Ioncloud9
Contributor
When I switched over to a BP/W, I was concerned about ease of getting in and out of it. Specifically, my concerns were that I wanted to be able to easily loosen the straps and also to easily tighten the straps. There are a number of ways to do this, and several dealers offer solutions to this, but after talking to the guys at my LDS, we came up with a solution that worked really well for me (as always, YMMV) on a recent trip.
My solution is not a "DIR" or "Hogarthian" compliant solution. I threaded the webbing through the shoulders at the top of the plate as you would normally, but instead of then going to the openings in the bottom of the plate and out to the waist-band, I added some small side straps with a D-Ring. My main webbing goes through the D-Ring and then it is able to be pulled tight or loosened of easily.
I made the side pieces by taking a 12-18 inch length of webbing and threading it through the lower slots in the plate that the harness would normally go through. I have secured this webbing with a tri-glide. (Yes, I know I have introduced a potential failure point here.) When I threaded this side webbing on, I also threaded weight trim pockets on it as well.
I know that there are some DIR and Hogarthian purists who are lighting torches and gathering their pitchforks and screaming "Burn the witch" at me now, but the bottom line is that it works and is incredibly comfortable.
This is really my biggest issue with the standard bp/w setup. Making even minor adjustments can be a pain, especially the crotch strap.