Why you should consider buying the proper CCW clothing
I was told about the coming concealed carry and tactical apparel market exposion over 10yrs ago, but things have really exploded in the last 4yrs. I have seen several companies fail in this market, but mostly to poor marketing or problems in manufacturing. I recently read an article about the coming cotton price increases so I know there may be yet another shock to the industry. I never jumped on the CCW clothing bandwagon until about 6 years ago when I started wearing 5.11 tactical shorts. I slowly go to understand the need for such pocket designs and then branched o ut to other clothing companies after that. I am very happy with the pants and vests I have been wearing for the last few years and kind of lost interest in some of the pants I use to wear, but Woolrich has done a great job of designing outerwear for CCW owners.
The Woolrich Elite Parka is a great Fall and Spring outwear accesory to keep you dry on those rainy days where you don’t want to wear something that will absorb water or make you sweat too much. I’ve worn the Parka on Sept and October and although I did start to sweat wearing it, it kept me dry and was easy to take off and toss in the car without taking up much room. Now that we are into full blown winter weather, it’s time for sweatshirts and sweaters. I don’t CCW wearing sweaters as much as I use to, due to the amount of fraying and strings I seem to notice on sweaters. I guess it’s seeing too many Glock discharges on Dean Speirs website, but I’ll only pocket carry if I have to wear one. The Woolrich Elite Polyester Fleece is a new product that is CCW friendly and will secure your spare mags. I’ve carried spare magazines in pockets before and had bullets come loose because if you have enough bouncing around, the bullets may eventually come loose and may cause a moment of embarressment when your wife finds doing a load of laundry. Get the right clothing for concealed carry, it’s out there.
The jacket may look heavier than it really is. I would suggest that you wear this in the Fall or Spring and use it as a surface layer and just add on base layer clothing is the temperatures get colder. We are discounting the Lizard patter jackets and the lizard patter Field Vest which also has similiar pocket designs. We have had virtually zero complaints about the fit of this jacket as long as the user reads our sizing guide and measure themselves properly. You will easily be able to carry fully loaded double stack magazines as well as flashlights and knives comfortable and not have to worry about printing. You will be able to carry small autos or j-frame guns in the outer pockets but I am not really a fan of carrying guns in coats, jackets or vests.
This summer has already been hotter than the summers that I remember in the previous decade. Since I’ve been wearing the same clothing or similiar types of clothing for the past coupl years, I can really feel the changes in seasons. In New Jersey we get all 4 Seasons, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. Good luck in trying to wear the same pants or shirt through all of that! 5.11 Tactical has probable the most diverse product line, but we get an enormous number of complaints from them. Eotac products have been on the market for bairly more than a year and we’re still hoping for more new products. In the summer months we can really feel the need for more lightweight products. The concealed carry clothing that works the best in really hot weather are the Style 403 and Style 404 shirts which are basically as light as a t-shirt, but designed for concealing a firearm, and they allow for easy access under cover.
Next week there will be a Police and Security Expo in Atlantic City, New Jersey and Eotac will displaying some of their A-Tacs and Direct Action products. We’re still not sure about everything that Eotac has coming out this Fall and in 2011, but seeing some of the info about what is coming soon really makes us think that 5.11 Tactical is going to have some real compeition out there. I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve had customers call us up and complain about the tactical pants that they have been wearing from 5.11. Many of them complain about how things use to be and how they end up with different sizing even though they keep ordering the same sizes. I was checking out some of the 5.11 tactical shirts that were the Covert carry design and I may pick up a few, but I personally think the Woolrich Elite CCW shirts are a much better feel. Even though we are very selective about the products we carry, I’d have to admit that every big name manufacturer has a niche market that some of their products perform very well in.
Elite Operator Tactical came out with a new tactical shirt a few months ago and although we like to test products out for a few months before we become too critical about them, we defanitely got a winner here. The Eotac style 410 Shooting Sports Polo is made of a 100% polyester material and is excellent for breath-a-bility. It’s been getting up in the 90F temps here in Virginia and it’s time to clear out the Spring weather clothing and get into summer gear. The Style 405 feel slightly lighter weight than some of the Woolrich Elite Series Polos I have worn in the past. We all have different styles and needs when it comes to what we want to wear, but I’d have to admit that the Polos I wore in the past were extremely hot and I could absolutely not wear them in 85F temps comfortable.
We’ve been selling Woolrich Elite clothing since the beginning and have seen the changes in the tactical pants market over the last 5 years. One thing we have noticed is the tactical pants sales change like the seasons do. Our customer base knows that certain types of clothing just can’t be worth in hot climates, but for working in other environments, lightweight material just won’t hold up to the heavy use, and won’t shrink as much. We get a lot of people calling or emailing us about whether or not the clothing shrinks, and they answer to that is not as bad as some of the other apparel companies that have been on the market for almost 10yrs. We still don’t understand why some of these companies haven’t cleaned up their quality control.
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.
The blue colar CCW owner is probable the most common gun carrier you may run into. I’m not going to go into a class warfare thing here, but in my opinion, there’s no reason to look down on blue colar workers as opposed to white colar gun owners. The whole blue vs white thing seems to be a made up argument between people that spent $80,000 on a College education that got them absolutely nothing a small business owner already knew. Life is full of invenstment opportunities and we need to take advantage of those opportunities. Getting an education should be viewed in the same manor as buying a house. You spend money on something, you expect a return, and if the return wasn’t worth it, the investment wasn’t worth it.