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June 2nd, 2012Z-Mask Sleep Shield
June 2nd, 2012
We first discovered McNett’s Z-Mask Sleep Shield in 2008. It’s a simple design but McNett had the forethought to add some room for your eyes so the that the shield isn’t right up against them.
Back to Gilwell
June 2nd, 2012I’m out again this weekend for my second weekend of Wood Badge fun. Over the weekend you’ll see a few blasts from the past as well as a few new items. Since this is a full three days, I’ll catch up with everyone on Tuesday.
Wood Badge is an international adult leadership program for the Scouting movement developed initially by Scouting’s founder Sir Robert Baden-Powell. Lord Baden-Powell was a Lieutenant-General in the British Army who served in the Second Boer War. Based on his experience as a Cavalry officer he wrote several books for military training. After finding out that boys had been reading his works, he penned, “Scouting for Boys.” This led to the first Scout camp in England at Brownsea Island and later to a leadership development program at Gilwell Park for adults.
In order to recognize the graduates of this training program, BP turned to one of his war trophies. He had captured a necklace belonging to Chief Dinizulu while pursuing him in Zululand. The necklace was 12-foot-long with more than a thousand acacia beads which were used to denote a warrior. BP awarded beads from this necklace to the graduates of the adult leader training. In modern times Wood Badge graduates are awarded a leather thing with wooden beads.
215 Gear Introduces IR Patches
June 1st, 2012215 Gear has just introduced a variety of IR reflective patches.
Note: These are ITAR restricted items and can only be shipped to US addresses.
215gearstore.com/infraredpatches
BFG Lightweight Modular Armor Carrier
June 1st, 2012Here, Director of Product Development Stephen Hilliard discusses the various attributes of the Blue Force Gear Lightweight Modular Armor Carrier.
TYR Tactical Zip On Back Panels
June 1st, 2012
TYR Tactical has added 6 new Zip On Back Panels to their website. These are designed to work with the PICO plate carrier but due to the design, you can adapt them to most armor carriers. The adapters just MOLLE into place on the rear of the carrier.
Options include a beaver tail model, PALS models with hydration pockets and admin variants with hydration pockets.
Manufactured from PV, they are available in MultiCam, Coyote, Ranger Green and Black.
www.tyrtactical.com/products/list/accessories-PICO/pico-and-pico-mv-main/
Weapon Sight Polarizer
June 1st, 2012
The Tenebraex Weapon Sight Polarizer offers a practical solution to the issue of glare when using a weapon mounted scope. Unlike other polarizer filters that mount to the front of a scope, potentially shifting the point of impact, the Weapon Sight polarizer uses a rotating polarizer that mounts to the rear of the scope. Additionally, the Polarizer can also be quickly and securely flipped up and out of the way when not needed. Constructed from Santoprene which combines the strength of plastic with the flexibility of rubber, it weighs only 1.3 oz. It incurs a modest scope length increase of .82″.
Two models exist, the LSU and STZ, allowing for mounting on a variety of scopes from the following manufacturers: Leupold, Schmidt & Bender, Unertl Tactical, Kahles, Springfield Armory, Zeiss, Trijicon, and Nightforce.
The Tenebraex Weapon Sight Polarizer is available from ustacticalsupply.com/weaponsightpolarizer
Sneak Peek – Down East Polymer Feed Chute
June 1st, 2012It doesn’t matter who builds your ammo backpack system, the issue is the feed chute, both from a cost and to a certain degree! weight standpoint. Generally, the more money you spend on a feed chute, the more it’s going to cost. Until now.
Down East, the guys who developed the all but indestructible MOLLE frame as well as the FastMag family of products put their knowledge of plastics to work on developing a new 7.62 feed chute and came up with this solution. The idea is to bring the price point down to make wide spread fielding affordable rather than niche products.
According to Down East, “The internal geometries and materials are designed to allow the ammo to feed more freely, while gaining some range of motion. The design is also easily scalable to 5.56, 30mm, etc. once we have worked the kinks out. Instead of rehashing the WW2 era metal version over overlapping plates, we are going with a patent pending modular design which could be used on a pack, for a fixed emplacement (as in a FOB), or on a vehicle.”
This is a first look at their first generation production item that they have just begun wear testing. By design, the chute feeds in either direction and is constructed of interlocking links, allowing it to be repaired or resized. You can cut out an even number of links, or cut one section of connectors and add an even number of links. What is really cool is that the links are made from their proprietary fragmentation resistant polymer (used in the MOLLE and FILBE pack frames) and is available color matched and NIR compliant with the major camouflage patterns (Coyote 498, TAN499, FG 504).
In the photos they have a mesh cover over part of the chute and this is an attempt to reduce the reflectance of the brass without totally enclosing the chute. However, this isn’t required and they could just as well leave the chute completely uncovered or offer a a full fabric enclosure. The end of the chute features a standard type attachment for the M240B. The pack pictured here uses the same sort of bracket to mount the other end of the chute.
The feed cute pictured is 44” compressed and 56” fully extended, and weighs approximately 3.5 lbs. Depending on testing they may be able to further lighten the load.
It’s very important that you understand that this feed chute is for a ground role only. This isn’t meant for aviation applications. It’s a plastic product after all. The big issue here is to determine how long these can stand up to the rigors of day-to-day carriage with ammo on them as well as while firing. I do know that Down East ran over one with a truck and it survived which is promising.
They are still working out cost, but, based on where they are they’re anticipating a fraction of the $1700-2200 that metal chutes currently run.
Look for details on a ver 2.0 soonish as well as some additional info on the pack in the photos which utilizes the 1609 frame developed for the US Army medium ruck.
