In the past, I’ve been a bit unkind to Maxpedition. To be fair, there have produced some good utility items like the roll up pouches (roly-poly pouches), roll up back packs (reviewed here) and other small, utility pouches. But I’ve never been too keen on the Gear-Slinger bags with one strap or side-carry type bags. They might be a good idea in theory but in practice, they just didn’t work too well for me. I do know other people who swear by them though.
I was, however, impressed with the build quality and the style of the bag. So, as always in pursuit of the perfect day bag, I approached Lakelandbushcraft to seek advise. The advise came back in the form of a similar style bag to the Sitka, but a larger capacity and, fundamentally, traditional shoulder straps instead of a single shoulder strap.
The bag in question is called the Falcon II and here are the specs (from Maxpedition site):
- Main Compartment: 18"(H) x 9.5"(W) x 4.75"(D)
- Secondary Compartment: 16"(H) x 8"(W) x 3"(D)
- Upper Front Pouch: 4"(H) x 7"(W) x 2.5"(D)
- Lower Front Pouch: 10"(H) x 7"(W) x 2.5"(D)
- Capacity: 1520 cu. in. / 25 liters
- Hydration: Up to 100oz (3 liter) Bladder
- Support: 1" Sternum Strap, 1.5" Waist Belt (min 9" strap alone / max 42" strap alone; min 19" loop / max 52" loop)
The first thing that impressed me is the internal capacity. I have packed a whole overnight kit inside this bag. That means food, water, cooker, billy, tarp and hammock and poncho . There are two main zipped, front loading compartments which are expandable and hold quite a bit of gear. The Thermarest and sleeping bag don’t fit in the bag (and only the smallest sleeping bag would) but they can both be strapped to the outside by the many external straps and fixings.
Internally, there a few handy meshed pockets and on this occasion, I’ve loaded these with essentials like fire lighting kit, hygiene gel, cordage and a spork. I’ll be keeping them there instead of using up space with my usual drop-bag.
The front loading system allows you to pack everything exactly where you want it and you can compress the bag by the ideally placed compression straps so that the 2 zipped compartments and outer pouches squeeze together very nicely. This keeps all the kit in the same position as when you packed them.
The water bladder pocket has a gusset on the inside so it can accommodate a 3 litre camelbak quite comfortably.
You still have to be a little careful how you pack the sack. In fact, my 14 cm billy was causing a few problems with it’s awkward shape when everything else was loaded in. I also missed the lack of side pockets. So after a bit of thunking, I decided to Max-out the MaxP Falcon!
Firstly, I decided to use two Roly poly pouches that I had previously bought and fixed them to each side of the Falcon. I used one of their Silkclips and a Tac-Tie to do this.
Instantly, I had two high capacity side pouches to put in awkward and odd shaped items like the billy and stove or my other favourite day sack item, a flask of coffee. The pouches can be rolled up when not in use.
As you can see from the picture above, I didn’t stop there. The next addition was a little pouch that I attached the front of the Falcon’s smallest front pouch.
This is called a Volta case and is intended to house a plastic holder full of spare batteries. I bought it for my phone but find it’s more suited to my GPS .
Attached to the top of the case is a Janus extension pouch. This little pouch is an excellent alternative to a leather possibles pouch. It has a main compartment, two smaller internal side compartments and some internal elastic straps to hold small items like a fire-steel. The outside of the pouch has some handy elastic cordage as well.
I actually took this pouch to Namibia with me and had it attached to my belt at all times containing essential survival items. Here I’ve attached it to the bag to save it hanging off my trouser belt.
You can see that I can still get to the Falcon’s top pouch where I keep some tracking kit.
At the front of the bag on one of the straps, I’ve attached a Cocoon pouch. This pouch is ideal for stashing small items to save you keep taking off the bag.
The Falcon II is very comfortable to wear, even when fully loaded. It’s narrow enough to keep close to the spine and the bag compresses enough not to become too saggy with kit at the bottom of the bag or at the sides that you get with traditional top loading bags.
Everything is designed to be in the right place for a day trip or overnighter where quick walking from one place to another (like when tracking) is essential.
Even without the added accessories, this is superb bag. Obviously it’s a modern, tactical-type carrying system, and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. If you’re a traditionalist, don’t even bother to look at this. If you want a good, strong day bag for a tactical purpose, this is the bag to look at. Don’t look too closely if you haven’t a lot of money to spare, but Lakelandbushcraft will always give you a good price on any MaxP kit.
Maxpedition – Perhaps not Hardly Useful Kit after all.
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