Tactical Cargo Shorts
The lightweight 100% cotton ripstop pants are very comfortable, but in 90F+ weather I’m always going to go with shorts even if they are made of heavy material. Protecting your legs from bug bites is also something to consider when wearing shorts and clearing out woodlands because you never know what is going to be swarming around you when you start sweating up a storm. There are some bug repellents that can be worn on a belt, but with the work I will be doing, I prever to bring a spray bottle with me and store it on the cargo pockets. Since I am also always carrying flashlights, radios, guns and other items, not having enough pockets means putting more on the belt line. I find wearing too much on the belt being a real pain when having to do a lot of lifting so just about everything except my Glock 26 is stored in my Woolrich Elite Pants.
I have another trip up in the sticks where we have to do some land clearing. The State is asking us to clear out a mountain range for fire prevention. Working in emergency management we get everything from clearing car accidents and hostage situations. One thing we also never know from day to day is what type of clothing we’ll be needing. Most of us started out wearing 5.11 Tactical clothing because they pretty much held the market for years and there wasn’t much else out there. A few years ago Woolrich Elite Series clothing arrived on the market although Woolrich has been in the clothing industry for over 150 years. Woolrich Elite cargo shorts style 4905 are made of a cotton canvas material which makes them very hard to tear. Unlike many of the lightweight style shorts out there, these have side cargo pockets which are great for storing lighters, bug repllent, hand wipes ect. Due to the fact that wearing pants in certain hot weather means unnecesary sweating and water loss, you really have to think about how much clothing is necessary. I’ve had shorts on in hot weather and felt comfortable until I came home with poison ivy.
After Sept 11th and the Hurrican Katrina News cyles, many people have opened their eyes to the fact that their is evil in our generation and that any one of us could face it in our home or our way to work. There have been a lot of people opening their eyese to gun owner ship. I can’t tell you the times I’ve heard women say that they “will never allow a gun in their house” and how that mindset has been disapating ever since the Hurrican Katrina havoc. I had a liberal female friend who was willing to atleast come to a range with me say that “just the existance of a firearm in a home is a deterant, you don’t even have to fire it to prevent bad people from coming onto your property. Although bad people come in different flavors, most of them will skip your house if you spray paint a warning on your front door informing looters that you will shoot them if they come near you.
I recently spoke to a friend who manages a gun shop. We had a discussion about taking new shooters to the range and trying to break people in to not having a fear of having a firearm in their home. I know of several family members who normally vote Democrat in National elections that all said that they thought about the fact that they did not have access to firearms if something like that ever ocurred in their hometown. The idea of having extra food in the house before a snow storm isn’t paranoid, the idea of having smoke detectors in the home incase of fire is being paranoid, is having the ability to put out a fire in your house crazy when you can just let the fire company do it? What about having some level of defense in your home if some drunk shows up at your door at 2am or your husbands employee that was just fired wants to make an unexpected visit?
If there is a time to get out and shoot and you know that you’ll get a range to yourself, it’s probable going to be in the mid to later Summer months. I know this can also be uncomfortable to shoot in if its really hot, but if you can shoot in the shade and bring plenty to drink. You might be able to shoot all day and call cease fires at will without having to wait for the guy next to you to stop shooting. The worst times to get out are usually in the pre-hunting weeks when ranges are crammed with people trying to verify zero before the upcoming hunting trips.
If you are looking to carry mace or pepper spray, I would absolutely have to urge you to do some research on the Kimber Guardian Angels also known as the Life Act. At first you might get sticker shock, and I think you may want to consider buying 2 of them and test firing 1 of them before you really get comfortable carrying one. I’ve earned my merit badges in seeing evil in the world I know walking around with the smallest pepper spray bottle to fend off a potential rapist, robber, or worse isn’t going to give you much of an edge. There are many reasons to consider carrying a less lethal defensive measure. You can blast someone with something like this without much of a worry about legal ramifications. I’ve seen pepper spray used against 0bnoxious drunks which in my opinion were justified.
There is another issue that I see come up when taking new students to the range. I usually bring various military style rifles with me to get people to adjust to recoil and realize the common military style weapons that exist in the world. Many of these individuals, after a day on the range tend to select the gun that fit them the best. When I first got into shooting rifles, I started out with all of the military surplus firearms that came into the Country in the early and mid 1990s. There may never be another time where Soviet style weapons are imported into this Country. The military warehouses got cleaned out after the fall of the Soviet Empire and American gun owners were the beneficieries.
I’ve got my credentials from the NRA to teach students, but it wasn’t for any financial gain or to be a full time teacher. The real reason I got into training was because of all of the bad instruction I’ve witnessed from untrained teachers. I’ve seen guys show up with their girlfriends and basicall load up a handgun to full capacity and begin their first experiences on the firing line by telling them to “rack the slide”. I believe I’ve seen that type of firearm instruction one too many times, and I believe i’ve seen it atleast 3 times. The female has her finger on the trigger while she fearfully tries to pull back on the slide and sometimes instantly jams the gun. The first time I saw this happen there were shooters on a firing line on both sides and I just stood there shaking my head. Not only are we going to see an accident about to happen, but this girls first experience wasn’t going to be a good one. I know now to be more assertive and speak up when I see stuff like that, but luckily there were no major mishaps.
The Eotac Style 202 pants are basically an improved pocket design over the Woolrich Elite 4429 pants. The Eotac 203 are similiar to Woolrich Elite 4441 and the Eotac 201 are similiar to the Woolrich Elite 4447 styles. Each may look the same at first look, but try stuffing the pockets with various items and you’ll quickly notice the design differences. The ID pocket on the Eotac pants have a pull tab that make it easy to open the pocket and I have absolutely zero problems using my gear with this design. The side cargo pockets are bellowed and although not as wide as BDU pants, you will be able to use these for mag dumps much easier.
Most of us alreayd know that when we buy a new gun we usually get some sort of factory gun case. These gun cases are nice for transporting the gun it is intended for and possible can hold a few magazines. I’ve got a pile of them in my storage room, but I never use them for range trips. I own a few range bags since I tend to actually use them for more than just packing up guns. After having several experiences with forgeting to bring ammo, magazines, targets or staplers, I’ve learned to pack up my stuff and leave it in a bag that always comes to the range with me.
I’ve had this argument with friends when they were arguing that direct impingement guns weren’t really hard to maintain and that spending another $500 on a piston driven AR15 wasn’t worth the money because you could basically buy another gun for that money. I’d like to see people use the same argument if someone came out with a car that only needed an oil change every 15,000 miles instead of every 3000 miles. How many times are you going to have to pull over and drop the car off and wait for a mechanic or waste an hour on a Saturday doing an oil change? Keep that in mind the next time you go shooting and bring 3 or more rifles with you and then spend all Sunday night cleaning them. If you could cut your cleaning time by 2/3s and reduce the need for brushes and cleaning patches for $20 would it be worth it?