 it just always seems to be true that one way or another you're going to carry that weight. Hello everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and we are back to take a look again at weight numbers. I continue to be interested in exactly how much weight it is that I'm carrying, what I can get away with, what I can't get away with, and really to try to measure the value of all those ounces that I'm carrying, right? Ounces equal pounds, pounds equal pain, blah, blah, blah. So again, taking another look at your kit and what you're carrying is going to behoove you. So I have a little list here and I'm going to draw this out for you, but I went on a patrol the night before that I'm filming this video and it was pretty short. It was just a couple of hours out in the cold. It was like 25 degrees or whatever and the next morning I got together and I weighed all the gear that I carried that night before because I was curious to see how much it all added up to. So we're going to go through that and take a look. So my pack. My pack came in at 18.6 pounds and my pack did not have much in it. I mean it's a 24-hour pack. I had two liters of water. I had no food. I don't think I had like a field stove or anything in there and it was all the basic stuff, but you should always have, right? My nods case was in there. I ended up putting my nod on my helmet, but my nods case was in there. So when I weighed the pack, the nod was actually included in that weight, but again, you understand what's going on here. My thermal case was in there. My poncho was in there. Some pens, some chem lights, a boo boo kit, a weapons cleaning kit, a 50-foot hang, a paracord, a set of hand warmers, like nothing big here. Just all the kind of basic stuff that, for the most part, you should probably just have anyway. I only have two liters of water. I don't even have three. I don't even think I had my canteen cup. Just basic load out here. We're not talking about stuff. Batteries, an extra pair of socks. Again, basic stuff, 18.6 pounds. My rifle. My rifle weighs in at 10.6 pounds. I don't know. That's just what my rifle weighs, with the lights and the cans and the optics and the lasers and whatever. I don't know, sue me. My smock, which I'm actually going to count, weighed in at five pounds. Now, that's not just the smock. I had some stuff in my pockets. Like a red headlamp and my notebook and a pocket knife. I had some stuff in my smock pockets. But hey, again, trying to get a decent weight of what it is I'm actually carrying. Five pounds for the smock, all in. My boots. My boots are heavy. 4.3 pounds for the boots. I love those rat's boots from the Marine Corps. I think those are a great boot. I'm even going to put a link in this video below. It's an affiliate link. But hey, I'm a big fan of those rat's boots. And I think that they are kind of the best boot when we're talking between the seasons of like, I don't know, October to May. They just, they rule. Even in like the deep cold, I think you put on some really good socks and you can get away with those rat's boots. Huge, huge fan of the rat's boots. But they're heavy. You're going to pay for it, okay? 4.3 pounds. Plates came in at 25 pounds. Now, let's be fair here, I did wear plates, okay? My boy's got me a AC1 plate carrier from T-Rex Arms. So I wanted to try it out, you know, because we're going out. It's only going to be a couple hours. And I wore plates. So I had the plates and I had eight mags on it because I took my onward research chest rig and I just clipped that sucker in there, okay? And so I have my, you know, I have eight mags up front. I have my radio. I had my thermal stuffed in the other side pocket. And that's it. That's what I had in my plate. So, you know, it did weigh up. And again, usually one of the first places we start cutting weight is we start cutting armor, right? But 25 pounds in plates and ammo and, you know, fighting, fighting stuff. I have an iFAC on there, right? I only had two tourniquets. But again, 25 pounds. My helmet, my helmet weighed in a chunk. It's 4.8 pounds. You know, maybe I could get a different scrim cover to try to lighten that up a little bit. Maybe get a new helmet, right? But that could be expensive to lighten that up a bit. But 4.8 pounds, okay? Now, some of you can just do the math here. But before we get to the big reveal of the final number, I want to tell you right now, I felt light, okay? I felt light. I felt like, man, I can just go for miles. I can party. I am not carrying that much stuff. And I felt super confident, right? Because I got my plates on and my helmet on and with my boys. And I'm like, man, if we run into that when Diego tonight, like, it's on, like, let's go. I'm ready to party. Like, so I'm suited and booted. I'm ready to rock and roll. And, you know, I felt really light. I felt really good. But so I was curious that when I added this all up, 68.3 pounds. Now, the only thing that really doesn't include is my underwear. I had a smart wool base layer on like a 250 base layer and my socks and my pants. I didn't wear my pants. Okay, I just had a normal pair of pants on. But other than that, I mean, I had, like I said, I had my boots on. I had some gaiters on. I had some knee pads. I had my pack. I had my plates, my rifle, my helmet, my knot. I mean, again, basic stuff that you're probably going to have to take no matter what you're doing. Okay? This wasn't like, I didn't have some special equipment. I didn't have some manpack radio to reach out to wherever, which you have to take in addition to all this other stuff. Maybe you can dump a mag or two, whatever. But again, this is just basic, basic stuff. 68.3 pounds. And like I said, I felt light, man. But when I added that number up, that's a big number. Now, I think there's a couple ways you can take that. The first thing you can say is you can say, wow, okay, I'm just, I'm just a horse. Like I can just, I can carry more than I thought I could and, you know, I'm much better off than I'm in better shape than I thought I would and, you know, whatever. I mean, that's cool. You can do that, right? The other thing, and I guess the place I'm more inclined to lean as much as I'd like to think that I'm cool, is that that just, it just sneaks up on it. It just sneaks up on you guys. And that number adds up quick. And that's why I think we need to be like these hiking nerds, right? And that's three ounces too heavy and start to really be miserly about it because it's super easy to add up to a number quick. Again, I mean, the rifle's going to add up, right? And I don't have anything in my rifle. I don't think I don't need, right? I'm running a can. That's, that's just how it's going to work. I'm going to run a laser. I'm going to run a light. I'm going to, I'm going to keep an optic on the gun. Those things are going to happen. So there's not a lot to be done there. At some point, the weight just has to be carried and you got to deal with it. But if you're adding up all your stuff and you're like, man, I didn't realize I was carrying that much weight, I think it's a good idea to say, okay, again, what in here do I really need? What can I cut? What do I not really need to carry? Do I really need all these spare batteries? Batteries are heavy. You know, if you can cut out your spare batteries, because you, I don't know, you put in fresh batteries every time you roll, which by the way, I don't recommend doing that. It's kind of wasteful and you probably don't have that big of a battery budget. But, you know, are there ways that you could cut weight is what my point remains, right? Are there ways you can cut weight? And the biggest things that weigh the most, armor, okay? Armor weighs a lot. I mean, between my plates and my helmet, right? If you're just talking in like raw weight of like the actual armor, it's probably like 10 pounds at least, right? So you're looking at at least 15 pounds there. I can just cut if I dump all my armor. Okay, that's a that's a pretty big deal. We go from 68 to 53 pounds. I mean, that's that's substantial, okay? Water and mags are probably the next biggest thing, right? A mag weighs about a pound a piece, give or take, and then water is heavy. Water is 2.2 pounds a quart or a liter, you know? So those, but again, you have to have water. You have to have ammo. Without water, you can't sustain what you're doing. So I guess the good news is the longer you're out, the less the water weighs. And without ammo, well, you're not minute manning, kidding up. I don't I don't know what you're doing, but you're in the wrong game. You're just hiking now. You're taking a nature walk, okay? And God help you if you run into that one day ago. So I put this out here just to say, hey, let's take an objective look at what we're carrying. Let's look at the actual numbers. Numbers don't lie, okay? The number on the scale won't lie to you. The number on the bar doesn't lie to you. Numbers don't lie. And you can look at that and you can say, is that weight effective to what I'm trying to accomplish or are there ways I could dump weight out of there? Because again, it's not necessarily about how good you feel. I felt great in 68.3 pounds a kit. I felt light. I felt excited. I'm like, man, I can rock and roll. However, when I look at the raw number, I'm like, man, that is a high number. And I know that carrying 68 pounds a gear is decreasing my efficiency and my ability to be able to make long movements and then have energy to fight at the end of those long movements, right? So the smaller I can get this number, the better off I'm going to be. Now, of course, it's always to a point, right? Because like I said, you have to carry water, you have to carry mags, you have to carry the rifle. There's stuff you have to carry or you're not even doing the thing anymore. So take into account, take a look at your kit. Again, if you haven't, I suggest you get a real weight number and see what you can shave off. And even if you're just shaving off five pounds, you guys, or if I'm getting this down to eight pounds, let's make it nice and even, right? I'm getting down to a nice round 60 pounds. That's eight less pounds I have to carry. Okay. That's been my last point. If you feel like you were carrying eight extra pounds on your body, lose the weight. You'll feel a lot better. Hope that's helpful. Hope that gives you some thoughts on weight and gear. Do brave deeds and endure.