'60s Compass Pouch

This is an ALICE compass pouch from the nineteen-sixties that I acquired as an addition to my gear for a Vietnam reenactment airsoft game.  It just so happens that this pouch perfectly fits an iPhone with a case (probably not all cases).  After this discovery, I promptly installed some MOLLE type Cordura webbing and put it on my backpack.

Rifle Ammo Pouch

I like bolt action rifles.  My personal rifle is a Stevens 200 (basically a Savage 110 without an accutrigger).  It has a fixed, four-round box magazine.  The problem with a fixed magazine is readily apparent: there is no fast way to reload.  One must learn to reload this rifle one at a time, and do so quickly.  This poses a another problem as one must carry clips (if you're lucky enough to have a rifle with a clip-fed magazine) or boxes of ammunition or even those plastic separators that come with them.

I felt this to be a clunky process that could be streamlined.  I set about making a MOLLE rifle ammunition pouch that had "no shine" and could hold 8 rounds.  The prototype is made from some recycled gear and I only ended up fitting 7 rounds into it,  but it is functional.

That little strip of Cordura at the top of the pouch acts to hold the shells in place

Multicam Keyring

I had some scraps of Multicam and Coyote Tan webbing lying around, along with a clip from an old MP5 sling...  So I made a keyring (or key clip, whatever you prefer):

Reversible Pouch Flaps

My Multicam pouch flaps gave me another idea: Reversible ones.  For this project I used 2" wide sections of Foliage Green webbing affixed to some Multicam Cordura fabric.  I made these slightly longer than the dedicated Multicam ones, and attached hook and loop material to the same location on both sides of the flaps.  The result is an easily changeable color scheme to the outside of a tactical rig.

Reversible flaps compared with my Multicam flaps:

A plate carrier with Foliage Green showing:

A MOLLE LBV with Multicam showing:

Multicam Pouch Flaps

Being that Multicam is one of the industry's leading camouflage patterns I decided to order some 3" multicam webbing (along with several other lengths and colors of webbing to continue my research and development).  After some deliberation on what to do with the stuff, I decided that it might be cool to replace the flaps on my old Blackhawk Omega vest.

I tried to make the flaps as short as possible while still being able to fit a magazine securely inside the pouch.  I recycled the Coyote Tan webbing  and the hook and loop material (velcro) from some other 5.56 mag pouches.

 

 

 I found they fit on most Omega style mag pouches.  These are Condor:

Lightweight Surefire Pouch

I make it a point to carry things that don't break under normal conditions.  One of these items is a SureFire 6P defender flashlight that my lovely lady bought me for my birthday one year.  I cannot lose this flashlight.  I like it to be at the ready, but I dislike wearing things on my belt, so I figured a good place for it would be on the side of my backpack.  At first I looked for a suitable pouch, but eventually I opted to just build one with recycled Cordura nylon.  I decided to use MOLLE (or: STRIKE, PALS, FSBE, MALICE,etc) because it's basically the industry standard in tactical gear.  My backpack conveniently has the same web attachment system all over it.

I built the pouch as robustly as I could, but with as little material as possible to save on weight.

 

The stitching for MOLLE doesn't always need to be 1.5" wide; the webbing constructing the pouch is only that wide, making my stitching ~1.25" across.  I found that by making the MOLLE webbing more of a loop, it could accomodate the other MOLLE webbing strap (out of frame):

1911 Magazine Pouch

When your pistol runs out of ammunition,  priority one is always to reload. (Duh.) I've found that there is a plethora of gear manufacturers who make and sell pistol magazine pouches, but none who make exactly what I wanted.

My 1911A1 is (would be) my primary weapon.  I have five magazines altogether, and a handy plate carrier that clips conveniently onto my backpack (we'll get into that later).  All I need is a four-bay mag pouch that I can grab and pull a mag from easily, without the risk of it falling out by itself.  I found the answer in "rare earth" neodymium magnets. ( I know that Tactical Tailor already makes a magnetic universal pistol magazine pouch, but in my experience,  "universal" pouches don't fit 1911 mags terribly well.)  In my design, the magnets are placed under a panel, inside the pouch, and closer to the body/armor, as opposed to the outside of the pouch (TacTailor's).

I used Cordura nylon webbing for a majority of the pouch, the back being recycled from an aging 5.56 mag pouch.  Please excuse the fine thread, it was all I had to play with at the time.

These are the two surviving single-mag prototypes (I like how the tri-tone webbing looks on these)