Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Inexpensive 20 deg sleeping bag recommendations?

^ Sleeping bag ratings are "You won't die", not "You'll be comfy".

THis. Exactly.
Another poster mentioned Teton. We have some for clients. IMHO they are not nearly as good as Wiggys but since they were bought as zero bags they serve fine if its down to the mid 30s or so.

Saw this pop up again.... I've already posted about military sleeping bags. What I did post but left out the biggest thing about staying warm. outside in Cold Weather, the biggest thing that keeps you cold is what you have underneath you, not what you have over or around you.

Cold comes up thru the ground, as it maintains the cold the longest.

Underneath, I've always used a military poncho. Cover that with a thick blanket etc.

if you are not dealing with snow, I always raked up a bunch of leaves from hardwoods if they are on the ground.. usually just use my foot wear, and pushed them up to make a mattress out of them. Then put the military poncho down, which is thick rubberish. It doesn't breathe real well when you wear it but it will certain keep the damp out. It is good insulation underneath. You won't sweat laying on top of it. Its sweat that makes you cold in low temps, the most.

Cover that with an old blanket, or old cheap sleeping bag. Then put your sleeping bag on top of that. This way, with a 20 degree rated sleeping bag, you'll keep warm. When I was in Scouts as a kid, we used a military shelter half, for a tent. Two guys together, you had a complete pup tent. In cold or wet weather, we covered the tent with a military poncho. However that was not laid on top of the tent, we ran another line of rope OVER the tent anchored to trees via an I bolt. Cleared the tent by 6 to 9 inches or so. Today, you can use a tarp.

I was in Scouts as a military dependent on a military bases, up until I was 18. I've been with scouts as an adult for 30 plus years. I've been out below zero plenty of times... both in scouting, the military and in my travels. In basic training at Ft Sill, we had temps down below zero when we were out in the field. Training from being a scout in my youth, with military guys as scout leaders, helped my platoon survive with that knowledge I had. We had no frost bite etc casualties when other platoons did. I had the others in my platoon sleep in their underwear with military sleeping bags, because wearing all their clothers, they started to sweat, and that is what made them cold. That intensified if they had no ground cloth underneath them that shielded them from the cold. The military in cold weather training, use to teach people to take off their clothes and sleep in their underwear, but to place their clothing under their sleeping bags, to shield them from ground cold, and they had warm clothes to get into in the morning.

And yeah, I've been thru military cold wear training, several times.. but learned nothing that I hadn't learned in Boy Scouts on military bases. Spent 4 years in the Reserves based in Minnesota, and yeah, have been out in the cold in Jan and Feb at Camp Ripley, running the medical support unit outside in tents. Coldest I've done that in was 4 days at 30 below, with the worst day at 37 below to start our day off... and in temps like that, EVERYONE tries to get out of duty by going on sick call.
Even Minnesota people.

Agree on being warm from the bottom up. But beyond that a 20 degree bag will keep you alive at 20. Even with double pads on the ground. Comfortable is not in that statement.

I spend months in the field in Alaska from warm/hot to decently cool on the ground or in a tent on the ground.

20 degree bag at 20, for me, I can probably sleep half the night....

I don't trust the rating of a bag that is cheap and said to keep someone warm at 20 degrees.. by whose standards?

But then, that is going back to what I learned in Scouts as a kid on military bases... but hell, we even had Special Forces soldiers as advisors to our Troops and Explorer posts.. they did so, because many of them had been scouts in their youth.
So I had exposure to cold weather survival, via scouts and via military personnel who were volunteers with BSA.

But how much I knew, even in Basic, kept us from having a fair number of cold weather casualties during Basic Training.
I got a lot more indepth training in the military. Being a corpsman, I was the guy that had to fix these guys up and get them back into duty availability. So how would it look if the medic, made himself a casualty, due to cold weather.

Actually when it gets really cold, and knowing how to deal with it, I sleep like a baby in cold weather. Much more comfortable than in hot high humidity weather.

you should want a bag designed to retain your body warmth, without making you sweat. At the same time, too many folks over insulate, sweat and are then getting chilled as the cheap sleeping bag they bought, doesn't retain all of their own body heat within the sleeping bag. a cover over the sleeping bag, that will not absorb moisture is a better bet than putting another layer of clothes or blankets within the sleeping bag.

Most people get cold, because they either weren't trained or dont think the big picture thru.

In the reserves in both Washington State and Minnesota, our duty stations if war broke out, were either, Alaska, Canada or Scandanavia ( Norway ).. so we were trained to deal with cold weather, in the extreme. and in Minnesota, I was attached to a MASH unit....

Some of us just sleep cold, some hot. You need to find out what type you are, hopefully before you purchase. Some company’s have true ratings, some less so. My Western Mountaineering bag is spot on while my Wiggy’s 5 degree bag won’t keep me comfortable at 20.

I just purchased a Mt. Hardware 0-degree bag cheap.

Lamina Sleeping Bag: 0F Synthetic

Still waiting to use it.

I’ve had decent luck with kelty sleeping bags

If your not a big guy the Kelty cosmic 20 deg down is a great bag for the money

Army surplus? Also if your not back packing into an area, a couple of old army wool blankets over the bags works pretty good.