Guns, Bows, Shooting Sports, and Hunting Need black clay shooting vests

[SRath]

Our new high school team is rolling right along, growing weekly, and looking good on the firing line. We will start our competition season in April and plan to attend as many Invitationals and competitions as we can afford, as well as both the SCTP State Championship and the Iowa High School State Championship. Additionally, some of our more advanced shooters plan to compete in Skeet and Sporting Clays, too.

Organized shooting sports are new to these athletes, so most have no range gear. Instead of ending up with a hodgepodge of oddball vests and shellbags, I am trying to find a source for some black and/or orange shooting vests. Orange and black are the school colors. Solid black would probably be the best.

They would need to be like most clays vests and able to hold 2 full boxes of 12 gauge shells, plus a few spares in loops, as well as at least 50 empty hulls. Provisions for attaching shooting glasses and hearing protecton, etc. would be nice so everyone can be sure to have all their required gear when they get to the line, and save the coach some frantic scrambling .

I plan to have the school name and logo embroidered on them locally (in orange) if I can locate enough vests (@ 12 to 15 would do for a start). I think looking like an organized team helps them feel like an organized team and is of some importance. Especially when there are often a dozen or more teams and hundreds of shooters.

Online, I can find vests of all colors (burgandy, green, blue, red, etc. ) but the only black ones I can find are very high-dollar Beretta items (over $100 each!!). Surprisingly, I can find no orange vests at all except field vests, which are not designed to hold two full boxes of shells or empty hulls.

Does anyone have a line on any black shell vests or ideas on where to have them made economically? My mother is in Australia for a year or I'm sure she would be able to make some nice ones for us. It seems sewing skills are becoming a lost art...

 

[Dl5treez]

I saw a Bob Allen vest that was black with green trim... . they might make an all black one.



They run about 50 bucks.



Any good local tailors?



Perhaps the companies the school buys their uniforms from could come up with something, or know of a supplier----many schools have trap teams there's bound to be something somewhere.

 

[JLEONARD]

Any good local tailors?

A very good suggestion. That is the kind of thing my wife used to do when she ran her business out of our house.

If you have truoble finding a tailor or seamtress call your local cleaners... they all either have someone on staff or on call for repairs.

 

[SRath]

I have been able to locate one or two black vests here, another there, etc; all different brands and very limited sizing and availability. Some of the best deals I've found claim to be closeouts on womens' vests and sizing, but I cannot for the life of me see any difference in them and the men's/boy's vests. . ?



Most shooting vests allow for a wide range of adjustment and are designed to be utilitarian; not high-female-fashion. The womens shooting vests don't appear to be cut any differently in the chest where you'd most expect a difference. One seller told me the only difference is what the tag says on it and I tend to believe that, so I'm going to gamble on trying the two he has and just cutting the tags off before handing them out.



The $50 and up vests are getting a little out of my reach when I have so many to buy. I have even considered just buying those red or green and black Winchester vests for under $20 like the ones walmart sells and trying to just dye them solid black. I don't know much about how that might work, so I told my son his red one may well be my guinea pig.



As far as sizing, I'm betting we will need just mediums and larges (what is a size 12 or 14 womens in comparison?). Every one of these kids is built using wet rawhide stretched over forged steel and left to dry in the sun. Lean and mean multi-sport athletes ranging from 5-foot-nothing to 6-foot-fifteen (well, 6-five anyway) and 110 pounds to maybe 200. Not an inch of extra belly girth anywhere. (Remember being young. . ?) These new recruits regarded me very suspiciously when I told them they could actually participate in a sport where the coach wouldn't make them run laps, lift weights, and do pushups everyday... :-laf



I agree that such vests shouldn't be all that difficult to make. My mom is "Grandma" to all the kids around here and a wizard at the sewing machine and just loves helping out. If she wasn't in Australia, they would already have some deluxe vests by now. My wife can sew, but doesn't like to, as the pile of mending on her sewing machine attests. Maybe I ought to take a vest to school and have a chat with the Home Economics teacher about a possible class project. . ? I think they still teach those skills in high school, don't they?