My fellow GunNutz,
Yes, I realize this I missed my usual article deadline of 12:55pm on a Friday night. I hadn't quite got the materials together for this project, so I had to delay the write-up. Shocking I know, but even I am fallable at times. Anyways, today I am going to touch on what I think is the world's best pack.
Now I'm not making this assertion because I now am an owner owner this fine piece of machinery. No, I am saying this because I feel this pack is indestuctable. When your name is Hansol, and you have the Reverse-Midas-Touch (Where everything you touch turns to ****), you don't just want, you NEED gear that will hold up to the nonsense that the universe has thrown against you. And as such, I used this recipe to create the ultimate in hardcore packs:
-Large Alice Pack
-1970s vintage Taymor external frame pack.
-A LOT of webbing.
Now I won't get into the fine details of this finely-engineered project, but what I was shooting for was something that could carry all my gear and strange odds and ends, but that I could quickly convert to a pack frame for hauling meat. Hansol is too poor to afford a sherpa or an ATV, so as such I have to haul this crap myself.
Everyone knows that the Alice Pack is indestructable. The military throws it out of airplanes. It is a design close to 50 years old, and is still being used. That, my friends, means it's good. Real good. End of discussion. Of course the frame on it sucks, so that leads us to the next part of the project.
Try and find yourself a vintage external frame pack from the late 70s. This was before the ultralight fad, when they actually made stuff well. This sucker has 1" wide aluminum tubing for the main frame rails, and 3/4" wide for the cross spanners. Overkill? Yes. Strong? Yes.
Lastly, use webbing to attatch everything. Why? Cause it's wicked strong. Go to MEC/Campers Village/Your Garage and snag every piece of webbing you can find. It beats using sissy plastic tabs any day.
The build itself is actually very simple:
-Strip off everything from the pack frame. All that stuff is crap and will only either (1) Hurt you, or (2) break. And that is just bad news. If you are rich enough or awesome enough to track down a replacement heavy-duty waist belt that will fit your frame, then even better. I didn't have that good fortune, so I pressed the old one in to service. (More on that later.)
-Once everything is stripped, attatch the Alice pack shoulder straps. This should be fairly straightforward. If it isn't, you have larger problems in life. One of the bonuses of having the Alice-type straps is the "quick-release" clips. Those who haven't served in the military will not know that these are cool little "tabs" that when pushed, proceed to completely drop the pack off your shoulders. Very helpful when confronted by rabid grizzly bears, or just for if you fall in a river with your pack on and don't want to drown.
-Attatch the Alice pack bag to the frame. This is done by using the regular attatchment thingies on the bottom of the back, and by using a 6ft strip of nylon webbing to attatch the top part of the bag to one of the aluminum spanners. You could get away with just using zap straps, but I like to carry extra lengths of webbing for when gear breaks, and using it to wrap the hell out of the attatchment points seemed like a good idea. You can never have too much webbing.
-Lastly, rig up one more length of nylong webbing around the center of the pack, and attatch it to the frame. This is a compression strap. It will help stop your load from shifting around on you, and thus prevent you from falling off mountains in a high wind.
So essentially you go from this (minus the useless mutts of course):
to this:
Suspension:
Side:
Lastly, A note about the suspension. I haven't quite got around to it yet, but the easiest way to make your pack more comfortable is to stitch on a few layers of closed-cell blue foam onto the shoulder straps and kidney pad. Unfortunately, me being the idiot that I am, have lost my sewing awl, so I haven't quite got around to stitching on the extra padding. Rest assured it will be done though, and I will keep this thread updated on the progress of it.
So there you go GunNutz, a easy, simple project that will help you haul your crap into the bush, and help you haul game back out, all while not breaking like cheap imported crap. Remember, if you did any work on yourself, it is automatically 250% better than anything available on the market. It is "custom" after all.
Happy hunting, and keep your stick on the ice -Hansol
Yes, I realize this I missed my usual article deadline of 12:55pm on a Friday night. I hadn't quite got the materials together for this project, so I had to delay the write-up. Shocking I know, but even I am fallable at times. Anyways, today I am going to touch on what I think is the world's best pack.
Now I'm not making this assertion because I now am an owner owner this fine piece of machinery. No, I am saying this because I feel this pack is indestuctable. When your name is Hansol, and you have the Reverse-Midas-Touch (Where everything you touch turns to ****), you don't just want, you NEED gear that will hold up to the nonsense that the universe has thrown against you. And as such, I used this recipe to create the ultimate in hardcore packs:
-Large Alice Pack
-1970s vintage Taymor external frame pack.
-A LOT of webbing.
Now I won't get into the fine details of this finely-engineered project, but what I was shooting for was something that could carry all my gear and strange odds and ends, but that I could quickly convert to a pack frame for hauling meat. Hansol is too poor to afford a sherpa or an ATV, so as such I have to haul this crap myself.
Everyone knows that the Alice Pack is indestructable. The military throws it out of airplanes. It is a design close to 50 years old, and is still being used. That, my friends, means it's good. Real good. End of discussion. Of course the frame on it sucks, so that leads us to the next part of the project.
Try and find yourself a vintage external frame pack from the late 70s. This was before the ultralight fad, when they actually made stuff well. This sucker has 1" wide aluminum tubing for the main frame rails, and 3/4" wide for the cross spanners. Overkill? Yes. Strong? Yes.
Lastly, use webbing to attatch everything. Why? Cause it's wicked strong. Go to MEC/Campers Village/Your Garage and snag every piece of webbing you can find. It beats using sissy plastic tabs any day.
The build itself is actually very simple:
-Strip off everything from the pack frame. All that stuff is crap and will only either (1) Hurt you, or (2) break. And that is just bad news. If you are rich enough or awesome enough to track down a replacement heavy-duty waist belt that will fit your frame, then even better. I didn't have that good fortune, so I pressed the old one in to service. (More on that later.)
-Once everything is stripped, attatch the Alice pack shoulder straps. This should be fairly straightforward. If it isn't, you have larger problems in life. One of the bonuses of having the Alice-type straps is the "quick-release" clips. Those who haven't served in the military will not know that these are cool little "tabs" that when pushed, proceed to completely drop the pack off your shoulders. Very helpful when confronted by rabid grizzly bears, or just for if you fall in a river with your pack on and don't want to drown.
-Attatch the Alice pack bag to the frame. This is done by using the regular attatchment thingies on the bottom of the back, and by using a 6ft strip of nylon webbing to attatch the top part of the bag to one of the aluminum spanners. You could get away with just using zap straps, but I like to carry extra lengths of webbing for when gear breaks, and using it to wrap the hell out of the attatchment points seemed like a good idea. You can never have too much webbing.
-Lastly, rig up one more length of nylong webbing around the center of the pack, and attatch it to the frame. This is a compression strap. It will help stop your load from shifting around on you, and thus prevent you from falling off mountains in a high wind.
So essentially you go from this (minus the useless mutts of course):
to this:
Suspension:
Side:
Lastly, A note about the suspension. I haven't quite got around to it yet, but the easiest way to make your pack more comfortable is to stitch on a few layers of closed-cell blue foam onto the shoulder straps and kidney pad. Unfortunately, me being the idiot that I am, have lost my sewing awl, so I haven't quite got around to stitching on the extra padding. Rest assured it will be done though, and I will keep this thread updated on the progress of it.
So there you go GunNutz, a easy, simple project that will help you haul your crap into the bush, and help you haul game back out, all while not breaking like cheap imported crap. Remember, if you did any work on yourself, it is automatically 250% better than anything available on the market. It is "custom" after all.
Happy hunting, and keep your stick on the ice -Hansol
Last edited:
