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Sierra Designs Pyro Maniac 15/30
- Pyro Maniac 30
What It Is
A 30-degree, 600-fill transformer brandishing a stowaway chest insert designed to give the bag an extra 15-degree range of comfort.
Retail Price: $320
80
- 95-100 Extremely high recommendation.
- 90-94 Enthusiastically recommended. Exceptional.
- 80-89 Highly recommended - few reservations.
- 70-79 Recommended. Standard performance.
- 60-69 Fair. Recommended for certain uses.
- 50-59 Poor. Not recommended in general.
The Good |
The Bad |
The Verdict |
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A versatile design concept that doesn’t quite deliver on its promise of being a single-quiver solution, but will suffice if your adventure schedule calls for two bags and your checkbook can only support one. |
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Sierra Designs Pyro Maniac 15/30
Depending on your patience for making gear adjustments and willingness to pay $320 for a 600-fill bag—even one that claims to be a single-quiver solution—the Pyro Maniac may represent a solid value. If those attributes don’t describe you, clock a few extra shifts and pick up a couple bags whose designs are more focused.
Materials
The Pyro Maniac is insulated with run-of-the-mill 600-fill down, which still has a better compressibility and weight-to-warmth ratio than synthetics. There is a large pocket sewn onto the top of the bag’s torso in which one insets a down blanket that adds an additional 15-degrees of warmth.
Features
Theoretically, the additional warmth in the core area translates to the rest of the body, but in practice the lack of additional insulation in the lower body can lead to cold feet. Our testers initially thought it was a clever scheme, but after hands-on experience some felt it was clunky to work with and cooled on the idea.
How We Tested It
The sleeping bags were tested by a crew of about a dozen from August 2011 through July, 2012 on camping trips in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Norway.
The products featured in this test have been loaned to the Gear Institute. For more on our policies regarding editorial objectivity and sample returns, see here.
About the Author
Frederick Reimers
Frederick Reimers was the editor of Canoe and Kayak Magazine from 2007-09 and has been writing for Outside, Men's Journal, Skiing and Powder ever since.
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Ratings
Compressibility
6
10
Warmth to Weight Ratio
6
10
Comfort
7
10
Durability
7
10
Value
4
10
Gear Institute Rating (Total Score)
80
100
Specs
- Weight Verified?: Yes
Weight
2.8 lbs
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User Comments (1)
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