gear for carbine course

Need some advice from the lady shooters. My wife and I are taking a carbine course, what do you recommend for gear for a woman? Chest rig, vest, or belt?

What's she going to do with the carbine? Work, matches, home defense?

I just use a belt, but it really depends on her needs.

A dump pouch is helpful for me.

The carbine would be used for defense and matches. Definitely not work, she works for the Post Office

Yeah, they frown on that. :)

Depending on her size, the hardest part might be finding room for everything on her belt. There are some nice pistol/carbine magazine pouches that stack..other than that, I really don't use anything else..mag pouches, dump pouch, med kit and pistol. But maybe she'd like a chest rig, dunno. I haven't really tried shooting on them but never cared for the way they felt when I was trying them..it either smushes your boobs or angles up in some weird way, depending on how tight it is.

Whose class is she taking? That might help to understand.

Taking carbine\pistol class at Oregon Firearms Academy. My wife is petite, only 5'. She would like to shoot the 3 gun and practical rifle matches at our club. For the class, needs to carry a minimum of 3 mags each for pistol and rifle. She doesn't want a lot of weight on her hips. That is why I am looking for recommendations from other women shooters on their experience.

A good sling, two or three point my be more comfortable

She uses the La Rue Tactical 2 point padded sling on the rifle. For her pistol she uses a Wilderness belt, BladeTech double mag holder and Blade Tech offset drop holster for HK 45c.

Yeah, honetly, she's just going to have to experiment and see what works for her..maybe someone has a chest rig she could try on?

goto lowes or home depot and get some knee pads. There might be a lot of kneeling shots etc...

good idea, Thanks everybody for the help

When I took my course I wore the Eagle M4-LE chest rig. I added an extra pouch on the side for two more rifle mags for a total of 5 plus a three pistol mag pouch on the other side. It was pretty comfortable. I also used a dump pouch off and on. Knee pads are a good idea as well.

My husband has a good belt set up but I have never tried it. If you want me to list what he has on it I can.

I'll have my wife look at that chest rig. Please do list the info on the belt set up. All help and ideas are much appreciated.

Hi, I'm BS's husband.

I've been using the Emdom - MM CM Belt for about a month now. Details can be seen here @ SKD. I go very simple with what gets attached to me, so I just have a couple of HSGI double decker Tacos, a blow out kit and my holster on it. Most of my gear/training world revolves around realistic SHTF type threats so the ability to be almost hidden in plain sight along with being easy to grab and go rank high on the list. Durability is an obvious, but if you're buying quality stuff from quality places, its a non issue these days. I like the Tacos because we are a multi-platform family and they can carry almost any size/type mags out there, both pistol and rifle. I can't quite fit my 338 Lapua mags in yet though...

I settled on the CM Belt after trying out various other padded and non padded MOLLE "battle belts". For the most part, just about every single belt I tried was either big enough to be its own flotation device and/or not rigid enough to hold up even what little I had on it for long periods of time. The CM is super low profile, plenty strong enough for my needs and the buckle is surprisingly quick-on and rugged. It holds the Tacos very firmy running them through the webbing on the back of the belt. I also went the "sewer green" model so if I'm covering up with a coat/ponch/etc and the wind catches it I wouldn't automatically be screaming "Hey look at my multicam belt rig!!". I will doing some force on force role playing this weekend and will have a much better working review of the belt sometime after that.

Since you said she doesn't want a lot of weight on her hips and shes short/small, I would probably just do a holster, dump pouch and a couple of pistol mags on her regular belt or whatever kind of "battle" belt you get. Rifle mags can get in the way if you don't plan everything very carefully and obviously lights, first aid, knives and other stuff all start adding ounces or pounds.

I use the exact same chest rig as BS as well, so the combo of the two gives me seven rifle mags, up to 5 pistol mags, blow out kit, tourny and a dump pouch if BS isn't using it on her rig. I really like, and need to order more of, the Maxpedition "Roly Poly" type dump pouch. I highly recommend as much commonality as practical if you and your girl are going to be training/shooting/gaming together.

Sorry, that got kind of long winded.

Readers digest version: Me likey Emdomm CM Belt and HSGI Taco pouches.


Quicky Pics:

excellent info, thanks. She is pretty well set up for pistol. Now trying to figure out what to do for rifle and med kit.

Thanks for the pics, extremely helpful to show different types of setups, instead of trying to explain them.

I'm 5' 5", 175-ish on a good day, no real hips to speak of. I'm taking a carbine class this weekend. Instructor suggested a leg panel with mag pouches. I decided to go with 2x double-stacked HSGI Taco's similar to above, but am putting them on my rigger's belt rather than a war belt. I have a pair of Tru-Spec 24-7 tactical pants I'll wear, which have AR-size partitions in the cargo pockets to carry 2 more rifle mags.

I decided to go with a belt setup rather than leg rig or chest rig, since I use a belt set up for pistol and that's the location from which I'm trained to grab mags.

I have paintball knee pads, and some cheapie volleyball elbow pads I'll use. You might want to consider getting her a set of golf gloves to use if her barrel shroud or pistol grip on the rifle have a rough texture. I still need to pick up a set for myself since the paintball gloves I have don't fit correctly for serious shooting.

=V=

I like the idea of the double stack Tacos on a rigger's belt. That's the belt the boss uses for her pistol and she is used to grabbing mags from the weak side. She uses small batting gloves that are thin and allow a good feel on the trigger. Thanks for the ideas, I'll pass these on too.

YES!

I would recommend a good pair of gloves.

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