What Are Some Quality Surplus Reproductions?

UnionMillsNW · May 10, 2020

Hey folks,

I love military surplus, but as time goes on it seems like the pickings are getting pretty slim.Gun shows are all "tacticool" now...I even went to the surplus store in Bend, OR where I purchased my field desk and helmets 20 years ago and they barely had any actual surplus items in stock. (If you have a source for affordable surplus please share!) However this thread is about Quality reproduction items that you have found.

Example:

Quality:
I picked up a Shemagh on Amazon for around $12 that was pretty much the same thing as some of the stuff I picked up when I was deployed overseas.

Not so much:

I purchased an M1 Garand cartridge belt off of Amazon. It was probably made in China. The clips are loose in the pouches, it constantly sheds threads....nowhere near the quality of the M1 belt I had as a child.

So what are the quality reproductions that you have found? Do you still shop at surplus stores in person/online?

CamoDeafie · May 10, 2020

Depends on what type of surplus. MOLLE (tacticool) has been the standard for the US military since 1997 for the very first generation.. with a military-wide adoption during the 2000s (GWOT). Before that, it's ALICE and LBVs...with ALICE having been around since 1974. Before ALICE, there was the M1967 gear, which was almost the same...and then before then, the canvas M1956 gear which begat the metal clip keepers.

for canvas gear that resembles or is a good copy of the 1930s-1940s gear, At The Front is one company...and it is pricey. For Vietnam reproductions? I ain't rightly sure, but they are also pricey...especially for the Tiger Stripe uniform pieces and OG uniform pieces..

Really, its more of "you get what you pay for" and what cost the US Govt a few thousand dollars to outfit whole battalions in the 1930s is nowhere what you'll get even adjusted for inflation

Alley Cat Surplus up in Boring and Action Surplus down in Eugene are the two stores that I still go visit.... Aloha Surplus is way expensive, although they DO have some of the actual honest to goodness surplus stuff and some good quality stuff. But the days of finding quality, good condition canvas stuff for cheap are long gone unfortunately.

Flea Markets and Antique malls are better places to find something..but they also tend to know the actual prices/worth as told by Ebay...so you're stuck with either competing with certain markets (coughs, airsofters coughs) or with paying through the nose for actual good quality reproductions.

side note, the newest ALICE gear I've personally seen; have contract dates of 2008, usually the Large ALICE rucksacks and the pistol belt kits...not so much the individual pouches themselves.

That's also the main reason I ventured into making my own nylon/Cordura gear

I didn't want to pay a lot of money for custom, and I couldn't find the exact items that worked at the time.... funny enough, chest holsters for the Hi Point .40/.45 bricks and magazine carriers for the donkey magazines for the 9mm Hi Points are my most-sold items that I've made. but then again, everyone and their mother makes AR15 gear

Not a lot of people are making Hi Point gear or M14 sized gear....