The R stands for Ranger.
Probably the most high profile release there’s been for a while and potentially Crye’s R-Series could become very popular. All the promotional media and even the SHOT booth was setup with 4 specific configurations, of which the Assault is just a normal modern PC and the Pack is… probably one of the most niche nylon setups I could think of.
The Jump and Recce however fit in to the realm of the latest style of gear that any individual can buy in small parts and slot together in a huge array of different combinations to suit almost any desire or requirement. How do they look in the cart though? I had a good stab at loading up all the pieces for each config, first from Crye then from the company I believed would be the most suitable competitor.
I have friends at all 3 of these companies and all 3 are brands I like and recommend.
The Jump is of course a non-armoured chest rig and I didn’t exactly stick to the script because the Crye Jump config uses their PALS wings. I however loaded my Crye basket with 2 Radio wings and the Spiritus with 2 Expander wings. Currently the only Spiritus option for side PALS is the Thing 2. If there was a way to make the products more closely aligned the price gap would be smaller. Also the Crye option can take a plate, but the Mk4 cannot. All that said however, the price gap is rather significant, there’s no two ways about that.
The Recce is more like a chest rig but with plates mounted inside vs a PC with load carriage added to the outside. Make bloody sure this is what you actually *need* before buying such a rig. The end results are very different here as the Crye includes a pack and my Tracer basket doesn’t, but you must have the pack mounted with the Crye in order to have your rear plate; not the case with the Tracer MCRS. Sadly the Crye pack in MC specifically is isn’t the best looking with the un-patterned loop and the flap of course suffers from a similar issue.
One big consideration with both setups is that the Crye harness is very large/wide and significantly padded. A fair amount of production time will certainly be going to each one and actually I’d estimate the same to be the case for most products in this line – I’d guess that a good bit of their cost comes from the amount of human sew time that goes in to every piece.
I’d have to spend more time than I’d ever want to examining every one of these products to compare sew quality, and personally I’m not going to be buying R-Series right now, because I already have modular gear that does everything I need as a hobbyist. Is it a well made suite? I’d wager it is and I cannot nearly cover every relevant discussion point in this post.
Choose WISELY.
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