Vargo BOT Review - IS IT WORTH IT?

Description

** Stuff/Gear I Mention in this Video **

Vargo Ti BOT 700 - https://amzn.to/2Giw649

Vargo Ti BOT 900 - https://amzn.to/2Gm8HhW

SnowPeak Ti 700 - https://amzn.to/2J0d04w

Toaks Ti 750 - https://amzn.to/2Idlofx

Pinhoti Trail Thru-Hike Gear List - https://darwinonthetrail.com/2018/02/11/darwins-2018-pinhoti-trail-thru-hike/

AT Gear List - https://darwinonthetrail.com/2016/05/03/darwins-2016-at-gear-list/

DISCLOSURE:

Vargo gave me (for free) both the BOT 700 and BOT 900 featured in this video. I have no contractual agreement with this company and only give reviews on gear I myself would use or feel would benefit my viewers to know more about. This is NOT a Paid Review, nor did I receive the product in TRADE for a review. I am self-employed and do not receive further compensation from Vargo for this gear review.

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(Help Support my 2018 PCT Thru with a pledge as low as a $1/month)

Visit our Etsy Shop! - https://www.etsy.com/shop/TravelandTrail

*** Gear Used to Shoot this Video! ***

- Camera -

Canon EOS 77D - http://amzn.to/2zf5OQ9

- Lense -

Canon EF 24mm IS USM - http://amzn.to/2zeJuWU

- Sound -

TakStar Shotgun Mic - http://amzn.to/2kMsAnM

- TriPod -

Targus 360 Trigger Tripod - http://amzn.to/2kMsU5Y

------Intro & Animation By: BlackStrap Media------

https://blackstrapmedia.com

------- Music By: Mike Boren --------

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Tags: UL Hiking,Vargo BOT 700,Vargo Titanium BOT,Gear Review,UL Backpacking Gear,Snow Peak 700,Hiker Trash,Thru Hike,PCT Thru Hike,Pacific Crest Trail,Pinhoti Trail,PCT Gear List,Backpacking,Hiking,Long Distance Hiking

Video Transcription

hey guys it's Starling here with the for review of the Vargo titanium bot [Music]

all right so before we get into the review let me give you a little disclosure Vargo did give me for free a bot 700 and a bot 900 however it wasn't in trade for a review I am NOT sponsored by Bargo I am under no contractual agreement to do a review say good things say bad things I was given them as a gift and I just thought that you guys might want to know my thoughts on them if you have any other questions about how I do reviews there is a disclosure in the description box below it should earn out all the specifics of how I do reviews and how I receive gear now that we're done with all that mumbo jumbo let's get into the reason you're watching this video and talk about the Bargo titanium but now I'm sure as some of you might know I am a big fan of cold soaking but I also like cooking sometimes on the trail now for my thru-hike of the PCT my original plan was to use my Snow Peak 700 titanium mug that I've had for years whenever I got to the Sierras but I wanted to cold soak for the first seven hundred miles of the desert so I was going to carry my telling tea cold soaking jar up until Kennedy Meadows and I was gonna send that home and pick up my titanium cook pot and stove so I had mentioned in some past videos that I really liked the idea the but however for its price tag I wasn't really interested in it as it seemed too expensive of a piece of gear so Vargo reached out to me and asked me if I would like to try the bot and I said yeah I got a chance to take out the Vargo bot 704 might thru-hike of the pin holy trail so I have about 330 miles on it and I felt like it was finally time to share my thoughts with you guys so before I start getting into what I like about it when I don't like about it let's go over the specs the bot comes in two different versions it comes in the Bott 700 and it comes in the bot bottle pot which is a 900 milliliter version of the smaller one now the Bott 700 on my scale comes in at 4.8 ounces and the Bott 900 comes in at 5 ounces so not much more the biggest difference between them aside from size is the bot bottle pot has no handles so it's mainly like a bottle to where the Bott 700 does have handles like a traditional mug now both versions of the Bott do have a screw top lid that essentially turns it into a cold soaking container so aside from the lid it is your basic titanium cook pot and then the lid actually has a couple different features it has a thread on it so it allows you to screw that closed to cold soak your food or hot soak your food and it has a rubber seal that makes that closure and then the top actually has a beveled edge that allows it to be flipped over and used as a lid when you are cooking in the pot both the Bott 700 and 900 have measurement markings on the side to let you know how much water and how much food you're putting in and well there's not really much else to say and specs it's a titanium pot with a screw top lid now both the Bott 700 and 900 retail at the time of this video for $100 which is pretty steep for a piece of gear so now that I have talked about both of them we're pretty much gonna talk about the 700 the 900 seems like it's a little bit too big for me so I haven't used this in the field because it's it's just kind of too big for my needs so let's talk specifically about the Bott 700 now you guys should be able to figure out why I like this again I cold soak at the time I cook at the time it's essentially my Snow Peak 700 titanium mug that I've had for years but it allows me to cold soak in it so it's really cool that they include this lid and they've designed it that way to where you can thread it on and you can have that container but it's multifunction where you can flip it over and have that lid now with my Snow Peak 700 for years because I didn't want to carry a lid I didn't want the extra weight I just used a piece of aluminum foil to put that on the top of my pot so I could let my water boil a little bit faster so if I'm already carrying the lid to cold soak it's cool that it does double as a lid to cook with I like its overall size so it is 700 but what I found out is they went a little wider than

with their 700 milliliters my old snow-peak mug was a little bit taller but it didn't give me as much girth to be able to fit things in like a block of ramen or mashed potatoes so the overall size of the 700 baht is great so those are the things that I really dig about it let's talk about the things that are kind of a nuisance and things that I think that Vargo could change number one is the price tag $100 for a titanium pot regardless if it has a screw top lid or not is really expensive now I come from a machining and tool background so I know how much it costs to do CNC on titanium however it still seems really really steep I mean if you look at most titanium mugs on the market they're about fifty dollars sometimes less than that for just this so this alone being a $50 piece of gear is pretty outrageous so I think that the price should definitely come down on these again maybe there's something that I'm missing and don't know about how these are manufactured but hundred bucks for a cook pot seems pretty steep the next beef that I have with the but both the 700 and the 900 is the thread pattern on the overall lid so a lot of people have experienced myself included the cross threading effect so whenever you go to put the lid on a lot of times it won't go on right and it cross threads so I find myself having to put it on multiple times before I get it to really seal now I've heard of other people that have the bot taking it and taking a little wire wheel on a dremel and going in and polishing that titanium on the threads and being able to be a little smoother but because they did go with a rougher titanium finish on there that's why it sticks and Wyatt cross threads now maybe that's something that Vargo could do they could just polish the threads and that might fix that problem now speaking of the threads the other problem that I've heard come up in other people's reviews are that it leaks one it could be because it's not getting a good seal - it could be because it doesn't have a good seal I personally haven't experienced it leaking when I've cold

soaked with it however I also take it and I set it up right in my pack so it could be because people are laying it on its side it could be because of that cross thread problem but I personally haven't had a problem with it leaking yet the next beef that I have with the Vargo titanium bot is it's more of a personal problem that they went with millilitres on their measurements on the side of the mug so as you can see there is a 300 and a 600 and then there is a 4 and 500 mark in the middle now I'm used to with my other titanium pots than having the ounces now everything that I cook everything is always in ounces you need 8 ounces of water you need 16 ounces of water so whenever I go to put my water in my pot it takes a little bit more time for me to convert from ounces to milliliters now that could be because I live in the US and that's how a lot of our stuff is measured now I'm sure if you're in another country and you're used to doing milliliters that is awesome but that's just a little personal pet peeve of mine again that could just be because of where I live but I wish that they would have done once's on the side of the pot instead of milliliters and then my last beef with the Vargo bot is probably everyone's beef with it and Vargo even knows about the problem and that is the fact that it pressure seals so one thing that I noticed when I was out on the pen holy and any other time that I've used it is if you have food in here and you shut your lid and you're changing up and down in elevations it gets a vacuum seal effect that happens with the bot and you can't get the lid off so I've had my lid get stuck multiple times whenever I've used it in the field and I've essentially had to take the side of my spork stick it in between the little gap and pry it loose to undo that pressure now I don't know how far go would go about fixing that because it's not like they can drill a hole in it because then that defeats the whole purpose of it being sealed to be able to cold soak in so maybe doing the thread polish would help with that maybe it's the gasket that they're using using a different gasket might help that but it is a very well known problem and bar does warn people that if you are using it at higher elevation to expect it to pressure seal just a known problem all of that being said with the little pet peeves that I have with the pressure seal the threads even with the price for me I really dig the Vargo about 700 because I'm one of those hikers that likes to cook half the time and I like to cold soak at the time and instead of me using two different containers I can use this one container so yes it is expensive now after using it for 330 miles what I buy it for $100 yeah I think I would buy it for $100 just because it takes two pieces of gear of mine and it turns it into one piece of gear and I am a big fan of multi-function gear if I can simplify things on the trail I'm gonna do it every single time so for me it's worth 100 bucks

now if you're one of those hikers that only cooks and you never cold soak ever this is overkill I would personally suggest getting a snow peak titanium ugh or a tokes titanium or even bar go makes some regular pots I would suggest getting that because if you're never gonna use this lid you're talking about extra weight you're talking about $50 more of material so just get a regular pot and if you're one of those hikers that just cold soaks all the time and you never plan on cooking this is definitely overkill go get you an empty peanut butter jar or a ttle NT ice-cream jar and use that to cold soak but again if you are a hiker like me and 50% of the time you like cold soaking the other 50% of the time you like cooking this is a pretty sweet piece of gear then really the only other question is is the Bott 700 gonna be enough room for you or do you need something like the 900 me personally I think that the 900 is overkill everything I've ever eaten on the trail 700 has been the perfect size so this is the one that I will be taking out for my to hike of the PCT and we'll see how it does for 2,600 miles so if you want to check out the Bott 700 or the 900 or any of the other cook pots that I mentioned I'll put links down in the description box you can go check those out go check out all the other specs and find out what's going to be the perfect cook pot for you if you haven't had a chance go over and check me out on Instagram I've been posting a lot of new photos lately of some of the things that snubz and i have going on throughout the week plus some pictures from some past hikes plus I'll be trying to post a picture a day from the PCT starting on April the 3rd if you found any value in this video go ahead and hit that like button subscribe to my channel if you haven't already as always guys thanks for watching

[Music]

[Applause]

you