Warbonnet Hammock Review

Part of our camping hammocks hub. Warbonnet Outdoors is a cottage manufacturer, which on this site means something specific: the hammocks are built after you order them, configured to choices you make at checkout, and not available on Amazon. The buy links on this page go to a tagged Amazon search rather than a product page for that reason, and the honest route for most of this gear is Warbonnet's own store.

How we judged this brand

1. Disclosure quality. Warbonnet publishes a comfort range AND a maximum load AND a user-height rating, per layer. Almost no other brand we track separates comfort from maximum, and the distinction is the useful one.
2. Whether the design does something. A shelf, a footbox and a bridge option are structural choices, not colorways. We judged each on what it changes for a sleeper.
3. System completeness. A hammock brand that also makes the quilt and the tarp cut to the same shape removes the fit question, which is most of what goes wrong with hammock insulation.
4. The cost of cottage. Lead times and availability are a real con and are stated on every pick.

The published numbers

The heavyweight double row is the one to notice. Warbonnet will sell you an Original Blackbird with a 400 lb comfort range for 1 lb 11.75 oz — a figure no other integrated-net hammock on this site reaches. The layer choice is doing the work, and it is a choice you make at order time rather than a different product.

The shelf and the footbox

The Original Blackbird's two signature features are both solutions to problems you only notice on night two. The shelf is a fabric pocket off the side of the hammock giving around two square feet of storage — your headlamp, glasses and phone live there instead of migrating under your back. The footbox is a cut that lets your feet sit at an angle rather than being pushed flat against the fabric, which is the usual source of calf pressure in a gathered-end hammock.

Warbonnet also adds a 7 in strip of netting that raises the canopy edge, elastic side guylines, and a choice of standard or reverse lay orientation at order time. None of that is marketing — each one changes something measurable about a night in the thing. What it costs is simplicity: there are five suspension options and a dozen fabric colors to work through before you can check out.

XLC if you are tall, Ridgerunner if you are a side sleeper

The height column in the table is the most useful thing on this page. Warbonnet rates the Original Blackbird to 6 ft 0 in — not approximately, explicitly — and the XLC to 7 ft. If you are 6 ft 2 in, that single row has just chosen your hammock, and no amount of reading about fabric deniers would have. The XLC gets there with 11 ft of body and a 111 in ridgeline against the Original's 10 ft and 101 in, at a 3 oz weight penalty.

The Ridgerunner is a different animal: a bridge hammock with aluminum spreader bars at the head and foot, 44 in wide at both ends and 32 in through the middle, which holds the bed flat instead of curved. That flat lay is the thing side and stomach sleepers are actually shopping for, and it is why the Ridgerunner leads our best hammocks for side sleepers page. The honest cost is in the table: 250 lb, the lowest capacity of any Warbonnet here, and spreader bars that are bulky in a pack. The design trade behind that is laid out on spreader bar vs gathered end hammock.

The Wooki and the Superfly complete the system

The reason to buy a hammock, a quilt and a tarp from the same cottage maker is that nobody has to guess at fit. The Wooki is cut to the shape of Warbonnet's own hammocks, published in 40F, 20F, 0F and -20F ratings in 850-fill Responsible Down Standard goose down with a dual differential cut, and the Wooki XL's insulated section is 76 x 44 in tapering toward the feet. Warbonnet also offers a Scandinavian Wooki XL with 50 percent more down than the 0F model, which goes colder than anything else we track. Underquilt fit is the single most common hammock mistake — see best hammock underquilts.

The Superfly is the tarp: 132 x 120 in, four-season with doors, in 20D ripstop silpoly with fully taped seams, at 12.3 oz. Doors are what distinguishes a four-season tarp from a good rain tarp — they close off the ends against wind-driven rain. Twelve and a third ounces for 11 ft of covered ridgeline is the kind of figure that explains why people put up with cottage lead times.

What cottage actually costs you

• Lead time. These are made after you order. Plan around weeks, not next-day delivery, and do not order a hammock the week before a trip.
• No Amazon detail page. Warbonnet sells direct. The buy rows here are tagged Amazon searches, which will surface alternatives rather than the Warbonnet itself — the brand's own store is the real route.
• Configuration burden. Layer, width, suspension, ridgeline, lay direction. Powerful if you know what you want, paralyzing if you do not.
• Resale is the upside. Cottage hammocks hold value in a way shelf-stock nylon does not, which takes some of the sting out of the entry cost.