Mystery Ranch Pintler Bag on NICE Frame

I am a DIYer when it comes to gear, but backpacks are a whole other animal. I do know quality when I see it and that's why I chose the Mystery Ranch NICE Frame to tackle all of my hunting, farm, and leisurely tasks. It's a load hauler - but "bag only" options are very limited unless you purchase another complete pack from Mystery Ranch, take the pack off, and sell the NICE frame on eBay or some other sales channel. 

Well, this is not something I wanted to do. After spending upwards of $750 just for the Mystery Ranch Overload Pack, I wanted a smaller bag that I could attach for shorter excursions and day hikes without too much bulk. During my online search, I came across the Pintler Bag which is made for the MR Guide Light MT Frame specifically, and is only 40L in size (much better for a day hike or hunt). 

I thought to myself, well, this bag looks like all that needs to be changed out are the buckles to make it work with the NICE Frame. I spent hours scouring through online photos of both the Pintler Bag, other bags that fit on the NICE Frame, and the NICE Frame itself until I decided to purchase the Pintler Bag Only in Coyote Brown from Midway USA. It was on sale at the time for around $150. I also purchased a kit of Duraflex Auto-Lock Buckles online. 

This of course was after even more hours spent reading forums to see if anyone else had attempted this project. All I could find was some who had attached a MOLLE II ruck and the USMC FILBE bag to the NICE Frame, but nothing about other Mystery Ranch bags that were made for other frames. 

Once everything arrived, I swapped out the buckles, and just as I expected, the Pintler Bag fit perfectly on the NICE Frame. No slack, except for the bottom part, but I realized how to solve that issue by connecting the two additional buckles at the bottom that I had not initially seen. It's almost like Mystery Ranch is trying to make it hard for their customers to have a more versatile/modular pack system with their favorite frames. It's beyond my why they are doing this, seeing as there are so many requests on their own website and forums to offer Bag Only options for the NICE Frame. 

Here is the video in case you guys want to copy what I did and have a smaller bag option for the NICE Frame.