My favorite example of this comes from an old story I heard from a retired state trooper.

The entire state police force was being issued new revolvers. The new wheel guns were the same model, just going from .38 special to .357 magnum. His boss met him and gave him the new revolver and some ammo. Said trooper immediately went to switch out with his old sidearm. The boss asked him to test it first. Out to the "range" on a deserted road for "practice" and the mainspring broke on the second shot. This was effectively a one shot weapon. The maker replaced the weapon, but it was good the lesson was learned in practice not in a shootout.

I have since seen several .38 revolvers that were issued in pilot survival vests that would not fire. Makes me wonder how many years those revolvers went flying in such shape.

+1. IIRC some time ago a couple of us on the site had similar opinions of a new, very tasty sounding meal from Backpacker's Pantry. It was only nasty tasting and never escalated to the "pit toilet" stage. Still, I was very glad I hadn't carried it 20 miles into the back country before trying it.

Yup, as Iron Raven says, all of it.

I have a couple of old friends in Victoria B.C. that will still laugh if you mention my name and tents.

Every time I got a new tent the first thing I did was get it out of the packaging and set it up on the living room carpet.

They happened to visit a few times when the tent was set up in the living room.

I am so glad I check out my maps before going out. Do not just buy the map that is listed as your destination, you may be missing crucial trails on it.

Is it just me, or does almost every trip I take go through through at least two 7.5 minute quadrangle maps, that I then have to piece together or carry?

Does My Topo customize maps and splice them together when you create them?

One of the more popular hiking spots in lower NY State is right on the junction of 4 quads (Slide Mountain)

Yeah, the USGS does that intentionally. It's a secret government plot to increase revenue and fight the deficit.

But seriously, yeah, it's always at least 2 maps.

Let's see:

• Coleman Xtreme pack stove.
• An adapter for said stove that lets me use standard LP canisters (Luckily for me as the one I had was faulty... the replace one worked like a charm)
• Mountain House food. Want to make sure I like it before living on it.
• MREs
• Any fire starting device (Spark-Lite, Tinder, new matches, etc..)
• Backpack
• Tent

So, pretty much anything that I would seriously depend on whilst camping, I make sure to test in a way that would simulate similar conditions, but in a controlled way.