This is strictly my personal opinion after having ordered an X-vest and trying it out. Others may have different experiences with the X-vest and be quite happy with it, they are used by a lot of pro teams and all, and some here like it.
By chance, I happened to meet a female firefighter at one of the stations in my dept. and she was talking about her weight vest. I had already ordered the X-vest
and was waiting for it to arrive, so I was curious about the vest she had(the V-Max vest), as well as she was pretty hot and athletic and I did not mind doing a few stairs workouts with her, as she took the lead and the whole time my face was 1-2 feet from her juicy ass
as I was hypnotically fixated on the movement of those two volleyballs attached to her lower back, I was actually trying to sniff her ass the whole time, made the workouts very interesting, I was quite unaware of the fatigue, hehe. Oh, sorry, back to the vest!
When I grabbed the vest I was impressed by the thickness of the material it was made of,like a very thick, black canvas (Cordura, I think it's called). The X-vest had some thin regular fabric. As a firefighter I've seen major amounts of heavy duty gear for H.D. use and this cordura fabric is your state of the art, required material.
The padding over the shoulder straps is super double thick, very dense foam padding of some sort, very comfortable. X-vest does not even compare.
The stitching is super H.D. on the V-max, the pockets for the weights are very easy to load and unload, the weights themselves are flat and stay close to your body, and they slide in and out of the pockets musc quicker than the X-vest, which has round, tubular weights that are harder to put in and take out of the vest and do not conform to your body as well as the
V-max. The straps on the V-max combine velcro closure and snap clips and give you a more snug fit than the X-vest. Overall, just a quick look at the V-max tells you it's all H.D. and state of the art. When I opened the box that the X-vest arrived in, I could not believe my eyes. It looked cheap and low quality, like not American made, chintzy. I gave it a try nevertheless, and my fears were confirmed. The stitching was light-duty, it shifted more than the V-max, and overall, I was unhappy. Remember, I am in a profession where I use very high quality H.D. stuff and I am a good judge of durability and quality.
By the time I received the X-vest, I had already used the chick's V-max vest so I was like already spoiled.
This is all my personal opinion, but I am a very good judge of utility gear, having been a firefighter for 15 years.