Video Transcript
KYWI Mag Pouch Features (00:00):
The Esstac KYWI is an awesome—it's not really a system—but a great suite of pouches for consolidating real estate on your belt and carrying ammo. That's pretty much all it does, but it does it very well. Basically what you have is a nylon pouch made from Cordura that has a slot of MOLLE. Typically speaking one or two slots for MALICE clips or even other types of MOLLE attachment, you know, solutions. And then you have a Kydex insert on the inside. So what you get is the retention of a Kydex mag carrier, but you have the size of a traditional MOLLE pouch. Now the big difference here is if you take a Kydex mag pouch, typically it's gonna be a little bit larger. There's gonna be space on each side for screws and whatever else is going on with the Kydex mag pouch. There's advantages of those versus one of these, but the main advantage of the KYWIs or pouches similar to this is being able to put a bunch of them on a belt, such as this Orion, and maximizing your real estate. Especially if you're a small guy like me and you can't have a lot of kit to begin with, that's where these can really come in handy.
Versions T.REX Carries (01:02):
So we have three different versions. We have Single Pistol, which is very self-explanatory. It will hold one pistol magazine. 5.56, so standard STANAG magazine, your PMAGs, your steel mags, SCAR(16) mags, whatever it is that you're using. This will support two rows of MALICE clips, which is awesome. And then we also have the Double Pistol. Now it is important to note that we only sell the GAP version. They have another version of this pouch that actually pushes these both together much closer. That's a great product. The only downside is on some basepads and some magazines they're so kind of scrunched together that when you go to grab one, you're kind of grabbing both. So the GAP version solves some of that problem, especially if you have basepads and just makes things a little bit more ergonomic and just a little bit… a little bit nicer on the hands.
Mag Pouch Height (01:50):
So I wanna demonstrate for you guys the height of these particular mag pouches. I have a bunch of different magazines here. So a Glock 19 magazine, when one is fully seated, there will be a little bit off the top, not too bad. It is a little bit hard to grab, but if you're running a war belt or a battle belt with this pouch, why are you running Glock 19 mags? That's actually the question. I wanna be running larger magazines to give me more ammo, such as this Glock 17 magazine. Now I have a little bit more to grab (that's very, very nice). But really the best option out there is going to be an even more extendo mag that gives you even more to be able to grab and actually get a good hold on.
Makeshift Spacer Trick (02:30):
And there is a fun little trick you can… That I like to do when I have one of these and I am running like say Glock 17 mags, I don't have that nice little extension. And that is to take a bullet or even a rock, drop that in the bottom of the pouch, and that's basically gonna act as a spacer to give me a little bit more height on the mag pouch itself. Ammo is expensive though, so maybe use a rock instead. But I've, I've done that quite a bit when I'm running Glock 17 mags and it actually works really well. You can also use like a wood spacer, or something like that.
Pistol Mag Retention (03:01):
As far as these fitting with other magazines they will accommodate a wide variety of double stack magazines on the market. This is a Sig 320 extended and as you can see, that fits just fine. And the retention's a little bit looser because it is a steel body magazine compared to the polymer Glock magazines right there.
Rifle Mag Retention (03:21):
And then as far as the 5.56 pouches go, the retention on all these is… It's pretty tight. One thing you can do is actually remove the insert from the pouch and heat up the sides and actually open it up a little bit and make the retention a little bit less. I've done that on a few, but I have three different magazines right here. So PMAG, most common magazine really used nowadays. As you can see, it's pretty tight, but you could still retrieve the magazine fairly easily. Standard steel magazine, again, it's still pretty tight. If you go to loosen one of these though, your steel mags will typically be a little bit looser than the PMAGs. And then a 20 round magazine, if you're into that sort of thing (because retro). You have very little popping out of the top. So when it goes down to retrieving that is definitely going to be… It's going to be tricky. You can do the spacer trick and put something in the bottom if you are running twenties, but for the most part, most people are not doing that.
Removing the Kydex Insert (04:23):
As far as removing the Kydex insert, it's pretty simple. One side…the backside of the Kydex itself is actually adhering to the inside of the pouch with velcro. So once you have disengaged the velcro from the pouch, you're just gonna push up from the bottom to remove the insert. So now I have my little floppy Cordura pouch with velcro on the inside right here. And now I have my Kydex insert that I can now heat up on the sides, I can open it up a little bit. There's one piece of adhesive velcro here. So when it go… When it… When you go down to place it back into the pouch, you are gonna take the velcro side (loop side), make sure that aligns with the hook side and simply… And I like to pull the… Put my finger against the loop side, because I don't want this starting to stick as I'm inserting it into the pouch. You could also use like a piece of paper or cardboard, and I'm just gonna fanangle that as deep into the pouch as I can til it's flush with the top and then I'm gonna press it against the inside. And there we go.
And I've never had one of these shift, like I've never had the velcro peel away because velcro has to move… It would have to peel outwards in order for it to disengage. Velcro, when you push down on it and push across, it's not gonna go anywhere. So I've never had one of these get dislodged with use. So you really don't have to worry about that. But that's how you can remove the inserts, loosen them a little bit, put 'em back in. Get your desired retention. If that's something you wanna do, or you can just run the retention default based on what they ship it with. If you have any other questions about this product, go ahead and email us [email protected].