Personally I don’t spend a lot of time actually thrashing camo gear, I’m just a geek, but thanks to a close associate for lending me this pouch to feature. Between my lack of abuse and overly-careful selection of gucci items I just don’t get much that’s ever broken to showcase.
Anyway, as many of you will know, for a long time most gear used to primarily comprise 1000D cordura and many layers of webbing, up until the early 2010s when there was a gradual change to 500D and laser cutting began to emerge (even some laminates). For a while it even became a race for some brands to build the lightest X on the market.
My suspicion is that the race to the bottom of the mass stats lead to a brief period of popularity for the fabric shown here, called Litelok. It was billed as being even lighter than 500D cordura yet still with high levels of relevant durability. This Velocity Systems MG ammo pouch is mostly made from it and with the early style BFG ‘Helium Whisper’ PALS backing/mounting to match; made from a single layer of Hypalon. Quite a few of the most famous brand names tried out LiteLok, including Eagle, Grey Ghost, C2R, LBT and ATS.
This specific pouch saw around 2 months of regular use on a webbing rig to hold a water bottle and metal mug before unfortunately the base ripped as shown. It seems to have torn right on the stitch line where the base of the pouch joins the back. The entire pouch is double layered so it did come as a surprise to the owner when it failed. Their suspicion is that where their bergan had been resting on the back of their webbing (including this pouch) the added pack weight was being born by the bottom of the pouch. I could certainly see that being part of the problem here. There may have been far more weight than ever anticipated going through that stitch line area.
No criticism of Vel Sys here, many folks judged the fabric as good to go in to tactical products at the time. Perhaps it was eventually found however that the tear and abrasion resistance just wasn’t sufficient after all and the fabric was dropped; somewhat similarly to 330D cordura. Modern offerings that use 500D or 1000D cordura laminates as standard are far tougher, especially with regards to tear resistance.
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