I don’t think there’s anyone who could argue that paracord isn’t a handy item to have. People use it to replace their shoelaces, weave it into bracelets and belts, or just keep big hanks of it in their gear, in order to always have some handy.
True paracaord is made of multiple strands of smaller cordage, usually seven strands, and those strands are usuall made of three smaller strands. (Don’t quote me on those numbers.) The cheap Chinese knock off cordage is just a nylon sleeve with some sort of poly fiber core. Avoid that crap. Spend the money, get the good stuff. Take a deep breath, tense up your core, and pay the money for a giant spool of the stuff. There’s no point in doing things halfway and buying, say, 100′ of the stuff and thinking “that’ll do it.” There’s just so much to do with paracord.
For me, the reason I carry it in the Bag O’ Tricks is to tie doors open, tie doors shut, hoist things up to places, secure things closed, hold things open, create lanyards for gear, etc, etc. Dude, there are hundreds of reasons to have a generous amount of this stuff in your gear. But the problem is, how the heck do you store it neatly? I mean, you want it to be stored in such a manner that it doesn’t turn into a rats nest that leaves you standing there with a Gordian know of paracord.
Originally, I simply rolled all my paracord into ball, like yarn, and then wrapped it in a couple cut-inner-tube-rubber-bands to keep it from unspooling itself. But, there were a couple problems… Most of the time it worked out just fine, but more than a few times the rough-n-tumble of tossing my bag around would sometimes overcome my efforts and things would get all tangle-y. The other problem was that for the amount of paracord I wanted to keep in my bag (the more, the better) the ball of cord was fairly substantial and not a very efficient use of space in my bag.
Originally, I figured the simple solution was to simply wind the cord around something to keep it one place. I tried several different ways of dong it but everything seemed to fall short. First, I chucked a lenght of dowel into a power drill and wound a bunch of cord on that. it worked, kinda, but still unwound itself at times. Then I tried something with a flatter profile… I cut a butterfly-shaped wedge of thick cardboard and wound it around that. That worked pretty well but eventually with all the banging around the cardboard got bent and lost its rigidity (hey, it happens to us all, right?)… back to square one.
Surely I can’t be the only person with this desire to have an organized way of carrying around a buncha paracord, right? What does the free market come up with? Handiest I found was this – a simple piece of plastic with a built in razor cutter and a pocket to hold the cigarette lighter used for melting the ends of the cord. To keep things even more organized, I keep it in a snug ziploc bag…this way if it does start to unravel (which, so far, it hasn’t) it all stays in one place.
One other item I found interesting was this geegaw. Its a belt-mountable dispenser that lets you pull off a length of cord and cut it – all one handed. Its 50′ worth of cord, which is useful, though I prefer to have a lot more than just 50′ worth. Where it shines is that this is about the size of a pair of tape measures side-by-side, keeps it self free from snagging and tangles, is refillable, and is just generally pretty well thought out. If you don’t mind it being only 50′ this is a pretty nice one-stop-shopping solution.
I really can’t overemphasize the utility of paracord. It really is one of those products that is ‘only limited by your imagination’.. But my experience has been that there are a lot of times, even without the world coming to an end, where having this stuff is amazingly useful. I really think you’d be foolish not to make this stuff a ‘must have’ in your emergency gear or everyday carry bag.
As an aside, it is also worth mentioning that this type of paracord is also available in a variety of colors….ODG for those military and subtle needs, and blaze orange for the ‘needs to be visible’ applications. And pretty much every color in between.
BUT….make sure you’re getting the multiple-strand stuff. Not the cheapo Made In China ‘mil-type’ crap. Lowering your gear from the rooftop of a flooded WalMart into a waiting rowboat is no time to discover that saving $15 by buying the ‘almost as good’ product was a bad idea. Don’t cheap out on gear that might turn out to be very mission-critical someday.
And while we’re on the subject, for Crom’s sake, learn to tie some knots. Without getting into boffin country, there are an amazing amount of knots out there that have qualities that make them very much worth knowing. Grab five feet of paracord, go jump on YouTube, and learn some useful knots. Seriously.
The year is 1.9% over and I still haven’t bought any guns.
I have gone __7__ days without buying a gun this year.
Ok.
So here it is, we are starting the first chapter of GBA online.
I will go first, my name is Dan and I buy guns…
Hi Dan!!
My name is Jack, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea for me to join.
Hi, my name is Boris and it’s been (checks watch) 23 minutes since I bought a gun.
I take the time and put a hundred feet or so into a daisy-chain donut.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W4_ETPO6S0o
Works well if you have some QD swivels and want to make a 60-foot one-piece sling so you have to shuttle it over and under like a carpet loom. Made some about a decade ago that still go strong.
When calculating if you have bought a gun for the year yet, does a bid on an auction that hasn’t closed yet still count as ‘haven’t bought one yet”?
Asking for a friend.
Discovered the Atwood paracord winding gadgets a few years back. Always thought they were the shiz.
If I ponder on it, there’s about 10 knots I can tie without thinking about how.
One of them is a bowline. The other nine aren’t.
Never found any need to learn another 40, which are each no doubt useful to a miniscule portion of society. YMMV.
Even better than paracord, pick up a bag of rolls of floral wire in several different gauges. Get the ones with a built-on wire cutter on the package.
Learn to tie a trapper’s double-loop cinch using a small stick, that tightens when you pull on it, and you’ve got rolls of green plastic-coated snare wire that’ll make you 20-30 survival snares per roll.
Any one roll of which could keep you alive in a tough spot.
If you get really bored, pull all the guts out of a 100′ roll of paracord.
Pull out aq bushcraft book, and weave a fishing net with those inner strands, attached to the outer wrap.
After you’ve done the basic knot a few hundred times, you’ll be able to do it again from muscle memory without further instruction.
And you’ll have a spiffy fishing/trapping/cargo net/hammock.
Most of the paracord brands that I have run across look like braided chineseium. Any recommendations on reliable brands?
I was pretty sure I threw a link in there.
There is also the paracord store:
https://theparacordstore.com/
I agree with CZ I bought several spools a few years back, made in the US, military stuff.
I’ve spent years fighting the paracord in my bags and packs. I am definitely going to buy a couple of the Atwood’s. The other one is pretty cool, but I just don’t see the scenario where I need to have one handed access to paracord. Plus, where on my belt, bag, pack or rig am I going to put it that makes sense?
Way back in the day when I was learning to climb with a regionally famous climbing club, everyone got two hanks of paracord and a link of chain tied to a ‘biner.
The cord was tied into loops of about 3ft and about 18″. You tied it into a small hank and it was intended to be carried on your harness whenever and wherever you were climbing so that you could tie two prusik knots around a line and self rescue by prusiking up the rope. One for harness tie off, one for a foot loop. They were both compact and light enough that you didn’t notice you had them until needed.
The chain link was big enough to pass a loop of climbing rope, and in conjunction with the ‘biner it was leashed to, could be used as a belay device or a rappel device.
Seeing those items on a climber’s rack or harness meant they’d been thru the same training as you, and you could expect a good foundation in the basics. The hotshots who decided not to carry them might cut other corners too, and you paid attention…
——
I bought a thousand feet or more of various colors of paracord from a store that went out of business. My only problem is convincing myself to USE it instead of keeping it “just in case”.
n
Beside the 550lb Paracord, it also comes in 750lb and 1,000lb strengths.
Days wo guns counter at the bottom is awesome .
More awesome would be an over under pool on how far it goes .
I’m in with a bet of under the month of January .
Best para cord story from
Personal experience . Hit a 12’ tall rock shelf at the bottom of a big canyon once . Doubled the paracord, hooked around a tree so we could recover it from below , got 3 people safely down the small cliff .
Hello, my name is Zero and I’m a gunaholic. I’ve gone 7 whole days without buying another gun.
Can’t wait for CZ to make amends! Will he apologize to all the guns he hurt by not buying?
https://rapidrope.com/
Might give this a look
Back in the day, while in the Infantry, most of us carried 100′ to 150′ of parachute cord in our rucks. We wrapped/wove it into what was referred to by everyone as a “Ranger Roll”. It’s kind of a woven flat doughnut shape that doesn’t come unraveled in the bottom of your pack, but you can pull off as much cordage as needed by simply firmly pulling one end. They take a little time to make initially, but there was always down time that was being otherwise wasted anyways. Anyhow, the habit stuck with me and I keep a Ranger Roll in all of my packs to this day.
Backcountry Bum