Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
I was looking for a bag to replace the simple flyers bag I keep in the truck. Ideally, it would carry everything I needed in case I get stuck somewhere or just need to spend the night out in the truck. Originally I was going to use my Blackhawk Patrol Pack but I wanted something with a little more room so I could stuff a sleeping bag inside it, rather than attach it to the outside. Because I have no self-control, and they’ve been getting in some fascinating stuff, I wound up picking up one of these Italian military packs that was being mentioned on arfcom. The one I got was new with the detachable day pack, much like the CFP-90 in that regard. Quality seemed pretty good but for slightly less money I could get new in the wrapper latest-generation-framed MOLLE packs from this place. But, those are desert and while the great state of Montana certainly has its desert and desert-colored regions I was wanting something a little more subdued. Plus, I love checking out foreign military surp.
The pack is pretty nice..not as rugged, IMO, as the US one but Id say its as rugged as it needs to be. Like the MOLLE it has a plastic (‘polymer’, I suppose) frame. I was able to stuff a sleeping bag and all my other gear in there with room to spare. Score! But, there was a problem. The lid of the pack is secured by two fastex buckles…pretty much like every other pack. Trouble was, one buckles female end was not securing the male end of the buckle securely. A bit of a firm tug on the strap and the buckle would release. This wasnt good since ideally you wanted to be able to pull hard on those straps to cinch things down. Additionally, the male end of the buckle was threaded through a strap, as is the norm, but the female end was contained within a sewn-in loop of webbing. To replace the buckle would mean slitting that loop open, replaceing it, and then stitching it shut. What to do?
Well, they make fastex buckles (and a good bit of other materials) for just such an event. They are split at the top so you can slide the loop of webbing between them. Trouble is, while I knew such products existed (they come standard on my Kifaru gear) I had no idea where to buy them. Searching for fastex buckles on the interweb gave me zillions of useless results. Finally, on one of the military gear forums I found these guys. Turns out they had a package that replces the most common buckles on US military gear and I figured they’d probably work on the Italian pack. I was right. This package had what I needed ( the 1.5″ buckle set) and a few extras that will be handy to have. So, since TPIWWP, some side-by-side:
On left is the original buckle, on right the replacement and in the middle an unattached replacement showing the split bar used to thread the webbing loop. The iPhone washed the color out a bit…its nowhere near that bright. Just your regular coyote color (or as we used to call it, ‘brown’).
I should mention that I never contacted the folks at Old Grouch about the problem with the buckle. If I had, Im sure they would have sent a replacement pack. It seemed silly to go through all that headache for a simple buckle replacement (and I had no idea if they had these kinds of replacement buckles, anyway) so it made more sense to sharpen the old Google-fu and find a solution. Glad I did, since it gives me a source for some excellent replacement parts as well as upgrading older systems.
In other news, I got one of those Wiggys insulated poncho liners. Details on that in a couple days.
