Chris
10-11-2008, 08:11 PM
Bear in mind we're not talking about "shooting" gloves used by shotgunners. True, there's a good market for them -- especially if you are in a heavy clay bird shooting market. Such gloves, of leather, man-made material, and combinations of them, do offer limited neural protection. Certainly enough for long gun use.
There are many suppliers of such gloves. We're particularly partial to those made by Bob Allen and Trophy Glove. Stocking either of these lines couldn't hurt. Other companies make similar gloves to these two, but we haven't used them firsthand.
The hot ticket gloves are specifically designed to prevent neural damage from handgunning.
Why is this important? Without adequate protection, the short gun shooter leaves himself open to pain, swelling, numbness, and weakness in his shooting hand.
Cause of this reaction is a planar nerve that runs laterally an inch or so below the base of the fingers. An ulnar nerve runs from the center of the finger base up between the two large pads at the base of the hand and towards the elbow. In addition, there's a medial nerve running through the wrist.
When the shooter picks up his handgun and starts pounding away with it, unless he's wearing protective gear on his hand, he runs the risk of stress on the ulnar and planar nerves, or carpal tunnel syndrome, or a combination of all three. Basically, the first three fingers and thumb of the shooting hand will swell. The hand and arm can alternately tingle or feel numb, all the way up to the elbow. Shooting gloves can alleviate some of the potential hazard and discomfort to the nerves in the hand.
Shooting gloves, as such, are a relatively recent phenomenon. This is kind of strange when you consider the kinds of sports which always have offered specialized gloves. Golfers, handball players, tennis bums, and race car drivers, none of whom experience the kind of abuse we shooters do, all have had gloves designed specifically for them. In fact, until the advent of specific shooting gloves, many handgunners used these other handwear products for shooting.
For instance, we used to cut the fingers out of handball gloves. While this didn't offer the full protection of today's shooting gloves, the padded palm helped immensely. But even plain leather, if it fits snugly, helps. That's why driving gloves were worn by many handgunners and continue to be used by trap shooters and other long-gunners.
Trap and skeet gloves preceded handgun shooting gloves by quite a while, and they do serve handgunners a little better than plain driving gloves. Take Bob Allen's trap and skeet gloves, for instance. The facing is a new synthetic suede, called Amara, which feels, looks, and wears like real suede, but which is washable and breathable. A perforated nylon/elastic mesh back assures a snug, smooth fit while giving maximum ventilation, and an elastic strap lets you cinch up the glove as snug as you wish. The glove itself provides a non-slip grip while it absorbs perspiration.
Still and all, while trap and skeet gloves help long-gunners, they do not offer the protection needed by big-bore handgunners. For them, special designs are needed.
A shooting glove must provide three things. To be effective, it should:
(1) Provide a non-slip grip, to assure the gun does not twist in the shooter's hand.
(2) Provide enough "feel" so the shooter is in touch with trigger and hammer. While no glove can provide the full tactile sense of naked flesh, the better ones come close.
(3) Most of all, protect the shooter from the abuses of heavy loads. This most emphatically means protecting the shooter from ulnar and planar abuse, and guarding him from carpal tunnel syndrome.
The surprising thing about a waltzing bear, it has been said, is not that he is so graceful, but that he can even waltz at all. The same can be said about shooting gloves, because those three requirements are somewhat self-contradictory. Yet, there are a number of shooting gloves on the market, and they accomplish their three-fold task incredibly well.
In fact, of those we've tried, the differences are, at best, marginal. Preferences are based on subjective evaluations of comfort, rather than any measurable differences in how much pain or discomfort we feel. With that in mind, here's a look at some of the gloves currently available.
ANSWER PRODUCTS: Answer Products' Accu-Comfort glove combines the best features of some other gloves, and adds a few special touches of its own.
The glove, made of black deerhide and special padding, has cut-off fingers, with the middle finger extended to the second joint. Right- and left-hand versions are the same. The cuff is covered with a vinyl pad, with space for the owner's name and phone number.
The secret of the Accu-Comfort glove is the type and arrangement of the padding. Eura-lite 11, a space-age dampening material, is used in thin sheets. This is the same material used in the company's famous Recoil Shock Eliminators.
Padding on the palm is basically a circle, with an extension up the ball of the thumb -- protecting a shooter from abuse to all three nerve systems. The padded thumb piece also adds protection when shooting Contender-type guns with thumb-rest grips.
The back of the glove also has a leather-covered pad extending up the middle finger. This extension provides protection from the back of the trigger guard, no matter what style pistol is used. Anyone who fires magnums regularly knows what kind of wallop that band of metal can pack. We'd recommend these gloves for this feature alone!
CHIMERE: Perhaps the first gloves not only designed for shooters by shooters, but also designed specifically to ease and prevent nerve disorders associated with handgunning.
The Model 454 (just like the Casull) is the company's premiere glove. Designed to fit the hand while curved around a gun, if you hold your hand flat the padding will bridge your palm. This assures there is no bunching of leather in the palm when holding a gun. The thumb and last three fingers are full-fingered; the index finger is cut off from the first joint to give you all the trigger feel you may need. The padding covers the palm and extends slightly up into the thumb, protecting all three nerve systems.
Chimere's Model 404 is designed for handgun hunters or those who must wear black gloves. They offer the same padding placement as the 454, but are full-fingered. Chimere gloves are available in five sizes from small to extra-extra large.
P.A.S.T.: The folks at P.A.S.T. have taken the same foam they use in their recoil shields and applied it to glove technology. Recognizing that there are different protection requirements for the shooting hand and the off-hand, the P.A.S.T. shooting gloves come in pairs, each of which is slightly different than the other.
Both feature cut-off fingers. But that's where the resemblance ends. The shooting-hand glove has 1/8-inch pads of the proprietary P.A.S.T. foam in the palm an over the sensitive thumb web, providing protection against nerve damage and padding recoil shock. The off-hand glove has slightly longer fingers to protect the knuckles, and foam over the back of the hand and knuckles. This, along with a non-slip palm, provides protection for that hand, especially when barricade shooting or, for hunters, when leaning against a tree or other support
P.A.S.T. shooting gloves are available in four sizes, from small to extra large. They can be bought as sets or singles as your needs dictate. Singles are IHMSA approved for competition.
There are many suppliers of such gloves. We're particularly partial to those made by Bob Allen and Trophy Glove. Stocking either of these lines couldn't hurt. Other companies make similar gloves to these two, but we haven't used them firsthand.
The hot ticket gloves are specifically designed to prevent neural damage from handgunning.
Why is this important? Without adequate protection, the short gun shooter leaves himself open to pain, swelling, numbness, and weakness in his shooting hand.
Cause of this reaction is a planar nerve that runs laterally an inch or so below the base of the fingers. An ulnar nerve runs from the center of the finger base up between the two large pads at the base of the hand and towards the elbow. In addition, there's a medial nerve running through the wrist.
When the shooter picks up his handgun and starts pounding away with it, unless he's wearing protective gear on his hand, he runs the risk of stress on the ulnar and planar nerves, or carpal tunnel syndrome, or a combination of all three. Basically, the first three fingers and thumb of the shooting hand will swell. The hand and arm can alternately tingle or feel numb, all the way up to the elbow. Shooting gloves can alleviate some of the potential hazard and discomfort to the nerves in the hand.
Shooting gloves, as such, are a relatively recent phenomenon. This is kind of strange when you consider the kinds of sports which always have offered specialized gloves. Golfers, handball players, tennis bums, and race car drivers, none of whom experience the kind of abuse we shooters do, all have had gloves designed specifically for them. In fact, until the advent of specific shooting gloves, many handgunners used these other handwear products for shooting.
For instance, we used to cut the fingers out of handball gloves. While this didn't offer the full protection of today's shooting gloves, the padded palm helped immensely. But even plain leather, if it fits snugly, helps. That's why driving gloves were worn by many handgunners and continue to be used by trap shooters and other long-gunners.
Trap and skeet gloves preceded handgun shooting gloves by quite a while, and they do serve handgunners a little better than plain driving gloves. Take Bob Allen's trap and skeet gloves, for instance. The facing is a new synthetic suede, called Amara, which feels, looks, and wears like real suede, but which is washable and breathable. A perforated nylon/elastic mesh back assures a snug, smooth fit while giving maximum ventilation, and an elastic strap lets you cinch up the glove as snug as you wish. The glove itself provides a non-slip grip while it absorbs perspiration.
Still and all, while trap and skeet gloves help long-gunners, they do not offer the protection needed by big-bore handgunners. For them, special designs are needed.
A shooting glove must provide three things. To be effective, it should:
(1) Provide a non-slip grip, to assure the gun does not twist in the shooter's hand.
(2) Provide enough "feel" so the shooter is in touch with trigger and hammer. While no glove can provide the full tactile sense of naked flesh, the better ones come close.
(3) Most of all, protect the shooter from the abuses of heavy loads. This most emphatically means protecting the shooter from ulnar and planar abuse, and guarding him from carpal tunnel syndrome.
The surprising thing about a waltzing bear, it has been said, is not that he is so graceful, but that he can even waltz at all. The same can be said about shooting gloves, because those three requirements are somewhat self-contradictory. Yet, there are a number of shooting gloves on the market, and they accomplish their three-fold task incredibly well.
In fact, of those we've tried, the differences are, at best, marginal. Preferences are based on subjective evaluations of comfort, rather than any measurable differences in how much pain or discomfort we feel. With that in mind, here's a look at some of the gloves currently available.
ANSWER PRODUCTS: Answer Products' Accu-Comfort glove combines the best features of some other gloves, and adds a few special touches of its own.
The glove, made of black deerhide and special padding, has cut-off fingers, with the middle finger extended to the second joint. Right- and left-hand versions are the same. The cuff is covered with a vinyl pad, with space for the owner's name and phone number.
The secret of the Accu-Comfort glove is the type and arrangement of the padding. Eura-lite 11, a space-age dampening material, is used in thin sheets. This is the same material used in the company's famous Recoil Shock Eliminators.
Padding on the palm is basically a circle, with an extension up the ball of the thumb -- protecting a shooter from abuse to all three nerve systems. The padded thumb piece also adds protection when shooting Contender-type guns with thumb-rest grips.
The back of the glove also has a leather-covered pad extending up the middle finger. This extension provides protection from the back of the trigger guard, no matter what style pistol is used. Anyone who fires magnums regularly knows what kind of wallop that band of metal can pack. We'd recommend these gloves for this feature alone!
CHIMERE: Perhaps the first gloves not only designed for shooters by shooters, but also designed specifically to ease and prevent nerve disorders associated with handgunning.
The Model 454 (just like the Casull) is the company's premiere glove. Designed to fit the hand while curved around a gun, if you hold your hand flat the padding will bridge your palm. This assures there is no bunching of leather in the palm when holding a gun. The thumb and last three fingers are full-fingered; the index finger is cut off from the first joint to give you all the trigger feel you may need. The padding covers the palm and extends slightly up into the thumb, protecting all three nerve systems.
Chimere's Model 404 is designed for handgun hunters or those who must wear black gloves. They offer the same padding placement as the 454, but are full-fingered. Chimere gloves are available in five sizes from small to extra-extra large.
P.A.S.T.: The folks at P.A.S.T. have taken the same foam they use in their recoil shields and applied it to glove technology. Recognizing that there are different protection requirements for the shooting hand and the off-hand, the P.A.S.T. shooting gloves come in pairs, each of which is slightly different than the other.
Both feature cut-off fingers. But that's where the resemblance ends. The shooting-hand glove has 1/8-inch pads of the proprietary P.A.S.T. foam in the palm an over the sensitive thumb web, providing protection against nerve damage and padding recoil shock. The off-hand glove has slightly longer fingers to protect the knuckles, and foam over the back of the hand and knuckles. This, along with a non-slip palm, provides protection for that hand, especially when barricade shooting or, for hunters, when leaning against a tree or other support
P.A.S.T. shooting gloves are available in four sizes, from small to extra large. They can be bought as sets or singles as your needs dictate. Singles are IHMSA approved for competition.