Kit weights don't seem to match contents. Am I missing something?

Question

I was looking though a kit I wanted for a character and I calculated out the weight of the items and it came out as heavier that the kit itself.

The kit is the Fighter's Kit containing:

backpack, a bedroll, a belt pouch, a flint and steel, an iron pot, a mess kit, rope, soap, torches (10), trail rations (5 days), and a waterskin.

Assuming the rope is hemp, the total weight is 42 lbs. whereas the kit is 29 lbs. The items are as follows:

                    Weight Cost
Backpack             2     2
Bedroll              5     0.1
Belt Pouch           0.5   1
Flint and Steel      0     1
Iron Pot             4     0.8
Mess Kit             1     0.2
Rope, hemp (50ft)   10     1
Soap                 0.5   0.01
Torches (10)        10     0.1
Trail Rations (5)    5     2.5
Waterskin            4     1
                    42     9.71

Am I missing something? Without multiplying out the quantities, it works out to 29 lbs.

Answer 1

Kits don't sum correctly

The designers are aware of this and appear happy to leave this uncorrected.

Probably the best dissection of Ultimate Equipment's class-style kits takes place in this 2013 Paizo messageboard thread, wherein user imthedci lists the original and piecemeal prices and weights of each kit. The same user also pulls apart the kits for Small characters in the same thread. Finally, in that thread, designer Sean K. Reynolds offers this defense of the kits' weights:

I assume [imthedci's] comparison is only for Medium characters. Small characters have different weights for some items. Rather than presenting Small and Medium versions of each kit, we made one kit and picked a weight in the middle.

More words are exchanged, and Reynolds abandons the thread. A similar (albeit slightly less heated) conversation (that drags developer James Jacobs into the fray) occurs in the Ultimate Equipment product page's discussion.

Although a frequent messageboard topic (for example, April 2013, Sept. 2013, Oct. 2013, Jan. 2015), the developers seem content to leave untouched this bit of strangeness.

Answer 2

No, your math is good. I'd wager it's an attempt to incentivize players to just buy the kits instead of pouring over their adventuring gear options, thereby speeding up character creation. You could rule it either way, but I'd just leave it-- there's no real reason to increase the weight.

Honestly, I never worry about weight capacity except for low Str characters, but that might just be me.