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Perhaps it is the way that this survival kit hangs from your backpack, ready to be grabbed at a moment’s notice. Or maybe it’s its size and shape. Either way, the Rocky S2V Survival Grenade is a novel approach to survival kits. It’s not just another sardine can full of matches and fish hooks.
The Rocky S2V Survival Grenade is a compact emergency survival kit wound up in 10 feet of military-grade paracord. The kit includes a handy sheet of information and survival priorities from my fellow Virginians, Mountain Shepard Wilderness Survival School. The kit is supposed to contain a light-duty carabineer, a fire starter with tinder, two fish hooks, two swivels, two fishing weights, a knife blade, a needle, a piece of tin foil, and a length of wire. Again, that’s what the marketing literature said would be there.
What did I find inside, and how was the quality of the components? For the price of the kit ($19), the quality is good. After spending about 4 minutes unraveling the kit (which would be rough wearing gloves, or if you’re shivering from hypothermia), I found a little foil-wrapped bundle (but, thankfully, not the foil that is supposed to be used for survival tasks, as it was small and thin). Inside the bundle was a roll of aluminum foil that proved to be a one-foot square of completely intact, heavy-duty foil. There was also one large, dull needle; a 2-inch-long ferro rod; a bit of cotton; six feet of 20-gauge wire; 2 craft knife blades; 2 swivels, and one fish hook. So apparently, one fish hook and both weights were missing from my kit.
The survival instructions were concise and well written. They mentioned that the kit would supply you with items that would be hard to produce in a survival situation. With that in mind, my biggest peeve is that there is no fishing line. I would gladly trade the swivels and weights for 20 feet of monofilament.
Still, this survival kit is a great idea that has been executed well enough, and retailing for less that $20, it’s an inexpensive way to save a life.