Haley Strategic D3 Chest Rig

July 29, 2013

TL;DR

The Haley Strategic D3 chest rig is generally well-constructed and highly functional, though users should be aware of its specific limitations regarding short magazines and strap excess.

  • It accommodates a large loadout, particularly supporting standard-length magazines (like AR-15 and Glock 17), with room to spare.
  • The rig is built with durable 500D construction and multiple pouches for varied gear integration.
  • Potential usability issues include excess dangling straps and a shoulder harness that is better suited for attachment to a plate carrier.
  • While robust, the rig may not offer optimal comfort during long use with a heavy loadout, especially concerning the shoulder harness.
I recently purchased the Haley Strategic Disruptive Environments (D3) chest rig in the Kryptek Highlander camouflage pattern.

My first impressions of the rig is that it’s nice and well made, and for the most part, does and holds all of the things that they mention on the site. Here are the basic specs off of the Haley Strategic site, https://haleystrategic.com/.
  • 4 fully loaded magazines (M4, M16, AK) with Hypalon® magazine retention tabs
  • 2 Multi-Mission Pouches with Hypalon® magazine retention tabs
  • 2 flapped GP pouches
  • 1 STUFFIT™ pouch
  • 500D Construction
I put 4 AR-15 mags, 2 Glock 17 magazines and a flashlight into the rig without any issues and there was room to spare, as I would have imagined there would be. I tried stuffing some other magazines in there, and the only mags that didn’t really fit well were shorter stubby mags like my Glock 36 mags. They are too short and a just didn’t fit well. But with 1911 mags, and the Glock 17 and 23 mags I tried, they worked perfectly. One of the things that was pointed out in some other reviews that I saw was that there are a lot of dangling straps once you have the rig on and pulled tight, and there definitely are. Depending on your frame, you end up with anywhere from an inch or two to 6-8 inches of extra strap on each side. This isn’t really a bad thing, but it will get annoying. You can use some rubber bands or some velcro strips to wrap up the excess if you need to, I know I will be doing that.

The shoulder harness that comes with the rig is pretty basic, it doesn’t have a lot of webbing on it (3 webs on each strap), but I wouldn’t suggest attaching too much to the straps, they are pretty floppy. Also, there is no padding or anything like that in the straps, so with a full loadout, the straps may not be the most comfortable things. To me, it looks like the straps seem like you can use them if you want to, but it is really designed to hook into a plate carrier. So that’s great if you have a plate carrier, but if you don't, you may end up not liking the shoulder harness if you have to use this rig regularly with a heavy loadout.

Other than the harness being a little less than expected, I think this is a great rig, and you can really mix and match it with a lot of different gear. Also, the 500D construction should hold up pretty well. I’m hoping to take it out and run it through it’s paces doing some shooting and see how it holds up when it’s getting banged around.

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