Premium vs. Budget Prepper Gear—Real Tested Results

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All right, survival and basic badass podcast, 2026, new prepper gear guide.

There's a lot of new things happening out there. You know, everybody loves gear, right?

When it comes to prepping and we like the cool gadgets and stuff, we actually just did an episode

that maybe knowledge is slightly more important, but you know, whatever, you gotta do your thing.

But keeping new gear and new stuff just keeps it kind of fun and fresh.

And hey, if you got the money, Kevin, I mean, we work a million hours a day, so

right, we should have plenty extra cash, right? Right, right. Lots extra cash.

That's what we're always talking about. So, there's a lot of new things out there,

and as a rapper, there's cool things. Now, you guys know, for me, it always comes down to guns,

right? I'm like, oh, what's the new gun thing? We just talked about a big building.

I had mentioned a partisan trigger was the brand. And it was, they, they call them FRTs,

forced reset triggers. You guys may remember, I think it was rare breed triggers.

Was the big one that had to lawsuit. I used a rare breed trigger and I wasn't happy. I felt

it was kind of junky and didn't work. But again, getting full auto to work is, is kind of a fee.

It really is. It's not the easiest system. They're dirty. They're messy. They're whatever. So

a lot going on. Anyway, I found, and my big thing was a lot of the, the trick, the triggers with

the three selectors have, you know, where you have a safe semi-auto and full auto kind of position,

right? I will say a forced reset trigger if working properly is, you can't tell the difference

between full auto. I've had cops who have full auto rifles, use the, the forced reset, use theirs,

and we compared things. And there is no difference. You cannot feel a difference. I'm amazed.

How is it not illegal yet? They're working on it. The answer is Trump. Basically,

the, they banned the forced reset triggers. The ATF went knock on people's doors and, and grabbed

them back. And for some of the rare breed ones, or, you know, made people sign papers, I got rid

of mine. And, you know, just made people feel uneasy. I actually did speak with an ATF agent on

that. And personally, and he said that pretty much the videos and the things you saw about

knocking on doors and, and that kind of thing, it was a, a reason to go knock on a door was usually

when it happened. It wasn't like, hey, we're just going after anybody who bought one of these. It was,

oh, let's go check on that guy. It was more like that situation. Was the story I heard, but that

was again, one guy's opinion, but he was an ATF agent. So, you know, but it was opinion, right?

You know, we just, whatever. So anyway, the deal is with those triggers. Then the court overturned

it. And they said, hey, they're completely legal. And then it was going to get appealed and go

to the next thing. However, when Trump got into office, he told his, you know, FBI department

and justice, whoever it is, to not pursue it and just drop the case. So at the moment, they're legal.

They can, that can be overturned at any time. The problem is they're following a strict definition

of what a machine gun is. And by the definition, they didn't hit the mark. So that's, that's where

the ATF fell short, you know. And, and basically, you can always count on somebody to find a smarter

way around it. Now, were the rare breed triggers in my opinion better than nothing and not really.

Because again, you're throwing a lot of ammo and ammo is expensive. And I don't want to just waste

ammo. So if I do, it's got to work. It's got to be something I can count on. Right. And that was the

thing is with the three precision trigger. When you use it for a single shot, the semi auto,

it wasn't that good of a trigger. It was kind of crappy and I wouldn't want that trigger. And

if I'm putting a trigger in a machine gun kind of thing, I want it to be my go-to gun. Right.

I want it to work for everything. So I did find one from partisan arms and I got to say nothing

but pleased. They're very expensive. It's about 270 bucks. They, when you get the right deal at

a certain place that has optics in the name, they, they get you a pretty good deal. Usually I,

I think, mine it ended up costing about 240 bucks. When you got it, you realize, you know what?

It doesn't work completely flawless. I need a heavier buffer tube. And this is the same problem

you have with any trigger you buy for a forced reset. The trigger for single shot is not the best

trigger I own, but it's better than millsback by a lot. So it is a good trigger. And then when you go

to the full auto, it's really freaking awesome. So the big thing is you need a heavier buffer tube,

which is the weight in the recoil. I did find a company that sells, you want an H3,

which is like the very heaviest. And you really kind of want a stiffer spring. Geisley makes a nice

stiffer spring. I think it's like the Geisley, like I think mine said like H2, wire, whatever.

I bought it with a buffer, but then actually still went to the heavier H3 buffer.

I found these from Traumx-led delivery systems for 29 bucks that seem to work pretty great

as far as the buffer and being the right weight and doing the right thing. I also, I don't know if

you guys remember a while back, but I'd gotten into they make Adam's arms make a piston system.

Because when you go to full auto, you would not believe. You drop one magazine and that thing is

filthy inside. There is carbon everywhere in that gun. And you got to like really clean it.

So I was like, oh, the binary system, the whole point is to put the gas out at the end of the barrel.

You can watch a video on that. They're really awesome, Adam's arms. But so I grabbed my

my upper that has the the binary system. And it ended up not really working. It ended up having

as many problems or more than when I went with the other. So I ended up going back to the standard

gas system and putting that up or on it. But you did need the bigger buffer. All right. So

partisan trigger drop in super easy to install. Love it. Worth it all day. Something you guys should

check out. I stand behind that as something you want to get. But there is let me preface any

forced reset trigger anytime you're going to full auto. There's going to be a lot of setup issues

that you're going to have to fight through and be prepared for that of some time and burning

magazines before you get consistent reliability over and over again. That's it. All right. Now there's

another cheap cheap option that when I went to the gathering at the Paul Meadow State Armory

Gathering in South Carolina, there is something called super safety triggers.

And I ended up getting these are like I think they were 60 bucks there for the little kit.

And it was funny because the lady stops me and she's telling me about it. Now you'll see with these

it's got like a push button. That's actually your safety switch. And it's like a push button

from one side. So it's basically all the way to the left is safe. All the way to the right is

semi and then in the middle is like the full auto kind of version.

Right. They're kind of weird. They sell those with a switchable which seems like the way I would go

but it's like 60 dollars versus 150 dollars. The lady trying to sell it to me I told her I said

look I said I've done like the Franklin binary triggers. I've done a lot of these triggers and if

it's not a drop-in it's a lot of freaking work to set them up and get them to work properly.

She's like oh no if you can install a trigger it's no problem it'll be perfect and no headaches.

And I was like that doesn't sound true to me in any way at all whatsoever. And I kind of was

on the verge of rude. You guys probably wouldn't expect that from me. But I was right there of like

no I think you're lying to me. And then I got home and I was like cursing and swearing. Damn that

lady lied to me and you know oh dude because it was funny because I didn't even want to go for it

but my buddy was like yeah let's buy it at 60 bucks and you can set it up it'll be great. And I'm

like I know with this and I go home and we spent the whole afternoon trying to get it right. We

couldn't even get it. You had to take a grinder to the upper not in the direct. But when you go

on YouTube they're like oh it won't even cycle. Like you can't even get it to do anything

without like the back edge of the the upper needed to be ground down. And I'm like that's

ridiculous. That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. And it just was too much work. It absolutely

can get you there. It can work. But I don't think it's the right call. That's the answer. So

that's my update on triggers. If you want a single shot trigger you guys know that the

Timney AR-15 trigger is where my heart is. But you know whatever you do you right. But moving past

triggers. Kevin you found some kind of a basically survival hard drive. Tell me about that.

Yeah yeah it was called the uh the proper disc. Yeah now um basically what it is is uh you know

powers out internet's out. You need to look stuff up online though. And you can just hook this

up to your laptop. And it's going to have almost anything you can think of that you could access.

Medical information. You know everything from encyclopedia Wikipedia. Anything that you can

think of to look up it's going to have have on there as far as medicinal plants.

Growing you know planning and growing your vegetable garden raising livestock. Any information

that you're trying to access and look up you can have it right there. And you don't have to have

internet access. You know you have a little bit of battery on your on your computer and you

can plug this guy in and and you're ready to go. Nice. Now it seems like a pretty interesting

interesting thing to have on your. Now as you guys know. Excuse me everything with prepping with

anything in life really is it's going to cost you either time or month right. And this is not

cheap. They sell it as a like micro SD card. It's like 159. But this guy did a lot of work and that's

512 gig is where he's basically looking at. They have the uh in actual like hard drive and then

they have like a mid grade kind of hard drive that you can do you know remote disk to plug in.

But so with that. Is it possible to gather all this information on your own and put it into a drive

and you would know exactly what it is and it's from trusted sources. Yes absolutely.

You could take a hard drive and set stuff aside. You could also take that old iPod that's lying

in a drawer and you could load it up with all your favorite episodes of the survival and basic

badass pod. That would solve all your problems through to the episodes as they secreted the pros

there. Right. So you could do that or you could you know gather up like maps and and weather

things and whatever it is you think is relevant. Met a you know your home doctor stuff all your

prepper books on file. We actually I know I got a uh he uh a friend if you guys I'll see if I

can get the link in the show notes. But somebody had sent me a link to a like Google drive that had

every freaking like military manual in it and this has everything you know the survival the

sass the all that stuff and we just threw it bam and it's in there. I'll see if I can get that

link for you and make it accessible to you guys so you can download all the manuals and that way

maybe even some of the more questionable US military manuals that people like don't like downloading

but you could be like why I just downloaded the whole thing. I didn't know he was going to give me

that. Woo you know but hey if it's acceptable for the military then it should be acceptable for

that's right. So that's not an affiliate or a sponsor in any way um that company uh

prepper disk but it is really a great idea and to be honest if you're not going to put the time

in the effort in the doing the research and putting it together then something like that sounds

like a real slam dunk and you know but again they we're talking about 159 for an SD card but again

it's time or money man what's it worth to you right and it like some Jack says we'll pay 230 bucks

for a trigger when you buy an AR trigger yeah for real you know you do you I mean and then

you're out burning in like 20 minutes I went through a hundred and nine dollars of ammo

so we just got it I was like oh wait a minute I'm setting up your trigger and we just burned over

a hundred bucks in your complaining about spending this much on a trigger and then you blow through

twice as much ammo playing with it right so really with what's going to be more useful having

a gun with full auto where you just waste ammo or having all the information that you need to

survive the apocalypse yeah I kind of waited towards the trigger but you do right well I mean a lot

of that information is is it's great because it's it's accessible when you need it you know what I

mean like you know you can you can read all sorts of medical books and and books on farming and

books on on everything but when you need to access that information it can be hard to find and

you know it's nice having it right there your fingertips and and realistically a good

proper library is going to cost you over 150 bucks to easily no books so but we should probably

revisit the proper library and talk about books again do another episode on that I've got this

a book I got a couple of months ago a couple a couple of months ago it's called the book the

ultimate guide to rebuilding civilization and it's pretty damn good it's great you know if you

search the book it has like things are like super detailed we had pictures and like they go into

you know how to make things how to make batteries how to make penicillin how to make you know

concrete windmills how water mill whatever it is they kind of covered it so I know if

if you search the book again I'll try and get the link in the notes here but it's not there yet

but I'll get it there and I think that if you use the code badass it might save you a couple of

bucks on it yeah it's not it's not cheap but it's to me it's well worth the the price that

they're charging for again having the resource in the knowledge right there at your finger tips

is pretty awesome that that's what I can you know report on that what are the kind of new stuff

leatherments right so leatherment not new stuff but the rebar is the go to I don't even know if they

make it anymore honestly but I know you can buy that bad boy on eBay that's what I get and yeah

that that's my go-to night or you know multi-tool for that where are you with knives Kevin what

do you like in knives these days I've been actually working with with some some some bowie knives

I've had to do some animal buttery and if you've ever done that you know that you have to have like

razor sharp knives you know and as far as just basic bushcraft skills keeping your knives sharp

and and knowing how to sharpen your knives is a big deal and I spent a lot of time with this uh

with you know the knife I was gonna butcher with and went out and and cut up a duck and then I

realized it wasn't sharp enough you know I needed I needed to spend another hour working on it

yeah feathers feathers can really uh you know get in the way of things yeah you can also make

things a good mess but yeah and and you know keeping it clean I I don't know what happened but I

had blood all over my my clothes I you know ruined definitely ruined my my sweatshirt and my jeans

that I was like a massacre happened after yeah right right it was a mess but I mean you know

having having a little bit of practice with that sort of stuff and and using the right knife

a bowie knife is not the right knife for buttering no and I was looking at some some knives like

um the best ones that I found are are ones that they use um for uh that the Jews use for

what do they call it allele proper proper buttering of animals oh I thought you were gonna tell

me something about the circumcision so no I don't know if it's the same knife or not that they

use for that but I mean I having a straight blade with a razor sharp edge is is really something

what you need to be dealing with when it comes to buttering animals and anybody that's butchered

animals um we'll know that having the right knife and having the right equipment for it is

a big you know it's a must um so I've got myself a bench grinder now I'm gonna do some

do some work on on practicing with the uh with the kitchen knives and getting everything

straightened up but I think that um I think that another another big thing that I've been seeing a lot

as the um uh as the is the new solar powered generators um they're getting better and better

battery packs that you can set up um I'm not just talking about solar power for your house but like

um you know like battery packs where you can charge up your your computer your phone

um having access to information when the power is out you know it's a big deal it's a big deal

even if it's just a radio or you know getting a getting a light an LED light working in the house

at at night you know you no absolutely so when it comes to skinners it's funny I was I was

searching the one that I have and it must not be available anymore but I have like a a Gerber

Skinner set um I it took a minute to find it I was while you were talking but this is what I

haven't used doesn't look all stuff being short I think this picture's condensed a little bit but um

you know and that it's just nice to have that little you know get in like

filet knife but also to have like the god hug kind of thing and the on there makes it

it nice and easy but there's definitely something you know about having good knives for that

and again it's stuff that you actually practice and use you know that you're going to notice um

I ended up I bought I think they're for like fish like some fish filet knives or got knives

that uh that I use for you know a lot of the rabbit butchering getting in there and just again

like you said just having something that's super sharp is the key you know to to getting in there um

also so next thing moving past knives a little bit alone knives are awesome and having a good

bowie knife just makes you more like manly I found we gave away one at prepper camp last year

and speaking of new gear and new cool things prepper camp is maybe where you

want to uh go and check it out oh I got the wrong dates I got last year's dates on there

but search prepper camp I think it's in August and uh and August around the 19th or somewhere

in there this year and I will be there I will be a speaker um officially invited not always

every year so you gotta watch actually I've been ever since I went I've been there every year

however there was a little question on my invitation it maybe got lost in the mail until

a lot here and then uh then it came through so it was kind of the oh I was going to invite you but

somebody better came along and then it turned out they weren't better and we really just want you

back and we're sorry about that yeah that's what I thought I just remembered the bad ass is the guy

you want and when it comes to speakers so another cool thing that I checked out and again not

quite as cool as I I wanted it to be so you guys have heard me talk about night vision and thermal

and ATN it is kind of the go-to company on that and I have this Thor thermal scope that's freaking

amazing like it is a game changer when you go out um now thermal doesn't give you the identification

um I have the the cheapest one that you can get they actually have like a mini now that's like

how much is the cheapest one that you can get though I think now it's a very cheap

gearbox uh one I got yeah I think I got on sale at like buds guns or something for like 699

but that was like a rare special deal mine didn't take pictures or video I think it was the

Thor LT is what it is but I gotta say the batteries held up I'm about three years and

I leave it in the safe and I grab that gun when I want to go out and do something

I can kind of monitor the charge but it has no problem holding the battery for six months

and you know and I can just go grab it and it's just gonna work so that's pretty freaking awesome

I was excited they just came out with thermal binoculars and again when you're like oh

reasonably priced yeah $1500 is reasonably priced then yeah yeah and um you know whatever

but they also that's not like the premium range and distancing you'd be thinking of

if you bought the the $1500 binoculars that's like you get what you get at $1500 because you're

getting the discount version this is what they look like you'll note in the middle there there's a

there uh they have infrared uh so these are daytime binoculars these are they will film and take

picture they will do rangefinder they will because you got to throw in all the extras when you're

charging somebody $1500 I mean that's you know you know how it is right um so daytime

pretty clear but again if I wanted daytime binoculars these aren't you could buy a

probably better pair of daytime binoculars for like under 60 bucks I say I have these push

shells that are like I always get them on sale for like 20 or 30 and they're freaking awesome

and I go out and see everything and I'm nothing but happy uh I'm sure I have them in a drawer I can

go dig out when you're talking in a minute um but these do night vision with the infrared now that

I can't beat with push-nels for 40 bucks and that's a big thing now they do have the thermal option whoa

they have a thermal option that I have yet to figure out but I gotta say

that sounds very concerning and like oh well they're probably broken well it took me about a day

to figure out I mean literally probably two hours maybe three hours just to be able to see clearly

in the daytime with them then it took me another hour to get night vision working properly

so the next step is thermal and I haven't even gotten there right now when I hit the button for

thermal I just see kind of a bunch of black squiggly lines and I don't know what's going on

and I don't really know is the answer so I would hold off on that purchase until I get back to

you with a little more a little more experience little practice how you for 1500 bucks there is way

too much personalization and users set up involved I am not exactly ecstatic whereas like I said I

have their night vision scope why a night vision scope that one I just bought used off eBay for like

300 bucks that's kind of I just throw it around but that's got a big infrared those you who really

know about wanting to be tactical you know you don't really want infrared because it gives away

your position but if you're out hunting foxes infrared sounds freaking great that's the way to go

because the thing is I know 1500 sounded ridiculous for night vision and thermal but let me tell you

if you buy real night vision and thermal you're at like 10 grand or more so or more yeah

so you know it's all relative this works again off infrared but infrared is what keeps you at

600 to a thousand versus the you know 10 thousand or I guess starting at 3000 is very crappy

no infrared you know night vision so that's something to keep in mind but I don't know Kevin thoughts

on the world or where we at here what else he got is that yeah well I mean that's that's basically

all I wanted to go over with gear obviously there's a lot going on in the world this aside

of that maybe we could do another podcast on on that at some point but uh definitely um

seems like we're we're ramping down with war with Iran I'm not really sure what's going on

because it's not a war it's a war it it sounds like Trump's getting bored um it's hard to get in the

in the in the middle of a war and then be like yeah I'm tired of this America doesn't have the

big resolve but it's funny when the leaders don't even have the resolve it's like yeah I'm

gonna start it but yeah I don't even it's not even like the people are like oh this is

ridiculous it's like yeah already you know let's just do something else I ran push posh you know

whatever um yeah no I understand that will still up gas is still up it's gonna be up for a while

apparently because nobody's doing shit about that it's funny because at work they were like oh

just remember there's other plants that can make the uh the engines that you make and your job

could go away at any time because if you guys can't step up the quality then we'll just replace you

and then now like literally a week after they told us that they're like oh this whole straight

a horror moves thing we're the only company the only place that can make these engines and nothing

can get to the US unless we do it we need to triple our production because there's no other way

unless you guys step up and start making more because you're the only ones who can do it and we're

like wait because you were just telling us that we're expecting to hold you okay we're all

replaceable and now all of a sudden we're not all of a sudden we're not so but that's that's

again a big thing to think about with your prepping right is you know things can get cut off and

you know we all like I know we tell each other at parties that we don't go to Walmart and we hate it

but really like tractor supplies like another version of Walmart it's basically Walmart

often yeah right so Target is like we like really cheap things from China that we can get

something that provides a service like I mean how many cameras do you buy for like 20 bucks or

whatever right because you're like huh they're trying to think I can just put it on my computer

to work and whatever or the knockoff gun sites or you know whatever how we can buy those

and they're really cheap and it just makes it easy because I can have an extra set and throw it

there a team-moo version of everything right oh yeah exactly so just think about that with your

prepping is maybe get the things that are a reasonable price right now and maybe it's not ATN

$1,600 but not killers but maybe it is that forestry said trigger I mean I'm just saying I was able

to get the forestry said trigger from it's called the super safety trigger to work I guess a couple

companies were putting these out because they're like a 3D printer kind of thing and then you can get

it made in steel or whatever but like I said they're not all the dream it's basically you get what

you pay for right so not having to modify anything and have it just work that's where the partisan

arms trigger to me it's a no-brainer I would spend the money but again I'm kind of at the point

in life where money's a little bit easier than time because but I also will say burning $100

I ammo just trying to get the one thing to work then maybe you know maybe I didn't save money by

in the cheap trigger right so right whereas partisan I didn't have to burn them you know I went

through 15 rounds it was like oh yeah so right I was like a cool-aid guy you know yeah everything

was great so anyway we appreciate you guys and you're awesome so thanks for sticking around

with that stay safe and we'll talk to you guys next week

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