# BOB/BHB: how often do you check your gear?



## forluvofsmoke (Jan 27, 2012)

Oftentimes, we may overlook the packing of items and how it could be effected by vibration and shaking during vehicle transport (think off-road in a heavy-duty diesel truck), or even just a few good hits of rougher handling. While I've been making revisions to my BHB, many of the changes have effected how I can pack it in a damage-resistant manner, and have left me with less options.

Do you have any items that may become damaged by what's packed beside, below or above them? Is your pack getting abraded/chaffed from the inside out by items rubbing against it in the same place, day after day after day? Do you rearrange/repack often enough to identify these issues early before severe damage occurs? Do you pack the more fragile and easily damaged items (such as first aid supplies) in semi-hard, water/air-tight snap-lid poly containers? What about metal food containers (canned foods)...do you layer them with cloth between and around them? (I know...canned food??? you carry that???...we do what we must in shortage of water supplies...canned doesn't need water to rehydrate, or preparation...it's ready to eat cold).

I've been carrying a BHB for many years and find that nothing will last forever in a mobile kit (some items just wear longer than others), though there has to be more ways than I know of to extend the life and integrity of what we so painstakingly gathered and packed into what is hopefully our ultimate survival kit.

Please, do share your tips with us...even I can learn a few tricks, I'm sure.

Thanks, all!


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## charles1198 (Mar 10, 2012)

You bring up some good points. To keep down the weight of my GHB, I keep only 2 bottles of water in it, and another 10 elsewhere in my vehicle. Likewise, I have a fairly comprehensive (for a car kit anyway) medical kit that I keep under the seat, and I keep a couple trauma bandages, basic meds, and a little boo-boo kit in my bag, all vac-sealed. The food in my bag is a Mainstay bar, and some MRE bread, PB and jam. I have some trail mix and nuts that I rotate through when I check my bag twice yearly. Nearly everything is vac sealed or in Ziplocs, including my extra clothes. Much more is in my car that fits in my bag(s). I guess I want options, and it's nice to have extras to give to other needy folks who might also be trying to just make it home.


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## sailaway (Mar 12, 2009)

My bag gets checked twice yearly, in the fall and in the spring. When I go from cold weather weight to warm weather and back to cold weather weight. What ever is out gets serviced then stored for next season,


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

My primary-BOB is checked every six months (December / July) - batteries checked / replaced, flashlights tested, expiry-date on the food / water is checked, clothing and shelter products looked over, first-aid-kit looked over ... 


My GHB resides in my Jeep, it is checked at the start / end of each of the four seasons (reminds me, it is now spring, so, I need to check the GHB this weekend). Things checked are how well everything is packaged, expiry dates, refresh anything that may have been used, remove anything that needs to be thrown out, replace anything that is damaged ... 

My GHB is "light-weight", easily carried. My BOB is the heavy-weight, designed for manditory-emergency-evacuation ...


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## res2cue (Mar 14, 2012)

sailaway said:


> My bag gets checked twice yearly, in the fall and in the spring. When I go from cold weather weight to warm weather and back to cold weather weight. What ever is out gets serviced then stored for next season,


:beercheer: DITTO here. Leaving in New England I go from both modes...........as a matter of fact its almost time to switch to summer mode YeaHaw!:2thumb:


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## westbrook (Oct 28, 2008)

sailaway said:


> My bag gets checked twice yearly, in the fall and in the spring. When I go from cold weather weight to warm weather and back to cold weather weight. What ever is out gets serviced then stored for next season,


Ditto what Sailaway does.

I have since added the Brita Water bottle to my BOB

 Brita Water Bottle


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## sailaway (Mar 12, 2009)

westbrook said:


> Ditto what Sailaway does.
> 
> I have since added the Brita Water bottle to my BOB
> 
> Brita Water Bottle


Westbrook, thats an interesting bottle, Does it make the water better tasting? My current BOB; (Bug Out Bottle) is an SS Clean Canteen, wide mouth. I can fit a small Sylva Compass down its throat along with a miniature 22 and all of my smaller survival gear, matches, first aid kit and other small items. I can also empty the bottle and use it to boil water or cook in. I keep it in my BOB, (Bug Out Bag). Everything gets inspected when the weather changes.


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## westbrook (Oct 28, 2008)

It is a Brita! there is a filter in the lid and the way it works is you fill it with water and as you drink from it it filters the water.

I have a large one in my refrigerator. We like it. The water is better tasting then my osmosis system. This bottle comes in handy when I travel.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

I have something similar to that Brita-unit called a Water Bobble - funny name, but, I use it all the time. I double-filter my water normally - once through the Brita and then it is chilled in the fridge, from the fridge, I fill my Bobble - makes for a very clean tasting water!


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## westbrook (Oct 28, 2008)

naekid,

that is wonderful that the Bobble comes in 3 sizes! I am all about the 34 ounce size. 

thanks.


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## forluvofsmoke (Jan 27, 2012)

For now, a monthly check of my BHB seems to be in order, and I'll continue with that until I get things organized and packed in the best fashion. Right now, with the recent updates which I've continued with for the past 6-7 weeks, I don't even know where everything is at from one day to the next...scrounging for this and that kinda sux, so memory will serve me better once I can stop rearranging things and finish adding/changing items. Then, I'll hopefully have a hard list of inventory and where everything is located...a map of sorts, with a checklist for expiration dates, when foods where purchased/loaded and when I expect to need to use them up.

Also, for food items, I chose things which I enjoy eating, and can be replaced at will and the old items eaten as part of my lunches while I'm at work. It's a very similar concept to shorter-term food storage for bugging-in at your residence. I'm storing what I'll eat, and eating what I store before it gets too old and the food quality begins to suffer too much.

I just unpacked one of my 2 BHBs tonight after work and found a better way to pack my canned food (inside a small cardboard box on the very bottom of the pack's rear compartment) so they won't rumble around inside the bag and cause interior pack wear, and hopefully will greatly reduce the chance for damaged goods. It also keeps the containers more stable for carry and allowed me to pack the heaviest items at a lower overall center of gravity for the bag. I don't want to carry dehydrated food due to the need for additional water to prepare it (and the risk of damaged packages which would be tossed out and wasted), and my location makes reliable water sources few and far between, so it only makes sense to pack the extra weight of canned hydrated food instead of extra weight in water for preparing dried food, along with a mess kit and possibly a back-pack stove due to lack of fire materials in many places (mostly open scrub plains)...it's a compromise I can live with, as canned is ready to eat, hot or cold. I'm already packing 4 liters of water, plus the PBA-free bottles, weighing in at just over 10lbs, if I recall correctly, and the thought of packing another 3-4 liters for food prep (plus the purchase to the bottles or bottled water) just doesn't sound like a good option at all.

I still have more updates to add, and I should be able to pick-up most of them in one more day (Monday the 27th), and then, for the most part, I should have most everything accounted for. It's been over 2 months in the making (except for original collection of gear...18 years on that) and it should prove to be well worth the wait. As it stands now, I have all my food, water, first aid and general survival gear and supplies separated into 2 day-packs, plus a loose mummy bag (in stuff sack) for up to 6 days of food, and procurement of food and water as needed. The twin day-packs are my only option for now due to size and fit into the vehicle I work out of, plus lack of lashings on the day-packs for attachments (mummy bag). My external frame pack is very large (4,500 cu in internal capacity) and doesn't facilitate easy stowing into the vehicle, so for now I'm wingin' it with 3 separate pieces which can be transferred and stowed more easily. If I can figure out how to make the frame pack work out, things will be much easier to manage in the event I do need to bug home. I thought about taking the frame pack along and just transferring everything from the day-packs and lashing the mummy bag on top if it won't fit internally, which is a viable option. The loaded frame pack is just too large to stow in the limited space I have for my BHB.

I'll post my BHB(s) in the appropriate area when time permits.


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## Toffee (Mar 13, 2012)

NaeKid said:


> I have something similar to that Brita-unit called a Water Bobble - funny name, but, I use it all the time. I double-filter my water normally - once through the Brita and then it is chilled in the fridge, from the fridge, I fill my Bobble - makes for a very clean tasting water!


I just saw the Bobble being sold at Best Buy down here. Does it have just a regular filter on it, like a Brita does?

I have a little vehicle kit, but now that I'm focused on a BOB or a GHB, I know I'm going to have to change what I'm packing. We were thinking about getting a wing tip stove, because then you can heat food, but I was curious as to whether anyone knows if you can cook over the open flame on one, such as if you had meat instead of a can of something that you were heating.

But I think we will be working on a bag soon for getting home.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

Toffee said:


> I just saw the Bobble being sold at Best Buy down here. Does it have just a regular filter on it, like a Brita does?
> 
> I have a little vehicle kit, but now that I'm focused on a BOB or a GHB, I know I'm going to have to change what I'm packing. We were thinking about getting a wing tip stove, because then you can heat food, but I was curious as to whether anyone knows if you can cook over the open flame on one, such as if you had meat instead of a can of something that you were heating.
> 
> But I think we will be working on a bag soon for getting home.


The water is filtered as you drink from the spout of the Bobble. It cleans out most "garbage" taste, but, I found that it didn't do a very good job on my buddies tap-water on his farm - for some reason, the flavor was strongly filled with a salt-water taste. By going back to "city water" the filter in my Bobble cleared out quickly and it went back to making floridated / chlorinated water taste like pure water.

I probably wouldn't have a problem with filtering natural water sources like fast-flowing streams, but, wouldn't try using it on stagnant water sources.

I did a quick check and found that the Bobble is available through Amazon.com if you wanted to mail-order the bottle (with first filter) in and mass-order the filters for long-term storage. The bottles come in 6-packs and the replacement filters also come in 6-packs if you like (as well as singles and double-packs)


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## bahramthered (Mar 10, 2012)

Do you have any scientific tests on those bottle filters? There's a whole lot of things you can't taste.


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## mikesolid (Aug 24, 2011)

Well I actually check mine whenever I have down time. I keep track of what will need to be rotated and all that, although I'll admit I'm not very strict with the rotation. Pretty much if it's vacuum sealed then I ignore the "expiration" date. Not entirely. But lets face it, if your hungry enough and can't afford newly rotated "JIC" food then you'll probably eat just about anything. And I'd say a few months old vacuum sealed rice or canned sardines is better than nothing.


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## scorpiorising (Mar 31, 2012)

Keep an inventory, one on paper and one on your computer. Schedual and record regular supply checks. It's an easy and organized way to keep track of your stuff.


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## randyhsv (Apr 3, 2012)

Ditto on the filter water bottles. Mine is from Seychelle. It draws from the bottom of the bottle via an internal straw. Supposed to filter 100 gallons before requiring filter replacement!


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## bahramthered (Mar 10, 2012)

On checking the bobble website I found this little nugget:



> bobble is intended for municipal tap water making water better, with every sip.





> WARNING: Do not use where water is microbiologically unsafe or of unknown quality.


Obviously not a survival tool.


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## urbanprepping (Feb 21, 2012)

Daily I use alot of what I have in my bag and vehicle.


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## Diego2112 (Aug 18, 2010)

Once we get our B.O.Bs where we want them, we're going to be checking them AT LEAST once a month (on a primitive camping trip), and making sure they're fully stocked after every Friday Night Poker Game (not sure what that has to do with anything, but hey, it works, right?)!


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## Frosty (Apr 4, 2012)

I usually go over my bob/inch bag every 3-4 weeks. Here soon though I may be getting a new pack to replace my large ALICE as my INCH kit (not sure what it'll be, just yet).


For my 72 kit, which rides in a maxpedition condor II, I check that usually once per month.


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