Re. The new Eberlestock M5 Elk pack

[Litehiker]

Not a bad pack BUT at 6 lbs. 8 oz. certainly not a good pack.

C'mon, there are very durable packs out there by Granite Gear, Zimmerbuilt and others that are half the weight of the M5.

Eberlestock packs, ALL of them, need to go on a serious diet. Great design and quality but way too heavy. Reduce fabric weight, webbing weight (width) which will reduce buckle/fittings weight. Take another look at frame and framesheet weight. Generally framesheets are as useless as tits on a boar. They can't transfer load weight to your hips and a properly designed frame (internal or external or hybrid) can keep a pack's shape.

Yes, a sheet to protect your back from a rifle in the Eberlestock scabbard is OK but keep it only scabbard wide and only on the back side.

 

[FurTaker]

So overall you would not recommend this pack? I was actually just looking at it because I have before drew a rifle bear tag which runs concurrent with archery elk and liked the built in rifle scabbard to have it on my back and bow in hand. Aside from weight are there any other downsides to this pack? I will probably not be hiking more than 5-8mi a day and I like to think im in my "prime" and the almost 7lbs doesn't seem like that big a deal to me