5 Minutes to Better Bushcraft The JB Figure 4 Variant

Description

Figure 4 triggers can be difficult for beginners, this variation makes is easy and works well.

https://www.youtube.com/user/michbowguy

www.selfrelianceoutfitters.com

Tags: Survival,Tarp,Trapping

Video Transcription

morning guys welcome back to the Pathfinder school I'm Dave Canterbury and today in five minutes to better bushcraft we're going to talk about a new variation of the figure-four trap I call it the jb figure-four after my buddy Jamie Burley who created this design I'm going to talk to you a little bit about trigger sensitivity and how do you create a very sensitive trigger on a figure four and why this type triggering mechanism makes the most sense and I'm going to show you how this trap works and how effective it can be stay with me okay I wanted to give you an up-close look at the way this is constructed it's very very simple there's no notch at the top there's no notch at the back on the lever and fulcrum stick there's only one notch and it's a seven notch that's carved into the bait stick itself and then there is a simple dish out or flat carved here that actually sweeps up and that's very important because what that does is it forces you to go from a flat to a round which releases that bait stick very very quickly the unique thing about this trap is again it doesn't take any notches now this one's put together with inner tube bands however a lot of people don't carry those into the woods you could also put this together very easily with cordage using a simple bipod style lash that was wrapped and frapped a couple times I would suspect from looking at the size of this trap which is really set up for something the size of squirrels and again your traps should always be scaled to the game you're trying to kill I would say that the amount of cordage it takes to make a Paiute deadfall would make this trap and to me this is a far superior trap to a Paiute deadfall especially when you're trying to learn chopping to begin with because the Paiute deadfall trigger stick has to catch on the deadfall itself and sometimes that can be tricky to find that particular spot where it will catch and not release too easily with this one everything is hung on a notch and you can see that when you push down on the top

it automatically pushes this stick gets levered back into the knotch and that's what holds a study and having that go to a flat straight to around allows it to release very very easily with almost no pressure whatsoever so let's go set this thing up spring it off and I'll show you how it works okay we're gonna go ahead and lash this up now with cordage and not use the rubber bands so we need to figure out how things need to go this needs to sit like this so we're going to put our bipod lash here I'm gonna cut myself about a foot foot and a half of cordage should be plenty to do this with and I'm using number eight Bank line I believe it is for this and I'm just going to come in here and start off with a timber hitch and do a regular bipod lash and you can see that bipod lash on lots and lots of videos that my instructors have out there on the web so I won't go through this whole thing on video with you but that's not what the lash that I'm going to use here is gonna be a bipod lash I'm gonna leave a little bit of space in there and not go too tight with it because I want to put a couple of wraps in there as well I'm just going to take about three wraps around this thing then I'm going to come in from the bottom and do my fraps over the top the separate things and give myself a pivot point just like that three fraps when I come back around I'm gonna finish it with a clove hitch now I've got this all lashed up and it all folds up into this when you're done if you were going to make several these in your camp beforehand the beauty of this in my mind one of the other bonuses to this design that Jamie came up with is that because you've lashed all of these things all of these will roll and rotate which means if you're not lined up exactly where you should be like that flat maybe when you lash it up that flat was turned sideways you can turn that in the lashing and get that lined up where you need it if your bait stick doesn't line up exactly with your post you can turn that in the lashing to get it exactly where you want it all of that can't be done with notches because once you carve the notch you're stuck if it doesn't line up correctly you're starting over with this all you

do is rotate sticks to get things where you want him and you're setting ready to go okay let's talk about our deadfall for a minute we've got about a 10-pound deadfall here a half of a hardwood log and it's soaking wet that's big enough to kill up to a squirrel size animal remember you're trying to suffocate the animal not necessarily squash the guts out of him you just want to suffocate him ten pounds is big enough for a squirrel we've matched our trap component size to our deadfall the simple thing about this is you've got one notch you have to capture the rest is held in place automatically so just make sure that your top fulcrum stick is straight and level and flat is right there and you wouldn't even necessarily have to flatten that out I just took one shaving off there with a knife really quick to make it a little more neat make sure everything straight up and down everything is held in place again I'm capturing it once I lift that one notch go I'm ready alright guys that was a quick look at the Jamie burl a variation of the figure-four deadfall a little bit of tricks and tips on how to set that up and how to properly get that trigger to a nice hair trigger check out Jamie burly's YouTube channel for more videos about this trap as well as other useful tips and tricks for outdoor cooking and bushcraft I appreciate your views I appreciate your support I thank you for anything you do for our school for family for business for all of our sponsors instructors affiliates of friends I'll be back to another video in this series as soon as I can guys thanks