Vertx Gear

One of the logos you don't see when that little bar comes up beneath me, or you don't see them on the tour patch, but someone who is important, or a company that was important to the tour this year is Vertx, and Vertx makes clothing, they make bags. This shirt is a Vertx shirt. It's one of their new Stretch line with the Guardian feature that we're gonna talk about here in a minute, the WeaponGuard. Vertx, it's gotta be over a decade now. Vertx came on the scene as an answer to, now you see this doesn't look like a tactical shirt, right? This just looks like a regular polo shirt, hopefully, nothing too crazy "tactical" about it. Vertx came on the scene specifically to fill the gap between functional clothing for armed professionals, particularly federal law enforcement guys, and range clothing, because a lot of the leading companies in that environment, they essentially are making uniform clothes, and especially if you go back to like the 1990s, even when I was active in full-time law enforcement, the clothes we were getting that were marketed to us, and built "for us," and made for the range, made to be rugged, made to be almost like casual uniform-type clothing, it looked like casual uniform clothing. It didn't look like something like this, not the kind of thing you would wear every day, and just have out there on your person, and nobody would really know it was tactical clothing. Vertx led the way in developing functional clothing for on and off the range, particularly for armed professionals, that looked like everyday clothing, and of course, that made it even better for the person who isn't an armed professional, who wanted rugged, serviceable clothing. And one of the things that's really cool about it is this WeaponGuard underlayer, and you can kinda see this seam right here, and that's where that break is, and what that does is that means I can carry all the gear on my belt, whether it's inside the waistband, or even outside the waistband, under an un-tucked, casual-looking shirt, but I'm still protected from having all that stuff rubbing up against me, which is great for low-profile, for concealed carry, for armed professionals. These clothes have really evolved over the years. And of course, Vertx doesn't just do shirts, they don't just do that particular line of shirts. They do bags, they do boots, they do socks, they do kinda everything. This bag is the one that a lot of the tour instructors used this year, and it's a sling-type bag, which, you know, comes across the body, try not to hit my mic, and it hangs very comfortably. It's very easy to spin it around, get access to whatever is inside. And I'll tell you, this bag, it's kind of a minimalist bag, but I traveled all over the world with it. I took it to Europe with me earlier this year. I've enjoyed it. It's a bag that is, it doesn't have as many pockets, and little like, you know, this container, and this container, and this container. It's got three pockets. They're very functional. They're very easy to use. If you wanna put your patches on there, you can. It can look tactical if you want it to, or it doesn't have to look tactical at all. It's got a very easy access. I've got some patches in here as well. Easy access front pocket. If you're securing a helmet or something like that, you can actually open this all the way up, and use these straps to secure something larger in there. A jacket, something like that. But, you know, easy-access stuff, breath mints, my keys, a little phone stand that I use on the airplane, and all that stuff that you might just need quick, easy access to. Then it's got its bigger pocket. Now inside the big pocket, I said it only had three pouches, and that's kind of true. It's got three zipper pockets on the outside, and then it's got one you can see here, is with the red, and that's where you could keep, I have some medical equipment in there, things like that. That's kind of the main pouch. And then it's got the pouch in the back, which has the kinda Vertx trademark. Grab this, pull it open very quickly, if I had a gun in there. I don't usually keep a firearm in there, 'cause I prefer on-body carry, but I do keep body armor in here. So I've got the "Guns for Everyone Gazette," couple of copies to hand out there, the Premier Body Armor panel. Premier Body Armor works very closely with Vertx to make sure that they have a panel that'll fit every bag they make. So, again, super comfortable, super durable. I keep my laptop back there in that pouch as well, usually, when I'm traveling, carry on, walk around, whatever it is. This has been a great bag, and again, it's one of those things, when I ask the tour guides, the tour instructors, I'll say, "Hey, what did you really like this year?" I got more feedback about a lotta different things from across the lines. Some people had, for instance, never used the NLT SIRT pistols before. They thought those were great, but almost everybody thought that that sling bag, after a week or two of using it, way, way cooler than just about any bag that they've carried. So I've enjoyed that.