If you’re looking for tactical footwear that gives you support

If you’re looking for tactical footwear that gives you the support to haul heavy gear around, ask your UPS delivery guy.   Those guys are hauling weight around and they can’t slow down.   When you have to get away from wearing boots that weight 5lbs or more, support and safety are important, but you really feel it at the end of the day.   If you put that kind of weight on a UPS delivery guys feet, his butt is going to be dragging half way through the day and he’s not going to get the job done.   There is a lot to be said for take a pound or two off of a firearms weight in the battlefield because the guys that haul them all day long are the ones that will tell you they can feel the difference.

One of our biggest selling boot from Original Swat footwear is actually not really a boot.   Its the 1230 Air M.T. low, this boot is a shortened version of the extremely popular 1232 Air 9″ which is probable is number one of the Original Swat boots.   The first thing people notice about the footwear is that the boots are very light.   Nobody is going to complain that the boots aren’t bulle proof, but they gotta hold up and not wear you down.   Next time you’re out and about, look at who is wearing the Original Swat footwear, you may see you’re local UPS guy wearing them.

Top

Buying trash and wearing it

I don’t think I’m going to run out of info on discussing these tactical clothing issues because I hear it all day long.  I just got off the phone with a customer that was bitching about the Eotac clothing being discontinued, and the “now what am I going to do?” is starting to set in.   I noticed a ton of gun shops in my area have stopped carrying clothing because I get it.. selling clothing is a royal pain for a gun shop because nobody wants to deal with the sizing issues and exchange rates that you have to expect whenever  you sell something like that.  Nobody buys an LWRC M6A2 and returns it because it doesn’t fit right, but we have sold hundreds of dollars of clothing and had it all come back for exchanges, it goes with the business.

At a recent show in Atlantic City, we walked around various tactical booths and checked out the stuff that was there.   One guy that use to sell the stuff for some of the big names said he hated wearing the tactical pants from one company because they felt like they were made of cardboard.    I didn’t disagree with him because that really is about where the tactical clothing market is at.   There is a lot of uniform style clothing but when you get down to comfort and durability, it’s almost down to about 3 or 4 clothing companies and then after that you have to decide if you want tactical or casual, and then it’s an even small market.  I wonder if anyone in the tactical apparel market knows that ?

Top

Rumors and more rumors as to what is going on

The tactical market is absolutely flooded with tactical pants and tactical clothing.   I just did some research online for concealed carry vests and found a few smaller companies making vests, but I also noticed they are making pants.   I’ve heard enough bitching and moaning from our customers about the fact that they didn’t want to pay $50 for a pair of pants, and now I’m seeing a cluster of small companies making $80 + pants.   As a dealer, I have serious doubts about the profitability of clothing priced that high even if you create a cult following.   The reality is this, if you don’t have easy access to a manufacturing facility in China, India, or Indonesia, you really are going to have a hard time making money.

Now that cotton prices have shot up so  much due to the inability to grow it fast enough, prices have gone up for even the big companies.   With Eotac tactical pants swimming in rumorville,   the easiest transition for customers is to Woolrich Elite apparel although Tru-Spec seems to have gotten a good nod from people we have been dealing with.   One of the good things about selling tactical footwear is that Original Swat boots owns their own boot factory and they don’t have the scheduling issues that many clothing companies have.   If they are sold out of something, they order it and produce it at their own scheduling time line.   One thing that seemed to really due in Eotac was they never produced the right products at the right time and it was almost like the company never got its best stuff on the market.

Top

Knee pads and other protective gear

We’ve been selling various tactical pants for the last 5yrs and one thing that I still find kind of odd is the whole knee pad insert.   When i first started using the knee pad inserts it was with the Woolrich Elite 4447 pants and the knee pads didn’t line up to where my knees were.   I later tried them on the Woolrich Elite 4429 pants and they worked on them, but you really only could get use out of them if you kneel on both knees at the same time.   That position may work at Church, but on the firing line, when I think of kneeling, it’s on one knee.   The knee pad inserts do hold up for a pretty line time, and for only $3 you can replace them for both sides.

If you are looking for serious protective gear for your knees and elbows, I seriously recommend using the Blackhawk Neoprene elbow pads and knee pads.   People have their preferences on what they want to wear, but there is a pretty big difference between using the ones you get on your tactical pants and what you get separately.   I was severely disappointed when the Eotac Direct Action line basically flopped because it hit the market and barely a month later the South Carolina location shutdown and all of the products were basically being cleared out at cost.

Top

Smith Optics Elite still waiting

We’ve been very happy to bring in the new Smith Optics Elite eye wear.   It’s been awhile since we’ve expanded this part of our inventory because eye wear is actually a hard sell via the internet.   There are some things that people have real fears of ordering online due to shipping and exchange policies from various companies.   The Smith Optics are not the optics you find in a hardware store.   They are far more better balanced and durable.   Primarily what I’m talking about are the Smith Optics Elite Lifestyle glasses.   We’ve been selling most of them to walk in customers because they are eye catching. The Smith Optics display case we have has really good LED lighting and it really brings out the differences between the clear, ignitory, gray and Polarized eyewear.

While looking at what many life guards are using, the polarized lenses are the most popular.   The amount of sun glare and the depths that they need to see during the summer sun hours can be intense.   The Smith Optics Elite tactical eyewear has been gaining ground and we’ve been sponsoring various local events to push some of their products.    Taking good care of  your eyewear is extremely important because scratches and smudges can limit your visibility and in a defensive situation, that you means your at a disadvantage.   The Outside the wire Smith Elite turbo fan goggles are

Top

tactical gear and accessory ordering online

I’ve been doing a lot of product evaluations and we’ve been scouting the tactical apparel and accessories industry since the NRA Convention in Pittsburgh.   We pretty much brought in new gun holsters and apparel for the CCW holder and we’ve already been well immersed into what most military contractors use.   Some of the new Smith Elite Optics have a really popular turbo fan goggle that have been flying out the door and we’ve already been taking orders to blow out the next shipment.   A great many new customers have been dropping in and calling us on the phone asking who are we because they’ve never heard of us before but we have been showing up in gun magazines and conventions for the last several months.

Most of our new customers are finding us on the internet through search engines and many times it’s because they found us after bad experiences with a few other companies.   It’s somewhat shocking that some of the highest ranked businesses on Google and Yahoo are companies that have an F rating with the better business borough.   Gun holsters are hard to find in many gun shops and now that there are so many new guns like the Ruger LCP,  Galco holsters, Blackhawk holsters and many more have to keep up with what is being put out.  You gotta be real careful who you do business with and that’s one reason we’ve thrown up a facebook page so that our customers knew who we were and that we respond to our customers questions and needs.

Top

Keeping spare parts around

This weekend I got a rare chance to actually get out and practice some urban combat tacticals and had the most fun I’ve had in awhile.   A few months ago I did some practical handgun defensive shooting training, but I kind of lost the feel of recoil and that’s not something i like to feel when I’m on the range.   I have in the past pushed myself to practice shooting defensively from a cold mindset.   What do I mean?  Nobody warms up to a self defense situation, sometimes you are thrown into it.

Once you have your safe gun handling skills down, there’s nothing wrong with pushing yourself.   I recently got a reminder about checking things on a firearm before training though.  I carry lots of spare parts for my AR15 bolt, but I didn’t have a stock tool or spare detent pin and springs.  I watched a few gun dvds, specifially the AR15 Armorer’s course with Dean Caputo.  One good thing about having something like this is being able to identify the parts that go in certain areas and what they are used for.

 

Top

Glocks 17 holsters and safety

I view the Glock pistol as an unsheathed knife.  When you pull a knife or a sword you better pay attention to where your blade is because it will cut you.   I am not big fan of manual safeties on handguns because the closer you are to a bad guy the less time you’ll have.  On an AR15 it’s whole other story.   I am also not a big fan of carrying firearms around with empty chambers.   People gotta realize that when bad things happen, you don’t have all the time in the world and giving yourself one more thing to do before you can defend yourself is a bad idea.   I recently did an audit of all of the friends and family members that I know that carry firearms and the vast majority of them have never been in a really hostile situation.

I, unfortunately have too much experience in those regards and I completely understand what “stress” is in combat or hostile situations.  I never got into the whole CCW thing just for being a cowboy.   I’ve seen evil and I know the dark side of what humanity can do and it’s not just about defending our lives, it’s also about defending the innocent.    I think there are some good designs out that may be at higher safety level than Glocks, but the Blackhawk holsters that I like the most for Glock firearms is the Serpa.   The Level II tactical holsters lock the gun in place, you hear it click and you don’t have to worry about thumb breaks or guns flying out of the holster because there is nothing to retain it.

Top

Some feed back on gun dvds

Once I get everything setup in the new showroom, we’re getting a big ass TV for running some of the videos from the Make Ready DVD series.   The production on the DVDs has been pretty good so far, but I must admit I’ve only watched about 10hrs of video.   I’ve been itching for a really long time to get my hands on some of the modern Carbine Fighting techniques because I think this is the most practical training a Citizen can get.   Much like the old Militia mentality which has sadly been become a negative term and no longer a term for a Patriot, this should be common amongst young adults to know how to defend their Countries.

There are some pretty shabby people making gun videos and I don’t know the background on all of them, but you gotta check references when information when you are training.   There was a big stink a few years  ago about firearm instructors not checking the backgrounds of some of their students, but that’s another issue.   With so many people getting real world training and experience in Iraq and Afghanistan coming home and producing gun dvds that can help our society produce defenders of Liberty is pretty cool if you ask me.   I have several SWAT buddies that go through training and they liked the access to Paul Howe’s new Tac Pistol and Tac Rifle Operator videos.

Top

J-frames should never be underated

I recently did a ballistics test between a j-frame 38 Special and a Smith & Wesson Model 19 with a 4″ barrel.   I thought that I would get better ballistics out of the obviously longer barrel, but I was wrong.   It’s amazing what a chronograph will do to your belief in gun energy.   I’ve seen ballistics out of M4 Carbines that nobody would believe.   I’ve read lots of stuff online about how weak the M4 Carbine is and that 2800fps was what they normally shot at.  Well, I was clocking in ballistics that were 400 fps above that.   I’m aware of the amount of stress and wear you can put on a firearm if you shoot it that much, but let’s just walk about capabilities within a certain threshold.

There are so many .380 pistols showing  up out there that people are more content with small pocket pistols like never before.   I finally got to shoot a Ruger LCP .380 a few weeks ago, but wasn’t blown away.  I know why people like them, but a j-frame in a pocket or even in Galco holsters, like a paddle  holster are just fine for me.   The Rohrbaugh guns are the race cars of small compact semi-autos, but the j-frame will always have it’s grip in that mode of CCW.   Considering that all of these .380 pistols are usually 6 or 7 shots, going with a 5 shot and a speed loader isn’t much to loose sleep over.

Top
1 … 111 112 113 114 115 … 194 Page 113 of 194