Tag Archives: gear

Plates II

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In case anyone was wondering:

And T3 was having a sale on plate carriers so I got one of each – this and this.

I already have a couple sets of soft armour, which I believe everyone should have, and I have a carrier and plates next to my AR in the bedroom ‘just in case’. But, I wanted an extra set…perhaps for offsite storage…and I also wanted a low-profile set to keep in the truck. And, lets be real, the prices aren’t going to go down and at some point getting this stuff will no longer be as simple as a webform and a credit card.

And as tempting as it is to buy a set of plates and sock them away, don’t. You need to actually wear them and get used to how they feel and,  most importantly, how they affect your ability to function and move while wearing them. I promise you, bringing up a rifle and shouldering it will be a completely different game when youre wearing this stuff. And it isn’t lighweight. The smart survivalist will buy a dirt cheap plate carrier, a set of weighted replica plates,  duct tape the crap out of the corners and stress points, and use them for training purposes. Crom forbid, but when Der Tag arrives you really don’t have margin for a learning curve. So, yes, feel like a dork as you’re LARPing around your house in armour….thats part of the familiarization process. Your carrier needs to fit you, and it needs to do it in such a manner that donning it is as familiar and easy as slipping into worn shoes. Wear it…go the range, go for a hike, do a workout, but wear it and move with it and adjust as necessary.

And, finally, remember that these things will stop bullets (most of the time) but there’s no free lunch in physics so that energy has to go somewhere and that somewhere is going to be you. Don’t think you’ll have a round of 7.62 bounce off your chest and your gonna keep moving forward like the Terminator. Hollywood makes bullet resistance look like fun and game but it really looks more like cracked/broken ribs/sternum and bruises that make you queasy just looking at them.

BUT….it beats a sucking chest wound any day of the week.

Article – Filson to outsource most of remaining Seattle production to California

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Filson, the Seattle-based maker of durable, high-end outdoor wear, is preparing to cut most of its already shrunken Seattle-area manufacturing operations.

The 126-year-old company plans to outsource up to two-thirds of its remaining Seattle-area production to an outside vendor near Los Angeles, but has no immediate plans to end all production here, company officials said Monday.

I have a lot of Filson wool clothing. Every piece is made in Seattle. Filson also makes some non-wool stuff I want but every time I go look at the specs on their website, its manufacture is listed as ‘Imported’. While I love the Filson brand, Im not paying Filson prices for something made in Thailand, Bangladesh or anywhere else in Asia.

I suspect its only a matter of time before Filson moves the production of the magnificent wool coats to somewhere more economical…and probably offshore. Or maybe they’ll just move to California and really make the stuff there rather than ‘making it’ at the Port of San Diego.

I suggest that if ‘Made in America’ matters to you, and you want the genuine Filson product, buying it sooner rather than later might be wise.

On the bright side, if you do buy the genuine Filson the rather high price is borne out over the rather long lifespan these things have. I often meet people wearing a Filson and it used to belong to their dad or grandfather. And a couple times a winter I’ll be out and about and someone will interrupt me and say “Excuse me, is that a Filson?” Great product those wool coats.

Fake tourniquets

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I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before, but if a price on a CAT-style tourniquet seems too good to be true, it probably is. And, unlike many other counterfeit products, getting caught with one of these and having it fail when you need it is, literally, a matter of life and death.

I got a reminder about this in my email today from NAR. If you think about it, t his thing is simply injection moulded plastic and some nylon webbing. That means the barrier to entry for making a knockoff is pretty darn low. As a result, these things are all over Amazon and eBay. Yes, there are other wendors with nigh-impeccable creds selling the genuine product….but I’m just not willing to take the chance that their purchasing agent made a mistake that month and got some knockoffs from Glorious Peoples Plastic Factory No. 55 in Changzhou.

This is one of the very few products that I will not buy, no matter how discounted, from anywhere except NAR. I will spend an extra ten bucks or so to ensure that I’m getting something that actually does what its supposed to do when its supposed to. There are times to shop around and save money but when it comes to things like scuba gear, defense lawyers, parachutes, heart surgeons, and critical life saving equipment,  you’d have to be a fool to make cost the deciding discriminatory criteria.

I’ve a bunch of the CAT tourniquets, and every single one of them came straight from NAR. Sometimes NAR will have a sale and I’ll pick up a couple more as gifts or extras, but I never buy them from anywhere else no matter how discounted they are. I would recommend you do the same.

When it’s 3am and youre laid out in the back of a pickup truck speeding to a hospital with a fountain spurting from your leg,probably  the last thing youre going to think before passing out from blood loss as you stare at the broken tourniquet windlass won’t be “wow, I’m sure glad I saved that ten bucks.”

Even without TEOTWAWKI, stuff happens. Get a couple tourniquets, practice with them, carry them, and stay safe(r).

OKC arrival

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A little while back, I mentioned that Ontario Knife Co. was no longer a going concern. It appears that it was sold, without its manufacturing equipment, to another knife distributor. Not maker, but distributor. I suspect that soon we will see the marketplace full of Made In China knives sporting the OKC brand on it. This is pretty much what happened to Schrade. Sad, but thats how things go in the real world.

Although my personal prefs run towards the KaBar and BKT products, I did order a couple knives while they were still available. They arrived today:

And. fortuitously, I still have a bunch of the very recommended SpecOps Brand knife sheaths that were on closeout a while back. Fit like a glove.

Really can’t have too many well-made, quality knives on hand.

Article – Ontario Knife Co. in Franklinville sold, 56 employees to lose jobs

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FRANKLINVILLE — The Ontario Knife Co. has been sold to an out-of-state interest and is expected to close by the end of the month, the Olean Times Herald learned Thursday.

The move would put 56 employees of the Franklinville cutlery out of work effective July 27. Ontario Knife makes tactical, outdoor and home edged products. Before moving to Franklinville, the company had its roots in Naples, N.Y., where it was founded 134 years ago.

The parent company, Elma-based Servotronics, which is primarily involved in manufacturing aerospace components, announced plans to sell Ontario Knife on March 30.

Its always sad when a long-running American company finally succumbs. I have no experience with Ontario knives but everything I read says their RAT series of knives were quite good. Being a sentimentalist, I ordered some of their knives right after having this news brought to my attention.

For knives, I use Spyderco folders, Glock field knives, and Becker designs from KaBar. And, lately, the Mora knives for less tactical uses like fishing and hunting (good knives at a great value, by the way.)

H/T to the person who told me the news in email.

Combat tent sale at Coleman’s Surplus

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This caught my eye a few weeks ago so i ordered one up:

Officially known as TCOP- Tent, Combat, One Person. This tent has been over engineered to withstand almost any situation. The black anodized cold weather rated aluminum shock corded frame is designed to hold up under the harshest of conditions. Main tent bathtub style floor area measures 28 square feet and is made of rip-stop nylon material. The two vestibule areas are a total of 17 square feet which is ideal for additional gear storage. Reversible rain fly is flame retardant, and made of full coverage blackout material with durable taped seams. All netting is 40D nylon “no-see-um” for protection from dust and small insects. Tents are approximately 33” high on the inside. Woodland pattern. Unused in original manufacturer’s box. Tent, fly, frame weighs 6 lbs. 6.7 oz. NSN# 8340-01-535-0134. MADE IN USA.

Condition was, apparently, new and unused. It might have been used at some point, I suppose, but it sure didnt look it. They say unused, the evidence seems to support it.

I like the idea of as light a pack as possible so my go-to for shelter is either a tarp or poncho shelter, or something ridiculously light like a Kifaru tarp..  But, sometimes you just want something you can zip yourself into and get away from those damn mosquitos.

Anyway…if youre looking for a tent and fly suitable for one person who doesnt mind 7# of weight, go check it out before it goes off sale.

LifeStraws…again

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Was up at CostCo and the LifeStraws are now $20 for 4 (or $5 each if you’re mathematically challenged). Its worth having one in your vehicle console (“Glove compartment”), hunting bag, emergency kit, and off-site stash.

 

And…they may turn up as Paratus gifts at that price.

 

 

First impression of Romeo4 XT Pro

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For someone who tries to embrace technology when possible, I have been reluctant to try a red dot scope. No particular reason except that ‘iron sights are good enough’. As a result, I have pretty much zero experience using them.

I may have been missing out. I dropped the Sig Romeo4 XT Pro on my MP5 clone, sighted it in, and…wow. You can shoot a good bit faster when your not trying to line up your rear sight with your front sight, and then lining all that up with the target. Just put dot on target and bang. There is some serious advantage there.

Of course, there’s disadvantage as well since you’re introducing a new failure point…bad electronics, battery failure, etc. But, hey, thats why we keep the open sights, right?

I was really surprised how fast it was to get on target and shoot. I may have to experiment some more with this thing on a true carbine like one of my ARs.

As for the Sig sight itself…well, its a sample of one so I don’t really have anything to compare it against but…it worked and it worked well. Me likey.

Upgrades

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A while back I posted about how I was rather taken with the Olight weapons light I picked up for my bedside Glock. As it turns out, the one that I got and liked so much, the PL-Pro Valkyrie, has the same footprint as the popular Surefure X-300 series of lights…which means that it fits juuuuuuust right into any holster that accommodates the Surefire.

I mention it because I picked up a Safariland holster a few weeks back that was made to accommodate a Glock with the Surefire light and my Olight-equipped Glock fit it perfectly. Logisitically, its a nice touch.

Speaking of upgrades, I’ve finally decided that, as age comes on apace, it might be time to look into some red dot optics. I like iron sights as much as the next guy but in this age of technology, why not take advantage of the plethora of fast-to-acquire targetting accessories out there.

To that end, I picked up a Sig Romeo4 XT Pro. Its a red dot scope that has a couple nice features and some very good reviews. Notably, there are several different sight images…dot, circle, etc, has a battery life measured in years, and has the nice feature of the dot turning itself off if the gun is motionless for a certain amount of time but then ‘wakes up’ when you pick up the gun. Nice not to have to fumble with turning the sight back on when you need it in a hurry.

I’ll be mounting it on my PTR9 MP5. For my G3 clone, I’m leaning towards the Aimpoint Comp M4 which is what some militaries have done (as well as swapping out the stocks for something more optic friendly).

Ah, I remember those days when iron sights on the AR15 were crisp and clear. Seems a million years ago. Getting old ain’t for sissies. Sure, I can still use the iron sights  but theyre just a tad fuzzier than they used to be.

Anyway, I’ll take the 9mm PTR to the range this weekend and see if I can hit the plates faster with the dot than i can with the irons. Should be interesting.