I am the designer of the Adak Bino System. You can see a short video showcasing the functionality of the harness on my instagram account @yates_in_the_backcountry . Or the video on the Black Ovis Website:
https://www.blackovis.com/adak-coyote-bino-system
The gist of the story is that like many of you on this thread, I didn’t love any of the harnesses on the market so I decided to make my own that fits my needs.
Back in early 2015 I created the design with my wife on our kitchen table. In 2014 I had two experiences that lead me to designing a system that would put my rangefinder on my chest. 1) I was pursuing a 180 class mule deer on our extended archery hunt in late November and got within range but couldnt get a range because I had been carrying my rangefinder in a crooked horn range finder pouch that left the optic open to accumulated snow. Trying to get the snow out of the optic, the deer caught my movement and busted. 2) The final days of our extended archery elk hunt I was in range of a 5x6 bull that was meandering through oak brush. I ranged the spot I thought he'd come through and set my rangefinder down on the snow. it then slide down the hillside on the snow crust... the bull ended up coming further back than I thought and I guessed the range and shot low. So after these two experiences I committed to inventing something new for me, myself, to use to solve this problem.
Fast forward to 2015 I had a working system put together that I used for the 2015 hunting season. I was presented two opportunities where having my range finder on my chest made all the difference. I killed a brute of a 35" wide 3x4 buck on a general archery unit in an extremely quick ambush setting where I barely had enough time to range and execute a shot and I killed a 330 class otc archery bull in an ambush situation that was much the same. Both times if my rangefinder wasnt immediately accessible with one hand (and quiet) I wouldnt have killed.
That winter I took the design and concept to my friend Kendall Card (co-owner of black ovis/camofire) and he was super excited to partner up and help me refine my design and get it manufactured. We started working with a professional seamstress/prototype to fine tune my design and implement a more robust sewing method than I had previously used. The prototyper took my design and refined it. Kendall in the meantime worked with his fabric connections to fine tune the perfect fabric. Key was dead silence. He visited several ridiculously big warehouses of fabric and he couldn’t find the right one, so we built a new fabric from the ground up. It’s a dwr treated woven polyester nylon blend with a bonded fleece backer. The very first thing you will notice is how incredibly soft and quiet the fabric is to the touch. It literally doesn’t make noise as you scratch at it with your finger nail. Kendall hit the fabric out of the park. Its perfect for this application.
The perfect design and sewing method we iterated on for almost 3 years. My closest friends and I have been running various prototypes of the system since 2015. It took 3 years because Kendall and I agreed that we wanted to release in our minds the perfect optics harness solution. We iterated to fine to the smallest of details and fully evaluate the durability of the system.
The bare system is a minimalist design with a very robust wing system that allows for modularity to add accessory pockets for the guys who want to carry more on their chest rig.
The first pouch we implemented was the range finder pouch as noted above. Right now the system is sold with both the rangerfinder pouch and bino pouch together. Future pockets to be release are a general zipper pocket to hold phone, and various accessories, radio specific attachment, bear spray, and potentially a side arm attachment.
https://www.blackovis.com/adak-coyote-bino-system
The gist of the story is that like many of you on this thread, I didn’t love any of the harnesses on the market so I decided to make my own that fits my needs.
Back in early 2015 I created the design with my wife on our kitchen table. In 2014 I had two experiences that lead me to designing a system that would put my rangefinder on my chest. 1) I was pursuing a 180 class mule deer on our extended archery hunt in late November and got within range but couldnt get a range because I had been carrying my rangefinder in a crooked horn range finder pouch that left the optic open to accumulated snow. Trying to get the snow out of the optic, the deer caught my movement and busted. 2) The final days of our extended archery elk hunt I was in range of a 5x6 bull that was meandering through oak brush. I ranged the spot I thought he'd come through and set my rangefinder down on the snow. it then slide down the hillside on the snow crust... the bull ended up coming further back than I thought and I guessed the range and shot low. So after these two experiences I committed to inventing something new for me, myself, to use to solve this problem.
Fast forward to 2015 I had a working system put together that I used for the 2015 hunting season. I was presented two opportunities where having my range finder on my chest made all the difference. I killed a brute of a 35" wide 3x4 buck on a general archery unit in an extremely quick ambush setting where I barely had enough time to range and execute a shot and I killed a 330 class otc archery bull in an ambush situation that was much the same. Both times if my rangefinder wasnt immediately accessible with one hand (and quiet) I wouldnt have killed.
That winter I took the design and concept to my friend Kendall Card (co-owner of black ovis/camofire) and he was super excited to partner up and help me refine my design and get it manufactured. We started working with a professional seamstress/prototype to fine tune my design and implement a more robust sewing method than I had previously used. The prototyper took my design and refined it. Kendall in the meantime worked with his fabric connections to fine tune the perfect fabric. Key was dead silence. He visited several ridiculously big warehouses of fabric and he couldn’t find the right one, so we built a new fabric from the ground up. It’s a dwr treated woven polyester nylon blend with a bonded fleece backer. The very first thing you will notice is how incredibly soft and quiet the fabric is to the touch. It literally doesn’t make noise as you scratch at it with your finger nail. Kendall hit the fabric out of the park. Its perfect for this application.
The perfect design and sewing method we iterated on for almost 3 years. My closest friends and I have been running various prototypes of the system since 2015. It took 3 years because Kendall and I agreed that we wanted to release in our minds the perfect optics harness solution. We iterated to fine to the smallest of details and fully evaluate the durability of the system.
The bare system is a minimalist design with a very robust wing system that allows for modularity to add accessory pockets for the guys who want to carry more on their chest rig.
The first pouch we implemented was the range finder pouch as noted above. Right now the system is sold with both the rangerfinder pouch and bino pouch together. Future pockets to be release are a general zipper pocket to hold phone, and various accessories, radio specific attachment, bear spray, and potentially a side arm attachment.
