Waller & Son Inc., is a company well-known for its carrying bags. Since for years, my range bag was a tool box, when the owner Rick Mastin, suggested that he send me a range bag for testing and evaluation, I couldn't say no. So here, you will read my findings on this bag, and how much I liked it or not.

Above, you can see the bag's outer shape. It is a large bag, 26"L x 11"W x 9"H (or 66x28x23 cm), impressive to say the least. The bag is made of 1,000 denier cordura coated ny a heavy urethane, for water repellancy. All six sides of the bag are padded by high-densitey, closed-cell rigid foam, which provies structure and protection if the goods you carry in it. The color of my bag was black, but there are several alternatives to choose from, red, blue etc., so I am sure this will never be a problem. As you can see from the picture above, as well as from the side-view below, the bag has one main, large compartement, two side compartements and one front compartement.

All compartements are secured by self-correcting zippers, of good quality. There are also two reinforcing straps with plastic snap-on closures which are position above the main compartement. A carrying handle is stitched on the top of the bag, covered by real leather, and a carrying strap is also included.

Above, you see the interior of the front compartement. As you can see, rubber straps are there, to secure your pistol magazines, a total of 6 can be carried there, or 12 if you insert two mags in each loop. There is also a lengthy pocket on the covering flap of the compartement, which can be used for long items, like a scope or a small scope tripod. This front compartement is roomy enough to carry holsters, mag pouches etc. Let's now proceed to the main compartement. In this area, you can safely carry 4 or more handguns, depending on the dividers you have, as well as ammo, hearing protectors, cleaning rods and tools, etc.. One word of caution here. Check the picture below:

As you can see, the bag is delivered with three pairs of dividers. Dividers #1, are the full-length ones, #2 are shorter and #3 are the smallest ones meant for vertically dividing an area of the bag in smaller bits. The way I've set up my bag, is shown at the picture above. The two longest dividers separate the bag into three distinct sections. The middle one is where I carry ammo, my binoculars, my ear protectors, etc. The two #3 dividers which came with the bag, are not enough to separate this section in enough pieces, to hold your goods, so maybe you should consider ordering a couple more of the smallest dividers, when you order the bag. You can see some grey dividers I had from an old camera bag, which I used to create more spaces in the central pocket, until the ones I ordered from Waller arrive.

Then I used the two intermediate dividers, to create pockets, by attaching them on the long dividers, towards the outer sides of the bag. My pistols are stored in those pockets,so they are very well protected. The rest of the outer two pockets are used to store cleaning rods, spare parts etc. Overall, there is A LOT of space in there, and everything you carry is totally protected. With some careful planning, you can store up to four (and maybe more, if you get the right dividers) handguns plus all your shooting supplies.

A couple of interesting touches. On the inside of the top cover, there are two straps. In that place, you can carry a small tripod or your spotting scope, or other lengthy items. And on the rear of the bag, there is a non-padded zippered pocket, quite handy for carrying your permits, licenses or range notes. I like that one.

The two side compartements are also really big. In one of them I keep a small box with my cleaning kit (assortement of bits and pieces I've collected over the years which make my life easier when cleaning my pistols) together with some powder solvent and lubricants. In the other one, I carry all the tools I usually have with me. An interesting side note, since these compartements are quite deep, and I didn't like searching in the abysse for an allen wrench, I put all my little tools in an old tobaco pouch I had, and I keep the pouch in one of the side-pockets. In that way, if I want an allen wrench, I just take the pouch out and find it in a zip.

As I said in the beginning, the bag comes with a very wide carrying strap. However, after I had all my gear in it, I used my wife's weight scale and it weights 12 kgs or 25 lbs! So, even though the strap is pretty wide and secure, I decided to enhance it by adding a padded pad I had, from my old camera bag. In the picture below, you can see how thick this pad is. On my first day at the range, using the bag, I was greatful I had thought of this modification, it made carrying the heavy load an easy task.

Waller are also selling various add-ons for this bag, such as magazine pouches etc.

Things I didn't like? One minor issue. The way the velcro straps are arranged on the various dividers and on the inside walls of the bag, leave the upper inch of each divider not attached to the walls or to the other dividers. An easy problem to fix with some length of self-adhesive velcro. I spoke to Rick about this, and he assured me that he is already working on improving the bag. So overall, I was quite impressed with this bag. It made my range trips so much more secure and comfortable.

Thanks for making my toolbox obsolete Rick, sincerely appreciated.

You may order the Waller Range bag from Waller's web site. If you read this test and decided to order a bag from them, please let them know where you learned about their products. It will help keeping M1911.ORG alive.

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