TLDR: Best value/use is for those who need to carry a tablet for extended periods and would like a handy place to keep it tucked away while moving between uses. It seems really tough. The material can get really smelly if you sweat in it and get dirty working, and some materials stick to the mesh. This is a very good and useful piece of gear for forestry work, but can’t carry quite as much as a traditional forestry vest. It is very expensive, but mostly seems worth it if used a lot. I bought a Ruxton chest pack about 8 months or so back, and it has been great so far. I work in forest management but within the conservation side of things, so not focused on timber production, although we do harvests as part of our forest restoration work.I am not a big fan of the forestry vests or carrying my tablet on a strap around my neck. I was looking into modifying some old military surplus chest rig or something similar for carrying all the gear I use, as well as my first aid/trauma kit. That’s when I stumbled onto this company. This chest pack is not perfect, but it's been wonderful for my uses, and having a purpose-built piece of gear like this can be really handy. PROS: If you use a tablet of any kind and work outside for extended periods of time, that is where this thing shines! I use a tablet often in remote wooded areas, and having it tucked out of the way but readily available right in front of me is amazing. Plus, it doesn't get as banged up or wet as it would otherwise. Having my things tied down or attached to me is necessary for what I do. If what I have isn’t tied down physically to me, it will get lost at some point. This pack gives a lot of good options for this. The molle panels on the side are useful and allow a decent amount of options for customization. I have a pouch for my first aid stuff on one side, and on the otherside I use the water bottle pouch they sell mostly for paint cans, and I also have a small pouch to keep my bear spray handy. I have a SOS spot device and a GIS transmitter clipped on the straps. The pockets on the front keep flagging, small notebook and pencil, relascope or prism, maybe my laser rangefinder if I’m not carrying flagging.You can get this with the Hi-Vis orange outter fabric with reflectors, which is good for hunting season. The rig seems very tough, I work in a temperate rain forest setting and the combination of being wet, muddy, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, with all the scrathcy woody materials (branches, thorns, brush so thick you basically swim through it) that I have move through, in, around, over and under…it absolutely tears clothing and gear apart. This chest pack has held up really well. Had a zipper pull came off, and some of the velcro reflector strips have gotten pretty scrapped up and crunchy, but otherwise its still working great. CONS: My main complaint - washing. You have to hand wash it. After getting dirty the orange really dulls making it less visible, which doesn’t seem to happen as much to forestry vests, not sure why. Also, because of the synthetic material used, this thing gets really funky, especially in the summertime, so bad, it makes my shirts stink where it makes contact. If it was easier to clean, that’d not be such a problem, but its like washing a framed backpack with extra components inside, just hard to get all the nooks and crannies clean, it’s a cumbersome process and makes your bathtub disgusting. The mesh material gets loaded with little western hemlock needles that are impossible to get out apart from using tweezers to pull them and this is crazy tedious. I just leave them. This might not be an issue for other people, but the woods gets everything very dirty. Doesn’t quite have the same volume capacity for stuff as a traditional vest, so if you need extra gear you'll need to pair it with a small backpack. I generally take a back pack to carry water, snacks, and tools that don't fit in the vest. A belt with pouches or light tool belt paired with this thing might be where I’m headed for certain projects. If the front pockets are really loaded up, it can be hard to bend and twist through steep, dense young forests, but not bad. If you have a lot of gear on/in it, it can be kind of a lot of pressure on the back. It’s best not make really heavy if using it for a long time. One last con - it’s expensive! I use this 7 to 8 out of every 10 days, so for me, so far it seems like it just might be worth it. Hope this helps.
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