5.11 Tactical 10 X 6 Pouch Review

I received an email a few weeks ago from a reader who was curious about the 5.11 Tactical 10 X 6 Pouch. They wanted to know if I had any experience with it and how well it would fit in a 26L GORUCK GR1.

At this point I own at least one 26L GR1 but had never heard of the 5.11 Tactical 10 X 6 Pouch. I headed over to Amazon to check it out and it turns out it costs under $30. I’ve been looking for more pouches to test in the GORUCK packs so I figured I’d grab one and see if I could answer this question.

My initial concern was that there were seven columns of webbing on the 5.11 pouch and there’s only six columns of webbing on the GORUCK GR1. If you’ve been around a GORUCK GR1 then you might know that the webbing is spaced in 2″ increments which makes 6 columns multiplied by 2″ equal to 12″ of webbing. The 5.11 pouch uses 1.5″ spacing and 7 columns which makes 7 * 1.5 = 10.5″. Based on that rough math it sounded like it would fit so I bit the bullet and bought the pouch.

Without getting too far ahead of ourselves lets just say that it does fit nicely inside the GR1…

… as well as on the outside, if having a pouch there works for you. Personally I like to keep the outside clean but that’s just me. Seeing how it fits in 3 rows of 6 columns of GORUCK webbing that means it should also fit nicely in a GR2 as well.

5.11 Tactical 10 X 6 Pouch Review

In typical All Day Ruckoff review fashion I’ll go through four different categories: Quality, Design, Usability, and Value. For those who aren’t used to this format here’s the breakdown:

• Quality: How well is the product made? Are there any issues with the materials or construction of it? How well did it last over testing?
• Design: How is the product designed? What features does it have and is it lacking anything that similar products have?
• Usability: Is the item easy or difficult to use? How do the features work? Do the features even work?
• Value: Is the item worth the price? Compared to other comparable products or products with similar functionality is this a good deal?

I chose the Woodland Camo GR1 for this review because you can easily tell the difference between it and the black pouch. There’s absolutely zero confusion on if something is part of the pack or part of the pouch.

That being said most people have a black GR1 so here’s what it looks like hanging out on one of those.

The color matching between the pack and the pouch is pretty much perfect. With that explained here’s the review of the 5.11 Tactical 10 X 6 Pouch!

Quality

Starting right off with quality you’ll notice that there are no loose thread found anywhere on the back side of the pouch…

… or on the front side for that matter. I looked all over and could not find a loose thread throughout the entire pouch.

Honestly I looked hard and there was nothing screwed up that I found find.

This thing is sewn together incredibly well. It’s made of 1000d Cordura which is the same thing the GORUCK GR1 is made of…

… and uses YKK hardware which is the same brand of zipper the GORUCK GR1 uses as well.

It’s always fun to flip these types of pouches inside out and see what’s going on with them. On this side you can see how the webbing is sewn in and how the snaps (for the attachment straps) are attached.

Here’s how the grommets are implemented in the bottom of the pouch. Pretty standard and there’s no fraying which is nice.

Here’s what that view looks like when you’re viewing the pouch flipped the right away.

Although I haven’t used this pouch extensively I have handled hundreds of backpacks and similar pouches and I can’t find anything on this that’s poorly sewn or made. As far as I can tell this is solid when it comes to quality and the Amazon reviews (and 5.11’s reputation) seem to corroborate that. Although I don’t enjoy relaying on the reviews of others I really can’t find anything to fault the quality of this product.

Obviously that will be updated if anything changes with this!

Design

One of the things that drew me to this pouch immediately was that it has built in attachment straps just like the GORUCK Field Pockets. Dealing with MALICE clips isn’t really that fun so having these was incredibly convenient.

In addition the snaps are incredibly easy to use which makes attaching and detaching this an acceptable experience.

There’s zero external branding on the front of the pouch and only one logo sewn into the webbing on the back of the pouch. This part will be pressed against your pack once it’s attached and no one will see it unless you remove the pouch. I like that.

There’s two drain holes on the bottom of the pouch which are nice to have… although I hope they’re never necessary. I guess if the options are a pouch full of water versus a pouch that has drained most people would choose the pouch that has drained.

We can only hope the drain holes won’t see much use when mounted on the inside however I could see them coming in handy if the pouch was mounted externally.

Opening the pouch you can see that it truly is just one giant pocket. There’s no organization or internal pouches or flaps to the found.

One thing possibly worth noting is that the pouch can open very wide… wider than I was actually expecting.

The zipper pulls are fine but nothing special. If you wanted you could easily cut them off and replace them with the same style zipper pulls that GORUCK uses.

One thing I wish 5.11 had done was sew in some internal webbing so that you could mount pouches inside of this pouch. This space is huge and being able to mount a few organizational pieces inside would have been very helpful.

Usability

This is the attachment setting that worked best for me. I used the first, third, fourth, and sixth columns of webbing.

You can see it almost feels as if it was build for the GR1. The snaps make it just through the last row of webbing and attach easily.

The bottom of the bad does hang a little over the document pocket but truth be told I don’t use mine for much…

… and it is still accessible by lifting the pouch up. Just note that if you generally put something in there that extends past the bottom row of webbing it won’t fit anymore… but that’s the case for any pouch that uses all three rows of webbing.

Finally getting to the inside of the pouch and you can see that it’s completely empty. Again, there is no internal pockets or organization to this thing… it is a giant empty pouch.

Quick picture of the first internal label… made in Vietnam but that’s about what I figured going into this when they said internationally made.

And here’s the tag under that one which features the purchase order for the pouch.

The pouch sits in a good spot where it both doesn’t leave too much overhead space and is still fairly quick to open or close. Some pouches stick too close to the edges of the pack which makes using their zippers a pain.

The only thing you really need to watch out for when removing the pouches are ensuring the snaps don’t snag on the rows of webbing. It doesn’t happen frequently but it does happen… however I would rather deal with this than having to deal with MALICE clips.

Here’s what it looks like when you get one of the straps fully removed from the GR1’s webbing.

These pieces of webbing sewn into each side of the zipper (where the zipper ends) are handy to hold while unzipping. Between this and the zipper pull it makes opening the pouch a breeze with gloves on.

Attaching the pouch to the outside of the ruck is very similar to attaching it to the inside. Again, I used the first, third, fourth, and sixth columns of webbing.

Weave it back through the pouch…

Back through the ruck…

Again through the pouch…

Then finally through the ruck and snap the snaps into place. One thing to note here is that the four mounting straps are sewn directly into the pouch so there’s no getting around which columns on the pouch they run through. This is important if you’re trying to fit this into a bag that’s skinnier than the pouch because one end will have a clip that won’t have anything to attach through.

When all is said and done it really doesn’t look half bad on the outside of the pack. Having a pouch here (especially one that can fit a lot like this one) really expands the amount of things you can have within arms reach.

Pulling out the Black GR1 again you can see how it looks sitting outside on a pack that has a good color match.

After testing a few different objects it looks like the size large All Day Ruckoff Drink Hard Ruck Harder hoodie is about the largest item it can hold.

Here’s a top down view of the pouch holding the hoodie…

… and here’s proof that the hoodie actually is in there.

I’m not the biggest fan of having pouches on the outside of the GR1 but that being said this isn’t a bad option. It doesn’t look absolutely ridiculous and it’s well made.

Value

When it comes to the 5.11 10 x 6 pouch you get a pretty good bang for the buck. Not only does it have built in attachment straps but they’re so much easier (however less flexible) to use than traditional MALICE clips.

The amount of usable space is huge…

… and it doesn’t look bad when attached to the pack.

At $30 this honestly feels like a great deal especially if a large, empty pouch is what you’re looking for. GORUCK (surprisingly) doesn’t currently make anything that fills this void which means if you need something like this you have to go to a third party and it seems like you can’t go wrong with this.

Conclusion

Overall I’m glad to now own this pouch. The $30 price tag didn’t break the bank especially considering it’s sewn very well and functions great.

The built in attachment straps are a great bang for the buck and are certainly much nicer to use than MALICE clips.