A short while ago, I wrote about the poor attempt of Home Depot to catch the wave on selling paracord. I’ve since run across a couple other stores trying to do the same thing, and here is what I’ve found.

WalMart

Walmart carries line of products produced by SecureLine, a cordage company that has been around for over 40 years. In a small ironic twist, SecureLine is a subsidiary of Lehigh Consumer Products LLC, whoi in turn is owned by Jarden Corporation, publisher of my ever-popular Ball’s Blue Book. It seems if you follow the trail long enough, you always end up realizing 6 guys own the world.

SecureLine now offers paracord. I checked it out, and was mildly surprised. Packaging left a little to be desired, but I didn’t buy it for the packaging. The line felt stiff like “real” paracord always does at first, a good sign to me.  Some paracord knockoffs have an outer shell that is best described as “soft and fuzzy”. Dammit “soft and fuzzy” is NOT the way I want to describe my paracord! The outer shell of this line was definitely the correct nylon, so I was happy with that.

The inner strands are the proof I always look for, though. Braided nylon, or twisted polypropylene is NOT a paracord core. Cutting this open showed that the manufacturer stayed true to standard, and kept with 7 strands of twisted nylon. Stormdrane would approve!

There were only two drawbacks that I could find with this – No colored inner core strand (used to identify the manufacturer in the REAL military paracord), and this product is listed as being made in China. Not that I’m against products made in China, but we have plenty of paracord manufacturers in the USA, why not go with one of them?

I only saw it in green, but it looks to be made in other colors, according to my research. I’ll call this one worth buying.

Lowes

Lowes carries a line of products make by NiteIze. As I was doing my research on them for this article, I came to realize just how many of their products I use, some of them every day. Amazon lists almost 4,000 different products of theirs!

My personal favorite NiteIze product is the S-Biner. I have 4 on my keyring. Each of my car keys is held on my keyring with an S-Biner. This allows me to quickly remove a key when needed. It also allows me to clip it onto my shirt when I don’t have a safe pocket to carry things in, a regular occurrence when you are swimming. (You do know I work in and around pools, right?) This also works well while kayaking and fishing. The S-Biner has never failed me, and I always get back to my truck with the key right where I clipped it. But I”m getting off topic, as usual!

It seems NiteIze now offers a line of paracord as well.

The outer shell passes my stiffness test, feeling like the stuff I have on my 1,000 ft roll I purchased a while back. Cutting into the cord and removing the core, I found….7 strands of twisted nylon. Jackpot! About as close as you can get to the real deal these days.

It only appears to come in black, but it has a couple things in favor over the SecureLine version listed above. First is that is made in the good old USA. Second is that is made in the USA. And finally, it seems it is more widely available, as more stores carry NiteIze products, including (but not limited to) Amazon, Sports Authority, REI, And, the folks at Home Depot (only I’ve not seen NiteIze paracord there yet). Wider availability is a good thing, in my opinion.

So there. You now have options for getting decent paracord locally. I’d still suggest ordering online, when you can, from a reputable dealer. Stormdrane offers some good advice, go ask him what he thinks…and be sure to browse his long list of fantastic projects. Tell him FloridaHillbilly sent ya’.

Peace,
db