As an Eagle Scout, I have to comment that your web page
http://www.scoutingweb.com/scoutingweb/SubPages/SurvivalGame.htm is badly misleading.
Putting map & compass at the bottom of the list as "dangerous items" is irresponsible. While one should certainly discourage young children from trying to walk out of a wilderness, they are hardly "dangerous" and should instead be taught as being near the forefront of staying safe in otherwise unknown areas.
100 proof whiskey is half water. This is not useful for building fires.
The uses and criticisms of the gun are profoundly absurd.
A typical .45 caliber pistol only holds 8-9 rounds, which may be useful to attract obviously very close help but quickly runs out of 3-round signaling sets.
Using the butt of a pistol as a hammer requires the magazine be inserted, which implies the gun will be loaded - certainly a dangerous activity, and suggesting this use to children is profoundly irresponsible.
The idea of replacing a bullet with cloth and firing it at wood is just dumb. The flames won't last long enough, and the blast will blow everything apart that's close enough to theoretically light; remember, you extinguish a candle by _blowing_it_out_.
The suggestion that someone will freak out with it and harm someone is vastly overrated, a notion born of holoplophobia.
Hunting with it does _not_ require "expert marksmanship", just patience and close proximity (if it were so difficult as indicated, the prior point wouldn't be much of an issue at all).
Transporting an animal is no big deal as most animals really aren't that big, and a pistol would likely be inadequate against something big enough to not be movable. If one were to kill a large animal with it, the small axe listed earlier will do a fine job of reducing it to manageable pieces.
Overall I'm surprised at how readily the author is willing to burn just about everything flammable - including clothing. Certainly get that fire started, but once started there is plenty around to burn.
Also surprising is the complete absence of eating the Crisco! That's a tremendous amount sustaining food-type energy in that can. I'm gonna go to the grocery store now and check the caloric content of a can of Crisco.
Here's hoping the page gets updated accordingly!
- ctdonath
Eagle Scout
Troop 100
A couple decades ago