Ultralight-MOLLE Ultralight Belt Accessory System

This ultralight accessory system is one of the things I'm most pleased with. It grew out of two different concepts. The first concept is that I like carrying things such as maps in belt pouches and in practice that means the belt on my pack. What I used to get quite annoyed about was how there was no way that a pouch would stay put and much worse if I put the pack down the pouch would slide off and I'd need an eagle-eye at every rest stop to make sure that nothing was left behind. The second concept was that I spent a lot of time looking in detail at military luggage systems such as ALICE and MOLLE for load distribution and modular luggage ideas. In particular I looked at a load carrying belt inspired by MOLLE and PLCE since I only need to carry 30 litres and that a good chunk of that volume could fit on a belt.

A prototype belt and pouches (based on children's budget backpacks heavily customized) did get built but the weight of the system and ease of use made me decide that a suitable ultralight pack was still the way to go for most things.

However, Ultralight-MOLLE did survive in some form and is now fitted as standard on my ultralight long distance pack and a standard outdoors belt that I use and one of my day packs. I've built or retrofitted several pouches to fit the system. The idea is that just like MOLLE I grab the pack and pouches that I want and then lock them together into a single unit of luggage that will stay as a single unit of luggage. What is more I can fit suitable Ultralight-MOLLE strips to other pieces of luggage if I wish.

On my belt there are three standard pouches that I will carry depending on what type of walk I am doing. They are as follows:

1. An Ultralight Chest-pouch which has been retrofitted so that I can use it as a chest pouch or as a belt bag as I wish. Mostly it's a belt bag and I use it to hold food, sunscreen and maybe a hat and sunglasses.

2. A GPS pouch which has been custom-made to fit the GPS and Ultralight-MOLLE

3. A Map and compass case (ultralight of course :-) )

These three pouches are the things that I need most on a walk to keep going. It means that I can navigate whilst walking and put the navigation aids safely away when I don't need them. As an aside things like Compass and GPS are always on a lanyard and always tied off on a loop on whatever pouch they are being carried in. Such things are too important to lose and so typing them off means that even if they do fall out they don't go anywhere.

MOLLE Overview

The heart of MOLLE is 1" webbing with lots of bar-tacks! MOLLE is designed as a surface-mounting system for any kind of pouch or holster or other accessory. This webbing is laid out on a grid based on a DOD standard design. The design is that 1" webbing is bar-tacked every 1.5 inches. This webbing is laid out in rows with each row of 1" webbing having a 1" gap between it.

All accessories must use 1" webbing (or equivalent) attachment method whereby their webbing weaves through the surface-mounted webbing using as many rows and as many loops as required.

There are several different 'standard' methods of attachment ranging from special clips and shapes to the more traditional Tape-n-velcro system where you weave the pouch and the MOLLE luggage together.

MOLLE guarantees that there will be at least two rows of 1" webbing on any piece of host luggage and there may be more or less and their may be webbing between the webbing. Many Military packs and of course vests are just plastered in the stuff.

MOLLE is a really great way of bolting luggage together. It's one of the really great things to have come out of military luggage design.

Introducing Ultralight-MOLLE

Ultralight MOLLE takes the core modular idea of MOLLE and miniaturizes it to reflect the weight of ultralight equipment.

Ultralight MOLLE is MOLLE compatible :-) The heart of it all is of course webbing. In this case I've used 0.5"/12mm webbing that has been bar-tacked at 1.5" intervals. By using 1.5" intervals I can be sure that I can use any standard MOLLE pouch if I want to carry something heavy such as an SLR camera.

I'm only really interested in pouches rather than fully modular luggage and so I've restricted myself to a single row of 12mm bar-tacked webbing.

For general use when I'm using a belt-less pack I've sewn some webbing onto a standard nylon outdoors belt which is of course 25mm webbing.

For expedition use I've sewn some 12mm bar-tacked webbing onto both halves of my pack waist-belt as shown. I've not put webbing along the entire length of the waist belt, instead around 2/3rds of it since there are a range of places where I tend to stick pouches and they are never carried at the very front or the belt. 12mm webbing is amazingly light and so it doesn't hurt to over-do it for the extra utility.

Ultralight-MOLLE Pouches / Fittings

There are two basic methods of securing pouches. The first method is for custom equipment and is a loop-within-a-loop. The second method is the easy retrofit of bar-tacking a piece of 12mm webbing onto an item and then fitting a press-stud as well. It makes sense to look at retrofitting first.

Ultralight-MOLLE Retrofitting

This picture shows the heart of everything. I'm using a 1" webbing belt and so all the belt loops are designed to be comfortable for such a belt. If you are using a 2" or 3" belt then obviously dimensions will change.

The press-studs used are 9mm Jersey Press Studs. These have teeth that bite into the nylon and don't require a hole to be punched through the nylon.

1. Cut a 6-7cm piece of 12mm webbing (or 20 or 25mm webbing for that matter)
2. Fold over one end once or twice to create a 1cm lump. Bar-tack into place.
3. Fit a press-stud to the 12mm webbing as shown.
4. Bar-tack the webbing to the pouch as shown
5. Fit the other half of the press-stud to your pouch or accessory as shown.

I've used 12mm webbing for these fixings just for convenience. If you want a really firm positional lock then using 25mm webbing will work well and almost completely eliminate wriggle-room.

Ultralight-MOLLE Original Fit (Inner Loop)

Here is an extreme close-up of the loop-within-a-loop.

1. Cut your belt-loops
2. Cut some 12mm webbing that is the same length as your belt loop
3. Prepare the 12mm with a press-stud as shown for retrofitting It will now be a little shorter than your belt loop.
4. Bar-tack the belt loop top in place with the 12mm also bar-tacked so that it will eventually be inside the loop with the press-stud facing as shown
5. Fit an inward-facing press-stud to the belt loop so that the 12mm webbing will click into it and lie flat. (see photo below for clarity)
   
6. Bar-tack lower part of belt loop into place making sure that the bar-tack is well clear of the 12mm inner webbing loop. (see photo above for clarity)

On small items I just use one securing loop. On larger pouches I will use two - one at each end or one under each belt-loop based on the design of the pouch.