I saved this larger item to give a quick break down on the Toy Soldier Workshop. I know many people see the name and just think, you can't be fucking serious why are you giving these commies a chance monkey!? For starters, good things can come out of China and a good example of that is Emdom gear. The other factors are that they are using good genuine materials and putting forth effort into making their own unique designs. When places send me stuff I give it a fair assessment no matter the origin.
Moving onto the actual kit, this chest rig stands out as combat photography stuff tends to be harder to come by.
The main idea is basically a chest harness with 4 big ass pouches. The sizing works out well to fit either photo lenses or rifle magazines. The bottoms have padding incorporated which is a great plus to help protect those pricey lenses. Sizing wise the pouches easily fit 3 M4 style 30 round magazines so 2 AK mags are a carry option as well. Although there is elastic on the sides it isn't really doing anything so I would certainly like to see it tighter. If there are only 2 M4 magazines in a pouch they will definitely bang around and make noise. The generous sized velcro closure flap allows for good size accommodation. A pull tab at the end would have been nice, but a small pocket is incorporated into the flap which has a little tab up top. The sizing on the slim pocket doesn't give huge opportunities, but for example one can fit in: medic gloves, slim handcuffs, a lens filter with slim case, and other smaller items like memory cards. The room in the slim pocket will also depend a little on how full the main pouch pocket it. As a bonus, there is loop velcro on the exterior of the flaps for press id, cool guy patches, and such.
In the middle of the main panel is a large slim velcro sealed pocket which has staggered tabs to assist in opening. I'm not sure if it is an error, but my opening is only the space between the shoulder straps despite there is velcro all the way to the ends of the shoulder straps. On my sample this makes for a pretty small opening so fitting a hand in to retrieve possible goodies like maps may be a little difficult. On the TSW site they show this pocket being used to hold a pistol with modular holster. Even with the holster on I'd be worried about the pistol falling deep into the pocket after some heavy movement. There isn't any loop velcro on the inside just to clarify. With the current sized opening I'd rather have the pocket be sewn smaller (width similar to opening) rather than as it is with the full interior. This would allow for pistol placement without the worry of it getting lost into the pocket.
The shoulder straps...to put it nicely did not work well on my body. There are no SRBs on the shoulder straps which makes taking off the rig a lot harder as I like a pretty tight fit to keep it higher on my chest. SRBs where the straps meet the panel up front would work great, or split the panel with a zipper. Adjustment is a bit of pain as it is all triglide based so you are forced to take it off to adjust if no buddy is around. A back strap is included to put the shoulder straps in a H-style position. There are webbing slots on the shoulder straps to hold the H-strap in place better, but I had to not use them as it would have been too low on my back. The "handle" on this H piece I guess is for a handle when the rig is off. Since it is only connected with 2 snaps and a little velcro, it will not hold if used as a drag handle. Optionally one can do X-style with the shoulder straps. It makes for a snug fit, but it did dig into my neck so a top with some sort of collar is recommended in that mode. Perhaps doing more webbing loops would allow back positioning when in X-style. The shoulder straps also have frontal webbing loops for wire/tube control and D-rings for mounting. The waist strap actually has a SRB buckle so that worked out fine for me and no complaints there. So far it has been surviving of my durability test of repeatedly filling it with soup cans and shaking the shit out of it, but I'd still like to see box stitches on the shoulder strap connection points for long term durability.
In summary I like the idea, but there is obviously a lot left to be desired in the full execution. A few small mods will help a lot, but for those without that skill/capability it may be better to wait for gen 2.
http://www.toysoldier.com.hk/product_details.php?pid=83
