Hey HSLD;
As an instructor that see's lots of kit, can you comment on the pro's/con's of any other chinese kit?
To answer the question that someone else asked: "is there a difference between chinese and American nylon to warrant the ~$200 difference in price?"
The answer is: That depends.
The Chinese are actually decent sewers and have access to great sewing machinery. In fact my personal machine is a Juki... made in china. Where the chinese dont fully measure up is their access to materials. If you have ever seen chinese multicam nylon right next to real cordura with real TM multicam you know exactly what I am talking about. To circumvent the material quality issues, some brands have resorted to sourcing American made materials and having them shipped over to china for cut and sew. This actually yields a very high quality product at a decent price. The facts are just simple. Chinese labor is more skilled and vastly cheaper than American labor. If I put 25 American hours into sewing a plate carrier, at a state minimum wage of 12.25 an hour I should be charging $300 just for the labor alone. Besides raw labor costs there may be some stitching that cant be seen from the outside. As a shop I could easily sew these hidden seems only one time and they would probably last. I sew them 5 times. It sucks but I KNOW that plate carrier will never fail. A Chinese company doesn't really care.
Tactical Nylon Micro Brewery
Bookmarks