Having carried my gear to shoots in a tarred haversack for a number of years, I'll give you some thoughts.
Oh Boy, they says!
![Grin ;D](https://www.cascity.com/forumhall/Smileys/cowboys/grin.gif)
By the time you get 150 or so rounds, basic three-screwdriver set, small bottle of moosemilk, tobacco pouch full of cleaning patches, a small jointed cleaning rod, a tin cup, a small bag of jerky, a bag to keep empty brass, a small oil bottle, your ear plug case, a pouch with your plastic shields for the bows of your glasses, a gun rag or two, the car keys, . . and maybe one or two additional items that
always seem to find their way into your kit, you're sorely testing the seams/strap on any canvas haversack. Therefor one of those
additional items I got in the habit of toting was a period 'housewife'.
Whenever you set it down it collapses into a shapeless mass that somehow fails to keep items that need to stay reasonably upright, . . upright. And it's one of those quirky laws of physics that whatever item you need next out of your poke gravitates down to the bottom and is so cleverly buried it takes repeated rummaging every time you put your hands into it. (Women have noted this phenomenon for years in their ongoing struggle with the purse.)
Advantage: It is period and keeps your hands free to carry firearms.Eventually I relegated the haversack to it's original purpose and carried light, fluffy things; a period mess kit and utensils (I still have not discovered documentation for the use of styrofoam in the 19th century.) and foodstuffs. Especially foodstuffs. And stuff to enhance the flavor of foodstuffs. You begin to sense my priorities here.
I use now either a carpetbag or saddlebags, depending on the class I am shooting or the range-to-parking-lot-distance ratio. When shooting Working Cowboy I only need one hand to carry my rifle, so the other is free to carry the carpetbag. If I need two hands, then the saddlebags are thrown over the shoulder, et voila'!
A comment here about the carpet bags. My first one was wonderful and it more than filled the bill, but the fabric was more like upholstery than carpet. (Refer to above remarks about collapsing . . shapeless mass . . rummaging.) It went in trade to a good Pard who uses it as, of all things, luggage!
I found a very nice, small oriental rug that I had Rock Creek Leather fashion into a lined carpetbag for me. One that was not as generous as many on the market. The heavier weight of the rug was enough to keep it from collapsing in on itself and remain upright when opened.
The saddlebags are the most satisfactory as I can assign each pouch. One side carries all cleaning/maintenance gear and the dirty brass as it accumulates, the other side carries boxes of ammunition(cardboard with period labels, of course), safety gear, housewife (it has stayed because found to be useful too many times), and car keys.
Also important, the carpetbag gets
'Scotch-Guarded' and the saddlebag's leather gets dressed each season with a good paste treatment. The tarred haversack gets renewed with the same stuff I use on my fishskin slicker,
'Armor-All'RCJ