As more than a few of you INGO members, I read esrice’s review of the Under Armour Armourstretch cool weather gloves and thought, “I think I need to have me a pair of those.”
I drove to my local Dick’s Sporting Goods (Hamilton Town Center in Noblesville), made my way to the apparel section, and quickly found myself in a dilemma. Enroute to my target, my eye caught a slick-looking set of Seirus Hyperlite All-Weather gloves (shown here at the REI site).
With both the Under Armour Armourstretch and the Seirus Hyperlite gloves priced at about 30 bucks, there were decisions to be made. Go with the Under Armour gloves, already vetted and favorably reviewed by esrice? Or take a chance on an equally good-looking set of gloves by a well-respected cold-weather gear manufacturer? Do you date the captain of the cheerleading squad or ask out the girl on the swim team? You can’t take everyone home to meet mama.
I figured the first step should be to get a quick sense of feel. How do each set of gloves feel on my hands and how tacky are each against the grip of a Glock 19. Now, going temporarily open-carry and performing this assessment a scant 30 feet from the women’s jog bra section didn't seem to be a good move on my part. So I grabbed a pair of each and repaired to the privacy of the dressing room.
A Dick’s floor clerk, dutifully refolding a stack of Russell Athletic sweatshirts, gave me a suspicious look as I entered the dressing room carrying only two pair of gloves.
I shrugged. “I’m shy. Fat fingers.” I don't think this did anything to allay his suspicions. Note to self: make a big show on exiting the dressing room; catch the floor clerk’s eye; give a smile and wave gloves in each hand. “Two in! Two out!”
My first impressions were that the Seirus Hyperlites felt nice and snug on my hands, and the palm surface of the gloves felt sufficiently tacky against the grips of my holstered Glock. While the Under Armour gloves felt good too, the Seirus gloves seemed a little more meaty and the grip surfaces seemed to be more tacky in comparison.
I recalled esrice’s review comment that his UA gloves were... how’d it go? “They were extremely thin. I mean like ‘2 layers of pantyhose’ thin.” Now, I’ve had my hands in pantyhose before, but that’s not what this is about. I was here for shooting gloves.
The beefier Hyperlites made the cut. I paid and went home to prep my range bag for a New Year’s Eve run to Atterbury for a more thorough test, in a safe and Buzz-monitored environment.
That next day, it occurred to me that INGO folks might appreciate a gear report on these Seirus gloves, a thought that was closely followed by “one better, how about a comparison between esrice’s Under Armour gloves and these here Seirus gloves?”
I pinged esrice on the board and asked if I might borrow his Under Armour gloves for just this purpose. He was all for it.
We made arrangements for a hand-off, and I picked up esrice’s gloves on the way to meet indywiseguy, my brother Steve and his 7-year-old boy. This young’un would be going to the big-boy range for the first time, having honed his shooting skills on the Wii “Cabela’s Big Game Hunter” and on his Nerf Longstrike sniper rifle:
Also in our party was my buddy Jeff, co-author of the recently released “John Small of Vincennes: Gunsmith on the Western Frontier” (John Small of Vincennes: Gunsmith on the Western Frontier by Jim Dresslar & Jeff Jaeger). Trivia: William Clark owned a Small rifle and may have carried one on the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804.
Our own expedition rolled into Atterbury on the last day of 2010, with air temperatures in the 50s and more typical of late April than late December. I don’t think I’d ever seen the lanes at Atterbury more packed and it was great to see the range thriving. Big Eric found us two pistol lanes side-by-side, all the way at the south end. We set up. I pulled out my Seirus gloves and esrice’s Under Armours and started to compare.
Appearance and construction: Both gloves are black in color, with brand logos on the back. The logo on the Seirus glove is more subdued than the UA logo, making the Seirus gloves potentially more versatile for everyday casual wear. That is, appearing less like athletic gear, the Seirus gloves won’t make you look like the guy who goes out wearing running shoes with khakis and a sports coat. Apologies to you Woody Allens out there.
The UA gloves are shorter in length, reaching just past the wrist. The Seirus gloves are a bit longer, providing a little more coverage and can be pulled a quarter of the way up the forearm.
Takeaway: These observations are only cosmetic and don’t have any relevance to the gloves’ utility in a shooting environment.
Fit: The UA Armourstretch gloves fit snugly for me (with my shorter and fatter fingers) and were equally well-fitting for my brother Steve, who has more slender fingers. (Don’t tell him he has his mother’s hands; those fingers can still ball up into a construction-worker’s fist and put some hurt on.)
One size did not seem to fit all hand sizes equally with the Seirus gloves, however. While I found the Seirus gloves (size L) fit my fatter hands nice and snugly…
On my brother’s skinnier hands, the material was noticeably loose around his fingers:
Takeaway: Both gloves come in Small, Medium, Large, and XL. Both can fit snugly, but you’ll want to check for your sizes.
Thickness and insulation: With the unseasonably warm temperatures during our range visit, there wasn’t much opportunity to assess and the insulating properties of one glove compared to the other.
On this moderately cool day, both felt like they provided similar levels of warmth, with a slight advantage for the Seirus Hyperlites. The Seirus product information calls the glove’s material “Polartec® Weather Shield® tri-laminate fabric,” which is present on both the back and the palm of the glove, providing more complete insulation all the way around the hand.
Seirus inside out: fully insulated across palm and bottom of the fingers – not just on the back of the hand
We compared the Seirus all-around insulation to the UA Armourstretch, which has fleece lining only on the back of the hand, with the palm side uninsulated and constructed of the stretchy nylon fabric with the honeycomb sticky pattern, which more “efficiently wicks moisture” away.
Product information for both types of gloves state that they can be worn as glove liners in very cold weather, or as standalone gloves in cool weather.
Takeaway: The UA Armourstretch gloves contain less insulation, which gives you the benefit of a thinner glove with an accompanying increase in tactile sensitivity and dexterity. With the Seirus Hyperlite gloves, you’re getting better insulation over the entire surface of the hand, while retaining acceptable dexterity (discussed below).
Claims to being “weatherproof” and “water-resistant”: Both the Under Armour and the Seirus gloves make these claims on their package labeling. These claims seem overstated for both brands. I’m guessing the marketing jackals were trying something of a Jedi mind-trick: “If we put a word with ‘proof’ and a word with ‘water’ on the packaging, they’re going to think ‘waterproof’ and just start throwing money at us. C'mon, they shoot guns for fun. How smart can they be?”
I didn’t test this with the UA glove, but holding a Seirus-gloved hand under a gentle stream of water, I could feel wetness seeping through within just a few seconds. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.
Takeaway: If it’s more than a mist or light drizzle, you’re probably going to be packing up your gear to go anyway. Face it… you’re not on a SEAL team and you’re not doing riverine insertions. Your gloves only need to keep your hands so dry. For most weather conditions where you’re likely to be on the range, both these brands should keep your hands dry enough.
This is not you. (Well, it may be some of you. But for most of you… this is not you.)
Grippiness and Dexterity: The Under Armour's sticky gel honeycomb pattern on the entire palm and finger surface area offered sufficient tackiness to ensure good grip handling, trigger control, and magazine-loading dexterity.
On the Seirus Hyperlites, though the tacky grip surface does not cover all fingers. Regardless, we’d have to give the advantage here to Seirus. Its Durasoft™ synthetic leather padding on the index fingers, thumbs, and palms are ideal for trigger management and recoil control. These rubberized pads are stitched into the gloves’ surface, and provide more tackiness than does the honeycomb gripping surface on the UA gloves. Despite being slightly thicker, the Seirus gloves provide plenty of tactile sensitivity on the trigger, and dexterity does not suffer even for where fine motor movement is required, like when reloading magazines.
The fabric thinness was sufficient on both brand to avoid any kind of interference with the trigger or trigger guard when firing a Glock 19, a Sig P226, a Ruger LCP, or even a Walther P22.
One possible issue with the thinner Under Armour material (as pudly and jblomenberg16 had also noted) is that the thinner material of the UA gloves had a tendency to get pinched between cartridges and magazine lips when reloading mags, or on other sharp edges on or around the shooting bench. This snagging/pinching was not observed with the slightly thicker Seirus Hyperlite gloves.
That being said, we didn’t see any show-stopper problems when loading magazines with either the Seirus or the UA gloves.
Loading mags with the UA Armourstretch gloves: no problem
Reloading mags wearing the Seirus Hyperlites: no problem and no fabric snagging
Summary:
Neither the Under Armour Armourstretch glove nor the Seirus Hyperlite glove is going to give you the insulating capability of Inuit caribou-hide mittens, nor the ruggedness and durability of Mechanix Wear work gloves. And you don’t need that. Heavy insulation and long-lasting durability are traded off for the tactile sensitivity and manual dexterity necessary to shoot accurately and reload effectively, and to generally have your hands be comfortable in cool to moderately cold weather.
At a similar price around $30, either glove is a good choice for comfort and dexterity for cool-weather range activities. esrice and some of the reviewers in his review string have suggested both these gloves may be overpriced. If you’re feeling strongly about that, I’m seeing the Under Armour gloves on eBay for 50% to 60% of list price. I didn’t see the Seirus Hyperlite gloves at anything less than MSRP. But hey… it’s eBay – look again tomorrow.
All else being equal, the Under Armour gloves may be better for cool weather conditions where you desire maximum dexterity. (U.S. Patriot was in the area, wearing his new Armourstretch gloves and seemed to like them just find.)
The Seirus gloves, on the other hand, may be better for slightly colder conditions where you also want that extra grip from a tackier surface on the palm and trigger finger.
If it’s too cold out there for either of these gloves, you’ll just have to (a) stick your hands in your pockets between rounds, (b) risk the parking lots and ricochets at your local indoor range, or (c) pack it up and go take your wife out for dinner.
Finally:
All glove testing aside, here’s the best part of going to the range – or at least the best part on this particular Friday in December: seeing the wonder in a 7-year-old boy’s eyes as his dad and his uncle give him his first trip to the range.
Seeing the seriousness in the kid's face as he’s asked, “that gun on the bench there, with the slide back. Is that gun loaded?” “Ummmm, no, it’s…. Wait. YES! It’s loaded! They’re always loaded. Right?”
Seeing the sense of pride and accomplishment after he’s taken his very first shot with a real live pistol.
Steve and his boy.
Priceless.
I drove to my local Dick’s Sporting Goods (Hamilton Town Center in Noblesville), made my way to the apparel section, and quickly found myself in a dilemma. Enroute to my target, my eye caught a slick-looking set of Seirus Hyperlite All-Weather gloves (shown here at the REI site).
With both the Under Armour Armourstretch and the Seirus Hyperlite gloves priced at about 30 bucks, there were decisions to be made. Go with the Under Armour gloves, already vetted and favorably reviewed by esrice? Or take a chance on an equally good-looking set of gloves by a well-respected cold-weather gear manufacturer? Do you date the captain of the cheerleading squad or ask out the girl on the swim team? You can’t take everyone home to meet mama.
I figured the first step should be to get a quick sense of feel. How do each set of gloves feel on my hands and how tacky are each against the grip of a Glock 19. Now, going temporarily open-carry and performing this assessment a scant 30 feet from the women’s jog bra section didn't seem to be a good move on my part. So I grabbed a pair of each and repaired to the privacy of the dressing room.
A Dick’s floor clerk, dutifully refolding a stack of Russell Athletic sweatshirts, gave me a suspicious look as I entered the dressing room carrying only two pair of gloves.
I shrugged. “I’m shy. Fat fingers.” I don't think this did anything to allay his suspicions. Note to self: make a big show on exiting the dressing room; catch the floor clerk’s eye; give a smile and wave gloves in each hand. “Two in! Two out!”
My first impressions were that the Seirus Hyperlites felt nice and snug on my hands, and the palm surface of the gloves felt sufficiently tacky against the grips of my holstered Glock. While the Under Armour gloves felt good too, the Seirus gloves seemed a little more meaty and the grip surfaces seemed to be more tacky in comparison.
I recalled esrice’s review comment that his UA gloves were... how’d it go? “They were extremely thin. I mean like ‘2 layers of pantyhose’ thin.” Now, I’ve had my hands in pantyhose before, but that’s not what this is about. I was here for shooting gloves.
The beefier Hyperlites made the cut. I paid and went home to prep my range bag for a New Year’s Eve run to Atterbury for a more thorough test, in a safe and Buzz-monitored environment.
That next day, it occurred to me that INGO folks might appreciate a gear report on these Seirus gloves, a thought that was closely followed by “one better, how about a comparison between esrice’s Under Armour gloves and these here Seirus gloves?”
I pinged esrice on the board and asked if I might borrow his Under Armour gloves for just this purpose. He was all for it.
We made arrangements for a hand-off, and I picked up esrice’s gloves on the way to meet indywiseguy, my brother Steve and his 7-year-old boy. This young’un would be going to the big-boy range for the first time, having honed his shooting skills on the Wii “Cabela’s Big Game Hunter” and on his Nerf Longstrike sniper rifle:
Also in our party was my buddy Jeff, co-author of the recently released “John Small of Vincennes: Gunsmith on the Western Frontier” (John Small of Vincennes: Gunsmith on the Western Frontier by Jim Dresslar & Jeff Jaeger). Trivia: William Clark owned a Small rifle and may have carried one on the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804.
Our own expedition rolled into Atterbury on the last day of 2010, with air temperatures in the 50s and more typical of late April than late December. I don’t think I’d ever seen the lanes at Atterbury more packed and it was great to see the range thriving. Big Eric found us two pistol lanes side-by-side, all the way at the south end. We set up. I pulled out my Seirus gloves and esrice’s Under Armours and started to compare.
Appearance and construction: Both gloves are black in color, with brand logos on the back. The logo on the Seirus glove is more subdued than the UA logo, making the Seirus gloves potentially more versatile for everyday casual wear. That is, appearing less like athletic gear, the Seirus gloves won’t make you look like the guy who goes out wearing running shoes with khakis and a sports coat. Apologies to you Woody Allens out there.
The UA gloves are shorter in length, reaching just past the wrist. The Seirus gloves are a bit longer, providing a little more coverage and can be pulled a quarter of the way up the forearm.
Takeaway: These observations are only cosmetic and don’t have any relevance to the gloves’ utility in a shooting environment.
Fit: The UA Armourstretch gloves fit snugly for me (with my shorter and fatter fingers) and were equally well-fitting for my brother Steve, who has more slender fingers. (Don’t tell him he has his mother’s hands; those fingers can still ball up into a construction-worker’s fist and put some hurt on.)
One size did not seem to fit all hand sizes equally with the Seirus gloves, however. While I found the Seirus gloves (size L) fit my fatter hands nice and snugly…
On my brother’s skinnier hands, the material was noticeably loose around his fingers:
Takeaway: Both gloves come in Small, Medium, Large, and XL. Both can fit snugly, but you’ll want to check for your sizes.
Thickness and insulation: With the unseasonably warm temperatures during our range visit, there wasn’t much opportunity to assess and the insulating properties of one glove compared to the other.
On this moderately cool day, both felt like they provided similar levels of warmth, with a slight advantage for the Seirus Hyperlites. The Seirus product information calls the glove’s material “Polartec® Weather Shield® tri-laminate fabric,” which is present on both the back and the palm of the glove, providing more complete insulation all the way around the hand.
Seirus inside out: fully insulated across palm and bottom of the fingers – not just on the back of the hand
We compared the Seirus all-around insulation to the UA Armourstretch, which has fleece lining only on the back of the hand, with the palm side uninsulated and constructed of the stretchy nylon fabric with the honeycomb sticky pattern, which more “efficiently wicks moisture” away.
Product information for both types of gloves state that they can be worn as glove liners in very cold weather, or as standalone gloves in cool weather.
Takeaway: The UA Armourstretch gloves contain less insulation, which gives you the benefit of a thinner glove with an accompanying increase in tactile sensitivity and dexterity. With the Seirus Hyperlite gloves, you’re getting better insulation over the entire surface of the hand, while retaining acceptable dexterity (discussed below).
Claims to being “weatherproof” and “water-resistant”: Both the Under Armour and the Seirus gloves make these claims on their package labeling. These claims seem overstated for both brands. I’m guessing the marketing jackals were trying something of a Jedi mind-trick: “If we put a word with ‘proof’ and a word with ‘water’ on the packaging, they’re going to think ‘waterproof’ and just start throwing money at us. C'mon, they shoot guns for fun. How smart can they be?”
I didn’t test this with the UA glove, but holding a Seirus-gloved hand under a gentle stream of water, I could feel wetness seeping through within just a few seconds. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.
Takeaway: If it’s more than a mist or light drizzle, you’re probably going to be packing up your gear to go anyway. Face it… you’re not on a SEAL team and you’re not doing riverine insertions. Your gloves only need to keep your hands so dry. For most weather conditions where you’re likely to be on the range, both these brands should keep your hands dry enough.
This is not you. (Well, it may be some of you. But for most of you… this is not you.)
Grippiness and Dexterity: The Under Armour's sticky gel honeycomb pattern on the entire palm and finger surface area offered sufficient tackiness to ensure good grip handling, trigger control, and magazine-loading dexterity.
On the Seirus Hyperlites, though the tacky grip surface does not cover all fingers. Regardless, we’d have to give the advantage here to Seirus. Its Durasoft™ synthetic leather padding on the index fingers, thumbs, and palms are ideal for trigger management and recoil control. These rubberized pads are stitched into the gloves’ surface, and provide more tackiness than does the honeycomb gripping surface on the UA gloves. Despite being slightly thicker, the Seirus gloves provide plenty of tactile sensitivity on the trigger, and dexterity does not suffer even for where fine motor movement is required, like when reloading magazines.
The fabric thinness was sufficient on both brand to avoid any kind of interference with the trigger or trigger guard when firing a Glock 19, a Sig P226, a Ruger LCP, or even a Walther P22.
One possible issue with the thinner Under Armour material (as pudly and jblomenberg16 had also noted) is that the thinner material of the UA gloves had a tendency to get pinched between cartridges and magazine lips when reloading mags, or on other sharp edges on or around the shooting bench. This snagging/pinching was not observed with the slightly thicker Seirus Hyperlite gloves.
That being said, we didn’t see any show-stopper problems when loading magazines with either the Seirus or the UA gloves.
Loading mags with the UA Armourstretch gloves: no problem
Reloading mags wearing the Seirus Hyperlites: no problem and no fabric snagging
Summary:
Neither the Under Armour Armourstretch glove nor the Seirus Hyperlite glove is going to give you the insulating capability of Inuit caribou-hide mittens, nor the ruggedness and durability of Mechanix Wear work gloves. And you don’t need that. Heavy insulation and long-lasting durability are traded off for the tactile sensitivity and manual dexterity necessary to shoot accurately and reload effectively, and to generally have your hands be comfortable in cool to moderately cold weather.
At a similar price around $30, either glove is a good choice for comfort and dexterity for cool-weather range activities. esrice and some of the reviewers in his review string have suggested both these gloves may be overpriced. If you’re feeling strongly about that, I’m seeing the Under Armour gloves on eBay for 50% to 60% of list price. I didn’t see the Seirus Hyperlite gloves at anything less than MSRP. But hey… it’s eBay – look again tomorrow.
All else being equal, the Under Armour gloves may be better for cool weather conditions where you desire maximum dexterity. (U.S. Patriot was in the area, wearing his new Armourstretch gloves and seemed to like them just find.)
The Seirus gloves, on the other hand, may be better for slightly colder conditions where you also want that extra grip from a tackier surface on the palm and trigger finger.
If it’s too cold out there for either of these gloves, you’ll just have to (a) stick your hands in your pockets between rounds, (b) risk the parking lots and ricochets at your local indoor range, or (c) pack it up and go take your wife out for dinner.
Finally:
All glove testing aside, here’s the best part of going to the range – or at least the best part on this particular Friday in December: seeing the wonder in a 7-year-old boy’s eyes as his dad and his uncle give him his first trip to the range.
Seeing the seriousness in the kid's face as he’s asked, “that gun on the bench there, with the slide back. Is that gun loaded?” “Ummmm, no, it’s…. Wait. YES! It’s loaded! They’re always loaded. Right?”
Seeing the sense of pride and accomplishment after he’s taken his very first shot with a real live pistol.
Steve and his boy.
Priceless.
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