UpSideDown
WKR
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2020
- Messages
- 537
I don't want what I was saying to be taken as saying that the M7 gear isn't well made, but rather that it seems like a unique solution with early execution that my application doesn't need at this time.
***This is a preliminary review, and I'm tired so forgive me if this is jumbled. I'm leaving for elk season but I wanted to get this out since I'm here. I am biased in my experience, I have not field tested these, and everything I have written should be taken with a degree of leniency***
The M7 gear seems well made but I think it would benefit greatly from a revision. A quick synopsis; this is snow gear meant to be used almost the entire time you're on your hunt, and is not intended for frequent changing of layers.
Material type: Consider first that there are I think three overarching groups of fabrics: stretch fabric (wool, poly midlayers, most pants, even cotton shirts, etc), there is non-stretch fabric (rain shells), and there is lined non-stretch fabric (rain shells with poly fleece). Rain shells slide on your primary gear no problem, but lined non-stretch gear tends to be kind of grabby against the layer underneath it, which gives a feeling of reduced movement, which then comes into choosing proper sizing. Like when you put a poly midlayer over a wool baselayer, how it doesn't just slide over the midlayer but kind of tugs at it and you have to tweak it into place with some final adjustments, that's how this fabric feels because that's exactly what the inner lining is.
I am 6'1" and wear Large (sometimes Medium) shirts, and 34-34 pants. The M7 gear is lined non-stretch fabric - it has roughly no stretch, just a tiny bit. It is warm, but not terribly warm. The cuts are actually pretty workable with different sizes, and I found that I could wear both a Medium or Large jacket, and a Medium, Medium Tall, or Medium-Large pant pretty well. I found that when it came to sizing, if the M7 pants were up to 1" shorter than my inseam it was ok, but in general it was just fine to go with the super long 36.5" inseam of their Tall models because the extra length kind of just disappeared on me. Sizing the jacket was important to getting a puffy on underneath; a Medium actually fit well with a puffy on (plus baselayer and midlayer), but a little snug in the arms, but the problem was it was really a slow process to get the M7 on over a puffy because the fleece lining is a little bit grabby. The Large M7 would be great and easy. Sizing the pants is more important in my opinion: the smaller size fit me well and was quieter because it didn't have a bunch of loose fabric on the legs that slid against each other as I walked. The actual Medium-Large size that their size sheet says to wear for my body felt baggy, like I had a diaper on, and with the legs too baggy. This is with their waist system adjusted.
Notes:
- The material is loud; not super loud, but I wouldn't rifle hunt in these on a dry day. This gear is at home in snow where no matter what you're wearing, you're making noise when you step.
- The pockets are almost unusable. The high chest pockets can't fit much. The low chest pockets are ok. The upper pants pockets are covered over by the draping of the jacket, and the lower pants pockets are ok. The biggest problem with all the pockets is the lack of any bellowing; these are non-stretch fabrics, and the pockets are the flat outer shell of the garment, so the only place for something to go in them is to press against you and push the garment away from your body.
- The hood was ok, I wish it had a flexible or semi-rigid element to prop the crown edge up.
- The sleeves are long but I found that on the Medium jacket they were just fine; on the Large jacket they felt a little awkward but were fine with the cuffs adjusted. If you're actually wearing this gear all day, the cuffs are a non-issue.
- The pant waistband is sweet, you don't need a belt and it's adjustable for waist size changes (weight changes between seasons, different layers, etc.)
- SG informed me that this gear isn't really intended to be rain gear, though it may work well in that application. They said that it is tough to get a good seam seal over the fleece lining fabric. The two tech guys I spoke with were very open about what this gear is, and is not, and were very honest about things and nudged me against buying it for my use case hunting in Oregon.
Overall this gear seems to fill a very niche use case of snow use. This is not rain gear, this is not gear you change layers with frequently. This is cold, cold, snow weather gear that provides a better shell for snow use than a rain jacket or softshell can, with insulation and the ability to dump a lot of heat through generous leg and pit zips.
