leather belt gear verses nylon?

Having once been in the military....too many years ago for me to care to remember! I have always admired the form and functionality of nylon webbing. Of course when I first enlisted the webbing used in the British forces was cotton based and called 58 pattern webbing. This stuff was extremly durable and flame resistant (that was it's good points) unfortunately it was heavy, absorbed copious amounts of water,wasn't mildew resistant and rotted in hot humid conditions. When nylon gear began to take over many of these problems diappeared but despite being an improvement it still looks bad after a short while in use.
Nowadays I'm a paramedic and wear nylon gear for work. Many of my colleagues still use leather but I dont because I dont believe that you can clean it as effectively as nylon in the event it becomes contaminated by bodily fluids. I also dont like leather due to the way it wears. (I did use leather gear for years but found that unless you waxed and oiled it regularly it soon became discoloured and grubby looking) Nylon seems to be the answer to my needs but still looks rough after being used for a few months although far less than leather.

I'd love to hear other folks opinions who have used both leather and nylon gear in real world use and to hear your views on what works best for you and why?

Doug /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Leather generally looks better, but doesn't wear as nicely unless you take a lot of care with it. Redying it when it's worn, and it has to be high quality. Nylon will fray after a while though. Neither I don't think can be disinfected to OSHA standards. There are some of the synthetic imitation leather, Bianchis new Acumold Elite for instance, that are as light as nylon, look like leather, and wear better than both. It can also be disinfected easier than both.
Almost forgot. The quality of the nylon also seems to determine how well it lasts. Uncle Mikes frayed and looked grubby much sooner than anything I've used by Bianchi or Gould and Goodrich.

Check out equipment from:
Maxpedition
Spec Ops Brand
Blackhawk Industries

These companies produce exceptionally hard wearing equipment. Including some dedicated medical pouches and bags.

Quazar. I've just bought some Maxpedition gear from ODS and whilst I've not had time to evaluate it's wear qualities the workmanship seems exceptional. Oh BTW I've got a couple of things by Blackhawk but again cant comment on durability yet! The problem with both these manufacturers was until I found ODS and Edgar Brothers one of cost and availability.

Doug

Hi Doug, good thread. I spend alot of time & money (of my own) sorting my kit out. As you know, I'm a cop.
We get issued with leather belt kit and I got so sick of scraping it against walls & it looking crappy that I changed pretty much everything for 'ballistic' nylon gear. You can scrape it, bash it, bend it & nothing happens to it.
For everyday gear (various pouches etc), I would recommend Nylon all the time.
I would like to have a look at the Bianchi Accumold range. For off duty, I have various Maxpedition and Blackhawk gear and would not hesitate to recommend them.
HTH

Hi Ross,
Do you find the ballistic nylon belts in the sizes of 1.25 and 1.5 inch stiff enough to carry a heavy handgun?

Jerry

Hi Jerry, unfortunately being a cop in the UK, I dont carry a handgun.

I am very pleased with the Uncle Mike's Sidekick Nylon Gear. Almost all my Duty Gear is from them and it shows very little wear by the time. Some weeks ago I had to find out, that this particulary Material does not stand it, when you find yourself lying on concrete and the last thing you remember is that you pursuit a fleeing suspect /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon8.gif
However, everything was still funktionally fine, just cosmeticly harmed (and this is not true for my Uniform Shirt, Pants and my skin /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif)
BTW my L4 and ARC AAA where cosmetically heavily damaged too, but also worked fine... Luckily (for him) it was not me who arrested this jerk, but my partner who left me lying in my blood /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif
Holger

[ QUOTE ]
Ross said:
Hi Jerry, unfortunately being a cop in the UK, I dont carry a handgun.

[/ QUOTE ]

hi ross,

i thought that has changed? i know that in the past, bobbies (hope i got the spelling right) were only armed with batons.

regards

From what I've read, the number of armed police in the UK has gone up a lot, but not everyone is armed.

nylon looks nicer after a few years
go for GK (french company), Hellweg (aussie Company), Tote systems Australia (aussie company) uncle mikes, bianchi, gould and goodrich
all good gear

Armed police officers is not the norm here. We have specially trained Armed Response units that respond to incidents, but they do not patrol the streets.
Thankfully, we do not have that much crime involving weapons that would require armed beat/patrol officers (although im sure there are brits that would disagree).

Not sure what patrol officers currently carry in the way of weaponry, but a truncheon is a pretty sure bet, and possibley CS or pepper spray.

I heard that despite that many officers invested in body armor. Probably because they might still be the first contact before the tactical team arrive?

I carry a baton and CS gas, I have a stab resistant (also limited ballistic) vest. Thats all folks! To be honest, we dont face that many threats that require anything more than that.