Totally Tubular – Belt’mups pt. 2

The original of this you can read about here:
http://exploriment.blogspot.ca/2009/10/totally-tubular-beltmups.html

So in some ways the basic premise of the first version was sound. It was certainly comfortable to wear, contained a decent amount of survival stuff, but what put the kibosh on it was the buckle. It was simply too big to pass through even the biggest belt loops on any pants I had. I put the idea on the backburner for a while (where far too many of my ideas languish.). I decided to turn it into a pocket of sorts that could be attached to a belt rather than serve as the belt itself. And that works much better.

The belt is a 5.11 1.75" TDU belt. Not a heck of a lot to say about it. It’s a belt, it’s stiff, the webbing doesn’t slip through the buckle, it holds my pants up, I can put pouches on it. I’ve been wearing it for....5 years now. I like it. So all in all I would give it a hearty endorsement.

Sorry, black on black isn’t so easy to see.

A better look at the pouch itself. I put Velcro at both ends to load and unload. Sewn only along the outer edges, but it’s sufficient to hold it closed. And since it will be opened and closed very rarely, that’s enough. I also sewed on three loops to hold it onto the belt.

A closer look at the loops.

On the belt. Snug fit.

Closeup of the closure. (And if you want to know what I have in there, the link at the top of the page will tell you. The one thing I have added are a bunch more Micropur tablets. After a hiking trip where my main water purification system went down, I realized that just a few of those tablets is not enough. Yes I can boil water, but that has serious limitations. You have to stop for a time, use up either fuel or collect wood, drinking boiled water in the middle of summer is not so fun, so you have to wait for it to cool down, and when it is summer, and you are moving, you will repeat that process several times a day. Tablets are a lot easier.)

And worn. Pushed down a bit on the left hand side there, but that is no biggie. Again, very comfortable. I’ve been wearing it for three days now, and I don’t even know it’s there. It makes weaving it through belt loops and through loops on the back of pouches a little trickier, but not majorly so.

Nice to take an idea I felt had some merit and turn it into a more functional reality. It may not necessarily be something I will wear every day, but I can if I want to. Unless I’m unfortunate enough to have to go into non-permissive environments. Which thankfully, I don’t do very often.