Panacea X LLC owner Robert Weir Bio: The Zen Survivalist

My name is Robert Weir, and I live in Nevada City, California. Nevada City is located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains about 1 hour North West of Lake Tahoe California.

Backpacking, survival skills practice, hunting and fishing it is all right here. I even have a beautiful trout stream flowing through my back yard!

The bulk of my career has been as a firearms designer, although I have also worked as a machinist and owned my own successful firearm parts business.

My motto says a lot about me: “All Survival, All the Time.”

My day job is designing tactical weapons and components for Double star Corp in Winchester KY. These rifles (primarily AR15’s) are commonly used by survivalists for hunting and self-defense.

For fun, I love to design and make survival tools; like, knives, multi-use machetes, or Axe/shovel combos, then go out and fabricate it in my machine shop. To me this is true magic, thinking things up in my mind then making it become real with my hands.

Then the best part; I get to go out on a “Wild Walk” and test my survival tool. I think that testing my tools in real simulated survival situations really helps me become better survivalist by getting by with only the one tool. Further, these mini survival trips help me dial in my tools to be the best they can be.

Another Hobby I have is creating post-apocalyptic art and vehicles for, a Mad Max festival that I attend every year, called “Wasteland Weekend”. [read more]

It’s an amazing event where all participants are costumed in their dystopian fashion. It is a chance to experience living in a Post-Apocalyptic world, without having to really go there.

Even though, I present myself as a tough guy, I am really an empathetic and kind hearted person, who is deeply spiritual. I have deep concern for wildlife and the environment. I enjoy life and adventure! I like to laugh and have a witty sense of humor. I am quick with a smile and eager to help.

I know that the answer is love, not fear.

The place where I live, to the truck I drive, the clothes I wear, to my job and hobbies I have, all revolve around preparedness and survival.

That is why if you know me you, you know why my moto is, “All Survival All the Time”!

Survival Experience:

Almost ALONE!

My recent claim to fame is that I was an alternate cast member for History Channel’s ALONE season 3 which recently finished airing, winter 2017. ALONE is an extreme survival challenge where 10 people are placed in a remote and rugged wilderness and have to survive by themselves totally alone. The contestant survivalist that survives the longest (for up to 1 year) wins $500,000.00. It was all self-filmed in Patagonia, Argentina side, Rio Negro providence, starting in May of 2016.

ALONE had over 5000 applicants for season 3, and the production company, Leftfield Entertainment narrowed those down to the top 20.

I was one of the top 20 and was flown back to New York in March of 2016 for their boot camp. Leftfield’s boot camp included a 3 day survival assessment by top British Survival consultant. I feel the instructors were please with my level of survival proficiency. Shelter building, friction fire, water purification, game processing, and traps.

I was informed I was an alternate cast member just 2 weeks before my flight was departing, and I was able to get all the info they needed in, plus get all my gear and financial matters inline before I left. Plus I had a producer come to my home for filming my “bio-pack”, of me and my family. The main challenge for me was I custom made two of my broadheads for my arrows, plus reworked the prototype PAXE, made a custom saw and made 2 more PAXE’s for 2 of the other ALONE contestants! I then flew to Patagonia with the rest of the cast and got more instruction on self-filming and some survival information, which I mainly got from hanging with the other survivalist. It was interesting to see how reality TV shows are made.

Unfortunately for me, and for the first time in ALONE History, none of the two alternate cast members were needed. Note: both Lucas Miller, one of the stars of ALONE season 1, and Larry Roberts, runner-up season 2, were alternates and got to step in when one of the top ten cast members had to tap-out before the show started.

I feel this experience shows that I am qualified as a survivalist for this kind of an extreme Survival Challenge.

I am grateful for the experience, and the opportunity to make friends with some of the world’s elite survivalists.

Lifelong love of the outdoors and survival. When I was eight years old, my third grade teacher had us read My side of the Mountain, which is a story about a young boy that runs away from the city and survives on his own in the wilderness. That sounded like so much fun, this sparked my lifelong interest in wilderness survival. Also, my father began taking us back- packing about the same time. I also was a Scout (YMCA Indian Guides). Built shelters in woods across from my house.

Fishing was my primary Hobby and interest, (other than partying and girls ;)), in High School. I wanted become a Bass fishing tournament pro. I made my own lures, flies and fishing rods, worked in the local fly fishing store and fished as often as I could.

College at Humboldt State, continued to ocean fish primarily, I also honed my experience in crab fishing and digging clams and cockles, and blood worms for bait. I began to legally hunt, (and trap), Rabbits, and also hunt deer, ducks, squirrel. It was this time in the early 80,’s that both Rambo and Red Dawn came out which began my fascination with preparedness and post collapse survival. I hiked 350 miles of the Pacific Crest trail one summer as well and hiked the last 120 miles solo.

Once I had a family, I began to increase my interest in preparedness and home-defense. Homesteading, retreat property, gardening, sustainable agriculture and permaculture.

Endurance Sports: Mountain bike racing for more than 10 years, Marathon runner-, current long distance runner. I know how to suffer to get what I want!

I continued to hone my primitive skills training by working with Rick Berry who was an instructor for Tom Brown for 10 years. Also, took classes from Matt Berry, (his twin brother), who is an expert in primitive skills and taught edible wild plants and mushroom foraging at our local Sierra College. Then I continued to build skills by practicing at home, and also attending primitive skills gatherings, like “Rabbit Stick”, “Buckeye”, and “Winter Count”.

Endurance Sports: Mountain bike racing for more than 10 years, Marathon runner-, current long distance runner. I know how to suffer to get what I want!

I usually go on 1 to 2 survival trips, or “wild walks” a year; mostly in the Sierra Nevada’s where I live, or in the Great Basin desert in Nevada.

Lately, I have been going on more advanced trips.

February 2015, I went solo to Belize to get some jungle training in Belize and then I went on a self-organized and self-supported castaway survival trip on a deserted Island in the Caribbean! So much fun!

Spring 2016 with the Survival reality TV show ALONE Season 3 to Patagonia region of Argentina, an amazing experience!

Spring 2017 Sea Kayaking in Baja Mexico. Although this was not a survival trip, I was still able to do some valuable testing on the FireFly micro survival knife.