Items for the hobby/collection that came in between June and December of 2022.
Over the last 18 months or so, having mostly filled my camo storage, I’ve been on a mission to bring my cordura load-bearing kit fully up to date and that mission was largely accomplished by Christmas of 2022 with many of the items seen above.
Immediately post 9/11 the newly flourishing commercial gear industry started cranking out a lot of kit using 1000D cordura and sewn webbing, then around ten years later in 2011-12 things really started to pivot towards 500D, laser cutting and more recently Tegris integration. While tech and product designs will continue to inevitably advance, it will be interesting to see whether this next decade sees the same pace of progression as was seen during the continuous operations in the middle east.
Given the difficulty of making personal gear that is any better than what we have now and the pivot from 20 years of COIN to concerns over a war with China, I could imagine that potentially the pace of change may slow and gear that is available now will stay current for longer as was the case in the 80s-90s, but time will tell of course.
Speaking of 80s-90s equipment, the amount of US Woodland Camo in the above image is probably quite evident. For me, it is what I think of in terms of an aesthetic for just about anything military as WCP and the M4s and M16s of the 90s and early 2000s are what I saw in the most popular films and games growing up. Plus gear of that time is what I first purchased for myself once I had an income of my own. The resurgence of 500D Woodland cordura being printed and laminated has definitely made for some interesting product offerings the past few years.
There is a lot of merino wool in this photo, which is a material you can’t really get away from once you’ve tried it. That is a bit of a problem in that it is a little pricey compared to common polyester equivalent offerings, but I have to say it might just be the greatest natural fabric that there is when it comes to various kinds of clothing items.
Lastly we have a couple of airsoft replicas and parts for projects that I’ll be gradually working on to build out various guns that encapsulate various styles I enjoy and I look forward to eventually bringing those to the site here.
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