5.11 TacTec Vest Issues

[Jason Bentz]

Ok, so was looking at weight vests lately, and was intrigued by the TacTec after seeing them in the Games Murph WOD last year. But, I was put off by the price, so I waited. For Father's Day, I was visiting 5.11's site, and noticed they had everything 20% off, so pulled the trigger, and ordered the plates from Rogue.

Well, after getting everything, I'm highly confused. Can anyone comment on how the plates are installed? Is the vest directly from 5.11 different than the one from Rogue?

I tried to attach pics, but gave up after trying to resize, and then reduce size...ugh.

So, the problem I'm facing is that with the plate pushed all the way up into the vest, there are two vertical straps with Velcro on the end, that should wrap around the bottom of the plate, and then attach to the horizontal strips on the opposite side of the inside of the plate compartment. The problem is, that by the time the Velcro locks together, there is about one inch of space between the bottom of the plate and the webbing, so the plate slides down an inch or more when putting the vest on.

I gave up on it after messing with it for over an hour, thinking I must just not be strapping it up correctly. Just thought I'd ask here, as I assume someone has this vest.

[Jason Bentz]

Apparently they made a running change to how the plates are held into the vest. 5.11 sent me pictures of how to configure them for the Rogue plates, which basically means just wrapping the two straps around each other once before sliding the Velcro up into the vest portion, then the Velcro engages the mating strip on the opposite side. Clever, but would have been nice to include the instructions with the vest.

[Israel Juarez]

I feel your frustration but don;t fret. You can find detailed instructions in these two places:

Click on the video link to the left of this page
http://www.511tactical.com/crossfit-plate-carrier.html

or

READ instruction towards bottom of page on this link
http://www.roguefitness.com/5-11-tactical-vests

That should help!

[Jason Bentz]

Excellent, they must have just made this change, as those instructions weren't there until recently. Glad to see they provided those, I imagine they were getting a lot of questions after the Games.