Review – Vanquest Gear FTIM 6×9 Maximizer

Introduction

Organizer pouches literally come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes. Organizing your Every Day Carry (EDC) items, your tools, your medical kit or your electronics becomes important if you are quickly changing between packs and bags, or simply just because you want to have everything at the ready with one single grab.

With the FITM (Fast Totally Integrated Maximizer) 6×9, Vanquest Gear offers a very thought through option to do just that. Being the larger one of two FTIM models, the name is a give away for its size.

With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at an overview and the specs, before going into a more detailed review.

The FTIM 6×9 Maximizer


Overview

The FTIM pouches bring together the features of the EDCM and FATPack medical pouches into a hybrid design. As a result, the interior offers several elastic loops to fix your gear, while a zippered clamshell design gives you easy and fast access to the content itself. The pouch is MOLLE compatible and features a dedicated grab handle to quickly get hold of the pouch. Overall 29 vertical and horizontal loops give ample possibilities to organize your items as you wish.

The areas of use range from simply dropping it into your bag/pack, attaching it to MOLLE on the outside of your gear, or even using Vanquest’s universal strap to carry it as a bag.


Specs

  • Weight: 6.5 oz or 184 gram
  • Internal Dimension:
    • 9” (H) x 6.5” (W) x 2” (D) or
    • 22,86cm (H) x 16,51 cm (W) x 5,08 cm (D)
  • Materials: 500-D Cordura,high visibility, 210-D Ripstop nylon,YKK Zippers

The FTIM 6×9 Maximizer pouch

The 6×9 is a full clamshell design, meaning that it is possible to open the pouch completely to gain full access to the interior. A strong ykk zipper runs around the pouch, featuring two strong Spartan zipper pulls which give the user a very tactile grip to open.

The fully opened FTIM 6×9

On the bottom of each side of the zipper you will find hypalon pull tabs to have a counterforce when pulling the zipper.

Hypalon tabs

Speaking of opening the pouch: There are three points to note:

  • First of all you can open the pouch in a standard/normal manner, by simply opening up the two way zipper.
  • Secondly it is possibly to actually secure the pouch with a lock, using the two holes in the zipper glides.
  • Thirdly, if needed, you can use a neat little detail to quickly rip the pouch open. To achieve this, there is a webbing pull tab inside of the lid, which is secured by velcro. If the user chooses to implement this feature, one only needs to attach this webbing tab to the outside on a dedicated loop velcro area in the top backside. The zipper will then close not completely, and the tab will be on the outside, ready to be grabbed. This needs to be done with a decent impulse, otherwise it won’t open. So your content is also safe from accidental opening.

The webbing pull tab put in place

With that being said, let’s take a closer look at the pouch itself.


To the front of the pouch you will find a loop velcro area to attach identification patches, insignia and the like. Right underneath there is a slip pocket which is secured by velcro. This is quite handy to store flat items, like notes or rubber gloves, if you are using the pouch as a med kit.

Front slip pocket with velcro closure

On top you will find a generously sized grab handle. Right underneath is the already mentioned loop velcro area to attach the webbing pull tab to open the pouch.

Backside of the pouch, showing the PALS webbing

The pouch is equipped with PALS webbing to the sides and back. Three rows of webbing provide one channel for MOLLE compatible accessories on the left and right side. The two channels on the back are sized bigger. 3 inches, to be precise, or 7,5cm. This gives the user ample opportunities to attach the FTIM 6×9 Maximizer on different kinds of gear.

The side, showing the webbing


Inside features

The frontside of the interior features a two inch (5cm) vertical elastic webbing, with a one inch elastic webbing sewn on top.

Front of the interior

The channels of the bigger webbing are sized differently. To the top (at the high vis orange area) you will find two 1,5 inch (3,5cm) openings and one 2 inch (5cm) wide opening. On the black area, the openings are 2 inches (5cm). This gives you 6 openings in total for the wide webbing. Plus additional 6 openings on top with the smaller webbing, all sized 1,5 inch (3,5cm).

Backside of the interior

The backside of the interior features two slip pockets made of high visibility orange ripstop nylon. On top of these, you will find two inch (5cm) elastic webbing with one inch webbing on top of it.

Below you will find yet another row of one inch elastic webbing as well. This is placed there to secure longer items from falling out. Both cover not only the backside of the pouch, but also the inner sides. As a result you can mount some of your longer items to the sides and not block access to the slip pockets.

In any case, the larger (two inch) webbing features three 2 inch (5cm) openings, plus one additional on each side (same size). The smaller webbing on top comes to four 1,5 inch openings, plus the additional one on each side.

The already mentioned lower webbing features 6 openings (including the one on the sides). These are also 1,5 inch wide.

 


Additional features and details

On the upper back side of the interior you will find two paracord loops. Attached to these is a key chain fob with two hooks, so you can use it on the side you prefer.

With the FTIM 6×9 Maximizer come two velcro wraps called anchor wraps. These are exceptionally strong and hold very tightly. When combined wisely, these offer even more organizing options within the pouch.

The already mentioned option to look the pouch is a very little but nice feature to have.

Spartan Zipper pulls, plus the special YKK glides with a hole to look them up


In Use

For this review I packed the pouch with everything small I could find, to give you an idea of the many options to mount different items. Obviously with this amount of items, the pouch gets quite heavy and bulky, but manageable at the same time. Also have in mind, you do not have to make use of every loop at the same time.

The fully opened fTIM 6×9

With all these items in place you also get a decent grasp of the size of the pouch. The Israeli Bandage vanishes in the back slip pocket, and my SwissTool looks small in this pouch.

Closer look at the slip pockets, fully loaded

The size of the FTIM 6×9 is also the reason you can only use this in a bag/pack, or mounted on these. It is way too big to put in Cargo pants for example.

The option to rip it open quickly is a nice feature to have, when using it as a med kit. And the vertical placement of the elastic webbing proved to be a very tidy option to lay out important items which need to be easily grabbed.

Quick access to items without having to open the pouch completely

 


Manufacture

I was already able to write about the outstanding quality of manufacture of the Vanquest products. Just like the Trident-20, the 6×9 Maximizer is built using high quality materials and exhibits excellent workmanship. Straight and tight seams, not a single loose thread and an overall clean look give the pouch a quality feel.

closere look at the quality

Stress points are reinforced by bartack stitching and seam tape is covering all the seams where several pieces of fabric are joined.

 


Conclusion

The FTIM 6×9 Maximizer is quite the large organizer pouch. Personally I literally had not enough EDC items to get it completely full. I had to find tools and gear, to put in. So this is ideal for people who need to organize plenty of small items and who ran out of space in other organizer pouches.

So many options…

Quality of manufacture is excellent, there is no room to complain. Having in mind the clean design and quality of the used materials, it becomes apparent what sets Vanquest apart from other companies offering these pouches. Especially the eye for small details make this pouch worthy of checking out.

With that being said, I want to thank you for reading. Hope you enjoyed the review and it was of use to you!

Many thanks to the team of Vanquest, giving me the opportunity to write this review for you!

Take care!

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