Indecisive about down vs quilt (vegan, weight comparison, packability)

I’m sure if you email Enlightened Equipment they could provide a good estimate on packed size comparisons as they make quilts out of both down and apex.

At that temp, synthetic will be heavier and bulkier than down.  Most manufacturers list compressed size, so you can do your own comparisons.

Synthetic has a reputation for losing ~1/3 of it’s warmth after about 3 years.

If you are buying down, even used. You ain’t vegan. Use no animal products, 2nd hand or not.
Get a Cedar Ridge Gear Up quilt.

I’m not vegan, so I’m not sure what’s allowed and what isn’t, nor am I sure who is going to strike you down if you were to buy a down bag even if you are vegan.

I will say that a good down bag or quilt can last for years – (it depends on a lot of different things, but let’s say 20 years), while synthetic has a much shorter lifespan (again, it depends, but lets say 3-5 years) so a down bag is probably a better overall investment, both in your money and for the environment.   Down bags also perform better in just about every situation.

Responsibly sourced down is a byproduct of the goose/duck food industry so it’s not like they are killing the birds for the down used in your bag, and if it wasn’t used in bags, quilts, pillows, comforters, etc it would be discarded as waste.

If you want to get really technical, synthetic insulation is made from petroleum byproducts and petroleum comes from dead dinosaurs and dinosaurs were animals so you can’t use it either :)

Back when I was a tadpole 550FP down was considered to be exceptional quality stuff, if you have a read of Richard Nisleys insulation tables; 650FP down would be the benchmark now and given a rating of one, with 850+FP down being given a rating of 2.5 I think.

I’ve read that APEX is the functional equal of 550FP down

Apex weighs about twice as much as down for the same weight

You can compress down in your pack and it doesn’t hurt it.  If you compress synthetic in your pack hard enough it will lose some of it’s warmth after a while.  Maybe Apex would take twice as much volume in your pack.  Or even more if you really wanted to squeeze the down into small volume.

Down is recycling a product that would have been discarded.  Apex requires extracting oil.  But each of us has to make their own decisions about stuff like that.

I used to use Apex but I switched to down because I was cold and a bigger Apex bag wouldn’t fit in my pack.  I used a down bag a long time ago but it wasn’t very good so I had a negative opinion about down.

Im vegetarian.

Except that i make exceptions for  beef,  pork, chicken, and fish.  Maybe shrimp, oysters, and crab too.  But not scallops…

Other than that, im strict.

If you are buying down, even used. You ain’t vegan.

BS

High fill-number down is still the gold standard by far in terms of warmth-per-weight, compressibility, and durability. If you have a good front-loading washer, you can clean it occasionally to renew the loft.

Most vegans I know would not consider using down in any way, but everyone is free to make their own choices.

Down out performs Apex in every way except price.  It’s lighter, warmer, more compact, and lasts longer. I would much rather have a 550 FP down bag than an Apex bag.

Ethical implications you have to decide yourself, but the production of Apex is not environmentally neutral.  Producing Apex is not good for animal well-being, IMO. The fact that an Apex bag won’t last as long compounds the issue.

and if you figure the Apex doesn’t last as long, maybe after you buy another or a couple more, the lifetime cost will be less for down

Because Apex is so much less efficient than down weight-for-weight, the issues compound as you target a lower temperature.

For a light summer bag, the difference is not too significant. Once you aim for 20* the difference in weight and volume is stark – you’ll be making a significant sacrifice on the basis of principle.

I choose not to eat animal products these days but I still use down. As others have said, it’s a waste product from the meat industry that would simply be discarded otherwise. And three or four Apex bags instead of the one longer-lived down bag aren’t ideal for the environment either. It’s a moral grey-area and I choose to be pragmatic and use the best solution for the job. More militant vegans wouldn’t make a compromise like this. It’s a very personal choice for each one of us.

“the issues compound as you target a lower temperature”

that’s what I found

my Apex quilt was 5 oz/yd2 but I wanted a warmer bag.  It just wasn’t practical to get a heavier Apex bag