Arsenal The BEST Saddle-Hunting System No One is Talking About!!

Hey everybody, we are going to tell you about the best saddle system that no one's talking about, Arsenal. Our complete setup weighs under 11 pounds, can get you to about 16 feet. We got high functioning sticks, awesome lightweight saddle, great platform. You got to check this out. All right, hey everybody, PJ Reilly, Lancaster Archery in our video studio. Exciting day for me here that I get to tell you about what I think is the best saddle system that no one's talking about, Arsenal. All this gear is from Arsenal. So if you're familiar with the saddle world, you know there's lots of great equipment out there, but some companies just have a little bit more of a marketing machine behind them. Arsenal's more new and just their gear, I finally got a chance to play with it and it is top shelf. That's why I'm saying it's the best that no one's talking about. They don't quite have the marketing machine behind it. That's why I'm here to tell you all about it. So stick with me. The reason we're in the studio here is I want to show you up close the little details, the devil's in the details. That's where Arsenal knocks it out of the park. So I'm going to show you all that and then we're going to go outside and we're going to put it to the test on a real treat. But we're going to start here. Of course, this is the Arsenal Air. This is going to be their saddle. This is their lightest saddle. They've got several, but I like this one because it's the lightest. And what you're going to notice right off is the only two pieces of metal are right here where the leg straps connect to the saddle. So it's quiet, no noise. I'm always clanking and banging things around, making noise, no noise in this. And this saddle, this has everything connected. It's got a dump pouch, your bridge and your belt. This weighs just over one pound, 1.1 pound. We're going to weigh everything for you so you'll be able to see it. But what do we got here? So this is going to be your belt. This is what tightens it around your waist and it's just got your basic simple Prusik knot to tighten it. Super easy. We come down to the bridge. Okay, we've got on the bridge, you're going to see right in the middle here, connecting these two sections. This is going to be for your lineman's belt. You got one here and you got one on this side. So when we're climbing, connect your lineman's belt here. Then what we have, you know, again, simple Prusik knot to adjust the bridge up and down. Look right here. You've got the built-in tender and the tender, I'll show you on the next rope. But essentially what that allows you to do is to move a Prusik knot with one hand. You don't have to reach around and pull it with this hand with the tender. When there's tension on this, when I lift up on this end of the rope, the tender is going to move the Prusik knot. It's a key when you're up in the tree to be able to do things with one hand. Then what we have over here are these adjustments. You can see this connects to the lower part of the saddle. So this is going to be for you individually when you're in the saddle, changing the pressure point at the lower part of the saddle. So that's what this adjustment allows you to do. If you want to have it tighter or looser, you just move that up and down. Again, thinking about your comfort and how you can adjust it to you. Got my dump pouch already connected here. I'm going to show you how that comes in handy. And on the back, we have tons of MOLLE webbing for you to connect different gear to it. Again, that's going to play huge when we come to the platform. But that is the air. Again, just over one pound. Now come over here to the rope. So this is what Arsenal calls their Arsenal 7 Micro Tether. And one of the things I like about it, we're going to need two ropes. You're going to need a lineman's belt. You're going to need a tree tether to connect to your bridge. For Arsenal 1, they have one rope. They're both the same. You're going to need two. So you're not fumbling to say, oh, which one is my lineman's belt? Which one's my tree tether? They're both the same. They both will do the same job. So as a lineman's belt, you're just going to connect like that. Again, we'll show you how this all connects. Pull through one end, and then this goes around the tree and connects to your belt. But I'll show you up here on the tree why. Again, devil's in the details. Arsenal thought of all the little things. Okay, so we've all been here. When you're connecting your saddle, and then what happens? You drop it there, and this is loose, and it can move freely. Arsenal thought of that. With this rubber tie right there, boom, locks in your position up there. So now when your weight's pulling down on it, you're not pulling down on the top of your tether. Just with that little piece of rubber keeps it in position. Now, the other thing that I like, of course, this is your basic Prusik knot. Again, we have the tender that's already built in, and here I can show you how the tender works. Again, this is a Prusik knot. It's made so that normally it doesn't move when you pull down. That's what we want it to do. So with the tender, when there's tension on here, I can take this rope, and I can move it one hand. Otherwise, you have to go in here and push it up this way. With the tender, again, one hand rope movement. That is key. Now, coming to the carabiner. Again, simple things. You can see our lock here. Normally, this is your typical barrel lock. You're going to swivel this to get it to lock into position. On the Arsenal, it's just a simple half turn, open. So as you grip this, you're just going to spin it, and it opens, and then it automatically locks when it comes back into place. Simple, but yet that's super effective, and, you know, it just makes things easier when you're up in the air. So each one of the Arsenal 7 micro tethers, it's called the 7 because it's 7 millimeter rope, each one of these weighs half a pound. With the carabiner, half pound. All right, let's go over here to the Icon X20 climbing sticks. We've got our DuraBraid rope. Here we have 13 inches step-to-step, but wait for it, 20 inches. Packing at 13, you got your little depressions right there. Packing in at 13, when you go to climb, 20 inches. You just got seven inches across three sticks. You got 21 extra inches of climbing, and this thing is just packed with features. First off, right here, this tree bark looking material, this is actually a rubbery material which keeps it quiet. You know, it's banging against there. It's not that metal to metal. It's a rubbery texture, so it keeps it quiet. Let's take a look at our steps here. You're going to see these white pads. Those are reflectors. You're climbing down at night with your headlight reflecting right where you got to put your feet. How they stack. We've got these magnets here, and the magnets sit in rubberized cups, again, to keep it quiet. So how you connect them, red goes into the red cups. You'll see the magnet. I mean that the magnet's pulling it in, and then, of course, you have your clamp up here on this end. Going to lock them into place. Now, how they go on the tree. Again, super simple. We have our rope management system here, so I'm going to attach to the tree. The teeth on these are super sturdy. When this thing gets locked into place, it's just incredible how solid they sit. So I'm going to come around. I'm going to go under. I'm going to go up through this slot, down through this slot. I'm going to come back around, over, under, and now I can tie it off or do whatever to keep it out of the way. But this is Dura-Braid, is what this rope material is, and it will hold up to 300 pounds. Once I pull down and lock it into place, this thing's on wheels, but you can see I'm not moving the step, and I haven't stepped on it. I just pulled down on it. Secure, rock solid. That's what I want in my climbing sticks. I want nothing to move. You've got a nice wide tread here. Let's see how wide. Each one is four and a half inches, so you've got 10 inches from tip to tip here. That's pretty wide. All right, now, aiders. The IconX 20s, they come in a pack of three. I know folks out there, I've heard say they wish that it was four. This is your fourth step right here. Each one of the IconX 20 sticks weighs 1.6 pounds. Together, the three of them weigh 4.9. This is going to be your fourth step, and it weighs a half a pound. This is the Arsenal Maxx Double Step Aider, and it connects. This is it. So, me personally, I fumble with aiders. I generally don't like them because just the simple loop, when I'm coming down in particular, they catch my boot, and I end up just pinning it against the tree. You can see that can't happen here. This is a step. So, this material is made out of the same, this is the same material that they use to make truck bed liners, and again, when we're in the field, you'll see it flexes a little bit, but it's pretty rigid, and more importantly, it's not flexing in. So, my foot is always going to be solid on that. It's just way more comfortable for me than the typical loop aider. You know, it just connects super simple like that. So, the tacky material here gives you good traction, especially when it's wet. That is somewhat glow-in-the-dark again, so you can see it coming down, but more importantly, what I wanted to show you is look how high my first stick is, and actually, I'm going to put it even higher because I can step higher than that, but essentially, my first stick would have been down here. That's why I say this is your fourth stick in the Icon X20 stack, and it weighs half what the actual stick is. It's also a lot quieter, packed simpler, so you add this to the three sticks, and we'll show you how high that we can get. All right, now we come to what I think is the crown jewel of the Arsenal saddle system. This is the Razor Elite. This is your platform. Look at that thing. Is there anything more compact and portable than this right here? This platform, you're looking at one inch thickness. That's crazy. We've got our attachment, got a little clip on the back here, which fits right into the MOLLE on the saddle. Remember, I said that was going to come in. When you're climbing, this platform, the way it connects to the MOLLE, is the easiest hauling platform that I've had. It sits right here as I'm climbing, so I can just pull it out and hang it up. Again, we have our DuraBraid rope, and let's take a look at how they did, how this is built. The machining on this is just impeccable. So right here, there we're going to have our typical post, and then this locks down. So when you attach to the tree, I'm going to pull it up a little bit like that. Again, we have our DuraBraid rope system. We're going to come around, go over top, and it works very much, they call it a rope cleat. If you are familiar with a boat, it works very similar to tying up to a boat cleat. I'm going to go up over top. I'm doing this for the camera, so this is a little bit cumbersome, but it actually isn't. Over, under, and then you can tie it off. You can keep going if you want to. Whatever you feel comfortable with with the rope, pull it off back there. Then, when I pull down on the platform, watch how it's going to lock it into place. Again, once it's in place, the whole tree is moving. I am not moving that. Now, one of the best parts. Okay, so you push it down and you see, oh, it's tilted up too far like that. Right here is your leveling system, and this takes nothing. I want you to watch this piece right here. You can see that it's angled, and as it comes down, that's changing the pitch of my platform in the end. You can see now it's angled down farther. So just by that, you're up in the tree. A lot of times you think, oh, that's difficult to deal with. This is all I'm doing. If I got one hand, that's super easy to work with. Locks it into place. Just a super solid system there from the folks at Arsenal. Again, we've got tapered edges here. It's comfortable. It weighs just over two pounds, 2.7 pounds this platform weighs, and it's quiet where this connects, where it locks in. There's actually a rubberized piece here so that it doesn't click, doesn't give you that metal sound when you lock it into place. And then again, this also has about a 300 pound weight rating. Hear that? Me neither. That's because this saddle is so incredibly quiet. So you can see I have my Arsenal Razor Elite attached. Look at that. I mean, that is perfect for when you're climbing up. So this is how, you know, you can see my leg straps are on, and this is your belt. No buckle. It's just a sliding Prusik knot to get it tight. Minimal weight. Here's my bridge, ready to go. And we'll do a demonstration at the ground here so you can see all the ropes. All right, so as we mentioned, our micro tether, they're the same for whether you're using it as a lineman's belt or as your tree tether. So this is as a lineman's belt. Just loop through, get that tight, going around the tree. Here's my other connection. Remember that barrel that we told you about. Just a simple twist and pull, locked. Now as I mentioned, we have our built-in tender, one-handed. So I'm able to adjust this with just one hand. That's critical when you're up in the air. If I need to loosen it, come back. One-hand adjustment on the Prusik knot, that's super simple. Now let's say I am, I've just set up my platform. I'm up at height, so now I want to connect my tree tether. Keeping my lineman's belt connected, I got a second one. And remember, we have our rubber stoppers right here, so I like it about head height. I'm going to take that, push it in, get it there, and now I can connect to my bridge. Again, same thing. Spin, unlock, automatically locks back in place. Pull that back up. Now I could, or I would, disconnect my lineman's rope. And so you can see here, I've got a lot of extra lean. So this is where, again, I would come in, got my tender. I'm going to take this and just shorten my bridge. Super simple. Now I can swivel around the tree, take my shot. Nice and simple. And you know, this one is still connected, but if I were up hunting, of course, I would take this off, put it back in my dump pouch, and now I'm hunting. All right, that is the Arsenal saddle system. Again, it's one that I think is the best saddle system that no one's talking about it, and now you can talk about it. What we have in the system, again, is the Air Saddle, Icon X20 sticks, Razor Elite Platform, the Maxx Double Step Aider, and two of the seven Micro Tether ropes. If you want to see all this gear on our website, be sure to click the link in the description below. If you liked this video, give us a thumbs up. If you want to see more videos like it, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Don't forget to click that bell to get notifications whenever we put out new videos. And as always, if you have any questions, you can visit us at LancasterArchery.com.