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I do a lot of day hikes as regular workouts. I use a Gregory Z45 Backpack with a 2L Camelbak bladder. Obvious that any WB and shoulder holsters will not work with the backpack. I am interested to find out what is the "most accessible" way to the concealed firearm?

Since there is no suggestions, I guess this is a toughy?

Fanny pack or pocket carry

I have a Tommy's Gun Pack fanny type pack that I use sometimes for day hikes and bike rides. It works fairly well and is pretty comfortable. Definitely better than a standard fanny pack.

I once did a fairly rigorous hike, 12 miles in, carrying water and a filter system, food for two days, plus tent, bedding, and coffee (it's not camping without coffee), all in my Kelty external frame pack. I'm guessing my pack was about 60lbs. I wanted access to my firearm so keeping it in my pack was not going to work. I actually carried my LC9 in my IWB holster with no issues. To gain access I just had to un-buckle the hip belt to my backpack. The only issue I had was sweat on my weapon. It actually had a bit of rust on the slide after that trip, but nothing a little oil and some fine steel wool couldn't fix.

I'd like to find something better for backpacking, but for day hikes the Tommy's Gun Pack works OK. They run specials pretty regularly.

Welcome,

I use http://www.pistolwear.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for my out doors activities.

-roger

When I go hiking and backpacking I use a Hill People Gear Kit Bag. It lets you keep your frequently used gear up front to. I use the original bag. With this you can still use your hip belt. http://www.hillpeoplegear.com/Products/ ... fault.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I recently acquired a Hazard4 Rocket sling pack for EDC use. I still carry on body, but the pack has a compartment that is ideal for CCW and easily accessible, and being a sling, it can be rotated off the back and onto the chest fairly easily, without having to get one arm or the other out of the shoulder strap.

http://www.hazard4.com/products/packs/slings/rocket

I got mine from Amazon for $99 (MSRP is $129.98). It comes in tan or black. It is small enough to be convenient, but it holds a lot of stuff.





Hazard4 has a large range of bags that they make. I have two other friends that have bags by Hazard4 that are similar to mine, and they are all very well made. I tried stuffing my Rocket pack to see how much it could hold, and I kind of ran out of stuff. In fact, it is possible to put enough stuff in it that it's too heavy to carry for casual use.

For testing purposes in mine, I put:

• A 20 oz bottle of Sobe water in each side pocket with a little room left over.
• In the main compartment:
  
  • An iPad + charger
  • A 13" MacBook Air + charger, an external CD/DVD drive, and a 2TB backup drive
  • 2 journal books
  • A Bible
  • Assorted pens
  • A Nikon S9500 camera, plus extra batteries and charger
  • A Maxpedition Mini Pocket Organizer full of handy little tools
  • A rolled up 42"x42" shmaug
  • A knit watch cap
  • A small bottle of eyeglass cleaner and a soft cloth
  Note that this still plenty of room in that compartment for maybe 3 days worth of MREs another bottle or two of water or something like that.
• In the large "admin" pouch on the outside:
  
  • 2 pair of glasses.
  • A folding pair of backup cheaters glasses
  • A waterproof writing pad
  • A space-pen
  Still a ton of room left there too.
• The small outside admin pouch has a business card carrier + extra room

And I didn't even begin to address the inner pocket where a bladder and/or CCW would go.

Now, I'm not going to actually carry all this crap in it every day......there's a lot of redundancy there......but it does begin to give an idea of how much this little pack can hold and still be compact.....as well as still being able to present a pistol if needed.

Your draw will never be as fast as it would be with a bag/packed designed around CCW as its primary purpose, but it is doable and a pack like this will dovetail nicely with the rest of your needs.

Heck, you can even break down an AR carbine into two halves and carry it with about 1" of muzzle protruding out of a hole in the top of the main compartment they've placed there with a thoughtfully added velcro flap to close the hole when not in use. (Additionally, my 16" barreled SCAR 17 with its folding stock could easily be carried this way. "Uuuhh, what's that metal thing sticking out of the top of your pack?" "Breathing tube." "Oh.....wait....what?" )

I love this pack. I still carry on body 99.99% of the time, but when I don't, this pack would still allow me to be armed in situations when on body carry simply isn't practical and I've got a lot of other stuff to carry too.