Longish post sorry, but it’s a bit of a deliberation/review as well.
Reg swore he’d never have a seat harness rather than a seatpack. Reg today has a seat harness.
Reg swore he’d never have a frame bag. Reg today has a frame bag.
What an embarrassing sell out

. He’s definitely, er, not getting a bivvy bag though.
Up to now have been quite happy with Alpkit Koala seatpack, AK gas tank, AK stem cell, and one or two AK custom 10L drybags on the bars, plus the MYOG cabletie/gaffertape water bottle stem cell.
The Koala is VX21 fabric, but the gas tank, stem cell and dry bags are all extremely light LS07 versions. The dry bags are simply strapped round the bars and onto the 16g cabletie bars/mudguard harness. All works perfectly.
But the seatpack had almost worn out, and now it's had its life cruelly cut short due to a catastrophic involuntary strap/cassette interface entanglement situation which ripped the strap from the bottom of the bag.
So which new ones then, c’mon, cut to the chase.
Didn’t take long to narrow things down to Stu’s Acepac gear, and what I bought. Would obviously like to support Stu, but I can’t be doing with luggage that ends up weighing more than its contents. No dis to Acepac, it’s certainly bombproof, but it’s a bit too portly for me. The Alpkit Koala 13L seatpack in LS07 would have been great but they told me a while ago they'd stopped making them. My ultralight MYOG seat harness made from milk bottles (plastic!) and cableties worked but isn’t 100% satisfactory.
I also thought well if I’m going to lay out some cash I may as well try something different – so why not a harness instead of a pack. The “you can’t take a seatpack into your shelter easily” thing has never really bothered me so the pack’s been fine. In summer my bar bag takes the whole shelter, and the seatpack takes the sleeping bag at the bottom with day stuff near the opening. In winter, same, except my winter sleeping bag leaves little room for day stuff so the sleeping bag sometimes goes in a second bar bag which isn’t ideal.
Anyway, one outfit already made very light stuff and now it’s even lighter being made from LS21 fabric, so that clinched it.
Wildcat.
The LS21 Drover seat harness is a bonkers 184g on my scales. It’s tapered so you really need the 10L Wildcat tapered drybag which is 64g. Cunningly you can ditch the lateral harness strap and clip the drybag straight to the harness if it’s not too full. So that’s rear luggage for 221g – a
third of the weight of alternatives.
So I didn’t want a frame bag. The capacity/weight ratio always seems poor, and makes HaBing harder. And it’s an excuse to TMS

. However, the Wildcat rear drybag is 10L not 13L, and to be honest two (winter) bar bags isn’t ideal anyway, so I’m going with the LS21 Ocelot “large” frame bag and will have to re-think my packing regime. In future it’ll be shelter in one 10L bar bag; sleeping bag, down clothing, dry clothes etc in the 10L seatpack, and all day stuff – kitchen, 1st aid, bathroom, workshop, etc - in the 4.6L frame bag. The Ocelot weighs 205g, less than 200g would have been nice

. Weight is saved by using cord to attach it to the frame instead of lots of velcro or straps – clever.
As an experiment I filled the frame bag with water and it actually holds 5.3L rather than the nominal 4.6L, and is JUST the right size for my new 550ml cookpot. Certainly proved the waterproofness as well

.
Mr Shand answered my stupid questions promptly and the kit turned up 2 days later. Brilliant.The gear is absolutely top quality and beautifully made. Everything where it should be and nothing where it shouldn’t. The only change I’d make is to use 2mm dyneema instead of the straps

. Not bothered about the frame bag liner really either although I guess it reduces rattles etc.
So, new setup is 576g for 10L bar bag + harness, 1L stem cell, 500ml stem cell, 1L gas tank, 5.3L frame bag, seat harness and 10L harness drybag.
http://Wildcat.cc