Table of contents for June/July 2017 in RECOIL OFFGRID

Most people begin learning knots at an early age. Once the shoelaces are secure, though, knot fluency usually drops like a rock. There isn’t much of a push to teach rope competency at any age beyond shoe tying. In fact, it’s safe to say the majority of people subscribe to the ever-popular “if you can’t tie a knot, tie a lot” theory. In 1999, I became a firefighter and learned a handful of knots required for the job; then a few years later I joined our Technical Rescue Team. Being a part of a squad whose primary responsibility is rope rescue required me to up my knot game. When public safety depends on one’s knot-tying abilities, more skill is required than continually wrapping and tucking the rope until it looks…

Short on space, money, or manpower? Not enough time to plan an elaborate outdoor survival game? Try this. Choose one of the many end-of-the-world movies to watch with the entire family. Inform them that a trivia contest will follow. Whoever supplies the most correct answers wins a juicy prize. As you watch, your job is to formulate at least 20 secret questions with corresponding answers in a private notebook. During the viewing, refrain from saying anything and outlaw any quips or wisecracks from all viewers. This no-comments rule keeps the game fair. Here are some sample trivia questions: What color was the hero’s shirt? How often did the main female protagonist change clothes? What did they eat in the car? Over what span of time did the drama transpire? Aim…

Debut: Debunked is a new column aimed at exploding survival myths and shedding light on wives’ tales perpetuated by the misinformed. After all, knowledge is key to survival. The Myth: Let’s explore the popular belief that the average “shade tree” mechanic can modify his vehicle so it’s invulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The Pros: Picture a multi-megaton nuclear device has just detonated 200 miles over North Dakota. The resulting pulse knocks out the power grid and most electronics throughout the heartland. So, what a game-changer it would be to drive a functional vehicle through a landscape of horse-drawn carriages, bicycles, and inline skates. Forget about running away from a pack of mounted marauders. Your spike-covered and skull-adorned EMP-hardened truck would be truly awesome. Speeds over 50 mph, serious load-carrying…

The Premise: The best-selling John Matherson series began with 2011’s One Second After, a realistic portrayal of life after an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon sends the United States into a new Dark Age. In the series’ third installment, The Final Day, a messenger is sent to find John; however, his perilous journey proves too much, and he only manages to get a partial and cryptic message to Forrest’s settlement. The remaining citizens of Black Mountain, North Carolina, are finally starting to make progress rebuilding after “The Day,” but a new threat looms. The 411: The Final Day was written by William R. Forstchen, an American historian and novelist. If you have some back issues of Boys’ Life from the late ’70s you read some of his earliest work. His writing in…

Time passes and electronic devices are shrinking. This seems to be the natural progression. Gone are the days of brick-sized cellphones, 20-pound laptops, and TVs that are thicker than they are wide. Despite the smaller sizes, today’s gadgets have more capabilities than ever before. The same holds true for flashlights — with modern battery technology and high-output LEDs, you can get an astonishing amount of power from a tiny light. However, small flashlights have some substantial downsides. They’re easy to drop or misplace, they have limited battery life, and they’re often fragile. Also, in a self-defense scenario, these miniature lights have limited use in fending off an attacker. Conversely, large flashlights excel in all these areas, making them a top choice for law enforcement, military, and security professionals. Traditionally, large…

As I got close to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, the stoplights went out. Then a car drifted through the intersection and was hit by a vehicle coming from the side street. Then my own car died and wouldn’t start again. I tried calling 911, but my phone was dead too. That caused a great sucking sound as the air exited my lungs. All the other automobiles in the area were coasting to a stop. This could mean only one thing: An EMP that causes the immediate destruction of all electronic devices and the electrical grid. It is the absolute worst-case scenario. A return to the Dark Age. As I looked out on the scene, most people were paralyzed. Some tried incessantly to revive their cars, some looked confused.…

The ax is back!” Thanks to rally cries like this from neatly manscaped, mustachioed, flannelled hipsters, the average Joe might believe there’s a resurgence in this classic woodsman’s tool. The reality is the ax never went anywhere and has been used continuously for centuries in the hands of true professionals. While the idea of the ax being the “latest and greatest” men’s fashion accessory (we’re not joking; there are lumbersexuals who buy “designer axes” now) is considered comical by the modern-day Ragnarok, an actual growing trend in the ax world is the emergence of more lightweight and compact pocket hatchets. Let’s face it, there are times when you can’t swing that full-sized ax, and you need something more practical. The pocket hatchet — and its combat-oriented brother, the pocket tomahawk…

We’re a strange breed. Anticipating natural and manmade disasters, we own a serious bug-out bag and actively hone every imaginable survival skill. Restless discontents? Nope. Guardians of the human race. Our families are lucky to have us. Problem is our families don’t always feel that way when we’re in the zone. They’ll ask, “What’s up with this 25-pound bag of rice? These shelves of water, batteries, and knives? Why are you so worried about getting more guns and ammo? Can’t we just live like normal people?” Actually, no. We can’t, because we know at some point in time the S will hit the fan. What we don’t know is when or how exactly. So, we prepare and practice. Ever wished there was a way to get the idea across without…

Ffew things can lift the spirits and restore energy faster than a perfectly seasoned hot meal. A hearty serving of good grub can have you back in action and ready to tackle the many challenges of staying alive in a hostile environment. The catch-22 associated with our inherent desire for hot, flavorful, and nutritious food is that it becomes harder to obtain when times are tough. You can’t scavenge for cheeseburgers, and tacos don’t grow on trees (if only). This is why preparation is key. Stockpiling food in your pantry, vehicle, and bug-out bag will keep you running on all cylinders when the rest of society is stalled in panic mode. Unfortunately, emergency food storage has its own dilemmas — weight, bulk, and limited shelf life. Dehydrated or freeze-dried food…

As we were putting the finishing touches on the very issue you now cradle in your hands, the lights cut out. Our computers died and the phones went silent. Total office blackout. While we played on our smartphones, waiting for the power to kick back on, someone joked that all this was caused by a Mylar balloon hitting a power line. Talk about First World problems. Though I chuckled, there’s nothing funny about the fragility of our electrical grid. Whether it’s caused by something as innocuous as a kid’s birthday decoration or something more nefarious, our nation’s unprotected and antiquated power grid can be disrupted more easily than one would think in our current era of Teslas, iPads, and commercial space flight. Now, rather than being without electricity for a…

Good Lord, no! I thought to myself. It must be something else, anything other than this. My head reeled with the information overloading my senses. My smartphone screen was black. The intersection stoplights were out. The lights in the street side businesses weren’t working. Cars were rolling to a stop or crashing into each other. Then I heard the plane. I looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of the underbelly of a small commuter jet as it roared overhead, hurtling toward the ground. It disappeared behind the skyline of buildings and the distant “boom” of a great explosion followed. The stalled-out cars, my dead phone, no lights, and a crashing plane — this was no power outage, or even a power grid hack. There was only one…

The lights, the plane, the cars — it had to be an EMP. I needed more information to figure out my next move and protect myself as night approached. But after seeing the car crash at the intersection, I knew it would be bad, and there were going to be injuries. Without thinking, I reached for my phone to call 911. Then I remembered that the screen had gone black. I held the button to turn the device on, but nothing happened. Paramedics aren’t coming, I thought, because no one can call them. Of course, I was worried about my own hide in that situation. And my thoughts jumped to my family next. Did this event hit their area too? I pushed away that line of thinking, because it wasn’t…

Our feature “Bound & Determined” in the Summer 2014 Issue of RECOIL OFFGRID dealt with methods for escaping different restraints if you’ve been kidnapped. When we set out to research how to survive unlawful incarcerations, we discovered that there are very few subject-matter experts — at least known outside of covert circles. However, we lucked out when we interviewed Kevin Reeve. Prior to founding onPoint Tactical, he studied under renowned survivalist Tom Brown, and many of his other skills came from what he calls “a misspent youth.” Reeve’s résumé includes training military, law enforcement, and organizations at every imaginable level. You know, like three-letter government agencies. Naturally, we jumped at a chance to learn directly from Reeve. In late 2016, RECOIL OFFGRID participated in his Urban Escape and Evasion Class…

Yup. You know it’s bad when the least of your worries are the 30 flies on the tip of your dangly bit (aka man part). This was my reality as I stood before a stranger, naked and half a world away from home — 9,000 feet up on the edge of the Himalayan Mountains in India. This was survival at its core. The whole situation was set up for anyone, no less an avid survivalist, to fail. No food. No water. No clothing. No shelter. On foreign soil with nothing but one tool and the help of a person I’d never met before. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about and why a person would ever be in a situation like this, the simple answer would be that I was…