03 Oct Reconbrothers Tactical Helmet Setup for Milsim & Airsoft
Reconbrothers Tactical Helmet Setup for Milsim & Airsoft
Today we’re going to take a look at me and my brother’s personal helmet setups or as some call them our brain buckets.
In the past we’ve done several videos about our own equipment like our belt setup, our plate carrier setup, our gun setup and even what we personally wear as clothing. You can click on the images to open the blogs/videos about those subjects. Although some things have changed in the meantime so we’ll owe you a video/blog of that as well in the future.
Anyway, lately we’ve made some new investments to go from our simple cap or boonie hat to a full tactical helmet setup which we’re going to cover today.
Warning!
Again, we want to warn you first that this is our personal setup and that changes will be made along the way. This video is meant to give you some basic ideas of how these things are set up if you want to start or adjust one of your own.
Why we made this change
The idea came from an experience we had Months ago on an Airsoft field in Belgium where they allowed pyrotechnic banger devices. And we’ve experienced them going off throughout the day in the far distances. Now, we were actually shocked by the amount of noise these things made even at for example a hundred meters away. And although we never experienced one of them up close, some people we know weren’t so lucky and got tinnitus from those things.
So, we didn’t like the idea of getting a peeping sound in our ears and that day we swore ourselves to get proper ear pro before getting back to that field. Also since we’re aiming to go to the more professional TacSim, Milsim and Polsim events where these loud noises are more common and since we’re taking the step towards GBBR systems that are also loud when shooting them, we went over to doing research for earpro.
Conclusion of our research
After a while of researching we could only make one conclusion: if you want to get proper ear protection, maintain good communication abilities and want to keep surrounding awareness as well, you need to get a real military headset.
Our military headset
3M PELTOR ComTac XPI
For the reasons given above, we’ve chosen to both get a 3M PELTOR ComTac XPI. The ComTac Series from PELTOR are possibly the most well-known ear pads in the professional world and there’s obviously good reasons for that.
Protection level
Firstly they’re active hearing protection that on their own defend you up to 28 Decibels and with earplugs included they offer 39 dB protection.
Amplification & rating
Above that, they also improve situational awareness by amplifying surrounding noises which makes you feel like Superman the first time you’re using it. Aside that, they’re tested and designed to the military MIL-STD-810 F standards which means they’re waterproof, dustproof, etc to certain criteria. Yes, that also counts for the microphone.
Communication setup
Speaking about microphones and communication, we obviously need the ability to properly communicate with each other during the action and for that we got our PELTOR with a dynamic microphone and a corresponding PTT system for our Kenwood digital radios. Which by the way all work flawlessly together.
All by all, these things will highly probably still be with us when we’re two old grown men. So in our eyes, they’re definitely worth the money! But, as a European consumer in order to get one of these for a fair price was honestly a freaking pain in the ass. And even we still paid too much for ours. Though if you’re looking for the products we show in this blog, we offer them at very competitive prices and we even offer discounts on packs at shop.reconbrothers.com.
Problems we still faced
For us since we’re also filming what we do and want to keep our teeth protected, so we don’t look like hillbillies in front of the camera, we had some problems we needed to solve along the way as well. Because combining a head mounted Gopro with a hat or boonie, a mesh masks and ear pro is already a problem on its own.
To make a long story short, we eventually decided to get a helmet as well.
Our military helmet
If you know us and just read our little story about the ear pro, you might already know we could not be satisfied with just a repro helmet.
No, for this we dove back into the knowledge of these things and the experience of others. And again ended up with a brand that offers the real deal. For this we ended up with a brand called Team Wendy.
The Team Wendy brand
Team Wendy is a manufacturer that specializes in both bump and ballistic helmets for professionals. This means they do their research in designing helmets that have the proper impact ratings according to the MIL-STD-810 G methods. They are also provided for the possible mounting of PELTORs and offer good ventilation around the head, so you don’t sweat like a pig.
And on top of that, they also have decent mounting options for night vision goggles which we’ll highly probably get in the future as well.
Team Wendy EXFIL LTP
The helmet we both went for is the Team Wendy EXFIL LTP with a corresponding helmet cover to protect the paint and an accessory kit for if we need to mount something like lights in the future.
Our impression
We have to say we’re hugely impressed by this helmet system. It has a lot of custom fit possibilities with its modular Zorbium inserts and the retention is very stable and comfortable with the BOA system.
Combining the PELTOR with the EXFIL LTP helmet
For this we first tried the most simple option which was just wearing it with the headband underneath the helmet. Seemed simple enough at first since the padding of the helmet is modular and you could create enough space. But we immediately noticed some inconveniences like whereas getting the microphone through the retention system wasn’t easy at all and we know that uncomfortable pressure points will present itself after a few hours of usage.
Mounting the ComTac on the EXFIL LTP helmet
So, we made the decision to mount the PELTOR onto our helmets although that requires a quite stingy sacrifice of the headband. But we’ve bit through that and are very glad with how the setup became. We can still go back anyway, but we just need to get a new headband wrap for that.
By the way, if you haven’t seen it already we took the advantage of making a “how to” video on mounting your PELTOR on your helmet, so you guys don’t do things you might regret when taking that step.
The ComTac mounts we use
For mounting the PELTOR onto the helmet we got the quick release mounts from Team Wendy itself which works great and keeps enough Velcro space open to mount our MOHOCs which we’ll take about in a bit.
ComTac wire placement
Above that we’ve placed the wire from the ComTac going from the left to right ear underneath one of the pads inside the helmet. This works great as well, because we don’t feel the wire at all.
Ok so, once this whole problem was solved we could go over to the next one, very important to us which is filming.
Filming with our new helmets
As you may know, we used to film our action with Gopro cameras, more specifically the Gopro Hero Session 5 which is small and therefor lightweight.
But, it also comes with its flaws like, it needs a constant power source and therefor can’t be used in the rain. It makes these beeping sounds in the most inconvenient moments and protecting the lens from BB impacts is always a big hassle.
Above that, we had a couple of times we got stuck behind branches with its blocky design as well. So, although Gopro makes good cameras it is not really meant for what we do.
New MOHOC Cameras
At IWA 2019 we got a closer look at the MOHOC military cameras and those solved all the problems we had with our Gopros plus they can be directly mounted onto a helmet.
Build & lens replacement program
Also both the camera itself and the lens are much stronger build, so they can take some beating and if we would get a direct hit at the lens, MOHOC can replace it for a small cost and you have your camera back in a reasonable amount of time. So, ideal in our eyes.
Gearskin camouflage
Furthermore in order to camouflage and protect these cameras that extra more, we got some pre-cuts from Gearskin specially made for MOHOCs. Which is by the way an amazing product with lots of useful properties. If you want to learn more about it and get some yourself, go visit our shop to take a look.
Agilitegear bridge
The last piece of kit we have on our helmet for now is another Mohawk, but not a camera no, it’s a Mohawk bridge more specifically from Agilitegear. These things are meant as a storage tool and mounting tool for batteries, counterweights, beacon lights, management of your PELTOR cables, etc.
Our initial idea for these was to store a powerbank in them to continuously provide our MOHOC with power in non-rainy conditions and in rainy conditions we could jump over to spare batteries. But that idea was quickly thrown in the garbage bin, because such a powerbank weighs about 300 grams which is no treat for your neck at all.
Anyway, we’ve still put the bridge onto the helmets, because they’re convenient for all other sort of stuff. So, that wraps it up for our helmet. The last problem we faced was that we needed to keep providing ourselves with proper teeth protection.
Face Mask
Obviously a mesh mask wasn’t the solution anymore, because even without ear pro they’re already a problem for so many reasons. So, in order to solve this issue we’ve bought ourselves some neck gaiters and sew a piece of mesh into them to cover our mouths from BB impacts. It doesn’t protect our noses anymore, so hopefully they get spared from most shots.
Thanks for reading our blog
“Reconbrothers Tactical Helmet Setup for Milsim & Airsoft“
So guys, that’s our full helmet setup for now. There will be some changes along the way in the future, but hopefully this video helped you out in the understanding of what possibilities you have for your own setup.
Airsoft Europe
Posted at 09:16h, 11 OctoberNice article! Keep up the good work, i love your blog!