5.11 Rush 72 Backpack 10 Year Review
Vladimir Onokoy 06.02.23
For me, it is really hard to write gear reviews. When you just got a new piece of equipment, you don’t really have much to say about it. But after you use it for a while, it often becomes a part of your life story, your identity, and you can’t really be objective about it. My Rush 72 backpack is one of those items that has been with me for way too long, so frankly, I don’t know if I can be impartial about it.
I lived out of this backpack for several months during my contracts in Iraq, moving from base to base, room to room, container to container, from the beautiful green mountains of Kurdistan to the desert wasteland of Basra oilfields. I traveled all around Somalia with it, jumping from one shaky plane to another, it crossed countless borders on different continents. At a certain point, I had to pack my entire life into this backpack and leave to never come back.
I got my Rush 72 1o years ago, in 2013 when I was working as a sort of brand ambassador for 5.11. At the time, it was the biggest pack 5.11 had, and it was exactly what I needed for 2-3 day hikes, range trips, and travel. It is big enough to carry all you need in hot climates, but small enough that you can still have a chance to bring it on board an airplane as a carry-on, at least with some of the more decent international airlines.
The concept of the backpack is written into its name – RUSH 72, meaning that you can pack in it all you need for a three-day (72-hour) hike. Subsequently, other packs from the RUSH series were meant to be used for a short hike (RUSH 12), a day trip (RUSH 24), and a long hike (RUSH 100).
Pros:
Shoulder straps
The entire series of RUSH backpacks have an interesting design of shoulder straps. The straps are connected together on top and simply have a more contact surface with the pack. It makes straps significantly more durable.
With other backpacks I had, shoulder straps are often the first thing that rips, but in this design, the load is much better distributed, and when you’re picking up a loaded backpack you’re not concerned that one of the straps will tear up while you’re lifting the pack.
Internal pouches
The internal pouches allow you to neatly separate all your items and access them quickly when needed.
In my experience, it also allows you to smuggle cigarettes from Iraq to neighboring countries. Once upon a time, I had to leave Iraq quickly, there were no flights available, so I was connected to the local smugglers who agreed to take me across the border. Once I met them, I realized they don’t speak English. They tried to tell me something, but I had no idea what they wanted. The situation was quite tense, the enemy forces were closing, embassies were being evacuated, and we really didn’t have much much time to argue.
But after we used Google translate on their phone, I realized that in exchange for taking me across the border, I had to help them to transport a few blocks of cigarettes. Apparently, that was their only concern, even in times like this. We opened the blocks of cigarettes and showed a bunch of packs inside different compartments of my RUSH 72. Some packs were hidden so well that I discovered them only a week later when I came back home.
“Shove-in” pouch
RUSH 72 has a simple, but very useful feature commonly called a “shove-in” compartment. It is a mesh compartment between the body of the pack and the external compartment. It allows you to comfortably carry a helmet, or an additional pair of boots, to dry your clothes there, or carry some other large items that didn’t fit inside the backpack.
Cons:
Looks like a military backpack
The RUSH series of backpacks look like military-issued gear. For some people, it is an advantage and a selling point, but for other customers blending in with the crowd is a priority. If your job requires you to not stand out, a RUSH backpack is probably not the best option.
No laptop pouch
The original RUSH 72 had no laptop pouch, so I ended up doing something I don’t recommend. To create more space, I removed the back support panel and used the space for my hard laptop case. Yes, it makes the backpack less comfortable, but sometimes in life, you have to make compromises.
In the new version of RUSH 72 that was released in 2021, 5.11 fixed this issue. 2.0 model has a dedicated padded laptop pouch inside of the main compartment. It also has a new concealment compartment, big enough for a duty-size pistol and some magazines. The new version is called RUSH 72 2.0 and it is available for roughly $185, which is a pretty reasonable price for such a versatile backpack.
