FDSman, I doubt you will hear back from them they have a large business to run and may not care what a single customer thinks. I might have a solution. Contact a local REI outlet in your area or another civilian pack retailer and ask them who they use for repairs. I live close to Seattle so contacting REI for their repair people was easy. Or try "googling" TACTICAL TAILOR out of Tacoma, WA. They repair, make, sell all kind of packs an such especially military. Call them and see what they can do for you. Either way your going to have to pay for the repairs. If you go with TACTICAL TAILOR they can do the job right the first time and professionally. Give them a try.Haven't heard back from the repair shop yet, something tells me I won't ever hear back from them considering they have a business to run and aren't in the business of giving out their methods, but I'll keep an eye out anyways.
The only way I could think of fixing that by one's self would be using a stitching awl or sailmaker's palm and adding additional stitching using #69 bonded nylon thread to further reinforce the existing seams where trouble is known to occur. I'm no tailor but I don't think it's possible to repair a seam using a sewing machine once it's been sewn together such as in a pack.
Sometimes its very hard to repair a seam inside a pack. You may have to take apart the pack, repair the seam and then sew the rest up. Most cobbler shops and large repair facilities have sewing machines especially for jobs like that, so its not uncommon.
Most of the reports I read, mind you posts, were of former military people talking about when they had the pack or somebody else had the pack from long ago. They all commented on how it functioned, what ripped, and what didn't work becuase of something. The consensus is that most of the problems happened with the rucksacks when they were in cirrulation going through a trial phase i.e. 1986-1988 or 1990-91. Mind you prototypes are tested to their absolute limit, then sent back, evalulated, then first run production models hit the supply system. You have to remember an Infantryman, Airborne, RANGER, SF, guy is going to try their best to trash that pack he is given just cause of the mission or work that he does. Yes, some people take better care of their equipment but most do not, especially some of the younger kids. Also given that the DoD mass produces gear its not like if something blows out, you can just get a new one fron supply. That is for active duty folks, the reserves and national guard don't go through gear quite as quickly.Are these reports of seam rips and such from the army trials? Because in all honestly, I doubt any of us would use our gear that hard to cause something like that. From what I know about equipment trials, they test them to their absolute limit, far beyond what anyone would do to their gear who has respect for it.
I've got no idea what the politics are behind that either, considering it got scrapped for MOLLE and SDS being the main contractor, something tells me a bit of rigging occurred.
Another point that I read in the above hyperlink that you supplied earlier was that of the two contrators in 1990-91, the contractor in Puerto Rico had the better packs than the one is South Dakota. Somebody mentioned on that forum that the SD firm had used non-mil spec thread and cordura nylon in the stitching which caused most of their packs to fall apart leading to more problems. They also were accused of cutting corners on the packs. So if you cut corners..sure your going to have problems.
