A stupid simple hand cart for hauling gear

I have many preparedness items on hand and around the house. One item I don't have is a gear hauler. In the event we don't have access to gas we will be carrying or hauling a lot more items to/from different areas. In my quest for a simple cart I discovered the PolyMule all-terrain cart being launch on Indiegogo. The guys tried to get a campaign on Kickstarter, but didn't quite get the funding. They've redesigned the cart, added some nice features and are launching a campaign again.

When (not if) things go South, it would be nice to have a gear hauler as an option. The camaign has to hit its goal in order to go into production. Check out the link below if interested.
BTW, I'm new to the forum, but excited to check out all of the great information that's here.

Link to Polymule cart:
Easier Hauling: 'Polymule' Rethinks The Wheelbarrow
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A few details on the cart: Reasonably portable, uphill assist, luggage rack option, etc.

I'm not affiliated with them, but I did back the campaign and would love to see it in production. This thing is overbuilt and stupid simple.

 

The folding wheels don't look to me like they could take very much abuse. All the strength is in the vertical plain and anything but a smooth surface looks like it would challenge the structure. Also I noticed no 50 cal mounts.

 

The only intense testing has been by their team. So yes, we don't have a second reviewer and we'd have to wait a few months. There is a 5 year warranty. BUT, i'm pretty sure there's no 50 cal "add-on" option for this

This is from the campaign website.
How will the polymer hold up in extreme cold?
The polymer we will be using is known in the engineering world for its sub-zero impact resistance. Some formulations of this polymer are used in military vehicle armor systems and bullet-proof vests. It's insanely tough...

What real-world testing has been done on the Polymule?
We spent hundreds of hours torture testing an early prototype. We abused it in nearly every way imaginable... including drop testing, throwing rocks and logs AT and IN it, hauling it over ridiculously large boulders, dredge pilings, through rivers, flipping it upside down, pulling it up steep grades, etc. Needless to say, we are willing to bet the Polymule can handle anything you throw at it... that's why we're offering an INSANE five-year warranty (20x the industry standard).

 

I bought a steel frame and mesh tatical yard cart from tractor supply.
Since when I break it, being steel I can repair or replace failed bits with heavier steel.
But not everyone has welders, grinders, steel stock and expanded steel sheet on hand.

Don' put cheap wheels on it. The tractor supply cart had cheap pneumatic tires, but after they ran over sticker seeds or mesquite twigs they put pin holes in the tire tubes so I replaced the pneumatic wheel assemblys with solid rubber tires that cost $26 each.

 

Interesting design and I do like the big style wheels. Also the folding concept is a positive.

 

I thought about getting a donkey or a horse to have around for the collapse. They'd have more energy than me at my age for dragging stuff around.

 

When I first got married 18 years ago I would never have considered getting a horse. Now I'm moving to a new property in a few months with enough land to have lots of animals. Horses are a great resource and run on very little "fuel" in the summer when the grass is green. Keeping them fed in the winter would be a bit of a challenge though.

 

Love the LDS handcart story. They could not go to Deseret and were never designed to go to Utah.They were well designed to get to the next LDS farm or house, often in the 50 or so mile range as I remember from 50 years ago, where they would rest and resupply. The fatalities that did occur happened when weather or something prevented them from reaching the resupply point. The study of their cooperation and survival under hostile circumstances, they were in many cases what we would today call refugees driven out of several of their settlements and changing the concept to either caches or friendly resupply points that would allow you to also survive with minimal equipment if TSHTF. The actions of the early Mormon Church in the face of a hostile government and prospering in the area of survival with minimal resources is well worth studying. Given that they were also adapting from farming in a well watered climate to that of a high desert and had to develop all their infrastructure from scratch makes their successful separate country at that time even more remarkable. I am not a Mormon, but find their development strategy in all of their sites, Nauvoo, Illinois sites, New York sites, etc.to be worth study even if you do not agree with their religious viewpoints.
The farm carts we used as kids were very similar to those shown for the LDS. Large wheels for minimal rolling resistance, load suspended from wheels for stability and ground clearance, Wheels not rubber tired to prevent flats, pulled and not pushed so as to move over rough ground, etc. The cart we used in the 1940's in Minnesota as a kid was according to my grand dad about 60 years old and still in good shape, and as a 10 year old I could fairly easily move 6 to 8 hundred pound of milk cans out to the water tank where they were placed in cold water for the night. While the game carts so loved by Jerry D Young and all are very practical and work just as they say in their stories, they are also very high tech and would not hold up as well as the old carts nor are they as likely to be repairable.

 

The uphill assist is nothing more than a locking mechanism for the hub when you are hiking uphill. When you stop to rest the hub locks and doesn't roll back. The pioneers just used a long stick to thread through the wheels of the cart to keep it from rolling backward on a steep hill. From what I understand you can activate and deactivate the locking hub feature.

 

This is what you need behind your cart:

 

Folks still handcart'n today. Cool drone footage

 

The wheels look just like the ones on my wheel chair.

 

Never thought of using wheelchair wheels. They are not very thick but they are big . Interesting

 

How's this?