After getting several glowing recommendations for this vest last year, I finally managed to snag one in the off-season. I’ve now used this size M/L Tenzing BV16 since the beginning of the season, for 18 hunts and just about 100 hours. As with all the stuff I review, I bought this vest with my own money and have no stake in Tenzing or any other company. In other words, it’s honest. It’s also my first video review, aside from the comparison to the Badlands vest in the photos and captions below. The bottom line: I’ll leave it up to you. Enjoy the video.
Leslie thinks I went a little overboard with the Chukar Culture patches (we only have 3 left!)Here, the Badlands Upland Bird Vest is laying on top of the Tenzing BV16. In the video, I think I said the Tenzing was about 4″ longer than the Badlands, but it looks more like 5″ or 6″.The Badlands vest definitely rides higher, which is the main reason I think I’m switching back to it, even though the storage capability is far inferior to the Tenzing.Badlands waist belt rides easily on the top of my hip bones.Badlands, side viewTenzing BV16: doesn’t hang down as long as some vests (see my review of the Quilomene Upland vest), but quite a bit lower than the Badlands.Tenzing waist belt, in the upper spot, rides about the same place as the Badlands, but the shell pockets fall much lower.Tenzing’s shell pockets and bird pouch from the side
Heading out with the Quilomene Upland Bird Vest, nothing in the bird bag yet
Just before New Year’s my new Q5 chukar vest arrived, which I’d ordered on November 30th: the Quilomene Upland Bird Vest. I’d been using the Badlands Upland Vest (no longer available) for the past couple of seasons and — as the weather asked us to bring more apparel, which goes on and off depending on the terrain — I started finding it just didn’t have the carrying capacity I wanted, especially as the bird bag began being burdened by bigger bunches of birds. The Badlands vest is still my favorite overall vest, but it’s not perfect and I continued to wonder if a perfect vest existed.
So I looked and looked: I looked at the Tenzing BV16 (currently out of stock everywhere I looked), at the Filson Pro Guide Strap Vest (no longer available), the Orvis Pro Series Hunting Vest (won’t work with a hydration bladder), Oregon Pack Works Rogue Bird Pack (not much information and only one photo, and by far the most expensive), and Wingworks Upland Wingshooting Vests (unavailable; I’ve been trying to get one of these for quite a while now). L.L. Bean makes a cool-looking vest, but I tried it a few years ago and returned it after one hunt because the water bladder sat too low in the pack to get it to flow without standing on my head. I’d used the Q5 Centerfire for a couple of seasons and really liked it, but ultimately found it too bulky for my style of chukar hunting, but decided to take another look at their wide variety of upland vests.
On the Q5 site, the Quilomene Upland Bird Vest looked like it might be the ticket: bladder-ready, easily-accessible large bird bag, moderate storage, modular straps (can add/remove accessory and shell pockets), and lash-strap ready for external carrying options. I’m about 6′ and 155, so I ordered the smallest waist belt, and it just fits cinched as tight as it goes; skinnier folks will probably find it too loose.
When I ordered it, the site showed one message saying they were running a 2-week lead time on new orders, and — somewhere else on the site — a 30-day turnaround. I received mine a month after they charged my card. The current message (as of 1/10/20) shows 30 days out and “unable to provide any status updates.” It’s ironic that chukar hunting seems never to have been more popular, yet it’s nearly impossible to get a new vest quickly, and the choices seem to be shrinking. Not sure what to make of that, other than American manufacturing doesn’t seem to be faring too well at the moment; the only two vests I mentioned that are available (the Orvis and the L.L. Bean) are not made in the U.S.
Anyway, I was very excited when the Quilomene vest finally arrived. It took a while to set it up to fit, but once I’d made some velcro adjustments, shortened the shoulder straps as far as they’d go (see more on this below), and added the two shell pockets to the padded hip belt, I was ready to install my 100-ounce Camelback hydration bladder. This wasn’t easy. The bladder pouch is directly against your back (which is moderately uncomfortable when the bladder’s full), and there is a hole on both sides of the bottom of the pouch, intended for the hydration bladder’s hose to exit the pouch for routing somewhere on the vest. The problem with this is that most bladders have their hoses exiting the bladder at an upward right angle; I hadn’t realized this until I couldn’t get any water out of the hose and had to pull the whole bladder out to see what the problem was. No matter how I tried routing the hose through the bottom holes in the pouch, the hose got kinked and wouldn’t flow. So I ended up running the hose up the inside of the pouch and out the top; not a huge deal, and it works fine.
Bladder pouch with hose coming out the topTop of the Camelbak bladder; note the retainer clip: the vest’s pouch doesn’t feature anything to clip it to
Another issue with the vest if you use a bladder is that there’s nothing at the top of the bladder pouch to attach to the top of the bladder to keep it from sloughing down in the pouch as the water level drops. Most bladders have something at the top near the fill point to counteract gravity so the flow doesn’t get interrupted; the Q5 Centerfire did, but this vest doesn’t.
Hose clip sewn into right shoulder strapAfter cutting out the clip; I used a flame to seal the loose nylon threads…
Still another problem with my particular set up is that I ordered a water hose retainer clip, which the Q5 video shows as removable, so I assumed it would come loose and I could put it wherever I wanted. But it was sewn low down on the right shoulder strap. The first problem here is that a right-handed shooter probably won’t want the drinking tube on the right side; second problem is that it’s sewn into the strap and prevents me from shortening the shoulder strap below the clip. I wanted to shorten the straps to get the vest to ride higher, so I had to cut the clip out (more on that below).
The other negatives I’m experiencing with this vest (I’ve hunted with it a half-dozen times now) have to do with the shell pockets. I ordered a standard Q5 shell pocket for my shells, which I keep on the right side and a Quilomene pocket for the left, which looked like it’d be roomy enough for me to carry our small camcorder. It’s not, but it’s bulkier and takes up more hip-belt real estate so that it rides on my left thigh when I’m climbing (very annoying), and requires two hands to open. The Q5 shell pocket holds a lot more shells than I’m used to, which I appreciate, but is not nearly as user-friendly as the substantially smaller Badlands magnetic closure shell pockets; for quick reloading, especially with gloves, the Q5 shell pockets are not easy to manipulate with one hand.
With just a couple birds in the bag, it falls lower on my body than I’d like
The bird bag is really big and easy to get birds into, as long as the storage pockets (which sit on the outside of the top layer of the bird bag) aren’t too heavily loaded with gear, or you don’t have a heavy garment or elk shed lashed to the outside of the bag; if this is the case, you have to push hard backward to gain enough space to drop the bird in the pouch. Without birds in the bag, it rides much lower than I’d like, and when I’ve got a bunch of birds in it, it bangs on the bottom of my butt with every step, which gets old fast. At 6′, I don’t think the vest should hang as low as it does.
Bird bag, secured by snaps and velcro, opens to adjust the strap length and clean out the pouch
So after cutting the sewn-in clip out of the right shoulder strap I shortened the straps a lot to see if I could get it to ride higher so the bird bag doesn’t ride on my rump. I was able to shorten the straps to get the bag to ride below the small of my back and on the top of my butt, but this moved the padded hip belt above my waist: not an option! So it seems the vest is definitely designed to ride as low as it does, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but what do I know?
I don’t hate this vest. I really wanted to like it. At $240, it should be high quality, which I think it is, at least as far as the materials. The heavy-duty nylon and plastic components seem durable, although I do wonder if the very bright blaze sections will quickly fade as they did on my Centerfire vest. It’s been a long time since I’ve used a strap vest, so I wasn’t sure how I’d like the basic no-frill, unpadded nylon shoulder straps, and they’re actually a lot more comfortable than I expected. Ultimately, I just don’t like the fact that it’s designed to ride so low. If anyone’s interested, it’s available for $200, and I’ll throw in a couple of our new iron-on patches.
Our new Chukar Culture embroidered patch
The bottom line is that this — so far — is definitely not my perfect chukar vest. I still haven’t found it and suspect it probably doesn’t exist.
Pros:
Fairly comfortable (aside from the butt-whomping)
Adjustable (within limits)
Good amount of storage capability
Easy to get birds in the bag (as long as you’re not carrying a lot of stuff in the storage pouches)
High quality components and construction
Cons:
Q5 shell pockets not easy to use with one hand
Quilomene shell pockets almost impossible to use with one hand
If you count calories, weigh your gear, track your vertical, get weepy at the word “minimalism,” or fancy a lightweight pack/vest for chasing chukar, the Eberlestock Mini-Me might be worth a look. Leslie has donned it exclusively for her debut season as a hunter, and – as far as I can tell from her notes – gives it a thumbs-up. After twenty outings, here are her thoughts.
Pros
Lightweight: at 3.5 pounds (dry), it’s easily the lightest thing we’ve used on a chukar hunt.
Compact: at 19″ x 8″ x 3″, it’s also the most compact pack I can imagine for chukar hunting, which makes busting through brush easier than with my Q5 “Cadillac” Centerfire vest.
Very comfortable: the channeled padding on the back will prevent anything from poking your back, and allows a bit of airflow back there, especially nice on a hot day.
Hydration system: the Mini-Me includes a three-liter (100 oz.) Israeli-made hydration bladder that works as well or better than any of the CamelBak products we’ve used.
Rides high: the “hip belt” on the Mini-Me actually goes across your waist (unless you’re a midget), which means that the accessory pouches you’ll need to add in order to hold shells won’t bang on your thighs when climbing the chukar steeps.
Accessory pouches (we have the “small” ones, each of which has plenty of room for a box of shells) slide along the hip belt to you can position them on the side or in the front.
Bird bag: made of durable mesh with a drawstring top and compression straps, the attached bird bag stows away inside a zippered pouch when not needed. When it’s out, it will hold lots of birds; on one hunt we put 2 large dusky grouse in it, which seemed to take up less than half the capacity of the bag.
Scabbard accessory: if you don’t want to, or can’t, carry your shotgun (or rifle) while hiking (or mountain biking), Eberlestock offers both a long and short scabbard accessory that attaches to a sleeve on the Mini-Me. Although we haven’t used the scabbard in the field yet (we have slings and typically hunt right from the rig), the short scabbard nicely and snugly holds our shotguns with 26″ barrels.
Multi-use: one of the reasons I wanted to try the Mini-Me was because in the off-season we do lots of hiking with our dogs and I wanted a pack that I could use for both hunting and hiking, without having to transfer a bunch of safety gear from my hunting pack to a hiking pack. The removable accessory pouches make this possible, and if the scabbard isn’t installed, you can use the sleeve it fits in for storing bulkier items like extra layers or rain gear. We also mountain bike frequently in the off-season, and the Mini-Me works great for that, especially with the hydration bladder. If you do MTB hunts, the scabbard accessory would solve the problem of how to safely carry your gun while riding.
Blaze “orange”: it’s more fluorescent pink, but you can see this thing from outer space. It glows bright. I like that, because I can see Leslie easily from many ridges away. If you don’t like this color and don’t need to have a certain number of square inches of hunter orange, the Mini-Me comes in a number of attractive camo patterns.
Cons
Fit: the Mini-Me does take a bit of adjusting to get it to fit comfortably, as well as to accept the high ride of the “hip” belt. Personally, I would prefer a more robust padded hip belt, but Leslie doesn’t seem to mind the thin nylon straps.
Hydration cap: although a small annoyance, the cap on the hydration bite valve is tough to remove and replace with one hand; CamelBak bite valves don’t have a cover on them and we’ve never had an issue with those, so we’ll probably just remove the cap on this one.
Accessory pouches can’t easily be fixed on the hip belt so they don’t slide around while hiking; one could modify the belt to fix this but we haven’t tried that yet.
Zippers on pouches are tough to open and close with one hand (true of most bird vests we’ve tried).
Bird bag clips that attach the top of the bag to the shoulder straps on the Mini-Me are nearly impossible to remove when you want to re-stow the bag. These need to be replaced with something much more user-friendly.
Using the game bag: to put birds in the bag, you must take the pack off. Unlike a traditional bird vest, which allows you to slip the bird into the compartment in the back, the Mini-Me access to the top of the bag requires removal of the pack. This hasn’t been as annoying as it sounds, though, because we haven’t constantly nailed birds this season (yet?), and if we’ve been with another person they can easily put the bird in the bag so the wearer doesn’t have to remove it. Another issue, although not a big one, is that when the bird bag is deployed, it’s a bit tricky accessing the other pockets on the bag; having clips that are easier to remove from the D-rings on the shoulder straps would make this almost no issue at all.
Limited storage: just as you wouldn’t carry all your camping gear and outdoor recreation equipment in a sports car, the Mini-Me isn’t intended to schlep every piece of bird hunting kit you might want. But it can hold the essentials in its several zippered pockets, as well as additional clothing, gloves, etc. The accessory pouches you can add to the belt also expand carrying capacity.
Overall Impression
Leslie really likes the Mini-Me for early season chukar hunting, mainly because of its comfort and lightness. She plans to switch to her larger pack for the colder part of the season to accommodate the extra layers and gloves she doesn’t think will easily fit into the Mini-Me. My impression is that it’s a pretty cool option for a lightweight chukar pack, especially because of how much water it holds without being at all bulky. It has worked especially well for us, hunting together, because my vest carries a ridiculous amount of crap in it, stuff we only need one of, like heavy-duty cable cutters (for snare traps), a robust first-aid kit, headlamps, SPOT personal locator beacon thingy, space blankets, and more. Despite its littleness, though, Leslie has found very workable places to carry an FRS radio and her new Alpha 100 hand-held device on the Mini-Me. So there you have it. Let us know if you have any questions.
Slim, compact, bright!
Two dusky grouse in the bag
Have a friend load the bag, or take off the pack and do it yourself
When I found out about this vest, I had to get my hands on it. After hunting for years with packs or vests that lacked certain features, the Centerfire Upland Bird Vest appeared to fill all the holes. So, toward the end of last season I managed to get one and use it a few times. It took a while to set up properly because of its infinite adjustability, but once I dialed it in, it performed as expected. Better, actually. Overall, I don’t think there’s a better upland vest available (although I haven’t tried them all), and the price tag – at the higher end of the scale – is more than fair for the features and quality of the product. If your current vest doesn’t offer adequate carrying capacity for gear and birds, the Centerfire might be the ticket.
Big vest for big country
Storage: you can pretty much load this vest with everything but the kitchen sink. It has so many pockets you might need a spreadsheet to track where you put things. Most of the pockets are adjustable, too, so you can move them laterally along the hip belt to suit your style of hiking, and the shell pockets – big enough to hold a box of shells each – have a zipper and a Velcro flap; thoughtful design (although I’d prefer the flaps have radius or rounded instead of 90-degree corners because they kept poking my skinny bare arms – something I hadn’t noticed last season when I wore long sleeves; not a big deal, but a wee naggy thing.) With the full version of the vest (they offer a base model, too, to which you can pick and choose your pockets), you also get a removable daypack, which I never used because I didn’t fill up the other pockets. But if you’re going on an all-day hike in weather that could change drastically, you could load this vest up with everything you could possibly need and never worry about where to put stuff, even if you limited on multiple species.
Bird “pouch”: Speaking of birds, the pouch might better be described as a “porch” or even a “carport.” It’s big, and easily the easiest to load of any vest I’ve used. And you can easily remove it to clean it out. I haven’t seen this type of game bag on any vest before, and it’s one of the most innovative things about this vest, in my opinion.
My friend Rob with his fully-loaded Centerfire Upland Bird Vest
Hydration: Water’s probably the most important thing to bring if you hunt with dogs. This vest features a pouch to put a hydration bladder in, as well as removable water bottle pockets, which would allow you to bring – in these three spots alone (there’s room elsewhere for more bottles) – 164 ounces of water. My back hurts just thinking about that. I’m not a bottle guy, so I only use a bladder, and my 100-ounce bladder extends past the fairly shallow built-in pouch, but there’s a thoughtful snap-strap that allows you to secure the top of a bladder (if the bladder has a loop or hook on the top of it; mine does, but not all do) so it doesn’t collapse in the vest. To take the bladder out requires undoing three snaps and the Velcro closure at the top of the mesh cover and unthreading the hose, which is fairly simple compared to other vests I’ve used a bladder in. I’m not exactly sure why the bladder pouch couldn’t be deeper on the Centerfire, but maybe it’s to accommodate the smaller pouches out there. For my 100-ounce bladder, though, I’d like a deeper pouch; another wee naggy thing.
Usabilityand Comfort: Although I haven’t loaded the Centerfire to capacity, I’m confident that if I did it would handle the load with stability and comfort. The padded shoulder straps are contoured around the neck in a smart “yoke” which distributes the upper load better than other packs I’ve used. But the big deal on this vest is the padded hip belt, which carries – very stably and comfortably – as much as you can throw at it. No matter the terrain or angle of incline or descent, I rarely if ever felt I was carrying anything. It’s really that comfortable. Of course, you’re going to feel it hiking up steep hills, but this vest isn’t what I noticed. I noticed the fact that I should be in better shape, and that whoever invented gravity should be shot, and that chukar hunting might be more fun on the moon, and stuff like that.
My vest without the day pack, which attaches to the heavy nylon-coated mesh between the yoke and bird pouch
Quality: These vests are made by a small company – really just a couple with some help – down in Arizona. It is simply amazing to me that they can produce the variety of products they do, with all the design variations and options, and with the quality that is so obvious on the Centerfire vest. All the stitching, seams, attachments, and other workmanship are as good as I’ve ever seen, better, actually. The materials they use are the best, too: the Cordura is heavy-duty, the D-rings, zippers, snaps and Velcro (or whatever we’re calling the hook-and-loop stuff these days) are all solid and should last longer than I will. In addition to the quality of their products, Q5 promotes another kind of quality, which you might refer to as “equality”: a percentage of every sale supports Arizona Outdoor Adventures, which helps acquaint under-privileged kids with healthy outdoor recreation. Impressive and inspiring.
Picayune: There are some things I don’t like about the Centerfire, though, which aren’t the vest’s fault at all and have more to do with the style of hunting I find myself doing more often than not. The main thing is the vest’s size: you can’t have all that storage capacity without sizeable volume. The Centerfire is a relatively wide and deep vest – the side pockets (mounted on the hip belt behind the shell pockets) extend out a ways, which I noticed when busting through brush looking for grouse or in thickets trying to retrieve downed chukar. Similarly, the generous but rigid bird pouch extends back fairly far, which I noticed getting caught on Hawthorn brush and other branches in heavy vegetation. If I were hunting only in open terrain, or going after pheasants, I wouldn’t think twice about having this as my go-to or only vest. But for some reason I almost always find myself at least once in heavy brush, no matter what kind of hunting I’m doing.
Overall, the Q5 Centerfire Upland Bird Vest is easily the best quality vest with the most desirable features I’ve used. If you don’t find yourself trying to squeeze into or through places where you probably shouldn’t go anyways (maybe I’ll learn one of these days), then do yourself a favor and get this vest. You won’t be sorry.
