Field Reporting
It's just plastic!! Well let me tell you it is some of the hardest plastic around. I have abused, kicked, beaten, thrown, bounced, and done everything I could to this thing and it did not break. The lid never popped off, and it barely got scratched. There is a seam that runs where the two halves are joined. I thought that would have been a good failure point, but so far it hasn't been. I have concentrated my efforts on the seam, and it shows no sign of busting. This thing is solid!
The lid also makes a decent seal. The manufacturer makes no claim that this lid is smell proof or waterproof. I put some dog food inside and let my beagle sniff at it. She acted like there was nothing in it. I tested it in the rain, by putting a piece of paper inside, then throwing it out in the yard overnight during a monsoon. The BearVault landed on its side with the lid in a puddle in the yard. I thought for sure it would get water inside, but it did not. The piece of paper was dry when I pulled it out after 24 hours. I was expecting it to at least have some moisture on it. None! I also left it out back for the racoons and other varmits to mess with at night. No luck, I found it kicked all over the yard by them, but they could not get in.
The BearVault is like having a small pantry with you out in the woods. I planned all my meals for 7 days, and then packed them inside the BearVault, with plenty of room to spare. My meals consisted of individual packages of ramen noodles, individual packages of quaker instant oatmeal, pasta, packages of red beans and rice and numerous little nick nacks of food. Power bars, apple drink mix, soups, and other odd and end things. Of course I only stay out for one or two nights right now. So my normal food intake is very minimal, so I had to find something else to haul with the food. I decided to put everything I did not want to get wet inside there. Electronic things, matches, extra clothes etc. Things that would not do good getting wet. I still had lots of room left over. This thing has a lot of space in it. Finally to fill this thing up, I took everything that was shoved in every little pocket of my pack, with all the food, and extra clothes, and things that can't get wet, and was just barely able to fill it up. It turned into a catch-all for all my little odds and ends I carry which is nice because now I don't have to go looking for them. On the down side though, it opened up about 3 pockets so I could add more stuff and have a heavier pack. Currently I am carrying a large lighter, a candlelantern, my cooking pot, alcohol stove, regular MSR Dragonfly stove and food for two nights out in the woods.
Most recently I took the BV200 car camping with the kids out in bear country, I mean the Los Padres National Forest. I also took an ice chest to store some cold food products in. My dilema now was how to store the cold products over night in the BV200? I got lucky and the bear container fit inside my cooler. I placed all the cold items in the bottom of the the canister, and then stuffed it down into the ice. This seemed to work as nothing spoiled.
The BV200 also works great for yellow jackets. I started cooking hamburgers that night and attracted every yellow jacket in Southern California. I did not know meat would attract them like it does. Usually they just followed about 30 seconds behind me whereever I moved the cooked burgers to, till I remembered I had the BV200. Once I put the meat in there, they never found it, and they flew around it and everything else out there.
This thing also works great as a footstool or a seat depending on where you are. I like to use it as a seat, especially when it is strapped to the outside of my pack because that is the easiest configuration to get to. When I stop I usually have to get in the canister for something, so I unstrap it, get what I need out, and then sit on it. There is a blurb on top of the lid about closing it fully before sitting on it.
One of the downfalls about this container is its size. It is almost too big to carry unless you are going out for an extended hike. Hence its 7 day capacity. A big pack is also required for this container. I have used it a few times in my medium ALICE pack and the BearVault will not fit in it with all my other stuff. Since then I have moved to a bigger older external framed hillary II, and the BV200 fits really nice. This model of the BearVault is designed for a 7 day outing. I would like to see one for a 2-3 day outing, maybe something about half the size.
I have used the BearVault BV200 with four different backpacks. The first pack I put it in was my trusty ALICE pack. This pack is about 2400 cubic inches. I have a medium ALICE and the BV200 fit well standing up inside the pack. I could pack some other gear in there with it, such as a change of clothes, and my small one man Eureka Gossamer tent inside but that was about it. This configuration left out my sleeping bag and pad though. I also tried turning the BV200 on its side and packing it in my ALICE pack. This worked but it made for a really tight fit of the BV200. This option added more room inside the pack, but I had a really hard time getting the BV200 out. I then tried strapping the BV200 to the outside of my ALICE but this did not work well. The ALICE has two cinch straps over the outside and they were not long enough to accommodate the BV200 and keep it in place.
Not a whole lot of room left over.
The second pack I used it on was my 
