Category: Reviews

„Building a superhuman future“ „Ice Age EcoSystem“ …, as soon as I read such premises I usually ignore them and shift them into the realm of tactical pseudo science. There are a lot of „gamechangers“ in the industry and as soon as I read about them I turn my head, look back and continue with what Iam using. I applied the same procedure when hearing about Qore Performance the first time a few years ago. If you had asked me 5 years ago, I would have betted that this company wouldnt be relevant in 2023 anymore. But it seems Iam not always able to predict the future.

Looking at the chestrig market, we have seen a lot of concepts floating around. From fully modular chestrigs like the TT MAV, the classic „british style“ Arktis chestrigs with their iconic flapped double magazine pouches, to scalable specialist solutions. But if there is one chestrig type that I would deem the „most universal“ or even successful type of all of those it would be the „rack type“ chestrig. Racks basically work based on the simple truth that anyone who carries a rifle will carry rifle mags. Therefore a rack style chestrig usually consists out of four to eight single or double stack integrated magcells. The rest of a racks surface is covered in PALS webbing.

Guns, optics and nylon are the topics that get the most attention in the tactical industry. Earpro on the other hand is a topic that is touched pretty seldom.

You got your Peltor or Sordin over the ear systems anyways, right? Now over the Ear Systems are easy to put on and off and and losing them isnt an issue. However, those Systems are offering serious limitations. One of their biggest issues is their incombatibility with some helmet design and their tendency to get in the way when trying to achieve a proper cheekweld with your rifle, even worse; in dynamic scenarios they tend to slip.

Those who had to patrol for hours with over the ear systems in hot areas also know how uncomfy they can get and when talking ear pro we should always talk tolerance. In-ear solutions are often handled as the stepchild of the industry, ignoring the fact that brands like Silynx or Invisio are creating integrated comms In-Ear solutions that outperform their headphone brothers in almost all areas.

Evryone has heard the saying “slow is smooth, smooth is fast”. Often from long-time but mediocre shooters. These shooters overemphasize the execution of a movement, creating a world of stagnation and unrealistic expectations of firearm use.
In reality, situations in which the firearm is used are far from allowing a slow, smooth, and always perfect execution of a movement.

If you follow us on Instagram you may know that we are highly sceptical of „tacticalized“ fashion as a concept. When German manufacturer LMS gear reached out to us the first time, to let us test their tactical jeans; I was like „No thanks dude, I have Carhartts“. The answer however was an excellent one „Dude, I have Carhartts myself and really like them, but you wont regret to try ours“. I really like it when manufacturers dont look down on other options out there. Thats the right mindset.

Holosun is a company well known for putting out affordable quality optics made in China, that have found their way into the hands of many pro shooters. China and quality dont align well you may say. This is actually why we have a lot of biased arguments all over the internet between convinced Holosun users and users of other products like the Aimpoint ACRO. Our goal was to evaluate the 509T closed emmiter optic for a testing period of almost a year, to find out if the lower price actually means lower performance.

There are certain trends in the tactical world that get discussed over and over but end with no firm conclusion. One of this topics are EDC IFAKs. The question „Do I need an IFAK on person in EDC life“ is one of those. We can conclude that if you carry a gun you should have access to something to stop at least massive bleeding. Often a TQ on person and your general first aid kit in the car or in the backpack are enough. More important is your skill to work with those assets. A highly trained 18D is more likely to save a life with a „Home Depot“ type first aid kit than an untrained person with a high end trauma kit.

The Snugpak Arrowhead is the successor to the Sleeka Elite. The first impression when you wear it is pretty positive, creating the same lightweight yet cozy feeling as its predeccessor.

We tested the Arrowhead on and off duty, in a variety of weather conditions including fog and rain and temperaturese as deep as minus -9°c, including windchill.

But why does the sleeka, which is perhaps the most popular military midlayer garment, need a successor? The answer is simple, as time advances many military endusers want new features.

Talking about field- or combat pants, we look at a pretty oversaturated market with only a few solutions that are actually recognized as relevant.
The Arktis Ranger pants basically rely on the same features as the most popular solution, the Crye Gen 3 Combat Pants, but with some twists we like to take a look at. One of the aspects that got me into buying them is the fact that they are available in various camouflage patterns, like obviously Flecktarn, with the fabric being up to Mil-Spec and not being a cheap China rip-off. So it was about time to look at those pants in form of a review.

When it comes to rifle placards, it seems like there is at least one new placard coming out like every week – which is a good thing. A good thing because having a plethora of placards available wont hurt anyone. Anyways, we usually find three categories of placards out there. Namely the self explaining hard-sewn and elastic placards, as well as the scalable placard solutions like pioneered by Spiritus Systems.

The Arbor Arms Combat Wombat is a try to somehow combine the ruggedness and dedication of hard sewn placards, the „as-needed“ footprint of elastic placards and the flexibility of adaptive placards into one package without much compromise and adding a few new features while doing so.

The concept of a rigid “plate frame” style ballistic suspension system was pioneered by S&S Precision almost a decade ago. Benefits of a rigid plate frame are easy to put into a few sentences. The frame system itself absorbs no water. You can save weight using a skeletonized construction, without suffering from the sagging pouches normally associated with this approach.

Those attributes did certainly catch the attention of many amphibious and maritime units, which often have to carry relatively heavy loads on a small platform, which should be completely hydrophobic.