Wish Lust - Survival Hardware - Baccy Pouch

In  a departure from my usual kind of review item I wanted to show some love for one of my co-authors for Breach Bang Clear , David "Norseman" Williams. Norseman has a very popular YouTube channel that I am very fond of.  

As well as tutoring in outdoors skills, Norseman is also an accomplished smith and leatherworker. His small businesses  Survival Hardware LLC - makes Hard tools for hard times. Based in Idaho, USA.

As well as knives and sheathes, wallets and one such piece is this, the hand crafted Baccy pouch.
 Handmade from rugged pull-up type leather that will give you an appealing aged look.

The cowhide is lightweight, yet very durable, as it is chrome tanned.

The Baccy Pouch is designed as a tobacco pouch, has two generous pockets inside, one to keep your loose tobacco in and your smoking accruments in the other. 

 

Now, I'm not  a smoker and I'm not promoting or endorsing it , but I am an avid tea drinker and I figure this would be a good way of keeping my tea in good order, dry and in one spot. I envisage keeping bags and/or loose leaf tea in one pouch and strainers in the other.

The pouch rolls up and is secured with a leather strap.  It is hand stitched with medium weight, 

4 ply twisted and waxed polyester thread. This pouch should be very long lasting and provide a rustic, aesthetically pleasing storage for all your dried consumables.

 

Review: Condor Combat - Nomex gloves

I've been trolling eBay to find new exciting things to add to my collection, and one such bargain arose in the form of these Condor Combat Nomex & Leather gloves. I tend to destroy or lose gloves, so having another set on hand (huyk huyk) is a very good idea, as Winter is Coming here in Melbourne.

I've covered some rugged gloves in the past, but those are pretty much dedicated work gloves. I have long thin hands, and when it come to outdoors gloves, getting a good fit is difficult sometimes. The span of my hand tends to tear out the thumb/forefinger seam, so having a well put together glove that fits is also something I'm always looking for.

Constructed from the fire-resistant NOMEX fabric with premium goat leather highlights and reinforcement sections, one of the really interesting features is the dual-layer construction. The long sleeve of the inner layer rides up to about the mid forearm, meaning that it will tuck under a jacket, or over a shirt, giving a full "no-exposed-skin" cover. Is is great n the cold and wet, but essential when exposed to fire: be it flash, sustained or whatever. The outer hand-sized layer is stitched tot he inner, and features fully leather lined palms, and a elastic hook-and-loop closing wrist cuff. The knuckles, finger tips and trigger-finger digit knuckle are also leather reinforced.

I used them whilst chopping and hauling a load of firewood, and then later on when tending the bonfire and spitroast I did over the weekend. Not only did the long sleeve give me abrasion protection, and keep both my hands and wrists burn-free, the leather highlights also include a large padded section on the heel of the palm. This perfectly matches with padding needed when using a repetitive percussive tool.....

For me, that is mostly wood chopping with an axe, hammering or sword-work doing scrub clearing. For others, perhaps slinging hot lead.

These are a really nice set of gloves. They seem warm, without being hot, they have good coverage, solid construction and fit really well. I look forwards to waring these for all my outdoors cooking, chopping and strolling.

Review: PM leather - Hobble Belt

I little while ago, I was making eyes at a new tactical belt that had come up in my feed, and a friend of mine, Peter Martin, of PM Leather called me on it, "why not Zoidberg?" style. I was all for it. PM Leather creates a range of bespoke leather belts, accessories and such kit. I was delighted to receive a belt tailored to my measurements, and gave it a workout. The belt arrived in black, with aluminum rivets and steel furniture.

The heavy, 38mm (1.5") wide, 3mm thick belt leather is split into three distinct regions: the buckle section, the hobble section, and the tail. This is what makes the PM Leather hobble belt something special, as far as belts go.

The tail section features punched holes all the way along its length which comes in handy when the belts second use comes into play. More on that later. The tail joins on one side to the hobble section with a double riveted fold that wraps the butt end to a squared steel "ring" hardware. This bridges the tail to the hobble-section, which is a short length of leather, itself double riveted SR each end, joining at the other side to another of the square rings, and from then, on to the buckle end. The buckle is again, of hefty steel construction, along with the keeper, giving you a sturdy set of furniture and a very clean finish. The rivets are ground down, giving a rough and ready look, with very little chance of snagging due to their low profile.


The square rings offer two very useful hard-points for attaching carabiners, key chains, and looping cords through. I constantly fixed one end of my paracord multi-tool lanyard to it, Usually on the front ring, but depending on how the belt loops of the pants or kilt I was wearing sat, or having a higher or lower profile to my outfit, this was easy to swap as needed. The square rings are occasionally too large to feed through belt-loops, so some adjustment to wear might be necessary on some clothes (skipping that loop, for example.

I was also able to mount several different PALS/MOLLE pouches to the belt, which I fixed in place by feeding twin tabs on either side of a belt loop, and fixing it through a double loop of PALS/MOLLE, given the belts 1.5" width, this made for a pretty good fit. The belt was stiff enough to not sag terribly under the 1L SIGG bottle I slung in a Platatac FUP pouch whilst strolling about.



Here is where this belt shows its darker secrets. Those square rings and the hobble-section allow you to feed the tail through to form two or three loops that give you some very interesting shackle/manacle options from an otherwise innocuous piece of clothing. You can see now why the tail-section has holes punched all the way along its length; to allow the shackles to be drawn tight one pretty much the skinniest of wrists. the excess belt feeds through the buckle and then the keeper, but as you can see above, it can even be fed into itself.



Having that middle hobble section available, also means the belt can be used to create a pillory-style binding, but wrapping it around the neck of your target, in the forwards position here, but works in reverse if the hands are behind the head.  (I can almost hear the banjos playing).

As well as working on hands and heads, the hobble belt can be used explicitly as its name suggests, as a hobble. Obviously, this is only effective when the belt isn't or can't be undone by the wearer, but then again, this wasn't designed to be a high security option. Dangling by the ankles Hoth style would probably do the trick.

As far as innocuous, cool looking and rugged goes, this is some pretty slick action right here. I like mine, and have found it to be an amusing surprise to pull out when someone might least expect it. Make sure your clothes fit well, though, before whipping it out to bind someone, pants around ankles are just as hobbling!