Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that CountyComm finally has the Hydrant back in stock after months of being unavailable. For those of you who haven't clicked the link it's basically a clone of the Maxpedition 10 x 4 bottle holder but 16" tall. The front pouch is a full 12" high. It has a few features that look to be upgrades vs the Max, like the removable insulated liner. That's a great feature! First thing I did with my Max 12 x 5 was cut the insulation out. The extra height should be very nice; it will allow the bag to accomodate larger/taller bottles or a shorter bottle and a small stove. A person at another forum showed some pics of his Hydrant holding two standard plastic Nalgene bottles, one on top of another, and it still ships shut! Very cool!

The one minor ding I have to give CC is that the Hydrant is currently only available in O.D. Green. Hopefully they'll add some more colors. At a minimum black is a no-brainer, and I'd love to see khaki/Coyote and foliage green. Another thing I'd like to see is another "D" ring on the bottom of the bag to allow you to carry it horizontally on a neck strap, not just vertically. To be fair the Maxpedition bag lacks this, too. And there's enough MOLLE webbing that you could surely rig something up along those lines.

I placed an order for two of them and they're already shipped! I'll post my impressions when they show up.

Some of you may remember my Maxpedition 12 x 5 survival/day hike kit. My intention is to see how the Hydrant works in that role.

I could think of worse uses for the CC.

Okay, the 2 Hydrants I ordered just showed up and I wanted to post a few impressions. Inevitably I must compare this to the Maxpedition bottle bags as the design is very similar. For starters, both bags are covered with PALS webbing for attaching MOLLE gear. The CC lacks the key keeper like the Max bag, but then I found that to be useless (I cut it off of mine). It also lacks the loop field on the front for attaching patches but it does have one on the top. The primary difference is that the CC bag is a full 16" tall vs 10" or 12" for the 2 different Maxpedition bags.

The CC bag does appear to be very well made. I don't notice any bad seams or loose stitching on either of mine. They don't appear to be made of quite as heavy of material, though, nor is it Teflon coated like the Max. Time will tell if they'll prove to be as rugged as my Maxpedition bags but my initial impression is that the quality is good. The Hydrant does make use of YKK zippers, which is impressive.

The Hydrant does have some features that I consider improvements over the Maxpedition. The chief of which is a removable liner. That's pretty slick! I had to carefully cut the insulation out of my Maxpedition fit my baine marie pot in there but with the CC Hydrant it lifts right out. And if you damage or lose it a replacement is only $6. Another thing I like about the Hydrant is that it ships with a decent shoulder strap. With the Maxpedition you must buy the bag ($34-42, depending on the size and vendor), and if you want the strap it's another $8. You want a pad for the strap? Another $7. By the time you're done they're into you for $50 bucks. That's another nice thing, price- the Hydrant is currently on $22!

The main bummer is that they're only available in green. But the color is actually not bad at all, and I think other color accessory pouches will look just fine.

I'm eager to set on up as I did my Maxpedition, as a day hike EDC/PSK. Certainly the 4" x 12" front pouch should hold a fair bit more than the 4" x 7" pouch on my Maxpedition 12 x 5. I'll have to see how the weight is fully loaded out.

Overall my impressions are positive. I'll report back as I get some dirt time with them.