How to Build the Ultimate Survival Shotgun

Step 11 Bandana

I finished off the sling by tying on a bandana. I have used a bandana in more ways than I can count while camping and backpacking. It is an incredible multi-use product that I know for a fact would be very useful in a survival situation. Below are just 15 great bandana survival uses:

1. Filter / Sieve for Dirty Water
2. First Aid Bandage
3. Dust/Sand Mask
4. Hat
5. Signal Flag
6. Dew Rag for collecting dew as drinking water
7. Container for collecting berries, fruit, nuts, etc...
8. Cut/striped into emergency cordage
9. Cleaning Rag
10. Neck Gator - Cool Weather
11. Evaporative cooling neck band - Hot Weather
12. Filter for Bush Tea (filtering out seeds, leaves, bark, etc...)
13. Eskimo sunglass to prevent sun blindness. Cut eye slits in the bandana.
14. Trail Markers – strip into pieces
15. Last ditch toilet paper

Comments

[Tuck Tucker]

I wish I could find a better folding front grip. Those kind break easily. Looking for something more durable. They are under $10.00 on Amazon and I bought a couple spares after the first one broke for unknown reasons before I even got to fire the rifle.

[trouse1]

Despite the criticism it looks to me like you had fun building your USS and I enjoyed reading about your build. Simple fact is if you want something like this you need to build it, try it, re-build it, and keep trying it till you get it the way YOU want it.
Grampa told us we needed to, "stay warm and don't break nothing". Every thing else is luxury. Most who die in the wild die from exposure or accidental injury.

[retrosurfer]

Very interesting project and some interesting ideas. personally I would never do that just because I don't think it's practical to carry that kind of weapon for survival especially in a urban escape/survival situation which about 90% of all people will be doing if something catastrophic occurs and if your not in a urban environment then just build a shelter with all you equipment properly stored. I carry a Small pack with all my survival gear in it in my vehicle at all times and in a scabbard on the side of that bag rides a Remington 870 with a folding stock and a shortened barrel. I have a even smaller escape and evade pack built around a colt 45 auto with a simile assortment of ammunition one that could be hide until needed in a true urban event.

All that said well thought out project and thanks for sharing it.

[Beemerboy]

You know.... After reading all of your prep stuff, I don't think you know anything about survival at all.

That shot gut was a pretty practical weapon till you went overboard with the add-ons. Plastic stocks? Fine. Adding a flash light will only cause your adversary to shoot at the light! and you get shot in the head! Your knife goes in your belt.

I look at it this way... If all of my junk is attached to my shot gun, as soon as I'm disarmed, all of my most important survival stuff is gone too. My game is going to be to lay low, be quiet, stay away from military and police groups and share with my neighbors.

"Rambo thinking" is not thinking.

[jamesrboyle]

WOW really guess what if you got disarmed and your main weapon of survival is a shotgun then your a dead man any ways to be so stupid to let some body take your weapon.... the shotgun is to use for hunting and SELF DEFENSE you use the shot gun to make sure you don't get disarmed STUPID PPL REALLY...

[witmoreluke]

That's fantastic if you're trying to lie low. He's talking about being out in the wilderness, where you might have to do what he said that you might have to do, which is why he said it. If you're trying to fight someone off, get a new AK with a polymer stock. Something reliable that won't break, and you can still keep things in. If you're going deer hunting, are lost in the woods, are shipwrecked, stranded, etc., this is perfect. I'm afraid that you misunderstood, reread it with a different mentality, and you might rethink your conclusion.

[vincent7520]

using a bandana as a "last ditch toilet paper" in survival conditions ????………
what a joke !!…
who, in TRUE survival conditions, would waste such a precious piece of material ??…
C'mon ! … Be sensible : if you really need to wipe your behind do what all generations did (but those from the late 20th century western countries) : use a large leaf, a ball of clean fresh grass, or … a nicely polished stone !!…

I'm 60+ years old, and when I was a kid we used to roam in the country : we didn't stick close to the house because one of us may have had an urgent need !… We just crouched behind a tree and used what was at hand to clean up, and back on the "war path" with the rest of the gang !…

There are many things country people from the older generations did daily without pretending it to be "survival".

This example tells what modern "survival" is all about : a game for adults who didn't grow up or who were denied of hiking and boy scouting when they were kids !!!…

[King of Kings Knautz(mini-pyro)]

Not to mention he decided to use the American Flag...

[vincent7520]

Well … What can you expect from somebody who thinks he's in survival conditions
just when he feels he's too far from the bathroom when he needs to go ?…

What a joke ! ………  :D :D

[Jason_G]

"There are many things country people from the older generations did daily without pretending it to be "survival". "

Like walk 20 miles to school in the snow, uphill & back? :-) I keed! I appreciate the Get the Hell Off My Lawn mentality.

What I really wanted to say is the leaves from Mullein make excellent toilet paper.

[vincent7520]

Right on ! …

Anyway, toilet paper is NOT a survival issue …
Or we're talking about workshops for suburbanites that do not what to do with their week ends !!!…

[x3n0c1dal]

I think you mean a "survival TISSue"

[vincent7520]

:D

[Kronis]

so tell us how you really feel

[vincent7520]

If you want to test real survival, do as some armies training do (I talk about the French, because it is the only one I know about…I guess other armies, certainly including the US, do the same).
Drop a couple of guys in the tropical rain forest with nothing but their clothes and on them and one army knife the ask them to hike back to camp which is about 8 days walk from where they were dropped.
Of course this needs training before : but that what survival is, peeing on your wounds for disinfection, using ants heads for stitching a wound (catch the ant, make it bite on both sides of the wound and chop the body off for the head to remain in …); making weapons with your bare hands (well with knife…) and most of it finding food among all the plants that surround you and find a way to find the right direction… (mostly what Rambo showed us in its 1st movie : bare hands, there is no need for guns or killing people: stay away from them).
I would have more chance of survival with a woodsman from the 19th century than with a fully loaded and armed 21st century hiker : the 1st knows how to deal with nature, the second relies on heavy equipment for an uncertain result.

Then again I view urban survival as a pure fantasy created by movies and Armagedon literature : true the world is coming to a change, but there is nothing to predict that in the next 100 years we will be in a situation where everyone will have to fight against everyone after a huge fallout from either a tsunami, atom bombs, meteorites, gamma ray from outer space, etc … 
This is pure fear fantasy : nothing in our recent history allows us to foresee that. Although it is true we will are facing tremendous systemic changes. We have to adapt.

I don't know if I really answered your question.

[hossweightlifter]

in the last part you forgot zombies XD

[vincent7520]

my bad !!… :D

[Kronis]

yep, that did it thanks.

[vincent7520]

you're welcome.
have a good week-end.

[da winksta]

i believe kronis was asking a rhetorical albiet satyrical question. Vincent, I do not appreciate your age discrimination. I challenge you to a pooping in the woods duel. I have been pooping without TP since I was a wee lad.

[vincent7520]

1) I didn't feel kronis xas either satirical or rhethorical.
2) If I understand you well you follow the same line a mine : you wouldn't use a bandana as toilet paper.
So. What's the big deal ? … 

[nathanAGNEW]

Need some place to put a hand shovel.

[sconner1]

Instead of the bow saw with almost no bite, just throw in a wire saw from the camping store.
It's a length of abrasive wire with rings on either end and coils flat for storage and doesn't limit the depth of your cut.
It is like a bow saw but your arms are the bow.
It's slow and tiresome, but hey, you're not building a log cabin out there.

[olmon]

You apparently don't have much experience with bow saws. A decent bow saw will go through a piece of wood almost as fast as a chain saw. (a little hyperbole there, but not ridiculously so)

[aaronncook]

If used for Purpose # 15, Function 1-13 is not longer advisable.

[legodragonxp]

Use 15 typo. should be listed as 'doo rag'?

[tjesse]

You use it to soak up morning dew from plant's leafs. If the dew rag is clean then it is the most refreshing and clean water you can get in the field, unless you are stranded on a glacier.

[tbatko]

yeah some quick-clot for when your using that saw and accidently shoot yourself in the gut.

[Handiest1]

I thought of a couple things if you have the room; a small polished stainless mirror, and a couple of alcohol swabs to de-grease before applying the butterflies (wound closures). In my experience they will not stick unless absolutely clean and dry. Then come to think of it how about an iodine ampule, a small curved needle, and some thread? Was insect repellant mentioned?
Bruce

[mastermayhem117]

OFF! makes deep woods insect repellent towlettes now.. You could definitely buy a pack and shove a few of the packets in there (I think they are individually wrapped)..

[Backyard Builder]

There are some roll up sunglasses out there i dont rememer their name but they're basically a plastic lens that wraps around your face and grips onto the sides of your head alot like regular sunglasses minus the frame, im not sure if you could fit that in but im sure it would help you migh be able to put it into the inside f the front grip

[iguytheguy]

Yes there are called ROLLENS they offer 100% uv protection optometrist use them after they dilate your pupils.

http://rollens.com/

[asteidl]

Might want some Quikclot along, in case you shoot yourself in the foot, you can stop the bleeding on what's left of it! :P Seriously, though, Quikclot is about the best "tool" you can have along. Get a big, deep laceration on your arm, leg, neck, w/e, grab the packet of Quikclot before you pass out from blood loss, pour the granules on the wound, and you might just make it. Every branch of the US military carries it, according to http://www.quikclot.com/ I'd recommend Quikclot Sport Silver, as it has antibacterial properties (has silver in it, bacteria can't grow on silver). The 25g pack could fit in the buttstock.

[mrguy19187]

They've stopped using it for the most part now. It isn't distributed widely to soldiers anymore because in a battlefield situation, it is very easy for some grains to get in ones eyes, either by wind or accident or whatever, which causes permenent blindness. Medics can still get it but its primary use was first aid and selfaid. Hemacon bandages are the new thing, very similar but come in one big "wafer" that you break up and shove in a deep wound. The catch with those, though, is that you can't use it on people who're allergic to shellfish.

[phunkeyrobot]

Actually the army is now using Quik-Clot Combat Gauze & WoundStat.

>> http://www.stripes.com/news/soldiers-in-war-zones-to-be-given-new-bandages-1.84174

Apparently Hemacon bandages weren't up to the task.

>> http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-03-29/news/0903280121_1_gen-eric-b-schoomaker-combat-medical-care-military-doctors-and-medics

[DrWilliamHorriblePhD]

Sewing thread and needle, for clothing repair or serious wound closure. On that note, a tube of superglue would be more effective, compact, and versatile over a few tiny bandages for small cuts. I'm favoriting this 'ible, gonna do some more searching and see if I can find any other useful suggestions.

[ScottyAlmanjoy]

'Merica

[GearHead96]

Awesome.