Pack comparison! Exo K4, Stone glacier 7900 X Curve, Kifaru Duplex lite and Barney's freighter frame

[@Darianparsiani]

Great job guys, got a exo k4 7200 because of you guys. Excellent work. 👊

[@Frindleeguy]

I've been on the fence about the $ for the exo. Glad to hear you both agree it does what I need. Thanks guys!

[@huntfixd9039]

We're just about to release a new video showing a load up and pack out with half an elk in one pack and the exo is worth every penny if it fits your back the right way! Thanks for watching!

[@austinogrady8832]

Hoosier here from flatland. Looking to buy first elk tag this year. After your video exclusively, you sold me on the exo. I believe I watched 100 vids on bags. 2nd part: would anyone want to teach me some western hunting practices? I'm the only hunter in my family. At 14yrs old I said I'd shoot an elk, now at 30 it's a possible reality! Willing to hear all. Thank you for this video!

[@huntfixd9039]

Thank you so much for the kind words! We love to hear that the video was so helpful! I too am a first gen. hunter but didn't start till I was late 20s. I would start by getting on rockslide and searching topics. I love that sight and there is tons of great info. what is your weapon of choice for elk?

[@austinogrady8832]

@@huntfixd9039 I'm good with all weapons. Proficient with a bow to 60yds and firearms to 200yds. There's nowhere over here to practice further

[@huntfixd9039]

@@austinogrady8832 perfect! I'd get on the forums but just stick to hunting basics for elk. find the water away from people and/or get up high and glass them. feel free to reach out with any questions!

[@danmoreno425]

Thanks guys that’s what I was thinking of getting my only other thought would be K4 or K 5

[@gusgalbraith1418]

Thanks for the great presentation! I am looking to get my first good meat hauler pack and didn’t know which way to go so appreciate this. A guy at work has the Exo pack and tells me about hauling half an elk and he loves the pack. I think I will go that route too.

[@huntfixd9039]

Thank you for watching the video! If I were you I would put some weight in your co workers pack and go for a hike before you buy. Most companies have a great return policy so as long as you don't mess up a pack they'll give you 30 days to try it out first. Please reach out if you have any questions!

[@baileys6346]

Really good review -- only suggestion would be to get a cheap lapel mic for some added audio quality if you're looking to pursue gear reviews further. This has definitely helped me in deciding between the Exo and Stone Glacier packs.

[@huntfixd9039]

Thank you for watching and I glad you liked the information! we are ordering lapel mics today but just finished a gear dump video so hopefully the next weeks video will have better audio!

[@gcruishank9663]

I'm trying to decide between the Glacier and the Exo. What I really love about the Stone is the waterproof lining all the way along the meat shelf and along the whole bottom of the pack, which would really prevent anything in the pack from getting wet if you put the pack down on snow or wet ground. I'm trying to get an answer from Exo about the material on the bottom of their pack. Do you know if it's waterproof? Everything else in the Exo looks really great. The 5000 would probably do me most of the time, but I see there's only a 2 ounce difference up to the 7900 and it straps down pretty well, so thinking might as well go for the bigger size in case you go for a longer haul. Thoughts?

[@huntfixd9039]

thanks for reaching out! the exo is not water proof but I really like their water proof bag that attaches inside their pack. with snow and rain both packs will eventually get too saturated and I think the only perfect solution is a waterproof bag inside. I used the kifaru muskeg pack in alaska and even that got the inside of my pack wet. I always get the biggest bag possible because it's a small weight penalty and i'd rather have it just it case. all the packs these days can compress really small to where a 7900 can be just fine even for a day hunt. I do agree that the excess straps get annoying but the exo has the least amount of straps from any pack i've seen. I hope this helps you! Let me know if you have any other questions!

[@gcruishank9663]

Cool, thanks for getting back. Ya, that liner is probably the best idea, great that they have that. I guess the only difference besides size, is you don't get the horeshoe zipper on the 7200 like the 5000 so have to decide how important that is. Thanks again!@@huntfixd9039

[@bossdadadventureguide4277]

One big issue I've had with my packs is keeping the loads on my hips. Maybe I need to check out that Exo!

[@huntfixd9039]

Even better would be if you tried one of our and came for a hike with us! haha

[@khomatech0]

get aluminum stays and cut down the lumbar pad.

[@radikgistov1860]

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼 Отличный обзор. Всех благ и крепкого здоровья вам и вашим родными.

[@khomatech0]

You got aluminum stays in the Duplex?

[@huntfixd9039]

Yes I believe they are the aluminum ones. I don't know if I trust my tinkering abilities enough to make those adjustments! haha When I ordered the pack 6 years ago I gave them all my measurements so I would think they sent me the right size stays. Did you have a different experience?

[@khomatech0]

The size is probably fine but the whole point of having alu stays is that you can take them out of the frame and bend them to the curvature of your spine. A pack can't load your lumbar area efficiently if the stays don't match your spine. If you have a pronounced lumbar curve and you don't adjust your stays to match it, slippage is inevitable. Many pack manufacturers either don't know or don't care about this, and will add an extra thick lumbar pad to offset the lack of adjustable stays. This, in turn, places the load further away from your body, exacerbating the slippage issue. The only place where you might want a lot of padding is your waist belt. It's unnecessary on a good harness and downright detrimental on a lumbar pad. Now that Kifaru has switched to composite stays, it's a complete gamble whether or not they're going to fit your spine right out of the box. If they don't, which is likely, you're out of luck as they don't offer aluminum ones anymore. They just offer two profiles and figure that'll cover every man and woman out there. I own a Duplex Lite and have had to mod the hell out of it to get it to where it should have been right away. I cut down the lumbar pad, swapped the composite stays for aluminum ones, and installed the fantastic HPG harness instead of Kifaru's lackluster, stiff, overly padded straps. Pretty absurd that I had to do all this to make my $1000 pack work properly. Besides all that, dealing with Kifaru's CS was a complete nightmare, but that's a different story altogether. If I could do it all over, I would have just bought a Qui-Ya and spent the remaining 500 bucks on literally anything else. @@huntfixd9039

[@huntfixd9039]

I couldn't agree more about frames fitting a persons back and what leads to slippage. I had no idea that thats a reason for the aluminum stays but it's brilliant! I'll check mine out and see if I can make that adjustment. I like the different packs that kifaru makes and tried hard to get that frame to fit my back but I have a ghetto butt with huge low back sway so I never had a chance. haha Great insight and thank you!!@@khomatech0

[@khomatech0]

@@huntfixd9039 Having a big ass should only make things easier once the stays are adjusted. Flat asses are the real issue because there's no curve for the load transfer to get directed towards. Bend the stays over your knee and see how it goes. Follow the profile of your spine upwards until you hit your shoulder blades. At that point, you don't want to bend the stays too aggressively inward anymore, have them tilt away from your back slightly so the load lifters can cantilever that part back into your spine properly. HPG has a very helpful video on this on their channel in case you need a visual guide.

[@NorthernMontanaHomestead]

I'm sold on the Exo. I've been using a mystery ranch for a couple years and even with lighter loads it's really just not comfortable. You also need a physics degree to understand all the buckles and straps.

[@huntfixd9039]

haha I haven't tried a mystery ranch but I felt that way with my kifaru!