What is your tent or rain jacket made of? (2025): Dyneema, Silpoly, X-Pac

Spend any time In all research Outdoor equipmentWhether that New tent or New rain jacketAnd you will quickly find yourself in a confusing set of terms. Silnylon, polyurethane, X-Pac, Cubic fiber, UHMWPE-What are these things?

None of them is perfect. Each has its weight, cost, benefits and disadvantages. But there He is The perfect texture for you and your use. We put this guide together to help you strip the marketing and understand what each fabric does better, what is the best use, and where it is struggling.

Types of outdoor fabric

Let’s start by dividing this into various fibers and materials used in the outdoor hardware. We will skip some old things, such as tarpaulin, because most people are familiar with them. Here are the most used fabrics in the external industry today.

Silnylon

The oldest group, this term refers to the silicon -covered nylon. This multi -use fabric is widely used in tents, some rain (non -tile) equipment, bags of objects, and many other pieces of equipment. His strengths are durability, high tear strength, and waterproofing. The negative side of the nylon is that it absorbs water – even, unfortunately, when coated with silicon. Hence DWR treatments, but even with those, at some point the nylon will wet and start absorbing water. This is why your rainy tent flows when it is soaked. Nylon is also slow in dehydration.

Polyester

This is another multi -use texture, widely used with one large feature on nylon: it absorbs almost much water. This means that it does not retreat much. This is especially important in Ultralight Tents on the back This stadium with trips columns. SAG is not only annoying, it is the loss of structural integrity and your tent can collapse. The downside to the polyester is that it is not as strong as celion in many cases (especially tends to tear), and may not be solid in the long run. However, I personally find that this negative aspect is exaggerated. I have two tents with polyester rain flies, which helps nearly 20 years of use.

Photo: Scott Gilbertson

Nemo Osmo

What if you manage to mix the best nylon characteristics (permanent, strong) with the best polyester characteristics (rabid, less extension)? This is the question that prompted the NEMO equipment to develop its OSMO tissue, which is a special mixture of nylon and polyester. I was testing Osmo line from Nemo from tents Since her first appearance in 2022 and has found that OSMO has already managed to withdraw less than straight rain nylon.

x-pac

This is the covered tissue that begins with a nylon face, places in the polyester network, then a plastic layer of pets to provide water insulation, and finally, support from nylon to protect the most fragile interior. The feature on the Ripstop is a waterproof layer, which is better in most cases than even Silnylon. X-Pac comes in different weights, but the most common in the packages (which found X-Pac really outperforms) are Vx21 and Vx42. These most thick and heavier versions of X-Pac are more corrosion and remain the lighter of about 20 percent of Silnylon in a similar observer. The downside of X-Pac is that it can be a bit fragile, especially when it comes to corrosion.

Dyneema compound fabric

In the external industry, Dyneema is the most famous brand name for complex materials made of very woven molecular polyethylene (UHMWPE). UHMWPE is widely used in many industries for many things (including lead -resistant jackets), but the release that appears in tents and beams, such as Dyneema, fibers that were woven together and then applied in a fabric. Thus, the name of the complex fabric Dyneema (DCF).

The resulting fabric is 15 times stronger than steel per weight. Then this fabric is cut between the outer layers (usually polyester) so that a waterproof coating (DCF will not adhere directly).

Dyneema is incredibly strong, like a strong strong compared to nylon and polyester. It is also very light and waterproof, all of which made it preferred between the hikers and the light travelers looking for an ounce. Dyneema weakness is corrosion. I have seen the Dyneema Rainfly angle beating on the wind bodies in one night of lifting against sandstone. It is easy to fix, but also very expensive for nylon and polyester, and it does not pack it small. However, Dyneema is used properly and care, is undoubtedly stronger and lighter texture in this list, making it excellent for packages, bags of things and tents.

Ecopak/Ultra

Ecopack is another texture that comes to walking very long from the sailing world, as it was originally used from sails. This is another UHMWpe face fabric, covered with a waterproof lining. You will see this fabric under brand names such as EPL Ultra, Ultra 100, Ultra 200 and Ecopak Ultra, among other things. The numbers are generally compatible with the Denier, so Ultra 200 fabric uses 210 Denier Face. But this fabric is also the UHMWPE fiber (about 70 percent for Ultra 200), which makes it much more corrosion than Dynemeema Composite.

With the permission of Dynemeema

Dyneema compound woven

Dyneema has recently introduced a new fabric, DYNEMA Hoven (DWC) compoundThat marries the fully woven dynema tissue to DCF. Now, only Hygienic mountain equipment The packages use this new fabric, but we expect to see others to adopt it to move forward because it improves the corrosion resistance in Dyneema. It will be interesting to compare the DWC to Ultra since DWC is mainly the DSM answer to Ultra. We’ll update this guide when we have more time to test DWC packages.

Other fabric factors

If you look at the above and just judge what you have set, it is likely to be by a large fan of Dyneema and Ultra, especially if you are in a light backpack and aims at the weight of the basic equipment (before food and water) with less than 10 pounds. Unfortunately, other factors within each tissue also affect the quality of their performance, so it is difficult to make apple comparisons in apples.

For example, there is a big difference between Nylon Ripstop used all over the industry. Seize Cheap nylon tent off the Amazon And compare it with Hilberg tent You will quickly realize that regardless of both the same basic material (nylon) have nothing common. This is the place where factors such as the number of threads, the calendar, the Denier, the type of weaving, and more enter.

What is evil?

Denier is likely to be the strangest unit of measurement that you will face ever. Enlightened It is the weight in love for 9 km of the thread. 9 km from Kerlon 1800 Hilberg weighs 40 grams. What does that tell you? Nothing largely, but it is a useful way to compare the fabrics and know, for example, that Hilberg Red Label, which uses Ripstop 30D only is not as strong as 40D models.

The reason for Hilleberg tents is well made, and lasts for decades, is that the nylon mixture and its weaving is better than you will find on other “nylon” tents. Kerlon, which is the Kerlon company, is the Kerlon, which is the company, Ripstop HISTOP 40D, which is made for high -strength resurrection tents.

Denier is useful for making comparisons across manufacturers as well, so you can know that the cheap Amazon tent with her 8D Nylon will not last almost the 30D of the 30D brands. At the same time, Denier is not the end of the story either. There are also varying levels of paint. Remember that nylon absorbs water, so you have to apply a coating to slow down this process.

What is the hydrostatic head?

Another unit of measurement that you may see is Hydrostatic headIt is a standard unit in the industry used to determine the water resistance of the fabric. Technically, the height in millimeters of a column of water can be tolerated by the fabric before the liquid begins to move via tissue. Kerlon’s Hilleberg fabrics also fill the sides with a 3 -layer of silicone application by 100 percent, which gives nylon HH 5500 mm rating and makes the fabric much stronger.

Tissue and paint

To display another way in which all these classifications and measurements are the end of the story, we will look at another tent maker, DRSTON, who recently dropped from his polyester fabric X-MID tents From 20 d to 15 d. This seems to be a Dorsstone who made a weaker tent, but according to the company, the new Polister 15D introduces the new power “96 percent of the power of twenty D while it is lighter.” The company simply changed tissues and paint.

The paint is also different. Unlike Hilberg, Durston uses silicone coating on the Rainfly exterior and polyethylete paint from the inside. The X-MID hydrostatic head is 3500, which is too much to keep you dry. After I spent rainy nights in the new Durston X-Mid and Hilberg Akto, I can assure you that although each company has taken a different way to the final product, both tents are strong, well designed and water resistant. The result is the same – it remains dry.

A word about Dyneema

Dyneema and other UHMWPE fabrics are definitely the most exciting fabrics in external equipment now. They overcame the main negative aspects of nylon and polyester: it is lighter and does not absorb water. A large part of the batch in the external equipment made of Dyneema from travelers on the back came in an attempt to reduce their weight.

As mentioned above, Dyneema’s strength is its resistance to tearing, which makes it a great choice for tents, PackagesAnd daily elements such as bags of things. While many big brands have now adopted Dyneema, they were really the small brands made of the cottage industry that paid innovation.