Ozark Trail 16-piece Survival Kit Review & Mod

hi I'm Eric Siegel with KITT bash survival and today we're gonna be checking out the Ozark Trail 16-piece survival kit Ozark Trail is a brand sold at Walmart so that's not starting things off on a promising note I think it's funny that on the bottom here it says live the experience scan with your Walmart app to learn more so yeah a 16-piece survival kit sold at Walmart under the Ozark Trail brand I bought this for six dollars on ebay so I don't think I took a big risk for six dollars how bad can it be so it includes 16 pieces we've got a notebook 8 piece compressed towels fire starter a commando or saw a keychain light a tan one multi-tool a cutlery multi-tool a paracord bracelet with whistle and a durable watertight case which I guess if you want to ditch the contents of the case they let you know that it can hold your cell phone anyway let's go ahead and open this up and check out the Ozark trails survival kit [Music] okay so the whole thing comes in this watertight box which you know the box itself might be worth six dollars you know so I guess we'll just check out each item as we pull it out of its plastic slot so first up we've got the utensil tool which is you've seen these these are those really usually really cheap multi utensil things that have a spoon and a fork and so forth so we've got a spoon we've got a knife and then we've got a fork with that this thing feels pretty solid it's all metal these are not plastic scales like you'd see on those cheap Coleman ones so let's see here I mean there's a good bit of play just to be expected in six dollars yeah I mean it's not gonna win any awards but you know for a quick fork spoon or knife to eat with I guess it's okay there's a bottle opener right there I guess it's okay for what it is then we've got a wire saw or as they call it the commando saw and that looks like just your basic wire saw made in China I'm sure it's okay for cutting down a small limb or something like that I wouldn't try to get a big tree with it or anything then we've got the compressed towels and this is actually kind of neat they've got this plastic tube and it's filled up with these little compressed tunnels and you know you've seen these where you add a little water and this will expand out to a big towel or you could use these as tinder that's what I would probably use them for so yeah I mean that's not too bad that's kind of cool all right now we've got a bracelet a paracord bracelet with a whistle on it well the whistle pretty much stinks but you know the paracord does have some survival value I suppose so that's not a hundred percent worthless up next we've got the keychain flashlight and I've seen these before it's probably got think I'm there to keep it from turning on before you need it yet there it is [Music] all right there we go so yeah this is one of those where you twist off and twist on and it's pretty bright I mean it's okay it's not bad for a small flashlight it's perfectly fine so I have no complaints with this one [Music] all right then we've got the fake Swiss Army knife and I have a very low opinion of these because I am a Victorinox Swiss Army knife collector so let's see what it's got it is all metal again it's got a little bit of a rubber grip here but it's all metal which is not too bad I'm sure the steel is not great it says stainless but you know it's got a knife the can opener bottle opener screwdriver scissors and a corkscrew and then Philips head screwdriver and then a nail cleaner and file so geez this is just a cheap Victoria Knox knockoff I've seen worse though I've definitely seen worse so it's not great it's not good is it better than nothing yeah I suppose so and then finally we've got the Ferro rod and striker and I'm sure this is probably just fine let's see okay so I took the striker off of the little keychain to make it a little easier to use and it took me a minute to figure this out this is actually a dual function Ferro rod because at first I was scraping this trying to make sparks and all it was doing was shaving off little bits of metal then I realised that what they've got here is this is the Ferro rod right here I'm not sure if you can see that but the Farrah rod is right here the rest of this is a magnesium rod so you've got both you've got a Ferro rod and a magnesium rod this is actually a really good idea you've got the magnesium if you want to make a fire using just the magnesium if you're in a wet situation where you don't have any dry tinder and then if you're in a situation where you do have some tinder like those towels and stuff you can use the Ferro rod it's like a normal Ferro rod so this is actually a very cool idea I like this normally you see these in those big square blocks it's a big square magnesium block with a Ferro rod stuck in one side I've never seen one that is shaped like a Ferro rod like this where you've got a small Ferro rod on this side and then magnesium on the rest of it that is really cool I actually like this a lot all right back to the case if we take off this plastic stuff we've got one more item down here and that is a waterproof notebook and there's a pretty generous supply of paper now there is no pencil or anything but we do have this nice notebook it's just kind of an odd thing to have and then we've got this little card here sort of showing the Swiss Army knife and knock off in action and then we've got the waterproof case itself so closes up like that this isn't bad it's nice little waterproof case yeah so let's put all this stuff inside [Music] yeah all that closes up in there with a lot of room to spare so we can definitely make this way better than it is now so what do I think of this kit well you know I gotta be honest when I started this video I thought this would be a complete joke and I have to say I am somewhat pleasantly surprised I mean this is not 100 percent crap it's not a great survival kit don't get me wrong but for six dollars I don't regret buying this for six dollars it does have some ok elements in it and I think there's definitely some room literally for improvement which is a good thing for six dollars what do I think of this I think it's a good starting point so what we're gonna do now is see if we can augment this kit and elevate it from mediocre to being pretty darn good alright so before we bring in everything else I do want to make a couple substitutions and removals from the gear we already have so first up I'm gonna remove this entirely this cutlery tool with the fork spoon and knife it's nice but it's not necessary in a survival situation unless I guess you're a heroin addict and you really need to cook up that mixed dose but other than that it's not necessary and we can use the space and the weight for something better I'm also going to remove the fake Swiss Army knife and in its place we will use a real Swiss Army knife this is a Victoria Knox field master and I chose it mainly because it has a saw and the Victoria Knox saws are actually very good obviously you're not going to cut down a tree with this but for small tasks these things are actually excellent and then it's also got a pair of scissors and the Victoria Knox scissors are very good and it's also got two blades can open our bottle opener Phillips head screwdriver parcel hook punch tweezers and toothpick now I considered using the Explorer instead because it has a magnifying glass which could be good in a survival situation but ultimately I decided to go with the field master because it has a saw now for the bracelet here the paracord is nice but the whistle doesn't work at all now I could spend time undoing all this paracord but I'll save that for later so we're gonna ditch this for now and in its place I've just got some regular paracord this is about 10 feet of paracord and then here's the saw that comes with the kit now we've got the saw on the field master I'm not sure if we need this saw as well I'm gonna try to leave it in the kit for now but if space becomes an issue I may have to get rid of this now what else are we gonna try to add to this kit well we're gonna have a little fun and kind of throw in the kitchen sink here and see exactly what we can fit in this box and keep in mind I'm just doing this as an exercise and for fun obviously you know I bought this kit for six dollars and for everything we're gonna put in it you could just go out and buy a better kit ready-made so what we're doing is just for fun so this is all the stuff I'm gonna try to get in the kit so what do we have here well there's a space blanket there's an emergency poncho I've got two 12 by 12 sheets of tin foil I've got a mini fishing kit and a little bit of snare wire in this bag here's a book of matches a button compass in this little bag I've got some first-aid stuff and a couple other things I've got a dog had a large band-aid for regular band-aids a scalpel blade an alcohol wipe six water purification tablets enough to purify six litres of water and then a mini med kit containing six ibuprofen two benadryl 'z and two imodium x' a one liter Worrell pack water bag to go with those water purification tablets a whistle this is one of those flat whistles much better than the whistle that was on that bracelet some duct tape up next we've got the extreme sport beans from Jelly Belly energizing jelly beans and so I figured this was a good thing to add because it's got some sugar and some caffeine which are two things that are good to have in a survival kit carbs the electrolytes vitamins B and C so it's got that and 19 grams of sugar 100 calories and it's also got some caffeine for a little energy boost and I chose these also because they're jelly beans I figure they'll probably stay good for a while and even if they get stale or something they'll get hard but they'll still be edible but even still I'll probably want to change these out every couple of years or so if I don't use the kid which hopefully I won't have to do then we've got two zip ties pencil to go with that writing pad I've got a trick for a fake handle here these are the ones where you blow on them and they relight when they go out I've got a little bit of fatwood here to help make a fire I've got two coffee filters to help clean up the water that you purify I've got some MRE beverage base lemonade to mix with some water just to get a little bitter taste and get some electrolytes and stuff and then I've got some MRE tissues here just in case you need a napkin or if you need to go to the bathroom and wipe your butt so we're gonna try to get all of this into the kit and see if it'll fit I don't know if it'll fit we'll have to find out now the concern with getting all this stuff in the kid is that you know this kit doesn't open from the top it opens up advant and so if you fill it with stuff you know the next time you open it up it's gonna spill out all over the place and so to prevent that I'm gonna use a combination of methods one or both of these so first up I'm gonna put as much stuff as I can in ziplock bags on either side to compartmentalize all the stuff and then if these Ziploc bags aren't enough then I'm going to use some velcro so this is a bunch of velcro that I have some of it has a sticky back and some of it does not and with a combination of those I'm gonna try to secure these ziplock bags into each side of this case and hopefully between the ziplock bags in the velcro we'll get this thing to where it's nice and compartmentalized and to where when we open it up stuff doesn't spill out all over the place like I said I have no idea whether this is going to work or not whether it's gonna be too much but we're about to find out so let's get started all right so let's see how much of this stuff we can bag up and minimized cut these Ziploc bags I wish I had some that were longer but I don't I've ordered some but they're not here yet I do have freezer bags but those are just too wide so you need ones that are long but not too wide anyway [Music] okay so we've got it all in here and compartmentalize with rubber bands and Ziploc bags but it's just too much stuff so we're gonna have to either cut some stuff out or reorganize so I'm just going to go for the low-hanging fruit and get rid of the emergency poncho it's nice to have but it's not absolutely necessary so poncho gone now everything fits nicely yeah that's not bad at all so now I just want to make sure stuff doesn't go fly all over the place when you open it up it looks like it doesn't but just to make sure everything's nice nice and secure I'm gonna fit all this stuff with a couple rubber bands around it [Music] yeah [Music] and then we've got our knife here let's see if that closes up okay yeah actually not bad at all so when this closes up there's a little space here we could actually add something else so you know I think I'll go with the good old big lighter so here's a lighter I'm gonna put it right there and now close this up sure we got a good seal and yeah look at that wow this is actually a pretty darn good survival kit now if you ask me I'm pretty happy with it now like I said before this was just an exercise in packing a survival kit and also just for a little bit of fun obviously you know with all the stuff we put in here there's not much of the original stuff left and you could just go out and buy a really good survival kit instead of doing this but you know the way you get good at packing survival kits and using them and determining what's needed and what's not and what's good quality and what's not is doing little exercises like this to see just how much stuff you can stick in a kit and how much better the kit can be made so I'm really happy with the way this turned out it started off as a mediocre six dollar survival kit and now it's actually pretty darn good and a survival kit I'd be happy to have with me Aling now I didn't say this before but the $6 I got it on eBay I don't think that's what it originally cost I think the original cost was probably around 20 dollars or so but I was able to get it for $6 on ebay so for $6 it was a good start and now as you can see it's actually a pretty darn good survival kit if I was gonna add one more thing to here I might add a mini water straw one of these now this is in the package but you can see it's very small and if I was gonna add one more thing I would take that out and add it in here and I might still do that at some point but for now I'm gonna leave it as this again I'm really happy with the way this turned out let me know what you think if you think I should have put something else in there or left one of these things out or something like that let me know but that's it for now I hope you enjoyed this i'm Erich Segal this is kit bash survival and I'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Kitbashed Survival

Views: 42,216

Rating: 4.8598485 out of 5

Keywords: Eric Siegel, Survival Kits, Survival, Outdoors, Bushcraft, First-Aid, Preparedness, Emergency, Prepper, Ozark Trail, 16-piece, Modification, Improvement, Shelter, Fire, Water, Food, Victorinox, Fieldmaster, Lighter, Space Blanket, Fatwood, Tinder, Magnesium, Fishing, Hunting, Aquatabs

Id: S3zKKbLefg4

Length: 19min 44sec (1184 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 01 2020