how much compressability will gain from 850 bs 800 fill down?

[jhymes]

i am currently looking to buy my first under quilt from UGQ. how much compressibilty will i gain between 800 and 850 down.

[Cruiser51]

There are lots of more knowledgeable folks here and they will likely chime in ... but I am not sure that question is really that answerable. Using 850 means you need to use less down to fill the same volume when compared to 800. The weight difference ( for the down part) looks to be about 6%, so the 850 should compress slightly better, but I suspect you could hardly notice the difference in day to day use on the trail.


Brian

[Peppy]

Be hard to notice on the ounce or two difference, but worth it to some.

[kitsapcowboy]

The 850 down lofts more, and it takes less of it to fill a quilt of a given size; therefore, in a standard-width regular UGQ Zeppelin...

(800/850)*(8.9/9.4) = 0.89

The 850 quilt will take up about 11% less space when fully compressed. (I think...)

Of course, there may be a difference from this theoretical calculation in your practical observed performance once you take the bulk of the shells into consideration, and probably no one fully compresses their high-performance handmade down quilt.

I think Cruiser was pretty much on the right track...

There are lots of more knowledgeable folks here and they will likely chime in ... but I am not sure that question is really that answerable. Using 850 means you need to use less down to fill the same volume when compared to 800. The weight difference ( for the down part) looks to be about 6%, so the 850 should compress slightly better, but I suspect you could hardly notice the difference in day to day use on the trail.

[Caminante]

To add to what's already been said, when you go for 850 vs 800 FP down, the first order effect is a weight savings and you might get a slight compressibility gain. When I made my down quilts, the price of the down for the benefit I would get was my main driver for selecting a fill power. What I noticed, using downlinens.com for data, is that the price of down increases linearly from 600 to 800FP, but then takes a bit jump to 850 before continuing to climb steeply to 950FP. So, in my mind, the benefit of the down increases linearly with FP (less down, less weight, more compressibility) but the price is decided non-linear and not in a good way. I imagine that when harvesting down you just get a lot more of the lower FP's and a lot less yield of 850FP+ which drives the price.

The bottom line to this ramble is that for me, if I were going north of 800FP, I'd probably bite the bullet and go all the way to 950FP to get maximum benefit from the extra cost. The marginal benefit that kitsap outlines above isn't worth the large jump in price to me. Just my opinion. Also, we're assuming ceteris paribus for the shell which should be the case, and I really don't know about the premiums that vendors charge for higher FP, I'm assuming it's at least related to the same costs that I see on the retail market for down.

[IcyThunder]

Wow. That graph is eye-opening. Thank you.

[Cruiser51]

I would be a little careful with graphing this subject, it assumes you are comparing apples to apples.

I am looking at the Feathers Industries product sales sheet atm ( I need more down) and in general, as the fill power go down, it seems the feather content goes up ... not sure comparing 95/5% (down/feather) can be compared to 80/20 on fill power alone, those feathers could wreak havoc on comfort.

I will share some current goose down prices (and makeup) from the sheets I just received.

Canadian Origin Down
Canadian White Hutterite Goose 95% Down 850 FP $111/#
Canadian White Hutterite Goose 85% Down 725 FP $98/#
Canadian Grey Goose 95% Down 775 FP $$96/#

If you don't mind duck
Canadian White Hutterite Duck 90% Down 800 FP $66/#
Canadian White Hutterite Duck 80% Down 675 FP $60/#

There has been a lot of debate on the forums about chinese sourced down ...

White Goose Down 85% 700 FP $84/#

Just an idea of the current relationship of some down products and costs. For me, these projects are quite a bit of work ... I am worth the 850 + down

Brian

[sr1355]

The compression of the down will be roughly 6% better but the overall compression will be less, more in the 2-3% range since the overall compression includes everything else as well such as fabric and hardware. This is a range most folks will not notice on most quilts. Now with a monster deep winter set you might start to see some difference in compression as the more down the more that 6% difference comes into play.

[kitsapcowboy]

The compression of the down will be roughly 6% better but the overall compression will be less, more in the 2-3% range since the overall compression includes everything else as well such as fabric and hardware. This is a range most folks will not notice on most quilts. Now with a monster deep winter set you might start to see some difference in compression as the more down the more that 6% difference comes into play.

Of course, I will defer to the expert. I am glad you agree with my point about the reduction in practical compression performance observed as a result of the noncompressible components in the quilts.

However, I have a question about the down compression calculation itself I'm hoping you can clarify...

If you compare compression of an equal weight (e.g., 1 oz) of high-FP and lower-FP in identical tubes with a closed bottom and an open top, the high-FP down will take up more volume and compress about 6% better (850/800) comparing ratios of fully lofted and fully compressed volumes; I get this...

For down in a quilt, it seems to me we are instead comparing equal volumes (when fully lofted) (e.g., 800 cubic inches) of high-FP and lower-FP in identical tubes with a closed bottom and a closed top, which is basically what a baffled quilt channel is anyway.

Why won't the compression observed in the measured volume sample of high-FP down be more than 6% better, given that it compresses better and there is less of it in the given fixed volume than there is low-FP down filling an equal fixed volume?

I may be wrong, because there are many aspects of hammocking that seem counterintuitive in the technical details, but it seems like this is an additional factor that ought to be figured in to (theoretical) quilt compression performance.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Slack Packhiker]

Go to https://ugqoutdoor.com/top-quilts/bandit/

Scroll all the way down to Specifications

You’ll see info on the FP weight differences of quilts. Find your temp and choice of down. There can be nominal weight savings comparing the three FP categories, and a price difference of ~ $100.

The price point of 800 down is amazing.