in the specific terrain for which this book is written.
- Fairly narrow focus, exhaustively covered.
- Emphasis and info focused on northern arboreal areas of interest. He warns about this right up front, but one still wishes his intensive focus had tackled a wider field of application so we could have the same comprehensive coverage on more of the earth.
***************************
"Practical Outdoor Survival" paperback edition
Len McDougall, Lyons & Burford Publishers
145 pages, 5.5" x 8" x 1/2" thick
Scale of 1-10: 8 (high points for amount & diversity of info, minus points for size & damage potential)
Good Points:
- Info is geared toward practical applications & available materials. Has tips on how to use materials from vehicles to meet your needs, which many manuals ignore.
- Fairly comprehensive, either offering multiple options for a survival item or offering some not covered in most other manuals.
- Discusses survival firearms, which most manuals avoid completely.
- Relatively up to date info (1992 copyright) up to Maglite AA flashlights (no LED lights though) and Sportsman Blankets recommendation.
Bad Points:
- Disheveled organization. The index helps overcome it. Goes into tools/devices & first aid before addressing "What do I do first?"
- Too big for a pocket.
- Coarse unfinished paper & relatively flimsy materials make me suspect this book wouldn't stand moisture or handling abuse very well.
***************************
"Wilderness Survival" paperback edition
Gregory J. Davenport, Stackpole Books, Greg's website is www.simplysurvival.com
167 pages, 5.5" x 8" x 5/8" thick
Scale of 1-10: 8 (high points for practicality of info, minus points for size & damage potential)
If the info in this book were combined with with that in McDougall's book and the result made pocketable & water-resistant, you'd have IMHO a killer manual for non-jungle regions.
Good Points:
- Well organized and easily navigated. Has an index.
- Like the SAS manual, does not restrict itself to one climate or terrain.
- Drawings efficiently conveyed the concept or technique they were showing. Good clarity of concepts being shown.
Bad Points:
- Too big to fit in a pocket.
- Coarse paper pages would probably absorb water and vapor readily, thereby compromising the books physical condition in wet or very humid conditions.
- Drawings were cruder and rougher than the drawings in the SAS pocket manual & McDougall's book.
- While the drawings were educational, the photos (black & white) were blurry, didn't clearly illustrate the concept they were captioned with, or showed relatively mundane concepts.
- Extremely limited number of knots shown and those in an appendix, not in the body of the book. This placement implies lack of importance for the knot info.
***************************