GORUCK has produced a number of products over the years that they ended up scraping and discontinuing for one reason or another. Some of these products find their way to eBay where they’re sold for ten times their original price and others lose all their value when GORUCK brings them back into production.
Steve DeThoma described GORUCK’s product line the absolute best in an interview I did with him. He likened it to the Disney vault where movies are brought back every few years, marketed and sold, then shelved away for an extended period of time. We’ve seen GORUCK resurrect limited edition colorways and crowd favorites in the past so know that there’s always a chance something will make its way back.
In addition GORUCK has produced a number of small-run and one-off items that were never sold to the general public. I call these Research & Development Experiments and there’s a special section for these items.
Credit for the idea behind this post goes to /u/I_am_Bruce_Wayne on Reddit who asked if there was a source for all of this info. There wasn’t so we figured why not try and put one together?
GORUCK’s Graveyard
GORUCK’s Graveyard features products that are currently discontinued. Never is forever in the land of GORUCK and they can always choose to resurrect some of these products bringing them back from the dead.
Bullet 5L
Yes, at one point GORUCK did make a 5L Bullet Ruck.
Horizontal Ruck Pocket
The horizontal ruck pocket fits on the outside of a GR1 or GR2 and can be used for smaller items, maps, foldable documents.
Man Tie
The Man Tie was GORUCK’s “original piece of formal wear” and came in black, tan, and Multicam in two sizes: thin and wide. Although it retailed at $65 the man tie is one of the items that has been known to fetch quite a bit above it’s initial price on the secondary market.
Mini Wire Dopp
The Mini Wire Dopp is basically a Wire Dopp but cut in half… and somehow fetches five times the price on the secondary market.
Shadow Pockets
These were available in four sizes: small, medium, large, and extra large.
Shadow Rucks
The Shadow Rucks were designed to mirror the regular line of GORUCK packs but came without a laptop area, frame sheet, or webbing. They were also priced very competitively at $60 for the SD15, $65 for the SD20, and $70 for the SD25.
Shoulder Bag
GORUCK released shoulder bags in 15L and 20L sizes. Jason mentioned that he wasn’t thrilled with how they turned out and we never saw them again.
Simple Side Pocket
The GORUCK Side Pocket has come and gone a few times in the past years. It’s a pocket (with no internal organization) designed to fit on the side webbing of a GR1 or GR2. More pictures of the GORUCK Side Pocket can be found here.
100 resurrected in September, 2018.
Slick Rucks
In 2013 GORUCK introduced the “Slick” line of rucks. These rucks were internally labeled SK and the SK16 matched the Echo, the SK26 matched the GR1, and the SK40 matched the GR2. GORUCK briefly brought back the SK26 years later but did not keep it around as a regular item.
Tool Pouch
The Tool Pouch was designed to hold pens, pencils, and other whatevers inside your pack. More pictures of the GORUCK Tool Pouch can be found here.
Utility Side Pocket
The Utility Side Pocket is similar to the Simple Side Pocket but features two internal pocket areas.
Vertical Phone Pocket
The Vertical Phone Pocket was designed to hold a phone on the shoulder straps of a GORUCK pack.
Zipper Pockets
At one point in time GORUCK made four different sizes of zipper pockets. Eventually, the small and medium sizes were re-branded as a “clutch” then eventually discontinued.
GORUCK’s R&D Experiments & One-Offs
GR1 Bionic
More information on the GR1 Bionic can be found on GORUCK’s blog.
Patch Book
GORUCK brought a patch book to the HCL 001 PX in Seattle and sold it to some schmuck for $25 or $30. Some very, very lucky schmuck.
Wallet
Jason has a Cordura wallet that he carried around for a year or two. There was one made for him to test out and he was never thrilled with how it worked so it didn’t see the light of day.
Summary
Hopefully you found this post either helpful or somewhat interesting. GORUCK has had a long history of products and it’s fun to see where they’ve come from and what they have done along the way. There is a good chance we are missing something here so if you noticed a missed product (either from the graveyard or experiments section) we’d love if you would leave a comment with info on it.
How about the Brick Bag? I had one, but loaned it to my track team to carry their shots, and never got it back. The bag they were carrying their shots in was falling apart. The Brick Bag is probably still doing the job. I want it back!
Also Brian, I have some images of the OG Bullet Rucks (including the 5L) as well as the Simple Field Pockets if you would want to add them to this post!
Here’s another for this list: The Simple Field Pockets (in 4 sizes)!
Goodness I miss those Simple Field Pockets. Also forget the Clutch / Zipper Bags!
Same here. I feel like GORUCK would sell a ton of both of those if they offered them in multiple sizes again and for a reasonable cost. We all have little bits of gear to organize and these are outstanding for that.
Agreed! It would be nice if there were just things that were always in stock… Shadow Pockets, Field Pockets, Wire Dopp, and Mini Wire Dopp. Packing Cubes.
Exactly. Those are all staple items that I feel like everyone could use and if the price was right on them, they would probably get more sales than just to GRTs. I know I’d buy multiple sets of the Shadow Pockets and Clutches right off the bat.
Now that there’s no minimum for Free Shipping I think the price is a lot more reasonable. I used to wait until I had $200 worth of gear before placing an order to get that free shipping… now I’m MUCH more likely to make a purchase because I don’t need to wait.
Here’s one for this list: the 5L Bullet Ruck!
Simple Side Pocket just made a comeback on the store TODAY – I bought two you should get them while you still can!
So glad to see it! Crazy how they can re-release an accessory that everyone has been clamoring for without any publicity. I haven’t seen a single email on it yet!
I just now saw this comment, immediately check the GORUCK site, and they are GONE!
Great article! One of the interesting yet frustrating things about GORUCK’s gear is exactly what this article describes—some of their items are short-lived, yet lots of folks may have found them useful. For example, I wish they’d revive their “Pimp My Ruck” line of accessories, I really like those and have had to scrounge around to find even a few of them without paying ridiculous prices.
As FYI, here is a site I randomly stumbled upon that might provide some additional images for you, if nothing else:
https://sumally.com/search?target=item&q=goruck
Agreed! I was hoping that with the advent of GORUCK Workshop that we’d see some of these older things (mini wire dopp) come back on a pre-order. Something to get more into the wild and slow down the eBay folks.
Also, great find on the images! I noticed that a lot of my old emails from GORUCK didn’t include the images anymore so that’s an awesome find.
nice collection of items… trying to see how many i dont have in my collection. haha
Right? Some of these I know I’ll never have :-/