I have studied "kits" for a few decades. Something that always fascinated me. From mountain man kits, aka possible bags, to hobo bags, to snowshoe mounted rural mail carriers. Your kit was everything you needed to get by. The mountain mans kit most often included 2 types of fire starter, a fishing line and hooks, some piggins, short pieces of string or rope, a clay pipe, and tobacco and a sharpening stone and a fixed blade knife. Hobo' bags often carried a large tin cup, spoon, camp pocket knife, comb, straight razor, soap, fire makings, and assorted necessities. The woods wanderer had a kit gun, knife, fire making, most often a tiny hatchet, a small frying pan and some fishing gear. All of these had one thing in common, they carried on their shoulder everything they needed. No fancy backpack, no atv, no pickup truck. Since every ounce counted the smaller handgun was king and a 22 caliber was great since ammo was cheap and light weight. Now days we don't wander for days or weeks or months alone in the outdoors. Nor do we carry daily everything we will need to stay afield for extended periods, on our person, so weight and size do not matter as much. Protection was not of greater importance that food acquisition and the little 22 handguns were great for that. The Marbles Game Getters were supposedly quite popular as well as the little Stevens single shot 22's. Their pocket rifle variant was especially useful. But I now seldom wander more than a few miles from my truck, never for more than the day, and weight and size are of far less importance so the larger, more powerful handguns are more often my kit guns.
