[Bill Grandy]

A little over a year ago, I contacted BestArmour.com about purchasing these in spring steel:




And they arrived this weekend! I haven't gotten to put them to much use yet, but so far I love them.

The transaction with BestArmour wasn't the smoothest, but it could have been worse. It generally took a couple of days to respond to e-mails. The gauntlets were slated to take about four month initially. About a month or two after that, I contacted them asking about a status. Again, it took a while, but they replied saying the gauntlets were mostly done, and that they were about to go out for heat treatment. Another couple of months went by, and I had to contact them again. They said that they accidentally didn't send the gauntlets out for heat treatment, and that they only do two heat treament shipments per year. The next one wouldn't be until December (which was about a year after I'd first contacted them). I wasn't thrilled about this, but come December they contacted me and told me that the gauntlets were in the mail without me asking about them.

The gauntlets sat in customs for almost two months, which is not BestArmour's fault. They finally arrived, and I'm quite happy with them. They somewhat are a compromise between the protective quality of mitten gauntlets with the dexterity of finger gauntlets. I can't quite move my fingers completely fluidily as I can with good finger gauntlets, but it's still close. If I try to completely stretch open my fingers, the design doesn't quite allow it, but otherwise I can still move them quite well.

These are spring steel, so they should be able to stand up to quite a lot of punishment. They look gorgeous: The form is barely bigger than my hands, and the fluting is excellent. These ended up costing me around $950 USD, including the charges of sending the money to the Czech Republic and the shipping costs. All in all, despite some hang ups with punctuality, I'd call these a very good deal.

Now I just need to test them out in some bouting!

[Bill Grandy]

I used them for some quarterstaff tonight, and so far I am very impressed with the lateral articulation at the wrist. Due to the fact that these are spring steel, they are very light, and are no more restrictive than lacrosse gloves are.

I am not terribly thrilled with the gloves, which are too small for me. The gloves are also made of a thin leather, so some of the harder strikes caused some minor pain, but far less than against a lacrosse glove. I will probably take them out and sew in some lightly padded ones that fit me better.

While I still haven't used them extensively yet, my feelings are very positive about these so far.

[Jean Thibodeau]

They sure look good but the customer service was sort of mediocre, certainly I have seen worse and lived through much worse customer service at times but then I have also been spoiled by excellent customer service by some other vendors and makers.

The problem with so-so customer service is that one hesitates to experience it again with the same maker even when the end product does seem really very good like these.

Glove sizing does also seem something to find a way to get perfect before the rest of the work is committed too: Not always very easy when these things are done by only e-mail communication so I think one can give them a bit of slack about it but these are not " cheap " and quality control and customer service should be more of a priority I think.

[Scott Hrouda]

Congratulations Bill! I know that you were eagerly awaiting the arrival of your new gauntlets and it sounds as if the wait was justified. The fluting looks very well executed and the overall shaping is pleasing to the eye (my eye at least ).

Have you had the chance to weigh them? I'm very interested in the weight of each gauntlet as you describe them as heat treated spring steel which to me means tough and very light.

Have fun sparing with your new gauntlets!

[Emil Andersson]

Congratulations on your gauntlets, Bill. May they serve you well from here on to eternity, as you'd expect from that spring steel!

I've ordered from BestArmour.com twice before and I agree with your assessment of their customer service, although I only found it a little bit bothersome the first time around - after I received and experienced their beautiful work for the first time I no longer have any reason for fretting when ordering from them. In fact, I fully intend to place an order this coming June for a helmet and a breast plate, both of them in spring steel.

@Scott, I have a pair of 1mm thick spring steel finger gauntlets from BestArmour, and they weight about 1.7lbs per hand. The design is different to Bill's but they should be about the same weight, regardless.

These are the ones I got, for reference:

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Emil Andersson]

@Jean, I agree with you, but I've never experienced BestArmour not actually sending replies to my queries, even though it might take about a week to get them. I often get responses from Milan on Sunday evenings, so perhaps they spend only a limited amount of time on the computer during work hours? They seem to be under quite a workload over there - I wrote to them and gave them my interest in a new order back in mid-January, but was told that they're only able to start working on it come June.*

Now I'm not trying to defend a lack of communication at all, but as long as the end product will be worth the effort I am happy about it, spotty communication or not. In retrospect, I don't think I've ever ordered from anyone who's been really pro-active. Perhaps I've just grown used to it?

*Edit: and before that, I let them know that I was interested in ordering a pair of sabatons some time during the end of the summer in 2009, but production wouldn't be started until the next spring!

[Jean Thibodeau]