Wearing a helmet just isn’t practical for some games, As I often choose to play OpFor it also can look a little odd wearing a full maritime lid just for the benefits of the comms and NVGs that usually come attached. For the most part I’d rather play in a ball cap or beanie, but I do find the helmet a far better option than a skullcrusher or Crye Nightcap when using NVGs, hence why I have have a set of Peltor rail adaptors for my comms. They also add a degree of stability to the whole helmet, which when you’ve got a pound of PVS14 on the front of your head is a massive plus.

So… to attach the Peltor Comtacs to the rail adaptors, you must first remove them from the headband they come on. This is partially an irreparable conversion as the leather headband cover must be fully removed to allow the wiring to come away. I have since used a cheap Z-Tactical headband cover I had floating in a box of bits but it’s not a very good fit and it looks cheap and nasty on an otherwise sexy looking headset.

After looking into having a couple of patches made I contacted Andy at Tacbelts UK as I’d been following his work for quite some time and I’d seen firsthand his excellent stitching at Spartan Airsoft (Which is an awesome site and well worth a trip if your looking for somewhere to shoot in the south west) After sorting out the patches I remembered about the headbands I’d seen and promptly asked him to make one up in Ranger Green (Which happens to be my new favourite colour 😂)

Bear in mind that we started talking about patches and my lack of talent on paint.net in the late evening of Tuesday, I received the patches and headband (all of which was made to order and to my specification) on Thursday morning.

I don’t care what line of work your in, A custom designed and manufactured product from conception to my door in 36 hours is some going. I’m not here to brown nose or big people up for doing what I’ve paid them to do but I’ve had similar work done by other businesses and I’ve happily waited 2 weeks.

Now you might think that’s due to the business maybe not having a lot of orders but everytime I look on his IG feed there’s yet more orders being shipped out and customers commenting on how happy they are with the final product.

So, onto the headband…

It’s a relatively simple product… it covers a metal band and a length of insulated wire and has a strip of Velcro along one edge to allow it to be opened and closed as you wish to change your comms set up. What it also has is a padded mesh back which is low profile enough to not cause it to be in the way, yet comfortable enough you can wear it for long periods.

I opted to have a Velcro strip along the top along with a d ring on one end, this allows the headset to be stuck on a grim lock or carabiner when not in use and the Velcro allows the usage of glint tape or even a small ID light such as a V-Lite.

The stitching is superb, not a single frayed end, no poorly cut material and the design is thought out well for the intended application. Once installed on the headband it allows plenty of room for the cabling to be doubled up over the top for non-comms usage such as range work with real steel or when your clearing rooms with pyrotechnics but want your hearing to remain better than a visit to a Metallica gig.

In use I didn’t notice any bunching up or movement of the band, it stayed put and was very comfortable to wear… even on my giant head and over a ball cap.

The colour is always a key thing for me… we naturally pick up quickly on colours and it can be a massive indicator of quality… I have a number of Ranger Green items and although it’s a bit of a subjective colour with a few manufacturers offering RG but often it’s too dark or not quite grey enough, I’d say Ferro and Haley have nailed it with Ranger Green… Tacbelts Ranger Green fabric is a spot on match for the Haley colour. Which is good because the patches and headband are likely to be paired up with my D3CR more often than not.

The little details are what matters when your looking at custom kit your going to be putting up next to the likes of Crye Precision and Haley Strategic and to find corners cut can leave a bitter taste in your mouth as the end user… luckily I found no such thing with the headband, even the D-Ring is a genuine IWT item when in all honesty I wasn’t even thinking about the minor details when I ordered it.

All in all another great purchase…

Note: I’m conscious that I’m giving you guys some very positive reviews without much negativity, Don’t confuse this with over excitement and a willingness to please those manufacturers, I just don’t feel compelled to write reviews on items I don’t like,

I will point out things I feel need improvement as and when I see them and I’ll always review as impartially as possible. More reviews coming soon!