Seek outside Brooks vs Broadwing

[duchntr]

I'm in the market for my first pack and after much reading have been leaning towards SO. I am a beginner bow hunter out of Southern California who will be doing 2-3 day mule deer trips, Nor Cal bear & turkey hunts, and yearly 7-10 OTC archery elk hunts in Colorado. I am in this for the long haul and am hopeful to expand my hunting to to sheep and beyond.

I was always under the impression that having a frame made it easier to pack out heavy loads, but this thread certainly has me re-evaluating. For what I'm looking to, could I get away with the 6300 unaweep or fortress with a talon and pack lid, or does it make sense to go with a Broadwing or Brooks? The Goshawk looked interesting to me too, but realize it's only offered in a 4800... After watching all the videos, it sure seems like the Brooks might be ideal for what I'm looking to do

Needless to say, hearing your expertise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

-Alex

I have and use the unaweep 6300 as my hunting/hiking/training pack. It should work out great for you, its simply the best load carrying pack Ive ever used.

 

[Vangysway]

I have and use the unaweep 6300 as my hunting/hiking/training pack. It should work out great for you, its simply the best load carrying pack Ive ever used.

Thanks for the info, very much appreciated. Any specific reason you went with the Unaweep instead of the Fortress?

 

[Rokwiia]

That's the same issue I struggled with. I am not a hunter and will only use the SO for backpacking. That alone should have steered me directly to a Unaweep. Instead, for a insignificant 2.5 oz penalty, I chose the Fortress 6300 to allow for the breakaway capability.

As a backpacker, I may not use it frequently but want the ability to do so. Moreover, if I want to carry objects, I would prefer to have them located between the frame and the Fortress bag. With the Unaweep, you'd located them between the Unaweep bag and the Talon.

For those who DO count grams, I also envisioned days when I would backpack in and could totally remove the Fortress bag and use just the top lid and Talon for day hiking items. The Fortress bag weighs ~25oz so removing it and day hiking would be far lighter than the 2.5oz saved with the Unaweep platform (integrated). I could even add my 8.6 oz ZPacks Blast backpack (38 liters) to the Revolution and still be 16oz lighter than the Unaweep. Nowadays, you can find plenty of aftermarket cuben-fiber bags (Dyneema) of sufficient size (and nearly weightless) to replace the Fortress 6300 bag on days hikes. Another option would be a Sea to Summit 35L dry bag which weighs only 8.5oz.

In my opinion, you preserve all of your options with the Revolution platform and can even reconfigure it to weigh less than the Unaweep.