Stonekeep Spring Gorget and Butterfly Spaulders Review
Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 4:19 pm
After finding the archive in my quest for WMA gear our local group can use, I looked through a lot of posts and settled on Stonekeep for my first purchase.
Staff were very responsive to my initial e-mails as I was inquiring about gorget/spaulder combos, benefits of spring steel, and general recommendations.
I settled on their butterfly spaulders and basic Type 1 gorget in spring with rolled edges (having been bitten by unrolled edges in other gear). I was a bit concerned initially about the coverage of the butterfly spaulders due to the picture included on the website but found several positive reviews of them and figured it was just the perspective on the picture.
I watched the order status on the website and did my best to not pester them with "is it done" e-mails. I did send two messages after ordering, one for a very rough ETA about 2 weeks in and one for estimated shipping time after my order was taken off the website. Both were answered promptly.
Everything arrived yesterday and I am very impressed. The coverage on the spaulders is perfect and the articulation is so fluid you almost forget they're on. The gorget fits very well.
Have to say, spring steel is an awesome material. Its weight is almost negligble (at least with the 3 componnents I have) and the protection, based on our initial testing, is the best of everything we've explored so far (leather, mild, stainless, plastic). Our group generally uses a combination of McDavid hexpads and lighter motocross stuff for the underpadding and have been moving towards more period external kits.
Already planning to add more spring componnents as budget allows (looking at greaves next).
A 5 star experience all around.
Staff were very responsive to my initial e-mails as I was inquiring about gorget/spaulder combos, benefits of spring steel, and general recommendations.
I settled on their butterfly spaulders and basic Type 1 gorget in spring with rolled edges (having been bitten by unrolled edges in other gear). I was a bit concerned initially about the coverage of the butterfly spaulders due to the picture included on the website but found several positive reviews of them and figured it was just the perspective on the picture.
I watched the order status on the website and did my best to not pester them with "is it done" e-mails. I did send two messages after ordering, one for a very rough ETA about 2 weeks in and one for estimated shipping time after my order was taken off the website. Both were answered promptly.
Everything arrived yesterday and I am very impressed. The coverage on the spaulders is perfect and the articulation is so fluid you almost forget they're on. The gorget fits very well.
Have to say, spring steel is an awesome material. Its weight is almost negligble (at least with the 3 componnents I have) and the protection, based on our initial testing, is the best of everything we've explored so far (leather, mild, stainless, plastic). Our group generally uses a combination of McDavid hexpads and lighter motocross stuff for the underpadding and have been moving towards more period external kits.
Already planning to add more spring componnents as budget allows (looking at greaves next).
A 5 star experience all around.