A History of the GORUCK Ruck Plates

I love GORUCK. That being said their Ruck Plate naming conventions have to be one of the more confusing things they’ve come up with. My guess is that this all stems from them having two sizes of 20 lb and 30 lb weights. After digging through the All Day Ruckoff archive of posts I think I’ve put together the history of the GORUCK Ruck Plate names. This is more of an informational post for people who want to geek out over GORUCK history. If you’re looking for comparisons between the Ruck Plates check out this huge GORUCK Ruck Plate Comparison post for that.

The First Ruck Plates

In 2015 GORUCK released their first Ruck Plates in three weights. The weights were 10 lb, 20 lb, and 30 lb and they were simply called Ruck Plates. There was no “For GR1”, “For Rucker”, Expert, or Standard naming conventions because there were only three plates with no overlapping weights.

The 45 lb Ruck Plate

Sometime later GORUCK decided to release a 45 lb Ruck Plate. Although no events call for this massive weight they are wonderful for training with. The 45 lb Ruck Plate joined the other three Ruck Plates on a single product page. You can see the 45 lb ruck plate above on the left next to a weight that was still in the works at this point in time.

The Standard Ruck Weights

The original 20 lb and 30 lb ruck plates were not ideal. They were short and thick and the weight sat at the bottom of the pack. The Rucker 2.0 (with its fancy ruck plate pocket) had not been released yet so there was no reason to stay consistent with those sizes. GORUCK released new 20 lb and 30 lb Ruck Plates to better accommodate their current line of rucks.

The new 20 lb plate was thin, tall, and skinny and appeared designed to slide into a bullet ruck.

The new 30 lb ruck plate was taller and thinner and used up less depth in the GR1 and original Rucker. GORUCK was at a crossroads here… they now had two 20 lb and two 30 lb plates they were selling.

What they did was put the new 20 lb and 30 lb plates on their own Ruck Plate product page along with the 10 lb and 45 lb plates. The original 20 lb and 30 lb Ruck Plates received a new product page titled Ruck Plates (Expert). I can only assume they called these the “Expert” plates because they sucked more (carried worse) than the newer plates. There were definitely some members of the community that felt shafted having what was considered an inferior Ruck Plate. Having both at the time I couldn’t think of a single reason to ever use the older “Expert” 30 lb plate over the newer 30 lb plate.

Although GORUCK never called the 10 lb, (new) 20 lb, (new) 30 lb, and 45 lb Ruck Plates the “Standard” plates that’s the name that the community gave them. When people referred to Ruck Plates it was either Standard or Expert.

GORUCK x Ingress

In 2016 GORUCK released some Ingress colorways of their 20 lb Standard Ruck Plates with some modified branding.

The plates didn’t stick around for too long and are definitely a little rare now. Jason uses one of the Resistance 20 lb plates regularly and is able to somehow get it on flights.

Colored Expert Plates

After dabbling in some colored Ruck Plates with the Ingress release GORUCK came out with Red and Blue 20 lb and 30 lb Ruck Plates. These were identical to the original Ruck Plates except for their fancy coloring.

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HUGE shout out to Justin in the comments for reminding me about these. I wasn’t able to find any high-quality images but I did pull these four from the giant screenshot in the 2016 GORUCK Veteran’s Day Sale. I guess it’s a good thing I’ve been taking those screenshots!

The Rucker 2.0

Everything changed when GORUCK released the Rucker 2.0. Those “Expert” Ruck Plates that felt inferior were now the ones to own. The Rucker 2.0 was designed to carry the Expert Ruck Plates and now people who had bought the 20 lb and 30 lb “Standard” Ruck Plates were left behind. If they wanted a Rucker 2.0 and wanted to use the pocket they needed to shell out for Expert Ruck Plates.

I’m not privy to GORUCK sales information but I would imagine when the 30 lb Standard plate came out sales for the 30 lb Expert plate dipped. When the Rucker 2.0 came out I imagine that flipped over and the Expert starting outselling the Standard.

For GR1 & For Rucker

I get a lot of email here at All Day Ruckoff and there used to be tons of questions on whether certain Ruck Plates fit in certain GORUCK packs. If I received a lot of email I can imagine GORUCK received an absolute ton with this question.

My guess is to combat this and make it less confusing GORUCK re-branded their Ruck Plates by calling them “For GR1” and “For Rucker.”

The “For GR1” line of Ruck Plates includes the newer 20 lb and 30 lb plates that the community dubbed Standard Ruck Plates.

The “For Rucker” line of Ruck Plates includes the original three Ruck Plates that GORUCK came out with plus the 45 lb plate.

This is still a little confusing because technically all Ruck Plates can fit in either a GR1 or a Rucker. I know GORUCK states that the “For GR1” 20 lb and 30 lb don’t fit a Rucker but they do… you just have to use the lower pouch area.

Conclusion

Hopefully you found this article somewhat interesting. I know I was shocked when I saw GORUCK rename the Expert plates and break up the product pages again. I receive a lot of question on whether these were new Ruck Plates or just a re-brand and hopefully this answers that question for you.

I’ll make sure to keep this post updated as GORUCK renames and re-brands their Ruck Plates. If you like this “history” pages let me know and I can tap some knowledge and create some more. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on the naming conventions GORUCK has used over the years. Should they have stuck with Expert? Is “For GR1” and “For Rucker” better? Let me know in the comments!