What’s with Western Mountaineering weights?

“Weight Shmeight”

I had my WM Megalite 30 F. bag overstuffed to be good at 20 F. and that tiny amount of added down weight is nothing compared to the margin of comfort it provides. When you are spending 8 hours trying to get much needed sleep a few extra ounces of “insurance down” is worth 10X  its weight in gold.

No more shivering like a rabbit “passing” razor blades when the temp is 24 F. as happened on the PCT above Kennedy Meadows in August.

Again, it’s about comfort and versatility. That larger Megalite girth also permits me to wear my light down jacket inside if needed. That could easily take me to 15 F.  Insurance.

If the discrepancy is due to extra down, that is great. If it is due to a poorly trimmed fabric covered up when sewing the seams I would be less impressed.

If it’s underweight they shorted you fill, if it’s over you got more than you paid for so..

I’d actually argue that I want the bag to weigh the same and have the amount of down in it I thought I was buying when I made the purchase.   If I wanted a heavier, warmer bag, I would have bought one.

That being said, In my experience WM makes fantastic bags, probably the best out there.

@mocs123 I can see that point as well.  With smaller, more controlled production the weights are usually pretty close. Down seems harder to get as accurate due to it’s nature and not being a man made product.

Haha, just adding on here – I also ordered a new long WM Versalite that just arrived today. I measured it at 36.62oz excluding the stuff sack; pretty much the same discrepancy Mark observed. Felt a spot of anger, then a sense of victory. If I’m taking out this bag, chances are it’s going to be cold AF (<20) and I don’t want to mess around with my 20* quilt. Definitely don’t mind some free overfill in those conditions.

A current issue facing Western Mountaineering

“……temporary loss of a critical employee who tested positive for COVID (and who is the most efficient and skilled at filling bags, twice as fast as any other person we have), and the subsequent temporary loss of other employees who had to take time out to be tested because they may have been exposed to the employee who tested positive.

While our more efficient and most experienced operator of the filling system is out, we have not been giving the more novice employee any special bags to fill.”

Gary Peterson

Managing Director

Western Mountaineering

Hey all, I did some further investigation on this issue by working with the incredible team at Moosejaw. I’m going to summarize what we learned for posterity, in case any other lunatic like me tries googling this in the future. They did two things to validate why my new 6’6″ Versalite was 2.6oz over spec at 36.62oz:

1. Weighed another brand new 6’6″ Versalite, which came out at 36.8oz. So, it appears the discrepancy from published spec is fairly consistent with what other members have posted in this thread… about 2-3oz over.
2. Had a phone call with a rep from Western Mountaineering. I thought this summary was incredibly insightful:

“Alrighty — just got off the phone with a Western rep, who kicked this around with the two guys who started the company. They take it seriously! Apparently they talked for quite a while about all this.

They said that the weights are estimates, and this is within their range of deviation.. that each baffle is filled by hand, and over the course of a 6’6″ bag, it could be any number of things.. but that they never ever err on a fill weight less than that of spec — so the vast majority of whatever discrepancy is going to be from $40-80 worth of extra down. Apparently it’s pretty normal that their bags are over spec, and that they always overfill just a touch… which would increase the margin of error for the 6’6″.”

Hopefully this info is as valuable to someone else as it was to me.

Austin,

That  is interesting. I currently own six WM bags that I have used from 50 to -30*F and have never had any issues with getting seriously cold during the night? I have never weighed any of the bags, either, though now I am curious as to what mine actually weigh?