Introduction & PURPOSE
In this review we gonna take a look at an adaptable waistpack, made by a polish manufacturer called HUSAR LTD. Before we start with the actual review, lets talk a little bit about HUSAR LTD and its history.
About 10 years ago the tactical industry in Europe experienced a significant growth of eastern europe based manufacturers, which appeared like out of nowhere. All of them had two things in common, one being that they offered a really wide and extensive range of products ranging from pouches, over backpacks to whole platecarrier systems. The other commom ground attribute was their really heavy reliance on lasercut manufacturing.
Some years later, many of them where lost to history, while others became a staple of the European tactical gear market. HUSAR LTD was one of those who survived, which may be owed to their product quality, or even more likely to the fact that they offer a really slick portfolio of items in their catalogue.
Overall Construction
Now lets take a closer look on the product itself. Basically the Hybrid owes its name to the fact that it is on one hand a waistpack and on the other hand a platecarrier- and chestrig compatible center subload pouch – more commonly known as a “dangler” those days. This is achieved by adding two loops of HUSARs propietary laser cut fabric to the pouch, which enable the user to lock-in two 25mm duraflex buckles connnected by a piece of webbing, basically transforming this into a hip-bag.
To adapt the HYBRID to almost any platecarrier or velcro backed chestrig, you just have to un-velcro a flap on the back, which mates to the back of the carrier system while also leaving some space for added compatibility.
Besides of those two modes of operation the HYBRID is built like most other “Dangler” pouches on the market with very little things to point out. It features two zipper compartments, closed by a water repellant or waterproof zipper of unclear origin. The zippers lack any manufacturer markings Iam aware off and HUSARs website also gives almost no information on their hardware and fabric sources. But anyways, the zippers work just fine and do their job in protecting the HYBRIDs contents from the elements.
Compartments
The first compartment you can see on the front features a simple, zippered stash pocket design and has a width of 240mm and is obviously intended to store writing materials and personal belongings. Aside from a grommet, which leads to the main compartment you wont find any further features here. Iam personally fine with this decision.
The main compartement sports a two way zipper design which enables you to open like 50% of the pouches width. When you reverse the pouch you will see the inner features. The most obvious feature are the five really wide elastic loops which are great to store medical stuff like izzy bandages, writing equipment, your smartphone or even magazines or firing devices. I really like this solution as it may be not as adaptable as – say, shock-cord but it is easy to use and yet very flexible.
Behind the elastic organizers you will find some velcro compatible fleece like material which not only will protect eyewear and electronics from scratches, but also is velcro compatible. So you can attach inserts like organizers for batteries and pens. So we are getting a lot of modularity without unneeded complexity here.
As we already turned the HUSAR HYBRID inside out lets see what HUSAR might like to hide from us, as most sloppy construction methods can be found inside of a pouch. And it turns out that HUSAR has in fact nothing to hide. All edges are taped, even the loose ends of the zippers are featuring binding tape and on the inside the average stitch per inch count is like 6 stitches. Of course you can find some loose threads inside the pouch here and there. But this is really much above average. The last thing to point out is that there is a drainage grommet at the bottom.
External Storage Solutions
Now lets take a quick look at the front of the pouch, it features a slight v-shape to enable freedom of movement. You will also notice a really big piece of loop velcro, which will not only enable you to fix your cringy punisher patches, but also some useful stuff like chemligh holders. Left and right of the loop field there are two flat elastic retainers which lend themself perfectly to fit a flashlight or a correctly folded CAT tourniquet. This use of elastic is pretty unique, but during testing it turned out that we had a hard time actually reaching the tourniquet because the pouch was blocked by our platecarrier. Same goes for the flashlight, which was okay to unclip but hard to reattach.
Overall IMPRESSIONS
The outside construction is pretty rugged and is made out of 500DEN Cordura which is more than robust enough. The back of the pouch is made of the same fleece velours that we already saw on the inside, I actually thought that this might cause problems regarding abrasion resistance, but after piercing the fabric with a small pair of scissors I saw that it is actually lined with a layer of some Nylon fabric, credits to HUSAR for doing this. All seams are double stitched and we also observed an average count of six stitches per inch which is above average and damn solid. HUSAR also used their propietary laser cut fabric, which looks more like a piece of tarpaulin than a laminate, which is nothing bad as tarpaulin usually sports a much better tensile strength, but has a slight tendency towards fraying. A thing that I like to give HUSAR big credits for is that they didnt turn this product into a showcase of their lasercutting technology and only applied this manufacturing capability where it makes sense.
Overall, we have a damn solid product here and if you are in the market for a zippered dangler pouch that you can also use as a fanny pack, the HUSAR Hybrid is one of the few good choices made in Europe. We have a slick design with the right capacity to use it not only as a GP pouch, but also as an IFAK or an breachers pouch. I was especially surprised by the really great manufacturing standards and liked to use this design despite my reservation towards “Danglers” as well as towards fanny packs in general.
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Dangler pouches are a hard one for us, as most of us arent really using them. But if I was out for a Dangler or fannypack I would totally consider buying the HUSAR LTD. HYBRID as it is not only a functional and well engineered product but also our sample had shown a high grade of excellent craftmanship.
Where to buy?
The HUSAR LTD. HYBRID adaptable waistpack is available directly from HUSAR LTD. and is offered in all common military colours which of course also include MultiCam.
