Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Kifaru Sawtooth vs Seek Outside 6 man tipi

Is there a benefit of the Sawtooth over the SO 6 man Tipi? Is the 6 man worth the extra half pound in weight? The tent will mostly be used for back pack hunting 5-8 miles from the trailhead. I am 5'10" so I would be able to stand in either tent. I usually hunt solo but there is a possibility of up to 3 people total. I have never been in either but there are only positive reviews on both tents.


Seek Outside 6 man tipi
- $869 with carbon pole
- <5lbs with carbon pole
- Two doors
- Two full length zippers with storm flap
- Doors have two zippers to vent at the top
- Peak vent
- Stove port
- Sod skirt
- 30D Silnylon
- 3 stake setbacks during setup
- footprint ~ 154 sq/ft
- height 7'10"

Sawtooth
- $797
- 4.5lbs
- Stove port
- unknown fabric
- Only 1 stake setback during setup
- footpring ~ 134 sq/ft
- height - 7'

Never seen a Sawtooth. All I had to do was watch a video of all the "setbacks" you had to remember to stake it out to decide I was too much of a retard to set it up twice a year.

A Seek Outside tipi can be staked out by pulling the shelters radius from a center stake on a string. Couldn't be simpler. You don't have to worry which direction the wind is coming from (other than the door's location) when you set up a cone.

I would go with a 4-man for two men on foot but it'll be too tight probably for 3 with a stove

I haven't seen the instructions for pulling the radius to set it up. That seems much easier than what I saw. The sawtooth only has one setback.

I too, have not seen a Sawtooth, but like most Kifaru equipment, I'm sure it is a quality tent. I do know that my SO 6-man is a quality tent as well. It is really easy to put up with based on their setbacks instructions. It is light weight and really handles the wind well. It has stood up to wind and snow on CO elk hunts and in high winds here in OK. Kevin and the other folks at SO are great to work with and I highly recommend.

And I'm sure it's written on the instruction tag that's sewn in so you don't have to remember it.

The sawtooth seems like a great product with a pretty loyal following, but I've never been around one.
Have owned my SO 6man for 3 years now and have been pretty happy with it.
Sure was nice having that stove on my Novemeber hunt and now it'll get some more use ice fishing..

Cost - insignificant difference for base models. They are both expensive. $797 vs $789

Weight - Advantage Sawtooth at 4.5 lbs vs about 5.75 lbs for the SO-6 with standard pole. SO specs the 6-man at under 5 lbs in lightest configuration, but that is with the carbon fiber pole, an $80 upgrade option that is said to save 13 oz.

Standing room - Advantage SO-6 at 7'10" vs Sawtooth bat 6'7" per Kifaru webpage. I recently sold my SO-4, it was 6'10" at the peak. I'm 6'3" and could not stand up fully without my head touching the fabric and pole.

Footprint - I'd say slight advantage to the Sawtooth, but there are some considerations. The Sawtooth has a smaller tent footprint, but it also has guylines on the sides and aft. The space for these have to be considered to some degree when choosing a site. The SO-6 has no required guylines, but a bigger footprint at 14' across. However, the SO-6 also has a flexi-pitch option that one can use to pitch in roughly a 4-man size. One thing I like about the tipi, is no required guylines to avoid in darkness.

Fabric - Hard to say since Kifaru doesn't specify exactly what their fabric is, and I have never found any quantifiable testing comparing the two.

Build quality - No hands-on with Kifaru, but I believe both brands are very well constructed.

Customer service - Both outstanding.


I really don't think you can go wrong with either shelter.

As for myself, I've recently sold my BT-2 and SO-4, and am heading for a SO-6. For me, it's all about the real headroom that I can stand up fully in. I've been in a SO-6, and it works with the 7'10" peak.

Thanks for everyone's replies. I think I'm going to go with the SO 6 man. I don't see any downsides to it except for 1/2 pound in weight.

Smokepole - the sawtooth setback is at the front door.

I would still like to see a video or instructions on setting up the tipi by pulling a string the length of the radius. Sounds simple but I haven't found it anywhere.

I've got the sawtooth and my brother the 6. For some reason the sawtooth feels like it has more use able space to me.

Got the Seek Outside 6-man tipi in recently. True standing room for myself at 6'3".

I haven't weighed it, but SO says 5 lbs all-in, with carbon-fiber pole.

We are real happy with it.

Great thread!

Anypne else have some more recent opinions on this?

How do you guys deal with rain-water runoff getting under the tent and mice at night? I've slept in traditional lodgepole pine/canvas TeePees before and the mice were horrible at night. Crawled all over your sleep bag and even face if it wasn't covered. This was at 10,000' in Colorado. Maybe other locations are different. I like how light they are, just not sure the trade-offs are worth it.

scatter some stale crackers away from the tent.....

In addition to h22's crackers, ( ) avoid camping at established, heavily used sites if at all possible. We use floorless shelters almost exclusively and mice have only ever been a problem once. A regularly used horse camp.

Rain water is a non-issue, IME. I guess poor site selection could make it an issue.

Bought a small digital scale along the way.

The actual weight of my 6-man, with CF pole, 20 stakes, stuff sacks, is 6 lbs, 1 oz.

That would also include a long bootlace I strung through the upper interior loops.

Or, bring a few mousetraps and a little peanut butter, the traps weigh nothing. We had a problem once at one of our camps that wasn't used at all, just a good west-facing aspect with tall grass and lots of mouse food. A mouse chewed through my buddy's longbow string, put him out of business. Next season we brought three traps each.

As soon as we settled into our bags the first night, they started going off. Second night was quiet.

Definitely. Good point. Drag about the bowstring...

Getting away from backpacking here, but... One of our elk camps- 2 wall tents- stays in for 2-3 months some years. Even being as tidy as we can, mice caught on and got to be a problem. I brought in a bunch of traps and that snapping at night was music to our ears. When camp is in we leave traps set all the time now, and only catch the occasional Mickey Mouse. Between mouse traps and solar bear fence, camp has been unscathed for years.