Best Ruck For the Buck
I do a TON of backpacking. That being said, my winter loadout never properly fit in my 45L Hyperlite pack, and the amount of crap I had bungied to the side of it earned it the name of "Medusa," both for the amount of nope-rope holding homemade hammocks on it and it's horrific visualization.
Despite my previous negative experiences with military packs, I went against my better judgement and decided "well, hell, I'll give this a try." Pretty damn glad I did.
For starters lets get the negatives out of the way. This thing is MASSIVE, and the average user will never need 100+L of storage, meaning you're carrying a tube-sock that looks like it's built for Ron Jeremy on your back. In addition, it does lack the modern(ish) suspension of a new-age pack; I have yet to figure out the hip strap, and the shoulder straps are "okay." Lastly, it depends entirely on one extremely large main pouch which will require that you have stuff sacks or other means of organizing your equipment, unless you're an uncouth heathen and just throw all your shit in there to figure it out later.
Okay, now comes the good part. The design is fairly modern, and incorporates numerous design features that are still seen in modern packs that are not typical of older milsurp; it loads vertically (in stern contrast is the ALICE, which loads horizontally, my god what where they thinking?), it has two main compartments accessible from the top or the bottom for your sleep system, the main compartment is modular, and…