The NFM Regin 80L

If you see through all the commercially available ruck sacks in the markets and most of them tell you that you'll get perhaps 80L.. They probably give you a rucksack that is 80L in total or even less, not true when it comes to the Norwegian Army ruck sacks, they give you more than they promisse, a lot more. I have filled this rucksack up with absolutely all my gear, every single piece of equipment, left my winter sleeping bag uncompressed 2.3kg synthetic sleeping bag (LARGE ONE) good for -35c extreme temperature, in the bag and still I had room for more. This is not about size regardless, this is just awesome.

The pictures will always lie, size wise and I would need to undergo quite an effort to give you a good idea, for many of you who are familiar with the British Army rucksacks (Bergen used by SAS amongst others) You may understand what I mean. This is a Norwegian Bergen variation (and quite appropriate since bergen is a City in Norway). Anyway. The side pockets them selfs rooms 8 liters (officially, they can store more than that but will be harder to close up (dry bag style closing method))

They are extractable:

Two zippers on each side takes them off, and this can come in handy.

The backside holds may adjustment systems and as you can see I have a hydration bladder installed (just 2L) but in Norway at this time we have snow.. Water is not a problem. regardless this is a feature that the rucksack provides.
This pack is very comfortable to carry, amusing that they made it so comfortable, but I can understand it, this is not the standard rucksack for field use, this is the scout, recon and special operations pack that is supposed to keep soldiers alive for weeks out in the field.

Here you can see a hint of the rucksacks back length height adjustment system hidden below the lower back support pad.

And here is the top of the rucksack, there are two straps that are singed completely down in this picture, and much of the secrets to the scalability of this rucksack rests in this portion, the lid is fixed to the ruck sack but it's still floating, so by default like this it supports the complete 80L volume of the main compartment but lossing up those to straps on the top, expands it to go way above the 80L's of the top compartment and there are room because the inside has room and attachment possibilities way above the 80L main compartment space.

This picture is taken from the lower portion of the pack and you are looking into the top of the pack, I'm not sure if this picture says a whole lot to you but it is what it is, I guess.

The top compartment, if you have ever carried this pack, I guess you have managed to overfill this space, it's risky! This compartment is so large, I see no problem storing 4 liters in there or maybe more if I want to, and that is still with the main compartment filled up to maximum capacity.

The Hellsport fjellduken that I mentioned in the previous post, I put it inside of the top compartment
Once again, size is hard to measure visually but the Fjellduken is around the size of a 1.5Litre milk carton and I can easily store 3 of these inside the top pocket, so I estimate the size of this compartment to be around 4.5 to 5 Liters of space.







To wrap it up: 2x 8 Liters that is 16 Liters + 4.5 equals 20.5 Liters + 80L = 100 Liters. This is only a nice rough estimate, until I actually fill this pack with trashbags full of water we wont know the real size and thats not going to happen either. So I settle for 100 Liters but I am confident that there is more space to be had here, it's simply to flexible...

Regardless, it's actually quite comfy to carry even at the maximum load that I managed to put it through, the difficult part was to get it of the floor and onto my back, which I managed by basically using both arms and just throw it on there :) Amazing backpack.

The new price on one of these are about 545 US Dollars. I payed 127 US Dollars for mine.
I did not pay in dollars but I convert it for you so that you dont have to (I exemplify by 1 USD staying at around 5.5 NOK).

Default loadout, always ready to go

Paper, mostly for hrmf you know, temporary hygiene.

Multitool (Victorinox Swisstool) Awesome MT, It's weighs quite a bit, but it is a full size MT and I cant say anything bad about it.

Compass, it's good to have when traveling deep in, all you need is general direction right ;).

Hand warmers there are two of these bad boys, they are mostly for backup in case it gets cold, late and I need some leverage without necessarily making a camp fire and potentially reveal my location.
Spare Cordage varying lengths.

See through garbage bags three of them, they are good to have in what ever case there would be, they are handy for so many things.

Canteen kit, consists of canteen stove, canteen cup both in high gauge stainless steel and a nalgene plastic bottle in BPA free plastic 1Qt.

Pouch to contain the stove stand, canteen cup and the bottle.

My Trangia alkohol stove (the little one with the brown lid on top and twist off cap).

Vaseline (waterfree) non toxic, good for protecting my steel tools (carbon steel).

1 Light my fire (swedish fire steel standard version)
1 Light my fire (swedish fire steel v2.0 Army version, with rescue flute (really loud one I may add))

Paracord 550 with the 7 inner strands about 30 feet worth of it (I should add more, as it's so valuable)

Fatwood sticks that I have collected, good way to get fire in very short time if required, dried out like these sticks are, they hardly weight anything.

Birch tinder (hard to see) but also a good way to easily get up to temperature very swiftly, and can be a good supplement to the fat wood, for ignition by the swedish fire steels (ferrocerium rods).

Hellsport Fjellduken (The green pouch) This is a combination item, that is very multipurpose as well, it's a tarp, it's an emergency blanket, it's a emergency storm protection shelter, it's a sleeping bag cover, it's camouflage, a poncho in case of bad weather conditions. I'll cover this in a later article.

Bow saw, the Egyptians had them, no reason why I should not, such a common man priced and valuable item. How to produce large amounts of wood for the fire, for a shelter or for making a new civilisation (egyptian style).. This is it. The bow saw is to lightweight, to cheap to practical to be ignored, it's simply the ultimate tool that I will say anything about today.

Oh and the Knife, in this case I have just a simple Mora Clipper, puny little stainless knife with a good shaving edge on it, not much more to be said about it.

Im not done yet:

Axe, this is a classic scandinavian forest axe, it's a old model and that probably shows, I have given it a lot of tender and care, and holds a hair popping sharp edge, this along with the bow saw, no knife is really needed, that's why I simply have a small mora clipper for redundancy purposes only. I am thinking of replacing the Mora Clipper with a newer version (Mora Bushcraft Black) but that will come later.

You also see the pouch that I have most of my fire kit in, rope, sharpening tools and ferrocerium rods in. And my main flashlight the Led Lenser T7 a very good flashlight run by 3xAAA batteries and I have not changed batteries since I bought it, a year ago or such.

This wraps up most of my default load-out, this is the minimum that I bring on trips regardless, I am used to carry this as my load-out and it helps being used to this, because when I add everything, it up's the weight quite a bit. I'll cover the other items later on.

Back in business

Redefined the entire blog and inspiration has once again come to a new climax, I hope you all will enjoy the changes that lay ahead of us now.

System has changed ever so slightly and some new cool things have been added. I will try to keep it neath and tidy as we tag along.