Gear fails of 2025

[thisguy]

Thermarest XTherm pad, I got it since I tend to sleep cold and it has a slow leak since new. Not terrible but if you air it up fairly tight your butt is just touching the ground in the morning

Victory Shok outserts, spinning them when you build arrows is not good enough. Need to spin before each hunt. They do not tend to stay true

Kifaru Duplex light frame, not a failure but man does it like to squeak. So much so that its the loudest thing when I'm trying to sneak in on something. End up dumping my pack sooner than I would like to on stalks

 

[Marbles]

I learned that if you pierce a primer it can break the balls in a bix n andy trigger and there's no way to get them to fix it or sell you the parts.

Talk about a ball buster.

 

[ResearchinStuff]

Mine was a disaster this year, it’s something with the baffle design, I patched 5-6 leaks over a couple weeks, all on the top of the pad in the dimples of the baffle seams.

Sea to Summit warrantied it and sent me the new model for free. New model is supposed to have fixed that issue, plus it is lighter and packs down way smaller. Haven’t used it yet.

Good tip on the warranty, I should try that

 

[ProStaffSteve]

Vortex Diamondback lost its zero & lost an elk at 100 yards. Got it replaced and threw it on FB marketplace! Giving Maven a shot & happy so far.

Rain gear needs a formal upgrade… I think it rained out lots of guys this year.

 

[COJoe]

Sitka Timberline pants are solid except the sewn in belt wouldn't stay tight. As soon as I bent over or moved, the belt would loosen up. Otherwise, they were very nice to wear in 4th season with the knee pads. I contacted Sitka, told them I purchased them used two years ago on Ebay and they still warrantied them but instead of fixing them, they are sending me a brand new pair. Great customer service.

Sitka Ambient 100 jacket is my favorite clothing and worked so well with no issues but when I got home the zipper wouldn't zip up at all. Don't know what happened to it. I bought it new two years ago so they warrantied it and are sending me a new one. I had the brown color but now they only had black. Once again, great customer service.