In the absence of ALICE clips, whatever the reason, you may find yourself trying to find a lightweight and reliable way to secure your pouches. Well, I have just the technique for you, my friends. It is just going to require about 20in. of 550 cord per pouch, a lighter, and electrical/duct tape.
Before you get started, make sure you measure out the length of cordage correctly and be sure to burn the ends of the 550 cord and make sure they will thread through the eyelets with ease.
First step is to run the 550 cord evenly through the top eyelets of the belt where you want your pouch to go. Make sure that you are threading through both ends FROM the pouch side of the belt and TO the inside. This will minimize wear on the cordage when it rubs against your body. Keep the cordage at even lengths on each side.
Run both sides over the top of the belt and through the channels of the pouch that the ALICE clips run through. Again, ensure that the cordage has equal length after coming through the bottom.
Now mirror what you did up top and run the cordage over and through the bottom eyelets. Pull the cordage nice and tight and ensure there is equal lengths.
Now tie a very tight square knot and ensure that there is little slack.
Now tie the remaining cordage onto itself and do the best you can to get this knot right up to the square knot you tied.
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If there is any remaining cordage, fold it up into a little tail and secure it with electrical/duct tape. And with that, you are all done. Repeat this whole process as needed.
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ONLY ONE EYELET ROW?
On these ALICE pistol belts, you may not always have all 4 eyelets available, depending on how the belt and pouches fit together. You may have to meet in the middle. For this, you will need to have about 24” of cordage to pull it off decently. To use only one row of eyelets thread the cordage through, as shown, whatever eyelets are available. For the section that is not available, you will just have to run the cordage from the top of the pouches channel, through the bottom, around the belt, and back down through the channel. After this, you will tie it off the same as I described earlier.
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MAINTENANCE
I know the word maintenance can have quite a negative connotation when it comes to gear, but this is nothing to ruin your drawers over. Simply put, 550 cord is what I recommend but it does have a fault that you will have to go in and correct down the road. 550 cord is made of woven strands of nylon, which gives it the awesome tensile strength it has, but it tends to stretch a bit over time as it is pulled more and more. That is merely the tradeoff you make for durability, I guess. I suggested the knot sequence I did so that you could return at a later date and retighten the cordage if it ever failed to stay tight enough. Now mind you, I do not foresee this being a CONSTANT issue, but as the fibers settle in the cordage from getting some use, they will begin to give some slack. You simply untie the holding knot and then retie the square knot a bit tighter.
WRAPUP
In my experience, the ALICE clips are the best way to securely hold the pouches on the belt right where you want them. However, they may have proven themselves unreliable or absolutely uncomfortable. For the discomfort, I simply tied on a cut of an old surplus foam sleeping mat. But if you don’t want to use ALICE clips, there actually might be some weight savings for you, depending on the number of pouches you intend to attach. Either way you decide to go, I hope you feel like you have a little better confidence that you can make things work.
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