Recommended Kit | LK 35 Rucksack

Description

In this video we take a close look at the LK 35 Swedish military rucksack! one of my favorite bits of kit, Stick around until the review at the end

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Tags: Bushcraft,Bushcraft Skills,Wilderness Skills,Outdooors,Hiking,Camping,Survival,Survival Skills,woodcraft,wood craft,lk 35,swedish,military,backpack,rucksack,retro

Video Transcription

[Music]

hello hello and welcome to this week's kit recommendation video in this week's video we're going to be looking at this which is the LK 35 rucksack Swedish military rucksack and most of you will have seen this works out before it's become very very popular in the outdoor community and be sort of bushcraft communities and with good reason it's a really good rock stock so little bit of the history of it it's manufactured by haglöf I believe which is a very very well-known and well-respected outdoor brand although this is on branded as it was a military issue which stopped being used by the Swedish military in the 1980s I think and so most the ones that you get now I'm gonna be the military surplus but most of them are own issued and they're very very good condition this pack was given to me about a year ago by Pete who's over at outside edge bushcraft and it's a fantastic little bag it's become a solid favorite of mine for a variety of outside outdoor activities so before we talk about the pros and cons of it and why I do what I do and don't like about the pack let's have a look at some of the specifications of this pack itself straight off the bat one of the things you notice about this pack is this old-school steel frame so this is a steel frame it's pretty sturdy and it's obviously the bars in it these thicker bars are obviously hollow otherwise it'd just be ridiculously heavy and but they are plastic coated on this one here it's actually be gotten a little bit chipped near the tops and you can see where those chips are at how thick that plastic is it's you know it's a really it's a really generous coat and a plastic to to protect the frame itself and this frame is really useful it's got these little hooks and attachments on it all the way over and these little loops just here and for some further down and those are actually really useful for a variety of things so if you need to attach stuff to it you can use the frame as you can the pack off and use the frame flat carrying firewood or whatever you can strap things to it earlier this year I went out to Sweden and I had to strap some things to the outside of the pack whilst it was on the on the airplane to keep it all secure and the bungees that I use and the carabiners that I use clipped onto this absolutely perfectly and really came into its own in that situation we have these two webbing straps here which are fantastic they're a little bit sort of loose at the moment because the pack is empty for the purposes of the video and these are literally just tied onto the frame and they can be moved up and down to suit your needs so that one is a little bit loose at the moment just to demonstrate that and there's another one further down these straps are fantastic because what they do is they won't when you've got them tight enough they pull tight and press up against your back meaning that any space underneath it is an a gap of earth between you and the backpack so it really negates all of that sweaty back stuff that you get and it really really does hold the pack but you know away from you back and you can really feel that I'm very very comfortable the arm straps attached to this this frame as well so these tools just attached here if needs be you can make them wider or even wider still I prefer them right in the middle so I think most people do as well and then down at the bottom they attach to the frame again just to the side there onto the main compartment for this backpack now it's quite a simple design but despite how simple it is is that there's a number of clever little features on this that I am a really big fan of so first of all let's have a look what it's made from this is the kageura version there are two versions of this pack available there's a kageura version and there is also a canvas version version have it looked at the canvas version can't comment on at all could your version however I really really like its good thick stuff face I think it's like a thousand any air kageura so it's nice and thick good heavy weight material one of the things that I love about it is the interior of this it's got this proper like plastic cuz it looks almost waxy but it's properly coated in plastic on the inside now I've never had anything get wet in this it's been left out in the rain it's been in the bottom of a canoe full of water and very very little moisture has got any I mean you do get a bit in through these seams but you know nothing worth kind of writing home about on the front here we've got this little name tag here name tag thing that is for it is a military bag and I presume that that's what it's for I'm probably gonna cover that with a patch at some point on the outside you've got these webbing straps so there's these two here which is stitched in place and they can't be adjusted those two they're attached here sturdily stitched on with what looks like that are probably nylon thread or something like that and the stitched on proper thoroughly at the top and bottom how will you use them for much I'm sure there's probably there probably is some use for that somewhere I'm probably good for putting like a waterproof jacket through or whatever if you're if you walk in but at the top here these straps can be adjusted so we've got these two webbing straps at the top again using those presumably aluminium clips nice and sturdy and they do hold quite well just slide out a little bit once for something in there pulling it tight and up against itself they don't come loose at all what I love about these is we've got them on the top and we've also got the one leave the bottom as well a touch touch smaller on the bottom there but what I've discovered about them is that they perfectly fit the size from a Karrimor saber so I've got a cup of army surplus and ones of them from my my friend Ben and it fit they fit absolutely perfect like they were made for it onto these top and bottom things these pieces fit perfectly straight through main compartment of this bag is fairly straightforward it's basically one very large compartment here which is supposedly 35 liters but honestly I'm convinced that it's bigger than that and then at the back we've just got this single flat piece this is just flat it's off slightly elasticated section on the back here and that's really useful for just keeping you on xand ends and i use a key like a chopping board and my carving tools and stuff in there anything that's quick access basically goes into this for me so I could reach in and grab it and it's all there I used to keep my buck in there as well the whole thing

can be closed using this clever little again aluminium closing device which pulls it tight and you push that in there and that is sturdy and this sort of main bucket compartment does taper towards the bottom it's not it's not direct squirt it does taper towards the bottom on the front round front of the pack here when it's opened up you can see we have a tool loop here reinforced at this point which is really nice because you can get a bit of wear on the packs here and this is perfect for an axe so that just drops in here and then it's got a loop that can be tightened just at the front there just at the bottom sorry down here that opens off and again it's that nice our minyan clip and it's perfect and this actually fits a small forest at 2 grand for small forest acts absolutely perfectly like it was made for it which is useful because that is kind of like the most used axe I think in the set of bushcraft community but one of the things I really love about how this loop is situated you've got that PU coated Cordura that comes over the top of it so if you're out in the rain it's going to protect the leather axe and the leather access sheath and the axe head itself and they probably also they do rust so it's protected from the elements when it's actually packed up which is a really nice feature I don't know that's intentional but it is it is a good little feature and you can see also at the front here just about tricky to see when the bags empty but the frame dips underneath the front and it holds the bag up off the ground when it's when it's fully packed when it's fully packed it kind of pulls into the frame a little bit

so there you go there's a quick overview of the feature of this pack I hope I remember to get everything in I'm actually being eaten alive by midges today and it is a little bit distracting this very very migi out here so close and close to this pack overall I absolutely love this pack it's actually quite difficult to find any issues with it the main issue with it when I start with the cons the downsides of it the main issue with it is it's a heavy pack it's an old-school steel-framed kageura looks like it's very very heavy and that's the kind of that's the price of having such a durable pack that being said despite the weight of it when it's actually on your back because of the design and those nice thick straps and the way that you kind of like hike it open it quits it's really high on your back you don't really feel the weight the same you don't realize that it's so heavy until you've taken it off that's one main thing the other thing is it doesn't come supplied with a waist strap which is a little bit frustrating for a pack of this size however there were lots and lots of available waist straps for this online and there's loads of tutorials on how to make your own I am going to put waist up on this at some point and because it just helps to hold it up a little bit it does kind of because it's all on your shoulders it just kind of pulled back a little bit if you've got like full weight in it and and also one thing that I don't that it's a little frustrating about it is that tapering sort of main compartment it's not a major issue it's just a little bit annoying that it tapers towards the bottom this most of time this isn't a problem but I found this to be a little bit of an issue when we were canoeing and I was trying to fit a dry bag into it so the dry bags are kind of cylindrical shaped so it meant that when I was putting it in it was the dry bag inside it was creeping up around the size so even though it is pretty well waterproof like you still need a dry bag in it when you can do in otherwise your stuff is like to get wet especially you turn over or whatever so that's a little bit frustrating

however there's lots of people on YouTube and online they'll customize it by putting little pouches stuff on the side and that is probably something that I will do with this because that kind of overcomes that issue of tapering a little bit

and pretty much those are the only real downsides that I can see for this pack it's a little bit heavy the tapered sides are a little bit annoying and there's no waist strap but you can get one that attaches to it there's loads of them the things I really like about this pack is as I said earlier is the simplicity of it it's so it's such a simple design and it just works straps on the top straps on the bottom all closes down nice and tight made out of good solid hard-wearing materials like I said the payoff for that sort of price for that is that it's heavy but you know that this pack isn't gonna isn't gonna rip on your you know the straps aren't gonna rip off but the straps and detach you can get customized strips there's a nice wide straps that come come with it and it's just simple like there's not loads of pointless little compartments it like a lot of the packs I have had so you know that everything is either strapped to the outside or it's on one of the two compartments inside like you know you're not gonna be losing your stuffing but I think you'll all which bit that I put this in very very very simplistic design the frame is fantastic this frame has a variety of uses not just for the pack one of the things that's great about this that you're still a lot of people doing is when the packs fall it works brilliantly as a seat while also holding the bottom of that bag off the ground so as you can see the frame there is a gap between the bottom of the bag and the frame and the same thing goes if the bag is lying flat on its back the back of the bag isn't in the isn't in the in the wet in the canoe it was it held it held the pack just slightly higher than the sort of water line that was in the canoe as well which is really good so yeah that I don't know whether that's intentional but it works it's fantastic for that also you know the same thing is what holds it up off your back as well one of the big big pros of this pack is the price so you can get them online I think this one came from military mark which do seem to be like the UK's biggest supplier of them they range from about 12 to 15 pounds though there's a little bit of variance in price as it is army surplus with 12 to 15 pounds for a backpack that's basically the last forever is Geor

we'll really customizable absolutely fantastic really really love this part it's just sturdy simple of functional the colors also fantastic as well it's this nice neutral dark forest green which you know this environment is really good it just blends in really nicely

it's not like it's not a big bright color which is nice kind of this is a Swedish shirt as well it matches it's nice to call the cord isn't it so yeah overall fantastic pack absolutely love it so yo guys that's the Swedish

llk 35 oh one last thing that I forgot to mention is there is an LK 17 which is the bigger version this if anyone can point me in the direction of where I might be able to get all of them I'd be a decent price I'd be very appreciative I really want to get my hands on it and give it a try so you go Swedish LK 35 as always I hope you've enjoyed this video and a lot of people have done the same video and it's a little bit all over the place because I'm being eaten alive by midges but I hope you've got something from it I do recommend I genuinely recommend this pack and so yeah thank you all for watching stay tuned the next Tuesday's video which is going to be taking a look at the Pathfinder bush pot from the Pathfinder school of self right Dave Canterbury anyway I'm going to be looking at the bush pot that I've got from them so as always thank you all for watching please like share subscribe drop me a comment all that kind of stuff and I'll see you in the next video you