25 Feb Reconbrothers Basic Tactical Gear Selection for Milsim & Airsoft
Reconbrothers Basic Tactical Gear Selection for Milsim & Airsoft
Today we go over all the “basic” gear/equipment we use to do Airsoft these days. Which will also function for Milsim purpose, hopefully in the near future.
But before we dig into this subject, make sure to subscribe to our blog page by filling in the form. Also Make sure to visit our Youtube Channel by clicking the button. Have a look at our store shop.reconbrothers.com to support us in what we do.
Today we’ll cover the gear/equipment we carry going from top to toe with the exception of our belts, plate carriers and Airsoft guns. Since, we already made blogs & videos about them in the past.
If you want to learn about that stuff, check out the blogs at the bottom of this page.
Some of the products we’ll mention today might be a bit on the pricey side for some of you guys out there. But do notice that we’re aiming towards those more professional Milsim events. So we are gradually going through the process of getting the right knowledge, training and equipment.
This also means that everything we use is from genuine military and outdoor brands. And not from Airsoft brands. Except for the guns of course!
And to be honest we would never recommend Airsoft branded equipment due to them mostly being too expensive in regards of the quality they offer. As a matter of fact this is sadly almost always the case in Airsoft these days.
It’s like they say: “If you buy cheap, you buy twice.”
Now, let’s start with the basic kit for a normal outdoor summer day or indoor event.
Footwear
Let’s start with the parts of our body that touches the ground. Our feet!
Socks
For starters, we use sport or outdoor socks. This because these fabrics absorb shocks and transfer sweat from your feet to your boots, shinbones and calves straight into the surrounding air.
Why is that important? Because if you sport, your feet can sweat up to half a liter per foot per day. And feet that stay wet for long periods of time will get blisters and wounds.
And that’s stuff we all want to avoid.
Boots
We use the Lowa Zephyr GTX Mid TF in Coyote nearly since the beginning of our Tactical adventures.
For us these boots comply to all the needs we expect for those outdoor terrains. So we highly recommend these.
If you want to learn more details about tactical or outdoor boots, take a look at the link in the picture.
Pants
Going up to our pants and underwear.
Underwear
Since we’re doing sportive activities we carry running shorts as underwear. These offer very good mobility without ripping and don’t cause friction.
Why is friction so important?
Well, we both experienced some of those sweaty hot summer days where we burned the skin of our thighs due to the friction of our normal cotton underwear. And we’ve gone through some very itchy days after that as well.
Crye Precision G3 combat pants
On top of our running shorts we carry our Crye Precision G3 combat pants. Which are absolutely amazing. If you can afford them and are serious about doing Airsoft, we highly recommend them. And we sure won’t be the only ones saying that.
This of course has a valid reason as well, if we compare them to our old Airsoft pants. There are a lot of differences.
First off, the Crye pants are cut for maximum mobility. Meaning they have stretch panels on the knees, crotch and lower back. So, if you take a knee or take on an aggressive shooting stance or need to take in any other odd position. Your pants won’t limit your ability to move.
If we compare that to our old pants, we would most likely rip them open if we would use them again. Which we obviously won’t ever use again!
These pants also feature a padded waistband for those heavy belts, an adjustable waist and ten pockets of which the two cargo pockets conceal magazine stabilizers. These stabilizers have already proven us to come in very handy sometimes.
Kneepads
Furthermore, we have the kneepads. In the very beginning we had some of those cheap external pads with Velcro bands. And the thing with those is, whatever trick you apply, they rarely keep in place.
So, after those we immediately bought us these Crye Airflex pads. Yes that means we even had these before we bought our Crye pants, because they did fit in the knee pockets of our old Airsoft pants. These already made a huge difference, especially when it came to the protection of our knees.
But from time to time it was possible to kneel aside a pad and that sometimes made us hit a branch or a rock which wasn’t really comfy.
Also, the basic fabrics these are made of, is the Mil-spec 50/50 NYCO Ripstop from Cordura which offers an excellent tear and abrasion resistance and has a quick dry performance. Which is a big difference compared to the polyester and cotton materials used for normal Airsoft BDU’s.
Nowadays when these pads are implemented in our Crye pants, we can easily manually adjust them to both our knees.
Furthermore, we’ve heard from people that have done some far more cooler stuff than we’ve done that already have their Crye pants for over 7 years. We’re sure you won’t find any other Airsoft reproductions that can hold out for such a long time while doing crazy stuff. So, in our eyes that’s money well spend.
Shirts
So, next we’ll climb up to our shirts.
We use the Crye Precision G3 combat shirts. Just like with the pants, they make a huge difference compared to the Airsoft shirts.
They feature bicep pockets, an eye pro pocket, a pen holder and a zip collar that allows easy donning and doffing to keep slings and straps from your neck.
The torso is made from a flame-resistant DRIFIRE fabric and the sleeves are made from a 50/50 NYCO ripstop just like the pants. These are obviously also specifically designed to be worn under body armor and keep us cool with wicking during the action.
If we compare that to our old Airsoft shirts which were made from cotton and polyester, we sometimes came home with burns due to the friction of the fabrics against our skins. Again, not that comfy to have.
One of the things we don’t wear inside our shirts are elbow pads, because for us it’s very rarely these are needed for what we do.
Why Crye Precision’s Multicam?
So next, why do we have our pants and shirts in Multicam? Well, like the word itself says, Multicam can be widely used in lots of different environments.
If you go in both green and brown environments it very quickly blends in.
“But why don’t you guys have a Multicam carrier then? “
Well, that’s because already a very wide variety of people are somewhat Multicam freaks and we want to be recognizable and distinguishable in the field. This so we can spot each other very quickly without being less effective when it comes to camouflage purpose.
So if you see two guys operating together while one is wearing OD and the other is wearing Coyote it will most likely be us.
Hands
Next, we’ll go to our gloves. We use the Mechanix specialty vent covert gloves. We’ve had other thicker and more protective Mechanix gloves as well in the past. But, for us personally when it comes to shooting we like them to be as thin as possible.
Because that allows for a very sensitive trigger feel and makes a huge difference during shooting. Of course this replaces a degree of protection. But as long as these protect our hands again abrasion that’s enough for us.
These gloves are also designed to keep our hands cool with the use of a fully ventilated design. And above that they’re also touchscreen capable to keep us connected with you guys in the field.
Wrists
So going from our hands to our wrists.
Left Wrist
On our left side we both have a Casio G-shock Rangeman.
Anyone, who owned a G-shock will agree that these things are build to last. And if you look for a watch for any sort of outdoor use, we can highly recommend G-shock watches.
This specific one is transmitter-controlled, charges by solar energy and features a thermometer, an altitude meter, a barometer, a compass, a stopwatch and is water resistance up to 20 bar or about 200 meters deep under water.
Now, If you follow us for a while, you’ve probably noticed that we carry our watches on the inside of our wrists. This has to do with three reasons.
- It’s more unlikely to get shot on the inside of your wrist than the outside, so someone doesn’t destroy our rather expensive watches.
- Bumping your watch against walls or objects is very rare when wearing it on the inside of your wrist.
- When holding a weapon, you are more likely to bend your hand to the outward side which mostly pushes against your watch and limits movements.
When wearing it on the inside of your wrist you don’t have these limits.
Right Wrist
Next, on our right wrists we both carry a paracord wristband. You would think this is just for looks. But no, everything we carry has a function. If not we shouldn’t wear it at all.
The reason for these is also very simple, because paracord has a wide variety of functions. So, if we need any for whatever reason we’ll have that with us as well.
Head equipment
Next we’ll go to our faces. Let’s start with the most important thing we all need to do Airsoft.
Ballistic safety glasses
Our ballistic safety glasses. For this Instinct wears the Acid Gambit glasses from Edge Tactical Eyewear and Viper uses the Edge Overlord glasses. Since 2020 we started using the Stigerhawk from Revision.
We both have them with clear and a dark lenses for both dark environments and bright days.
“Why do we wear different models?”
Well, that’s because everybody’s face is different and to provide the correct protection we each needed another design. Furthermore, these glasses are CE, ANSI and MCEPS rated. They have a 3 layer degree anti-scratch coating and are polarized.
But what makes these truly shine is their military graded vapor shield technology which can not be compared with any other sort of anti-fog technology. We once tested these by holding them above boiling water and they didn’t fog at all. So, for the guys looking for a fog-free solution.
These are it!
If you want to learn everything about ballistic eyewear, you can take a look at the link in the picture.
Lower face protection or teeth protection.
For this we both wear a mesh mask with straps which needed some adjustments to fit our individual faces. We used to have those partial mesh, partial fabric ones as well. But we’ve sweated like pigs wearing those.
So, for now we’ll keep on doing what we’re doing with the full mesh ones.
Headwear
For this I wear a hat from Condor and my brother uses a boonie hat from Crye Precision. Yes, in Multicam. We wear these to conceal our heads in the natural environments and to carry our Gopros on our heads for that first person footage in the field.
To mount Instinct’s Gopro, we’ve cut a gap in his hat to wear it with the Gopro headstrap mount. As for on the back he has attached some Velcro to keep the cable which runs to his powerbank in his backpack in place.
Viper made use of the structured brim and an extra piece of looped strap on top to mount his Gopro with the headstrap mount as well. The head strap mount did need some minor adjustments though. For his powerbank cable he just loops it through the brim towards the back.
When it comes to the Gopro itself we use the Hero Session 5, because it’s small, lightweight, waterproof and provides good video quality for such a small device.
To protect our Gopro’s we currently use the lens protector made by Shapeways. These require a Lexan glass insert. Although the glass is strong enough to protect the lens, the protector itself isn’t strong enough to take a BB impact.
Both of our protectors have been shot already and the material they’re made from just cracks on impact.
So, we don’t recommend these and we’re on the look for something more reliable.
Other environmental equipment necessities
Now, for us hardcore players facing more shitty cold and wet weather days. We add or replace some equipment to the stuff we all just mentioned.
Gaiters
For those wet and muddy days we usually wear water-resistant gaiters from Tasmanian Tiger. These protect our pants and boots against water and mud.
For our boots that means lesser time cleaning the mud off. And above that, they also allow us to go in water up to almost knee height without getting wet feet.
Jacket
Another thing we wear for those colder and rainy days is a jacket. We wear the Helikon-tex gunfighter jacket which was designed for military purpose.
This jacket is cut to maximize movement capability. It protects us against wind, light rain and dirt and still maintains high breathability.
It has seven pockets and ventilation zippers all around to keep us cool when required and features a collar-stowed hood which can be quickly deployed.
Supplement for colder days
For those colder days we usually also wear extra layers of clothing beneath this jacket. This is mostly a T-shirt and fleece to keep us a bit warmer.
Thanks for reading our blog
“Reconbrothers Basic Tactical Gear Selection for Milsim & Airsoft“
If this kind of stuff helps you out, make sure to share this content with your fellow Airsofters.
Make sure to let us know what type om camo patterns you use in the comments.
No Comments