Quote:
Originally Posted by Cliffradical
I'm looking into running a battle belt with suspenders.
I'm currently running a recce-style chest rig and while it suits me just fine, I would like to get as much weight off of my torso and onto my hips and legs as possible.
My question is; can I run both?
I like having my mags up front, and a small admin pouch, but I wouldn't mind dumping a 2x2 onto my left hip along with my pistol mags, and dumping my sidearm on my right.
Miscellaneous stuff plus a larger dump pouch will hang out around my rear, allowing me to get rid of my leg-drop dump pouch or rely on it less.
Is this a good idea or a bad idea?
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There are options that would allow you to run both, your biggest issue is the choice of your suspenders, they need to be low profile so they don't dig into you or interfere with your chest rig.
Like this as it's almost all elastic. These are only two point suspenders, I prefer four or six points.
Dropzone does make a low profile four point suspender but their website is not updated.
I notice that you pluralize pistol mag
s, unless you're playing a pistol only game, how many mags have you gone through? I now carry one in pistol plus one more, a change since 2009's post, because I'll use the 2nd mag if something goes screwy with first, or if my primary goes down and I really want to get the opponent... I'll pull the pistol in one hand, and the spare in the other; fire off a few shots and then press the pressure relief button on the mag, yell 'Oh CRAP', odds are the opponent thinks both your guns just went down and when he comes up to get you, then you can shoot him.
But seriously, count how many times you have truly needed to switch pistol magazines? If you sometimes play Pistol Only games, then consider additional pouches like
this, they weigh almost nothing and don't add bulk unless you're using them. Darren at OneShotTactical is the distributor for BFG in Canada.
As to the Dump Pouch, maybe consider something that is a toaster/lobster trap style
like here. Put this at your left hip, up high on your belt, this allows you to run without a sack swinging and hitting you in the butt. Really, most dump pouches are actually modified for site explotation... you find intel documents and such, stuff them into the pouch. That is a good use of putting a folding 'dump pouch' on your butt, incase you find mission equipment.
I'd really suggest against carrying four rifle magazines on your belt, that's a fair amount of weight, and more importantly bulk. Try mounting them and then seeing how they work for squatting, lunging, dropping prone, log rolling while prone. I'd suggest the
HSGI Taco for it's versitility, incase you're running different primaries/long arms, or other things that you can put in there. If you feel there are cases that you'll pull off your chest rig and only run with your belt, then mount
BFG 10-speed pouches on top of the Tacos, basically no weight/bulk when not in use, but you can expand your loadout when you need.
I am a big fan of the 10-speed line for that expandability, you can set your gear up however you want, and if the game rules are such that you need to carry more ammo (i.e. no reloading on the field, only reloading at spawn), then you can easily carry more without changing your setup.
I am not a big fan of anything dropleg, unless you're SWAT or Sniper (not Scout/Sniper). I wish I saved the article, but there was a military kinesiology study that found putting 1 lb as a drop leg fatigued you approximately 1% faster. You can easily have seven lb on your legs, if you're running a drop leg dump pouch and a drop leg pistol holster, so for an eight hour game, you'll probably be dead tired 33 minutes faster than people with the same weight, but not as a drop leg loadout.
Oh, consider having a 10-speed pouch on your belt to easily slip your radio into if you take off your chest rig on a regular basis.