I agree that even if you squeeze all the air out of the ziplock, that most tend to leak and fluff back up to some degree. A vacumn packer is great for packing the stuff at home but once out in the field, they are difficult to reseal. Of course, you also need something to open the vacumn sealed bags while the ziplocks are self contained regarding opening and closing.<br><br>It might make sense to vacumm pack stuff in a BOB because they sit for long periods without use. By vacumn packing you reduce the chance of mold and bug investation. I would suggest keeping a few extra ziplocks to put stuff in once you break the vacumn seal. That way you can seal things back up to a lesser degree but still provide some basic water protection. <br><br>I recently used a vacumn packer to seal some bdu's before a trip. They got stiff as a board. Took up less space but became a hard item in my pack vs. a soft something up against my back. Less space, watertight, but less comfortable. Trade off.<br><br>I did use my vacumn packer to seal one 0000 steel wool pad, 1 book of matches, 3 squares of char cloth, some natural rope disassembled into a birds nest, and dryer lint in a package about 3"x5". I wanted all this tinder to be dry. The fact that the vacumn packer compresses everything made it small and helped protect the somewhat fragile char cloth. Actually made a few of these and gave them to members of my SAR team.