Now What?

Your "Bug-out" bag is sitting in the hallway closet, and you feel fairly confident that with its contents you can survive for at least 3 days. Now What? Realistically, where would you be in 72 hours and what if your stay was extended longer than that?
It is for this reason that I never go hiking, hunting, or camping without a .22 rim fire rifle at hand. This is, in MY opinion, the handiest tool you can can have, and should be the FIRST firearm purchase you should make for survival reasons.

My reasoning behind this? First off, ammo is cheap. You can buy thousands of rounds at a time without raising suspicions. Secondly, it is good for all kinds of game from ground squirrels and tweety birds to coyotes. I have even seen a well placed shot from a .22 rifle bring down a deer, although I do NOT recommend doing this unless you are in a desperate situation. Third, it COULD be used as a self defense weapon if no other firearm is available (again, not recommended). Now, don't think that with a good rifle of any caliper your going to be eating good indefinitely, but a .22 will help to supplement any other food sources you may come across.

I recommend a bolt action, magazine or tube fed rifle. Why bolt action? Because I've found through my own experience and from raising my boys, that a bolt action is safer, more accurate,very reliable and because one has the tendency to take careful aim with a single shot over a semi-automatic.
The semi-automatics, such as the Ruger 10/22 are EXCELLENT rifles, but all semi-automatics "automatically" chamber another round after firing, thus an excited (or extremely hungry) hunter has a tendency to leave a live round in a rifle after making a kill and forgets to put the safety on. Also, I have seen excited hunters shoot a dead animal until the magazine of the weapon is empty because of adrenaline. We call that "Buck Fever".
Now the Charter Arms AR-7 "Explorer" that I carry in my pack is NOT reliable or accurate. Its simply there because its a lightweight backup to anything else I hope to be carrying if I need it.

What about water? You can survive allot longer without food than you can water. And It is impractical to carry more than a few quarts of water. There are allot of portable water filters on the market and the price ranges vary from $10 to several 100. I've used 2 different types, both inexpensive and both work good. The first type consists of a small hand pump with two hoses. On the end of one hose, a small filter is attached about the size of half a beer can. the other hose fits into your water container. As you draw on the pump, it pulls water through the filter and then pushes it into your container. Its fairly light, takes up a little space, but its only draw back is that you need enough water to submerge the filter into for it to work. The other type looks like a straw with a little filter on the end. It comes in its own case that can be used to fill water from very small sources and you simply drink the water through the straw. The larger filter is nice if you need to fill any size of container, as it is fairly fast. The smaller one can be kept in your shirt pocket like a pen and used as needed. Both are excellent to have.

Now any water filter can filter out the microbes and moose turds, but they will not kill all the bacteria. Its a good idea to add a drop of everyday chlorine bleach to every gallon and let it sit for at least an hour. An eyedropper bottle works great for this and can be kept with your filter.