Quote Originally Posted by Quoddy View Post
I literally have a pile of compression sacks, stored away and never used anymore. I finally discovered that if I packed everything fairly loosely, and let it fill in gaps while I pushed gear in, that I could completely fill out the pack as it should be... and actually use less space to do it. This doesn't even count the time saved. YMMV
+1. This is the same thing I found with bear cans. You can vac seal food and take out all the air, but those little bricks don't mold around each other very well and you can't pack as much in there as when you fill ziplocs and stuff them in.

I was packing the JRB quilts side by side in their own stuff sacks, then started to just stuff them in one bigger stuff sack, in the bottom of the pack liner, not even compressed. When I'm done packing there's significantly more space than if I pack the old way, compressing the cr@p out of the quilts prior to putting them in.