Cheap, Light, Compact Sleeping Bag Options?

:)

Okay, so what you're after is the Kelty Down Cosmic-20, and you have to find it on sale. When you do that, you will have the light, compact and under $70 dollar sleeping bag. MSRP is higher, but sale prices at places you may not expect, are often 69.99…

Search "Cosmic Down 20" on this site, to read about it.

Dang it. Saw it on Steep and Cheap last night for 60 bucks, should have bought it. I'll look for deals on it. But until then, any others I should keep my eye out for?

Watch gear swap,someone just sold a new one for $65 shipped

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=66577&skip_to_post=568933#568933

If Steep and cheap didn't sell out most likely they will have it on again soon.

What about the Lafuma Extreme 800 +40 bag? It's under 2 pounds, packs to 6 X 12, and only costs 60 bucks. Anyone have any experience with it?

Elijah, I have that bag, haven't used it in a long time, and would be willling to selling it to you. Interested?

+1 on the Kelty +20 Cosmic Down. I have the women's version and it's a great bag for the price- it's got decent loft and keeps me warm. I picked mine up for $90-something on Amazon, but I agree that if you just keep an eye on Steep and Cheap it'll come back around. It packs down pretty small but you'll have to supply the compression sack. It comes with a standard stuff sack but not a compression sack. I used my compression sack off another bag.

The Kelty Cosmic Down +20 is on Steep and Cheap right now.

There are some Kelty bags on The Clymb right now.
http://www.theclymb.com/brand-event/1813/Kelty

Here is an invite link if you aren't already a member.
http://www.theclymb.com/invite-from/TylerNewton1

I wouldn't get a 40 degree bag for your only one–it's not versatile enough.

You can also check here. SAC Attack deal tracker. This is where you go when you miss it on SAC. It won’t be the big discount, but it will still be about 40% off retail. I would post a link but my internet is really slow tonight.

Got it. Here it is

Go with Lafuma: cheap and light

Check out http://www.theclymb.com It is one of those discount sites. They have different stuff on the site everyday. It takes some patients but sometimes you can get a really good deal. Expect a long wait though, sometimes 4 weeks

or take a look at the Enlightened Equipment Prodigy or Prodigy X Quilts. Not sub $100 but lighter and still reasonably priced.

Jim

Elijah, be very careful of stuff like Lafuma, they claim certain temps but those are technically the lower EN comfort rating, and those are not comfortable for actual sleeping. Lafuma was the first mistake I made when starting to go light but not wanting to spend a lot of cash. Total waste of money. Make sure you learn the difference between the real EN comfort ratings and the fake claims some companies are making now, based on the lower discomfort EN rating levels their bags actually are.

that means that a bag advertised as 40 degree can easily be 50 or even more in the real world. Sadly, it's buyer beware now, it didn't used to be like this, but now it is. I was burned on 3 bags before I learned that things really have changed in the United States.

When you look at an actual EN rating thing, it's a bar that is rated from actual comfort to mild discomfort to basically you won't die but you will be miserable. Lower end consumer stuff is now trying to use the middle value as the bag rating, which is totally not true.

en lower limit rating will generally be fine for the "average" male

to cut through all the intraweb bull on sleeping bag ratings go here …

http://www.mammut.ch/images/Mammut_Sleep_well_pt1_E.pdf

That wasn't my experience, no idea if I'm average, but I do know that older bags accurately rated felt just like they should, and these cheap thinner new bags left me shivering in temps 15 degrees higher than their alleged rating. And new honest bags from western mountaineering seem to be what they are rated at, that's why I got them.

I honestly wouldn't even try to sell the lafuma I bought, it's a joke. Experiences like this is why I went to real companies that make real products, like they used to do.

Old northface, sierra designs, pre corporate buy outs, those were accurate, and the new stuff, allegedly rated the same temp, has only half the loft. Do the math.

There probably are some good companies left that don't do this on their lower end stuff, but lafuma and northface at least are not two of them, if anyone really believes otherwise, I will happily sell mine to you. But nobody will buy them, because we know better.

It's a drag, in the 70s and 80s, maybe even up to the 90s, you could trust these ratings, but now you can't. Maybe some companies are still honest, I know the small ones tend to be, hopefully a few of the bigger ones still are. The actual EN ratings, at comfort level, however, are fairly accurate, the problem is the bags aren't advertising those, they are advertising the lower ones.

It's easy to tell, I can't sell these things for any price almost so far, not at 25% of what I paid. That says it all.

I'd be a bit leary of people suggesting these cheaper bags are good, most people here own really good gear, and there's a reason they use it. I still have old bags, and they are great, still, 30 plus years in one case, still would be ok. The trick is to find if there are any of the cheaper ones that are still good and honest, maybe Kelty, that would be nice.

did you consider that as you got older, you require more insulation …

its fairly well documented that many american bag makers exaggerated their ratings badly years and years ago … when companies such as TNF and REI finally went to en-ratings, they found their older bags were no longer up to snuff … MB found the same thing, note the fill increase in this years models when they went en-rated

the en-rating is the MOST CONSERVATIVE of the common ratings systems used prior … there is a chart which documents this in the mammut document

if you think that "cheap" bags such as kelty or others that use en-ratings are not up to snuff … then companies such as WM, MB, RAB and other "quality" companies are cr@p as well … as the bag are en-tested at certified laboratories regardles of the brand

insulation does one thing … insulate

and we wont even mention the $$$$ valandre bags whose webpage advertises the SURVIVAL rating of the bag rather than the lower limit … thats positive marketing for ya ;)

Getting all caught up in the details gets confusing, needlessly. It's just how much loft the bag has, basically. Everything else is details. That's how every good article about warmth discusses temp, just by how much loft there is, and that's really all you need because that's an actual fact.

You may be younger so you don't remember when companies like Northface and Sierra Designs were real companies run by real backpackers and climbers, their gear sewn right here, in the SF Bay Area, back then they were great. And honest. I'm comparing bags and loft, it's not related to my age, I can see with my eyes that bags sold as 40 aren't, 20 most certainly aren't. My body merely confirmed this fact to me at night. And I can stick a new wm 20 degree bag next to the old nf 20 degree, and the new nf 20 degree, and it's self evident that the new one is falsely listed as 20, it's lucky to be 35. Not related to age, just related to companies lying and getting greedy.

I can show you a picture of two twenty degree northface bags, one from mid 90s I think, one from 2011. Half the loft in the new one, and the old one also had that warm fuzzy bag liner built in (so heavy, but oh soo warm and comfortable…), good for at least 5 degrees by itself, maybe more.

So really just pay attention to how much loft the stuff has, and don't worry too much about the complex math and all the testing. I have hopes that Kelty and REI are still somewhat honest in their practices, but generally optimism like that isn't warranted, but I do have hopes.

I bought a 50 degree lafuma bag which in a sense has no loft since the fill is so loose, that was before I realized how seriously things had changed here in terms of what was considered acceptable in advertising. Silly me.

It's a drag that you have to now learn a fair amount to actually get what you need, but that appears to be the case in almost every area of outdoor gear now. Maybe not backpacks or sleeping pads, not sure there. But he's already got a pack so he's set there.

However, rereading your posting, I realize I must have failed to communicate properly, both northface and lafuma sold their bags but did not list the actual comfort rating, they listed the mid rating, where you are kind of miserable but will survive the night ok. Western Mountaineering lists the actual comfort rating. That's why nf and lafuma are frauds and why the good companies like wm, ff, and a few others, aren't. And that's, again, about loft. And those good companies tell you precisely how much loft you are getting with each bag.

Basically, to put it into simple terms, its like a car company using its highway mileage for city mileage and pretending they didn't do that. Ie, it's fraud. Legal, somehow, no idea how, but legal nonetheless.

If you have access to the actual EN rating range chart, and if you understand what it means, and if you totally ignore the advertized rating, the top end rating is going to be reasonably accurate, only it's not related sometimes to what the company claims for the bag. Knowing this is a good way to avoid expensive mistakes. I wasn't aware of this change, coming from an old school where the numbers reflected reality, so I trusted those numbers, which was a mistake, a fairly expensive one.

However, rereading your posting, I realize I must have failed to communicate properly, both northface and lafuma sold their bags but did not list the actual comfort rating, they listed the mid rating, where you are kind of miserable but will survive the night ok. Western Mountaineering lists the actual comfort rating. That's why nf and lafuma are frauds and why the good companies like wm, ff, and a few others, aren't. And that's, again, about loft. And those good companies tell you precisely how much loft you are getting with each bag.

bull … the summerlite is a 32F rated bag and is en-rated lower limit tested to 34F … if anything their rating is exaggerated … richard nisely has shown that actual testing is what matters, the correlation between "loft" and insulation is not as great as people assume

Temperature Rating. EN 13537 tested:
T comf: +6ºC
T lim: +2ºC
T ext: -14ºC

http://www.outnorth.com/western-mountaineering-eu/summerlite.php

the bottom line is to LOOK AT THE EN-RATING … a fancy doodah $$$$ bag that test to 30F is not going to be any warmer than an el cheapo bag that also test to 30F when new … all other things such as fit, etc … being equal

"Getting all caught up in the details gets confusing, needlessly"

Confusing statement from a member on this site.

Needlessly getting caught up in the details is the purpose of BPL

Edit- FWIW I get cold when I sleep in my 40deg in 40deg weather. I write it off as me being a cold sleeper, not the whole EN rating being a farce. -Bring my 30deg bag instead

Eric, where did you actually find the wm en ratings? Thanks for the correction. So that makes my body, despite its age, still a reasonable judge of bag temp, since I thought 32F for the summerlite might be pushing it. But it’s in the ballpark, maybe within 8 degrees, the bags I’m noting are bad are not in the ballpark, they are maybe 15, 20 degrees off in rated temp, and far less loft. Keep in mind the summerlite has continuous baffles and you can rearrange the down to be more on top if you want. Looks to me then like nf/lafuma are using lower mid ratings, and wm using upper mid, but because you can move the down around in wm, I suspect you can get fairly close with them if you do it right.

Let’s see what bpl says re sleeping bag temperature ratings.

Consequently, the best we can do is to measure the loft and key performance features of the bag, comment on our subjective experience near the temperature rating of the bag, and ask you as an informed consumer to compare it to the loft and temperature ratings of bags from other manufacturers in order to make a wise decision. Nevertheless, we recognize that some guidance in correlating a bag’s loft to its warmth is useful to consumers. Table 1, below, represents our best effort at such a correlation:

Temp (°F) Loft (in) Temp (°C) Loft (cm)
50 1.2 10 3.1
40 1.5 4.4 3.8
30 1.8 -1.1 4.6
20 2.2 -6.7 5.6
10 2.6 -12 6.6
0.0 3.0 -18 7.6
-10 3.5 -23 8.9
-20 4.0 -29 10

One key thing to understand about sleeping bags is that if they say it has, say, 3.5 inches loft, that counts top and bottom, and it’s the top that keeps you warm, and the sides, so that actually means 1.75 inches, which is in the 40 degree range, as you see from the chart. My guess is that good bag companies that use good down and list the loft know that it’s about the loft and down/fill quality. Compare similar quality down and loft, and you’ll probably be in the same temp ballpark.

Keep in mind, if you aren’t aware, that Elijah is 14, and trying to get into backpacking, so when I say, keep it basic to avoid confusion, that’s really what we should be doing. And since loft is what bpl offers as a reasonable tool, just like every other authoritative source, like military specs, etc, that’s what a beginning backpacker should use, and grown up ones, and I believe it is largely what they use, when you strip away the extra words etc.

We can debate the fine points of heat retention of different fill materials, humidity resistance, and construction methods to our heart’s content in some more focused and dedicated threads in the future, and dig up older ones from the past.

By the way, this type of fine grained analysis is what brought me to bpl in the first place, and it was the absurd failure of some new lafuma and nf bags to even remotely approach their alleged ratings that made me start realizing that it was time to learn what’s really going on here, coupled with a trip to Northern Norway, where very well intentioned but totally clueless relatives ended up freezing my butt off camping.

Elijah, you can learn a huge amount from these threads, if you read through them, but it’s also important to realize that often what appear to be debates or disagreements are actually just people fine tuning and adjusting their understandings. This is how gear, and other, geeks, do things, and it results in amazing information, I have certainly brought my own level of understanding up by a very very large amount by reading these forums now for some time.

BPL needs to update their bag ratings …

would you rather have

1. assumption of "warmth" based on loft, and assume there is a strong correlation between em … look at richard nisely posts for why this is not the best

2. assumption of "warmth" based on the quality and amount of fill … more accurate

3. actual real measured "warmth" tested in independent laboratories according to an internationally recognized and EU legislated standard which is considered conservative … most accurate we have so far

everyone on BPL and BPL itself claims to be about scientifically measured results … here we have a standard that is recognized, adopted, tested, etc … by real scientists (not some DIYer) with real equipment … its amazing to me how many here just ignore it when it doesnt suit em , ie the bags aint one of their fancy favorite brands ;)

I would like a more scientific way so that things like the heatsheets and other option could be mesaured also.