Do you wear gloves?

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Brian D.
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Do you wear gloves?

Post by Brian D. »

Okay a seasonal reminder, something to talk about over hot chocolate. If you wear gloves in this cold weather while carrying a gun, how do you handle shooting, if the occasion arises...suddenly?

I get along without gloves much as possible but still do some of my drawing/shooting/reloading practice with them on. What's usually second nature becomes much less so.

I'll leave the specifics of what gloves work best to others--TSiWRX probably has 80 different kinds and we'll get a short post from him describing them real soon-- :lol: --but for me they all suck to some degree.

I just want to get the conversation started and maybe kick somebody's tail into gear to go find out how THEIR set up works with the addition of gloves.
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Mr. Glock
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by Mr. Glock »

I like gloves. They keep my hands warm in sub-Arctic Cleveland.

But the kind that work well to do that don't work very well with a small CC gun.

Adding a glove pull-off (just the shooting hand) to the draw stroke is my solution. If someone is in very close, you might not have time, but, in that case, you might need to use hand to hand anyway to create space to draw.

A good topic from Brian D
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TSiWRX
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by TSiWRX »

Brian D. wrote:Okay a seasonal reminder, something to talk about over hot chocolate. If you wear gloves in this cold weather while carrying a gun, how do you handle shooting, if the occasion arises...suddenly?

I get along without gloves much as possible but still do some of my drawing/shooting/reloading practice with them on. What's usually second nature becomes much less so.

I'll leave the specifics of what gloves work best to others--TSiWRX probably has 80 different kinds and we'll get a short post from him describing them real soon-- :lol: --but for me they all suck to some degree.

I just want to get the conversation started and maybe kick somebody's tail into gear to go find out how THEIR set up works with the addition of gloves.
^ Hey, how did you know that I have a glove fetish? :lol: :P :oops:

No, really..... I don't often wear gloves, but I have "a glove for every occasion." :oops:

Actually, a short (for me, which is long for everyone else) post is just right, too. As you've written, there's really not much more to say except that if one does wear gloves, one needs to try them out not only shooting the gun, but also from the draw (and, to a lesser extent, returning the gun to the holster) and through basic manipulations.

It's just like taking the time to dry practice for a minute as you arm-up in the morning. Find the snags and hickups (http://soldiersystems.net/tag/mike-pannone/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - point #2, "Noner's Morning minute" conveys this in a very concrete and easy-to-understand way; the first instructor who taught me this was Bill Holcomb over at Three Tango Firearms Academy :)).

Vet your gear.

As LegoGlock can tell everyone here, I fretted over my holster choice for a colder-weather from-concealment handgun class this fall. I soul-searched for about a week and a half, and ended up going to the class with my usual IWB holster :lol: after having decided that (1) it really didn't make much difference and (2) I really should play it as it is.

But you know what? It's really perhaps the smallest part of the equation. Instead, through my time in the class I reaffirmed that as shooters/concealed-carriers, you've simply gotta know how the clothes you wear may change the equation - not just with the holster and drawing, but also the critical task of re-holstering as well as with accessing your spare mag (or BUG). You've gotta know how your gloves may or may not play a role in not just whether you can get your finger into the trigger guard or even trigger control, but instead just whether if you can get enough of your hand on the gun (for me, the big eye-opener was that with the "flush" magazine [with Pearce +0 "pinky rest" extension base-plate] that I carry for my EDC XDm9 3.8 Compact, my heaviest winter gloves, my OR Stormcells, I occasionally will not depress the grip safety enough! :shock: ) - and whether if those gloves impact also how you may or may not be able to clear clothing. I brought along four different over-layers, each of which was exactly what I wore throughout our fall to spring seasons. I also brought along four pairs of gloves, again, items which stepped through the temperature gradient.

Gloves change things because we're changing our interface to the gun.

One very interesting thing to note - and that I keep coming back to - in the overhand "powerstroke" versus slide-lock/release techniques debate. Jack Leuba wrote on M4Carbine.net that he actually had to get a bunch of our nation's greatest ninja-killers to reprogram their pistol manipulations, specifically in terms of how they send the slide home after a slide-lock reload, as they were getting their gloves stuck in the ejection port.

It pays to remember this little golden nugget: if you're going to wear gloves, practice with those gloves. Do they cause a problem with manipulations? Can you access the safety/ies on your weapon and run them with certainty? Not only will your trigger finger fit into the trigger guard, but will you be able to successfully run the trigger, or will the glove get caught? What happens when your glove material gets caught in the magwell as you complete a reload? If pulling off that glove, as what Mr. Glock noted, is what you need to do (and hey, there's no right or wrong, here: warmer fingers from a toasty set of mittens beats numb ones from a non-insulated set any day, and that doesn't matter if I'm just looking to pick my nose or if my bigger concern happens to be the fine motor skills involved in all of shooting!), how much time/space do you need in order to do so?

These are all issues worth investigating.

Great seasonal topic, Brian D....although I shudder to think of what you might post once swimwear season is upon us! :P

[OK, so, that turned out to be a long post. :oops: ]
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502ci
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by 502ci »

Good to hear a topic come up that never entered my mind before. I will have to say I never wear gloves when I am out driving or walking no matter what the weather is while I am carrying. I do wear gloves while I am at work all the time if I am outside and it is cold...with that being said I do not carry while at work so that scenario really does not affect me. I will admit though I am an expert at removing my gloves very quickly (even with one hand) as I have to constantly take a glove off to use a tool or answer the phone so I imagine it would be second nature to me if for some reason some day I am carrying and have gloves on... :mrgreen:
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by Tru-Heathen »

This is what I'm using this Winter.

Insulated,wool blend.
~ $5 @ KMart.

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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by steves 50de »

I like the western safety black ones they sell at harbor freight.
I have shot with them at camp perry a few times and was happy with them.
They are very thin and the coating is just right for a good grip.
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by Brian D. »

Hey, thanks for keeping this thread alive. It's just now fixing to (we say that in SW Ohio) get colder again after some pretty decent days. Being in the over 50 years old club for a while now, just this winter noticed my hands aren't taking the frosty temps quite as well. Another reason I got the glove topic started, to be honest.

Before this, at the beginning of winter I'd be asking other carriers if they had draw strings on their coats, and if those were or weren't a problem. But I've brought that up for several years, so wanted to push the glove thing a little more this time. All this extra clothing stuff is worth thinking about as it relates to accessing a carried handgun.
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by steves 50de »

Brian D. wrote:Hey, thanks for keeping this thread alive. It's just now fixing to (we say that in SW Ohio) get colder again after some pretty decent days. Being in the over 50 years old club for a while now, just this winter noticed my hands aren't taking the frosty temps quite as well. Another reason I got the glove topic started, to be honest.

Before this, at the beginning of winter I'd be asking other carriers if they had draw strings on their coats, and if those were or weren't a problem. But I've brought that up for several years, so wanted to push the glove thing a little more this time. All this extra clothing stuff is worth thinking about as it relates to accessing a carried handgun.
Turning 54 in november my circulation is not like it use to be,
Hands get cold in no time.
At the snow flake shot in november at camp perry brought this fact to light. :cry: Stinks getting old .
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by TSiWRX »

I've been dry-practicing slide-lock reloads with my thickest pair of "shooting gloves" - a pair of Outdoor Research "Piledriver."

http://www.outdoorresearch.com/en/piled ... -7112.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The padded finger and palm areas make gripping a gun a little more difficult, so the reload can sometimes turn into an LOL kinda situation. :lol: No, seriously, the first couple of times, my daughter literally cracked up, seeing how badly I messed up the reload. :oops: :lol: I won't even mention how well this went the first time I tried to close my eyes during the reload to simulate total darkness. 8) :oops: :lol:

This was originally in anticipation of a now-cancelled class that would have taken place in some rather low temperatures this Thursday night, so I'm actually kinda glad I didn't really have to do it "for real."

But in all honesty, I think I'm going to continue to practice with these gloves. When I swap out for my other gloves - be it my "tactical" gloves or my everyday gloves - it's comparatively so much easier to perform such manipulations. Bare-handed? Yeah, it's a breeze!

Ramping up the difficulty level during practice has its good points, I guess! :D
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by Rhino »

TSiWRX wrote:These are all issues worth investigating.
Unless you just make life simple by removing the glove. :)
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by TSiWRX »

^ Not wearing gloves is definitely an option - but then it would also be good to do some "cold fingers/hands" practice, too. :)

A couple of years ago at Bill Holcomb's (Three Tango Firearms Academy) class, he had us dunk our hands into an ice cooler (felt awesome for the first 30 seconds or so, on a hot summer day :lol: ) for a few minutes prior to drawing and shooting. Cold and wet fingers/hands present a challenge of their own not only in terms of trigger control, but also manipulations.

[ My most miserable cold-hands/fingers experience was at an introductory level class hosted by Great Lakes Outdoors a few years ago. Freezing rain. Yeah, that was fun to do without gloves. :lol: ]

And, of-course, with a glove pull-off, like Mr. Glock mentioned, there's some planning and practicing to do, too. :)
Allen - Shaker Heights, Ohio
Brian D.
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by Brian D. »

So just to show that I'm not an "all hat and no cattle" kind of cowboy, today at the indoor range I did about all of my handgun shooting while wearing gloves. Nobody else was there, so when that's the case the owner doesn't mind me doing some draws and such. (Basically, he doesn't want a 'monkey see, monkey do' problem on his hands.)

I didn't do lousy. No snags that caused the gun to hang up, not fire, etc. But, I'd rather not wear the dang things any more than absolutely necessary. They are an impediment, not an enhancement, to good shooting.

Note to TSiWRX: I don't know what brand or model the gloves are. They are made of (according to the tag, which I removed long ago) Thinsulate, obviously not bulky, and have knobby rubber pads sewn on the thumb, first and second finger, and across the palm portions. Pretty sure I got them from the 75% off clearance bin at a TA Travel Plaza a couple summers ago, if that helps you. :lol:
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TSiWRX
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by TSiWRX »

Brian D. wrote: Note to TSiWRX: I don't know what brand or model the gloves are. They are made of (according to the tag, which I removed long ago) Thinsulate, obviously not bulky, and have knobby rubber pads sewn on the thumb, first and second finger, and across the palm portions. Pretty sure I got them from the 75% off clearance bin at a TA Travel Plaza a couple summers ago, if that helps you. :lol:
I'm pretty sure they are......








..... just kidding!

Hey, I admitted I had a glove fetish. That's the first step towards the cure! :P :lol:
Allen - Shaker Heights, Ohio
Brian D.
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by Brian D. »

One problem with shopping for gloves is I don't think you'll find many stores that would allow you to put them on and then try some draws before purchase. Yes, there is a serious point in my whimsy here. Some things have to be learned by a certain amount of trial and error. You may not find shooting-friendly gloves the first time or six you look. It helps to have places like this board to ask questions, and even see what some of us long timers post up about when we get bored in the winter.
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Re: Do you wear gloves?

Post by TSiWRX »

^ +1. Definitely agreed.

ETA:

I wonder....

At a place like Fin Feather Fur or Atwell's, if one were to go during their low-tide during weekday morning hours, I'd bet they'd let you take a pair of gloves from their showroom floor up to their gun counter, and let you have a feel at the gun, with those gloves on.

But yeah, drawing? that's probably not gonna happen. :(
Allen - Shaker Heights, Ohio
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