G.P.S. Medium Range Bag by G Outdoors

Life has been a blur during the last couple of weeks.  In fact, the gals and I have been so busy we've started to have some conflicting shooting schedules and activities, so anticipating this busy schedule... my main gal decided it was time for us to get another range bag. So prior to her second three-day trip to Tactical Defense Institute this summer, this time without me, we went looking for a second range bag.

Our ol' work-horse range bag has been doing well for over fifteen years now. It's just a soft-sided tool bag we had picked up at Lowe's Home Improvement back in the 1990s. Not really designed as a range bag, it did have the features we were looking for at the time.

It's kind of amazing how far shooting supplies and accessories have come in design over the last twenty years. A range bag twenty years ago usually had one main compartment and maybe a couple of side compartments in the usual Henry Ford color choice of any color you want as long as it's black.

So when we went looking for a new range bag fifteen or so years ago, we ended up getting a soft-sided tool bag that had a lot of smaller compartments, pockets, and pouches to store gear in addition to the large compartment for ammo, guns, first-aid, and other stuff.

We also wanted a color beside black because on a bright, sunny day with either tinted shooting glasses or just your pupils closing down, it's hard to find things in the bottom of an all black case.

Recently, we picked up a G.P.S. Medium Range Bag which seems purpose-built by a shooter for a day of shooting at the range. We had been looking online at various range bags for a while, but it was a recent trip to the local Walmart the resulted in us... well, my gal... finding us a new range bag... and for the low, low price of just twenty-five bucks in the sporting goods department.

I wasn't really familiar with G Outdoors products before, but they are an American company based in California and this range bag is very well designed with compartments for just about everything most shooters will need.

The inside of the large, main compartment is medium gray so it is easy to see those hard-to-find items in the bottom. Each of the zippers has a bright red zipper-pull and a hole large enough you could use a small luggage lock to secure the compartment from children if necessary.

G Outdoors has developed a series of visual icons they call the Visual I.D. Storage System to identify compartments and they're contents. It's well thought out, although we don't typically carry binoculars like some folks, that compartment is just put to use for other items.

There are plenty of sewn-in elastic straps for everything from cleaning rods to lubricant. There are even elastic straps on top of the bag by the carry handles with Velcro-closures to secure rolled up targets. Plenty of pockets for pistol magazines and zippered inside pockets that are semi-transparent so you can easily see what is inside.

They include a re-configurable side compartment complete with a plastic organizer container, although we wish the plastic container wasn't divided into quite as many little compartments or "cells", but I guess it would be great if you take along a lot of extra screws or small pins and gun parts.

There are even marked compartments for your hearing protection and staple gun along with reinforced handles...er... I mean Lift Ports to pick up the bag when filled with all that ammo you plan to dispose of at the range.

This seems like a very well-thought-out product and while not every shooter will use every compartment or pouch as indicated by the visual I.D. system, we think many folks will find it very handy. I did a web search and these bags are selling for sixty to eighty bucks online, so I'm not sure if the twenty-five dollars on-the-nose price at Walmart was the regular price or a discounted or closeout price, but it did contribute to our spur-of-the-moment purchase.

We haven't retired the old range bag, we're just getting to the point that two bags work better when my gal and I go our separate ways... to shoot, that is. This bag seems to initially be holding up pretty well after three days at TDI and several trips to the range with twenty-plus pounds of gear and ammo stuffed in it. If you're looking for a new range bag, you might check out the... G.P.S. Medium Range Bag by G Outdoors.