Expanded Pros & Cons of Big Agnes Copper Spur vs Tiger Wall

This section covers expanded pros and cons for Tiger Wall vs Copper Spur. All pros and cons apply to all versions of Copper Spur, including UL, UL XL, Limited, and Platinum. However, some of the size and weight references may vary depending on which exact version of Copper Spur you’re comparing to which version of Tiger Wall. Here is a quick overview. See more about each of these tents in our Big Agnes Copper Spur Review, and Big Agnes Tiger Wall Review.

• Pros of Big Agnes Copper Spur Series: Fully-freestanding, more wind stable, more voluminous, more durable, better features
• Pros of Big Agnes Tiger Wall Series: Lighter weight, less expensive

Pros of Copper Spur

Copper Spur is fully-freestanding: Copper Spur is a fully-freestanding tent, meaning it can be pitched without stakes, and it is easier to achieve a nice taut pitch. It can be pitched better onto more surfaces including rock, sand, and manmade tent pads. Conversely, Tiger Wall is a semi-freestanding design with two corner poles at the head end, and a single center body pole. It requires both foot-end corners to be staked out to achieve a taut pitch.

Copper Spur is more wind stable: Because Copper Spur has all four corner poles, it’s also more wind stable than Tiger Wall. The swap from one center pole to two corner poles is a serious upgrade in terms of sturdiness. If you frequently camp in inclement weather, this is likely the primary reason to choose Copper Spur vs Tiger Wall.

Copper Spur is more voluminous: Comparing similar capacity Copper Spur and Tiger Wall, the Copper Spur has a greater interior volume. Primarily, that’s because there is way more ceiling space over the foot-end half of the tent. While not as useful as space above the head-end, it does contribute to feeling less claustrophobic, and makes it easier to crawl around inside or kneel. It also has an additional square foot of interior floor plan, 1 square foot of additional area per vestibule, and an extra inch of height.

Copper Spur is more durable: While both tents utilize 15d ripstop HyperBead fly and floor fabric, which is “6% lighter, 25% more waterproof and 50% stronger than traditional fabrics,” the rip stop grid on Copper Spur is 20d (vs 15d on Tiger Wall) making it more resistant to tearing.

Copper Spur has better features: When it comes to features, Copper Spur is the clear winner. The most noticeable difference here is the awning vestibule feature, which is great for warm rain and shade. But arguably even more important than the awning, is the fact that Copper Spur has a large ceiling vent, while Tiger Wall relies on vestibule venting. The vent is important all of the time, while the awning is only valuable some of the time. Lastly, Copper Spur has more interior mesh pockets to hold your gear.

Pros of Tiger Wall

Tiger Wall is lighter weight: At every size gradation, Tiger Wall is lighter weight than Copper Spur, making it a great tent for upsizing one capacity level. Tiger Wall 3 has the highest area-to-weight ratio of all tents in both series (excluding the even lighter Platinum version). And when it comes to backpacking gear, weight minimization is critical. Carrying lighter gear feels better on your body, allowing you to hike at your preferred pace more comfortably. Generally speaking, each Tiger Wall weighs on average about eight ounces less than the same size Copper Spur, or roughly equivalent to the same weight as one size smaller Copper Spur. So the Tiger Wall UL3 is the same weight as Copper Spur UL2, and so on. As such, it is almost more fair to compare the Copper Spur UL2 to the Tiger Wall UL3, and doing so changes many the equation on which has a higher interior volume – definitely Tiger Wall through this lens.

Tiger Walls is less expensive: Gear is expensive and budgets are tight. At the 2P and 3P size gradations, Tiger Wall is $70 cheaper, though annoyingly only $20 less expensive at the 1P level. Even though on the whole we have a preference towards Copper Spur, Tiger Wall is the superior value, and offers more bang for your buck.