Unboxing Review: Helikon-Tex Raider 20L Day Pack

With the excuse provided by my long postponed return to the classroom I 'urgently needed' a new pack. It needed to be a little wider than the 5.11 Tactical Rush 12 and smaller than the Markhor Elk Mountain. All the usual contenders were considered, and rejected on cost grounds. One of my target shooting buddies who introduced me to Helikon-Tex gear from Poland and has their equivalent of the Rush 12 I already have that's not wide enough for the binders that my workbooks come in. [See how the reasons for a new pack just drip from my lips]

Then I saw helicon-tex's new pack The Raider, it was on pre-order and only available in limited colours, it's a bit wider and has a stretchy over-panel they call a 'beaver tail' which is like a little Mystery Ranch load-sling, built in. Small packs have always had one annoying snag to them: by the time you've packed all the rest of the crap you need to lug around with you, there's nowhere to put your jacket. We've all tried that threading-a-piece-of-550 para-cord-through-the-little-loops thing, kind of works but I've never really found it that satisfactory. The stretch panel solves that at a stroke. If you're cycling it's a neater way to store your helmet when you're not riding. Based on that, the dimensions, and price I ordered one, and got a pack that so far has totally exceeded my expectations. I'd even go as far as telling them they've under sold it, their description online doesn't even mention some of its best features.


With double duvet for scale.


Out of the box it's a solid little thing, and bit of poking around revealed an aluminium stay that stiffens up the centre of the back panel, I've not tried bending it to the contour of my spine yet, but I'll give that a go in the next week or so. I've had a few little packs they all tend to sag down your back, the Rush 12 being the only notable exception so far. The Raider sits well even without the sternum strap being done up, and with it is limpet-like. The stay-bending is only going to improve that. The slight increase in width over other packs in this size really seems to help stabilise the load.


Cheap, and many not so cheap, packs have those stretch cuff pockets for a Nalgene sized water bottle, but make them out of mesh, which; snags, rips and inevitably fails long before the rest of the pack. Not so the Raider. Looks like a good stowage for a fishing rod tube.


A soft-lined pocket on the pack's face, and in the main compartment there's a slip for your laptop, with a pad at the bottom to offer that little bit of extra protection.



I either live in london where while it rains less often we actually get a greater volume of water falling from the sky, or in Yorkshire where its either raining, or about to rain. So I was chuffed to bits when after a couple of days of carrying the Raider around I found another zipper which was hiding a rain cover.

Another other use for rain covers is to keep the packs straps and buckles from being caught in the conveyor belts and overheads when flying hand luggage only on the cheap airlines. They also make a useful improvised container for foraged roadside fruits, and when the amount of tat [school books] you're trying to lug around exceeds the bags capacity they keep everything onboard.



On design, cost, and, construction the Raider is an absolute winner, it's made of branded Cordura with YKK zips. Its even got a meaningful hip belt.

I hope they bring out an 'Airborne  Raider',  perfectly the dimensions of carry-on luggage for the cheap airlines, I've got packs I'd happily sell to finance buying one.

More Reviews, my long overdue return to both the target range,
and our archery camp very soon
Your pal
SBW

PS I've just looked and Helikon-Tex now have the Raider in five colours and six different camo's.

Review: Helikon Backblast Shooting Mat & Bisley: 600 Yards On Century.

With the weather scheduled to be warming up the [even] older boys at the club were levering themselves out of their armchairs and waddling down to Bisley to put a few down range. 

It's that time of year, my offspring are hitting their school books. So I found myself at something of a loose end, and as Bisley is the last place I was described as 'young and keen' I thought I'd join them. Club shooting is both fantastic value, you're splitting the range fees amongst a few of you and if not many turn up the club is subsidising the day, and best of all some of the chaps have been teaching other members longer than I've been alive, so the standard of tuition is high. 

Did I mention the lunch? The club matriarch lays on a really great lunch.  Churlish not to attend.

Century 600 yards. Century is the first range where I shot out to 600 yards, but its been a while so I was keen to get back into it. Talking over my plans I mentioned that we were going to be lying-on-the-floor shooting, and my pals at Helikon stuck their latest shooting mat, the BackBlast, in the post for me to test. The world and his brother make a shooting mat. So the guys at Helikon have their work cut out trying to design something that stands out. 

I think its fair to say things started tolerably.  With the first sighter landing on the edge of the 14.4 inch V Bull. Once the beginners luck was safely out of the way I started reciting the usual litany of excuses: Wind, Variable Wind, Non-Existent Cheek-Weld, Inconstant Ammo, Dehydration, Sore Neck, Existential Angst, Not my Lucky Hat, the Gods Displeased, Etc

Club Rifle: Remington 700 Police in 5.56 Nato

The package that had landed on the doormat was smaller and lighter than I expected, all the club mats are bulky affairs. The Helikon boys include a  pouch for ten rounds, and a windowed pouch, both of which velcro on to the mat. 

The mat's got grippy sections for your knees and elbows and a moveable velcro backed grippy bit for the hand that supports the rifle's butt. 



There are pockets for your tent pegs; so you can keep the matt flat. Obviously I could have used any old tent pegs from the gear pile, but I've ordered some poncey titanium ones to keep in with the lightweight theme.


Automation hasn't made it to Century range yet and behind and below the butts there's a manual raising and lowering mechanism for the targets.  We took turns providing the muscle power to lift the targets into place and mark the scores.   
There are two parts to scoring. A spotting disc, which is actually square, which is pinned to the face of the target marking the bullet hole and the scoring panel that runs along the bottom edge of the board. Your best potential score is five points for a Bull, but to serve as a tie-breacker the Bull has an inner 'VBull' ring which scores separately. So a ten-shot competition has a highest possible score of 50.10. Ten 5's and 10 VBulls

The scoring panel is at the bottom of the target board. There are four holes which the markers are pushed into. They are black on one side and orange on the other.

Orange in the hole on the far left would be a score of - One Point
Black on the far left a score of Two Points
Black left a 'magpie' - Three Points
Black right - Four Points
Black far right - Five Points
Orange on the far right a VBull.

On the upside: scoring is 'inward', touch the line to get the higher score.

On the downside: you'd better hope the person doing your scoring is taller than five feet, if they're not you could end up having one of your shots marked as a miss. 

Handy if you need just one more excuse. 

more soon

Your pal 

SBW

Review: Helikon Patriot

Who is the apex predator who will ruin your day, your week, and even your year?

Who has no respect for tradition, and will rob future generations of their tweedy sartorial inheritance? Tineola bisselliella my nemesis, the common clothes moth. If you like your bushcraft and or traditional Scottish Deer Stalking, you probably like the comfort, warmth, and indeed elegance of wool, and more specifically Tweeds. Not cheap, but with potentially generations of wear in every garment, an investment. Or so I thought. I've lost count of the number of jackets and suits that have been ravaged by the evil that is the clothes moth. So I started all over again with synthetics, and in fairness never looked back. You can buy fleece clothes at every price point from free chuck-ables branded by tool companies to NomadUK. I've got a NomadUK set of breeks and smock for hill stalking and they are fantastic, they were also a fantastic price, even though I got mine at a significant discount on Ebay.

I reviewed their gear a while back and I've now put it to even harder tests and I still love it. A few of you wrote in with variations on 'How Much!?'

Then for not a lot less dosh there's the 'tacti-cool' guys, there are a few companies making 'issue replacement' gear in the tactical/military contractor style; from complete junk, to very well made. Triple Aught Design [TAD Gear] probably being the best. They have their retail outlet in San Francisco so you can imagine the prices. Plus shipping, plus import tax, plus handling charge etc. Really well thought out and made though.

A few weeks back I met up with a friend who has mentored me in Lightweight Sporting Rifle. He has; a very good job, no kids, and as you might expect, a wonderful collection of toys that go 'Pew-Pew'.  The was wearing one of the most substantial, and best cut fleece jackets I've ever seen. As he'd just come back from the US of A I assumed it would be some super niche brand to rival TAD Gear. Not a bit of it. Helikon-Tex of Poland. When I found out you could have one list price for £60 I was intrigued. 

A few emails later the lovely people at Helikon were kind enough to send me a fleece for testing. I've got a few base layers that work well enough, so I chose a heavy fleece hooded jacket they call the Patriot.

Straight out of the bag I like the Patriot. 390g/m2 is a fairly substantial weight of fleece giving a comforting jacket-ness to it. The design detail is right up there with the three times the price American brands and quite a bit better than my much-loved NomadUK hill smock. 


The zips are full spec YKK’s and the pulls don't look like they’ll fail even in heavy use. 

The pull-cords that snug-up the bottom of the jacket are better than the usual junk and have a little bead to stop the quick-locks from getting lost. Me likee.

The chest pockets have inner pockets made of a 'silky' material to hold a pen, your phone, and glasses. They also have clips to keep things that mustn't be lost, like your cast ear defenders secured. The jacket is what's sometimes called 'media enabled' which in the real world means there are little grommets for headphone cables to pass through in the pockets. I had a jacket like this before and I did actually use them, another nice touch. 

Helikon have gone with a semi-rigid velcro closure for the cuffs which are actually nicer to use than having a cloth tab, and very convent during the gralloch or when costal foraging where you want to keep the muck off your cuffs. 

The way the jacket is cut; no hand pockets and pit-zips that you can actually do-up & un-do while still wearing the jacket, mean its going to be my first choice to wear with a pack. 

There's a map sized pocket on the back, for when you need the paperwork, but don't need it to hand. 

I took the Patriot for a spot of coastal foraging, unfortunately it didn't rain, but the wind blew up a fair bit. Just wearing a t-shirt underneath to give it a fair test, unlike most fleeces the jacket was almost totally windproof [which its not described as by the maker]. It’s shrugged off some light rain in town and I’m thinking about getting another one  

Its worth noting that the sizing is pretty generous, if I got some of Helikon’s base layers I’d order them in a size smaller than the sizing chart shows.

www.helikon-tex.com

More soon
Your pal
SBW