Stone Glacier SkyLine Bino Harness Review

[Squirrels]

After tinkering with mine a little I found it operated (open and close operation with one hand) best if setting it for 1" taller binos then what I actually have with card instructions.

 

[kipper09]

After tinkering with mine a little I found it operated (open and close operation with one hand) best if setting it for 1" taller binos then what I actually have with card instructions.

I’ve been messing with the harness too and I’ve had issues getting it to go back up and over the eye cups with one hand myself. It kind of wants to stick on top of the eye cups. It’s Like I’m having trouble getting it back far enough to get over the what would be the bottom of the eye pieces.


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[HuntWyld]

Received the harness today. I like the concept behind the design of the lid and custom fitting, I also appreciate the fact that it’s waterproof. However it is no quieter removing binos than the FHF and opening the lid may actually be a touch louder even. Unfortunately what is probably going to end up being a deal breaker for me is that due to the sides of the harness having no rigidity if you keep anything in the elastic side pouches, as soon as you remove your binos the sidewalls immediately flex inward due to the object in the side pocket forcing the soft material in towards the bino compartment. Thus making it extremely difficult to place your binos back into the compartment once removed let alone one handed is near impossible without some serious finagling. Just my observations, but if you don’t mind a little bit of noise opening the lid and you don’t plan on running anything in the side pouches I’m sure this would be an ideal harness.

 

[HuntWyld]

Kurt from SG can chime in if he is aware of the side pocket issues and may have a reasonable solution.

 

[Squirrels]

I’ve been messing with the harness too and I’ve had issues getting it to go back up and over the eye cups with one hand myself. It kind of wants to stick on top of the eye cups. It’s Like I’m having trouble getting it back far enough to get over the what would be the bottom of the eye pieces.


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My suggestion is to do what I did and actually set it up for binos an inch taller that what your binos are. I did that with mine and it works tremendously better.

 

[dwent]

Add me to the list of happy SG harness owners. I’m impressed with how light and slim the SG is. I love my AGC harness but it is heavy and bulky by comparison, especially when wet. The pictures don’t really do the difference in size justice.

 

[brsnow]

Received the harness today. I like the concept behind the design of the lid and custom fitting, I also appreciate the fact that it’s waterproof. However it is no quieter removing binos than the FHF and opening the lid may actually be a touch louder even. Unfortunately what is probably going to end up being a deal breaker for me is that due to the sides of the harness having no rigidity if you keep anything in the elastic side pouches, as soon as you remove your binos the sidewalls immediately flex inward due to the object in the side pocket forcing the soft material in towards the bino compartment. Thus making it extremely difficult to place your binos back into the compartment once removed let alone one handed is near impossible without some serious finagling. Just my observations, but if you don’t mind a little bit of noise opening the lid and you don’t plan on running anything in the side pouches I’m sure this would be an ideal harness.

The noise issue on the FHF is why I made the switch. The course nature of the FHF is very loud if you brush your rifle stock against it. I am running smaller binos in the SG harness so I didn’t run into your issues, but it is silent if I brush my stock against it.

 

[HuntWyld]

Yes the material of the FHF is definitely louder if brushed up against something, however the act of opening the lid is louder on the SG. I have SLC 10x42 so pretty standard size binos that fit in an FHF size small and if I put even a small wind checker in the side pocket it makes it near impossible to put the binos back into their compartment one handed. Hoping @Kurt will have some feedback on this.

 

[Kurt]

Squirrels - Happy to hear you have the operation dialed in the way your prefer. There are so many variables that change fit height including eye cup size of each style of bino and the angle at which you set objective width, this will effect adjustment of the angle of the bino (objective width) and effectively the depth. Both of those adjustments will also effect the lid set height but very hard to quantify as a measurement for each adjustment. The fact that there are so many variables that effect the sizing of binos is one of the driving factors on the design. Being able to change the hood height as you have to dial in a tight fit and smooth operation for your specific Bino depth as adjusted to your preference was one of the primary goals, keeping the overall footprint of the harness on your chest as small and low profile as possible.



Kipper09 – Squirrels is right on the money in his suggestion of moving the lid position up to help with clearing the eye cups. I would suggest moving in ¼” increments up until it clears the eye cups with closes/opens with ease. As mentioned above, there are so many variables with the many different bino sizes and depths, the chart really ends up a starting point to get you close. The concept being from there the user can adjust to fit their specific need.



HuntWyld – Most set ups we have seen are storing a wind indicator bottle in one side, calls or other small items in the other. We have not had issues with any of the 10x binos and this set up, however things get tighter with the Swaro 12x50 as I am using. We have found that the round wind indicator bottles take up more room and can be harder to get in and out of side pockets than the bottles that are oval.

Would it be possible for you to email me a couple photos of your set up? Perhaps one with the binos in the case, and one with them removed? Also, would you be able to let me know what you are storing in the side pocket? I would also be happy to jump on a phone call or video call with you to help. I am confident we can find the solution for your set up as this is a typical set up. Several of our guys here at the shop run the same binos and set up, we can also tap them for info if needed. [email protected]

One quick thing I can suggest checking is the tension of the shock cord over the top. If the shock cord is too tight it will compress the harness flat when the lid is folded forward which will cause the side pockets to be pushed inward when the lid is open. When the shock cord is too tight it makes replacing the binos difficult. The harness opening should stay open when the lid is folded forward.



Best

Kurt

 

[HuntWyld]

@Kurt, I appreciate your response, unfortunately I did not take any pictures of the issues I was having and I just packaged it up for return to gohunt.com. However I’ve spent the last 3 days wearing the harness around the house adjusting it in a multitude of configurations as I really love some of the features and wanted to make it work, so I will explain my findings in greater detail. As for the side pocket issue I was using the small FHF wind checker bottle which has a very small footprint. Even with nothing in the other pocket it would push inward into the pouch once the SLC 10x42s were removed (those are some extremely sticky rubberized binos so take that for what it’s worth) making it near impossible to put the binos back in one handed with any kind of silence. The other issue is the shock/bungee cord would catch on the lid of the wind checker either when opening or closing and create a snap sound. With that said if I put I diaphragm call in one side pocket and a microfiber lens cloth in the other, both items had small enough foot print that neither of these issues would arise. So I opted to hang my wind checker on the outside of the harness to continue giving the skyline a fair shake down. This worked pretty well and if your alright with only running small items that won’t hang up the shock cord or push material into the bino compartment in those side pockets then this was a good setup. However my other issue was noise. Primarily being a bow hunter, on a stock I am not always aware of how close I am to an animal until sometimes I’m right on top of them and may need to access my binos/rangefinder. If you preset your lid to the open position on both the bino and rangefinder pouch you can get your optics in and out pretty silently, however if not in the open position the act of opening the lid on either pouch is just a bit noisy for close quarters. I opened and closed the lids over a 100 times the past few days with different tensions on the shock cord and different heights on the hood adjustment trying to obtain a quite enough configuration. It was just a little too noisy for me. If I were primarily a rifle hunter this is not enough noise to matter, or in a tree stand simply stage the lid in the open position and your golden. However on stocks sometimes I’m on my belly or crawling through brush and I can’t have the lid wide open the entire time and opening the lid of either pouch was just not silent enough for me. Again I love some of the features especially the fact that it’s waterproof and the ability to tailor fit it to specific optics. Gear is just so incredibly personal and for my specific needs it just wasn’t quite there.

 

[Kurt]

HuntWyld,
Completely understand, we are lucky to have so many great gear companies and options in this industry to fit our specific needs. Best of luck in the future and let us know if there is anything we can help with along the way.
Kurt

 

[kipper09]

Squirrels - Happy to hear you have the operation dialed in the way your prefer. There are so many variables that change fit height including eye cup size of each style of bino and the angle at which you set objective width, this will effect adjustment of the angle of the bino (objective width) and effectively the depth. Both of those adjustments will also effect the lid set height but very hard to quantify as a measurement for each adjustment. The fact that there are so many variables that effect the sizing of binos is one of the driving factors on the design. Being able to change the hood height as you have to dial in a tight fit and smooth operation for your specific Bino depth as adjusted to your preference was one of the primary goals, keeping the overall footprint of the harness on your chest as small and low profile as possible.



Kipper09 – Squirrels is right on the money in his suggestion of moving the lid position up to help with clearing the eye cups. I would suggest moving in ¼” increments up until it clears the eye cups with closes/opens with ease. As mentioned above, there are so many variables with the many different bino sizes and depths, the chart really ends up a starting point to get you close. The concept being from there the user can adjust to fit their specific need.



HuntWyld – Most set ups we have seen are storing a wind indicator bottle in one side, calls or other small items in the other. We have not had issues with any of the 10x binos and this set up, however things get tighter with the Swaro 12x50 as I am using. We have found that the round wind indicator bottles take up more room and can be harder to get in and out of side pockets than the bottles that are oval.

Would it be possible for you to email me a couple photos of your set up? Perhaps one with the binos in the case, and one with them removed? Also, would you be able to let me know what you are storing in the side pocket? I would also be happy to jump on a phone call or video call with you to help. I am confident we can find the solution for your set up as this is a typical set up. Several of our guys here at the shop run the same binos and set up, we can also tap them for info if needed. [email protected]

One quick thing I can suggest checking is the tension of the shock cord over the top. If the shock cord is too tight it will compress the harness flat when the lid is folded forward which will cause the side pockets to be pushed inward when the lid is open. When the shock cord is too tight it makes replacing the binos difficult. The harness opening should stay open when the lid is folded forward.



Best

Kurt

I moved the lid up. It works perfect now. Sleek and no nonsense and works exactly as it’s supposed to. Appreciate you chiming in Kurt.


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[Ten Bears]

Can we get a little info on that grid fleece ? Any wind blocking element to it ?

 

[Rick M.]

Can we get a little info on that grid fleece ? Any wind blocking element to it ?

This! I want to know the reasoning for it. Will it replace the current Helio or will it be in addition to it? Thanks, @Kurt!

 

[pjohnson8168]

Yep, put me in the interested group for that grid fleece

 

[Kurt]

Ten Bears,

The Helio Hoodie and Helio pant will be using a grid fleece style fabric for 2021. We have had substantial customer feedback requesting this option. After field testing we have found this fabric moves more moisture and insulates as well if not better than the previous fabric. The fabric does not have a wind laminate in it to maintain this breathability, however has shown the same wind resistant properties of the previous Helio fabric. The reason for the change is overall improved performance. I used it all fall including late into November and was very pleased with the performance as a mid layer, many times being used as an outer layer in colder temps on high excursion climbs. I didn’t use a stocking cap all fall, just using the hood of the Helio as you gain the neck/face coverage when zipped up. Like the previous Helio, the 2021 version will also have Polygiene odor treatment, no changes in fit, patterning, or features. It will be available early January.

Best,

Kurt

 

[MtnMuley]

Guys are saying how quiet this harness is. Maybe I missed it, but does the lid hook and loop attach after it's closed? Would seem loud to me. When bending over, what keeps the binos from falling out? Thanks.

 

[Jpott3]

Guys are saying how quiet this harness is. Maybe I missed it, but does the lid hook and loop attach after it's closed? Would seem loud to me. When bending over, what keeps the binos from falling out? Thanks.

The hook and loop is the hinge point so to speak so it never comes apart.


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[Kurt]

Guys are saying how quiet this harness is. Maybe I missed it, but does the lid hook and loop attach after it's closed? Would seem loud to me. When bending over, what keeps the binos from falling out? Thanks.

MtnMuley,
If you would like to see more on the specifics of how the design works, this is our fit/adjustment video that may answer some questions for you. Thanks, Kurt

 

[Kotaman]

Stupid question: I absolutely cannot unsnap the “quick release” buckle on the Tether strap. What am I missing? I’ve been wrestling with this snap since I got home from work. What am I missing here?..