I also have a really like/not sure relationship with these. They are super light, have a cool design, and genuinely moved the industry forward.
I have three main issues. I have a later run with the less sharp standoffs and they are still extremely sharp in places. Don’t sleep on the ends of the step being dull either, because they aren’t. A couple weeks back my foot brushed against a step and I put weight back down and the step went through the bottom rubber portion of my special edition First Lite Muck boots like they were butter. There’s an upside to the standoffs being sharp, but they are rough on everything they touch. I don’t see why some of edges need to be so sharp on things not touching the tree.
Assembly while not super difficult was also frustrating. I had a hard time finding the right size socket to get into the holes. On top of that, the bolt hardware that came with the sticks were also not great as I was able to easily twist some of the bolts in half which probably relates as much to my overtightening things as anything else. I ended up replacing everything with grade 8 bolts. I’m glad they are shipping those standard now.
Finally, and this is a problem I least expected, the sticks are quite close to the tree. This makes them very stable and allows much of the standoff to make contact with the tree, but it also leaves very little room on the step in terms of distance from the step to the tree.
So, like everything else out there there are certainly trade-offs. If someone above mentioned, I think they are among the best that are available today. As for the price I think that’s just what it takes to get high quality sticks these days. I’ve certainly climb nothing cheaper that serves me as well as these do. Obviously the double steps and solid construction make for for a much nicer climb.
All this said, I’m a big Beast supporter and sincerely appreciate all Dan has done for my approach to hunting. I’ll definitely by more Beast products as they come out for that reason alone.
