Cold weather gear
The time for this stuff is slowing passing but what are your favorite brands/styles of cold weather gear for zombies/SHTF/deer season/whatever? What did you find works best? How about footwear and hand wear?
I use the Gen 3 ECWCS with black mickey boots and knit wool glove liners for winter camping/base layers under my blaze for deer season.
Mods, sorry if this is in the wrong forum
you can't go wrong with lined carhartt bibs, an m65 field jacket, and i had some boots from cabelas... predator extreme(?) i want to say. been warm at retarded low temps.
Layering!!! I use an underarmor base layer 2.0, smartwool 1/4 zip shirt and our issued waffle shirts. When it is really cold I either use a light softshell on top or a fleece layered softshell. Works for sweat transportation too. Plus you can down grade as need be. For bottoms I never go more than a 2.0 base layer and pants.
SOS
Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile
.mil issue arctic parka, N3B. Worked frigging great in North Dakota winters.
Patagonia Capaline I base layer and a Gen III USGI grid fleece are awesome and all you need on most days
Patagonia Capaline I base layer and a Gen III USGI grid fleece are awesome and all you need on most days
i follow the PCU levels.
works great for even the coldest days and works well with sweat management as mentioned above.
Wool socks, merino long johns, wool sweaters, flannel shirts, wool hats, Danner insulated boots...
I have found the USGI cold weather gear works very well. I was stationed in Alaska, so I'm intimately familiar with it.
My basic cold weather ensemble stars with an
Icebreaker 200 long sleeve top next to the skin, with a
Patagonia R1 Pullover on top as a midlayer. This gets me down to the 30's easily, if I'm active and it's not windy. If it's windy and/or wet, I throw a light rain shell on top of that. Any colder and I ditch the rain shell and put on a Gore-Tex type shell on top of the R1. For bottoms I start with a Patagonia lightweight Capilene baselayer, or UnderArmour Cold Gear compression legging, depending on what I'm doing, then just put on jeans, 5.11, or ski pants on top of that. Socks are wool or merino wool, with extra layers as needed. When my stuff wears out one of these days I will pick up a nice softshell jacket to try out, to augment all my other various fleece jackets. I went skiing one time and saw a middle-aged guy on skis rocking the complete ECWCS in woodland. It was cool, he was out having a great time with his kids.
When I was a younger guy and didn't have money for all these fancy high tech garments, I wore redneck ski pants for many years and they worked just fine. What I did was put on a pair of old school gray sweat pants, then threw on a pair of nylon running, or "wind" pants, on top of those. Worked like a charm.
I remember being in college in the mid-80's when polypropylene shirts became all the rage as a moisture-wicking baselayer. I bought my first polypro shirt and it was rough and scratchy. It got the job done in terms of moisture control, but it was just nasty to wear. The stuff available these days is so much better. You can go into Old Navy and find some nice synthetic baselayers at inexpensive prices.
As noted, layering is key. I always prefer warmth with the least amount of bulkiness, thus I eschew big heavy parkas in favor of layering up or down as needed. If you are active you have to layer to shed heat and moisture properly without re-freezing when you cool down.
Arcteryx everything. I wont wear fleece anymore. Merino wool against the skin then layer out from that with synthetic.
