u/OllieDuckling

Work gives us duffles for our gear but they’re all super cheap and shitty quality. The lining is always peeling off and the edges fray, and I got fed up with it. Kinda a dumb decision on my part that I’m sure I’ll regret later, but I decided to abandon the work issued duffle in favor of my Medium Pioneer duffle. Fits my boots (although not in the boot pocket), turnout coat and pants, gloves, hood, and mask in the main compartment, and a change of station uniform clothes in the boot pocket (which is nice because I prefer to keep them separate from the PPE).

Unfortunately it does NOT fit my helmet too like the work bag did, so I’m using the generous leather handles to strap it to the top. Then I just carry it with the shoulder strap. I’ve used it like this for the last couple shifts and although it’s a lot smaller than the issued duffle I am already liking it a lot more.

The only reason why I think I’ll probably regret it is that this is a one way street. Once I decided to use it for my turnouts, there was no turning back. We have gear washers but I don’t intend to use this for personal belongings ever again now that my PPE has been in it. They can carry a lot of carcinogens and other gross stuff that doesn’t always come out in the gear washer. Usually I leave the duffle in my truck and don’t bring it inside but I wanted to get a few pictures of it for the group to show that it really can handle the tough stuff.

That said, Jordan, if you read this, a Large size offering would be so useful for gear use-cases like this. A U-shaped zipper up top would also do wonders to increase accessibility into the main compartment.

Help me figure it out. Twerk perv honestly checks out for an Altima.

Photo features a GORUCK GR2 40L with custom purple zipper pulls.

These used to be my go-to socks and the boxes for them previously always proudly displayed “Made in USA” on them. I see that that had now been removed from the box. Our warehouse doesn’t have any in stock yet so I can’t confirm personally but if they offshored the manufacturing of these then that’s disappointing. They already started using less wool in the blend which I wasn’t very happy about.

Bought this backpack in circa 2020 for about $200 and have carried it almost daily since. It is made from heavy canvas and real tumbled leather. The fading patina on the canvas is beautiful, and the leather has aged really well, although I do hit it with Bick4 every now and then. I generally feel like people like to complain online more than they like to compliment, which is totally fine, but I wanted to offer a positive counterpoint to the other post on here to show that some of Herschel’s bags can be really high quality.

Some people have way more money than sense.

I didn’t even bring a daypack so I just unpacked at the hotel and used the Bullet as the daypack. Brought three swim trunks from Costco that also doubled as shorts, two pairs of Eddie Bauer technical pants, nine underwear (fresh every day!), five pairs of socks (beach, so didn’t need to wear them every day), two athletic polos from Old Navy, six 32 Degree Cool shirts, one pair of sandals, toiletries, plus the clothes on my person (windbreaker/rain jacket, hat, and sneakers were worn, not packed). Also various chargers/tech (iPad in the laptop compartment), a hydroflask, sunglasses, etc. Worked out well!