hey guys scott reekers here with eastman's hunting journals and today i am here to review
the seek outside peregrine 3500 backpack now you're probably asking me why in the world
am i at a small reservoir to do a backpack review well that's because this backpack
is famous for its material and that's what i want to share is that when i talked to the team at seek
outside they didn't want to call it waterproof but i asked them hey can i dunk this backpack
and show it's water resistance and show how well it'll do in wet climates and they said absolutely
so that is what i'm going to do today but first things first i'm going to walk you through all the
features then at the end we'll throw this thing in the water and we'll see how this goes and see how
everything looks inside so that is the plan today and i want to share with you about that because
when you look at it the claim to fame on this pack is this new ultra 400 material is that it is as
durable as cordura but it does not absorb water so one of the problems that you have with cordura
even the treated cordura is it can do something called wetting out the beauty of it is is that
it's much lighter than other materials that backpacks are using and we're just going to
go ahead and pack it for what i would use on a day hunt with mule deer first things first
safety first this is my first aid kit well where am i going to put that well that's something i
want to keep dry so i'm going to open up right here we'll go down the side zip that's something
that i'm going to put in and notice here you've got places where you can hang this and so i'm
going to hang this so it stays up at the top with this style of bag that's very important
so here you go that's going to sit right there but then the next thing is
i'm going to take my sleeping bag in the bottom so we'll get my sleeping bag in the
bottom here all right next adjustment you can see that there's an adjustment you can make
here to make this fit a little better all the clips adjust out so you can make this thing expand
really well take full advantage of the 3500 let me also answer another question i can do a week
in a 3500 cubic inch pack a lot of people can't they need to move up so take a look at some of
the bigger models if seek outside is the brand that you're looking for take a look at some of
those bigger pack models they're all listed there on seek outside's website so next piece of this
equation is i'm going to take the things that i am less likely to use i'm going to start finding
homes for it so i've got my insulated gloves i'm going to make sure that's on the inside
of the pack because i do not want them being close to a zipper if i can avoid it i've got my
sleeping pad right here i'll put this down here in the bottom there got my kryptek insulation layer
so i'm going to stuff that well i'll put that in here
one of the little tricks that i've learned over time too is that if you start
and actually zip this up as you go it's a little bit easier rather than because side zip is very
popular right now and so if you actually do it as you go life's a little bit easier you can fit
where you can fit a bugle tube here inside because a lot of guys they will have the bugle tube on
their pack when they're hiking into country you don't want to walk past elk to find elk however
a lot of guys know where they're headed already so we're going to go ahead and put this
see these big side pockets beauty of it you can fit things like that i bet i can fit the call
and my big nalgene i've got my spotting scope so that always goes in the side pocket did not bring
a tripod forgot that but that'll fit real well in here as well so easy easy way to manage that
and like i said they're very easy to loosen that see how that fits real well too one of the
problems you can have on some side pockets is that they're not wide enough to actually fit material
in there or fit your spotting scope so there you go that works put these back in like that
and start to tighten down a little bit i want to make sure that i have access to my meat bags
well that's something that i can put down in here my meat bags are dry i can get them or if they get
wet i can get them dried out so next up i always have a light with me in my pack i also always
have one in my bino harness next up i always keep my gators keep those into place like this
so that there but check this out you can cinch this up tight on both sides
now you're not worried about anything falling out that's beauty of that so last but not
least i always have my gallon zipper or gallon ziploc bags of food so we put that right here
the next up we roll top it this is a roll top bag now the beauty of a roll top bag is that they do
actually seal out water very very well so that's a very important key feature that i would look at
so you take it roll it i really like having the top lids up here so you can go through
and beauty of this from seek outside you can order this with or without the top lid so that's just
something to consider and keep in mind if you're not a top lid person you don't have to have it
that's why i didn't stuff it full there are people who use them people who don't it's a great place
for gloves too as well and this still has the same material so it's going to be great for keeping
those things dry and weatherproof so seek outside includes a lot of accessories including this panel
and you're able to take this and turn it into a load hauling option as well so for just a few
ounces you can bring this along lots of options to start out as light as you possibly can and then
you're going to load it up with all that meat with great options there for keeping that load under
control and one of the beauties of seek outside's system is how modular they've made their frames
tall guy like me you're going to want to have these extensions in and what that'll do is that'll
provide you with extra functional shoulder lift so that you can get that weight off your shoulder
and in particular when you're hauling meat out now that we've done the overview let's
get to the piece that everybody wants to see how does this thing do when i take it into the water
well here we go i'm going to wade out we're going to dunk this thing here we go
all right here we go well that's interesting it floats so this is going to be a little more work
there you go seek outside peregrine 3 500 after being dunked probably about 10 times here
it is not wetting out so you are not going to be gaining weight just like a cordura pack would
all right so here we are moment of truth
okay oh got a little here by the zipper but guess what this is easily dryable you know how much
water it would take rain to get in there like that a little bit right by the zipper that's it
that is all wow i'm impressed only water that's in those pockets is what just came
off the zipper so yeah a little bit a little bit from the zipper sprayed on there guess what
you can see red light there it works look at this hip belt here it's a one piece belt
fits very well around your waist you've got the big pad but even after dunking it there's hardly
any water in there so what does that mean for you as a user this thing is not going to absorb so
much sweat that it gets uncomfortable one of the things i would definitely do if you're planning
on this is because there is a zipper i would plan on making sure you put your rain gear
right up against here if you're going to be in a very wet environment but you are not going to wet
out with this material this material is going to stay lightweight which is part of the point of it
you're going to be very protected so today we intentionally went to extremes
to test out this ultra 400 fabric on the seek outside peregrine 3500 and the biggest
claim to fame that this material has is that it does not wet out i dunked this thing 10 times
when when i talked to the team at seek outside they said they could call it water resistant
not 100 waterproof so on the zippers you will have some leaking if you dunk it
on a trail on normal day-to-day use you are not going to have that there was very little
water inside this pack even when i dumped it and opened it up so if you are wanting a
pack that you don't have to worry about a rain fly for don't have to bring that extra weight
and want to make sure it's going to dry out really quickly it's going to make the water
fall off you know bead off like it's supposed to this is a great pack for that so make sure you
have subscribed to the eastmans hunting journals youtube page make sure you've turned on the
notifications so that every time we do a review you get the first notice and you're the first to
find out about more extreme tests like this and make sure you look at the seek outside peregrine
3500 if you want a pack that is not going to get beat up or take on extra water like cordura does