The Freeper Hobbit Hole » Troop support

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New “MOLLE light” by PentagonLight

PentagonLight, maker of several high-end flashlights, has just come out with an right-angle LED flashlight powered by a single AA battery. It’s not a “tactical” flashlight, just a handy little light with several nice features.

It has a pocket clip, lanyard loop, and can fit inside MOLLE webbing. It also comes with a MOLLE-compatible pouch. Here it is, compared to the Gerber Recon LED light.

The light has a screw-in blue filter (red is also available) stored in the base cap.

As an added bonus, the first production models have a small compass in the bottom of the base cap, underneath the filter.

While a bit pricey at $32, these lights are well made, and should give long years of service, and convenience.

These are very nice, handy flashlights, and are quite bright. The Hobbit Hole has four, to be given to the first four troops that request one. All part of the Hobbit Hole’s commitment to check out what’s new and potentially valuable (or at least useful) for our troops.

Add comment April 23rd, 2007

Rescue Knives: new tools for saving lives

While The Hobbit Hole has had to suspend its knife donation program, I still have been buying the “odd” knife here and there for evaluation purposes. A flood of new designs in rescue knives has just hit the market, and there are now enough interesting items to evaluate, and give away.

First, we’ll look at some products by Benchmade Knives. Among their high-class products are a line of seatbelt cutters that range from the simple to the ingenious. First, the simpler models:

You wrap your finger through the hole, and rest your thumb on the ridges. The hooked area is very sharp, and allows you to slice through seat-belt type straps with ease. The Rescue Hook can be carried in a nylon sheath with belt loop, or in a hard plastic scabbard with a neck cord. Added features include a wrench for medical oxygen tanks, and a bottle opener as part of the finger ring.

A little further up in the Benchmade product line is the “big” Rescue Hook, and the ERT1.

The “big” hook allows a firmer grip, and a bit longer reach, which might be important in some situations. It comes with a Foliage Green sheath that can attach to a belt or MOLLE gear. The ERT1 is actually a folding rescue hook built more like a pocket knife, with a pocket clip on the reverse side. The black cap on the bottom is a spring-loaded glass breaker. Pushing down with the body of the knife cocks and fires a spring-loaded punch that can shatter tempered safety glass, which is found in the side and rear windows of cars.

The ERT1 also has a small LED flashlight that is aimed at the cutting hook, to help out in the dark.

The ERT1 has some very nice features for a rescue knife, but the bright yellow color is not very “tactical”, so it should be carried inside a pocket or pouch unless needed.

Next are a couple of more conventional knives, but with features needed for rescue work. At the top is the Boker rescue, and the bottom, the Victorinox “Rescue Tool”, with its bright red belt pouch.

The Boker rescue has a blunt tip, and recessed serrations for cutting seatbelts. It also has a cutter hook, although it might be a bit narrow to accept some kinds of webbing. The butt has a glass-breaker tip, and there’s a pocket clip on the reverse side. The Victorinox has a specialized seatbelt cutter blade, plus other special features.

The Victorinox features glow-in-the-dark yellow handles (again, not very tactical, but definitely handy at times), along with a glass punch. There’s a regular blade, and a special saw blade for cutting (but not breaking) laminated safety plate glass. There are also a screwdriver and an awl blade. The knife seems well-equipped to cut belts and handle many kinds of glass.

Moving on, we come to two more specialized, and larger, folding knives. The top “knife”, isn’t really a knife at all, but rather a jumbo cutting hook. It’s the Imax Tool 911. Below it is a true collector’s item, a Camillus CUDA3 Rescue. The product line was discontinued almost three years ago, but it’s still a fine rescue knife. It’s a shame it’s not made any more, although the Camillus Rescue Heat, the current Hobbit Hole standard, does a fine job, too.

The 911 is a real handful, and has a seriously large glass breaker on one end. The hooked blade is quite wide, and will not only accommodate seatbelts and harnesses, but smaller body parts, too. Caution is advised when cutting. The Camillus CUDA3 has both a serrated blade, and a well-protected hook. It has a one-handed opening mechanism, and is sturdy enough for almost any kind of rescue work.

Our final rescue knife is the CRKT (Columbia River Knife and Tool) MAK-1 (Multiple Access Knife). This sheath knife is a smaller version of the tried and tested Camillus BK3 TacTool. It’s primarily a very heavy pry bar with some sharp edges for cutting. The butt has a glass-breaer point, and notches for removing glass from window frames. Another notch assists in disconnecting car batteries. The knife doesn’t have a seatbelt-cutter, but there’s a cutter much like the Benchmade rescue tool in an accessory pouch. The MAK-1 is shown alongside a Camillus 904S, our standard Hobbit Hole pocket knife. As you can see, it’s not a large knife, but the blade is quite heavy, and just made for prying.

This is a very well-thought-out knife, designed by a firefighter for firefighters. That explains the non-tactical orange lanyards with reflective thread in them. That can be easily replaced with regular 550 paracord. There is also a white reflective patch on the accessory flap, but that can be removed, and stored under the flap using the generous amount of Velcro on the accessory pocket.

While the Hobbit Hole can no longer offer our usual knives to troops that request them, I’ve accumulated enough of these different rescue knives to offer them to anyone who requests one. To avoid disappointment, please supply a first and second choice in rescue blade.

Just remember, there’s only one knife of each kind, and it’s first-come-first-served. I also ask you to consider that these tools are best used by medics and rescue personnel, and refrain from requesting one if you don’t genuinely need it. Thank you.

Add comment April 2nd, 2007

Weapons-mounted flashlights, revisited

A while ago, I received an email from a Marine, saying that the SureFire Nitrolon G2 flashlight worked well when mounted on a weapon. I wished him well, pointing out the flashlight was not designed for the stress and strain of firing, but it still might work well, or maybe not.

Flashlights specifically designed for weapons use are expensive, because they are designed to survive any stress, and remain reliable. But part of that cost also involves a rather expensive mount, and often, a remote “tape switch” because the light itself is a considerable distance away from the hand that needs to activate it. The mount and remote switch add to the cost of the flashlight.

I can’t promise cheaper flashlights, but it looks like there is a simple, inexpensive flashlight mount that does away with the cost and bother of the mount and switch. It fits all flashlights with a one-inch diameter body, and is just one product from Viking Tactics.

The key to the mount is the offset that moves the flashlight down near your non-firing hand, and the fact that it clamps to a mil-spec rail, rather than slides into place. Here are a couple of views of a flashlight in this mount.

I installed a Pentagon 9 volt xenon light on my AR15. Because of its length, the flashlight had to be moved far forward, and a remote tape switch brought back to the vertical handgrip. That led to this messy setup, seen from the top:

Using the Viking Tactics clamp-on mount resulted in this much “cleaner” setup:

The pushbutton is easily reached by the thumb, and there are no wires to route, and no remote switch to figure out how to mount securely. Also, since the mount clamps directly to the rail with two cap screws, it doesn’t have to slide the length of the rail to get it to the desired position. I’ve found that most plastic rail mounts for flashlights have undersized dovetails, and require some hand filing to open them up enough to slide and lock onto the metal rails. It took me almost an hour of trial-and-error fitting to get the original mount to fit properly. With the Viking mount, just tighten the cap screws when you have the light in the desired position. You can’t slide the light on or off after that, but it’s easy to remove the tail cap to change batteries.

With the mount costing in the $15-$20 range, this is a simple and affordable way to get a good light on your weapon, if you have the handguard rails to do it.

I have a few spare mounts on hand, and will be happy to send one (no flashlight, just the mount) to anybody who asks for one. As always, first come, first served.

Add comment March 24th, 2007

NRA offers free membership to troops

On behalf of the nearly four million members of the National Rifle Association of America, thank you for serving our country! We deeply appreciate your sacrifice, and would like to offer you a complimentary one-year membership in the NRA as a token of our gratitude and respect. Your membership will include all regular benefits of membership, including a subscription to your choice of our three flagship magazines.

http://www.nra.org/supportourtroops/Default.aspx

Add comment January 3rd, 2007

TOP Stryker convertible flashlight

The latest item the Hobbit Hole is evaluating is the Stryker convertible flashlight. This is a LED flashlight with an ingenious design that lets you power it with two AA batteries, or one CR123 litium battery. Construction is machined aluminum, and the $39 price is within the price range of other metal LED flashlights.

TOP started out with their stubby “compact” Stryker, and added a second metal tube that goes between the regular body section and the tail cap. This makes the light long enough to use two AA batteries, and powers the 3 volt LED. This light isn’t as bright as 6 or 9 volt models, but it still features the long battery and lamp life of all LED lights. It isn’t a tactical light, but rather a handy utility light made even more useful with a pocket clip and lanyard loop. The tailcap switch is the “click on/click off” type, rather than momentary contact.

Quality is very good, but I have a concern about the flimsy O-rings used to seal the various sections of the light. I would rather have seen them machine a small groove for the O-rings, and use slightly heavier rings. You have to take care to make sure the O-rings don’t get caught in the threads and sliced up.

All high-end flashlights use O-rings to keep out dust and moisture. Any good plumbing-supply department will carry O-rings in various sizes, where they are used in faucets and other plumbing fixtures. There are dozens of sizes and thicknesses of O-rings, and one kind or another should work with your flashlight. At a price of about $1 for a dozen O-rings, it’s cheap insurance that will keep your flashlight working. Just remember to buy the O-rings before deployment, and not after.

Except for the O-ring issue, which simply requires extra care in assembly and disassembly, I would give the Stryker convertible a grade of A-. It’s a good utility flashlight with an ingenious concept that lets you use two kinds of batteries. One or the other should be easy for you to get out in the field. As with other LED flashlights, it has the benefit of much longer battery and lamp life, at the price of slightly less light than halogen lamps.

And now that the review is done, I’m offering our two evaluation models to the first two troops that request it. “Free” is always good, but $39 is also a bargain for this ingenious and practical flashlight.

Add comment November 23rd, 2006

New Light on High-End Flashlights

With days getting shorter, flashlights get more use, especially in a combat zone. The Hobbit Hole has given away a number of Pelican and SureFire xenon and LED lights to the troops. These are high-quality lights, but are rather basic in design. This was done to keep our costs down.

While we won’t be giving away any more flashlights, some new, and more expensive, lights have come on the market. If you have the spare change, these new lights offer some very advanced features, but at an increased price. But these are lifetime investments, and are great to hint at for a Christmas present for yourself.

The picture shows, from the top, our standard Hobbit Hole folding knife, and the Pelican xenon light, both included to give an idea of size. Next is a light that just recently appeared on the market, the “Lightsaver”. At the bottom is the Blackhawk “Gladius”. If the Pelican is a Chevrolet, the Lightsaver is a BMW, and the Gladius is a Rolls Royce, and priced accordingly.

I’ll mention the Gladius first, because with a street price of $180, there’s lots of great features, if price is no object. Since price is an object to all of us, I’ll just metion the features, and go on to the surprising Lightsaver.

The Gladius features heavy-duty aluminum construction, and the one-inch main body diameter allows it to be used in a weapons mount. It, and all the other lights shown, use two CR123 lithium batteries. The end cap has both a pushbutton, and a control ring. The four settings on the ring include lockout, momentary on/off, and a dimmer position, where holding the button lowers the LED from full brightness to very dim. It’s a nice feature.

The fourth position is the most important one for operations such as checkpoints. It’s a seven-per-second strobe. When your eyes are completely adapted to the dark, being hit by this bright strobe brings several seconds of disorientation and confusion. Those seconds could be vital to you, especially at checkpoints and vehicle stops at night.

The brand-new Lightsaver, (best price I’ve seen so far, $79) is another LED with heavy duty aluminum construction. It also has a one-inch body, so it can fit in a flashlight mount. There is even a remote “tape” switch for it, but at $50 it adds considerably to the cost.

Again, its main purpose is not to mount on a weapon, but to be used in the hand. The pushbutton turns the light on with one push, and off with the second. However, if you hold down the button, you get the same seven-per-second strobe flash as the Gladius.

These are the first two pocket LED flashlights with strobe capability I’ve seen, and the Lightsaver costs less than half of what the Gladius does. $80 is still a pretty steep price, but it’s in line with other high-quality aluminum LED flashlights.

Both of these lights also have serial numbers, so if your fancy flashlight “wanders away”, you stand a better chance of recovering it.

I wish our military could give away flashlights like these to everyone who goes outside the wire after dark. I wish the Hobbit Hole could give these away for the asking. That’s not to be, in either case.

Instead, I just want to call attention to these new high-end flashlights so individual troops are aware of their existence, and can purchase these worthwhile items if funds allow. They will give a long lifetime of service.

Add comment November 9th, 2006

This Old Helmet, Episode 1

Introduction

The PASGT (Personal Armor System Ground Troops) helmet (“Kevlar”) has been in the US military inventory since the early 1980s. It represents a significant improvement over the steel helmet, which had served since the early 1940s.

The PASGT has provided significantly improved protection against fragmentation, but was not considered to provide significant ballistic protection.

The helmet could actually prevent penetration by fragments with as much energy as a handgun round at point-blank range. But the helmet would deform over two inches in the process, usually inflicting severe or fatal blunt trauma injury to the head. This lack of blunt trauma protection also meant the helmet could not provide any protection in automotive accidents.

In the course of developing improved helmets over the last few years, the old web suspension system, little changed from the steel helmets of the 1950s, was replaced by special cushioned pads that provided superior blunt trauma protection, and improved comfort.

These pads are part of the Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH), now in production. At the same time, various companies have developed update kits for the current PASGT. This brings the helmet up to the same level of protection as the new ACH.

Future articles will feature some of these upgrade kits. But whether you have a new ACH, or upgraded PASGT, the key to maximum protection and comfort is in fitting the pads to the individual wearer. This takes a little bit of time, but it’s an investment in your safety and comfort.

Fitting the pads

Whether you have an upgraded PASGT helmet, or a brand-new ACH helmet, fitting of the foam pads is the key to both increased protection, and increased comfort. It is also something that should not be rushed, because you are customizing the fit for yourself alone. A new pair of boots requires breaking in. These new helmets require time to find the best pad layout. Plan to spend at least two or three hours of “quality time” with your helmet, and you’ll be paid back with greater safety and comfort.

First, if the chin/nape strap is already attached, take it off. Leave the plastic H-buckles on, just take off the cloth strap. It’s the last item that needs fitting, and only gets in the way of working with the pads.

Next, a quick word about pad thickness. For the Advanced Combat Helmet, there are two different thicknesses of pads: number 6 (thinner), and number 8 (thicker). Both provide equal protection. The only difference is to assure the best possible fit with the size of helmet you’re working with. The number 6 pad is considered “standard”, while the number 8 is used for a better fit when the helmet is too large.

Oregon Aero, manufacturer of one of the upgrade kits, also makes a thinner number 4 pad. Again, it should be used only if there are problems in fitting. The approximate thickness of the pads is:
· #4: .07 inch
· #6: .09 inch
· #8: 1.1 inch

The round pad goes into the bottom of the helmet first. Try to get it centered as well as possible. Then the two “trapezoid” pads go in the front and rear of the helmet. The narrow part should be touching the round pad.

With those three pads in place, we’re left with the four oblong or rectangular pads. Some documentation mentions the pads may be oval, but I’ve never seen any. It’s these four pads that are the key to a comfortable fit, and the overall increased safety of the helmet. Adjusting these four pads takes up most of your time, but it’s also where the biggest benefits come from.

Most illustrations show the four pads arranged horizontally around the rim of the helmet. That configuration makes for the tightest fit, but that may not always be best for you.

The secret to a good fit is that these pads can be arranged horizontally, vertically, or at an angle. They can also be placed closer to, or further away, from the rim. Different pad orientation provides different fits, and one will be right for you. This is also where most experimentation will be done. The closer the pads are to the rim of the helmet, the tighter the fit. The closer to the center, the looser the fit is.

The most important thing to remember is to have the pad either cover the mounting hardware, like the A-nuts that hold the plastic buckles, or are close enough to these protruding items that they won’t be able to contact your head in a severe impact.

Take your best guess at pad orientation, and then place the helmet on your head. There should only be a slight amount of pressure, usually around the temples, when you put it on. Slap the top of the helmet to make sure it’s fully seated. If you’re still feeling pressure, the two front rectangular pads may need to be moved a bit.

Once you have a reasonably good fit, wear the helmet for about two hours to “settle” the foam pads. This is the most important part of a comfortable fit.

You should be able to move your head around without feeling any movement of the helmet. If you look down at the floor, the helmet should not fall off. The “lighter” foam in the pads is for comfort, and will take a slight “set”. It’s the heavy-duty foam in the base of the pad that provides the real trauma protection. That, in turn, increases the helmet’s ballistic protection.

After about two hours of continuous wear, if the helmet still feels good on your head, the fitting process is almost over. Now reattach the chin/nape strap, making sure none of the straps are twisted. Adjust the straps for a good fit, and check the final results in a mirror. The helmet should not be tilted either left or right, or forward or backward. There are several FMs that show how the helmet should look when worn properly.

This is more effort at fitting than with the old suspension system, where you adjusted the inner loop of the suspension straps, and you were done. But the payoff in comfort and safety is worth the extra work. As a test, I wore a properly-fitted ACH helmet for six hours straight with no discomfort. In the “good old days”, I could never wear my steel pot for that long without coming up with some excuse for taking it off, with the hope of finding another excuse for not putting it back on.

It’s your head. Invest enough time to keep it safe and happy by fitting it properly.

Add comment November 4th, 2006

The Hobbit Hole basement, part 1

Even when you live in a Hobbit hole as comfy as the Baggins’ hole-into-the-hill at Bag End, you still have a basement where you keep your mathoms, those items that you don’t know what to do with, but are too good to throw away. Among Hobbits, mathoms are usually saved, and given away on birthdays. It’s a Hobbit tradition to give presents on birthdays, not receive them.

In the course of our troop support work, I’ve managed to acquire a few mathoms. It’s now time to give them away to any of our American troops who want them (no matter how odd the item seems to be).

The first item is an adapter that allows small diameter (under an inch) flashlights to be mounted on the accessory rails of a weapon. Flashlights in this category include the Mini Maglite, a flashlight familiar to almost all our troops.

In an earlier article, I mentioned my opinion that using ordinary flashlights on weapons is not the best of ideas. Everything might work perfectly, or the fragile lamp filament might fail on the first shot.

That being said, I still purchased three of these plastic adapters for evaluation. They do hold the flashlight securely, and lock onto the rail properly. However, an AA flashlight does not put out a lot of light. That’s just the nature of the beast.

However, if you want to experiment, these adapters are offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Other AA flashlights might also work too, due to the adjusting screw on the clamp. You’ll have to supply your own flashlight, because I’m keeping the gold-anodized MiniMaglite used in the pictures.

There will be more items from the Hobbit Hole basement as I go through our mathoms, so keep looking for things that might or might not work (if it’s really junk, I’ll be throwing it away), but could be a handy gadget in helping you in the defense of America.

Add comment October 27th, 2006

The Hobbit Hole Part II: Troop Safety and Convenience

While we reluctantly have to discontinue our knife program, the Hobbit Hole remains dedicated to the well-being of our troops. We will be doing this via a couple of programs.

First is “the carabiner program”. We will continue to give away the Grimloc safety carabiner to any and all troops that request them.

These are nice convenience items, and important safety items. You should never use a real “mountaineering” carabiner just to hang a flashlight or water bottle on your IBA. The danger of getting hung up in some tight spot is just too great. The safety carabiner will break under your weight, freeing you. It also doesn’t get hot in the sun, and is not a source of fragmentation or ricochets.

Normally, we’ll send two carabiners via first-class mail to anybody who requests them. If you need more, or need some for your buddies, just ask, and we’ll do our best to serve you. I know that a lot of hydration systems have a loop in each corner of the unit, and four carabiners make for a handy and safe way of attaching the hydration unit to the back of your armor.

If you need four, we’ll send four. If you need four hundred, we’ll work it out somehow.

While the Grimloc carabiner remains our main “product”, we will continue to evaluate other items for their usefulness to the American Soldier and Marine. Coming in the near future will be evaluations of upgrades for the PASGT helmet that significantly increases the blunt force trauma and ballistic protection provided by the helmet.

After that will be evaluations of “helmet gadgets” that can be used with the helmet. Some are good, some aren’t. And some are so cool, I can hardly wait to write about them.

Thank you all for your service to America. The Hobbit Hole will continue to work at the daunting task of coming up with “little stuff” as a way of saying thanks, although words can never be enough.

Add comment October 23rd, 2006

Operation Helmet

There are plenty of troop-support groups out there, all doing good work. We like to think the Hobbit Hole is one of them. However, one group I’ve come across stands above our own efforts, head-and-shoulders, literally.

The group is Operation Helmet.

Their mission is to pass the word about a major improvement to the kevlar helmet now used by the US military. The breakthrough, in this case, is an upgrade kit that replaces the 50-year-old-design suspension system inside the helmet with a set of special foam pads held in place with velcro.

The pad system is standard on the new Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH). However, upgrade kits are available for earlier versions of kevlar helmets. The pad system provides significantly improved protection against blunt-force trauma, and increased comfort for the wearer.

This is very much a good-news-bad-news situation. The good news is that the pads work, and the government has already purchased almost a million of them over the last two years, at a cost of about $100 each. $100 is cheap insurance against fatal or crippling brain injuries.

The bad news is that not all helmets have been upgraded, and many of the troops, and their commanders, are unaware of the existence of these pads. Or they have no mechanism for getting them.

Operation Helmet provides extensive links to medical and technical data, and even links showing how to install and fit the pads. It also has a link where people can donate money to purchase helmet pads for a particular servicemember, or just donate to their general fund.

I could go on about the great work Operation Helmet does, but Doc Bob, the retired Navy flight surgeon who founded the group, does a better job than I could ever do.

While we welcome all visitors to the Hobbit Hole, Operation Helmet is doing such vital work that we would be remiss in our duty of supporting the troops if we didn’t help give them all the publicity we can.

Add comment August 29th, 2006

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