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Reviews > Clothing > Gloves > SealSkinz ChillBlocker Gloves > Coy Starnes > Long Term ReportSealSkinz®
ChillBlocker™ Gloves
Long Term Report 8/27/2004  SealSkinz® ChillBlocker™ Gloves in action Tester Bio
I live outside a small town in northeast Alabama. I also enjoy hunting, fishing, canoeing, and most other outdoor activities. Backpacking is my favorite pastime. I consider myself a knowledgeable backpacker but I am not an expert. I enjoy hiking with my friends and family or solo. I limit my hiking to areas fairly close to home, usually within a day’s drive of home. I hike throughout the year and actually hike the least in the hot humid months of summer. My style is slow and steady and my gear is light. However I will sacrifice weight for comfort and durability. A typical 3-season load for me is around 20 lb (9 kg) not counting food or water. I usually sleep in a hammock and cook with an alcohol stove. My backpacking trips are usually 2, 3 or 4 days in length. Product Information
Product Description The SealSkinz® ChillBlocker™ Gloves look much like cotton work gloves, only quite a bit thicker and waterproof. They are black inside and out except for the gripper dots which are a brownish color, the SealSkinz® logo on the right hand glove, and a yellow stitch line inside the cuff area up at the glove opening. The gloves are constructed of three layers with the outside layer made of knit of nylon/Lycra® spandex. The next layer is the waterproof layer. The inner layer is expedition-weight fleece. I included more of the technical details in my Initial Report. Testing Locations and Conditions The weather has been a major factor in the past four months of testing. To put it bluntly, it has been too warm to test the ChillBlocker™ Gloves while hiking, or doing most other activities I would normally wear warm gloves. As a result, I have limited my testing to playing around in a creek below my house and on a few occasions when target shooting. The air temperatures have been anywhere from around 75 F (24 C) to well over 90 F (32 C). The creek water is spring fed and cold but I did not take any actual temperatures of the water. I do know that I can swim in the creek about 15 minutes before I start shivering. The elevation at the creek is around 1000 ft (300 m). Long Term Test Results As I documented in my Initial Report, the left-hand glove had a leak and the right-hand glove had a slightly deformed pinkie finger. After notifying Danalco, Inc., I was sent a replacement pair to test. The replacement ChillBlocker™ Gloves did not have any leaks, nor were there any deformed finger sections. The only real problem was, the replacement gloves were a size XL. Through most of the Field Test stage and on till now I have tested the size XL glove. Despite them being quite a bit too big, this has not been a major problem as long as I wore the gloves mainly for warmth. Unfortunately, it has been much too warm during this phase of the test to really need warm gloves. I will have to say that the ChillBlocker™ Gloves did not see near the abuse that the ChillBlocker™ Socks I tested concurrently with the gloves did. I just checked them again for any leaks and so far they are still waterproof. As with the socks, the gloves will not stop water from entering around the opening (for the wrist in this case). I wore the gloves on a few occasions when I did some more target practice with my handguns and a few times as I waded around a local creek, but otherwise I have not had the opportunity to really test the gloves durability during the hot weather. The one worn area on the inside, in the thumb/pointer finger interface of the right hand glove, has stopped growing (see picture in Field Report for more details). I suspect I may have damaged this area when shooting my 44 Mag revolver which I don't shoot a lot mostly because the cartridges are not that cheap. Another possibility is that by being too big the gloves wore prematurely in this area due to the extra play in this area. I noticed that this area gets more movement during nearly any activity and the loose fold of material really moved a lot in all directions as I wore the gloves. I definitely did not need the gloves for warmth during the last few shooting sessions but found that while shooting my 9 mm Ruger P95 the gloves made shooting this particular gun easier. The plastic like Isoplast™ polymer frame on this gun has always been hard to grip firmly. In hot weather when my hands were damp from sweat it only compounded the problem. An uninsulated pair of SealSkinz® gloves might be even better for shooting in the summer. Conclusions I regret I was not able to test the ChillBlocker™ Gloves as much as I would have liked. But I have come to like these gloves not only for their warmth but the grip they afford on slick surfaces. Not only will I continue to use the ChillBlocker™ Gloves for cold weather activities, a size Large in camo is high on my need/want gear list. I would like to take this opportunity to thank BackpackGearTest and Danalco, Inc. for the opportunity to test the ChillBlocker™ Gloves. I have learned a lot and hope my findings will be of benefit to anyone reading these reports. Read more reviews of SealSkinz gear Read more gear reviews by Coy Ray Starnes Reviews > Clothing > Gloves > SealSkinz ChillBlocker Gloves > Coy Starnes > Long Term Report | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||