I’ve always been intrigued by the setup and this thread has been very informative:
Pros: It’s comfortable.
Cons: Heavy, wide, bulky, expensive, ropes and straps everywhere, the fork makes noise, too restricted to shoot, hard to lean in, have to switch out pack to use it, can’t access gear, heavy and still need a climbing method, climbing method doesn’t pack well with it.
I realize it was purposefully designed as a “What’s your bitch” thread, but people will normally highlight the things they like as well and so far that has been “its comfortable”. Not exactly an inspiring endorsement for the total package. My Cruzr XC is also very comfortable. I’ve never sat a JX3 but will assume the XC is somewhat less comfortable, but it is certainly not uncomfortable by any means. For some folks, comfort alone may outweigh all other negatives. But when I look at the whole package, the JX3 seems to miss several key metrics for a method (saddle hunting) that purports to key on being light and mobile. Additionally, when you start trying to fix the JX3’s biggest detractors, there is a good chance that you will start impinging on the one thing that sets it apart, it‘s comfort. Be interesting to see if and how it can evolve.
You’re conflating the status signal of why saddle hunting is popular (I go hard and deep and hashtag mobile!) with why john, and before him butch, built the web and hybrid.
Two completely different paths, running completely independent of each other.
The point of both the web and hybrid were to be silent, comfortable, safe way of sitting in a tree. Do you need evidence that John doesn’t care at all about what whiny saddle hunter Facebook posts say about the weight of the hybrid? I begged him to not increase the weight and to make a “skinny” version, because I thought he could sell 2-3x more to #mobile hunters than he could to regular people who want to sit all day and kill deer and turkeys. Not because I actually cared about the weight(I did), but because of the simple math - #mobile hunting was exploding and I thought he could cash in. He ignored me completely and the new version weighs about 15-20% more. And I was wrong. He’s selling way more to quiet, non forum posting deer killers than I would’ve bet on.
The difference in weight, to anyone who cares about weight in this case, is moot. 10lbs is too much to #mobile hunters. Obviously going to 12 won’t scare those people off.
The loudest voices aren’t necessarily the largest group. Even so, I started the thread because I wanted to get john some feedback from the loudest voices. I personally can take each of the things folks don’t like and deconstruct them and attempt to change their worldview. But there’s already a pile of that on the forum.
But I do think it’s important to correct the notion that the point of the hybrid is to fit into the saddle hunting phenomena. It’s not. I’ve figured out a way to make mine fit the purposes of a sneech shaped walkaholic who hunts all over the country. Very well indeed. But that’s not the norm. Most people aren’t like me. John knows his customer base well.
Im always interested in the comfort topic too. Comfort in a device to hold you in a tree is a function of two main things: your tolerance for discomfort, and the amount of surface area of your body that you’re distributing the force of gravity across.
When you say that your soft saddle is comfortable, you mean comfortable enough for you. Your soft saddle doesn’t have significantly more or less surface area than any other soft saddle. Which means your comfort (and the amount of it that wouldn't translate to other hunters) is based in large part on your tolerance of force applied to the areas it covers.
This is an important distinction, pulling these two types of “comfort” apart. One translates across every hunter. One doesn’t.
And there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that the vast majority of people are not comfortable in ANY soft saddle, with specific relation to “sitting in a tree all day to try and kill deer without fidgeting around constantly and being sore the next day”.
I also can sit in a soft saddle from dark to dark. I’ve got a good system. It’s “comfortable” in that I can do it and manage to kill deer quite effectively. But it’s not comfortable in the sense of “I can spend four days straight during best hunting times dark to dark and not want to remove the lower half of my body” comfortable. The hybrid is. It is a completely different class. It’s not close.
Now, for you, it may not matter because you possess a higher tolerance for force applied to your butt and nerves than others. But in this case you are like me with my highly modified gen1 hybrid - the exception.
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