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User Review: U.S. Armed Forces MOLLE Pack

Reviewed June 28, 2009 by Blackbeard Ben

Rating: rated 4 of 5 stars
Design: External frame military ruck
Size: Medium
Number of Pockets: 3
Max. Load Carried: 45 lb
Height of Owner: 5' 10" & 21" torso
Price Paid: $45

For civilian backpacking, the Molle pack is decent. Everyone says it's not durable enough for military use, but for civvies it's plenty as far as I can tell. I used it this spring for a three day trip in the mountains of North Carolina (the Black Balsam range in Pisgah Nat'l Forest) and I was very happy with it.

First, it's very comfortable. The load sits nicely on your waist with proper adjustment, and the waist belt & shoulder straps are very comfortable. The pack is also very large. Mine has just the main pack and sleeping bag attachment, and that left a ton of room on my short trip in the spring. Actually, there's almost too much room, making over-packing a potential problem if you aren't careful.

The drawstring method of closing the main & sleeping bag compartments is excellent. I've had plenty of cheaper zippers break on me so I prefer the drawstring. You don't have to line up the sides when closing it, and it's quicker to open and close. There's also one zippered top pocket for all the small stuff. It's large enough to hold a lot of snacks, gear, etc. but not so large as to lose things in it.

The general design of the bag is well thought out. The carrying handle on top works well. The main compartment is covered by a waterproof plastic top cover which doubles as a map pocket. There are indeed a lot of straps, but the compression straps are well placed. There is webbing all over as one would expect from a mil-spec bag. I lashed a pouch to the waist strap to use as a camera bag, and it worked quite well for the trip.

It's not designed for a standard internal Camelbak water bladder, but I was able to get mine to work okay (and there are ones designed for it as well). It also doesn't have any mesh side pockets for water bottles, but I carbinered a 1L Nalgene on the side to one of the many compression straps. It wasn't the most convenient thing, but it worked well enough that I was very happy with how it worked.

Well, now to the bad stuff. The Molle has one serious flaw - it's heavy. Not just a little heavy. It weighs a ton. Maybe an entire metric shit-ton. On my bathroom scale, it clocks in somewhere between 8 and 9 pounds. A modern internal frame pack might weigh around 3 pounds, so this is extremely heavy.

Hauling around an extra 6 pounds certainly isn't fun, although the pack is designed to take very heavy loads (and is comfortable doing so). The mountainous terrain especially exacerbates the weight. Our biggest elevation gain was about 4000 feet from the base on my NC trip, with many peaks in there. I had the heaviest pack (~45 lb) out of everyone, and it showed when we were summited several 5000-6200 foot peaks.

For the $45 that I paid, it was a good value. I don't think I would take it on any more mountainous trips though. Beyond the weight issue, it performed admirably. It is certainly more durable than any comparable civilian pack. It gets a '5' for value and a '3' for usability from me, with an overall rating of '4'.

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