In the twilight of an Afghan summer, Mazar-e-Sharif brimmed with life and tenacity. On the surface, one could not have predicted that the city of half a million people and center of anti-Taliban resistance was surrounded by bloodshed and bombs, just days away from falling into the hands of a draconian insurgency led by...
If you've ever shopped for a two-way radio, you'll know that handheld and mobile are two of the most common categories. Handheld radios are — you guessed it — battery-powered devices small enough to hold in your hand or wear on a belt. Mobile radios, on the other hand, are generally larger and heavier...
Viktos has made an unapologetic name for themselves in the world of tactical/EDC/adventure apparel and packs. Not satisfied to stop there, they recently announced their entry into the load-bearing gear market with the launch of two chest rigs: the Low Key and the Taculus. We’ve been testing out advance samples of both for the...
As you read this, babies born on or immediately after Sept. 11 will be old enough to have their first beer. Like most of you, I can still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing that day — and it certainly doesn’t feel like 21 years ago. In a bitterly ironic...
For those of us who take emergency preparedness seriously, it's important to keep our preps grounded in reality. Granted, it's always valuable to consider a wide variety of hypothetical “What If?” situations, even some that might be relatively rare. But we should still spend most of our time and energy preparing for the dangers...
A lot of time is spent, in various forums and professional social settings, discussing when one should move with a firearm. But it seems not a ton of time is spent on discussing how to move with one. Sure, you hear things like “explosive movement off the X,” which roughly translates into “go fast...
Call them what you want — brass knuckles, knucks, knuckle dusters, brass paper weights, and so on. You know what they are when you see them. They make for a small, easily concealable close-quarters impact weapon, particularly the ones we’re going to look at. Commonly and incorrectly, they’re often portrayed as the weapons of...
Like it or not, the manual transmission is going the way of the dodo, at least when it comes to new vehicles. According to a study by CarMax, only 2 percent of the vehicles sold by the company in 2020 had manual transmissions, a number that has plummeted from 27 percent in 1995. For...
Whether you just started reading our magazine or you've been a die-hard supporter since Issue 1, you should know that our “What If?” column is an important staple of every issue of OFFGRID. We know that forethought is an important aspect of preparedness, so each entry presents a hypothetical survival scenario in order to...
As much as we enjoy full-sized folding knives with 3.5-inch blades, they occasionally feel like overkill for many daily tasks. Sometimes, all we really need is a small utility blade for slicing open a letter or package. This is especially true in warmer months when we're wearing lighter clothing. GiantMouse Knives, founded by well-known...
