 I call it the Spectre, because in my tactics book, I talk about how we need to fight like a badger and a ghost. So that's why it gets the name the Spectre. Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and we are here today to talk about the Spectre Chest Rig. So like I do with any piece of gear, I always wanna start with the why. Why do we have this piece of chest rig? Now I've made other videos in the past about why chest rigs specifically, but why this chest rig? And what did I really want out of it? When I was designing this chest rig, I was designing it with the everyday American citizen person in mind. Now that doesn't mean if you're a full-time professional soldier or other occupation that involves carrying a chest rig that you can't wear it. I hope you do, hope you love it, thank you will. But when I designed it, I was thinking for the American Minuteman prepared citizen person. And so what makes this different, right? Than any other chest rig. What makes it an American Minuteman chest rig or whatever versus not? And so I think for me that breaks down to a couple different things. So for me, it basically comes down to the three C's. And the first one is carry or capacity, however you wanna say that. But essentially, I wanted the rig to have enough capacity and be able to carry enough stuff for you to make it for the next, I don't know, four to six hours, something like that. Maybe eight if you wanna push it, right? Enough food, water, ammo, whatever that you can make it without being overly burdensome, right? Cause there are some really huge macro chest rigs that I just feel like a Michelin man in. And I didn't wanna do that. So I wanted it to be able to carry the right stuff, right? Mainly like food, medical and water. For however you wanna lay it out so that you could push it up to eight hours or you can scale it back to just a few. Depending on your mission requirements, what you wanna do, what you wanna have it set up for. But I wanted you to be able to have the option to set this up so that if all you do is grab your chest rig and your rifle, you're set for a while. You can live and fight for a while before you're gonna need help, right? Now I think chest rig should always be paired with rucks, but that's a different conversation. So that was one of my goals when setting up this chest rig is to be able to have, if you want, you could set it up so that you can grab the chest rig and the rifle and you're out the door and you're good to go. The second seat for me was compatible. It has to be compatible. And what I mean is I use the Swift Clips system up top, right? So we'll go through on the tabletop here, but it can clip into any chest rig. It's Velcro lined on the back, right? So again, we'll go through it, but that means you can attach any kind of dangler pouch system, right? It has to be compatible with all the stuff that we call industry standard now. That's very important because I don't want you to have to buy 15 pieces of gear. I bought a plate carrier once from some other company and you had to have their proprietary placard to clip into the plate carrier. And I thought, well, this is worthless. I already have three or four different placards. Why would I go out and buy your proprietary placard to clip into this plate carrier? So that one got dumped, right? So I don't want to do that to you. I want it to be compatible with all the stuff that you already have so that you could clip it into your plate carrier so it can put all your existing danglers on it. I want it to be compatible across the board with all these things, like I said, that we've come to call industry standard. I think that's very important to get the most flex and use out of your gear. Another thing I wanted to be compatible with is I wanted to be compatible with rucks, right? A lot of times, like the TAPS rig, for instance, it goes so far back here that the strap then comes over the chest rig. And I really wanted this to be upfront enough that when I put it on a pack, I'm not getting those straps that are interfering with my chest rig. So it's very important to me that when we put on the pack that it's compatible with the chest rig, or rather the chest rig's compatible with the pack, that they compare well together so that my pack strap, my ruck strap is not interfering with my chest rig. It's not getting in the way. It's not overriding a piece of gear, right? And we're able to design this that this keeps far enough forward that the straps are going to cut behind the chest rig that I can comfortably wear these two together and they're not gonna fight each other, interfere with each other. So that was a big point of compatibility with this system. And then my third C is close. I like my gear to stick close to me like glue, right? I don't like it when it's bouncing all over and moving all over heaven. I like it to stick to me like glue so that when I'm crawling, right, especially when you're crawling and you're in the prone to chest rig, right, everything's gonna be dragging. So everything needs to be secured. We'll get into how we do that a little bit later here, but everything needs to be secured. It can't be flomping around. When I'm running and I have canteens of water in here, this thing can't be just moving all over the place, right? Cause that takes energy for your body to stabilize. And I'm very happy to report and we'll get to why in a bit, but this is the tightest chest rig I have ever worn in my life and we were able to design it so that it really does stick close to you and stick tight so that even when you're running with full canteens and full load out, it sticks to you. It doesn't feel like it's bouncing over. It doesn't feel like it's draining you. It really, really sticks to you. And I think that's super, super important. So those are my three C's. And those are kind of my guiding principles when I designed this chest rig. So now that we've talked about the why and we've established what the philosophical foundation is for this chest rig, let's go down to the tabletop. Let's take a look at it and let's get into the details of what it is and how it works. Okay, so firstly, this does come in four different colors, right? So we have the fed cam, the multi-cam. We have Ranger Green, Coyote Brown, and then of course, the most important, Woodland, right? So we do have all four colors available. Now I'm gonna demonstrate primarily on this Ranger Green one just cause I think it will be the easiest to see. So the first thing is we have six magazines upfront, right? These mag pouches are double mag pouches. So as you can see here, they're gonna fit two mags each upfront, okay? Now we rode that at about a little over three quarters height, okay? And then the Velcro runs over the top. So if you want, if you don't want that, you can always tuck it, right? But that way you can still get full Velcro connection cause the Velcro comes up to the top of the mag here, but I can still get full Velcro connection on that mag. This is looped up here and this is designed big enough to be able to grab with gloves. I went through a couple different prototypes with this and the first ones were too small. So I did enlarge this a bit so that you can easily remove that with gloves, okay? The other option, the other way you can store mags up here is with this elastic band around here, you are able to stuff all of this down in here and then you can just run this as an open top magazine pouch if you're into that kind of thing. So you can run both of them open like that or leave a couple closed and one open, right? Whatever you wanna do, but you do have that option. You even have that option to continue to do that, make this nice and pretty for you here with one magazine. Even with one magazine in there, the elastic is tight enough that that's not gonna come out. Now, if you invert, you tip this upside down, right? Yeah, it's gonna come out if you invert and tip it upside down. So if you're gonna do anything on a helicopters, I suggest you use the flaps. But I have run around in here in the snow, I've tripped, I've fallen, I've bit it, I've done everything I could to get this to come out just under normal use conditions and it doesn't come out. It sits deep enough and it holds tight enough that again, unless you fully invert and if you're doing that kind of stuff, just use the flaps, this mag is gonna stay seated, okay? So that's really cool. And again, all three of them are like that. So we end up with six mags up front. Now, why six mags up front? Honestly, because it's the most I could fit there to still keep the chest rig reasonably sized. I would always prefer 45 magazines up front. However, that's just not reasonable. So I realized that it turns out to be a standard, like military loadout, right? Six mags on, one in the gun. However, you can run more if you see fit. Point being that I wanted mags up front. So on chest rigs, it's important to me to keep the primary tools up front. Why do I primarily keep a chest rig? To feed my rifle, that's the most important reason. So that gets the prime real estate. That gets the prime real estate right up front where I can feed my rifle with the most important, that's the most important job that the chest rig has, right? The side pouches, those become secondary things. But this is the most important part. This is the most important space. So we dedicate that to fill it with as many magazines as we can fit in there while still maintaining the overall profile of the chest rig that's important. So that's why we end up with six mags up front. Now, next to that, we have these GP pouches, which I am really, really proud of. So first of all, we have a little two by four Velcro field up here. This is for ID, right? So if you want to ID, this is a med pouch, for example, like I did on this multicam version, right? This is my med kit over here. Or whatever else you'd want to designate it for, you could designate it. Or if you just want to put a patch in there to look cool, hey, that's great too, okay? This opens up. And then this is a pretty decent sized GP pouch. You can fit a lot of different things in there. You could fit your night vision in there. You can fit your thermal in there. You can fit a bunch of different chem lights or whatever I fit a full poncho in here. You can fit a decent amount of things in here. Now, what I really like and what I designed this to be is super compatible with water bottles. So if you want to run a water bottle, there is a channel back here on the top. And you can pull the strap out of that channel. You can take that flap and stuff it down in there. And then you can fit your canteen in there. This comes right over the top. The canteen fits right through this Y-shaped part in the buckle. You clip it in, you tighten that up, boom. This extra strap here can run up to the elastic on one of the sides, just like that. So that way you can carry a water bottle here. Same thing both sides, right? You can run it one over here too or you can just run one and then a poncho on the other or one and tools and equipment on the other. Again, however you want to run it. But I set that up to be that way there. Same pouch on the other side. Now, on the side of these GP pouches, this top elastic strap here is just to try to keep that pouch tight. These two right here are designed to run a tourniquet in. So like I have it set up here, you can see I have a tourniquet staged over here. Now some guys have had more success running the tourniquets upside down because they're easier to pull out. This one you can see I'm only running it through one of the elastic straps. You can run it through both if you want. This is very tight. When you get it through both elastic straps, it's super tight. It's not going anywhere it shouldn't. Yeah, it's still removable. Yeah, it's still accessible. But it is definitely on there securely. So I feel really good about that. Now on this other side here, I have two little inserts for a chem light. So you can fit a chem light in there. You can fit a pen in there or a permanent marker. I have run here on the multi-cam one. I've run a carabiner through one of them to hang my gloves off of. I've also run a loop of paracord through to run tape off the other one. So you can really do again whatever you want there. But what those were originally designed was to hold the chem lights with. Chem lights, marker, something that size. I would not recommend putting in batteries. That'll probably be too loose. You'll probably end up losing your batteries. But a chem light because it's got a thicker end on one end. If you run that on top, the thicker end on top, it's not gonna slip through and fall out. I've had no problems there. One other thing about the GP pouches. Now the GP pouches are not designed to fit a canteen cup in. They are not designed to fit a canteen cup in. Now I say that, can you force a canteen cup into this pouch? Yes, yes you can. So you can fit a canteen in there and then you can run your water bottle in there. Now I will, that's backwards. Let's put that in the correct way. Now I will tell you that when you run that canteen cup in there, it is not the most removable while it's on your body. So if you decide to force it in there, what you can do, you're gonna have to take this chest break off probably to get this canteen cup out. Because it just needs some work in order to get out. And doing this while it's on your chest is not easy. Ask me how I know. But you can get that canteen cup to ride in there if you want. But it just, it really takes a lot of work to get it out. Similar to like an Eagle Industries canteen pouch. If you've ever run one of those mil-surp ones, once you get the canteen cup in those things it's really tough to get out. So again, can be done, not designed to do but it will work for you. One other thing about these GP pouches is that I did put dummy cord loops on them. So that's what this loop is right here. This is for dummy cording something into. And then there is also one, and I will see if I can get on the shop, but there's also one in the bottom of this pouch. So that you have two places dummy cord things to. So if you wanted to run again, any sensitive equipment like air compass or your thermal or whatever, anything out of here that you don't wanna lose, you can dummy cord right to this pouch. People don't put enough dummy cords on pouches and places dummy cord things to and it drives me nuts. So I'm very happy to be able to give you some dummy cord options so that you can get your gear secured to your chest rig so you're not gonna lose it. One time doing a simulation course, my whole team died. And so I got up and I sprinted out of there cause everyone was dead except for me and I was trying to not die. And my night vision device had turned off because it had thought it had gotten shoved up cause I had gone prone previously. So my night vision device is out. I can't see, I'm sprinting through the dark. I crashed right into a bush and just bite it, just face plant. And I remember in that moment thinking, I'm really glad I have everything dummy corded down right now because I'm not worried about losing everything. So dummy cord your sensitive gear items, I give you a spot to do that. These pouches do have grommet holes in the bottom of them for drainage and you could also use that as another dummy cord point if you really wanted. All of the mag pouches also have grommets, right? So everything's gonna drain out just fine. One other thing I did wanna point out about this GP pouch that I almost forgot is that it is both a Velcro and a buckle closure. So if you need to get something out of here real quick and you only have time to slap that close, that Velcro is still gonna close the pouch. So you're still not gonna dump all your gear. And then as you have time and opportunity or later when you're out of stop or something, you can always press that buckle in for full secure closure. And of course nothing's coming out of that. But I did wanna give you two different closure options there so that again, you have a quick closure and a permanent closure depending on how you wanna run it. You could also just feed this buckle out and only operate it on Velcro and do whatever suits your fancy. Moving up to the H harness. So fairly standard H harness. The top row of this Mali ladder here is elastic, okay? And I do that to give you something to clip your radio to, for instance, right? Something that has a little bit of stretch, a little bit of give so that it's not hard pointed there and it will flex with you just a little bit. This sleeve right here is a comms channel sleeve. So this is designed to run any kind of cabling or water bladder or whatever that you would have. It is double stitched on the ends so it does not catch when you're running a wire through there. It's real simple to feed a like auxiliary cord. So I will use this most often to run from my push to talk, I'll run an auxiliary cord through the channel up to my ears and that works pretty well. It retains everything, keeps it kind of protected. And again, because these ends are double stitched right up to the edge, that is not gonna catch on anything as you're trying to feed that cord in and it makes it real simple to do that. On the back strap, so this is elastic back here. So it is a pull forward design with a little bit of elastic. So what you do is you put this on, you grab this strap and you pull forward and then that will tighten it up and that is one of the ways this chest rig is able to achieve such good tension and keep your gear so tight. Is that when you put this on, this is the strap that you grab on both sides. You pull forward as you need and that will tighten up very nicely. So I'm a really big fan of this system. If I were you, what I would do when I get this is I would kind of find out where I want this one to be. I would set it, I would tape it on this side and then I would roll this elastic keeper up here wherever you think you're gonna need it and then when you pull forward then if you want you can stuff that through the elastic from there. But I would take this one, I would set it where I want it, I would give that a couple of rolls of electrical tape and then I would use this one only as my adjustment when I'm taking the rig on and off in order to achieve that perfect tension. I've been doing that, had a lot of success with it, highly recommend it, super excited about that. So on the map pocket, what I did is I ran four inches of soft sided velcro down the inside. So this is the side that faces your body, that's four inches of soft sided velcro. So it gives you a lot more options than just maps or papers. We're gonna come up with some inserts later but some way to store some different kinds of equipment in here, which will be very beneficial to you. And that four inches of soft sided velcro is gonna help give you some future expansion options there. On the back we have a very large field, I think this is about 10 by six of velcro so that this is compatible with all your danglers. So if you roll one pouch, this is the T-Rex kangaroo pouch. Whatever it is you wanna run back here, you can run back here and that's gonna mount up just fine. So we made it again, fully compatible with all the industry standard stuff back here. Now when we talk about compatibility, this is the T-Rex Arms plate carrier, they're AR-1 I think it's called if I remember right. And it uses the standard Swift clips just like a lot of plate carriers do, doesn't have to be this plate carrier specifically. But if that's what you wanna do, you can easily clip this chest rig into here. Take that velcro off, slap the velcro down and boom. Now your chest rig is compatible with your plate carrier. So it's a very easily compatible system just like it should be. There is our nice little tag here, it's a Citadel Offense made in the USA. This is a berry compliant chest rig, meaning that all the parts are sourced in the USA, all the labor is in the USA, it's 100% USA made. So very proud to be able to offer that. Behind the GP pouch, we have two little slip pockets here. Now these slip pockets are designed for two things I had in mind. First off is again, we have two tie down loops here, that's what the shock cord is run through, shock cord comes with it. And that was originally designed to fit a radio, right? So this is a waterproof baofang radio, this is the GT3WP, okay? That can fit in there, no problem, okay? You can fit that in there with stuff in front of the pouch, it's gonna be tight, it's supposed to be tight, but you can fit this radio in here with a canteen in here, with a med kit in here, whatever, okay? The other thing you can do, this is a baofang, the UV5R, this is with the Extendo battery, right? That's also gonna fit in here, no problem. Okay, and then again you can adjust your shock cord to hold that up how you'd like, okay? This is the AR152, kind of the baofang version of the PRC152, now this one will fit in here, this is probably about the biggest radio you're gonna fit, or thereabouts, okay? Now when you put this one in here, you are gonna lose some space in your pocket, right? Running this in here with a water bottle up here is gonna be a little bit tougher. So that's with that AR152 in there. If we take the water bottle and now we try to put this in there, can it be done? Yes, okay, it can be done. It's gonna be a tight fit, okay? You're gonna wanna make sure you have your keys locked on your radio so that the canteen is not interfering in pressing back and bumping all your buttons. But you can fit them both in there, it's just again, it's gonna be tight. But that's what it's supposed to be because we don't want gear flumping all over. That's probably about the biggest radio you're gonna put in there. The other thing I had in mind for that slip pocket was I always wanna place them out my knife. I never have a good spot to mount my knives on my chest rigs and I always gotta jerry rig it. So with this, I wanted that slip pocket to be tight enough that I could paracord in my knife. So what I've done here is any sheath that has any kind of lashing points, you can just run that paracord through those loops that we talked about earlier, those tie-down loops, and now you have a good spot to put your knife. And that way you can carry a knife really easily on your chest rig. There's a lot of different aftermarket options. I know of how to carry knives in different places you can velcro them in and you could probably figure out a velcro into the center map pocket if you want or back off the dangler. But I like to just be able to have an organic solution right on the chest rig that's gonna allow me to carry my blade. I like carrying blades on chest rigs. I think we should all carry blades on chest rigs. So this is a really simple spot that you can easily paracord your knife in and you're set to go. So everyone, that is it. That is the Spectre Chest Rig by Citadel Defense. I am super proud of it. I hope that you really like it and enjoy it. And you can feel free to go over to my website and pick one up at your leisure. Do brave deeds and endure.