(00:00):
So our Speed Belt is like many other two-piece belts on the market. You have an inner belt that's woven through the pants (loops on your pants) and then you have the outer belt that's actually going to have all of your MOLLE pouches, mag pouches, your holster and everything else on it. But there are a couple things that we've done a little bit differently with our take on the two-piece belt, and we're gonna be talking about that and also showing you guys how to set one of these up.
(00:23):
The first major difference—well, not a major difference, but it can be a pretty big difference—with our belt is the inner belt that it comes with. When we were designing the belt and buying and looking at all the different inner belts on the market, we found that a lot of the inner belts either came in a extremely rigid form, which is great for suspending a lot of weight off of that. You know, you put the outer belt on, it's got a bunch of mag pouches and a bunch of other stuff, and that can be really nice. The downside to one of these inner belts that's super rigid is it starts to cut into your body, especially if you have a little more flab (potentially) that's rolling over into it. And so it's just not as comfortable long term. So then other companies out there make inner belts that are a little more flimsy, and the problem with those are, they're really comfortable to wear, but once you're actually dropping your outer belt on top with four pistol mags, a rifle mag, a med kit, your… Your 2011 pistol with a red dot and an X300 it's three pounds, a little brick, that doesn't hold up to that weight very well either. So we wanted a belt that was somewhere in the middle that could hold up the weight of all that equipment well, but also is comfortable enough that you can wear it all day as an EDC belt if that's something that you wanna do.
(01:37):
And the way we did that is we don't have… We have a very slim stiffener on the inside. We have a hypalon (the H.A.N.K. material) on the inside, so that's what's gonna be rubbing against your pants. That prevents the entire belt from sliding around, which was another problem we found with other inner belts out there. And then we have the velcro loop on the outside that you'll be sticking the belt to itself. In the center, We don't have a G-hook, we don't have a crazy buckle. We just have this simple little plastic tri-glide and you're going to route one end through, and then that is literally going to drop back onto itself and that's how you put the belt on and adjust the tightness of the belt itself. Now, we don't recommend that you wear this belt as a pistol belt—a carry belt—carrying a handgun off of it.
(02:25):
Now I've been wearing this belt now for about a year and a half and carrying my Sidecar with a Glock 19 (TLR-7 extra mag, all that good stuff) and it's been just fine. If you wanna wear one of these for that, we do recommend and—I suggest you play with this—actually routing the inner belt itself through the tri-glide twice. That will help prevent it from loosening if you're, you know, doing crazy activities. So the way we're gonna do that is go through the side where the one end is hard sewn into the tri-glide and then we're going to send this back through the other side, and that's going to make it a little bit harder for the belt to become undone on you. Now the downside is it's also harder to adjust quickly on the fly, but that is something you could do for a little bit of added security if you are interested in using this belt for actually carrying a handgun or other stuff. But it is a very comfortable EDC belt whether you are carrying a handgun or not. So that's our take on the inner belt. Let's talk about the outer.
(03:25):
So the outer belt itself is very similar to other ones on the market. It has a stiffened material on the inside so it can hold up to all that weight and not collapse and start to peel away from your body. But we don't have external MOLLE on the outside—two little thin pieces or laser cut, you know—as a lot of other companies are doing. And there's a couple reasons for that. I've found over the last, you know, few years of using some of those belts and trying to take some of these MOLLE pouches and throw them on there, that a 1.75"—you know, two-piece competition style, tactical, you know, pistol belt—doesn't generally allow you to actually weave MOLLE correctly because it's only 1.75" wide. In order to actually weave the MOLLE correctly, where you go in one, go back through the pouch, come back through, go through again, go back into the pouch you really need a belt that's a little bit wider.
(04:13):
So what we did instead is we sewed our MOLLE pass-throughs (is what we're calling them) on the backside of the belt. Now this has a few advantages. The first is when you actually do weave a pouch to this belt—instead of the pouch hanging off of the external MOLLE and potentially tipping forward—the entire weight of the pouch is actually sitting on top of the belt itself. It's sitting on top of this stiffened material. And that's pretty cool. But the other thing is when you're actually using MALICE clips and a few of the other sort of plastic MOLLE loops out there it actually fits a whole lot better going on the inside. There's a little bit more play, and then you have some of the rigidity of the belt that's having to close around and that just gives it a much better fit to the belt itself instead of going through really tightly sewn MOLLE, which may not actually do that.
(05:00):
So we've got the MOLLE on the inside of the belt that you can hang stuff off of. The other nice thing is if you are using MALICE clips or just like (you know) various loops from different pouches after you weave through those, it's not interfering with the velcro loop or hook that is actually attached to your body. So you don't have to worry about putting little adhesive strips on everything. You're good to go and you're just fine.
(05:21):
We do have there's an interesting part of the construction this belt that does make this pretty different than others. This is a Cordura sleeve that is put on top of our stiffen material. What this means is it's IR reducing, it has all the lovely properties that Cordura has. It does mean however, that this belt cannot be weight rated. And we've done a lot of research into that, like what are weight ratings, fall arrest, actual like repelling. Do any of these certifications actually exist? And they actually don't really exist. There's one that the military has done for some belts and then there's a place in France that does some regulation. And if you want your belts to be properly certified and like checked on every… I can't remember how many months they do, it's like on a rotating schedule. All seams have to be exposed and visible. And since this is a sleeve design where we have a Cordura sleeve that is sewn with all this, you know, seams, there's a bunch on the inside of the belt that means this can't get repel rated. But that wasn't the intent or the goal with this belt to begin with. There's other belts that if you really want to go that route are a better idea or a better option. So just wanna be up front with everyone that we're not trying to say that, "Hey, you should repel out of a building on this belt."
(06:35):
What we've done for the buckle. Obviously there's a couple options out there. The Cobra buckle… The Raptor buckle. We went with the Raptor buckle because: 1. it's made in America and, 2. It is actually slim enough that the male end of the buckle (we'll show this here in a little bit) can actually be threaded through a safariland UBL and some of the other belt-worn attachments. The problem with the Cobra buckle is it's so fat that you generally have to take the male end off, thread the whole thing through, then find the male end somewhere—I've lost it a couple times—and then thread that back on. But because this buckle is nice and thin and has a very nice profile. It can stay attached to the belt at all times and you guys don't have to worry about losing it. Once all that's threaded on, we have a little keeper here out of one-wrap that you can use to, you know, retain all the excess of the material and you can also loosen the belt very quickly on the fly. Again, just like a lot of other belts out there.
(07:29):
One of the main things about the belt that I really wanted was a belt that was slim enough that could fit TEK-LOKs and other similar attachments easily. A problem that I've had with some of the other belts on the market that have the external MOLLE on the outside, plus the loop velcro on the inside is they start to get so fat that the TEK-LOK itself can't actually fasten shut over the belt.
(07:50):
So we wanted a belt that was slim enough, gave you that MOLLE capability—and potentially in a better way, in my opinion—but also allows you to still use those mag pouches if you're more interested in using those (Because you're constantly modifying your belt) over a standard MOLLE pouch. So that was a pretty big thing that we were looking for. Works really well. I do recommend if you are using the TEK-LOK on this belt, go ahead and cut yourself a small piece of adhesive loop or hook velcro so that you can continue that velcro hook on the inside of your belt so everything is nice and adhered to the body, but let's actually build one of these suckers out and see what it looks like with a bunch of stuff on it.
(08:36):
So we've got all the other pouches on this belt ready to go. The last thing is putting the Safariland UBL with QLS and thigh strap onto the belt. Like I said earlier, you do not have to remove the Raptor buckle to do this and you can't in the current configuration of the belt because we sewed these little… This little piece of H.A.N.K. At the end of the webbing so that the buckle won't actually come off. So unless you snip this off or you know, do something to it, that buckle is not coming off of the belt, which is great. It's just a problem when you try to forcefully remove the buckle and it doesn't go anywhere. So there's a couple things… A couple ways of doing this. The first is you can just force the entire buckle like this through the… Through the belt slot of the belt. What I prefer to do is to take the length of the webbing that is currently not being used by the buckle and I'm actually going to weave that first. What this does is this eliminates basically one layer that you're trying to force through the actual belt slot and it gives you something to actually pull on when you're finagling the buckle through the loop
(09:39):
And you are gonna have to like push it a little bit, but as you could see we're in! Not a problem. Then I take the excess material once again, that goes first, that goes a ahead of the buckle and then I pull… I finagle the buckle and then I can pull and push. And the buckles through. Just fine. We're gonna remove the one-wrap on this side, which we will use to keep the excess of the webbing contained. And then the UBL just threads right on,
(10:23):
At this point you can position the UBL wherever you want on the belt. This is a 1.75" belt. This is the UBL with the 2" slots. I would love it if they made a UBL in 1.75" so it could fit a little cleaner. But I haven't really had an issue with this slot. Once the belt is actually on the pants and I believe most people haven't cuz all these belts are 1.75" and all these UBLs are 2" Or 2 and 1/4". So we're gonna position that roughly where we want it, which is gonna be close to the MED-1. I'm going to reattach the one-wrap to the end here nice and tight. And then I usually have to size this on the fly based on like what I'm wearing but my excess material—and usually I open this up for that—can go inside and there we go. We are ready to put the belt on.
(11:13):
So just as a review, this is a great example of how various pouches can go on the Speed Belt. We have the MED-1, which is just your standard belt slots that are sewn into the pouch. There's a lot of pouches that have this. The Spiritus have a belt run through on the inside, the Crye Smart pouches also have that and there's a bunch of other ones out there. Just slides right on. In this case, the MED-1 has a 2", 2 1/2" inch slot for the Orion or the smaller slot, 1.75" slot For something like the Speed Belt. Fits really nice, really tight, really snug. This pouch right here, I think this is an Eagle pouch. It has traditional sewn MOLLE straps into it. Sometimes traditionally woven MOLLE can be really loose.
(11:55):
Some of them have stiffeners and then they kind of act like a MALICE clip. Those are my favorite. But in this case, this is one of the looser kinds. Works great when you're actually putting it on kit and you can weave through a ton of MOLLE when you go to put it on a belt, it's usually not quite as good. So what I try to do is I try to tape off some of the excess and try to keep it really nice and tight to the belt itself. And then I obviously buckled—cuz this one in particular uses snaps to actually fasten the MOLLE together. You could also tape over that again cuz sometimes the snaps like to peel away. So it's definitely something to think about. But how I have this pouch attached is very snug and the velcro is… It's not covering up any of the velcro, so I'm gonna be able to put it on my inner belt just fine.
(12:36):
Moving down to the ESSTACs, these have the MALICE clips. This is the new version which they've had for a little bit. Now I don't like them as much as the old version that were square. It could fit a little bit tighter. But you could see the MALICE clips are weaving underneath the MOLLE slots on the back of the belts. They're going back into the MOLLE like they should. And then they're interfacing with the little locking mechanism that the MALICE clips have. And those are nice and sturdy as well. They would be a little bit… a little bit of a tighter fit if it was the older style of MALICE clip out there. But those don't exist anymore unless you find them used or already have them. So these are good to go. So those are kind of some of the different styles of MOLLE and how they work with the Speed Belt itself. Now let's check out my preferred way of using a Speed Belt, which is with MARS carriers and something a little bit more speedy.
(13:34):
So this is typically the configuration that I'm wearing a lot for training. I have my MARS carriers that I can very easily position on the belt. I can add extra pistol mags. I can swap one of the pistol mags out, I can add a 5.56 MARS carrier or I can add a 7.62 ITW fast mag if I'm doing a lot of DMR stuff. It's just really easy to modify on the fly. I'm not having to weave a bunch of MOLLE stuff. I can have a dump pouch such as our dump pouch right here. Pretty small when it's all contained, or I can obviously be —you know—putting staplers and Reign and you know, other things inside. And then I've got a tourniquet—cuz that's a good thing to have if at a minimum—as far as the medical stuff goes, if you're on the range.
(14:12):
And then of course I've got the UBL-QLS set up right there. So as far as like a competition belt, the the Speed Belt itself works really well if you are interchanging, you know, I've used it for three-gun. If you're like, "Oh, I've gotta have shotgun caddies, you know, drop that on with a TEK-LOK… Okay, I need more rifle mags or I need more pistol mags," depending on what the stage is. It's not like a Safariland ELS that has a bunch of proprietary stuff going on with it. But as long as you have the TEK-LOK or something similar that opens and closes and can fit on a 1 and 3/4" size width, it'll work on the Speed Belt. And if you have any questions as far as availability or compatibility goes on other products out there, not like the TEK-LOK with this belt, you can always email us at [email protected].
(14:54):
But that's not the end of the video. Let's go ahead and show how putting these belts… How it works, putting these belts on and adjusting them on the fly. So I've already got the inner belt on because that is what I wear every day all the time. I've got the Sidecar just gonna pop the two clips. Sidecar comes off, I keep the triglide in the center, both belt clips are going on either side. Now I need to tighten the belt down just because I did have a little bit looser to fit the Sidecar. So I'm simply just gonna pull that over to about as tight as I want. See how easy and simple that is. And then I take my belt… Because now I'm at the range or doing whatever, and I literally, first thing I do is I always put it on from the holster side to ensure that it is at the right location for that good holster draw that's consistent. Pull it nice and tight. And normally what I do, you don't want to try to… you can try to tighten it down with the buckle already engaged, I'll sometimes unbuckle it tighten a little bit more. Buckle and then I can thread the excess through the loop here. Or if you wanna just be lazy, you can just wrap it back around and that's not gonna come loose on you.
(16:06):
So now I've got the belt. Got the holster ready to go. I can do thigh strap if I want or not. And I've got all my MARS carriers ready to go. Dump pouch. Tourniquet. Super fast using the same belt that I carry with every day. So that's a Speed Belt in sort of a minimalist configuration. This guy right here, let's check it out in the operator configuration. Remove this inner belt. Once again, starting with the holster side. Holster gets positioned where it should be and you wanna ensure that you're… Especially when you have like a bunch of pouches, you want to actually make sure it's hitting the inner belt. So I wanna take a little more care. And this is a medium… And in this case what I could do, you could see the buckles off. It's not like center. I don't have a problem with that. It means I have a little bit more space here if I want to run extra magazines. But all I would have to do is shift the UBL back and everything's gonna get shifted around. What you might wanna do, if you want your 5.56 pouch to be exactly, you know, at three o'clock, or in this case I guess it's nine o'clock. Or if you want to get it positioned back a little bit further. Thigh strap can be used.
(17:32):
And there we go. Got a MED-1 ready to go. A GP pouch for whatever I might want to put in there… A range finder or whatever. A 5.56 pouch, two 9 mil. pouches. And that's kinda more or less what it looks like now an even longer discussion is when to choose a two-piece belt versus a more traditional outer belt like the Orion or like the Crye MRB or something like that. Which belt to choose and for what! And a lot of that depends on, you know, what kind of location you're in, weather… Clothing… How much equipment you wanna carry. I don't necessarily, and we don't necessarily, recommend that you use the Speed Belt for carrying a full combat load and having a giant butt pack on the back, like double stacked 5.56 mags and putting a ton of weight on this belt.
(18:21):
This is a more minimalist belt. It does obviously have the—you know—Tigris type material on the inside so that it can withstand the weight of something like this. You know (rifle mag, two pistol mags, whatever goes in here: Your medical and your handgun) just fine. But if you're looking for a belt to absolutely just deck out with a ton of ammunition or you're running some crazy Barrett 50 mags or something you might want to get something different. But for most folks out there, this belt is gonna work great for just the essentials that you want to carry on your hips while keeping everything else on your torso. And so it should work pretty well for a lot of you. But if you have any other questions about this belt, pouch compatibility, or you know, some of the attachments that are used to attach pouches, go ahead and email us at [email protected].