To judge the comfort of uninflated models, we enlisted the help of five testers who wore each of the seven models for a minimum of 30 minutes. During that time, they sat, stood, stretched and did all the things that might be required of a belt pack.

Overall, all the jackets met their claim of being compact and easy to forget. We did discover that different body types were most comfortable in different models. For instance, our taller tester was relatively comfortable in all models, even the larger pouches like the Stearns 25, Stearns Auto 33, and SoSpenders 38. Our short-waisted tester preferred the more compact models that distributed the jacket horizontally like the Seapro 25 or Stearns 16. One tester, who was very tiny through the waist, did not like this type however, because of its tendency to extend out from side-to-side. The width of the belt webbing was important to comfort too, because skinny webbing tended to dig into your skin much more than wide webbing.

In general, we found the size of the unit’s CO2 cartridge, which affects the size of the unit’s bladder, really contributed to the overall size of the unit. This means that a 16 gram model is going to be more compact and probably more comfortable worn uninflated than a 33 or 38 gram.