Best paracord

Jon StokesStaff - July 3, 2019

We bought and tested over 20 popular paracords, performing load, abrasion, and damp tests to pick the best survival cordage.

[See the full post at: Best paracord]

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Just an FYI…Paracord Planet, Goldberg, Westcoast Paracord, etc are all the same company. And the SurvivorCord has one of the best Tinder’s out there. Did you guys try that tinder?

 

Thanks for the comment! I’m not sure this is true about those companies, though. The cord from the three you mentioned is very different, with different marker strands and textures. I can see where Paracord Planet sells cord from a number of brands, but many of those brands are definitely not the same as Paracord Planet. For instance, Rothco is an established brand located in NY (Paracord Planet is in Fargo, ND).

As for the SurvivorCord, it’s is featured in this guide as our main upgrade pick.

 

Rothco is it’s own company, but a little research will show that Paracord Planet (AKA: International Marketing Systems, LTD), Goldberg, Westcoast Paracord, Party Paracord, Hollywood Paracord, etc. are all based out of the same office in North Dakota. They’ve been covering their tracks recently though, by enabling privacy on their domains. All of the aliases except for Goldberg is Paracord Planet trying to get around Amazon’s “multiple seller accounts” restrictions, but they eventually got caught. Goldberg is Paracord Planet copying all of the trademarked packaging of TITAN’s WarriorCord.

 

It would be great to see a write-up on specialty cords made out of much stronger but lighter materials: Kevlar, Dyneema etc. There are some interesting trade-offs there that are not at all obvious (e.g. tying knots…). A detailed hands-on review like you guys do would be extremely useful – especially if it also compares them with paracord, seeing how it is a de facto baseline for prepping cordage.

The main reason for the interest is that weight is always at a premium for any kind of a get-home bag. Lighter cordage can save on weight and bulk – or, alternatively, one can carry more of it for the same weight.

 

I definitely want to look into this stuff, as well. I looked at a bunch of fancy new winch line while preparing this article, but decided to just stick with paracord for the time being. But I think the lightweight, super strong new stuff is worth considering for prepping purposes, and we want to do something on it at some point.

 

Several years ago I tested Technora, Spectra, Kevlar, and Dyneema cordage specimens against the more plebeian nylon and polyester stuff.  There’s no getting around the fact that the exotic stuff is incredibly strong for its weight.

All the exotics are very hard to cut using the usual tools and don’t expect to burn the cut ends with your lighter and get pretty results.  They don’t stretch either, much less than the polyester stuff you usually consider to be static, and nowhere close to what you’re used to with nylon.  Dyneema, Spectra, and Technora cut best with a dedicated bench hot knife in order to accomplish a clean finished end that won’t unravel.  The slippery Dyneema and Spectra will often not hold a knot without it slipping through in a terrifying instant.  My Spectra sample was so slippery that I had to move to using a triple fisherman’s knot to complete one of the tests because the double fisherman that worked well with everything else would slip through 75% of the time.

The Kevlar was the hardest to cut and it’s difficult to dress the ends to keep them from unraveling, since it will not melt.  Both the Technora and Kevlar feel dry to the touch and hold a knot very well, but apparently these fibers don’t stand up to repeated loading of the knot or being pulled through small diameter pulleys and have been known to break catastrophically in those circumstances.

Honestly, the only one that I use at all is the Dyneema and only in very specific circumstances where I really need the most strength for the least bulk and I can utilize an adequate knot that won’t slip.  Nylon is just better for what I need to use cordage for most of the time.

 

Thanks for the test, purchased the winner!

 

Great! if you want to, reply here once you’ve used it and let us know what you thought.

 

Has there been an update article about the Titan survivalcord?

 

Not yet. It won’t be a separate article, we’ll update this one.

 

I reached out to Titan this morning, and they said that all of their cord is a nylon polyester blend. Have you had a chance to test their new cord?

 

This is the same old cord we tested, but they just changed the advertising to reflect the fact that they’re using polyester & it’s not milspec. So no need to retest, just maybe a small update and reply on this.

 

It’s interesting that you can tell groups of different products come from the same manufacturer.

 

I am dismayed that you even hint at using paracord in nay capacity for technical climbing or rappelling.  Years ago, climbers realized that paracord only had uses in climbing for items like shoe laces or zipper pulls.  If you are going to be in terrain where technical rope work might be required, Even a relatively short length of proper rope (at least 9mm – 60 to 100 feet long) is well worth carrying.  At least that has been my experience.

With only a suitable rope, you can at least perform a body rappel (very carefully!). Doing such with paracord is too horrible to contemplate.

One problem with paracord in these uses is its susceptibility to quick abrasion and consequent abrupt, disastrous failure.

Paracord is great stuff.  I carry and use Paratinder routinely, but never for any life support function.

 

My wife and I take maybe 2 overnight trips a year and for some reason I’ve been sleeping poorly the last few days.  I forgot to pack the headgear that secures the mask to the face, and like most parts in life without it the CPAP is totally pointless.  I discovered this at 9pm on Saturday night, so sourcing one locally was out and we were four hours from home… however I did have some paracord in my bag and after some initial frustration at myself for forgetting I figured at least give it a shot.  And wouldn’t you know it, I slept better last night that I did any of the 3 prior.  Thanks, The Prepared, for helping to get me out of a 4th night of awful sleep.

 

@Jon,

I ordered some of the 5col cord a few months ago, and I am very impressed. It’s tough and strong. Some of the cord that I have purchased in the past has been almost flat in shape; this type is round. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

I was interested in getting some of the budget pick, which you refer to in the review as ParacordGalaxy 550 Paracord and also as Paracord Galaxy Commercial 550, but the links to eBay and Amazon are no longer valid. I went directly to the ParacordGalaxy website and saw lots of choices, but none of them has the word Commercial in them. Any hints on what I should be looking for there? And should I look in the Milspec section or the 550 section?

 

Hi Jonnie, thanks for letting us know about the broken links – I’ve updated the links for you.

But, in short, ParacordGalaxy does not offer mil-spec paracord, hence why we wrote ‘commercial’ in one of the descriptions. What you are looking for at ParacordGalaxy is anything in the 550 section. Hope this helped 🙂

 

Actually, they do — or at least claim to. https://paracordgalaxy.com/83-mil-spec-paracord. Don’t know how it differs from the other 550s.

 

You’re right – and I stand corrected. FWIW we haven’t tested the Mil Spec version offered by ParacordGalaxy (only the ‘commercial’ version) and I don’t have any direct experience with it, so I don’t know if it’s genuine mil spec, if it’s worth it, etc.

 

I HIGHLY recommend getting a Spool Tool for your paracord. One of the biggest headaches of paracord is it getting tangled, not being able to cut it, or ends fraying. This tool solves all those problems.

There is a replaceable razor blade that cuts paracord like butter, a BIC mini fits into the side and is wonderful for melting the tips, and there are various sized notches in the side where you can run your cord through to hold it onto the spool or to pull through and get a nice clean tip after melting it. No more having to lick your fingers and dab the end of the rope after melting it. The spool tool holds 100ft of paracord. Definitely worth getting one or two of these.

 

Great recommendation! Thank you for sharing this Jay.

 

In a recent email to Titan Survival, they said that they are no longer selling WarriorCord. People often were buying WarriorCord when they meant to buy SurvivorCord and it was costing a lot with all the returns. 

They also said the following:

“Having said that, if you haven’t tried our SurvivorCord® line yet, I would highly recommend it. It is based off of our WarriorCord™ specs, but we’ve integrated 3 potentially life-saving survival strands into the core: Waxed Fire Tinder, Fishing Line, and Multi-functional Brass Wire.

And then we also have our SurvivorCord® XT line, which is similar to SurvivorCord®, but we’ve upped the tensile strength to 1,000 LBS, swapped out the mono-filament fishing line for 25 LB Braided fishing line, and swapped out the brass wired for a Kevlar® strand so that it is more pliable like the WarriorCord™.”

I just wanted to share this correspondence that I had with them to show that SurvivorCord XT is their new upgraded line of paracord.

 

A paracord that I came across but haven’t owned myself is Zippo’s SureFire paracord. https://www.zippo.com/collections/outdoor/products/surefire-paracord

It looks like the paratinder, is the same price, comes with an additional 20 feet and includes a carabiner! So I would go with this one if you had to choose between the two.

1″ of the paraffin coated thread burns for 30 seconds.