I bought the first generation Just One pack this summer. The design of the pack is fantastic. I particularly like: the gun scabbard; the horizontal and vertical compression straps which allow you to keep the pack as compact as possible, and to attach antlers or other trophies to your pack; the large mesh pocket so that meat can breath when you're packing it out; the ability to zip the mesh pocket together and use the pack as a daypack; the large side pockets, good for carrying tripods, spotting scopes, etc; the numerous pockets and access points, making it easy to organize and find your gear; the quiet material; the two sided (blaze orange and grey) zip-out cover for the mesh pocket (when Glen Eberle sent me free of charge when I called to order it); etc (I could go on and on, but you get the idea).
On the negative side, I found that the right side of the hip belt dug into the small of my back. After the first day of packing I figured out the reason for this. There is a pocket behind the right side of the hip belt, which I had stuffed pretty full with gear. The rifle scabbard is on the left side, and even with my rifle in it, this side has a lot of empty space, leading to an imbalance. Once I figured this out, I stuffed a jacket up the left side of the pack in the space next to the scabbard. That solved the problem, although there is a risk that my jacket may fall out one day, since there is no closure on the space at the bottom of the pack.
The other problem that I had was the material the pack was made from was too weak. On the second day of my first trip with this pack I carried out 1/2 of a boned-out muley and some gear. The bottom of the pack tore where the vertical compression strap attaches, at the junction of the mesh and solid material. Not a good thing. I spoke to to Glen Eberle about this a couple of days ago. He told me they had had a problem with the material used on the first generation pack, which has now been corrected. Of the several thousand second generation packs (with new, stronger material) they have shipped so far, there have been no failures. Glen told me to send him my pack and he would replace it with a new second-generation pack, free of charge. You can't ask for better customer service than that.
To give you an idea how much I like this pack, even after it tore I took it on second backpack hunt, this time for blacktail up in the alpine, rather than taking my old pack. No problems packing out my gear and a boned-out blacktail buck on that trip. In my view, there is no reason not to buy one of the Just One packs - they are the best I've seen on the market, backed up by fantastic customer service.
