[pct-l] Western Mountaineering

[Len Glassner]

I called WM today.  The guy asked me how often my scale is calibrated.
 Hmmm...how often should one recalibrate one's kitchen scale?  Fellow
said they make stuff to pretty close tolerances, shouldn't  be off by
more than an ounce or so...maybe the down is damp?  I could send it to
them and if it was overfilled they'd take out the extra.  I said I'd
go to the San Diego A16, they have a hanging scale, if that validated
my kitchen scale measurement we'd figure out where to go from there.

Took the bag down to A16.  Christo, the manager, weighed the bag, came
up with the same weight I did.  We weighed two more Ultralites, same
result, three ounces over.  Christo called WM.  (WM provides neither
an email address nor a phone number on their website.  Christo said
that when they did provide that info, they couldn't turn out product
because of the interruptions. WM is a three-person operation.)  He was
told that they've made various changes to the product over the years
and hadn't weighed the bags in a while.  The WM dude was going to look
into it further.  I hope they update their product info if they find
it is out of date.

I wonder how accurate the listed weights are on their other products?

I still have the bag, may keep it just out of inertia.  But I probably
wouldn't have bitten if I'd been given the correct info.

It's a nice bag.  Full zip, my current bag has a partial, so I'd have
more flexibility. I can lie sideways in it and not turn the bag.  And
this is a narrow cut.  What I really need is a custom one that matches
my thin dimensions.  I might try to make one out of grommets, a trash
compactor bag, and duct tape.  Anyone have a pattern?

If one is trying to evaluate an item marketed as lightweight, it is
helpful to be given an accurate weight.  Truth in advertising is a
good thing, IMHO.  I thought shining a light on this situation, in a
forum with millions of participants, might be helpful to those
considering a WM bag.  And there's the fun part, where you get to hear
from all those who say  'HYOH...maybe...but the way you go about it is
crazy wrong.'.


On 2/15/08, Len Glassner <len5742 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just bought a WM Ultralite 6' bag.  Marketed as 20 degrees, 1 pound
> 10 ounces.  It  replaces my 6'6" 15 degree 2 pound bag.  Saving 6
> ounces and giving up only a slight amount of warmth looked good to me.
>
> Thing is, the WM bag weighs one pound, 13.3 ounces. Less than half the
> weight savings I expected.  This pisses me off.
>
> So the moral is:  Don't trust; verify.
>