Now, I was reading his post, and he said he could do other custom modifications as well. It only went downhill from there. I had been hashing out my “dream pants” for a while, a combination of several kinds of tactical and combat pants, and a few ideas of my own, the result being one similar to what would come of Crye pants, US Tactical pants, BHI Warriorwear pants, and 5.11 pants having a massive gay crack orgy, sploojing into a cup, and turkey basting the mix into a Swiss whore. Finally, I thought, my pipe dream might come true. I was even more right than I could have ever dreamed.
My wish list was, basically, this:
-FCHP conversion on pants
-Side ventilation zippers with Velcro flaps
-Remove side cargo pockets, use to make mag pouches on front of pants.
-Add PALS webbing on rear left side of pants, use doubled over Alpenflauge material.
-Slant top of right rear pocket, in the manner that 5.11 pants’ rear pockets are slanted.
-Trim 4” off of bottom of blouse for easier access to belt mounted items.
I posted in the thread, stating my interest, and a while after, received a friendly PM from Chris that he was ready to start production. I sent him my wish list, and he gave me a very reasonable quote, considering the expense that the zippers add (~$70+shipping) for the work. I was a little short on funds, which I thought would put off the pants being built, but Chris suggested letting me pay half down, half after completion. This worked out great, and about a week after I paypaled him the money, I shipped out my sexy Alpenflauge pants and blouse.
Here’s where it gets really good. Chris had a couple of projects before mine, so my wait time was a little while, but that didn’t put any damper on the stellar communication he kept with me throughout the whole process. He made sure all of the measurements were correct, so that the pads would sit right, but that’s not the best bit of his commo. He saw my ideas, and built off of them with mods I’d have never thought of. Obviously, he ran everything by me first, but he had fantastic ideas about how to do things, al of them better than what I had originally thought. For example, I had just thought that the front mag pouches would be normal, with Velcro closures, but he thought beyond that. He made the front left side an adjustable, quick draw mag pouch, with a Velcro adjuster inside the pocket so it can fit AK or M4 mags. He also put a chemlight pocket beside it, also quick draw, and did something similar with the left side pistol mag pockets, minus the adjustability. Making them quick draw also enabled him to simply move the cargo pockets to front, so I can still carry documents, and other important stuff in them. He also added an accessory loop on the right side, so I can hang a carabiner or other gear holder there and put zip cuffs/ear pro/etc. there.
He got the work done, and kept us great communications with me the entire time, but I still hadn’t seen the pants outside of pictures (Oh, yeah, he sent me tons of photos as he worked on the pants, documenting the progress), so when I got them, I wanted to see the quality. I wasn’t disappointed one bit. Chris cut no corners in his craftsmanship, and anything that was stitched was overstitched. The entirety of the pants, where he made modifications, is at the very least triple stitched, the majority more, even when it’s just 2 pieces of fabric put together, not even attached to the pants. Anywhere that might be a stress point is uncountable; there are literally too many layers of stitching for me to count. Basically, these feel and look absolutely bombproof, and I’m confident they’ll prove to be on the field.
I have only one gripe, and it’s not really even Chris’s fault, and that’s that my Glock mags don’t fit great in the mag pouches in quick draw mode (through the top of the cargo pouch). I didn’t plan on using the quick draw function much anyway, just using the inner pockets to hold mags to feed into a belt pouch, so it’s a non-issue. Also, I couldn’t find any well-priced Crye kneepads online, so I’m going to buy a pair from Chris, which are what the pants are modeled with in the photos. He modifies them slightly to work better with the pants, as well, so it’s a win-win.
In short, the price was good, the work was awesome, and it was a joy dealing with Chris throughout the process. I highly recommend him for any modifications you want done to your uniforms, and I know when I get my woodies and Ods pimped out, I’m going to him.
Pricing: 10/10 Extremely reasonable, and he was flexible on the payment plan.
Craftsmanship: 10/10 Amazing. This stitching seriously blows my mind.
Communication: 11/10. He kept up amazing commo with me the whole time; I definitely felt like I was part of the process, and he kept evolving the ideas, which turned out fantastic.
Pictures (These are just a few of the ones he took along the way):
View of MOLLE webbing added, slanted rear pocket, and accessory loop with a carabiner on it.
View of moved cargo pockets, mag pouches, and kneepad inserts.
Close up of the awesomely beefy stitching (this is one of the non stress point areas).
View of the zide leg zipper, flap closed. If you look closely, you can see the mass of stitching at the bottom of the zipper.
View of the kneepad holes, with Velcro to keep the pad in place.
Link to his site:
http://adventuretactical.wordpress.com/
