Macpac Waterproof Pack Cover Sizing

As my new 44L Osprey Talon backpack didn’t come with an inbuilt raincover, I naively bought the Macpac 50L “medium” rain cover as I assumed it was safer to go too large rather than too small, and when it comes to backpacks I figured 44L is about medium. Apparently not; the raincover was huge. I could use the drawstring to bring it down to size but there seemed to be a lot of excess fabric which could be a pain in high winds and the folds could collect rain.

So I ended up buying the next size down – the 30L “small” cover. At this point they were on special, so I also bought the 20L “extra small” cover for my short walk/biking backpack.

Given that I now had three Macpac rain covers, and to save others making the same mistake, I figured I’d share my findings here. It happens to be slamming with rain today, so I also tested their waterproof… ness.

The Raincovers

All three waterproof backpack covers include:

• A drawstring and sinch
• A loop to attach a bike light or similar
• A cord and hook to hold the cover onto the backpack
• Reflective logo
• Taped seams
• An inbuilt pouch that the covers fold into, with its own karabiner loop

The 20L and 30L covers are a bright orange while the 50L is grey. All are 100% Nylon Ripstop (70D). The Macpac website only has the weight of the 50L (which is currently out of stock – not sure if they make it any more). It claims to be 140g which is about right. My weight measurements below in bold.

• Macpac Extra Small 20L Raincover, 91g – (Macpac product page)
• Macpac Small 30L Raincover, 136g – (Macpac product page)
• Macpac Medium 50L Raincover, 146g – (Macpac product page)

The Medium and Large models are both grey and both seem to have been out of stock for a while so it’s possible they’re not in production. Meanwhile there’s an Extra Large 90L in the same orange as the others.

The Backpacks

To test the raincovers, I paired the three below backpacks to each size:

• Macpac Weka 30L backpack with the Macpac Extra Small 20L Raincover
• Osprey Talon 44L backpack with the Macpac Small 30L Raincover
• Kathmandu Gluon Vanguard 70L (I think) backpack with the Macpac Medium 50L Raincover

I took photos to show the fit, then I angled them against the fence to represent them being on a back and left them in heavy rain for 30 minutes. I’m happy to say that all three packs were dry at the end – you may notice some spots of rain on the packs in the photos but that’s because I fairly stupidly put the covers on them while standing outside in the rain instead of in my living room, but I guess that makes it more of a ‘real world’ scenario.