Ultralight Pack Rain Cover – SilNylon

Pack Rain Covers – Handmade To Order

If you want a lightweight pack cover in New Zealand without importing from somewhere like Zpacks your options are pretty limited. The lightest easily available option is (at time of writing) perhaps the Osprey Raincover, which at 80g for the smallest size is a huge amount of weight for such a specialised piece of equipment. Solution: find some ultralight materials, and make it ourselves!

Why BUFFA?

Our pack rain cover is made from a choice of three fabrics: MEMBRANE SilPoly, MTN SilNylon, and Dyneema Composite Fabric.  All of these are super-ultra-light, and mean that depending on your pack size, the weight can be anywhere between 20g – 40g. My 60L pack cover is about 30g (I use a Mariposa 60 pack). When not in use, we wrap the pack cover around our tent as an extra layer of protection and convenient storage.

Materials Used

MEMBRANE SilPoly is one of the lightest, most waterproof fabrics on the market, with exceptional UV resistance.  Weight: 32GSM.  Want a pack cover made from SilPoly?  Check it out here!

MTN Silnylon is the lightest, thinnest fully waterproof fabric on offer.  It’s almost 20% lighter than MEMBRANE SilPoly, but with roughly 2x the tear strength.  Weight: 26GSM.

Dyneema is a patented, ultra-lightweight fabric made of flexible non-woven composite laminates.  This fabric is costly and for good reason: it’s 15x stronger than steel and provides the highest tear and tensile strength of any competing fabric on a weight-by-weight and thickness bases.  Weight: 17GSM. Want a pack cover made from Dyneema?  Check it out here!

FAQ

• Why are MTN SilNylon and Dyneema covers so much more expensive?
  The fabric itself is more expensive than MEMBRANE SilPoly – in some cases over 5x the price.  As it’s more expensive we’ve had to reflect this in our pricing.
• Which material do you recommend?
  It depends!  My personal pack cover is MEMBRANE SilPoly, but if I needed the extra 10g less weight I would switch to SilNylon.  All of the fabrics are strong and pretty waterproof – the SilNylon may be the most waterproof out of all of them.
• What are the sizes?
  All sizes run fairly wide, to encompass things around the pack such as tents.  If you need an extra large size (e.g. you may have a sleep pad roll somewhere on your pack) let us know in the order notes and we can accommodate this at no extra cost.  We can also make custom sizes to order – let us know your pack dimensions in the order notes.

Disclaimer:  By using BUFFA Outdoors products, you acknowledge that ultralight gear is inherently more delicate and less durable than conventional heavy equipment.  While we have tested our gear in “average tramper” conditions, regular use and extreme use-cases such as bushbashing and rock sliding will shorten the life of this gear.