Osprey Hornet 46

I recently ordered one simply because I wanted to touch it. The M/L was a good fit for me (5'7", 19.5 inch torso). My main beef with the pack was the lack of any sort of padding on the hip belt. Even the option to slide some pads in would have been nice. I did like the fact that it was so light yet still included a lid. I was VERY impressed with the stiffness of the back panel. Nothing will poke you through that thing. I thought the harness' padding was a little on the thin side. The pockets are great, and the thin webbing compression straps is genius.

I ended up passing on it in favor of the ULA Ohm. Holding them next to each other, the Ohm is a much more substantial pack with more room and better padding.

I scored one cheap on the bpl pack reduction sale, but alas it (M/L) was too small for my ~ 21" torso, so I had to sell it

I thought the pack was very well made and came with a very good feature set, the weight was very nice as well. I (and a few others) have emailed Osprey letting them know that a large segment of the population is nixed out of owning this pack

in regards to the light hip belt and light shoulder pads- my previous pack the Exos shared the same ones and while I was a little skeptical, hauling up to 35# loads comfortably soon convinced me that it works :)

I am looking forward to receiving my Ohm (L) however!

Mine is great so far. I concur with all the short torso comments, I am a 19" torso length and it's just barely big enough in M/L.

I bought it thinking that I would only use it for 2-3 day trips, but I've been really impressed with the frame and plan on using it for longer trips with ~25lb this season.

Mike, are you sure the shoulder straps and waist belt are the same size as the Exos? I don't have an Exos anymore, but I could have sworn these are smaller.

Andrew

The shoulder harness I believe is slightly thinner/less substantial than the Exos' I believe. The hip belt is much different. Basically they are just thin nylon wings with pockets. Slightly beefier padding in those two areas would give the pack a dramatic increase in in max load, I'd wager. Buuut, those are the guys that design them for a living so I guess they must know something I don't. It would be niceif they came out with some sort of strap-on supplemental padding for the shoulders. I don't see how you could do anything to beef up the hip belt at all, and that IMO is the pack's weakest link.

Andrew said "Mike, are you sure the shoulder straps and waist belt are the same size as the Exos? I don't have an Exos anymore, but I could have sworn these are smaller."

no I'm not :) I had already sold my Exos before receiving the Hornet- so was just going on memory, which has occasionally failed me

the Exos straps/belt weren't overly beefy, but I was easily won over after using it, it's very possible the Hornet's are more spartan yet???

Mike

I am beginning to see what Matthew was describing on the straps and the waist belt already. I loaded it up and took the dog for a walk, and the straps were already starting to rub me wrong. I had the pack loaded with 14 lbs. about 2/3 – 3/4 of it's normal weight. I may have to pass on this one. It's a bummer, because I REALLY wanted to like this pack. It really hauls alot of gear for it's size. I also can't get a whole lot of adjustment out of the load tensioners, they don't sit high enough to do any good. Osprey is going to have to make this in a larger torso if they want it to sell well.

Mike – I know you had an Exos 46 before. How was the volume between the Hornet 46 and the Exos 46? The Exos is listed as slightly larger volume and dimensions on Ospreys website. Also, how was the accuraccy of the Exos 46 torso sizing? I was able to fit my bearcan in the Hornet just fine, so I can assume that it will fit in the Exos as well?

the Hornet I had was the prototype, so it was less than the final version- want to say 42 liters, the Exos I had was size Large and was 49 liters. My Exos appeared to have a fair bit more volume (no side by side comparo though)

the thing the Exos had going against it as far as bear canisters is the frame- I think it would be a tight fit due to the frame, where I hike we bag everything so I never did have an opportunity to try- I'm pretty sure I've read that folks were having difficulty w/ the Exos 46, not so w/ the Exos 58 in regards to canisters

My Hornet 46 (size M/L) is the same size as the Exos 46 I bought and returned (size S/M). The Exos is much harder to pack IMHO because of the curved back panel. A Garcia canister would fit in the Exos 46, but pretty much took up the whole pack… kind of a round peg in a square hole sort of deal. In contrast, I can fit a Garcia in the Hornet with all my other stuff just fine.

I agree that the Hornet's limitation on load carrying is padding in the waistbelt and shoulder straps. They are pretty spartan, and the frame can handle more load than they can. But, they are fine up to about 24-25 lbs for me.

Andrew

I was one of the beta testers for the Hornet "42" last summer. My main grumpy was the lack of padding in both the shoulder straps and the hip belt. I decided to beef up those areas myself, and as long as I was doing that I decided to play around with the frame stays and see if I could improve them. Here's what I did:

(1) I cut blue foam and made nylon sleeves for them, which were sewn onto the underside of the existing shoulder straps. Then I did the same thing for the hip belt, which were left open on the back for easy removal/replacement of the foam.

(2) I made a "surgical opening" at the top of each delrin frame stay, removed them, and replaced them with carbon fiber rod. I cut a cross piece and used 6" titanium rods bent to right angles to connect the vertical and horizontal carbon rods. I wrapped the ends of the rods with strong packing tape to try to prevent the carbon rods from splitting under the obvious stress they will receive (I decided to insert each end into a 1" brass tube, which fit perfectly; we'll see how well that will work). I sewed a piece of velcro onto the already reinforced patch, to hopefully keep the entire frame in place.

I also removed the frame sheet pad thing that came with the pack, and I just use my GG eggshell sit pad, which I take along anyway. The final weight is less than what I started with–it's down to 1# 6.5 oz, as opposed to the original 1# 7.5 oz. Now I can carry 22# in relative comfort, whereas even 18# was killing my shoulders last summer.

Edit–Finally got the photos figured out

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Gary…If only I was a bit craftier, I would be all over those modifications!

nice work Gary! :)

I ordered one and liked it's layout considering the low weight. Too short though as the shoulder straps were mid-shoulder blade and the hipbelt was on my kidneys.

Osprey needs to make a longer one for a few oz penalty. New lower impact color like the old Exos would be nice too.

if you have time would probably be worth emailing them w/ those thoughts, if enough us email them they just might come out w/ a large (or even an adj setup like the Talon??)

cs@ospreypacks.com

Nice work!

Hope so, Mike. Many of us testers mentioned the same thing to them last summer, but it seems like not much changed from prototype to production. I believe that Osprey knows what they are doing regarding pack design, but it sure seems like they missed something on the Hornet.

Well I finally got my hands on, and gear in to test an Osprey Exos 46 pack! I will definitely be switching from the Hornet 46 to the Exos 46. I see what everyone meant on the fit of the bearcan in relation to the curve of the backpanel, but it didn't affect the load, or press into my back at all. After putting in my sleeping bag, my bag of clothes, then my bearcan, I had room on the sides of the bearcan to stuff my jacket in the space that was still there. It carried much better than the Hornet, but there is a weight penalty of around 11 – 12 ozs. For the extra comfort, ( UL purists plug your ears here ), it is well worth it. Plus it seemed to have more volume. Thanks for all of the advice everyone.

I think you'll be well served by the Exos, mine really carried really nicely- hoping my next pack will as well :)

What's your next pack going to be, Mike?

Thanks Mike! I appreciate your input. I e-mailed Osprey, and posted a review on REI, ( they screen them before they go up ), and I really hope they address a few issues with the Hornet. I would actually get one again with the right corrections to the padding and a longer torso range that would let you take advantage of the load lifters. They made some late corrections to some of their packs in the past, I can only hope they make changes to this one. It could be a big hit with lightweight packers.

I will ask the same question as Gary…what are you using now, or plan to try next?

Gary and Robert- I ordered a Ohm (size Large) from Chris last week, should be ~ same weight as the Hornet w/ similar volume, most of the reviews I've seen have been pretty positive (here's hoping mine will be too :))

Mike

Robert

I have a large ohm and circuit if you want to test them out

shoot me an email if you do.

the wife has a medium exos as well, i sold my exos in favor of the ohm.

I wasnt a fan of the hipbelt on the exos and the buckles.

Mark, Thanks for the offer on the Ohm! I will definately get a hold of you for a try-on session! I can't believe I finally ran across a fellow BPL-er that lives close by. Right now I am in phase 2 of my backpack experiement, trying out the Osprey Talon 44. It just seemed to carry a bit better than the Exos 46. If it ends up being a 'keeper', I will have to do some surgery on reducing the straps on this thing! If only they could combine the simplicity and weight of the Hornet 46 with the straps and suspension of the Talon 44, it would be a 'sweet' UL pack!

sure seems like a guy could do some trimming and paring w/ the Talon 44 and get it down to a pretty decent weight

I have a 20 and a 5.5, came very close to buying the 44 w/ ^ just that in mind

Yeah Mike, My scissors are standing by! I want to get in at least one long day hike with it though in case it has to go back to REI. But, so far, so good. I took it out today and it carries better than the Hornet.