All posts tagged Hunting Gloves

Watch out for some of those hunting gloves

Now is the time  of year when most of us that go hunting will walk into our favorite sporting goods store and see an entire section devoted to us.   After having the fortunate experience of seeing some of the new A-Tacs camoflauge from Eotac at the New Jersey Police and Security Expo, I wasn’t impressed with most of the camflauge I saw at Cabelas and Dick’s Sporting Goods.   The hard thing about chosing camo is that up here in the Northeast, we have serious changes in patterns and colors from year to year.  There are times when the Fall leaves don’t change and you still have to keep your green camo on.   Other times you need your light brown and possible white mixture to fit in with a snowy background.

Every year I am in the hunting section trying to see if anything new an appealing is out, I see the same fingerless gloves that I wore almost 20yrs ago.   These are sold as hunting gloves but they aren’t tactical gloves.   I have personally seen people jam firearms because frayed strings and materian got jammed up in an AR15 magazine from the thumb area of the glove.   Fingerless gloves are very practical for hunting because they give you some level of warmth, but do not interfere with your feel of a firearm.   Are they hunting gloves or tactical gloves? Much of the padding on the thumb areas are meant for gripping a firearm, but if you use it to load bullets into a magazine, you have to make sure that you aren’t potentially wearing on the actual woven fabric and not pressing on the the padding.   I ruined a pair of fingerless gloves that I had after 5yrs of hunting with them,  by just using them for 2 range sessions with semi-auto handguns and rifles.

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Some range observations about tactical gloves

I always had issues with using gloves with firearms which stems from my young adult hunting experiences.   The gloves you thought you needed for a hunting trip wouldn’t fit in the trigger guard.  Not only was this a safety issue, it was uncomfortableto hold the firearm because you actually had to squeeze harder just to get through the fluffy texture of the gloves.  The tactical gloves have different applications.  Some are full length which goes up the forearm, mid-lengths are a little shorter, and then there are shorter gloves that basically just cover the hand.   The thing you have to think about is these slight differences are about as relevant as wearing long pants, lightweight pants, and wearing shorts.

The only real difference that I find relevant to what type of tactical gloves to wear are fingerless or full coverage gloves.   Actually, there is one more thing to consider.   Many of the guys that work in tactical operations want the trigger finger glove cut off and this is something else to think about when selecting your gloves.  The Vickers tactical gloves have various cut off points for trigger fingers and will not split or tear beyond that point.   The A106 Duty gloves are only available in black, but the A107 are much a little heavier and give you more wrist coverage.  These will elimnate the need for changing out the trigger guard on your AR15 or M4 variant.

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Serving a purpose

Vickers GlovesReasons for wearing gloves are as numerous as reasons people wear a shirt, pants, vests or jacket.   We have jeans and sneakers for one situation and a suit and tie for others.    A citizen carrying a gun won’t want to look like a Cop and everyone knows that Police wear uniforms most of the time.   Gloves can be used to keep hands warm in the Fall, and other gloves are heavier for Winter weather.   Tactical gloves can mean fingerless gloves, but fingerless gloves might be hunting gloves.

Well here’s one more stick in the fire.   What kind of glove do you need to be able to load bullets in a magazine and still be able to pick up a quarter, open doors and not get your finger caught in the trigger guard on your AR15? How many of your regular hunting gloves or winter gloves will hold up?  Larry Vickers Gloves are known in the firearm industry and the new Duty gloves are not as long as the Vickers Mid-length gloves, but they have the same durability and feel.    I think it takes some time to get use to wearing gloves while operating a firearm, but for $30 these are a great option to have in your range bag or tactical vest.

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