Saturday, April 02, 2005

What's in your pockets?

I mentioned the other day that I usually carrry 10 to 15 lbs of gear on my person at any time, and that got me thinking about this list I made up for the NOR forums about what exactly I DO carry every day (and it's a lot).

If we limit it to the contents of just my pants pockets it's not too much, but I'm usually wearing either a leather vest with 5 pockets, a 511 adventure vest with over 20 pockets, or a jacket with a bunch of pockets, often well loaded with stuff. I also wear a wilderness, Rafter S, AdventureTech, or other duty belt with a bunch of stuff hanging off it.

I'm limiting to the stuff I carry every day, not what I carry when Im expecting interesting social situations.

Pants:

1. one of the following: Mel Pardue Ambush, Ken Onion blackout, Benchmade auto reflex
2. keychain with my normal keys, a handcuff key with LED light, a high strength caribiner, 2" of web strapping, and a mag lite solitaire
3. A zippo lighter (I don't smoke)
4. Wallet with normal cards and ID, money (I try to keep at elast $100 on me at all times) two spare keys, and a polyamide credit card knife.
5. One of the following: SureFire A2 Aviator, SureFire E2 executive, SureFire 6P
6. Mints of some kind, most likely in a tin packed with cotton to avoid rattling.
7. Pepper spray

The mints, spray, and big light may end up in the vest or jacket depending.

Belt:

1. One of the following: Springfield champion .45, H&K USP compact in .45, or Kahr K9, and at least one spare mag for whichever, maybe two, usually in a kydex IWB (reloads may be in the vest)
2. Buck or Gerber multi-tool
3. Cell phone
4. Palm Tungsten T PDA in a soft belt case (may be in the vest instead), notepad, and pen
5. There may be a mini-maglight or a 2c or 4d light hanging off here depending

511 Vest:

1. Two reloads for whatever pistol I am carrying (assuming they arent on the belt)
2. Mints as above
3. A pair of leather gloves
4. Nasalspray, Sudafed, Advil, Zantac, Tagamet, and tums
5. A pair of handcuffs, or some zip ties (unless they're on the belt)
6. A larger pepper spray (I'll leave the pants one off)
7. Sunglasses
8. 50ft of paracord
9. a bottle of water in one of the large bottle pockets
10. Unless I'm carrying it on my belt, the Kahr K9 may be in the vest, even if I'm carrying another gun

If I'm wearing cowboy boots (a not infrequent occurance) I've probably got a cold steel peacekeeper II in them as well.

Like I said, I carry a lot of crap.