If you are new to 4WDing and have listened to all the pro’s advice on getting the right gear to get up and going offroad, then you have probably got your hands-on a fully equipped offroad 4WD recovery kit, which includes a whole bunch of straps shackles pulleys and plenty of other stuff you have no idea how to use.

We’re going to go over each component typically found inside 4WD recovery kits to give you a better idea of how to use your gear when you get stuck offroad!

Snatch Strap

For many 4WDers the snatch strap is the go-to piece of recovery equipment due to its incredible simplicity, and the fact that you can get set up for offroad recoveries in nearly any situation with just 1 additional vehicle.

A Snatch strap is essentially a huge bungy cord, in the same way a bungee jumper gets slowly stopped and relaunched, your 4WD can be yanked free from nearly anything that is bogging your 4WD down.

As you can imagine though, your 4WD weights a couple of tons and if you’ve ever tried to manually push a stuck 4WD free, you’ll get a better appreciation for the kinds of forces involved in yanking a 4WD free.

The best practice for recovering a stuck vehicle using a snatch strap, is to connect the strap to your vehicle via a secure and safe “Rated Recovery Point” using a shackle on either end of the strap.

Please note the rated recovery points do not include tie down hooks, tow ball or even bull bar tubes you should consult your vehicles user’s manual for more information on this!

Another thing that can reduce the forces encountered during a recovery is to pull the vehicle in line with the direction of travel of the stuck vehicle, keeping in mind that if you haven’t pulled out a shovel to clear the path of your vehicle you are making your own life much, much more difficult – don’t be lazy, it’ll make your day harder!

If you want an affordable and effective recovery snatch strap, you shouldn’t look past the Hercules 8,000kg Snatch Strap Kit!

Tree Trunk Protector

This is an ESSENTIAL bit of kit for 4WDers looking at doing ANY winch recovery!

Why? You may be asking, when anchoring your 4WD’s winch even on a simple straight line pull with just a winch line, you’ll need a reliable way to secure your 4WD’s cable to the nearest sturdy tree.

A tree trunk protector is exactly what it says on the tin, it’ll protect the tree you are winching off, and comes in handy on just about any 4WD recovery even when you are anchored directly to another vehicle, you can use an anchor point to redivert the line tension, the Tree Trunk Protector has very minimal stretch and will act as a firm anchor point.

If you were to simply use your winch cable wrapped around the base of your solid tree anchor point you will ringbark it and effectively kill the tree, meaning you wont have a tree to winch off next time you get stuck on the track, and neither will future 4WDers coming down the tracks!

So, take care of the bush and always use a Hercules Tree Trunk Protector to ensure the tracks stay beautiful and open!

Extension Strap

This is one bit of kit that always gets overlooked when digging through your bag of goodies – Again it says it on the tin!

The Recovery Extension Strap is one tough strap, designed to extend the reach of your anchors and winch cable by 20m (with the Hercules Extension Strap). With a rating to rival your 12,000lb winch rope, it makes the perfect addition to any winch equipped 4WD.

The benefit to using a winch extension strap is that you don’t have to unspool your entire winch cable and will take much less time to pack up and clean when you get home!

Winch Dampener

For any 4WD recovery a purpose made Winch Dampener is one of the most essential safety accessories you MUST add to your recovery setup.

There seems to be some debate on where and how to use your recovery blanket when performing a recovery. So we’ll throw in our 2c worth, if you have been watching older 4WDing videos they probably recommend throwing the dampener over the middle of the winch cable. This is great if you happen to have a steel cable on your 4WD winch.

However if you have one of the more modern and safer Dyneema Synthetic winch ropes, like the colorful variety found on the Adventure Kings Domin8r X 12,000lb Winch, it is safer practice to weigh down the winch hook and any metal components used in the recovery setup, that way if there happens to be a critical failure the dampener will drag the shrapnel down to the ground.

Metal Recovery Accessories

Snatch Block
In many complete recovery kits you get a Snatch Block Pulley, this isn’t designed for a flying fox, as entertaining as that sounds we definitely do not recommend that.

It’s designed to use in a block and tackle setup, to effectively double the pulling power of your winch, opening up your 12,000lb winch to giving an extremely impressive 24,000lbs of pull (10,886kg), this epic amount of pulling power will assist just about any 4WD when it gets really boggy!

Coupling your tree trunk protector with a winch extension strap you can run a double length of winch cable to reach all the way back to your front “Rated Recovery Point” and successfully double Line pull your vehicle back to solid ground!

Rated Shackles

When connecting straps together for instance between the Tree Trunk Protector and the winch extension strap or your tree trunk protector and the Snatch pulley. A set of 4.7T rated shackles will com in extremely handy.

One of our favorite pro-tips to using a shackle is to tighten it all the way and then unscrew it by ¼ of a turn to prevent the threads from binding with the heavy loads experienced with a recovery.

Where possible avoid using more fasteners than is required for your recovery, this will minimize any danger and decrease your setup times.

That’s a brief overview on which straps do what in your Hercules Recovery kit which will hopefully help you in deciding what and how to recovery your 4WD when you’re offroad!