View Full Version : Chinese bags?
phourgenres
08-24-2015, 23:03
Has anyone ordered one of the quilts from china (aegismax)? I've seen a couple posts about ppl who received them, to prove they were legit. But I've seen no real field test to see whether the quality of their 800fill down has a similar lift.
also, brainstorming about winter warmth.. 20d quilt and down jacket or 0d quilt and no down jacket...assuming equal total weight? If you have two layers of down does it allow for it to properly loft?
Traveler
08-25-2015, 07:41
No need to go overseas for quilts, I know a guy who's going into that business......
Just Bill
08-25-2015, 08:58
No need to go overseas for quilts, I know a guy who's going into that business......
:D
I don't know that company. AegisMax. Lotta chinese vendors though who make things for folks you know, selling them direct now. Especially in stoves.
As fer your thoughts... the first question is if you need the jacket. Assuming you are carrying it anyway, then using what you carry to supplement your bag is always a good plan. As you mention though, you do need to size things to allow everything to fit without overly compressing it.
Are you talking actual winter camping (and what does that mean by you) or just early season AT?
A 20* quilt is a good temp in down especially and fairly versatile.
My rule of thumb... it's hard to get much more than 10-15 degrees of extra warmth in real life piling on clothes. So if you're talking an average of 20* with a few dips then the combo is a good choice. If you're talking true winter and consistent temps well below your gear's rating, then you should get the right gear.
Personally, I think 20 or so is the limit for a quilt... much lower than that and I prefer a mummy bag.
Here's a thread at BPL- http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=68391
http://www.amazon.com/AEGISMAX-Urltra-Light-sleeping-Spring-Urltra-compactable/dp/B00XE3C4M2
It's not a quilt, but a mummy with no hood (at least this one). I see no draft tubes and sewn thru baffle construction. Typically sewn through baffles don't work for anything lower than 35* or so. To be fair looks like this one is rated about 32* though and this seems about right.
Like anything else, things are cheaper in China, but even on a good sale here a pound of 800 fill down is $70, call it $50 their cost. 5 yards of fabric at a cheapo price of $3 yd is another $15... $65 for materials, shipped from China at $100. It's possible, but seems a bit too good to be true. OTH, for a $100, it's probably fine to 45* and weighs 21 ounces. Not lite, but the price is.
phourgenres
08-25-2015, 11:29
Early in the AT, but I'm naturally a cold natured person. My marmot plasma 15 gets me cold in the 30s to give you an idea.
That's the exact quilt I was looking at! I was comparing it to enlightened equipment, and 13.8 oz of down is what they used in their 20d, but I had no idea that construction of the baffles made that much of a difference! Thanks
Just Bill
08-25-2015, 16:10
Early in the AT, but I'm naturally a cold natured person. My marmot plasma 15 gets me cold in the 30s to give you an idea.
That's the exact quilt I was looking at! I was comparing it to enlightened equipment, and 13.8 oz of down is what they used in their 20d, but I had no idea that construction of the baffles made that much of a difference! Thanks
lol, definitely not a 20* bag.
Do you know if you are a cold sleeper?
Did you have the right sleeping pad...
Did you go to bed warm, fed, and hydrated...
Sleeping in a windy shelter can make you 10-15 degrees colder.
Sleeping in a bivy sack can make you 10 degrees warmer.
Wearing the right clothes, and a hat makes a big difference.
Did you sleep in a cold valley or katabatic Zone?
Lotta stuff that goes into a good nights sleep. :)
It does happen, but when you are 15-20 degrees off a name brand bag I'd look into some of the other stuff before you spend any more money. It may turn out you just need a good sleeping pad, a merino top and a good hat- not a new bag.
phourgenres
08-25-2015, 18:32
To clarify a couple things in your original post. Sewn through baffles are bad, because it allows cold spots where the fabric is stitched together and the down cannot move? Also, I didn't realize people put draft tubes on quilts, does ee have them on theirs?
In theory, since you don't get any real insulation out of the down you lay on. If you had a pad with a reasonable R value, and you put the zipper on the bottom, wouldn't this negate the loss of heat? After all, isn't most of the heat retention on the bottom reliant on the pad?
I'm not trying to get away from my bag due to warmth, just weight. Feet is where I have most of my heat loss. I noticed even with two layers of wool socks my feet never kept quite warm.
If i ended up ordering an ee enigma, and I got 2oz of overfill in the foot box it assume this would help mitigate this. But, if down works anything like fiberglass insulation, wouldn't this decrease the insulating effects of it? If you stuff too much into a given volume, wouldn't this decrease the surface area of the matter?
nsherry61
08-25-2015, 19:32
A couple of thoughts:
1) You will never get the same warmth from a jacket/quilt combo of a given weight that you would with a similar quality quilt of the same weight. Jackets just aren't as efficient per pound at insulating as that weight added to a bag or quilt because jackets have a lot more surface area and cover fabric.
2) a) As alluded to above, many people think their bags aren't warm enough, when, the reality is that they don't have enough insulation under them. b) keeping the body warm helps with the feet, but doesn't necessarily do the whole deal. c) Circulation is key, so tight socks (too many socks) can reduce circulation and thus drastically reduce foot warmth, down booties do wonders. d) I have found nothing that works as well to keep my feet warm as a hot water bottle! Poor boiling water into a 1L nalgene, put it in a sock or other cozy so it doesn't burn you, throw it in the foot of your bag, and your feet will be in heaven all night.
Just Bill
08-25-2015, 19:33
The chinese thing I posted, is not a quilt, it's a mummy bag without a hood.
If you look at how the top is cut, if you rolled it over so the zipper was under you- your shoulders would stick out and your head would be covered.
More or less- a quilt has no zipper, cuts off the hood, and sometimes reduces the total width of material to save weight.
In reality though, most quilts are actually not any smaller or much lighter than a mummy bag, most have the same overall girth.
For example- the chinese quilt is roughly 60" in girth.
An EE enigma in regular is 54" in girth. http://www.enlightenedequipment.com/faq/#Sizing
Zpacks makes a hybrid sleeping bag quilt- their regular is 56" in girth. http://www.zpacks.com/quilts/sleepingbag.shtml
Since the portion of the bag you are laying on is smashed by your body, the thought behind a quilt is to simply cut out that wasted insulation.
You can't do that in the Chinese one- the cut is wrong.
The enigma is a quilt, you don't zip it up and rely on your pad for insulation.
The zpacks is cut right to do what you suggest- on a bad night you can zip it up (sleep on the zipper), it will be tight but you can do it.
On warmer nights you unzip it, so it is good to a wider range of temps than a mummy bag would be.
For the most part, most quilts don't weigh any less than a good mummy if you add in a hood.
What quilts do is allow you to sleep comfortably over a much wider range of temperatures, which is very handy on a long distance hike.
32* Western Mountaineering Summerlite- 19oz $380.
http://www.westernmountaineering.com/index.cfm?section=products&page=Sleeping%20Bags&cat=ExtremeLite%20Series&ContentId=69
30* EE enigma in REG/REG- 17 ounces, $235 Add a "hoodlum" from EE- 1.5 oz and another $55. So you are 18.5 oz and $290.
http://www.enlightenedequipment.com/hoodlum/
30* Zpacks Reg/Long- 15.1 ounces, $380. Add Joe's hood 1.3 oz and $65. So you are 16.4 ounces and $435.
For the most part, I'd call them functionally equal at the 30* mark.
If we were talking a weekend, especially in the 20's... I'd bring the mummy.
On the course of a long distance hike of a month or two... You can send the hoods home when it gets warmer out and use your beanie instead.
You can open up the EE or zpacks bag more fully, most importantly, you can open the bottom of the footbox up. With the EE one you can further unzip it to make a blanket. When you start hitting the 50's or even 60's... your quilt or zpacks hybrid bag is going to be much more comfortable than the mummy.
But on that odd night 5* or more below the rating, a quilt will never be as warm as true mummy bag.
The point being- it's not weight, so much as range of comfortable sleeping temperatures that makes quilts so popular.
Even more-so out west where elevation can more dramatically effect the range of warmth needed.
If you are truly a cold sleeper, you may be better off with a mummy bag. Many of us used them for years, and if you get a full zip version with a two way zipper you can flag a foot out or open it like a quilt. What you can't ever do is send the hood home.
Regardless of your choice- you still need enough insulation in your pad. R-value is how it's measured. Roughly 40*= R3, 30*=R5, 20*= R7
A neo air is about R3, an Xtherm (winter version) is about R6. Neo air gets you to 35 in a pinch, Xtherm as low as 15. Below 20* it's a good idea to use two pads, one of them being closed cell foam.
Most of the time when folks check the R value of the pad they use, that is the error in the sleep system.
Too many socks actually restrict blood flow and result in cold feet.
You'd probably be better off with booties than overstuff- again- you can send booties home if you're talking weight- you can't send overstuff home.
http://www.enlightenedequipment.com/sleeping-booty/
Overstuffing down is mainly a waste of money, not performance. You have to go pretty nuts to truly cause the loss of insulation value.
(extensive discussions at Hammock Forums if you want to nerd out on it)
On the construction question-
https://www.google.com/search?q=sewn+through+vs+baffle+box&rlz=1C1GGGE___US635US635&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=839&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmoVChMIn_fVt6bFxwIVikmSCh3CjgFr#imgr c=bbsGwlQL1e3rnM%3A
When you sew through baffles, you save weight and labor. But as you can see in the image, every time you sew through you have zero insulation at that point. So a 2" thick baffle, at zero on each end, is only about 1" of insulation total. More importantly, even if you are mostly warm, and I shoved an Icepack down your shirt- you'd feel cold. In anything below about 30* the colder spots at each seam are too cold for you to sleep well. As any hammock hanger about cold butt syndrome... no matter how toasty they are otherwise, if them little hamhocks in their hammock are chilly- they ain't sleeping.
Box baffles solve the sewn through problem- there are still ups and downs in the thickness of the gear- but no hard points with zero insulation to freeze you out.
Sewn or box construction has nothing to do with down movement directly.
However if the baffles are too big, too far apart, or the fill to little, down can shift around and give you cold spots too.
If you filled a garbage bag with a pound of down and laid it on you, by the end of the night you'd have no down on top and really warm sides.
The baffles, sewn through or not, keep the down where it belongs.
phourgenres
09-08-2015, 20:56
Thanks for info. Think I'm going to stay clear of the Chinese bags.
I've had my 20* quilt from EE down to 15 and I consider myself a cold sleeper. No wind to speak of, but it was a snowy night. I was comfy with a lightweight hooded down jacket and wool base layer. EE quilts do seem longer than expected, though.
Here is the Chinese site for AegisMax. Their prices are no bargain. Their Aegis D Smoke Duck Series bag with 1000 grams of 650 down is $293.
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.aegismax.com.cn/&prev=search
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.aegismax.com.cn/&prev=search
2.2 pounds of down? Seems like massive overkill to me. But you have no idea what quality that down is.
Wayne
Sent from somewhere around here.
That was the amount of fill that they were using for a 10 degree Fahrenheit rating, so probably not very good quality, and, or design. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.
Interesting. ~20 ounces of quality goose down should be good to 10 degrees F. WM & FF can do it. REI did it back in the Dark Ages when I bought my first down bag. There are no "bargains" when you need a proper bag for temperatures approaching Zero.
Wayne
gregpphoto
09-11-2015, 09:11
My rule of thumb... it's hard to get much more than 10-15 degrees of extra warmth in real life piling on clothes.
This is probably the question that divides my friends and I the most. They argue that sleeping naked is warmer, which to me, makes absolutely no sense. All a sleeping bag does is trap your body heat. Well, so does clothing, and so long as it doesnt compress the fill of the bag, the more the better I say. Your thoughts? You seem to have more knowledge than I regarding this.
People argue about the sleeping naked/layering thing all the time. I don't get much warmth while sleeping in if I put on anything other that a light base-layer. But with a bag like we're talking here I'd certainly have a down hoodie ready to go for anything around freezing. And the sewn through baffles is no joke, you can feel the cold where it's stitched through.
People confuse sleeping wearing dirty/sweaty/dump clothing (yes that will make you colder and should make you uncomfortable if not a hobo when not on the trail) and adding insulation, the clean puffy (possibly) variety.
If wearing clean clothes makes one feel colder than we would ,at home, sleep naked in winter and have thick pajamas on in summer .
re: Sleeping naked is warmer
A bit of a myth.
Make sure the base layers aren't constrictive (running tights, tight socks and/or a snug fitting top come to mind) and you aren't wearinf so many layers the insulation of the bag is compressed.
As others said, make sure your base layers aren't wet or very damp. Be sure to be well hydrated, fed and have adequate ground pad insulation as well. A warm hat is often helpful.