Friday afternoon one of the insufferably Texan minions of the Mad Duo posted an article about Confederate Forge, an old school one-man operation making extraordinary blades there in the Lone Star State. I took a look and was impressed with what I saw (in fact, I gave the craftsman’s contact info to the Residential Sergeant Major for a Father’s Day gift idea, which means hopefully I’ll get two – one from Eric and one from Bill Coye). I did some reading and then called him. Turns out that not only does he make the blades himself, he sews the sheaths and does the leatherwork too. There’s an old sewing machine near the forge and that’s what he works on. He also hand decorates what he makes, from knife scabbards to quivers (he’s an avid bowhunter). Interestingly, if you do some digging through social media you’ll find that Confederate Forge has done a number of specials for many of the ‘tactical celebrities’ in our world.
Here’s a look at some more of his work( that’s him out to the right on the range, by the way, not one of the Vikings).
Most smartassery aside, consider the implications of this in a deployed location, in MOOTW operations and anywhere there is a need to rapidly to establish some force protection measures (we hate that term, by the way). Certainly water won’t always be available (though it doesn’t have to be potable for these to work), but then presumably we won’t always be wearing PT belts and fighting battles in arid, landlocked countries. Structures and the reinforcement of sandbags are obvious, but what if something like Hescos were made out of this? Could we have a more easily transportable T Wall option using something like this? It’s the increased speed of putting infrastructure in place that seems most obvious to us – you air assault in, inflate one of these and in less than 24 hours some brigade commander’s flunky could be giving direction to a platoon in the field from a position of relative safety.
Would this technology make it faster to establish a COP, or help recover from a natural disaster? FEMA trailers are nice and never wasted, but might this be a more durable option in places suffering recurring damage from weather? Perhaps skeletonized canvas walls could be erected in anticipation of a flood, or in places where people insist it’s a fantastic idea to live in a bog below sea level.
This time all smartassery aside, any ideas?
We located a couple of places that seem to be carrying this stuff:
Kit Up! contributing team The Mad Duo interviewed the man behind the Tough Hook, apparently. He’s prior Army, working as an intel analyst, then spent a lot of time in Afghanistan working Counter-Drug and Counter-Insurgency. The Tough Hook was designed to hold heavy kit, fight giant man-eating crocodiles, zip-line into certain peril and fight hordes of unarmed angry looters (not pictured).
Dave Lee is a prodigy. On a snowboard, in a snowboard shop and in his ability to pick out an appropriate stocking cap/watch cap/tuque for any possible occasion. He runs Signal Snowboards, which we’ve written about before. Yesterday Signal released their most awesome Every Third Thursdayto date and we figured you would want to watch it.
As always, if we think it, it must be so.
This is a bulletproof board built in conjunction with Point Blank, inspired by the Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 game and a visit to Treyarch. Check it out.
We coulda used one of these when we were in the Spin Ghar.
Mad Duo Clear
About the Authors: Richard “Swingin’ Dick” Kilgore and Jake “Slim” Call are the HMFICs at Breach-Bang-Clear (www.BreachBangClear.com). They write for current and former military, LEOs, contractors and trained and educated responsible armed citizens. They are the most door-kickingest, trigger-pullingest action figures in the tactical operator tactically operational world. Subscribe to them and stay informed about TTPs, new kit, and latest in what’s stoopid (and occasionally inspiring) in the military and modern society or check them out on Facebook. If you know any of their 1:1 scale handlers, you know they really have spent time at Signal Snowboards – and they really were in the Spin Ghar.
Swingin' Dick in the Spin Ghar, wishing for a bulletproof snowboard from Signal.
Slim, in the Spin Ghar, waiting for Richard to bust his ass. (If you know the story behind the Duo, you know some of their Handlers actually were in the Spin Ghar.)
We told you about the Operator Band RE Factor built before: http://kitup.military.com/2012/05/factor-tactical-operator-survival.html. Hopefully you already have one because, you know, operators gonna operate operationally and they need good kit to do it. Now you can get their ‘Tactical Survival Band’, in case you’re in a tactical survival situation where you have to survive tactically (perhaps after having operated operationally).
In all seriousness, the Tactical Survival Band has all the features of the Operator Band but with a whistle molded into the buckle in place of (that is to say replacing) the handcuff key.
RE Factor Tactical's "Survival Band", a paracord bracelet not even MacGyver, four troops of Boy Scouts and a SERE Level DD stripper could find fault with.
The original Tactical Operator Band was developed by a Green Beret SERE Level C graduate and is made in the USA by a US Army combat veteran: the Tactical Operator Band has pretty much the same pedigree, featuring a removable P51 can opener and flint rod (which can be used without damaging the remainder of the band and can be useds as a sink weight for the hook and line.) The bracelet itself built of 550 (Para-) cord and features 30′ of 80lb fishing line, a #8 fishing hook and of course a whistle.
About the Authors: Richard “Swingin’ Dick” Kilgore and Jake “Slim” Call are the HMFICs at Breach-Bang-Clear (www.BreachBangClear.com). They write for current and former military, LEOs, contractors and trained and educated responsible armed citizens. They are the most door-kickingest, trigger-pullingest action figures in the tactical operator tactically operational world. Subscribe to them and stay informed about TTPs, new kit, and latest in what’s stoopid (and occasionally inspiring) in the military and modern society or check them out on Facebook.
Friday afternoon one of the insufferably Texan minions of the Mad Duo posted an article about Confederate Forge, an old school one-man operation making extraordinary blades there in the Lone Star State. I took a look and was impressed with what I saw (in fact, I gave the craftsman’s contact info to the Residential Sergeant Major for a Father’s Day gift idea, which means hopefully I’ll get two – one from Eric and one from Bill Coye). I did some reading and then called him. Turns out that not only does he make the blades himself, he sews the sheaths and does the leatherwork too. There’s an old sewing machine near the forge and that’s what he works on. He also hand decorates what he makes, from knife scabbards to quivers (he’s an avid bowhunter). Interestingly, if you do some digging through social media you’ll find that Confederate Forge has done a number of specials for many of the ‘tactical celebrities’ in our world.
