Pentagon Pilot Gloves

Many professionals will tell you that gloves are an essential piece to your list of PPE. They protect your hands from burns, scuffs, and allow a more secure hold on your weapons, and so on. Flight gloves, also known as flight liners or pilot gloves, have been a shooters favorite for decades. This is very understandable. Pentagon is a company out of Europe that specializes is producing tactical gear to include this version of the old school flight glove.

USAGE FOR TESTING

I am one of the few reviewers that I know of out there that actually conducts long term realistic testing on gear. Short of going on deployment and fighting against the camel spiders and hot weather, I put my gloves through the ringer just by using them as i would in combat. This means the are used all the time and even worn to do menial tasks like loading ammo and cleaning guns. These may be considered unnecessary, but it is just something I would do. It protects my hands from contaminants and makes the tasks somewhat simpler. I conducted testing on and off from the start of the winter in November. I mainly had to go to more arctic friendly gloves during this time, but I did use these gloves in temperatures down to -15. That was quite painful. There were times when I grabbed hot rifle barrels to test the palms and brushed the back of my hand with the hot barrels to test it's heat resistance. Overall, I used these gloves on a regular basis while training these last 4 months and these are the results.

MATERIALS

The Pentagon Pilot gloves use pretty much the same materials as the surplus flight gloves. The palms are a painted leather and the back is a DuPont Nomex material that is flame resistant. I also found it quite reassuring that the index fingers on my gloves are double-stitched, unlike the surplus gloves. This is an area that experiences an extensive amount of wear and is one of the first places to give out, in my experience.

FITTING

The Pentagon sizes are pretty flexible and limited when compared to their military surplus counterparts that have sizes that help you dial in your fitting to the exacting sizes. Sizes range from XS to XXL on military1st.com, where I got these gloves. My gloves had enough room in them so that they slipped on with ease, but the fingers were just a little short and cut off a slight amount of dexterity. For reference, my perfect glove size for the surplus variety is a 7. These gloves have fingers that are probably closer to a 6 but a palm that is closer to an 8, for the smalls at least. After all my usage, including zero washing and constantly sweating in them, the fitting has not really changed much at all.

WEAR RESULTS

From using these gloves on shooting and even processing firewood and moving tires, these things have seen alot of use that has caused other flight gloves to fail. First thing I want to point out is some minor wear on my right hand (Firing Hand) glove.

This wear is easily the result of shooting from manipulating safeties and decockers, to just having my finger rubbing on the frame of the gun. It is not that much wear considering I did all my practice and training with these gloves on. The support hand however has had quite a rough time. It has loaded mags with bullets, loaded mags into the weapon, and had to endure lots of friction from doing what a support hand has to do.

considering all the work that these gloves have had to be involved in, I am surprised that the only wear has been on the surface paint or coloring. It is now a seemingly permanent black. However, there is very little fraying of the leather, and I am surprised to see this since it is a common thing to see in flight gloves.

PRICE AND OPTIONS

The quality of these gloves has earned my respect despite the sizes being a little off. I highly value the dexterity they offer and their durability. Gloves are just one of those items that seem to wear out fast once you put them to real use in the dirt, rain, snow, and in serious training. These gloves that I got are the LONG cuff version that go for about $33 but do not seem to have as long of a cuff as the surplus versions. Pentagon also has a short cuff version ($28) that stops right after the hand ends, saving you from having to fold the cuff or tuck it under your sleeve. They also have these gloves in three colors so far, to include black, olive green, and coyote. I also recently saw a pair of gray ones that were the color of the gray palms on my gloves. 

SUMMARY

Obviously you can tell that I am very happy with these gloves. For what you are getting, the price is right if you can't find a few pairs of surplus gloves in your size range. These gloves offer everything a serious shooter could want in a shooting glove, and is not a bad price for something new and good quality.