Cnoc Outdoors Vecto

A great, durable and practical water bladder for outdoor activities. It’s available in various capacities and has clever features: dual opening with large collecting easy, and the ubiquitous 28mm thread and optional 42mm beefed-up version.

Outdoorspeople takes hydration seriously.

Every part of the water system—collecting, treating, purifying, storing, drinking—must be easy, reliable and durable to withstand some level of abuse in the wilderness. It must also be practical. 

Some prefer bottles and canteens, others use bladders. After using both types, I‘ve settled for bottles (and occasionally a straw) for mountain/road biking, and a mix of both for my backpacking, camping and trekking trips. 

This makes collecting, filtering and storing much easier. Bladders can be lightweight, compact, and practical for collecting and storing, and also filtering. Bottles are more practical to store, drink and overall use around camp. 

I’ve found the combo of a Vecto 2L bladder for collecting dirt water, coupled with a Sawyer Squeeze and a folding reservoir for the clean water, to offer exactly what I need in terms of weight, size and results. 

I also use the Vecto with an adapter and flexible bladder hose to wash my cookware, my hands, my face and toothbrush. I’ve even used it to take a shower a few occasions, though sometimes I need to refill it for a full cleanup. But it works. 

The Vecto is made from strong TPU.

This makes it one of the toughest, most reliable water bladders out there. I’ve used mine for years, it’s not as clear as it was when new from all the trashing, but function is perfect as always.

• It has markers for Liters and Ounces on the plastic. The material is BPA-free and FDA approved. Weight is 84g/2.9oz and it packs small. These are figures for the 3L Vecto. The 2L (68oz) is 76g/2.6oz.

• The advertised breaking point (i.e. rupture) is 200lbs. I have no idea what it means in practice, but I can attest it will stand serious abuse from falling, squeezing, and maybe even puncturing. 
• The plastic slider and 28mm cap are tethered to the bladder, so there’s no way to miss them. If the cap gets lost somehow, any PET plastic bottle cap will fit. The slider though needs more care: if it breaks, it can’t be fixed nor replaced. At least not in the wilderness, and not easily. 

Dual opening with large collecting port and slider makes it super-easy to collect water from various sources, even shallow streams.

It also makes it easier to clean and dry for storage. The plastic slider has an opening to make hanging easier, which is handy to use as a gravity filtering system, or to improvise a “faucet” to wash stuff around camp.

Sawyer has a lot of accessories that make coupling the Vecto to different parts easy and practical (a filter, hose, other bottles, etc.). 

Background

I’ve been using my two 2L Vectos for many years without a single issue. It’s a simple product that is well made and just plain works. Even without much care, it should provide years of trouble-free service. It’s well built, lightweight, compact, resistant, easy to fill, use and clean, and is available in different capacities and threads. It has lots of competitors, though, but is not really an expensive product so there’s that.

Solid water storage. The material the Vecto is built with is several notches above any other. It's superior in its ability to take abuse and withstand being full and packed tight in a pack, dropped on the ground, thrown etc. No worries about it leaking or bursting inside your pack.

Capacity is 2L+. The wide mouth opening is easy to use when scooping from shallow streams or water sources. The locking strap ensures this thing is not coming open in your pack and can easily hang from any thing without fear.

The screw opening at the bootom is standard threaded so the Hydro Blue Versa Flow and Sawyer systems will fit right on to it.

Bottom line, this is a tough water bladder. Money well spent in my mind for something that will last, is easy to use, and serves its purpose without dependancy.

I did a YT unboxing here:

A tough little reservoir that should last me for years to come.

Just got back from eight days backpacking the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness Area. Used the Cnoc water bladder (2 liter) as my dirty bag with a gravity filter.

Unlike my garbage Platypus system, the Cnoc is constructed light, was easy to fill, and the fold and slider system was easy to open and close. It matched up perfectly to my full size Sawyer filter. Even when filled to full capacity, the bladder never leaked top or bottom.

When filling from a lake, I recommend using a cup or your cook pot to bail the water into the bladder.

Background

First-time user

Great idea, very poor execution.

First, getting the slider off the bag is ridiculously hard. I have to push the slider against a door jamb and try to slip the bag out of the slider. Try that when you're in the back country.

Second, screwing the filter onto the bag is, again, ridiculously hard. The threads on the bag are too small and/or soft to make the process easy. If the white gasket on the filter is the least bit off kilter, the connection doesn't work.

I had such high hopes and was sorely disappointed. My Vecto is definitely not going with me on the trail.  When I'm backpacking, I want equipment that I can count on—not something that I have to fiddle around with to make it work maybe.

Don't waste your money on the Vecto, IMHO.