The Bear Grylls' survival kit is great for its price and includes a lot of useful gear. Find out more about this awesome survival kit.
RELATED: 7 Survival Tips From Bear Grylls: Best Of The Living Legend
In this article:
Bear Grylls Gerber Survival Kit Review
A Versatile and Useful Survival Kit at a Great Price
Trying to find the best survival kit on the market is hard. Which kit is best and which one has the most usable survival gear? Which is the cheapest, yet most effective? Also, which kit size should I get?
If you're into survival and prepping and you haven't heard about man vs wild and Bear Grylls' survival tips, you must be living under a rock. Well, you must have since you're looking into this Gerber survival kit, so let's check it out.
Frankly, I think just making your own survival kit may be best and easiest. However, the Bear Grylls Gerber Survival Kit is a nice little pocket kit.
This kit can be purchased online or at your local Walmart store. It cost me about $20, which is well priced considering all the gear it includes.
Bear Grylls' basic survival kit has a total of 11 items (although the box only lists eight.) These include:
- Carry case
- Waterproof Bag
- Waterproof matches
- Cotton ball (fire tinder)
- Gerber Paraframe Mini Knife
- Flint & steel fire starter
- Emergency cord
- Emergency string
- Emergency whistle
- Bear Grylls Survival Guide
- Snare wire
RELATED: Deal or Dud: The Bear Grylls Gerber Survival Machete
Pros of the Survival Kit
- Comes with a sharp and strong knife which cost about $10 alone. Also comes with flint & steel which is priced alone at about $15. You get your money’s worth plus more.
- Nice and easy pocket carry.
- Has very usable and necessary gear.
- Lifetime warranty.
- Comes with a sharp-looking carrying case.
Check out our review of the Gerber Bear Grylls Ultimate Pro survival knife.https://t.co/V5YUCLVeLH pic.twitter.com/0wHVNfxBlX
— Survival Life (@SurvivalLF) April 7, 2016
- You can place all your kit’s gear inside the waterproof bag then put the bag in the case.
- The Bear Grylls survival kit guide is made out of waterproof paper.
- Extra space to add more survival gear.
- The matches are very high-quality.
- This kit can literally save your life.
Cons of the Kit
- The carry case zipper does not close up all the way.
- The kit comes with a cotton ball. Seriously? A cotton ball costs a couple of cents. They can do better than that.
- The whistle looks and feels cheap, but it does what it needs to do.
- It has both flint and steel and matches and you don’t really need both.
- The snare wire seems too thin to trap anything larger than a squirrel. It is also made of copper, like electrical wire. I personally think a green 22 gauge floral wire, like the one shown below, would have been best for the kit.
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The pros of this kit outnumber the cons. It's the best pocket survival kit on the market for the money, in my opinion, so I give the kit 4 out of 5 stars!
Watch the full review in this video from Ultimate Survival Tips:
If you're looking for a pre-packaged survival kit, the Bear Grylls Gerber survival kit is a great option. But, it's also always best to build your own kit so you're sure you have all of your preferred items and everything you need when SHTF.
Would you consider Bear Grylls' survival kit? Why or why not? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
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- Gerber Bear Grylls Ultimate Pro Review
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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on April 7, 2016, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.
Fire is one of the most important functions of any survival kit, and being small and fairly cheap, having multiple options is wise. So having “lifeboat” matches (waterproof and wind resistant) AND a ferro rod (or better, a Spark-Lite, usable by one hand) is perfectly reasonable. And I would also include a Fresnel lens, and if there were room, a small lighter (peanut or mini-butane).
As you point out, 1 dry cotton ball is pathetic; I always include as many Tinder-Quik as I can fit, or at least several Vaseline soaked cotton balls.
The snare wire is indeed too weak for decent use; and if the least vital “food” element is going to be at all covered, it would be small and cheap to include some (braided) fish line and hooks in addition to usable snare wire. If the fish line had a decent tensile strength (20 to 30 pounds or so) it could replace the string.
With decent fish line, the rather more important needle with an eye big enough to use the fish line (to repair ripped clothing or equipment or even skin) could be included.
A pocket kit is not big enough to have much to cover the most immediate critical areas, shelter and severe bleeding. So it should focus on what it can do well, which is fire and signalling.
Other things to consider having in a pocket kit would be a 1L water bag and Micropur tablets, a tiny (keychain) flashlight, a small roll of duct tape, a few safety pins, some HD aluminum foil and/or a small signal mirror.
In addition to the pocket kit, it is wise to have an emergency blanket and a large bandana, both light, cheap and easily carried. And be aware that a pocket kit is limited in effectiveness; it is for when the odds of needing it are very small. As the odds of needing survival gear goes up, bigger kits are appropriate. A pocket kit would be appropriate around town; if you head out to the “wild”, a bigger kit should replace or be added to the pocket kit.
This isn’t a survival kit. It’s a gimmick kit. Lose the cotton ball, replace it with wax-impregnated sawdust. Use a magnesium fire-starter with the embedded flint. Use the knife to create the sparks. Replace the BG survival guide with John “Lofty” Wiseman’s book. Read it, practice it.
It’s a neat little kit. Could definitely have a few more items in it that you would need, like: a button compass, water purification tablets, plastic water bag of 1ltr or whatever the water tablets treat, a few bandaids, a wound closure strip, iodine wipe or alcohol wipe, a small signal mirror, a mini flashlight, a needle and thread. But they have a good starter kit that you can add to without much expense or trouble. For the price it’s not bad. I would gladly pay $5 more for the extra items I mentioned. All the extra items mentioned should fit in the bag provided.