Review: Platatac - S&M Side Opening Pouch

I follow a couple of gear swap-buy-sell groups online, and every now and then something comes up that piques my interest. The last time was my Condor Plate Carrier, which I've enjoyed running in at a few events, and was value for money second hand, for my purposes. A bonus from that deal was the carrier had a couple of extra pouches that the guy "threw into the deal". One of these was the pretty recent Platatac S&M Side opening pouch. I hadn't thought to get one of these of its own merit, but having had one in my collection now, I can see this may have been a mistake.

One of the first things I noted was that it looked quite different to my other Platatac pouches, which mostly run into the magazine pouch category, but certainly had the same quality of construction that I'd expect of their products. Constructed of 1000d Cordura, and double stitched throughout. The big-enough to be strong, small enough to keep grit out No.10 YKK zipper wraps around three of the four sides, but interestingly, not top to bottom, but from the side. The twin zipper pulls are equipped with nylon extenders which are grippy, but snag-free.


One of the things I really liked about this design is that the front panel has a broad lip, that can completely wrap over the zipper, giving you a fully Cordura enclosure, even of the pouch isn't fully zipped up, and eliminating rattle, and giving further dust and water protection. Inside, the pouch measures 15cm (6") x 10cm (4") x 4.5cm (1.75"), giving you quite a lot of capacity for personal electronics, like a GPS unit, strobes, a survival tin or small medical kit, or even snacks or drinks.

The internal of the pouch only has one feature in particular, a wide, broad band of elastic webbing, too big for the strobes I have, but perfect for a 600mL bottle sized item. No extra flaps, pockets or anything to get in the way. One thing that was obvious though is that all the seams were really well finished off, no bare edges or seams to catch or fray. The non-zipper side features a big chunky drainage grommet, which even though it's on a vertical face, gives a good headphone jack access point, or dummy-cord lashing point.

Attachment is via twin channel PALS/MOLLE straps and takes three rows, to give a pretty solid connection. The "handedness" of the pouch is simply governed by flipping the way you attach the pouch, with the PALS/MOLLE connectors feeding "up" rather than "down" to have the opening side either way. I've been using this pouch on my baby-poo khaki-green gear, and Multcam, but threw it onto my black pack for contrast, but really, it's smooth lines and snag free profile don't really make it stand out. Perfect for all your small S&M needs. Cuffs and gags, anyone?

Review: ITS ETA (Med kit (basic)

As first seen (well, apart from a teaser) on Breach, Bang & Clear .... 

I was so excited to see this tucked away in the corner of my Propper package, because I've had a lot of trouble trying to get one sent to me, due to the specific rules surrounding selling the Z-Medica QuickClot Combat Gauze  as an export.

This is the ETA Trauma Kits in Fatboy which is designed to fit into the ITS Fatboy Trauma Kit Pouches, but can also be either sealed or broken down for easy access to the individual components, or stowed as is, in its heavy duty vacuum sealed ziplock bag. They’re also well suited for cargo pockets if you’re not going to be keeping it in a pouch for storage.


The ITS team who put their expertise together to develop the kits select every item in the ETA Kit carefully to complement the others and serve multiple purposes. They make several different versions. The Basic, Standard and the MIL/LE ONLY version, as well as new International version, with concessions to Z-Medica's export policy.

Here's what is in the kit that I received, the Basic, with a stock photo from ITS, as I didn't want to pop the seal on mine (bad reviewer, I know).

Basic Contents

• QuikClot Combat Gauze LE (1)
• HALO Chest Seal (2)
• Pressure Dressing (1 — 4″)
• Elastic Bandage (1 — 4″)
• Z-Fold Dressing (1)
• Combat Casualty Card (1)
• Nitrile Gloves (1 Pair)
• Pencil (1)
• Contents List w/ TCCC Care Under Fire Instructions (on reverse) (1)

 The kit is sterile when sealed (which is why I didn't want to bust mine open), and ITS also stock an "inert" training version, for those who want to train how they fight, and fight how they train.

The slightly more substantial "Standard" kit also features

• MojoDart Decompression Needle (1)
• Nasopharyngeal Airway (NPA) Adj. 28fr (1)

Which are a couple of things you'd really be wanting some medical training before using, thats not just patching boo-boo's and plugging holes.

The MIL/LE ONLY replaces the Basic/Standard QuikClot Z-Fold Combat Gauze LE with the more specialised Z-Fold Combat Gauze (w/ X-Ray Detectable Strip — Green Package). The International Kits feature an international version of QuikClot Gauze.
The FatBoy med kits hit very snugly into a two-magazine Platatac FUP pouch which is my gold-standard for pouches, but has an easy-access fit in their slightly larger WUP pouches.

I will be packing the ETA FatBoy with me on all adventures from now on, and it's a good reminder for me to chase up refreshing my FirstAid certification too. This is a great kit, dense, well thought out and packaged and appointed. Lets hope I never need to stop a sucking-chest wound, but if I do, having a kit like this might well make all the difference.

ITS also stock all the same contents in their "TallBoy"kit but stacked long, rather than wide, because it's not always about girth. If you really just need a pocket-sized pal, the EDC Trauma Kit might be more your style.

If you don't feel you'll often be responding to trauma, but rather more minor injuries, you might consider the ITS Boo-Boo kit, or, if you're like me and have multiple kids, and occasionally stab yourself in the leg with a sword, the slightly larger Boo-BooPLUS kit might suit your needs. 

Review: Propper - U.C. (User Configurable) pack

As first seen on BreachBangClear, where they make fun o' me accent, mate!

Inspired by the Marine Corps Assault Back, the Propper U.C. (User Configurable) Pack keeps you prepared, which is just the kind o lineage I like to have in a bag. I have a load of respect for the Gyrenes, my cousin had several long stays somewhere rocky and unpleasant serving in OEF, and if the design is tough enough for those lads, I couldn't ask for more. It’s designed to be customizable inside and out, allowing you to add the additional pouches and accessories you need when you’re on the move, depending on your requirements.

Made from 1000D Cordura nylonand wrapped pretty extensively in MOLLE webbing to accept whatever additional pouches you might require, the simple straight lines of this pack make it well suited to a variety of loadouts. No tight curved corners to try to jam kit into.


The pack measures 50cm (20") x 35cm (13") x 16cm ( 6.5", so you've got a lot of capacity to play with.

Hook-and-loop pass through openings on either side of the carry handle on the top of the pack offer hydration tube or cable pass-through porting, they are X-cut to keep dirt and other crud from making its way into your delicates.

The pack is wrapped in seven rows of six-channel MOLLE on the front, six rows of four channels on both sides and even two rows of nine channels on the bottom of the pack. That's a lot of coverage, especially if you have a variety of pouches you can load it up with.

Internally, all four sides are lined with soft-touch loop, to accept any hook-field accessories, be they holsters, tear-away medical pouches or any number of hook-field backed kit you might have ready to go. Propper were kind enough to send me a few different items to test out, and they seemed to really work well.

Both the inside back and front panel also featured deep zippered pockets running the whole length of the pack to give you a little additional storage, which is good because the inside is otherwise devoid of built-in compartmentalization. You NEED hook-backed accessories to have any fixed storage in this pack, internally.

Here's the inside of the front panel, showing off both the loop-field real-estate, but also the zippered pocket.

The back panel of the pack was fitted out with a stiff plastic board, to give the pack some structure when standing up. It didn't get in the way at all, but if you were really keen on shedding weight, you might pull it, if rigidity wasn't essential for you.

Similarly, the front panel featured a thin closed cell foam panel, to add some padding to the front of the pack. I didn't feel it ate a lot of real-estate, it added a little body to the flap, but if you wanted to shed weight and bulk, its removable.

 

On one side of the pack on the outside, above the MOLLE, a small, hook-and-loop fixed pocket, big enough for a phone, GPS or other small item is fitted. It wasn't super secure, being quite shallow, but certainly good enough for dummy-corded gear you need to access easily and often.

The top of the pack, just below the carry handle also has a small pocket, big enough for folded maps, small items like a compass or a flashlight, and other small kit you might want to have access to, outside of the pack. It's a slightly awkward size for other things, but snacks, maps and meds might well suit it.

One thing I found that the external zipper-pulls, which have these rubber grip-toggles fitted (which are good) come tied in a double overhand knot (which is bad). I pulled the knot right through the grip-tobble on one of them opening the pack, and immediately set-to retying them all with double figure-eight's. The pulls are easy to grip, and quiet, but the cord used isn't great, and I may well replace them with paracord entirely.

One of the things I really liked about the pack is that there are a pair of cinch straps on the bottom for securing gear. I often find myself with extra gear, or loot, to lug back home, and having a set of cinch straps built in can make all the difference. These, like all the main straps, have hook-and-loop strap-savers attached, to secure the excess webbing away when not needed. No more messy tape wrapping.

Inside the bottom of the pack is an isolated storage pocket, fitted with mesh-lined eyelets, top and bottom, which gives you a place to secure away wet, mucky or otherwise unpalatable gear and items away from your main pack. Perfect for a sodden poncho, or even a mess-kit. This is both zippered and also covered by the cinch straps that wrap from the back of the pack to Fastex buckles on the front.

Padded adjustable shoulder straps, broad, slightly curved and simple, secure the pack to the user,  and feature an adjustable sternum strap on sliders on the sewn-in webbing. Three additional cross-bands of webbing on either side give you mounting and cable or hydration tune feed points. Fastex buckles on the straps give you quick release options, and a wider webbing belly-strap is included for secure carriage of the pack.

One thing I really liked was that there are twin padding channels on the back of the pack, giving room for your spine to site between them, and offering some air passage to the fit for those long hot rangings.

One last feature, which I'm happy to see on this pack, and many others these days, is the triangular strap attachment flap, that gives the webbing and Codura of the pack a good purchase, taking the angular strain off the seams. Packs lacking this seem to always come apart here under heavy loads, so it's good to see Propper have taken this little bit of extra thought into their pack design.

This is a very utilitarian pack. Boxy but solid. You need to be aware that the internals are dependent on that hook-field backing to add any additional functionality, but other than that, this would fit in well with almost anyone's light to medium pack needs.

Review: Platatac WUP

It seems I'm running behind the times, gear-wise with some of my collection, with finances being what they are, and being the primary income earner of a large household, but I snap up bargains and good kit where ever I can. This is one of those items I found being sold second hand, having missed their retail release. It is the Platatac WUP (Water Utility Pouch). I believe it has been superseded by the Accessories Small Flask pouch,which fills a very similar role, and has very similar dimensions

Sitting at 20cm (7.8") tall, and roughly 10cm x 10cm (4"x4") around, the WUP is the perfect size to take a 1L Nalgene bottle, as well as a variety of other kit, like night-vision scopes, bundles of cord, magazines or what-have-you. Think of the WUP as an oversized FUP, and you can see where my affection comes from.

Fitted with a big oversized top flap, that has a long double-tailed webbing strap that comes over the top, and feeds through a webbing loop, before terminating in a big Fastex-type clip.

The twin straps do a good job in securing the cover in place, which might seem redundant, given that as well as the straps and buckle, the flap also features a broad hook and loop fixture.  Stripped from the lid flap, the straps can be used free-style over whatever you have sowed in the pouch too.


The WUP also has a shock-cord and cord-lock drawstring closure around the lip of the pouch, which allows you to cinch it in to grip the top of your bottle, or whatever else you have in the pouch. An internal loop field allows you to secure the lid flap inside the pouch, the give you a rapid access option.


The WUP features two columns of three rows of PALS/MOLLE on either side, giving ample real-estate for fitting it with other pouches, if you really need, but more useful I've found for slipping a glow-stick or a pen through.

The pouch is fitted with the usual Platatac semi-rigid and press-stud MOLLE strips, and will feed through four rows of MOLLE, offering a very solid attachment. Something to consider when attaching a liter's worth of hydration, or however much the other kit you store in it weighs.

A grommet in the bottom of the pouch stops you hauling a liter's worth of pond-water should you take a dump,  but this is where that shock-cord cinch comes in very handy for keeping a tight seal and keeping the outside, out.




I have really enjoyed having added a slightly larger pouch to my repertoire. Larger than the FUP, but not as big as either my dump pouches or the MEOP I also often wear, the WUP has given me somewhere to conveniently carry my watter bottle, but also keep a bigger range of items closer to hand than the FUP. Sometimes a bit bigger is just better.

So, if you find yourself browsing second hand pouches, and come across a serviceable WUP, I heartily recommend adding it to your collection, they work well on a Battle Belt or on the side of a pack.

Review: Condor - Gen1 Battle Belt

This is my third Condor review.  I covered their Modular Plate Carrier recently, and had some good things to say about it, with a couple of caveats. My Condor Nomex gloves are still serving me well. Condor apparently gets a lot of stick in the high-speed gear community, but as a quite removed observer (damn you, Pacific Ocean), it's been hard to get a good picture as to why. I'm going to focus on what I see and feel myself. Both my Condor pieces are second hand, from a fellow who was getting rid of his excess collection.


This is the now superseded Gen1 Condor battle belt, which is still available out in the world, but Condor are promoting their newer Gen2 belt directly.

Adding to my growing collection of MultiCam, this 1000d Cordura belt functions in the way that must battle belts do, it is a sleeve type affair, and requires an actual belt to be fed through it in order to attach and wear it. I have fed my Propper 720 Riggers Belt through it. Internally, the battle belt has a series of webbing loops to snag and hold a belt in place, and fits up to a 2" belt easily. These loops keep a belt in place both in the donning and doffing process, but also when wearing it, to keep it riding right. The two front panels have openings in the bottom side to run a drop-leg rig off the internally threaded belt.

Four D-rings are set into the top of the beltfor attaching a harness or braces to.

The inside of the belt was lined with a breathability improving mesh padding, with two bands of non-slip backing. It was very comfortable to wear when empty, sitting on top of the hips and conforming to the curves of the body nicely.

Front View

The belt is surrounded by two rows of heavy webbing, 6 channels on the two side panels and 8 channels on the back. When you load the belt up, some things happen. Even with a fairly light load of a Platatac Half-Med pack and a WUP container, the belt sags noticeably.

Side view

Back View

This sagging didn't really affect the comfort, or the fit of the belt, but does raise some questions about its stability under higher loads, when you don't want that extra weight flopping about when you are being physical.

I suspect this sag is due to the Rigger belt being suspended through the middle of the Battle Belt, rather than riding up at the top seam, but it seemed like a design flaw to me.

I wore the belt all through last Easter's Confest (2015) with the loadout as shown here, with a Nalgene bottle in the WUP, with my RhinoRopework Hornet and American Kami Super Colubris combo fed into the left-hand side belt opening. It was super effective, and I chopped wood, carrier Tactical Baby and ran around like a mad thing with no trouble keeping my wearables in place. I'd like to see how it compares to the Gen2 Battle Belt, but it stands up nicely against the Platatac Young Guns and Bongo Battle Belts.

Wish Lust: Rhino Ropework - MAD Stick pouches

My mate Shane from Rhino Ropework (note: they're going to be going through a branding change soon, stay tuned) have teamed up with my friend over at SORD Australia to put together a line of pouches for the most excellent and useful MADSticks by Rhino Ropeworks. You'll recall the MAD Sticks are a compact solid breaching and pry bar, and be pleased to note that they've gone through some more design iterations and are even madder! Here are some pictures of the prototype SORD made up for him.

One aspect that Shane wanted to address, is their very pointyness, which even when looped through PALS/MOLLE, can jab and scrape, and the pen-clip type retaining clip sometimes just weren't up to the rugged outdoor needs of some folks, so he and SORD Australia have come up with this 1000d Cordura pouch. You'll remember the SORD 870 back scabbard I have reviewed in past, well, this is it's littler, sleeker cousin.

Able to be looped though PALS/MOLLE on packs, or plate carriers, or worn on the hip and thigh, the MAD Stick pouch will be fastened with a Fastex style buckle, with a wide flap to allow ease of access, and secure carriage. A steel drainage grommet at the bottom seats the glass-breaker tip, so you don't get undue poke-age, and they are snug enough to not require the pen-clip, but can accommodate them if your MAD Stick has one.

SORD used scrap MultiCam to make the prototype, but RhinoRopeworks is likely to stock Sniper Grey tools with black sheaths for urban usage and  Olive Drab tools and Khaki sheaths for field use.

There is even some talk about Kryptek if there is enough interest (minimum 20 per pattern, I'm told).

Review: Condor - MPC Modular Plate Carrier

I added a new plate carrier to my collection earlier is year. I've loved my Platatac MAC for years, but it is getting dated. It's not like I even really NEED a plate carrier, personal ballistic body armour is a restricted item in Australia, requiring all kinds of licencing and legal requirements to own, (for civilians, at least) so it is a pretty specialty item.

That said, I fill my plate carrier's pouches with polyethylene plastic cutting boards.  This fills it put and gives it body and structure, (for costuming purposes), but also serves as blunt-trauma and edged weapon armour. Ballistic armour is restricted in Australia, so even if I wanted to fill it with proper plates or soft-armour inserts, I couldn't. I still like to put plates in however, any armour is better than no armour. I should do a test-video some time I guess.


The Condor Modular Plate Carrier is designed with heavy webbing on all sides for any PALS/MOLLE compatible gear and accessories.

The MPC also features an integral cummerbund and padded shoulders support and comfort. If you are in a country that allows it, or just want to know the vitals,  the accepts up to 25x33cm (10" x 13") plate and "Large" SPEAR/BALC cut soft armour front and back. It comes with padded foam liners taking the place of the soft armour.

One of the first things I liked about this carrier, was that once I fitted it with my mock-plates, I found it stood up all on its own, brilliant for storage and airing after a sweaty day out adventuring. A couple of bands of loop-field on the back give you attachment options, and also tie down what appear to be drag-strap retainers. These seemed superfluous, but I guess some folks want to be as snag-free as possible. Twin metal D-rings on the shoulders give hydration and cabling tie-down options. 7 channel x 8 row PALS/MOLLE on the black offer plenty of pouch, pack or accessory options.

The built in cummerbund system wraps from back to front, and I found that that really added to the overall comfort and stability of the rig. You can see from this shot that the back-piece also maintains the shoulder-straps, with feed over and across the body, to affix via hook-and-loop to the front piece, before being held secure by Fastex style buckles and sewn-in webbing.

You can also see the but in mesh inner-liner on the back panel, this helps add a little bit of a breathing gap, but in all honesty, I can't say that I noticed much difference from front to back.

You can also see the two M4 magazine pouches built into to the cummerbund  here, with the webbing looped shock-cord retention cords that are on both sides. I was a bit disappointed with these, as only the front set appeared to be big enough to actually fit a magazine. I didn't find much else I could store in these, except perhaps some emergency SERE gear like a spare compass or fire-starters.The 6x4 PALS/MOLLE loops give ample attachment for external pouches.

 You can see from this internal view, the cummerbund is actually two parts, an elasticized belt with hook-and-loop inside and out, that holds the back piece snugly in place. This waist band in turn helps hold the front piece in place, via hook-and-loop, to let you fir the side panels firmly.

 A nice extra feature of the elastic waistband component is that there is a zippered pocket fitted inside it. Good for personal keep-sakes, or small sensitive items, this is the kind of thing I'd normally see on a travelers belt, rather than inside a military style plate carrier, but hey, just because your loaded out for battle doesn't mean you aren't immune to pickpockets, does it?

The ealastic waistband helped keep the weight of the whole rig off my shoulders a little bit, and was a very nice addition to the setup, without compromising the fit of the side panels.

The side panels attached via broad hook-and-loop patches, before being held in place securely, as with the shoulder straps, by Fastex style buckles.

The front panel itself features a mighty  8 row, seven channel spread of PALS/MOLLE, to allow all manner of pouch and accessories to be fitted. It also has a very high on the throat, and low to the belly coverage, something that I like very much, being quite a long bodied creature myself.  This combination oflong construction, and broad carriage options makes this a really appealing carrier for me, and one of the reasons it has overtaken my Platatac MAC as my chest-rig of preference.

The front panel has two bands of loop-field along the top, straddling the top PALS/MOLLE row. Along with the the shoulder strapping webbing, and the cummerbund webbing there are a couple of extra things about the front panel.

It features two broad hook-field patches, for the cummerbund to lock onto,  these suffer the difficulty all big patches of hook-field do, they are crud-magnets. I found that the wrap-forwards and buckle tight option was pretty good, and gave good coverage as well as leaving me room to breathe (never good to be in too-tight armour, especially, when you have to shoulder a pack, climb up somewhere, or run).

One thing I found that it took a little bit of doing to get the side flaps to sit right, and flush. Each side has a grab-loop, to assist in bringing it into place, but some incremental adjustment may be required to get it sitting right.

Donning and doffing the MPC was pretty easy. It was simply a matter of undoing the side panels both in buckle and hook-and-loop, and throwing the whole lot over my head, and doing up the elastic belt component.

Then it is just a matter of fixing the front piece to the belt gently, and strapping down the side panels.

The plate pockets are secured by internal hook-and-loop closing flaps at the bottom of the front and back panels, and the side plates are fitted through the back plate slots. This took a little fiddling to get the side plates into place but they seemed to stay once fitted. It would be interesting to see if they sat as well with steel plates.

Again, the hook-and-loop attachment of the side plates, even with the Fastex-buckles were probably my least favorite part of this carrier, as they took some fiddling to get to sit right, and to fully lay flat. I can see them coming open at inopportune times when you're trying to be quiet with that "sckreeeet" sound if they got hung up on something. That said, I spent some good time running about in it, weaving through the bush, and in some urbanised areas, whilst at the After The Fall: New Hill City event.

I got this second hand, and it was in good shape when I got it, and has held up tot the pretty mild punishment I have given it, (including two weeks spread out in the cooken-yard, as torture testing) so I'm pretty happy with how its turned out.

I'm slowly getting with the times as far as camo-patterns go, and am slowly building to my MultiCam collection, this was a great piece to do so. The webbing is still khaki, so it's still a blend, but I'm getting here. 

Review: SORD - Specialist Insertion Platform

In my growing collection of SORD Australia product, which includes their 870 scabbard, the covert tactical hoodie and the finger-warming StormTrooper tactical muff, I also have been making good use of their low profile chest rig, for those times where I just want a couple of things on me, in cases where I'm either going to be moving fast and light, like running and scouting, or having to get into hard to reach places, like caving, climbing or tree-work, but I still want to have one or two needfuls on my person.


The SIP (Specialist Insertion Platform) is a light weight, low profile chest rig designed to fit under or with insertion equipment, be it under a reserve parachute, swimmer scout valise or worn as a standalone rig for TAG drivers or reconnaissance teams.

Weighing in at only 360g (12.6oz) it utilises 330D Cordura construction for minimal weight with full MultiCam tape webbing and ITW hardware at multiple points. 

Through some clever design, you have complete side release at the waist in one buckle for fast transition between the SIP to an Assault rig worn underneath, or just to strip it away entirely as needed. Additional buckles at the collarbone and for the kidney stability strap give you options for adjustments and adds to the don and doff design. 

This makes it quick and simple to get in and out of as you transition between mission phases, as the situation requires. 

The SIP is faced with three rows of four channel PALS/MOLLE, with a single horizontal column of three loos, giving you a single column of sideways attachment. Perfect for a cyclume stick, or a single stack pouch. 

At the top of the vertical PALS/MOLLE , a sleeve pocket, fixed with hook-and-loop closure allows access to a small area, big enough to fit a HAPO NAV BOARD or even a compact pistol holster, I have fitted mine with a map and compass, ID and the like. The inside of this sleeve is also lined with a strip of  loop-file, to ensure that whatever you can fix, is fixed, especially important for holsters, obviously. I would have liked to see a cord-loop in there, for dummy-cording, as I have in my Hill People Gear Runners Rig but I could always add this myself. 

The bottom of the SIP also features a standard hook-and-loop sandwich, which hinges up between the second and third rows for attaching dump pouches, the SORD StormTrooper or other pouches with sandwich fittings, such as the Platatac gasmask pouch.

The shoulder straps can be configured in both X or H style with removable cross bar to give you adjustment and wearing options.

Elastic cable retention on the shoulder straps offers even more stability, giving you a very stable, snug and secure platform to run those few needful items that you've loaded it with. I've done a couple of cross country jaunts with it, along with the StormTrooper, and a dump pouch, and had no troubles with it either chafing or bouncing. I was happy with the fit and the quick release, when it came time to dump it.

The MultiCam is spot on, (unlike that used in the Headsox I'm wearing here) and the fit to purpose is great. It is usually less carriage than I would want, but for those times where I want to run light, it's superb.