Today we bring you some low-tech that’s simple, useful, and inexpensive. Read up. Mad Duo

Review: McNett – Gruntline 

Apocalypse Josh

Here’s an unusual bit of kit that I’ve recently added to my regular load. I’ve previously covered a number of uses for paracord, and it’s pretty ubiquitous in the preparedness world, but it lacks in some areas. It has very little give over short lengths, but has a minimum 30% elasticity over long lengths.

Usually for smaller elastic jobs you could use elastic shock cord but it’s usually not up to big tasks in small diameter cords seen on gear. The usual alternative is to use the metal hook-ended bungee ocky-straps but these have a long history of being flying eyeball-gouging flails of doom.

The good folks at McNett have come up with a solution: the GruntLine. Consisting of braided natural dry rubber tubing, with cords affixed at either end which in turn end with plastic clip hooks. The line is 1.10m (43″) long but when stretched out, it will reach up to 2.15m (7′).

The braiding gives you many no-peg points where you can feed and bind up whatever you want to hang. It’s just a matter of feeding a part through the braid, and it will bind it up and hold it pretty tight.

The Gruntline is rated for up to 9kg (20lbs) of gear, although the braid-feeding of any single items won’t come near to bearing that load (but when taut they hold tighter). It will hold as many items as you can fit it with up to that weight limit. I don’t know how well the cords are attached to the webbing as they are secured under loops of rubber, so might be a potential weak point.

As well as acting as a clothesline and a gear suspender, the Gruntline could be put to any number of other uses. McNett also suggests it can be used as a lanyard and gear retention, but also as a tie-down strap or pack strap. I have been keeping mine fed through three loops of PALS/MOLLE on the side of my pack, so I can have it on-hand wherever I go. McNett also says it could work as an emergency medical tool, an arm sling, I.V. support and even as a tourniquet.

You could also use it as a slingshot elastic, an animal snare and as a natural camouflage holder, much like the netting on a helmet or as part of a ghillie suit. Those same braids that can be used to secure foliage and other materials to break up your silhouette and conceal yourself. It loops nicely around a hat, so should serve this use well. Even crisscrossed over a pack or the like, it would give good purchase to attach your foliage coverage. The downsides of the GruntLine are only few; the plastic clips on the ends are pretty narrow and don’t open wide enough to clip over some of the points I tried to use, and there is always the worry that it might give out or the cord used might give out. However, I’ve had no such trouble so far, and kept both my eyes, so there is that.

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The Gruntline retails for 21 lyrebird teeth, which according to Google is around $13. You can get one here.

Mad Duo, Breach-Bang& CLEAR!

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About the Author: Josh Orth is a second generation expat currently dwelling in the arguably civilized outskirts of Melbourne, Australia. He’s lived in deserts, jungles and urban sprawls around the world and traveled/adventured into assorted inhospitable places around the world and has a keen sense of the speed with which the trappings of ‘civilized Western life’ can disappear. This has led him to begin writing about his interests and observations when it comes to the gear, skills and other necessities of self reliance of being equipped for whatever a capricious, occasionally indurate life might throw at him. This isn’t by any means to say our eccentric friend truly experiences genuine vorfreude about dystopian life, but if he had to he might not complain. Read more by Josh at Apocalypse Equipped.

Grunts: vorfreude.

We’re not saying Josh flies a PL-12 Airtruk. We’re just saying this guy and Josh have never been seen in the same room together at the same time.