Swanndri FINALLY!

Some of you remember back when I got my big box full of Swanndri gear straight from New Zealand. It was the beginning of summer and the temps that day were in the 80s.

This morning I finally had an opportunity to give one of the Ranger shirts a run. It is currently 45 degrees (F) and I've been outside since approximately 6am when the temp was colder still.

Under the Ranger Shirt I'm wearing a short-sleeve T-shirt and I found my time outdoors to be quite comfortable. The slight breeze never seemed to penetrate the tightly woven fibers and the wool never caused me any problems. Some folks just cannot wear wool. Fortunately, I'm not one of those people.

Losing those 10 pounds has gone a long way to making this shirt fit better. Another 10 and it'll be ready for layering.

The shirt is a pullover style with a long brass zipper and the pockets are the top flap style with a button closure. This means repairs of the pockets are fairly simple and straight-forward. If the zipper were to wear out it could be a problematic repair in the field but the shirt will continue to function even with a broken zipper.

The Ranger Shirt gets a 9 for style, a 9 for functionality, and a 10 for the simple fact that I probably won't encounter another one in the woods all winter.

I can finally put the Customs nightmare behind me and rest comfortably knowing that I've got a darned good piece of gear (based on my few hours of testing thus far) that should last me the rest of my days.

Thanks for reading,

B