Incredible buy. The frame is great for day hiking and the whole pack is more than enough for 3-5 days worth of gear and a heavy pack out of meat. This system has a butterfly shelf similar to competitive packs so you can pack out your kill and all of your gear on top of it. The packs give anything made by Mystery Ranch a major run for their money. I'm a bit of a backpack aficionado and own many different packs for both hunting and backcountry backpacking. The design on these packs is as good as a Mystery Ranch Metcalf and the quality in the way of straps and buckles is on par with Osprey. I dragged my feet a bit when reading mixed reviews and finally pulled the trigger on this. The Commander X is by far the best bang for the buck available for a backcountry hunter. I'd put this pack head to head against others that are 2X the price any day. Aplz also has outstanding customer service. Any issues and they are quick to respond and help take care of it.

I've been using this pack for 2.5 yrs. I've packed out multiple animals with it (mule deer / antelope). I've hunted elk, deer, and antelope. I've used it from camping/scouting trips, day hunts, and week long backcountry hunts. It works great.

Pros: cost, versatility, adjustable.

Cons: weight, hip belt padding.

The biggest misconception about this pack that I've heard multiple times is that you cant adjust the torso length. You can. In fact Alps provides a poly sheet to break the hook/loop which allows you to adjust the torso length (like kuiu packs). The only big con is the somewhat lacking hip belt padding. It's not a huge deal but for loads over 70lbs more padding would be nice. It's a little heavy unloaded too, but for the price great.

After reading into tons of reviews on this plus many others, and having an Exo pack in an online shopping cart. I pulled the trigger on the Commander X. Was originally looking at the tan bag but the cammo one got restocked! It sounds like the brown one was made out of a louder fabric. The cammo version is dead quiet and soft. Extremely durable from what I could tell. Roughly pulled on all the components and was impressed on the construction. However the internal frame is a bit flimsy. Should be good to pack out a heavy load, but I previously owned the LL Bean Carryall which was almost an Identical meat haller frame (google it) and it's twice as rigid. However the shoulder straps weren't adjustable, the Commander X definitely wins in the adjustability aspect. It should be perfect for a 4 to 6 day backpacking hunt. I have a good feeling you won't find anything better at this price point. Trust me I Looked!