Tru-Spec Combat Shirt – Economical

The Tru-Spec 1/4 Zip combat shirt in NYCO, if you missed my video look, check it out:

I specifically bought this just to post about because I spent a long time digging through dozens of different combat shirts within the realm of commercial options and this came out right near the top of what I could see online.

I’ve recommended military surplus gear for a long time in terms of the utmost cost effective camo clothing, but colour options are fairly limited if you want to get the best price. It will usually be 1 temperate and 1 arid pattern that’s available cheaply and in large quantities in any given country. The US is a bit difference because of MARPAT and all the bad decisions like UCP and NWU1, but in the UK for example the options would be DPM, DDPM and MTP. They’re fine of course and will cost as little as a third of the price of a good commercial equivalent, but if you want more selection (i.e. stuff that’s never been standard issue) while retaining a decent quality, there’s very few ways around shelling out a bit more cash.

The Tru-Spec was certainly the best option for a combat shirt using good Nylon/Cotton fabrics I came across. They offer the Polyester/Cotton version too but it really wasn’t much cheaper at all, definitely not enough to make up for the loss in resilience and colour fastness you experience with PYCO.

The one thing I can’t commend on is the long term resilience of the torso because it did seem thinner than I would like, but the overall simplicity of the cut means it would be a comparatively easy job to stitch in a replacement t-shirt body if the original did wear out on you. Plus of course the original fabric is a real blessing in hot weather.