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Pack for Mammoth 2020

The movements were rewards based. For example- 1st team to arrive got to select the firing order, maybe got a few bonus points, or at night would get a hard stand shelter. Point driven in by the match director (Joe Harris) is that is pays to be a winner.

Overall the sites were near a semi improved road- and tucked in the woods. Pretty sure the first night was at the SASS cowboy town. Nothing crazy. Wind and precipitation protection given priority. Move quick when the site is shown. Like westward expansion- the good land goes quick.
God I remember that first night. Remember all the water froze and they gave us canned Dr. Pepper bc it was the only liquid not frozen? And if I remember correctly, Joe showed up about 30 mins early on his 4-wheeler that morning. It was cold that night, but standing in the wood line when it was -2 below Sunday was the absolute worst.
 
Well, I'll be seeing some of you next week and my stuff is all bundled up. I really wanted to be well below the pack weight that I'm at, but I don't think there's a whole lot else I could do to lighten up the load and still get by. I'm at 50# give or take a few. It blows my mind how much the weapons and ammo weighed in at. I have a suspicion that my next precision rifle won't weigh almost 17# scoped.
 
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Looks like a few guys are going ultralite weight with the hyperlte gear packs! Interested to see how they hold up. One guy modified his pack with a scabbard on the back. for a sub 2lb ruck.
 
I’m trying to figure how many rounds I want to take right now, think I may take extra pistol and less rifle
I took Chris the match directors advice on rifle rounds , we both had plenty of rifle rounds left over, and we had like 2 or 4 pistol rounds left each. Take that for what its worth, it could be different this year. For me having the rounds to get points is worth it.
 
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This concept of using dyneema / spectra has been around for quite some time but the first versions had some failures as the fabric would cut nylon threading. Most now use dyneema threads in the stitching. Kelty White Cloud was the first massed produced spectra pack.

I had WT stitched up back early 90s; tuffest, hardest wearing, lightest pack I ever used. 4300ci around 2.4 pounds. It had all sorts of pointed metal sharpie things as an alpine climber inside and outside, drug, carried, scraped and never once punctured or had a wear spot.

Interesting to know thoughts afterwards.

Looks like a few guys are going ultralite weight with the hyperlte gear packs! Interested to see how they hold up. One guy modified his pack with a scabbard on the back. for a sub 2lb ruck.
 
As far as pack weight goes, I'm done worrying about it at this point. Weather forecasts are showing 70 deg highs and raining half of the time. Less than a week ago I slept outside in a lightweight setup thinking I'd reduce a pound or two because the temp at home showed very close to what was being forecasted at the time. I ended up getting a flare up in my back with an old disc that likes to level me from time to time. I know I sleep better in a hammock and now that's coming.

The #trainingformammoth shows a lot of lightweight setups, but I think a lot of those are just the packs, or somehow not the total weight. I've never been one to split out the base weight or whatever ways there are to divide the amount of weight. All I care is what the total amount of weight is and right now I'm at or around 50#. Lots of that weight is weapons and ammo, with most of that being the rifle.

It'll be interesting to see how this event goes with the amount of rain in the forecast.
 
My brother and I did tough man and made it thru this year. 2019 I used a Gregory pack. It was ok but wasn't too comfortable and at the end of the day, I'll take a weight penalty in exchange for comfort.

We both ran Osprey's this year- a Atmos AG 60 and Aether AG 70. I was originally planning on running the same as he had, but looking at the construction and when they were loaded down, I could feel the areas of extra support that the Aether had over the Atmos. The Atmos was rated up to 50lbs and the Aether was rated to 60lbs. The downside was a 1lb penalty or so but worth it IME.

We started the comp at 43lbs for me and 45lbs for him, so both were well within the load limits. Our packs performed great and we never had any issues with packs breaking or feeling uncomfortable.

As of now, we are both planning on returning next and running the same packs. We'll look to cut even more weight with tweaks to weapons and gear.
 
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I'm still writing up my AAR and gathering information together from stages where I didn't take good notes. I was in the 3rd squad. On the opening ruck I believe 5 teams across the board missed the ruck. We got taken out by the last ruck for the day on day 2 by 15 seconds. As far as the packs themselves, I ran a mystery ranch selway 60 and it's just a size too big for me. I bought an XL and probably should have bought a L. Other than me buying the wrong size I think it held up great and did very well. Another guy in my squad had the same pack and he said he loved his too. My buddy ran his kelty redwing 44L (old style, not the new models) and he loves that pack. He'll probably get buried with that pack some day.

All things considered there was a huge variety of packs and participants there. Everything from a rifle slung over the shoulder, rifle packed up vertical and rifle strapped down sideways.
 
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I'm still writing up my AAR and gathering information together from stages where I didn't take good notes. I was in the 3rd squad. On the opening ruck I believe 5 teams across the board missed the ruck. We got taken out by the last ruck for the day on day 2 by 15 seconds. As far as the packs themselves, I ran a mystery ranch selway 60 and it's just a size too big for me. I bought an XL and probably should have bought a L. Other than me buying the wrong size I think it held up great and did very well. Another guy in my squad had the same pack and he said he loved his too. My buddy ran his kelty redwing 44L (old style, not the new models) and he loves that pack. He'll probably get buried with that pack some day.

All things considered there was a huge variety of packs and participants there. Everything from a rifle slung over the shoulder, rifle packed up vertical and rifle strapped down sideways.

did you have the big clay hill coming past the tough man parking as the last ruck on day two? I think we may have saw this go down in front us. That path was killer
 
Yeah that was our last ruck of the day. It was heart breaking to miss it by 15 seconds, but at the same time the hotel room didn't sound half bad either. We're talking about what we'd do differently next year "if" we did this again.
 
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