Duty Belt overload

[GunnyGene]

This is mostly for police officers, but can also apply to anyone who straps on more stuff than just a gun and a mag pouch. There's gotta be a better way than having 20+ lbs of junk around your hips.

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog...belts-vests-and-real-load-management-44826841

Excerpt:

A duty belt that started as a holster, two mag pouches, a set of cuffs, and a radio eventually becomes a holster, two mag pouches, three sets of cuffs, a radio, a Taser, a second radio, an IFAK tourniquet pouch, a flashlight, a body camera controller, a pepper spray canister, a glove pouch, and a keyholder. Every one of those additions had a reason. The cumulative result is a system that weighs 20 to 30 pounds, sits entirely on the officer's hips and lower back, and is worn for 8 to 12 hours at a stretch.

The weight itself is only part of the problem. The distribution is the other part. When gear is concentrated on one side—and holsters mean it almost always is, to some degree—the asymmetric load creates a pattern of wear on joints and soft tissue that is small and ignorable in year one and genuinely limiting by year ten.

 

[bobski]

ahhh batman utility belts.
memories.
we use to make custom belts and pouches in the teams for operators. the air ops guys were always busy, until the demand was too high. along came blackhawk inds.
my buddy frank krick began the business out of his garage, then made the mistake of partnering with a dude from 6 who was cash rich. he did a hostile takeover to frank...forcing him to sell his half....and then he expanded into the multi million dollar business it is today.
its why i wont buy anything from them. greed was and still is not cool.

 

[badguybuster]

Its not as bad as it seems. Most of the weight is over your pelvic girdle so is pretty well dispersed. Now, many cops are running chest rigs over their plate carriers adding even more weight....no thanks

 

[Mobuck]

Just one more reason I'm not nor could ever be a LEO. Not enough 'waist space' for all that.

 

[Yaworski]

Long ago I met a cop who had suspenders on his duty belt, like Alice suspenders. Made lots of sense to me.

I'd think that patrol cops would be best served by a vest.

When my kids were little, "photographer's vests" were popular. I used one as a wearable diaper bag. Bottles fit into the lens pockets, there was a pocket in the back that held a changing pad, a couple diapers fit into one of the big pockets. Other pockets held snacks, meds, plugs, etc. I hardly noticed the weight. I was the envy of the other dads who were stuck toting a big ol' diaper bag.

 

[Uncle Howie]

Long ago I met a cop who had suspenders on his duty belt, like Alice suspenders. Made lots of sense to me.

I'd think that patrol cops would be best served by a vest.

Good article, linked above. I got into reading it, then realized that I’m retired, and would rather read about Rugers!

I figured out suspenders about year 25 (of 27). Wish I’d had them years earlier!

By the time I retired, my duty belt was about 20 pounds. We had the option of external vest carriers w/Molle system, but were forbidden from hanging virtually anything on them, except our Body Worn Camera (BWC). What a waste!

I’m bigger than I should be, around the middle. My waist is bigger than my hips.

If I had my belt up around my waist (where it belonged), it tended to creep down throughout the shift. Running was a SURE bet to get the belt down, in a hurry. At that point, I darned near needed one hand on my belt, to keep it from going further down.

I could cinch my belt tight around my hips and it would more or less stay put, but was giving me nerve damage. It also looked terrible, accentuating my shape in all the wrong places!

There are numerous duty belt suspenders out there. I used a brand called “Back Defender.”

I set them up so they were slightly slack when my belt was around my waist. As soon as the belt started to slide down, the suspenders prevented further slippage.

It’s MUCH easier to hike your belt up and quickly re-tuck from a couple inches down, than from six inches down!

Losing weight helped, though it wasn’t a panacea. More like, “part of a system.”

 

[s4s4u]

Not much different than a carpenter's tool belt. Suspenders help...a lot

 

[protoolman]

Yep us more modern cops learned a lesson from the real old day cops. They has the gun belts with the cross strap. Maybe the mounties still use those? I always worked smaller depts so never had to carry tazers etc. in fact my radio was usually just in my jacket pocket. No cameras in those days either.

 

[redhawker]

Not only cops. I was an Animal Control Officer, and we were part of the PD where I worked. I wore a standard Sam Browne and had the following equipment on it (from right of the buckle around to just left of the buckle). OC Spray, a shotgun shell pouch carrying three leashes, a mag pouch with a lockback knife inside, another mag pouch with a Letherman Multitool (original model), a shotgun shell pouch with rubber gloves, handcuff case with handcuffs (although very rarely used, we did have arrest powers), Another handcuff case with more leashes, an ASP (we utilized it mostly as a "bite stick"), a small AA maglight flashlight in a belt pouch, a pouch for a pager (later replaced with a pouch for a cell phone). I hear, since I retired, they've also added a Taser to the belt.

 

[Dan in MI]

I immediately thought about suspenders just as carpenters have gone to them, but wondered how they could be used against you in a fight.

That brought up the question are they tucked behind something, or otherwise restrained, from being a great bad guy grip?

 

[GunnyGene]

I immediately thought about suspenders just as carpenters have gone to them, but wondered how they could be used against you in a fight.

That brought up the question are they tucked behind something, or otherwise restrained, from being a great bad guy grip?

Good question. Back in the day (VN '65 -'66) I wore issued suspenders as part of the standard web gear. A canteen or 2, bayonet (M-14), med pouch, Kbar, 1911 & ammo, etc. Basically the same gear as WWII & Korea. Had no intention of getting close enough for wrasslin' match. But that's a different world than domestic policing.

 

[blume357]

Back when I was younger and we had the mountain house I got an Alice 'vest' and put all the stuff I thought I might need while walking the critter trails along the ridge.... Now I have all that on the speed vest I ordered to be able to steady that 500mm lens I bought last year and have yet to really use.

 

[gunzo]

Suspenders solve lot of waistline problems. From old fat guys like me to cops, operators or even carpenters with loads of gear on their belts.

 

[DGW1949]

I personally think that cops carry way too much stuff these days.....Back when I was a Texas Peace Officer, my duty belt was a 2-1/4" "river belt" and it carried nothing except my (holstered) side arm and a double mag pouch. I also carried 2 pair of hand cuffs but they hung off of the same two (rear) belt retainers that attached my duty belt to my pants belt....The few times that I carried a hand held radio, it stayed in my non-gun hand unless I stuck it into my back pocket. Other than that, it lived on my car seat. Most of the time, there was really no one for me to call anyway, so I seldom bothered with it.....I doubt that my entire rig could have possibly weighed more than about 9 pounds.....Nope, no 20-30 pound rigs for me.

DGW

 

[hedrok]

Hitching up a belt tight to carry the load helps…temporarily…then creates lots of back problems for the long term.
Coveralls REALLY help solve the problem as we age. I wish I’d started wearing them long ago.

 

[Ethang]

They just keep adding more equipment too...most of us old cops have back and hip issues from it. I refused to wear the heavy PR24 they tried to give us..now it's tasers, multiple handcuffs, 3 magazines, flashlights, tourniquet, med kit, duty phone, radio....it just keeps going on and on...

 

[DGW1949]

They just keep adding more equipment too...most of us old cops have back and hip issues from it. I refused to wear the heavy PR24 they tried to give us..now it's tasers, multiple handcuffs, 3 magazines, flashlights, tourniquet, med kit, duty phone, radio....it just keeps going on and on...

I hear ya...No night stick or flashlight for me either. PR24's and Tasers weren't a thing back then, and the first aid kit stayed in the trunk of the car. Cell phones and body cams hadn't been invented yet, and if I had a vest it mostly rode in the trunk too......I don't see how a cop could do very much while wearing all of that crap. But like I've said on here before, I didn't write tickets and seldom had to work traffic. Catching crooks, serving warrants, and tracking down criminals was more my thing, so I didn't have much use for a lot of the equipment this new breed of "policeman" carries on their person.

DGW