- The Mystery Ranch Urban Assault 24,
or the UA 24 for short is a durable 24 liter backpack
that is pretty great for travel as well
and has a super comfortable harness system.
I'm Tom, the founder of Pack Hacker,
where we use our expertise and real world experience
to provide practical resources and honest opinions
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Let's jump right into the Mystery Ranch UA24,
a bag that I have personally been testing
for the last two weeks including four flights
in Detroit, Michigan, Los Angeles, California
and San Francisco, California.
So let's jump in and check it out.
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Overall, the Mystery Ranch UA 24
has a pretty streamlined look,
especially when comparing it to other bags
in the Mystery Ranch line.
Aesthetically, their line can run the gamut,
so overall they have kind of more of an outdoorsy
and tactical look.
This one, there's not ton of external molle going on,
but if you do look at some of their other bags,
there's a lot of like PALS webbing going on
and it looks even a little bit more
militaristic than this one does.
But generally, slim profile on this one, not a lot going on,
smooth exterior, and we like that, especially for travel.
At the time of this review,
this bag comes in four different color ways.
There is black, indigo, ivy, and the shadow color
that we have here.
Sadly, the UA 24 doesn't come
in any throwback color ways yet.
The main fabric on the exterior of this bag
is tough and durable.
It is a 500D Cordura nylon.
From a branding perspective,
we have the Mystery Ranch logo going at the top here,
so generally, some subdued branding
that is about the same color as the bag.
Although the logo is a little bit big,
we like that it's not really screaming at you,
and it doesn't stick out too much.
We think the Mystery Ranch UA 24 has a unique look.
Some folks like it and some don't.
So we decided to poll our Instagram audience
over at Pack Hacker to get their thoughts on it,
and here are the results.
Make sure to follow @packhacker on Instagram.
We'd love to have you be a part of future polls.
To wrap up the hardware, we have durable YKK AquaGuard
zippers going on throughout the entirety of this pack,
and some are number 10s, really big and beefy,
number eights as well.
Just a good variety of high quality zippers.
And then, on the strap adjusters,
we have nice, high quality Duraflex as well.
So, Mystery Ranch doesn't really mess around
with durability and quality.
Everything that you see going on with this bag is solid.
And for those of you wondering, this is fully packed out,
and the bag does not stand on its own.
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Moving on to the external components of this bag,
kicking it off with the harness system.
Now, this is one of my personal favorite parts of the bag
'cause it wears high on your back.
It's super comfortable and super adjustable,
which means that it works well with different body types.
At first, this bag felt a little bit weird
before I got everything fully dialed in and adjusted,
but the more I used it, the more I traveled,
even having it on for prolonged periods of time
and completely maxed out in capacity,
you really start to realize how comfortable this bag is.
Starting with the straps,
there is some seriously thick and dense foam going on here.
So I'd say it's about a half an inch in thickness,
and it's really dense as well.
There are load lifters at the top that adjust
in two different places so you can get the right fit
for you, and they are properly anchored to straps as well.
So you can kind of cinch these up
and then you can wear the bag up high on your back.
Additionally, there is a semi-flexible frame sheet
at the top here that can move and flex
as you're adjusting these load lifters as well.
Heading down the rest of the straps,
there is a thin row of PALS-like webbing here,
and that's gonna be for the sternum strap.
Although it looks like there are five different sections,
there are about three sections that fit these sternum strap
inside of it comfortably.
Now sometimes we have gripes with this style
of sternum strap because it can easily fall out,
however, the plastic hardware that Mystery Ranch
has selected for their sternum strap is wide,
and it sort of just stays in place
even while this sternum strap is being jostled around
while you're in transit.
Moving down the rest of the straps at the bottom here,
we have some really beefy Duraflex buckles
that just glide while you're adjusting the straps.
And the only con here is there's really no elastic keeper
or anything like that to manage this excess strap.
So, definitely not a dangle-free experience.
Wrapping up the rest of the harness system here,
we have this back panel that's nice and padded,
about the same density if not a little bit more
than the straps.
And then we have this mesh paneling here as well
that can help with additional airflow.
No option for a hip belt in this bag,
but you may not necessarily need one
especially at a 24 liters and the way the pack carries,
it's just so comfortable, even when loaded out
to the maximum capacity.
Moving on to this handle at the top,
it sort of just seems like an afterthought.
The positioning of it is towards the back of the bag,
which makes it a little bit harder so when you pick it up,
it's gonna kinda, gonna do this and it's gonna be, you know,
sort of flailing all over the place, so that's one thing.
And then secondly, there is no padding here at all.
So you know, maybe they could have used some foam padding
that's in these straps here, maybe a little bit thinner.
Even I know a lot of companies just kinda sew this over,
so it feels a little bit more padded
while you're grabbing it.
But overall, like the positioning of this
and the material this is made out of
just seems kind of tacked on last minute.
It definitely gets the job done, it's just not amazing
and doesn't really match the quality of the rest
of what this pack has going on.
Wrapping up the exterior features here,
we have two exterior water bottle pockets on the side.
Now it's important to note that these pockets themselves
don't really have any stretch.
The pro of this is that you don't get a bunch of extra
kind of shape and space going on
in the exterior of this pack, so if you have like a big,
massive water bottle that's really going to stick out.
But, in order to put a bigger bottle in here,
the main capacity of the interior of this bag
needs to be a little bit more on the empty side
if you wanna fully utilize the outer pockets
for a large water bottle.
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Kicking it off with the pack interior,
starting with the laptop compartment.
So, there's basically a little nylon webbing
grab handle here that you can use as you're zipping
this compartment up and down,
which is a nice, handy little feature.
Now this is a number 10 YKK AquaGuard zipper,
which means two things,
one is that it's really, really durable.
It's about the most durable zipper that YKK makes,
especially for the luggage and backpack class.
Number two, adds a lot of weather resistance
for your tech gear that you wanna put inside.
So if we open this up, we have that curved frame sheet
going on here, that we can kind of pull back,
there's some nice flexibility there,
'cause you wanna get to your laptop or your tech gear
on the inside.
Then you have two little divider pockets here.
So, the one in the back is for your laptop
and that has a false bottom,
which means that the design of it
kind of stops right about here.
So if you drop this, you know, abruptly,
your laptop bottom isn't gonna slam to the ground.
So that's a really nice feature,
love when bags do that and include that.
And on the front of that there is a small pocket
for your tablet as well.
There is some slight padding on the laptop pocket
which we like, as well as small elastic on these sides
to kind of keep everything a little bit stretchy.
Now one thing that we noticed in usage of this bag
is that the laptop pocket
can sometimes be a little bit stubborn.
A 15" MacBook Pro with no case on it
is sometimes harder to flip in and out of this pocket,
so whether this fabric on the sides is kind of folding up,
things like that.
Sometimes it's just a little bit stubborn to get in.
And maybe it's because this is positioned a little bit lower
on the bag itself and like we get why it would be that way
just so it doesn't get in the way
of this kind of curved frame sheet at the top.
However, just note that it can be a little bit stubborn
to slide a laptop in and out of here.
Moving on to the top of the bag here,
we have have this top flap drop pocket.
So, this has a number eight YKK zipper,
again it's AquaGuard.
The large zipper is super durable for this application,
but we like that Mystery Ranch is kind of killing it
with fire as far as durability goes.
So that opens right up and then you can see
there's this mesh material here.
So, this mesh material leads into the main compartment
of this bag.
Again, really love this top pocket here.
Good for toiletries, computer charger, a tech pouch,
anything you need you quick access to,
these are always nice to have in the airport
just to take everything out of your pockets,
quickly shove them in here
and then just go through security.
Now on to the main event of this bag,
the tri-zip or 3-Zip that you see
in a lot of Mystery Ranch bags.
And this is our first Mystery Ranch review
with a product that has this 3-Zip,
so we're excited to dive in and really test it out.
The top of this vertical zip is sort of hidden by
these two side zippers, so if you wanted to open it up
kind of duffle-style, you could unzip these a little bit,
then get access to that top zip there.
Now it kind of opens up like a duffle.
One of the great things about the tri-zip
and having softer materials on the inside like clothes,
is it seems like you could just really compress it down.
So if you have this number 10 YKK zipper,
grab onto the bottom here
and just really rip that zipper closed,
it's gonna compress all your clothing
and everything inside very easily.
Now I'm gonna show you quick how I had this thing packed out
on my trip.
I had the Tom Bihn 3D Organizer clear pouch
going on the top here for toiletries.
I had a couple more in here than you see inside of the bag.
That was going on there.
And then, two small Peak Design Packing Cubes.
So one at the top here, just pull that out,
and then one kind of at the front of this tri-zip here.
So this just had all of my clothing inside of it.
Again, just really nice to have that additional compression.
You can see here that we have two cubes stacked up.
It handles that really, really well.
Pull that out, and then there is a medium sized
Peak Design Packing Cube here,
and I've actually got a suit in here,
'cause I was at a wedding.
So it fits all that really nicely and again,
just like really, you can kind of cram it in there
with this massive zip, which is really nice.
And there's a ton of organizational features
on the inside as well.
Didn't take advantage of all of them
and everything it has to offer,
but there's some clever stuff going on in the inside.
On the interior wings of the bag,
we have this zippered mesh pocket going on
with some good ample space at the top
to put in smaller items.
Maybe if you have cords, SD cards,
just kind of like Kleenexes,
just little things that you wanna access to
and you always wanna know where they are.
These mesh pockets are good for that.
And then at the front of these wings,
we have two water bottle pockets going on as well,
which are good for holding water bottles.
Now something to note on all these interior pockets,
with this, they do use that interior liner material
and they don't have any elastic going on
on the outside here either.
So, it's not really gonna hold things in very tightly.
So just note that, it's just the liner, not a lot of stretch
no elastic at the top.
On the back panel there is some interesting organization
going on as well.
So, there's a space in the back here for flatter items,
say if you have like a folder or documents
that you wanna take with you, you can pop those in here.
And that goes down to about here,
the bottom of this admin panel.
So there's ample space there.
And then, there's also a zippered compartment as well
that you can open up.
It has the same depth as the pocket behind it.
In front of that, two liner pockets on these sides.
So this one fits a Tom Bihn Pouchkin really well.
Kind of using that as a little first aid kit on the road.
One on the other side are the exact same size,
and then two pen, pencil, or stylus pockets
going on right in the middle.
The beauty of all this organization
is that it lays flat when you don't need it,
or if you don't wanna utilize it, but if you do,
you can kind of pick and choose what you wanna use.
And definitely, you can just fill this thing up
with big packing cubes and kind of compress everything
and jam it in.
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At the time of this review,
I've personally been testing the Mystery Ranch UA 24
in Detroit, Michigan,
Los Angeles and San Francisco, California,
including four flights.
Generally this bag is very comfortable
to carry for very long periods of time.
And fits under an airplane seat quite well
due to the 24 liter capacity and size.
The lower profile exterior of this pack
as well as the lay-flat water bottle pockets
are great for travel and just everyday use
'cause there's not a lot of extra stuff
going on all over this pack,
and there's no exterior stretchy pocket,
which means that it will retain this shape
even as you fully fill out the bag.
The look of this bag is a tad more on the tactical side,
and the versatility, functionality,
and comfort is really there.
So to wrap this thing up with some pros and cons,
there are some high quality materials
and construction going on with the UA 24
for some great durability.
The pack is very comfortable and has a great harness system
that's customizable to different body types.
Unique 3-Zip or tri-zip design
creates multiple ways to access
and you can really get inside of this pack
without having a fully clamshell design.
Now on to some of the cons.
The laptop compartment can be a little bit slow to access,
the sides can kind of bunch up
and make it a little bit hard to easily slide your laptop
inside, even something as thin as a MacBook Pro 15".
The top handle seems a little bit unsolved
especially compared to the rest of the attention to detail
that's been paid on this bag.
There is no elastic or stretchiness
on the interior pockets to hold the items in place.
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The Mystery Ranch Urban Assault 24 is an excellent addition
to Mystery Ranch's other 3-Zip bags.
There is a lot of attention to detail
put into the way this bag carries,
and you can really feel it after you've had it on,
fully loaded for a long period of time.
Although we have gripes with the laptop compartment
and some of the interior pocket design,
the pros greatly outweigh the cons
with this excellent, well thought out, and comfortable bag.
This bag could be a great choice
for you if you prioritize carry comfort, organization,
and durability while not minding
a slightly more tactical look.
So there you have it,
our review of the Mystery Ranch Urban Assault 24.
We would love to hear what you think of this bag
in the comments below.
Thanks for keeping it here at Pack Hacker,
your guide to smarter travel.
We'll see you in the next video.