Are you a down shifter?

I’m with you, shifting down is a negative

I have horizontal baffles.  Sometimes the down will shift sideways and there will be very little on top.  Then I have to fluff it to get it back to where it belongs.

But it’s not a big deal.  It only happens occasionally.

If I’m too warm I can just lower the quilt.  Being able to shift the down isn’t needed.

Just one person’s opinion : )

Don’t down shift!!!

If down shifts easily enough for “dialing in performance,” there’s not enough down in there.  So yes, defective.

It’s sold as something you can control, but no matter what you do, it’s going to shift back. Almost every down item I have shifts the down, even the things that are stuffed to the gills with too much down. I think the only things that don’t shift have very small baffles.

I’ve never done that, and consider a bag that shifts down by itself to be defective.

+1

I have an early nunatak ghost quilt that will shift down without my assistance :) The bad is on a cold night when I get a cold spot on my hip (typically a side sleeper). Generally I consider it a design defect… but it’s a moderate annoyance and easy to get the distribution back where it should be so I have put up with it for >15y. Rarely, on hot summer trips I will shift most of the down to the sides to make the quilt less warm but could accomplish cooling by venting / sticking limps out. Whenever the ghost finally dies I will replace it with something that doesn’t shift easily.

When I stick my head inside the sleeping bag on a sunny day I can see that the down shifts within the baffles.  So I always try to fluff up my bag after taking it out of its stuff sack.

By the way, you might want to go out and purchase a yardstick.  They aren’t making them any longer.

I’ve loved the capability of open baffles and adjusting down positioning. I’ve had a blue kazoo with horizontal open baffles for 25 years, and I’ve loved the ability to intentionally adjust warmth. Never had a problem with down shifting enough in ways I didn’t like for it to be a problem.

The time I appreciated it the most was in the summer when I could shake more down to the bottom and leave a thinner insulating layer on the top. Opposite in colder weather. In my experience the down never shifted much from the top to the bottom when I slept since I was lying on the bottom which either kept the down there (summer) or kept if from migrating there from the top (spring/fall). Was the distribution as even as closed baffles? Probably not. But it was never an issue for me and the way I used the bag (3 season in the southwest and pacific NW). Also allowed me to adjust to have more warmth in the legs which is where I get cold, less over the torso. For me, venting doesn’t cool things evenly enough to be comfortable.

The blue kazoo is heavy so over the last few years I’ve shifted to a Magma 30 for the summer and hummingbird 20 for shoulder season. The magma has closed baffles and isn’t tightly stuffed, at times I’ve found myself wishing I could shake some of the down to the top for more warmth. The hummingbird has open baffles — a perk for me. It’s much more highly stuffed and narrower than the magma, and while some adjustment is possible it doesn’t seem to have a huge impact.

So I’d probably say if you want a bag that’s always consistent and you can have multiple bags for different seasons/temps, closed baffles are ideal. For some adjustability across temperature ranges I’ve found baffles really useful. It does take some attention and a couple of minutes to adjust once the down has lofted after unpacking, which is probably a clear downside for some.

Not into down shifting. I am a believer in more/smaller baffles. As others have said, just hang a leg or upper body out a bit to cool down. Is that ever an issue?

I’m not into down shifting……and normally purchase overfill not to increase warmth but to minimize shifting and cold spots.

I have a GoLite Ultra 20 and have always fought to shift the down until I finally realized its baffles are constructed so the down won’t shift. So it’s just too cold. I just add an extra quilt inside. I made a small quilt (shook all the down in a costco quilt to make a smaller quilt containing all the down) just for this purpose.

Advertising companies and marketers are really good at spinning things, taking potential negatives and turning them into positives.  Indeed, some would consider that a helpful life skill!

I do not like down that shifts.  It tends to do so at the most inconvenient times.

a lot of people swear by karo baffles that allow you to shift the down all over

different techniques for different people, different conditions lead to different solutions, sometimes one technique will work for a while but then opinion changes,…

I had a WM Megalight and would routinely redistribute down between the top and bottom by shaking it. I considered this a big plus.  On very cold nights I would shift all down to the top…made a huge difference.  The down never shifted without my intervention. When it was warm I would evenly distribute and use it like a quilt. This is what made me realize that I would be better off with a quilt.  I have never camped below 10 deg, and so never need a full bag.  The WM has been relegated to “loaner” status.

@sbhikes – Yes the Golite Ultra 20 is underfilled and has two vertical baffles to attempt to keep down from shifting.  There were a few people that did manage to add down to them though it’s harder than it should be due to those baffles.   You could probably find the report if you were interested in a MYOG modification to add down.    The Ultra 20 had about 9.5oz of down and I always felt like it needed 12oz.

I had a WM Megalight and would routinely redistribute down between the top and bottom by shaking it. I considered this a big plus.  On very cold nights I would shift all down to the top…made a huge difference.

I do this with my WM Badger (rated at 15) and have taken it down to around 4 degrees F last November while elk hunting. I can’t comment on other folks’ experiences but I was happy with my ability to do it.

I decided to solve the problem permanently by adding 2 oz of overfill to my WM Summerlite, shifting all the down to the top and sides, then sewing a longitudinal line of stitches from the neck to the foot of the bag, along the side opposite the zipper to keep the down in place.  It is basically a quilt with a piece of fabric on the bottom to keep the down on the top and sides, where it will do the most good.  It has performed splendidly in the field, with no thin spots or messing around with redistributing down when I least want to be bothered, at the end of the day.  Count me a warm and happy camper for minimal additional weight.

“…adding 2 oz of overfill … then sewing a longitudinal line of stitches from the neck to the foot of the bag, along the side opposite the zipper to keep the down in place…quilt with a piece of fabric on the bottom ”

That’s what I do.  Has worked well for years

Yes, I regularly puffed up or swatted away the top down on my Versalite. Seems harder to do on my new quilt.

I switched to quilts 10 years ago, and I have a Katabatic Chisos 40F, and an Enlightened Equipment Revelation  10F.

I was aware of the down shifting problem before purchasing each of these quilts, and asked each manufacturer to overstuff the down. In each case the manufacturer refused.

The Chisos  is used mostly as a summer quilt, and it has horizontal baffles. In this case it can be quite useful in warm temperatures to shake the down to the sides in order to leave the top less insulated for a more comfortable night. Conversely on a cold night I grab the edges of the quilt shake the down to the center before attaching it to my pad. This is very easy to do, and if I don’t move around too much in the night the down stays on top. I have used it at 30F, albeit with extra clothing worn too.

The EE is a cold weather quilt, and has lengthways baffles, and the down shifts towards my feet.  However the really annoying feature with this quilt is the fact that they purposely left a half inch opening at the foot end of each baffle into the next baffle, and the down then finds its way out of the baffle altogether.  Despite EE posting a video demonstrating how easy it is to move the down back by gentle wafting, it doesn’t work anything like that, and you have to move a solid clump of down to the gap and try to pull bits back through. This takes hours of work, is very frustrating, and is hardly a trail task, and I curse EE almost every time I use the quilt for creating such a feature, and having refused to put sufficient down in in the first place.

I would like to overcome the problem with my EE quilt of down migrating out of each baffle due to the half inch opening linking each baffle. The easiest solution would be to sew the openings closed, but that would mean sewing right through the quilt. That would create small cold spots, but would that be really noticeable?  There are 5 openings on the top, starting at knee length.

The Ikea down comforter on our bed gets “down shifted” by my wife every time we change the sheets.  The repeated motion of pulling the cover over to get in and out of bed seems to move the down to the foot of the comforter every week and there is a very noticeable thinning of the down at the head.

As for our Accomplice 950 EE down quilt, the shuffling and rustling of it from laying it out and repacking each night appears to fluff the down into the right places and seems rarely to ever require any down shifting, especially not in the middle of the night.  I have patted a baffle on occasion when it appeared thinner, but not something needed every day.  When I shake out my quilts, I suppose I always do it from the toe box end, maybe that helps cut down on maintenance.

I only have one sleeping bag as the rest are quilts.  I have used the “shifting” method with bags in the past with relative success in an attempt to gain a bit of warmth.   Most of the bags I have owned in the past had a side block baffle that kept the down distributed with 60% on top and 40% on the bottom.  Since these were cold weather bags it made sense.  I had a WM Summerlite that I was continuously attempting to keep the down on top to stay warm at freezing temperatures with limited success.  That, combined with the slim dimensions of the bag, made for a short term relationship.

With quilts I haven’t had an issue or felt a need to push the down to the center.  Having said that, I always fluff my quilt/bag in a way that would attempt to keep the down in the center.   If it is shifting on its own, either the design of the bag is less than optimal or the quantity of fill is inadequate.  Some bags and quilts unfortunately suffer from both issues.

I thought this was going to be a thread about how to make your brakes last longer.  :-)