Mil-Spec
By Robb Manning
Mechanix M-Pact Gloves: Protect your hands!
Going through Marine Corps Recruit Depot in 1990, Drill Instructors had a really colorful name for our hands. It’s rather vulger, so I can’t say it here. I really wanted to name the article “Protect your ‘blank blankers’!”, but figured it best not to. Those immortal words will forever echo inside my brain housing group: “You, maggot, get your blanking blank blankers off that rifle and push dirt!” Let’s just say it has something to do with going blind, and I’ll leave it at that.
Fast forward several months to Marine Combat Training at Camp Pendleton -- it didn’t take long to realize, A) how important the hands are to a warrior, and B) how vulnerable they are. Combat movement frequently involves fast sprints followed by abruptly hitting the deck for cover. Moving at top speed saddled with 60 pounds of gear means your hands have to stop a lot of momentum, and generally on some pretty inhospitable surfaces, such as concrete, gravel, broken glass etc. Skin infused with chunks of gravel makes it awfully hard to grasp your weapon -- and all that blood can make it a slippery surface. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been moving along a concrete wall, M16 in my grasp, and taken off flesh by skinning the back of my hand on that wall. Knuckles also take a skinning and a beating.
Marine Corps issue leather gloves at the time were terrible. They were big, bulky and left you with no manual dexterity in your fingers. It was like trying to pick up a bullet with a boxing glove. OK, not quite, but you get the gist. Some marines cut the fingers off the gloves, but a few of us purchased fingerless weight lifting gloves. I preferred the weight lifting gloves -- they allowed the use of our fingers and they weren’t as hot as the leather gloves. That’s important since most places where Marines are deployed usually involve some type of intense heat (or on occasion extreme cold. In one incident, my unit went from 120 degree heat, to a blizzard in freezing mountain conditions, all in less than 2 hours, but that’s a whole story in itself).
What we didn’t have back then -- and I would have loved to have them -- are tactical gloves specifically made for shooting and the rigors of combat and/or law enforcement fire fights. Gloves such as the M-Pact from Mechanix. Don’t think for a second that you need to be military or law enforcement to benefit from the M-Pact glove. True, they are designed for that, but they are also great for outdoorsman as well as the gun range shooter.
The M-Pact protects both sides of your hand. The back has raised rubber to protect the knuckles, a rubber pad at the wrist (I’ve skun that up, too, in the past) and rubber running along the length of your fingers. A separate rubber pad protects the knuckle of your index finger. Flip the glove over -- a rubberized layer protects the underside of your knuckles and a cushioned pad protects your palm. The closure strap also has a layer of rubber that serves to protect the underside of your wrist (the closure fastens on the underside of your wrist, not on the outside, like most gloves) Rubberized grips on the index finger, thumb and palm offer great manual dexterity. The backside material is made of moisture wicking TrekDry, so your hands are going to stay comfortable.
The gloves are form fitting but not so tight as to be restrictive. The manual dexterity is good enough that I’ve been typing this paragraph with the gloves on, with minimal error. If I dropped ammo onto the ground, I could definitely pick it up without taking the gloves off.
I like the M-Pact for shooting because of the extra grip it gives on my rifle. If I were nit-picking, I would add that I wish the rubber grip on the palm and thumb were just a bit more tacky, primarily for grip on handguns, but that’s a minute point. These gloves also serve well when you’re shooting high volume out of rifles that tend to overheat the front grips, such as the Kalashnikov or other piston-driving rifles.
Mechanix gloves are all high quality and extremely durable. They have extra layers at high-wear points, and are double-stitched where they need to be. The craftsmanship is outstanding and the attention to detail is impeccable. I cannot say enough how highly I think of these gloves.
M-Pact gloves come in Mossy Oak (tested), black, woodland, and coyote. MSRP is $34.95 ($36.00 for the Mossy Oak). Mechanix also makes several other models for tactical/outdoor use, including the Original and an insulated Winter Armor model. As the line expands, I would love to see an archery model -- it would make the best archery glove on the market.
Pit crews, auto technicians, and construction workers have known about Mechanix gloves for a long time, before the secret filtered down to military and law professionals. Now us civilian shooters and outdoorsman are learning as well. If you’re tired of skinning up your hand, whether your into shooting, the outdoors, or as a professional, check out M-Pact gloves from Mechanix. www.mechanix.com