Review - New Frontenac BDU

[WARFIGHTER]

Ever on the hunt for a decent cadpat BDU, I picked up a set of the new frontenacs from CPGear.com a week ago. Used em just earlier today for the first time actually, and as such, as promised, here is the review.

First off on CPGear where I got them, price is 118.50 for the set, which is the cheapest I've seen, especially combined with the free shipping, and they will add a cadpat name tape free of charge as well. Very fast, professional service from CPGear, and I would highly recommend them.

Onto the BDU's themselves, the new material is 50/50 Cotton/Nylon. I believe the old material was a bit different. They do both look very similar though and it is one of the best repro patterns I have seen. The new material is stiffer, and should be a bit more durable it feels like, although both old and new materials were pretty thin to mimic the issued combat cloth so I won't expect anything amazing regarding durability. Still, they should be serviceable for a good many weekends.

Now, someone (cough cough) made a 'review' of these BDU's already, and stated that the 'stitching' is better and indicated that mosquitoes couldn't bite through holes in the stitching... Well, they definitely can bite through the holes, but they don't need to, because like the old frontenacs, new frontenacs, and even issue, they can just bite through the fabric itself. The stitching, is single stitch, and is the same quality as the old stuff imo, it fairly easily can be stretched apart.

The Pants

First off the pants are sized nicely and are nearly long enough for me, and I have long legs, so this is very good. If I and in a prone and I am crawling aggressively with my legs bending fully, they will pull up the bottom over my boot, but other than that, they are good. They are longer than most other average BDU pants I've tried. The fly closure, is zipper + slotted button.



A big downfall of these pants is the tiny belt loops, they are 1.5", and are like less than 1/4" wide. I'll be replacing them immediately, with some nice, 1" wide, 2" long, beefy cordura or webbing loops, that will actually hold a real belt. The waist does have good size adjustment straps with ladderlocs so a belt doesn't even have to be used.



The pants have 5 pockets, two cargo pockets, two std slash front hips pockets, and one rear right pocket. The pockets are cdn style slotted button closure. The front slash pockets, are too high, and the opening, too small, as is the pocket itself, thus making them pretty much unusable as far as I'm concerned. The cargos are fine, the rear one is not very usable either imo but that's more or less standard.

The pants do not have the inner boot liner to tuck into your boots, which is disappointing, they do have drawstring closure. That being said, I would rather they did NOT have the inner boot liner and were long enough, which these ones are more or less, than have the inner boot liner, and skimp in the length.



There is no knee/butt reinforcement, which will be remedied as those areas will wear out very quickly with the material being as thin as it is.

The Jacket

The jacket suffers from the arms being a bit short unfortunately for me. I have pretty long arms as well, so they will fit an average sized person probably very nicely, but still sad for us tall lanky fellows. They are not as bad as others I have tried, but still an extra 3 or 4 inches would have been perfect.



The collar is standard folded, not mandarin unfortunately, but not a big deal.

The cuffs, are not tiny when closed, they are actually usable. They close with a slotted button, no complaints there. They could have a second, button for a larger opening on the cuffs but not a big deal, the one is sized fine.

The jacket has 2 lower cargo pockets, and two upper smaller pockets, std bdu style. They all close with slotted buttons, no complaints with these, they are pretty basic.

Frontenac put in the waist drawstring, which is useless imo. They also have a hem drawstring, which is ok, but not really necessary as far as I'm concerned.

There is no reinforcement on the elbows, or anywhere which is also something I'll change on mine, along with the knees.

Pros
-Decent Length Legs
-Good Repro Pattern
-Light/Breathable Material
-Generous/Good Fit
-Good Size Adjustment Tab

Cons
-Front Slash Pocket Size
-Belt Loop Size
-No Reinforcement
-No Inner Boot Liner
-Arms Are Not Long Enough

Summary

These are from what I know the best repro bdu available, far better than parklands and there isn't much else on the market aside from those other ones I reviewed here: http://airsoftcanada.com/showthread.php?t=59216 , and they don't compare with these at all. They really do need to be reinforced if your going to use them fairly often, and the belt loops need to be enlarged to something usable as well, but still, far better than any other repro on the market even despite these issues.

PICS up shortly of the pants, they are soaking right now, and a comparison of the old/new frontenacs up soon was taken at the games today.