Hello everyone, and welcome to my review of the Rocket sling bag from Hazard 4.
Before we begin please keep in mind that I am not a native English speaker.

I would like to preface by saying that this review will most likely be longer and more image intensive than what you may be used to, so be warned. Also of interest, I only review gear which I have tested for some time, and always speak from personal experience, I know that there are some people who just do a copy/paste of the manufacturers info, throw around some fabricated and completely unempirical opinions and call it a day. This is not one of those reviews.

Before we begin, and for future reference, I think knowing the body type and size is important to understand where I’m coming from with my opinions, particularly on the fit and handling of the product, to that end I’m 175 centimeters tall, weigh about 90-95 kilograms and I would say I’m just a tad on the fat side.

Ok, moving on! A little backstory. When I first picked up a sling bag I was living in the USA and chose the Sitka from Maxpedition, which a lot of us know and hopefully love. It IS a great bag for many, many things and, naturally, its not so great at others (there is no perfect bag, after all), much of this has been said, but I’ll say it again for the sake of consistency, the Sitka is not great when loaded up with more than 6-7 kilograms of gear, as the shoulder strap is not wide enough to distribute this weight in a comfortable manner, and in my particular case the stabilizer strap did not work as well as it should. The removable compression straps included with the sitka are cumbersome and need to be unbuckled when you want to completely open the bag, they also get in the way of the operation of the external pockets, making for a less-than-ideal solution, so I removed them from day one and have not missed them. The small size of the Sitka makes it possible to operate from a comfortable position when the bag is slung to the front, even for extended periods of time. This is particularly useful when traveling by public transit as it permits me to carry the bag in a safe position and also sit, without having to take it off my person, with the added bonus of being able to comfortably reach in and manipulate items within the bag.

In any case, you can tell I really like the Sitka, but as you may already know it’s terribly hard to resist the temptation of new gear, and when I heard that H4 had released the Rocket I jumped at the chance of trying one out for myself being a fan of the elongated design of their Plan B line and of sling bags in general. Many of my perceptions will be in a semi-direct comparison to the Sitka. I also ordered a Broadside pouch from H4 so I’ll throw in some of my opinions on that as well.

Right from the get-go we spot the obvious differences. The Rocket’s main compartment is longer and narrower than the Sitka, but when taking into account all the pockets the Rocket has we end up with an increased default cargo capacity. So its a bigger bag, if somewhat unconventionally (but not inconveniently) shaped by everyday standards. While both products offer MOLLE webbing the Rocket has a more convenient layout, you’ll see that the MOLLE that has been placed on the sides of the Rocket is closer to the body of the operator and thus makes weight more bearable. Whereas the Sitka only has MOLLE on the front, which would put the weight farther away from the wearer’s body, and on one of the sides, the side MOLLE being just one section and rather inconvenient. This allows the Rocket to mount various combinations of pockets while keeping an optimal weight distribution.

Another BIG difference between these bags is the carrying strap, which in my opinion is the cornerstone of the sling system. While the strap on the Sitka is decently (if not terribly) padded it just can’t handle all the weight the bag is physically able to carry, turning the bag into an uncomfortable brick when loaded up with more than 6 or 7 kilograms of gear.
The strap on the Rocket, on the other hand, is about 30% wider, substantially more padded AND ambidextrous! The nylon part of the strap itself feels of better quality as well and has the “camelbak style” velcro loop for managing excess strap. Try as I might I can’t get the bag to become uncomfortable under normal use. I have stuffed this baby full of damp (or outright wet) clothes, books, grocery bags, all while carrying a full hydration bladder and I have yet to feel any discomfort. Even with the Broadside Pouch attached and filled to the brim. I cannot overstate how important and game changing this is, it really makes the whole bag “work” in a way that the Sitka never could and is the one thing I would LOVE to see other companies implement in their product lines. The buckle on the Rocket feels like it is of better quality and operates in a snappier way, I’m not a big fan of the locking feature as I found the one on my buckle to be overly sensitive and easily knocked around, the good news is that you don’t have to use it if you don’t like it as it does not detract from the functionality of the buckle itself, so consider it a bonus feature.
Aside from that, we see that the Rocket’s strap has the customary MOLLE webbing, with routing straps for a hydration tube and ambidextrous D-rings that do double duty as attachment points for the included stabilization strap. While we are on the subject, I have NOT included pictures or personal opinions on the use of the stabilization strap because I simply don’t use it, mainly because it adds another step to the process of swinging the bag around, but also because I don’t really move around in a way that would call for it, finally, when I did try it out I found that the part of the strap that attaches to the bag was digging into my lower back in a VERY uncomfortable way. It does seem to be very well constructed and of high quality though. Before we leave the comfort aspects behind I would like to mention that I always wear my bags as tight and as close to my body as possible, so that the weight rides closer to my center of gravity.

Regarding the bag itself we see that we have two pockets on the front, a larger one on the bottom which is meant as an admin pouch, that also has MOLLE webbing on the front as well as a velcroed sleeve. The one on the top has a loop velcro square and is meant as a GP pouch with no organizational features integrated into it.

Then we have the side GP pouch that will easily fit a 32oz. bottle with some extra room, this one also sports a sleeve that can be used to store small and/or flat items.

The other side is pretty much the same except that this GP pouch has a routing hole for a headphone cord. Now, this is not an optimal solution in my opinion, because most MP3 players today are really small and if you place it on the GP pouch it would just float around, not to mention the fact that if you place other items it would snag around the cable and potentially make a big tangle out of things. A more elegant solution would have been to have a small sleeve within the bag’s main compartment that could house just the MP3 player/smartphone/Walkman (old skool) without it interfering with other storage spaces. Nevertheless this is a feature I don’t use, as I keep my smartphone in my pocket and just route the headphone cable under my shirt. If one were to insist on having a music player strapped to the bag then I guess the best solution would be to get a MOLLE compatible pouch and attach it to the webbing on the shoulder strap.

The Broadside pouch itself can be seen in this picture, as you can see it has MOLLE webbing on the front as well as two velcro strips that are sized for name tapes, it also has the sleeve pocket and an H4 logo as well. I don’t have the exact dimensions on hand but it is slightly larger than the GP pouch on the Rocket, in all dimensions.