Gear review: Mystery Ranch Gunfighter 14 SB
Made in the Montana by some of the best in the business, this daypack has gobs of personality, unique design cues, and interesting access to the main compartment.
Changing things up rather significantly for Low Left readers, I’m going to start posting equipment reviews from time to time. I have an array of interests, and I figured that I could either write at length about the one year anniversary of the Fall of Kabul (later) or provide some more pleasant thoughts. So for the first time on Low Left, here’s my experience with the Mystery Ranch Gunfighter 14 SB limited edition pack.
First, disclosures:
1. I have happily used a variety of Mystery Ranch products since about 2009 or so. I consider myself to be a fan of the brand and often recommend it.
2. I purchased this backpack with my own money.
3. I have no relationship with Mystery Ranch aside from as a consumer; the business and I have never communicated in regards to product reviews and I have never been provided any of their equipment.
With that information out of the way, I can’t claim to have put this product through the wringer—it’s a limited edition, USA-manufactured piece that I in no way wanted to abuse—and I am typing this email having only had the pack for a modest span of time. I have had the Gunfighter 14 SB for a few weeks and have used it as a daypack to haul around my off-body EDC* (MacBook Air, assorted cables in a Mystery Ranch small Zoid Bag, a Grid-It organizer panel with sundries like cigar cutter, nail clippers, tooth brush, tweezers, individual Ibuprofen pack, etc., eyeglasses cleaning cloth, Write-in-the-Rain notebook, Liberty 20 oz. water bottle, and some sundry other things. This being summer, I don’t have a warming layer, rain layer, jacket, etc. as part of my current daily out-the-door setup (I just worked an event in eastern Washington, and it was well into the 90ºs; it’s just shy of 80º here where I live north of Seattle) but I value having the space to carry one for the 2/3rds of the year where such things are prudent.
*EDC = “Every Day Carry” for those of you unfamiliar with the TLA**
**TLA = “Three Letter Acronym” for those of you who haven’t had your mind broken by the armed forces’ limitless fetish for making everything into an acronym.
So, that’s the stuff that I always carry around when I’m carrying a pack. At a minimum, my definition of a successful daypack would be able to comfortably carry these items in a way that allowed useful access to them as well as provide the ability to carry a jacket/sweatshirt/rain layer or hat, and sundries (maybe a book and/or an energy drink & snacks). With that definition of ‘how do I define success as a daypack’ established, does the Mystery Ranch Gunfighter 14 SB succeed?
BLUF: Yes. This product succeeds as a useful daypack. It carries all of by EDC items comfortably and in a way that allows me to usefully access them.
Does this mean that I would recommend this? Probably to people who have a different use case than me. As Ryan said when I described the pros and cons, “sounds like it’s made for a different driver.” I think that’s a very fair assessment. Inasmuch as this bag has some great design cues and succeeds in its role, it’s not really for me.
So, against what am I comparing this bag? My reigning champ for a dedicated (-ish; more on that later) daypack is the Recycled Firefighter Battalion 24-hour bag, pictured here in “God’s Plaid,” M81 tri-color Woodland on the left:
Feel free to look up the specific dimensions for these products on their manufacturer’s websites if you need that degree of granular detail; I think that for my purposes here, you can make do with seeing that these are not wildly dissimilar in size, with the Battalion 24 being slightly taller but lacking water bottle pockets on the outside of the bag. For my uses as someone who’s no longer in the service, the Battalion 24 has far more than met my needs. It’s easily my favorite daypack to date, and is the standard against which I measure all other members of the genre. So, how does the Gunfighter 14 compare?
The Gunfighter 14 SB is part of Mystery Ranch’s neat ‘Bozeman Special Blend’ (hence the ‘SB’ nomenclature) series of limited-edition, American-made backpacks. For the record, this is a great lineup. The brand used the SB line to dust off some of the classic Dana Designs blueprints, make some intelligent changes to some of their runaway success military market assault packs, and take new and unique bags that are previously been produced overseas and bring them CONUS for Berry Amendment compliant, domestic production in new and fun color ways. The latter describes the Gunfighter 14 SB and its taller sibling, the Gunfighter 24 SB.
The Gunfighter bags seem to be inspired by the older Street Fighter pack (I could be mistaken, but I have a Street Fighter that I use as a dedicated day hiking pack and there seems to be a similar intent behind both bags), and is defined by a large main compartment with a hydration bladder* and laptop sleeve with some smaller suspended zippered storage towards the top to prevent detail items from pooling at the bottom. This main compartment is accessed via the top in both packs, though precisely how differs in the Gunfighter and the older Street Fighter (more on that later). Both packs feature external, stretchy bottle pockets and a smaller external pocket with some internal organization. There are provisions to mount an optional beavertail-style Stick-it or OV Innovations Cache so you can stow a rain layer or helmet or whatever without eating into the interior storage capacity of the pack. For full disclosure, I did not mount a beavertail to the Gunfighter 14 SB and cannot comment on how well one would work with the thing. I have had one on my Street Fighter 100% of the time and love it. I suspect that the shape of the latter lends itself better to this application than the former but cannot verify.
The main storage compartment of the Gunfighter 14 SB is accessed via a novel quick-release buckle and YKK zipper combination. Undo the buckle and then simply pull the lip up. The two zippers will move and the lid will open. This is a neat and highly versatile opening. It’s simple and easy (and no, these are not synonymous terms) and different and enjoyable to use. If you’re transporting something long or awkward or large enough, you can secure either only the zipper(s) or the quick release buckle to allow for the contents to extend out of the bag. This became necessary for me while shuttling my usual EDC load as well as a VaulTek Life Pod safe and a towel and pair of skin trunks. It allows the pack to overflow in a pinch, but it also speaks to a key limitation of the bag’s design: Main compartment storage.
You can see the laptop sleeve in the back and one of the two internal, zippered detail pockets in the photo. My hands aren’t that big; the internal storage of this bag just isn’t exactly cavernous. As you can see, toward the top, this area is only slightly wider that two columns of PALS webbing. While it widens slightly at the bottom, this just doesn’t allow for this space to expand or hold things that are very deep. The Life Pod safe, travel towel, and trunks ate this space up with nothing else in this compartment save for the small Zoid Bag of charging cables smashed down at the bottom. With these three items, I couldn’t use both zippers and the QR buckle to fully secure the main compartment. I didn’t include the laptop in that loadout, leaving it in my hotel room.
Speaking of laptops, let’s talk about the laptop sleeve. It’s padded and stops short of the bottom of the pack, so your laptop won’t hit the deck if you drop your back on the ground. That’s neat. The hook and loop flap at the top can either secure the pouch, preventing the laptop from coming out unless you open the flap or it can fasten onto a loop field inside of the sleeve in case you just want it out of the way. It’s a neat touch. Likely unnecessary, but not unwelcome, either. Inside that laptop sleeve is a zippered compartment at the very top that contains the frame sheet used to provide the pack with rigidity. This is…fine, I suppose. But compared with my other Mystery Ranch packs that feature the Futura Harness yoke system, it just doesn’t compare. When pitted against the Recycled Firefighter Battalion 24-hour bag, it’s remarkable that the Battalion 24 carries as comfortably as it does since it lacks a frame sheet of any sort. The Gunfighter likely benefits from the frame sheet in retaining its shape and allowing the pack to ‘stand up’ vertically on its own, but from a comfort/carry standpoint, it’s not the the same league as its stablemates from Mystery Ranch and manages to at best match the comfort of the Battalion 24.
Inside the main compartment are two zippered, mesh detail pockets that are great for suspending smaller items so they don’t wind up getting lost at the bottom of the bag or eating up invaluable internal storage space. Unfortunately, unlike their execution on the larger 3-Day Assault Pack, these detail pockets don’t ever seem to want to open fully. My suspicion is that they stay sort of wadded up and hard to zipper open and shut due to the narrow width of the bag at the top.
Behind these somewhat-stunted detail pockets are pass-through sleeves for longer items. What you would practically route behind the detail pockets through the pass-through channels is beyond me. I’ve only intermittently worked out since I got out of the Marines and have never been accused of having big arms, and I can only barely get my hand to pass through one of these channels:
There’s nothing wrong with these pass-through channels and they may, in fact, actually be a manufacturing quirk of how Mystery Ranch makes their detail pockets, but it’s worth noting that the combination of detail pocket and pass-through is better executed and more useful on their larger packs, such as the 3-Day Assault.
Beyond the main compartment, just below the female end of the QR buckle, is the smaller organization pocket. It features four mesh/elastic organizer slots for things like pens, flashlights, etc.
This pocket is where I kept my pens, notebook (and pocket Constitution), headlamp, and sometimes one of my more-often-used chargers. It has some (about an inch) of depth that expands outwards. It is reasonably easy to use and provides two zippers to make access user-friendly. On the outside of this is a non-organized, largely flat, basically pointless zippered pouch:
What am I supposed to put in here? My notebook was too large to fit. It has no volume or organization. It’s not wide or tall. I wound up putting my glasses cleaning gear and some business cards in this pocket because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to stuff them or another way to make any sort of use of this odd, vestigial pocket. To its credit, it’s not as overtly pointless and crazy-making as the traditional GIANT FLAT OUTSIDE POCKET found on things like the famous Go Ruck GR-1. It’s like manufacturers like saying, “hey consumers, we added a zippered pouch that’s nearly as tall as the bag, yet lacks any depth. This way, your shit all pools up at the bottom and you can’t reach in to get it when there’s anything in the pack.” This pack features a far less awful version of that same design choice. Not that I’m saying that it’s good here; it’s just less annoying than the usual approach. Does that make it great? No. Just less bad than the early ‘00s stuff that is so widespread.
So, the Gunfighter was a miss for me. A good bag with some unique access features that just didn’t quite pass muster for me. It has since found a new home. Would I recommend this bag? In general, sure, maybe. But given the price tag associated with a domestically-manufactured product? Probably not.
Thanks for reading.
Any chance you still have this pack and would sell it? Been looking for one.