Misc

What Happened With Arktis?

In a move I always greatly welcome from any company that makes gear, Giena Tactics contacted me earlier today asking for details on what specifically was wrong with the kit I posted yesterday. Obviously I gave them a few other details and other feedback and they’ve got my e-mail now, so we’ll see what happens there.

Turns out they’ve already got a combat cut lower garment in the works which actually includes the stretch panels, which would be a good move I reckon. They’ve built a pretty solid foundation of products already, it wouldn’t take more than a couple of tweaks to improve their offerings substantially and bring them in to line with what I’d call pretty bloody solid.

As I’ve mentioned before, I did go through this with Arktis in 2016 and earlier this year. I offered them literally no end of assistance, experience and ways they could drastically improve their combat cut trouser with only a few minor tweaks and did they listen to any of it? Nope. A change of quite literally about 3mm in the opening to the knee pad pocket would’ve fixed their pad fitment issue and then I’d be pretty happy to recommend their Ranger Trouser to you all, especially given the huge range of patterns they offer. I gave them dimensions, photographed measurements, offered to lend them my own Crye gear to get things right; and they either ignored it all or refused to accept they had issues in their pattern. At one point they claimed “oh the trousers you have are from a really early batch, we’ve checked some new ones in the warehouse and it’s all fine now” then a few weeks later I see posts from other people who’ve just purchased their stuff and are having the EXACT same problems. Excruciating.

As for blatant copies of Crye’s design.. tricky one. At this point I honestly think it’s sort of crossed in to that area where the horse has thoroughly bolted and it’s just a common design that everyone’s making. Every type of gear we know and love came from one company at one time but it comes to a point you sort of have to accept it’s just out there to my mind. Adjustable mag pouches with bungee lacing, certain styles of chest rig, features on plate carriers, the combat shirt (another thing Crye started and now everyone’s doing it and that’s just accepted everywhere), the list goes on.

Anyway, I enjoy being transparent and not letting any manufacturer get away with putting out gear that’s got significant problems, especially if they can be easily solved. I feel there’s a real lack of both transparency and integrity in a lot of social media for the sake of money and free shit. Hopefully you lot like this kind of thing, but let me know either way.

4 Comments

  1. Scott

    Do you know where Arktis manufactures their clothing? Tag says Made in UK but they told a French YouTube channel they manufacture in EU and that the Exeter facility is mainly for designs.

  2. Scott

    Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your site and the work you do, very much. You’ve helped me with purchases (what to get, what to avoid, etc.) immensely.

Leave a Reply to Cancel reply