Armored Claw Shield Flex Gloves – review
The winter season passed away and it’s time to take off the thick cold weather gloves and put on something recommended for the rest of the year.
Today’s review topic is dedicated to the fans of reinforced models of the gloves – CQB players or people who like to keep their hands safe and comfortable. I introduce you the Armored Claw Shield Flex gloves.
The package
The Armored Claw – Shield Flex are delivered in the foil that has an attached cardboard with the image that presents the information about the purchased gloves.
The construction
It can be easily spotted, that the Shield Flex are almost identical to their older Shield brothers. However, the tested product has a few additions that make it more fresher.
The most important feature is the possibility to remove the knuckle reinforcements, depending on our personal preferences. If you don’t like the armored kind of gloves you can remove the inserts for the woodland games and put them back for the CQB occasions. The first attempts for that process can be a little tricky, but after few tries it will get better. The worst part is, of course, fitting the knuckles reinforcements back into the gloves. It requires a minute or two of solid gymnastics, but like in the other sports – the personal record will improve with each try.
The materials
According to the manufacturer, these gloves are made of original materials like Kevlar and Nomex DuPoint. Besides the mentioned fabrics, there is also neoprene, genuine and artificial leather. For the hand safety stands the Keprotec material that comes straight from the Schoeller works in Switzerland.
The Spandex is used on the outside part of the product. On the inside part the used materials are artificial leather and the EVA foam made protectors.
Neoprene is used on the wrists. You can also spot the rubber part that has the hard part of the Velcro glued and sewed on itself. The soft Velcro is sewed directly to the neoprene. The special material that supports the touchscreens is used on the index finger and thumb tips. This makes the selfie procedure a whole lot easier. ;)
The quality of the workmanship
The Shield Flex gloves are made with the appropriate aesthetics and give a good first impression. Personally, I really like the usage of the same material on the knuckle protector as on the other parts of the glove, which wasn’t present in the older Shield models and makes the new product a bit more attractive to the eye.
The sewing is made straight and neat, which gives absolutely no worries about its reliability. The only issue I’ve found is the connection point of the neoprene and globe piping, which I have managed to unravel.
The Velcro that secures the knuckle insert holds it very hard and needs some strength to be opened. This is a good sign that means there is almost no possibly to lose them. The wrist Velcro is not that strong, but it still does its job and there is no need to worry about accidental opening. The Velcro fastener has the manufacturer 3D logo on itself. The fingers bones have additional, irremovable reinforcements.
Coming back to the wrists – there is a webbing loop that makes the putting on easier and gives an opportunity to transport the gloves on the equipment by the piton. Unfortunately, both of the loop ends have the same point of attachment, which makes access to the opening a little harder than it should. However, the webbing is sewed trough the whole length of the neoprene element, which makes the whole construction pretty sturdy.
Talking about the palm side of hand – the material tends to pill quickly. In spite of the short usage of the Shield Flex gloves, the pilling of the material can be easily spot. However, it’s only a pure cosmetic issue and doesn’t affect the using.
The usage
To test the Armored Claw product properly, I’ve taken the gloves to the field – simple as that. Because of the thick build, the gloves can be felt by the user – I’ve needed to get used to them. After a few minutes the situation gets better and you can play freely without any discomfort.
However, when it comes to small objects like pens etc. the thickness will come back with its annoyances. It is also a little bit tricky to feel the handgun manipulators or the AR selector lever.
For the price of these small issues we get a great protection from knife cuts, shattered glass or sharp rocks. The outside part of the gloves performs like an armor when it comes to the painful knuckle and finger shots in dynamic CQB games. Thanks to the fireproof characteristics of the material and its thickness, the gloves are also usable with the pyrotechnics, which isn’t recommended in the case of popular Mechanix gloves.
To test the palm side material reliability, I’ve used the Shield Flex gloves during a few weight trainings – the rough texture of the barbell can tear some of the gloves after a while. The Armored Claws went through the trial successfully, so did my palms.
Armored Claw Shield Flex - conclusion
Of course I didn’t forget about the cooperation of the gloves with the touch screens, which is helpful when you use mobile maps or the Airsoft Force Tracking app. The cooperation with mobile phones is a little bit harder, because the thickness of the Shield Flex fingers is just not helpful when trying to hold the phone or press these tiny buttons. Taking the gloves off and using bare hands is much quicker and effective.
Author:
Paweł "Fishbonee" Napieralski
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