2nd line (combat load) theory and discussion

[Halfapint]

Got mine as well and couldn't find this post. I'm less than thrilled. I got 6 punches 3 canteen and 3 3 mag pouches.

The mag pouches are cool but 3 canteen?!? And most of the ouches are stained red.

Oh, that stinks. You want to trade a water bottle pouch for a utility pouch? They aren't that different overall. The utility pouch is a little smaller but has the expanding collar with the cinch cord.

I'm dumb and didn't actually take the utility pouches just looked like a water bottle. They are actually utility pouches. I finally took them off about 5 minutes ago was coming back here to edit when you commented 🤣

[Optimist]

Feeling around it turns out that most all of the pouches are rubberized inside,except the smallest ones don't have rubberized lids (or whatever you call the top of a pouch).

[12_Gauge_Chimp]

Feeling around it turns out that most all of the pouches are rubberized inside,except the smallest ones don't have rubberized lids (or whatever you call the top of a pouch).

I've always just called it a flap.

[Optimist]

Flap seems like the right word. I've been abstaining from coffee and my brain hasn't been working well.

[Moab]

I made a huge write up on rit dying web gear. ("Web gear" is what it was called back in the day. I guess because of the woven web belt you hung everything off of. Not sure what the cool kids call it now.) I found a couple good test vids and threads at the time. You might find it in the old zs at internet archive.

Dark green rit dye boiled in water seemed to be the ticket. Testing was the preferred method. Using whatever type of water you had and run of dye and type of gear. Back then it was ACU. There was a ton of it for cheap. I assume that is the same case. But your UK stuff is going to turn out different. Because your starting with a different colored gear. The good news is the rit dye works on the plastic too. At least it does on ACU gear.

See if you can find youtube vids or threads online with tests on your specific UK gear color. It depends on various factors but length of time boiling is the big one. 

Or just wing it. Bring some dark green rit dye and water to a boil. Set it in for say 2 or 5 minutes. Pull it. Let it dry. See how it turns out. You can always dye it again for a longer time.

ACU turned out good enough with dark green or brown or a combo. Its not rocket science. You just need it to be a dirty or dirty green color. Its not gonna look great. But its gonna look way better than tan or red or acu in the PNW. 

One thing I adhere to is using the same camo pattern for all your gear. For your AO. I won't bore u with why.

I have not priced multicam lately. But that is the pattern you can get everything in fairly economically. Clothing. Gear. Pack. Etc etc. 

But if I was going to outfit myself or a family or a militia. On the cheap. I would use rit dye for sure. On the cheapest usable stuff I could find. And even if it doesnt all match thats ok too. As long as its all dirty colored ir dirty green  Better to have dull colored gear and all outfitted. Than not. 

I keep saying dirty green or dirty brown cause that is the best you can hope for. Rit isnt going to change it to the color on the package. Because your not starting with white. Your dying a shit color with a slightly less shit color. Lol. But you'd be surprised how earth tone it will come out. It will work as camo way better than the tan.

I wonder if anyone has put together like a complete minuteman loadout on the cheap using rit dye? So you can at least get the cheapest loadout by dying all the crappy colored, cheap gear, you could find? That would be an obviously good project. Like combat fatigues, pack, web gear, the whole deal. Back when they switched to multicam. You could get everything in ACU. And rit dye it. It was heavy as hell. But if your just bugging in or a short bugout it wouldn't matter.

Remeber oda617 (or whatever his name was?) On the old forum? The special forces guy? He had like a 200lb loadout that included all acu gear. But his bugout was like a 5 mile truck ride to his bugout property. Most of his weight was a ridiculous amount of guns and ammo tho. 

[Halfapint]

I made a huge write up on rit dying web gear. ("Web gear" is what it was called back in the day. I guess because of the woven web belt you hung everything off of. Not sure what the cool kids call it now.) I found a couple good test vids and threads at the time. You might find it in the old zs at internet archive.

Dark green rit dye boiled in water seemed to be the ticket. Testing was the preferred method. Using whatever type of water you had and run of dye and type of gear. Back then it was ACU. There was a ton of it for cheap. I assume that is the same case. But your UK stuff is going to turn out different. Because your starting with a different colored gear. The good news is the rit dye works on the plastic too. At least it does on ACU gear.

See if you can find youtube vids or threads online with tests on your specific UK gear color. It depends on various factors but length of time boiling is the big one.

Or just wing it. Bring some dark green rit dye and water to a boil. Set it in for say 2 or 5 minutes. Pull it. Let it dry. See how it turns out. You can always dye it again for a longer time.

ACU turned out good enough with dark green or brown or a combo. Its not rocket science. You just need it to be a dirty or dirty green color. Its not gonna look great. But its gonna look way better than tan or red or acu in the PNW.

One thing I adhere to is using the same camo pattern for all your gear. For your AO. I won't bore u with why.

I have not priced multicam lately. But that is the pattern you can get everything in fairly economically. Clothing. Gear. Pack. Etc etc.

But if I was going to outfit myself or a family or a militia. On the cheap. I would use rit dye for sure. On the cheapest usable stuff I could find. And even if it doesnt all match thats ok too. As long as its all dirty colored ir dirty green  Better to have dull colored gear and all outfitted. Than not.

I keep saying dirty green or dirty brown cause that is the best you can hope for. Rit isnt going to change it to the color on the package. Because your not starting with white. Your dying a shit color with a slightly less shit color. Lol. But you'd be surprised how earth tone it will come out. It will work as camo way better than the tan.

I wonder if anyone has put together like a complete minuteman loadout on the cheap using rit dye? So you can at least get the cheapest loadout by dying all the crappy colored, cheap gear, you could find? That would be an obviously good project. Like combat fatigues, pack, web gear, the whole deal. Back when they switched to multicam. You could get everything in ACU. And rit dye it. It was heavy as hell. But if your just bugging in or a short bugout it wouldn't matter.

Remeber oda617 (or whatever his name was?) On the old forum? The special forces guy? He had like a 200lb loadout that included all acu gear. But his bugout was like a 5 mile truck ride to his bugout property. Most of his weight was a ridiculous amount of guns and ammo tho.

This is the info I wanted to read! All my stuff is coyote or "sand" colored. And that is opposite what I need. So my plan was to dye it with Rit. So that's great. I was found to do exactly as you said. Boil. Put in for 5 minutes set to dry then wash sit it doesn't bleed. Than redye if needed.

[Moab]

Sorry, half. I didnt get an email notification that you'd responded.

Glad I could help. Check out youtube too. Someone may have already done your test. 

[Halfapint]

Sorry, half. I didnt get an email notification that you'd responded.

Glad I could help. Check out youtube too. Someone may have already done your test.

No worries! I don't get emails either which is why I often don't check the site as regularly as I want/should.

[Optimist]

I did a couple test pieces with dark green Rit dye, mostly following instructions on the bottle. I brought 5/6 of the water to a boil, dumped in 1/6 of cold water* so that it wouldn't be quite at boiling, mixed in some vinegar and salt** and the recommended amount of dye. I stirred the stuff around every fifteen minutes and pulled out a couple pieces at 30 minutes and the other two at an hour.
*I've heard different things about boiling water. Some people do it straight into boiling and other say it should be hot but not boiling. I figured 1/6 cold would be short of boiling by a little bit and would be a repeatable ratio.
**The bottle said vinegar for synthetics and salt for natural fibers. I used the recommended amount of vinegar, but I threw in about half the amount of salt as I figured it wouldn't hurt.

For the British DPM desert I did two grenade pouches. Some of the British stuff has very light tan webbing and edges, while some has a much darker brown. At first I thought it might be fading but I actually think it's different from the factory. For comparison I have the vest with the darker brown webbing and a utility pouch with the light tan. The grenade pouch that has the lighter green border is one that started out light tan and the brown grenade pouch started out dark brown. The The dark brown pouch was taken out at 30 minutes and the light tan/green was taken out at an hour.

The one that was in for longer looks more noticeably green in the picture, but I wonder how much is the effect of having the lighter green edges effecting how it is perceived? Holding the two pouches side-by-side the main material doesn't look that different.

For ACU/UCP I didn't have many pouches to test (yet) but I was able to scrounge up a canteen pouch and a bandolier. The canteen pouch was taken out at 30 minutes and the bandolier was taken out at an hour. There isn't a huge difference in color between the two dyed pouches, but the camera actually seems to take away some of the color difference between the dyed and undyed. It looks more noticeable to my naked eye.


Here are the pouches with some Woodland and Olive Drab for comparison.

(Unfortunately I couldn't find my two small Ranger Green pouches for comparison.)


The grenade pouch that turned out more green actually doesn't look that far off Woodland. I've got a little newer and faded older Woodland for comparison.


I wish I had read Moab's thread about dying a pack with that combination of other dye's earlier, but I had this stuff and decided to wing it. I'm fairly happy with how the ACU/UCP turned out, as I was going for green but not super vibrant green as then I figure I could tie on some bright green in the summer and white in the winter and have it be good year-round. I'm tempted to throw the Desert DPM in the dye for a little longer and see how it turns out.

[Optimist]

I saved the dye from the previous night. I brought it back up to 200*F, and put in a splash more salt and vinegar. I put two more Desert DPM pouches in, but this time for two hours. Strangely they didn't seem to take the dye as well as the grenade pouches that were in for a shorter amount of time. I think my dye might have been off for some reason, so I think I'll toss it and start over but go for double the concentration rather than double the time. Maybe it was the type of pouch though? The first two I did were grenade pouches, while the second two were utility pouches. I don't think that would make a difference as they seem to be the same material.

Also through the bandolier in for another hour. It did get darker, so the dye was working at least somewhat. The camera tends to wash out the differences between the three, they are more noticeable to my eye.


I ordered some more dark green dye. Maybe I should order some other colors and experiment with them, but I kind of like the idea of something super simple (ideally following the directions on the bottle) so that I can remember it and it will also be easy to tell friends and family.

I need to get off my butt and order some cheap ACU/UCP pouches, but it always takes too long because I obsessively hunt for the best deals and then get sick of it and don't buy anything.

[Optimist]

I thought I'd do one or two test pieces and then dye everything, but I haven't quite found the color I like and I actually enjoy the process. To keep from cluttering this thread up with frequent updates I'm going to start a new one dedicated to my experiments with dying stuff.

Here's a last group shot with some of the test pieces next to undyed woodland, OD green, ACU/UCP and desert DPM.


I put in a big order for cheap ACU/UCP pouches and FLCs. These are both to use as test pieces for dying and also as gifts for people I know who don't have anything like that. I focused on stuff that could be had inexpensively so the final price per vest and a few pouches should be pretty low.

[Halfapint]

I'll hop on the dying thread. I had some green rit dye and I just wanted to do small and wanted to get it dark. So I through about half a gallon of HOT water into a gallon ziploc bag and threw a grenade pouch and a water bottle pouch into it. Let it sit about 20 minutes and then washed them. I'll say. I like how dark they turned out, but it's a little more bright green than I was expecting. Maybe I'll let them fry, wash them again in HOT water wirh some stronger detergent and put them in a bag of black. We'll see

[Optimist]

I'll hop on the dying thread. I had some green rit dye and I just wanted to do small and wanted to get it dark. So I through about half a gallon of HOT water into a gallon ziploc bag and threw a grenade pouch and a water bottle pouch into it. Let it sit about 20 minutes and then washed them. I'll say. I like how dark they turned out, but it's a little more bright green than I was expecting. Maybe I'll let them fry, wash them again in HOT water wirh some stronger detergent and put them in a bag of black. We'll see

Do you think we should make a new thread more generically about dying gear or add stuff to Moab's post about dying an ACU backpack? I wasn't sure which way would be better.

The pouches I tried to dye dark green came out a brighter green than I expected too. It's not that the actual darkness of the green isn't what I was going for, but rather that it has a pretty vibrant, intense look that I wasn't expecting. I did take a couple pouches with me when I was out in the woods and the spruce was also brighter than in my memory. In my mind I picture a more bluish grey color but maybe that's because I'm usually thinking about them in winter? I really should wait until winter to look at some of the test pieces before committing but it's a fun process so I might not be able to resist.

(You can also see the difference between last year's growth and the newer growth on the spruce tips.)

Edit: Found a picture of spruce during the winter and it is more like what I was thinking of, but of course the colors of other things like the white snow and my red and yellow gloves will effect how the green is perceived.

[Halfapint]

Could probably start a new one so we don't take over others threads

[Optimist]

Ordered some inexpensive surplus ACU stuff on eBay. I got a good deal on like-new FLCs back in December. I ordered some pouches earlier this month to go with them. I tried to leverage buying things in lots and getting stuff that was in well worn but functional condition to keep the cost down.

This is what I came up with for gear to give away: FLC, 2x triple mag shingles, 2x double mag pouches, grenade pouch, British utility pouch. It's a little hard to estimate exact cost since I got some of these things in bundles and Halfapint is sending me some, but I think they are a little less than $25 a set.


I've got four of them total. I chose the pouches I did because they could be had for about $2 each, where as other pouches like canteen, first aid, utility and whatnot generally seem to be $7 and up. I figure not every mag pouch has to be used for mags, for example, but since they were the cheapest I got a lot of them.

These aren't something I'm waiting to hand out during a disaster, I've got people in mind to give them to now. I'm not in a hurry though, so I'll probably take the time to dye them. (This is unlike the tourniquets I got to be Christmas presents, but then when they arrived I gave them all away immediately because if something happened before Christmas I would have felt awful.)

[Optimist]

Slightly off-topic but I've been looking for belt pouches that fit regular old pants belts and everything I find seems to be MOLLE/PALS. I'm glad that stuff is so readily available, but I'm looking for a few pouches that will fit my leather belt (double layer heavy leather with a kydex stiffener, so it's a bit more than a regular belt).

Most of the products I find online say they also work with pants belts but in the pictures they just run the belt through the MOLLE straps. In my experience this makes for a super loose and floppy pouch that's incredibly annoying. Maybe there's some trick I'm missing?

Hiking/jogging stuff all seems to have moved to water bladders or tiny bottles you hold in your hand while running. I tried looking for "duty" pouches on LAPG but they were mostly focused on tiny stuff like handcuffs and pepper spray.

I've been wanting to replace carrying a daypack when out on short hikes with belt pouches. A water bottle pouch or two, FAK, holster, knife and possibles/GP pouch. I've been thinking about maybe spending the money on one of the two layer inner-outer belt systems that seem possible these days but was thinking it would be cheaper to test out how I like it with my existing heavy leather belt first. Maybe I need to buy some knockoff Chinese inner-outer belt system for testing and then upgrade to a more durable one if I decide I like it?

Edit: I also have a preference for more outdoorsy looking pouches and less tactical looking pouches. I never seem to run into anyone out in the woods but I seem to frequently run into tourists while getting ready to go out and I'm self-conscious about feeling like a chunky mall ninja.

[MacWa77ace]

Esstac has these belt/molle plastic clips. They would work on any molle equipment to attach to a 1.75 or 2 in belts.
They might be too big for 1 or 1.5 street belts.



there are hard plastic molle clips, they might work better to keep stuff 'tighter' on the street belts.





Or just use those molle thigh rigs. Offbelt.

[flybynight]

I don't see anything in leather. What about something like this ?
https://www.amazon.com/FAMI-Tactical-Bottle-Waterproof-Bag-Tan/dp/B0BKG4HCD2/ref=sr_1_42?crid=2GMMHIM0GSIG5&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Z6cyybOhi1krwIIAOFI0afVFnWkQ5uaauIzIOCtJZ28sR5fUJUIxEPXrr24QTuH-Dudm7qW-dnLJzwJlDAA3b5CA1QAuATcTGC5kpUJain_1L1ouhmz3zexK3H-vgzAiAlp8DfWJqciSr2wH9JJ57Oi2xi_X0EBAeQ4LstHe7UAgs_BBCsKHZItON96ZORW6IT0pw_nQnU5Dycv7tNY4I2lmHQwyR9DhfE4_zeBwM9ItuuBkqSz43tbGY7V62eCOVgqQyeBUXRm_Jek0TLePckU_TVgfZFhp9JH6YkAfwrg.7fpwe_th7VTTe0F5EpZ4J81bl9Y3PkCnakfbN7u1hAU&dib_tag=se&keywords=LEATHER+WATER+BOTTLE+belt+pouches+for+men&qid=1713909445&sprefix=leather+water+bottle+belt+pouches+for+men%2Caps%2C110&sr=8-42

[Optimist]

Esstac has these belt/molle plastic clips. They would work on any molle equipment to attach to a 1.75 or 2 in belts.
They might be too big for 1 or 1.5 street belts.



there are hard plastic molle clips, they might work better to keep stuff 'tighter' on the street belts.

Thanks! I actually have some of those Esstac clips somewhere that I had forgot about. I could give them a try with some of the pouches I already own instead of buying stuff.

I don't see anything in leather. What about something like this ?

I think something like that could work well, although I would have to add shoulder straps to it as belt-only fanny packs do not stay up on me.

I actually want to make a post about getting something along the lines of a Maxpedition Versipack/Gearslinger (or a Chinese knockoff for testing purposes). I might want something like that for use in the woods, and I'm pretty sure I want one as my general-purpose emergency bag for things like house fires and earthquakes.

One thing about the fanny pack/Versipack size of bags is that they often max out at about a Glock 17 size of handgun. My woods gun for the last few years has been a Ruger Redhawk .44 mag and I just got a folding pistol brace for my Glock 40 to test out. I need to get measurements for my Glock in the brace but it's probably going to be about 15" I'm guessing.

Maxpedition is actually having a BOGO sale right now but I figure I need to actually test the brace and the concept of such a bag with a cheaper alternative before I drop that kind of money, even at sale prices.

[eugenenine]

Maybe I'm weak the art of search-fu, but if this is your second line gear what is your first line gear and how does it ties in with the second line?