The running man… Carbine fighting
Most handguns blow holes in targets, a good .223 Carbine with a fragmenting bullet is going to tear up a BG. I strongly suggest putting a white light on any carbine just incase you need it to identify a target. Many of the people we see on the training courses always think that handguns are for home defense and never really thought too much about keeping a Carbine available. You may have some problems finding a safe to lock up your rifle, but there are things you can do to keep it away from children and still have quick access. One of the most common things we still see with new operators is dropped gear. Guys show up with holsters for sidearms that don’t retain the firearms, and spare pistol mags end up sitting somewhere in midrange after a quick running scenario. The first time I wore a pair of Style 201 pants, I loaded up 6-30rd AR mags and ran around the neighborhood. I wanted to see if the lightweight material secured the mags in place. I was blown away at how well they were secured and I didn’t feel lop sided if I ran. The Style 201 pants are now available in Digital camo and coming later this fall they will be available in the new Direct Action A-Tacs pattern.
I’ve discussed this topic several times before, but I’ve seen more examples of gear that failed and operators that had a teachable moment. Its no surprise that Rogue Elite sponsors a few firearms instructors and training groups. We are supplying our Instructors with Eotac Style 202, Style 203 and Style 201 tactical pants. Since we’re well into the warm weather season, most of our Instructors and Operators are working with the Style 201 Operator grade pants. I have to admit that I am more inclined to attend Carbine courses over Pistol courses. I guess you should consider the Rogue Elite Team to think a Carbine is a better thing to fight with than a handgun. To quote Clint Smith, “A handgun is to be used so you can fight your way back to your rifle”. If you take a serious look at the survival rate of handgun victims vs rifle uses, there is considerable evidence to suggest that you may want to seriously consider upgrading your home defense weapon to a shotgun or a carbine. Bad guys showing up on PCP or pumped up on crack aren’t going to be concerned 9mm bullets unless you get a really good shot.
Nothing beats a good brick and mortar store that stocks tactical clothing, but there aren’t too many of those out there. Makes sure you do some research on clothing sizing and look at the sizing guides closely. To avoid wasting money on shipping and return shipping charges, you may want to break out a tape measure and measure yourself. Comparing one clothing line to another is a no, no, since not everyone follows the same standards. The Eotac tactical pants have an elastic wasteband which will give you some flexibility in waist sizing. Keep in mind that when you measure yourself, you should be measuring with the gun inside your waist if you carry IWB. We have a great many of sizing issues when people order The Wilderness belts. These tactical belts are hands down the best configuration for carrying firearms around, but the sizing can be tricky.
If you are looking to carry mace or pepper spray, I would absolutely have to urge you to do some research on the Kimber Guardian Angels also known as the Life Act. At first you might get sticker shock, and I think you may want to consider buying 2 of them and test firing 1 of them before you really get comfortable carrying one. I’ve earned my merit badges in seeing evil in the world I know walking around with the smallest pepper spray bottle to fend off a potential rapist, robber, or worse isn’t going to give you much of an edge. There are many reasons to consider carrying a less lethal defensive measure. You can blast someone with something like this without much of a worry about legal ramifications. I’ve seen pepper spray used against 0bnoxious drunks which in my opinion were justified.
The Eotac Style 202 pants are basically an improved pocket design over the Woolrich Elite 4429 pants. The Eotac 203 are similiar to Woolrich Elite 4441 and the Eotac 201 are similiar to the Woolrich Elite 4447 styles. Each may look the same at first look, but try stuffing the pockets with various items and you’ll quickly notice the design differences. The ID pocket on the Eotac pants have a pull tab that make it easy to open the pocket and I have absolutely zero problems using my gear with this design. The side cargo pockets are bellowed and although not as wide as BDU pants, you will be able to use these for mag dumps much easier.
The blue colar CCW owner is probable the most common gun carrier you may run into. I’m not going to go into a class warfare thing here, but in my opinion, there’s no reason to look down on blue colar workers as opposed to white colar gun owners. The whole blue vs white thing seems to be a made up argument between people that spent $80,000 on a College education that got them absolutely nothing a small business owner already knew. Life is full of invenstment opportunities and we need to take advantage of those opportunities. Getting an education should be viewed in the same manor as buying a house. You spend money on something, you expect a return, and if the return wasn’t worth it, the investment wasn’t worth it.
For most of the United States, we are moving towards warm weather. It’s time for us to think about our summer CCW and for those of us that were tactical apparel for work, time to switch to lightweight tactical pants. The military learned this the hard way in the Pacific Theatre during WWII. Wearing the wrong type of clothing in certain environments can mean freezing to death or unneccessary sweating. We don’t recommend wearing shorts in the winter for obvious reasons, but sometimes we still need to wear pants even though it’s pretty darn hot out.
We get a lot of customers asking us about the new Eotac line of clothing. It’s no secret that the people behind Eotac were originally behind Woolrich Elite Series tactical clothing. Many of the products that first came out were very close to the Woolrich Elite products that have been out for several years and were also variations of what 5.11 Tactical has been selling. There are some differences that you will notices as soon as you put on the clothes and recently I had a phone conversation with a customer that mentioned he needed something that gave him more mobility that 5.11 pants.
When it’s that hot out that your risking dehydration, you seriously need to consider the type of clothing you are wearing. Those wearing body armor or carrying more gear than the usually CCW gun owner need as many pockets as possible. Trading your tactical pants in for tactical shorts that have almost the same pocket designs is hard to find. There is also a very diverse opinion on the inseams of the shorts that people wear and there’s no real in between.
Open carry isn’t stopping Police Officers in Philadelphia from being shot at. Wearing a blue uniform in that City and wearing body armor meant over 6 police officers being killed at more than double that being shot in the last 2yrs. If you are that concerned about being “Made” with a firearm, carry a different gun. Pocket and ankle carry are suitiable for white color environments and I don’t know any BG that wants 5 or 6 shots of 32acp-44 Special in their chest from a well trained law abiding gun owner.