Assessment: Arbor Arms Raptor Responsibility Belt

In recent times, the recognition of carrying gear on a belt as a substitute of a vest, chest rig or plate provider has appeared to develop exponentially in recognition. A protracted-standing norm for many of the legislation enforcement neighborhood, belt-borne gear for civilians is both the reason for, or results of, an enormous growth in load-bearing belts to select from.

Distilled down, there are two fundamental methods to haul gear round your hips. The primary is to get your self a very good duty-grade pants belt and grasp pouches immediately on it. Many moons in the past, the go-to reply was a 1.75-inch “rigger’s belt”. Now we’ve a mess of 1.5-, 1.75- and 2-inch nylon responsibility belts with quite a lot of options from D-rings to Austra-Alpin Cobra buckles to versatile polymer stiffening channels sandwiched into the nylon layers. Holsters and pouches are usually threaded onto the belt by molded-in, appropriately sized belt loops. There are additionally snap-open tender loops, plastic paddles that tuck into your pants, and even wrapping MOLLE-style straps over the belt after which tucking them into the webbing on the again of the pouch.

The opposite choice is to make use of a devoted “battle belt” or “battle belt” setup. These are multi-layer techniques consisting of a liner belt that goes by the belt-loops of your pants and a second outer belt which hangs from the liner belt by way of Velcro after which buckle closed on the entrance. The outer belt does all of the precise load bearing, usually by MOLLE-style webbing. These, too, can be found in every kind of sizes, thicknesses and have units.

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Above: This is an instance of a battle belt setup. This G-Code Scorpion Low Vis Belt Equipment makes use of a minimalist liner belt and heavy-duty outer belt.

Which one is best for you? The underside line is private desire, however there are some components to contemplate. We’ve got coated battle belt setups particularly up to now, and now supply a counter-point targeted on responsibility belts with direct-mounted pouches.

Why a Responsibility Belt?

What we oftentimes oversimplify as “private desire” is, actually, a composite results of information, expertise and philosophy. For this reason private preferences change over time – as a result of our information and expertise modifications over time.

I’ve all the time most popular mounting pouches on an obligation belt over sporting a devoted battle belt. Once I was working abroad as a safety contractor, I used to be on-call 24/7. If an emergency occurred off my shift I’d nonetheless be required to reply, and to take action as rapidly as attainable. I used to be additionally required to be armed nearly anytime I used to be out of my room. In that context, hard-mounted pouches made extra sense to me. I may thread my pouches onto my belt as I put my belt on my pants, and depart that setup in place till it was time to vary pants.

If an alarm went off in the midst of the evening, all I needed to do was swing my legs away from bed and pull my pants up, and I had a minimum of a primary line combating load on my physique. If, for some purpose, I didn’t have time to seize anything in any respect, so long as I had time to tug my pants up, I may nonetheless reply successfully. Having to seize a battle belt after which line it up so the Velcro on the liner belt matched up proper, then buckle it and cinch it felt like extraneous steps within the course of.

I additionally discovered the added bulk and padding of a battle belt, whereas comfy, noticeably inhibited my motion in tight areas (smaller buildings with slim doorways typical of many locations abroad) as nicely when sitting down or moving into or out of a car. Utilizing Kydex pouches mounted on to my pants belt with properly-sized laborious loops stored all my gear tight towards my physique, lowering these motion points. As a facet observe on this subject, I all the time used belt loops on my pouches and holster that had been the identical measurement as my belt. If my belt was 1.75 inches, I used 1.75-inch loops.

I noticed quite a few guys who used belt loops a quarter-inch bigger than their belt width. The thought was that having some play in your pouches allow them to transfer along with your physique when bending over, climbing ladders or sitting. I attempted this however discovered that, when mentioned pouches “moved with my physique” they didn’t transfer again to the place I wished them. If I sat down, and the pouches moved, then I stood again up, I discovered myself sliding and tilting the pouches to get them again to the place I wished them when standing upright.

Arbor Arms Raptor Belt Setup

At the moment, the creator’s go-to responsibility belt is the Arbor Arms Raptor belt. This can be a 1.75-inch belt that makes use of a Raptor buckle with an 18kN breaking power. The belt itself is constructed from double thickness Sort 13 webbing. It additionally features a strengthened tender loop to run a carabiner by for clip-in security functions. However our favourite function is the 2 channels sewn in for big, 18-inch zip ties. You may slide one or two massive zip ties into every finish of the belt. This will increase the stiffness for much less sagging/sliding when laden with gear. It additionally offers you two pairs of advert hoc restraints/tie-downs at your disposal.

By itself, the Arbor Arms Raptor Belt is versatile and cozy. We skilled no digging or chaffing on the hip bones, which will be a difficulty with belts manufactured from more durable SCUBA-style webbing. The 1.75-inch width and heavy thick nylon development is sufficient to maintain a pistol holster and one or two magazine pouches, if that’s all you want. To carry greater than that, we’d contemplate including a few the massive zip ties in to extend rigidity.

As a result of the zip ties slide into channels sewn to the skin of the belt, versus in between the foundational layers of the belt itself, even 4 zip-ties didn’t give us any reducing or digging sensations across the pelvis. The zip ties do, nevertheless, barely enhance the general thickness of the belt, which can have an effect on how nicely the belt loops of your holster or pouches are capable of slide on. Our holster did simply nice, be we discovered we needed to take away the zip ties from our assist facet, because the belt clips on our G-Code magazine pouches match so comfortable that we couldn’t safe them closed across the belt with zip ties inserted. This subject was particular to our G-Code pouches and can possible not be the case for pouches that used barely wider fastened loops (versus clips) or that use tender loops or paddles.

Talking of G-Code, we set the Raptor Belt up with a G-Code optimal-drop RTI platform as a holster base. The RTI techniques makes it straightforward for me to modifications holsters with the literal flick of a change on the again of the platform to unlock the holster from the drop mount. The holster itself can then get replaced with any holster (or pouch) that has an RTI-pattern mounting bracket on the again, no matter producer. Given the massive variety of pistols we check for articles, this function is very helpful.

Likewise, we use two G-Code Scorpion Softshell magazine pouches on laborious belt clips. The Scorpion pouches have shock-cord retention that permit them to flex and retain all kinds of magazines from single-stack to subgun mags. They’re obtainable in two heights (brief and tall) and the belt clips will be indifferent from one set of Scorpion pouches and re-attached to a different. This enables me to run every little thing from 1911 to MP5 mags off my belt relying on what we’re doing that day. They’re additionally nice for holding related sized objects like flashlights, multi-tools, meal bars and cigars.

Above: G-Code’s RTI system makes it straightforward to swap between holsters for numerous pistols.

Responsibility Belt Downsides

This isn’t to say that there isn’t a spot for battle belts. When you load a major quantity of substances onto your belt—pistol mags, rifle mags, med package, holster, mild, knife, baton, grenades, chem lights, taser, rifle catch, fastened blade, tax returns from 1997, and many others—the multi-layered system and MOLLE webbing afforded by battle belts would be the higher option to carry all of that whereas preserve consolation and durable load assist. Additionally, there may be the comfort of donning/doffing your gear rapidly. Even in a coaching or competitors context, battle belts can help you merely unbuckle and separate the layers, to get your gear off whereas nonetheless having your pants held up by a slick internal belt that you would be able to proceed to put on round city in all however formal-ware conditions. Additionally, it permits you to have a number of outer belts setup for various duties/missions/conditions that may be swapped out with out having to vary pants or re-thread pouches on/off.

But when your belt-borne load out shouldn’t be particularly in depth and doesn’t should be swapped on the fly, a extra conventional belt-and-pouches could also be a very good match for you. At solely $90 retail, the Arbor Arms Raptor Belt presents a well-built, low-cost choice that can be utilized in quite a lot of roles from standalone pants belt to a second-line platform that helps EDC gear or a combating load on a chest rig/plate provider. As all the time, vet your gear rigorously and practice with it extensively.

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Written by Tom Marshall