Review: Zulu Nylon Gear - CAOS Admin Pouch

A while back I saw a post by the inestimable MilSpecMonkey covering the ZuluNylonGear Mega Admin pouch and from that time I was really keen to see some Zulu products myself. Since then, several other bloggers, such as Soldier Systems with the Skeletonized Container Sling, the guys at Jerking the Trigger with the Indy Satchel and of course ZNG's design-partner ITS-Tactical with their EDC medical kit pouches. I just had to get my hands on some of this gear. As always, the biggest hold-up was shipping, Melbourne being very far away from Chicago. As luck would have it, I got in touch with the folks from HORNEST in Singapore who managed to "infest me with gear"!

Having read what MilSpecMonkey had to say about the size of the "Mega" pouch, I opted for this, the very funky Zulu Nylon Gear CAOS Admin pouch. The CAOS (Combat Application Organizer System) pouch is the result of collaboration between Zulu Nylon Gear and CDH-Tac in Finland. I love the fact that these guys do so much collaboration and can't help but wanting to be part of it in my own small way.


The pouch measures approximately 5cm (2") deep, 15.5cm (6.25") across and 15cm (6") tall. This is a MOLLE compatible pouch, but unlike most of the other pouches I have reviewed, does not come with it's own integral clips. but will attach to PALS/MOLLE with two long MALICE clips.

This pouch is made of two distinct regions; the front pocket and the main pocket. However, there are plenty of other great additions. Twin D-rings in the top of the back of the pouch offer additional attachment points, to sling more gear, dummy-cord items, clip carabiners or to use as a harness point to sling the whole pouch. You can see that I have fitted two Grimlock carabiners which is how I have been affixing the pouch to my pack. Additionally, webbing loops from the back also give dummy-cord attachment points from both top and bottom of the pouch. So many options!


A straight view of the back shows the full coverage of 5 rows and 4 channels available to run ITW MALICE clips, Maxpedition TacTies
or Blackhawk! Speed Clips
through to secure it to your pack, or the chest of your plate-carrier. Again, not having any of these to play with, I have affixed my Grimlocks. You can also see here the dummy-cord loop at the top middle, and also the two at the bottom corners.

Between the two edge channels of webbing at the bottom you can just make out the two additional loops of webbing, giving you yet another attachment option. Behind the top dummy-cord loop is a slip-pocket, for keeping a notepad, papers or other slim needfuls.

This kind of attention to detail and willingness to put extra material in, to ensure the user gets maximum configuration options rates really highly in my books. Being an unusual size and shape often leaves me out of scope for "one-size-fits-all".


The front pouch pocket, as well as featuring a wide and tall loop-field for attaching nameplates, ID patches or even a glowing logo patch like I have put on mine (thanks to Hornest).

Pulling up on the wide (but very flat and snag-free) webbing handle, reveals the inside of the pocket. A wide band of elastic is sectioned into two sides, the narrower being ideal for a mobile phone, the other, perhaps a GPS unit.

As well as these elasticized "pockets" this pouch features quite a spacious main cavity, allowing the user to stow quite a number of things, in what is essentially only the auxiliary pouch of this piece.

 Inside the main pocket, however, is where the magic really lies. There are literally dozens of different places to store and secure gear within this area, and the attention to modularity, and multiple functionality is again displayed in the design. The water-resistant material is well stitched, and has fully taped edges. This is built rugged, just the way I like, but is still light.


 The foremost interior feature is a drawstring system like that seen in the Mega Admin, which serves to keep contents from spilling out when the zipper pulls are opened. This essentially forms a drawer on your chest or pack, with cord-keeper allowing you to define how "open" the drawer can swing.

The front face has another slip pocket and a range of layered elastic and webbing "pockets" for organizing small tools, pens and the like. I really liked the layering of webbing under elastic tape. It allowed me to hold some things loosely, some firmly, and some locked right in.

The rear slip pocket is further divided with two larger, phone sized pockets, another slip pocket and elastic for securing more small items. This pouch just keeps on giving. Further dummy-cord points inside keep your needfuls from flopping into the dirt, or dropping into rivers of lava.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't have any MOLLE-clip type attachment accessories right now (soon, I hope), so I have used Grimlocks to affix this pouch to my pack, would probably to the same with my MAC plate carrier, when I go adventuring.

From this angle you can see that I have attached it to the daisy-chain webbing over the top of my Bullock Echo daypack (which just got an update, check it out! In this configuration, it acts as a "lid" over the top of the pack, the paracord zipper pulls are easily accessible and I can access all my tools,and accessories

You can see here the difference between "coyote" of the pack, and the Platatac "khaki". The colours are complementary, I think, and it certainly doesn't look out of place.

In summary this is a brilliant pouch, I can see a lot of applications, and look forwards to putting it to a lot more use in the future. the guys at Zulu Nylon Gear put in a lot of work, in design and manufacture, and it shows.

Review: United Cutlery - M48 Ranger Hawk axe

Here is my first totally "tacticool" post in a while. I have shown you some axe-love in the past, and even debunked a cancelled product post and flirted with some serious and lustful objects but haven't really gotten up close and personal with the smaller choppers, till now!

This piece of bad-assed pointy is the
M48 Kommando Ranger Hawk Axe from United Cutlery. I had seen this advertised on ThinkGeek, and loved the look of it, and for the price, was willing to grab one to mess with. ThinkGeek have changed their shipping conditions however and this as well as many other of their tool and cool items no longer ship to Australia. I don't know if this from their end or ours, but I was denied! I hate that. I managed to find alternate means of securing my item, via a well known ordering service named after a large South American river system. This too was not without issue, and following once cancellation, I managed to secure myself a chopper!

This head of this piece is "precision" cast 2Cr13 stainless steel, and features a wide bearded cutting edge, which sweeps downwards nicely, and has a very smooth geometry to its edge.The topside of the head has been beveled back and is not blackened like the rest of the head, which I thought was a little odd.. Three holes skeletonise the head, reducing the over all weight without making the piece flimsy feeling in the slightest. The back of the "beard" had a smooth finish and I felt I could grip it for precision whittling if it ever appealed to me. The whole piece weighs in at 1.088 kg (2.4lbs) and sitting at approximately 20cm (7 5/8") across the length of the head, and just under 40cm (15 1/2") "tall" This is a really light option for what it is.

There is apparently 90cm (36") a pole-axe version available as well, but it looks like it may be a different head too.



The flip side of the axe-head is this very impressive spiked beak, again with the edges being uncoated "false edges" in this case leading to a rather pointy, and well defined penetrating tip. the beak follows the same lines as the axe-beard, and sweeps downwards, aiding in transferring the energy of a swing. An interesting and well thought out feature seen clearly here is the notch cut into the underside of the beak, which fits the thumb-and-index finger top of your fist if you slide your hand right up the shaft to take a grip of just the head. This facilitates a really comfortable choked-up grip for fine chopping or perhaps cutting with the blade.
Traditionally,the back of a Tomahawk
seems to have primarily been a hammer type end, rather than a spike, which seems to have been more a common feature of the Warhammer. No less devastating when featured here though, I imagine.

The handle of this piece is nylon, reinforced with 30% fiberglass and features both a double sided "knuckle" for gripping and preventing you from accidentally sliding up the grip, as well as a series of deep groves running the circumference of the rounded handle.

A lanyard hole at the base fits paracord nicely, and in fact,  one of the options offered by United Cutlery is a cord-wrapped version (only on one colour of the handle as far as I can tell, the OD version). Speaking of which, there appear to be a number of colour options available for this, black, OD green, safety orange and rescue yellow. This is a really nice thought, allowing people to clearly indicate the tools function, or keep it subdued and inconspicuous for those people on two-way firing ranges who don't want to stand out.


The head of the axe is fitted to the haft with three TORX type screws, binding the tang to about 1/3 of the length of the haft. I was happy with the binding and security of this attachment, from the brief testing I gave this piece, but intend to do a whole lot more chopping with it shortly.

The sheath is probably the least satisfying piece of the package. Whilst the nylon and furniture was hefty and felt well put together, with rivets along the top and cutting edges, and press-studs to close the bottom of the sheath, for "pull-away" access, however, on the back of the sheath, the attachment options to mount the whole thing were pretty woeful on this model. A single narrow belt-loop was pretty limiting, and I think I will need to do some modifications before I can fit this into my current platforms and bug-out-bags. To be fair, the cord-wrapped / OD green option comes with a somewhat more accommodating sheath, with some PALS/MOLLE looking hook-and-loop tabs, but overall, this was a disappointing end to what was otherwise an outstanding looking and feeling little axe. . 

Perfect for that long trek in the bush, demounted search and rescue, breaching and increasingly for CQB if accounts are to be believed.   

VIDEO REVIEW HERE

Click to go to Think Geek store listing ....

You may wonder, in this era, why would people be interested in a hand-axe, well here are some Hollywood-produced suggestions....

Making a lasting first impression.... Colonial era style

Up close and personal, Revolutionary War style.

Home Front: Pot Belly Stove restoration

One of the small victories I had in my separation of assets proceedings was to gain custody of the dismantled, rusted and pieces-missing iron pot-belly stove. I lugged it back from the house in the hills where Triceratops Girl lives, and back to my place by the bay. When I first moved into the house in the hills I was delighted to find the stove in the midden-heap of a woodpile on the property, and dug around to find as many of its parts as I could in the leaf-litter, mulch and dirt. It turned out to be missing the top pot-lid cover, and the internal base, and possibly an ash catcher, as well as the chimney pipe.

The first problem with restoring it were the bolts that were to hold the "chest" the the "belly" parts. These had rusted solid, the nuts on either side all but fused to the metal of the bolts. I hit these with lots of silicone spray, and set at them with adjustable spanner and pliers, until i was able to shift them within the bolt-holes.

They wouldn't come free, hoverer, so I applied the NASA technique of percussive maintenance and hammered the bolts free of their heavily rusted nuts. This allowed the "belly" and "chest" to sit flush once again, for the first time in a long time I expect. The door moves freely and latches happily, giving a good seal, so I didn't feel the need to do any adjustments to it. The "lid" piece was missing its "pot-lid plate", which I will endeavor to replace with a close fitting disk of steel at some stage, if I can't find a more original piece of stove-lid iron. In the mean time, an old baking tray closed the hole for firing-up purposes. You can see there is a crack in the iron at the base of the stove-pipe, which leaks a little smoke. Perhaps brazing could patch that, we'll see. Using materials on hand, (baby-food tins and some coat-hanger wire) I fashioned a rude chimney,

A second round baking tray was sacrificed to close the bottom of the "belly" enabling a fire to be built within, and given the rough-fit, also acted to ventilate the stove, giving it good clean burning capability, without raining ash, embers or sparks onto the chopped wood stored below, between the "legs".

All in all I was very happy with the salvage, rebuilding and cobbled together spare parts that I used to turn a pile of rusted metal parts into a functional, cheerful and rugged wood-burning stove that can warm and cook for my family, if ever the electrical and/or natural gas grids should fail. It is also small enough (and nests) that it could conceivable be taken along for long-stay outdoors adventures.

DENIED: Wish-Lust: Gerber Kick Axe

One of my readers brought to my attention a folding axe, purported to be a Gerber product on another blog, and it seemed right up my alley so I went on over and looked it up. Fun blog, I seem some cool parallels in our coverage and interests (well done you Undead Gear guys!)

I wanted to get my hands on this cool piece of kit, but checking Gerber's website I hadn't been able to find it, and the link included in that article defaults to the Gerber Gear homepage. SO I contacted their sales reps:

I asked if they had any publicity or product information on the Kick Axe, telling them I would be delighted to hear more about this product, it looks ideal for me, my blog and my readers.

Here's the reply....

***********

Thank you for contacting Gerber Blades and your interest in the Kick Axe.  The Kick Axe was announced for release in 2009 and due to a number of concerns was not released.  Production of this product has been cancelled indefinitely.

We appreciate your interest in our products and invite you to view our website at www.gerbergear.com to see our current product offerings.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,

Donda Burnett

Consumer Services Supervisor | Gerber





***********
So, a sad outcome, but it goes to show, always good to get good up-to-date intel, and for the best, go to the source!

Sneak Preview: Wish Lust gratification

Oh yes. Arrived this morning to guffaws and evil chuckles.

Home Front: Vegie Garden update

Perhaps I am overly proud of my little veggie patches, but it's something I've always enjoyed doing, and for as long as I've lived in places with enough plot to plant in, I've done so. Let me be the first to admit, I'm not very good with germinating seeds and keeping them alive to "seedling" size, although I planted sunflowers for Triceratops Girl last season which grew happily.
Here's an update on our main vegetable patch (as opposed to the  more herb-filled bed).

This first shot is of the "first quadrant" and hosts three variates of tomato, two of chilli and three garlic plants.The stringy grass is pervasive and a real pest to remove, it roots deeply.


This is the second quadrant, recently weeded, and plays host to green-red kale (the big leafy thing), reclaimed leeks (the bright green on the left, which sprouted from the discarded cut rooty-ends of supermarket leeks. The two big green shoots on the center left edge are more garlic, sprouted from gloves that germinated on our shelf. The long spindly looking thing is the remains of the broccoli that went to seed. I wanted to let it go full term so we could maximize our chance of getting a second season out of it. Some potatoes can be seen poking through the top right of the shot. Need to replant those to save them from going green.

Quadrant three hosts celery (top right), which is shooting up, spring onions shoots through the middle and matured, "gone-to-seed" plants along the top of the frame, and spinach all along the right of the shot. Retired kendo shinai slats make great garden stakes. Recycled futon planks make my walkways. More potatoes throughout. They are invasive but a welcome find when they aren't stifling other crops. The pumpkin is the same way.

Here are the new additions. two punnets of sweet corn (NOT popcorn variety like the last rather unsatisfying crop we grew, accidentally). I also planted basil, in between the rows of corn.In the process I dug in a bucket of chicken poop and old nest-hay, harvested from under the chookens. Digging it all in gave me the ability to clear out a bunch of grass-toots, and other detritus, as well as find and re-home some more potatoes.

I'm really hopeful that these two will be good "companion-plants"  and I may even rish another set of beans, once the corn-stalks mature. So far we've had zero success with beans.

Review: Swiss Army Chocolate

Here is a fun one, a way to re-engergise your apocalypse. I've had a variety of Swiss Army Knives over the years, from the Classic, to the Camper and all the way up to the hefty Swiss-Champ. These were my first knives, and my first survival item. However, I was gleefully surprised to see something else on a shop counter recently:

Here is the Swiss Army Chocolate (not by Victorinox), and Here's what I think about it: Chocolate rations go back a really long way but as the record shows, they weren't designed to be yummy, but as "emergency energy bars". Well, fortunately, times have changed, and these bars are in fact delicious. I picked up a dark, and a milk chocolate version and you can see the "Nutritional Information" listed here for both. Important to note is the 1100kJand 1080kJ energy per 50g listed for both, which is just a shade under the 1116kJ per 50g in the WW2 Logan Bar or D Ration. 



These bars however are also caffeinated, with 45mg and 30mg in the dark and milk varieties.  All the better to see you through when a burst of awareness and to shake off fatigue when it starts to set in. These bars also feature crushed conrflakes, which adds a pleasing and interesting texture.

Having a long lasting energy food source like chocolate bars is an ideal emergency backup, easy to store, long lasting (these bars have a "best-before" of just about two years from date of purchase). The slim size of the bar means I can slip them into my Bullock Echo daypack without even noticing the added bulk.

Each of the bars is divided into six pieces and sealed into an easy-tear plastic pouch withing the paper wrapper. This would hopefully keep the bar water-proofed (remembering that storm and flood-water is likely contaminated, and the CDC recommend caution), I'm delighted to have come across these bars, and I think I will stock up on them, because, who knows ....