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HOW TO MAKE AND USE PRIMITIVE WEAPONS

INTRODUCTION
What to do Without Guns
Guns are fun. Holding one brings an incredible MODERN TOOLS FOR MAKING PRIMITIVE WEAPONS WEAPON TYPES AND USES MAKING SIMPLE WEAPONS FROM MODIFIABLE WEAPONS MAKING ADVANCED WEAPONS FROM MODIFIABLE WEAPONS 11 9 sense of power and security. A day at the firing range 3 is a pure joy. If you own a gun, its easy to feel like you have all your personal security needs in one neat, technologically advanced package. 4 However, a lot of states dont allow concealed carry licenses. Your gun is useless for self defense if its safely, responsibly locked away at home while youre across town. If you stumble across an illegal pot farm while out camping or your ultralight plane hits some rough turbulence and goes down, the contents of your home gun cabinet wont help you survive. Luckily for you, humans were experts at self defense for thousands of years before guns were invented. With a little know-how, you can look at a rock, a bike helmet, or even toothpaste with the same sense of security you feel looking at a gun. Be warned, one of the biggest advantages guns have over primitive weapons is their range and stopping power. Most primitive weapons are meant for close-range fighting. You need to be psychologically comfortable with the idea of being able to smell your attackers breath. It can be disconcerting at first. One of the best ways to prepare yourself is by taking a self Survival Life Special Report 2 How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

Inside This Report

INTRODUCTION 2

defense class in Israeli Krav Maga or Russian Sambo, both available in cities across the United States. Between those lessons in unarmed self defense and knowledge of how to make and use primitive weapons, you can rest assured of your safety regardless of your circumstances.

you can use the blade of your Bowie knife to strip small limbs from trees and the curved point to create punctures and indentations.

German Army Knife

The German Army knife has a serrated edge and a file surface. These allow you to do some light sawing. After youve chopped a small branch down with the Bowie Knife, the German Army Knife is useful for cutting your wood to precise sizes.

Modern Tools for Making Primitive Weapons

You dont have to use primitive tools to make your primitive weapons. Sure, it can be fun to try and make a bola using the same techniques as the ancient Celts, but if you need a weapon in a pinch, youll be glad you have a modern toolbox at your disposal. You can make most primitive weapons with nothing more than your bare hands. After all, if you had a bowie knife, you probably wouldnt need a spear. However, if you have some time and want to make some high quality primitive weapons, you can do surprisingly good work with these five modern tools.

Swedish Army Puuko

The Pukko is a great utility knife. One side has a razor sharp edge. The other widens out to a flat surface. You can press your thumb hard along the flat edge, adding plenty of pressure when cutting. This makes it great for whittling, stripping the bark off tree branches, and shaping precise areas, such as the hole in an atlatl.

Wire Saw
A Wire Saw is exactly what you think. Its a loop of strong, dangerous, flexible wire with a handle on each end. The size and shape of cutting teeth varies. In this case, dont

Bowie Knife
A Bowie Knife is both strong and versatile. If you want to make a spear, javelin, atlatl, or anything else that requires a little carving,

be seduced by size. Youre best off picking a smaller saw with a sharper blade. If you cant carry it in a small 3 How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

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pouch pocket, its probably too big. Smaller ones are typically easier to transport and more efficient at cutting.

when anyone can buy a beautifully crafted gun, a precision crossbow, or a razor edged knife, its easy for forget the basic simplicity of a rock. Unless youre standing in a fighting pose while clenching a rock in your fist, modern people dont think of someone holding a rock as being armed. Ask your grandfather, though. A rock dropped into a sock suddenly transforms from two random objects into a flexible, potentially lethal way to beat off an attacker without damaging your own hands. If you expect to be in a dangerous situation, tuck a pair of old, worn out dress socks in one pocket and a sturdy rock in the other and you are quite innocently armed in a way that will take any attacker by surprise. In a city, theres usually plenty of rubble around which can substitute for a rock; half a brick, a bit of crumbled sidewalk, the

Leatherman
A pocket Leatherman will do you a lot more good than a Swiss Army Knife. Instead of a toothpick and nail file, a Leatherman multipurpose tool comes equipped with useful things like needle nose pliers, wire cutters, and an awl. Theyre perfect for performing impromptu repair work on your primitive weapons.

Weapon Types and Uses

Rocks
Rocks are one of the most deceptively dangerous weapons you can find. In an era

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How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

residue of never-ending road construction. Defending yourself using a rock can also help keep you out of legal trouble. After all, you werent technically armed. You just found something in your environment to defend yourself with and flailed about in self defense. A carefully used rock looks like nothing more than a combination of desperation and luck. If you know how to use your rock, you can cause blunt force trauma to vulnerable parts of your attackers body. A sturdy rock is most useful in close quarters. Brace it against the meaty base of your palm in order to give yourself greater striking force and to protect your fingers. Try to smash it against their temple, use it to crush their nose, or slam it into their mouth. If youve had time to drop your rock in a sock, swing hard at the same areas. The goal is to take your attacker down as fast as possible.

Most modern clubs are deceptively civilized objects with some clear other use. However, nothing says get off my lawn like a polished piece of oak with a dozen nails hammered at odd angles through the end. If youre in the wild, you can make improvements to a basic stick by splitting the top 1/3 of it with a knife or sharp rock and shoving a palm sized rock into the wedge. Tightly tie the rock in place. If you dont have any rope or twine, rip strips off the hem of your shirt. Now your basic backwoods club has some real heft to it. Theres no gentle way to use a club. Theyre used to take someone down, break some bones, and make sure they dont get back up again. You cant use it from a distance. If youre going to make a club, be sure youre the kind of person who doesnt mind doing serious damage to another human being.

Clubs
If a rock is an extension of your fist, a club is an extension of your entire arm. The advantage of a club over a rock is it keeps your attacker arms length away while also giving you leverage. Any long, narrow, strong object can be used as a club. Baseball bats and crowbars make excellent clubs. They channel all the power of your arms and upper body into a narrow, focused blunt trauma impact zone which can do some serious damage. Survival Life Special Report 5

Bolas
Rocks and clubs are most useful against other humans. If you need to feed yourself in the wild, youll want some distance weapons. Any hunter will tell you animals are a lot sturdier than they look. In its most simple form, a bola is nothing but How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

some rocks tied up in string. Rocks and clubs may be the oldest weapons known to man, but with over 50,000 years of anthropological evidence, the bola is a close third. A bola is essentially a weighted rope net which can be thrown at animals to tangle them up. You throw it at a distance, trip the animal up, then run in and stab the animal before it can disentangle itself. This is a lot safer than just running up and trying to spear a deer. The bola is hard to master, but also incredibly effective at making sure your prey goes down without doing you a serious injury. To make a bola, tie leather or rope around an egg shaped rock, wooden egg, or any solid object that feels comfortable in your hand. Weave your rope out, making a net. About 1/3 of the way out, add a few smaller rocks to give it some weight. Anchor the edge of your net with even smaller rocks. You now have something you can hold centered in one hand, spin overhead, and set flying to entangle an animal. Or, on your first dozen throws, something that may well end up deeply embedded in a nearby bush. But keep trying, youll get it. Most bolas are made from anywhere between 3 10 rocks. The smaller the prey, the more rocks you want to use. Remember, the rocks arent there to knock out an animal they exist to direct the net and make it hard to pull off. Youd want something with 10 small rocks to entangle a duck, 5 or 6 rocks to

entangle something human sized and only 3 or 4 to trip up a deer. Of all the primitive weapons, these are both the most fun and the most frustrating to play with.

Slingshots
The story of David and Goliath is a good demonstration of just how dangerous a person can be with nothing more than a rock and a few scraps of leather. A slingshot uses the same principle as a rock in a sock, only instead of close quarters the slingshot is a used from a good distance.

Slingshots arent easy to master, but theyre cheap and easy to make as well as pretty harmless to practice. The simplest slingshots can be made from a one inch wide, one foot long strip of leather. Take a second, egg shaped piece of leather around 3 inches across, cut two slits in it, and slide it to the middle of your long leather strip. Thats it. All you need now is a rock small enough to comfortably fit in the leather circle. In a pinch, you can easily

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How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

improvise a leather belt into several slingshots. To use your slingshot, hold one end of the strap clenched in your fist and the other end snug under your first two fingers. Spin the rock over your head to gain some momentum and let go of the end of the strap under your fingers (while keeping hold of the end in your fist.) The first few times you try this youre probably going to hit yourself in the face with the leather, send the rock flying off into the distance, and lose your balance enough to make you fall. Theres a reason slings were historically given to boys to use as toys. They take a long time to master, so it kept the boys occupied. However, within a year of messing around with a sling for fun, a lot of boys ended up bringing home small birds, rabbits, and other fast moving prey for the family dinner table. They could just as effectively climb up in a tree and rain rocky destruction on anyone attacking their family. So can you.

be just the right size to fit comfortably in the tube without getting lodged inside. If theyre too small, theyll rattle around in the tubes interior and lose valuable momentum. If theyre too large, theyll get stuck, leaving you with a useless stick full of poison. For obvious reasons, blowguns are best used when you have higher ground. Pointing a hollow tube up in the air and blowing in it is a good way to end up swallowing a dart. Instead, make sure youre pointing straight or slightly downwards. Since darts are mostly useless without some form of poison, youll also want to both wear gloves and be extra careful handling the darts themselves.

Spears and Atlatls

Spears are a great simple weapon. You take the advantage of a pointy rock (or some other tip) and combine it with the physical distance of a club. Unlike knives, spears dont have a cutting edge. Theyre used to create giant puncture wounds that will cause the person or animal attacking you to bleed out.

Blowguns
Blowguns are subtle, guerilla weapons. Youre not going to build up enough force in your lungs to take down a bunny, much less an angry man. However, if you know how to make poison darts, you dont have to take your attacker down. You just have to nick them. A blow gun can be as simple as a hollow piece of bamboo. Any long, narrow tube with a smooth interior will work just fine. The real magic here is in the darts. They need to Survival Life Special Report 7

To make a really primitive spear, all you really need to do is lash something small, sharp, strong and pointed to the end of a something thin, light and long. Most healthy people can chuck a spear at least two to three How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

times their body length. If you want to make your spear into a real distance powerhouse, you need to add on a simple spear thrower, or atlatl. Spear throwers have been reinvented all over the world by nearly every culture. The Aztecs called theirs an atlatl. The Spanish mistook the name of the weapon for the people. Youll be just as amazed as the Spaniards by the power leverage and gravity put behind your throw by using an atlatl. All you need for a basic spear thrower is a piece of wood about two inches thick and two to three feet long. Flatten it out, and then carve one end until you have something that looks like a giant crochet hook. Make a little recess in the hook end where you can rest the blunt end of your spear. The hook should curl around it. Stand with your spear thrower over your shoulder. Tuck the spear into the crochet hook end and hold onto the smooth end. Your thrower should be at an angle over your shoulder while the spear itself is pointing forward. Now give it a good overhand throw. A trained user can fling a spear up to 150 miles per hour. If you compare a bow and arrow to a gun, think of a trained spear thrower wielding an atlatl as a cannon.

thus more penetrating power. A javelin is both heavier and more complicated than a spear. You can literally throw together a spear out of a rock, a stick and some twine. A javelin takes those primitive principles and builds on them with careful attention to weight and balance. The end result is a thrown weapon that stayed so useful people kept using it in battle all the way from ancient Greece to Medieval England. To make one, youll need something wickedly sharp but lightweight for the penetrating end. That should be 1/3 the length and no more than the weight of your javelin. Strap that to a longer, heavier throwing base. Try to keep it as sleek as possible to improve the aerodynamics. Javelins are frankly useless against most animals, but theyre historically tested and proven effective against humans. Since theyre thrown by hand, they dont have the range of a spear thrown with an atlatl, but the longer penetrating end and heavier weight can do some serious damage.

Throwing Arrows
Its amazing how, given enough time, weapons can turn into toys. Once, throwing arrows were popular small game hunting tools for the ancient Celts. Today, throwing arrows are still popular among British school boys. Basically, you take an eighteen inch dowel rod, garden cane, or something equally lightweight and

Javelins
Think of a javelin as an evil lawn dart on steroids. You have a long, tapered pointy part attached to heavier, weighted base. The weight gives the javelin more thrust and Survival Life Special Report 8

How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

ramrod straight. Sharpen one end and put a notch near the back of the opposite end. Add some fletching to the notched end to help it fly straight. School boys often use cardboard from cereal boxes. Then tie a string around the notch and knot it tight. The string should be about 2-3 times as long as the arrow. You throw the arrow from the front, holding it close to the tip. Wrap the string around your hand and keep it taut. It should stretch the length of the arrow from the notch up to your hand. When you pull your arm back and throw, the taut string gives the arrow a little extra thrust while the trailing string from your hand helps keep it steady and balanced. Part of the trick here is learning to both keep the string taut when throwing ad let it unwind quickly and naturally after the arrow leaves your hand. Expect to have a few strings get mangled in your fingers. This is still a good weapon for hunting small game such as rabbits and squirrels. Since its lightweight and hand thrown, itll do limited damage to something as large as a human unless you have exceptionally good aim and throw it into the eye or throat. Like slingshots, throwing arrows are great toys for boys. Theyll burn off energy while learning valuable skills which can be easily translated to more dangerous weapons should the need arise.

Making Simple Weapons from Modifiable Household Items

Its easy to joke about pitchfork wielding villagers chasing an incompetent army out of town, but have you ever seen a real pitchfork? It has three sharp spikes at the end of a pole. If that goes in your gut, youre not getting up again. Sometimes, being armed is entirely a matter of perspective. The modern world is full of just as many stealthily dangerous objects. Look around your house. As long as you play dirty, you have a veritable arsenal at your disposal.

Bats
Every house should have at least one aluminum baseball bat for self defense. Keep it near your door or near your bed. When going up against a physically stronger or heavier opponent, a baseball bat is the great equalizer.

Bike Helmets
If youre going to head-butt someone, you might as well make your head as dangerous as possible. Bike helmets have a nice pointy end at the front and are designed to take a

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How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

heck of a beating. In dire straits, strap one on and charge at their gut or groin.

weapons. You have a comfortable handle built in at one end. At the other, you have one side which can inflict small, focused blunt force trauma and the other side which can dig in and rip up flesh. Hammers are great for attacking someones joints. Its surprisingly easy to shatter a persons knee with a hammer. A good blow to the elbow can turn the arm into a useless, limp source of searing pain. Hammers are also notoriously good for cracking skulls. The prying end of a hammer can dig in

Dumbells
If you have Russian Kettlebells, youre golden. The handle at one end and heavy weight at the other make them easy to wield at arms length. Dont ignore your standard dumbbells, though. Grab a weight youre comfortable holding as little as five pounds will do and use it to add power and force to your punches. Holding a small dumbbell can give a roundhouse or uppercut lethal force.

Bottles
This is important. Dont try to break a full glass bottle over someones head. Youll most likely shatter the narrower end in your hand and do yourself a severe injury while your opponent stands and laughs. Instead, grab an empty bottle and smash that on something hard like your sink or the edge of a table. You now have a multi bladed knife with a convenient handle. Its a fragile knife, though, so go for soft, vulnerable places where you can do a lot of damage. If they raise their arms, stab for the armpit. If youre on the ground, go for the back of the thigh and try to hamstring them or the back of the ankle and attack the Achilles tendon.

between ribs. Use the same leverage youd use to remove a nail to break the rib up and outwards. A person armed with a hammer is a person well equipped to survive any close-range attack.

Paintball Gun
Paintball pellets hurt. Theres no question about that. Go for the face in the hopes of temporarily blinding your attacker. You

Hammers
A hammer is another one of those deceptive

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How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

can also go for the gut and groin. Shoot early, shoot often. Youd be surprised how many people will end up genuinely upset over you messing up their clothes. Use this disorientation and confusion to your advantage. Getting paint all over them also makes them slippery. If they get in close enough to grapple you, covering them in paint gives you better odds of wriggling away in search of your dumbbells.

Padlocks
The same padlock you take to the gym can be a versatile weapon. You can grasp the base and slip your middle finger into the hole to make an improvised brass knuckle. You can tie some rope or even a pair of ladies tights through the hole and suddenly you have a swingable weapon to keep someone at bay. Like the rock or the brick, you can also drop it in the bottom of a sock and swing it at your attacker.

A brick in hand is also a great tool for attacking joints. Try to smash your attackers knee in order to bring them to the ground. If you can get behind them, a hard blow to the base of the neck can debilitate or even kill.

Making Advanced Weapons From Modifiable Household Items

Basic primitive weapons are good for hunting and outdoor survival. Simple weapons made from household items are meant to give you an advantage when youre caught at home by surprise. Advanced household weapons are for when something has gone really wrong. You have time on your hands, youre in danger, and youre unarmed. You can get out of situations like that if youre clever.

Bricks
Those bricks or paving stones left over from a home construction project are all weapons. If you have some broken bricks, dump half of one in a long sock or tights. You now have a distance weapon with a heck of a punch.

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How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

Toothbrushes
A toothbrush and some rough concrete (or any abrasive surface) is all it takes to make an incredibly primitive knife. First, do your best to pull out most of the bristles. Next, file the sides down using any hard, coarse surface. Since toothbrushes are made of softish plastic, all you need is patience to eventually wear one down. Be careful. You cant get a super sharp tip on a plastic toothbrush. Trying will just make the end snap. Youre best off only filing down one side to use as a blade and letting it slope up to the point.

plastic comb. You now have a vicious slicing weapon that can do some real damage. Tiny exacto blades can be pushed through a comb or toothbrush and held in place with duct tape, glue or wire, depending on whats on hand. These give you some piercing power as well as slicing power, though they dont penetrate as deep as the razor blades.

Disposable Razors
If you have disposable razors or Exacto knives around youre halfway to a dangerous weapon already. Its hard to use a razor as is without slicing up your own hand, so the real goal is to attach it to something sturdy in order to give yourself a safe handle. If youve been sharpening a toothbrush, adding a razor blade to give it a cutting edge can be very effective. Youll still want to sharpen your toothbrush to a point for stabbing purposes, but now that you have a razor blade attached, you can stab or slice. You can likewise use some kind of sturdy metal wire to attach razor blades to a plain

Ventilator Metals
If youre trapped in a room where the air conditioning or heating vent is protected by an accordion style metal plate (typical in most apartments and houses) youre in luck. Most of them are screwed down. As you work it off, keep the screws. They can be surprisingly useful. Youll need patience and strength, but if you brace one end of the grill plate on something steady you can kick it repeatedly, stand on it, sit on it, and otherwise bend and damage it until the grill plate snaps. Now you have a row of long, thin metal strips. Each one of those is immeasurably easier to remove. The pointy end of the screws can be helpful in 12 How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

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cutting grooves where you can weaken the metal. Mostly, you should be able to slowly, methodically, bend the metal strips back and forth until they break or rip off. If youre lucky some of them will break off with a nice serrated edge. Most will be blunt. If youre in a room with a concrete wall or floor, you can begin the slow, methodical process of sharpening the metal strips into an assortment of knives. If you dont have time for that, you can still rip up your shirt and use it to carefully wrap the strips in between your fingers, Wolverinestyle. You wont have mutant slicing power, but you will be able to do more damage than punching alone. Its best to wrap your left hand. Save your right for precision work, such as gouging eyes or unlocking doors.

go ahead and break your toothpaste dried paper in several places. Youll have some rough, serrated edges which can do minimal damage. Slowly sharpen those edges against something gritty like an unpolished concrete or brick wall or floor. Youll be surprised to see a real edge come through. This works because toothpaste, much like dishwashing detergent, is actually made from a suspension of grit intended for scouring. That grit gives it strength while the paste part creates a slow-but-effective glue. The paper gives it structural integrity. Your knife can be easily defeated by anyone wielding metal or ceramics. Its also incredibly vulnerable to water. However, if toothpaste and paper are all you have, you can still create a primitive blade. The bottom line to defending yourself with primitive weapons is creativity. Everything we have talked about is simply the repurposing of a commonplace item into a defensive or offensive weapon. Dont be too surprised if you find yourself seeing potential weapons everywhere you go. Dont feel bad about it; its a survival mechanism that mankind has been using since the beginning of time, so youre in good company.

Toothpaste-hardened, Sharpened Paper

This is a straight up MacGyver move. Evenly spread a thin layer of toothpaste over a sheet of paper. Press a second sheet of paper on top of it and smooth it down to remove all bubbles. Each night, let your toothpaste completely dry. The next day, add another layer to your ongoing toothpaste and paper sandwich, smoothing out the bubbles and letting it dry. After 10 days youll have a thin, rock solid, but slightly fragile surface. At this point, Survival Life Special Report 13

How To Make and Use Primitive Weapons

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