Wish Lust: GUTS HM1 helmet mount

I stumbled across a very cool Kickstarter project, which marries three of my most favourite things: Helmets, lights and preparedness!

This one comes from a Firefighting crew, rather than my more usual geeky or tacticool sources, and I have to hand it to them, when it comes to getting it done, on very little, our First Responders are often at the pointy end of state and federal budgets. I'm very happy to promote this really cool idea, and hopefully get a very cool looking tool into their hands (and mine). Or rather, our of their heads, and hands, and ONTO their heads!

This is the GUTS HM1 fully adjustable helmet mount for lights and tools, by Kris Nagy, Ed Machen & 3LS

 It is a bolt on bracket, that non-invasively mounts to the side or front, above or below the rim, of standard fire helmets as well as hard-hats, but probably also to bump helmets without rails, or even sporting helmets....



The GUTS HM1 is designed to accommodate AA, AAA or CR-123, sized flashlights, small tools or video cameras. Essentially any item that that range in size from ¼ to 1 ½ inches in diameter. and allows the easy fitting and removal without tools, in the field.The body of the bracket is made from aircraft grade aluminum, with two stainless steel ¼ inch set screws to secure the platform to the helmets front or side brim. The strapping is the really exciting part.

The QuickStrap™ is made from ARA- Shield and fire retardant Hook & Loop both are NFPA rated materials. These are the same NFPA fire retardant materials used in firefighting bunker gear. The rubbery property of ARA-shield® grips and keeps your equipment secure even when it gets wet. The strap anchor point is reversible. This feature allows the user decide the best way for them how to tighten the strap, by pulling up, or downwards, whichever suits the user.

3LS are offering the GUTS HM1 in either "clear" silver or anodized in red or black.  The entire system weighs 70g (2.5oz) so would be no burden to most helmets, especially if you're already used to fitting lights or cameras to your head.

I really hope these guys make their funding goal, and perhaps some of YOU out there can help ...

Review: Strikemark - Contour cam Picatinny rail mount

Here's a cool piece of camera-gear that I picked up, after seeing a post by the guys at SoldierSystems back in March, and then again after looking for mounts for my Contour GPS following the Stampede mud-run I did recently. One of the guys I do Stargate Lasertag LRP with told me I need to tagger-mount my Contour, for extra bad-ass footage, so I was looking for Picatinny rail mounts, both for a helmet-mount, and to mount to my tagger. Reading some reviews, the official Contour Picatinny mount seemed to draw some serious criticism, so I looked around and re-discovered the Strikemark Picatinny Contour mount.
This is a rugged little nugget of a mount. At only 30g (1 oz) this CNC machined 6061-T6 aluminium mount is tightly engineered and sculpted. The slide onto my rails was smooth, but be aware, by nature of the "one piece" construction, they don't bolt on, like other rail mounts might. To secure the mount to the rail, a surface-saving, blue-nylon-tipped set screw tightens down with the included hex hey, Ikea-style. You can see it sitting down-rail of my Sstrike Industries Vertical Sling loop

The mount is hard-coat anodized with a matte black finish and is conservatively laser etched with the Strikemark logo.

The rails to mate to the Contour are extremely tight. I needed to add some lubricant to slip mine on, which I did gingerly, for fear of breaking the Contour's plastic siding. Whilst Strikemark offer a "Lifetime warranty on the mount. If it breaks, we replace." I wasn't so sure about Contour. The connection however is rock solid. No shakes, rattles, wobbles or warping, all the concerns raised about the official Contour mount.

Now, you can see my mount here, riding on top of my current tagger (which is a M16A2/M203 analog), as it currently lacks side-rails and it wasn't really in the way for what I do with it. I have plans to mount rails on my Pro Tec Classic helmet to give me a solid mounting point, to avoid the slide and jiggle worries I had with a cap, shoulder and bag-mountings I have tried.


Props to GeardoShit for beating me to the punch, I think we must have both been reminded of this thing at the same time, ordered, received, tested and decided to post at the same time. I literally had put pics up into a draft when his post published! Great minds!