cool_hardware52
Contributor
Don Janni:Jarrett:
Just buy one and end your pain. There's not enough difference in them to make a hill-of-beans.
There are a lot of good Back Plates and Wings sold today, very few "bad" choices.
Most are similar, and as a category almost any BP&W will offer advantages over a typical jacket BC.
That does not mean that all back plates or wings are the same.
Backplates differ in:
Material; Stainless, Aluminum, ABS, Kydex Hybrid
Weight; From ~.6 lbs negative to 20+ for some designs.
Size; Some are offered in various sizes
Shape; Square lower corners vs rounded corners, "dogbone" travel plates etc.
Over all bend of the backplate; varies from steep to almost flat
Finish; From "As cut" to fully beburred
Center channel depth; shallow, deep etc.
Additional lower corner bends; some with, some without
Harness slot position; angled vs not angled, position of the slots vs the outline of the plate etc.
Camband Slots; some plates have camband slots for "STA-Less" tank mounting, some do not. The location and spacing of these slots varies. Some plates offer additional slots for mounting independent Twins.
Location size and number of perimeter holes; Varies from a few to many
Available accessories; plate pads, bolt on weights, smb pockets, etc.
Additonal features; overmolded harness slot protection etc.
Wings differ in:
Materials; shell materials, bladder materials, etc.
Construction; single bladder, double bladder, zippered, no zipper, bungees, no bungees etc.
Shape; narrow center panel, wide center panel, short and wide, long and narrow etc.
Lift capacity; ranges from small singles of ~17-18 lbs to ~45 lbs and doubles from ~35 to 94
Position of filll hose and OPV; varies
Fittings; simple elbow or pull dump, varies inflator assemblies
Misc; Position, size etc. of logo's Availability of "debaged" and custom colors.
Other than that all Backplates and Wings are the same
Tobin