Wall Tent 2011

[Woodswalker2]

I am definitely getting a wall tent next year!! That has been on my list for a while!

[LB_hntr]

Originally posted by Bryan Bondurant:
 

What tent do you have and what do you like about it?
[/b]

I also have a 12x14 from davis. It has a screen door on the front and a window with a screen on the back wall. Its the internal frame with 4 sections for sturdiness. I love it! I used it on a solo trip to Ohio mid November and it was record breaking temps in the single digits. I have the smaller cylinder stove they offer called the summit (smallest of their 3 sizes). The stove work great but i had to fill it a couple times thru the night. Wish i would of got the bigger stove but liked the lighter weight of the smaller one as i hunt alot alone due to a free schedule during the week when most of my buddies are working.
  I went without a floor but use a 8x10 cheap tapr for under my sleeping area so the front half of the tent is floorless and the back half has a floor.
 I made a couple laundry lines out of paracord and carabiners that span the ridge line and also got a dozen hangers that go on the frame poles from montana canvas that work awesome.
 I love the shower set up i came up with. I always have a jet sled with me for hauling deer and firewood. I heated water in the water jacket on the stove, filled my solar shower with the hot water and hunt it from my ridge poll next to the fire, pulled the jet sled inside the tent and stood in it with my dirty clothes in teh bottom of the sled. took a show right there in the tent next to the fire and all the water went into the jet sled along with my clothes and soap. after my hot shower I hand washed the clothes in the water in the jet sled then dumped the water outside. hot shower and clean clothes all in one shot and inside a 70 degree tent on a 9 degree night! doesnt get better than that. had 3 days with 30 plus mph winds and tent was solid as a rock (i on the other hand spend those days holding on to my tree while in stand freezing my rear end off).
 my only issue i want to work on is learning how to get the most efficiency out of the stove with the damper on the pipe and on the front.

Here are a couple pics from that trip. On the inside shot note that i had everything moved close to the stove and just used the back of the tent as storage for extra wood, water, clothing, gear, etc. since i was alone and didnt need to use that space.
 Side note the cot i used comes in a bunkbed with 2 cots so you can stack one on top of the other. Best cot system i have ever used and also the most comfortable cots i have ever been on. Can sleep 4 guys in the space needed for 2. they are called disc-o-bed. Best cots ever!
 the 12x14 was easy to put up and take down alone. it took me about 2 hours to totally set up camp and about 2.5 to break down and pack everything perfectly and in the truck ready to leave including washing tent stakes off, wrapping lines, etc.
 
 

[Bryan Bondurant]

The End! At least its the end of this wall tent story. I got it out of its canvas bag to clean and air it out, hung it up, and it basically ripped in half. So, the issue was hard core use, at least 500 nights plus of use, a lot of that use normal, but plenty of extreme use too. 2 tornados, multiple nights of 40 plus winds, one widowmaker, lightning storms, evacs to the truck, sun rot from use on beach in the Florida Keys.

The biggest deal was the compromise to use without a rain fly which caused the roof to sun rot which caused the canvas to fail and rip beyond reasonable repair.  The reasons to not use a rainfly was the high and constant winds, rainflies tend to whip and flog, tent alone is more manageable. If one is packing gear on horse or mule, the no fly option is a good choice for weight and pack ability. At one point the tent was set in the same location for six months set on pallets with a plywood floor.

The absolute very best floor one can have is smooth creek gravel. If anyone wants to use the pallet floor, I recommend  laying out the pallets, screwing plywood into that, then setting up the tent directly including screwing some 1x4 onto the ground flaps to keep wind from blowing under the tent sides. If the tent is in the same place more than a week, setting up on top and allowing air to flow under the pallets, will keep it dryer and relieve some mold issues that can happen when you set pallets on green grass, no worries for a weekend, but if you set up for weeks during hunting season, something to avoid.

Conclusion, the tent was a heck of a deal, it got used hard, even put away wet, and kept going and going, was retired, pulled back out and used, retired, pulled out to repair and ultimately catastrophic failure in the back yard, no campers hurt or even wet.

12x14 Davis Wall Tent (2011-2017)