Sorry to bother you all but i'm in a bit of a pickle.

Other than torso armour, hopefully by the time the London Expo in October comes around I should have all of the basics of a marine outfit gathered together. As a stop gap I was thinking of using a flak vest to give a look similar to Drake.

I know that the screen accurate flak vest is an M69 but even if I knew where to get hold of one I doubt I could ever bring myself to cut it up or sew patches onto it.

I did find this... http://www.sofmilitary.co.uk/m69-flak-v ... duct,14098

But from what I can gather, people don't rate the company very highly and i'm unsure what to do.

I haven't really got a clue what alternatives to look for and I could do with a few recomendations and pointing in the right direction. ( Preferably to reasonably cheap items with links where I can get them from. )

Cheers in advance.

Just PM'd you

The SoF vest is shite, their customer service is equally pathetic.

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AKA: Simon

Hi there I will be going to this drop as well so you are more than welcome to use my flack jacket for this drop as I will be wearing my armour. If this is something that you are interested in PM.

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CPL
AJ "Gunner" Martin
A06/TQ0.0.42145E1




"I'm ready, man check it out. I am the ultimate badass! state of the badass art! You do not want to frak with me."

Aha- Evilbay is your best bet for scoring one at a reasonable price.

US M69s were 'appropriated' by both the Israelis and the UK during the 1970s- The UK ones have big rubber pads for the rifle buttplate to catch on which can be removed with ease.
Generally the UK and Israeli 'Flak Jacket' or 'Flak Vest' (search terms!) come in a good deal cheaper than the M69 as they don't have the 'cachet' of being Vietnam issue.

Also of note is that M69s come up large- and get a bit baggier with age and use- so my quite battered Medium fits my very-definately-Large 43" chest. That's with the nylon filler still in- remove the filler and they get bigger again.

SOF have a bad history of 'creatively mislabelling' repro kit as original, selling heavily soiled/damaged gear at Grade 1 Unused type prices and generally being a bit airy-fairy on delivery times- their chinese made repro Vietnam gear used to be horribly made and horribly expensive: it's now much better made but still horribly expensive compared to original issue.....

But sometimes- and I hang my head in shame at the thought- they are the only place you can get something at short notice. And then my wallet goes to hide under the sofa

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2nd Lt Jon "Jaylo" Lopez
A11/TQ1.0.72144E1
USCM Quality Assurance Division- Aerospace and Space Products- Earth
"Checklists Save Lives- No Service Stations at 30,000ft"

Thanks for the replys.

I had a feeling you were all going to confirm what I'd suspected about SoF. I liked the idea behind SoF as it meant that other than sorting out patches I didn't have to bugger about replacing balistic plates or adding padding.

@Gunner2163... Many thanks for the offer. Much appreciated. But to tell the truth I prefer to have my own stuff. That way, if anything were to happen to it it's only me that suffers. It looks like Osmotic might be able to help me out anyway. Depending on the size of it, he might have something I can utilise.

@demoncase... Thanks for the info. That's a nice bit of flak vest trivia.

that's cool Tasker hope that you get lucky and if you do get truly stuck just drop me a line

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CPL
AJ "Gunner" Martin
A06/TQ0.0.42145E1




"I'm ready, man check it out. I am the ultimate badass! state of the badass art! You do not want to frak with me."

A loverly Israeli M69 shell turned up from Osmotic today.

So i'm all sorted and more than a bit chuffed.

(Edited because I'm crap and didn't spell Israeli right. )

Glad I could help.

Now get those patches on and post some pictures!

Love to... But You've just made me realise I haven't ordered any patches for it yet. Arrrgghhhhhh!