Trapper Creek Vest

Fit well was very functional

Die Schießweste hat eine gute Passform (1,84 m schlank = M) und ist mit sinnvollen Taschen ausgestattet. Sehr gute Verarbeitungsqualität und auch optisch gelungen. Die sehr schnelle Lieferung rundet das Ganze positiv ab.

One of the best vest i've purchased, but it is way too large! Really disappointed I have to return it.

What a great buy, this is perfect!

I have scoured the net and I found a lot of reviews about the Reactor G2 Pad vs. the Beretta Gel Pad inside the Browning Trapper Creek vest. So I decided to try them all together, side by side, and write a review so you can experience it in words before making your decision. So, from the photo below, you can see that the vest has a pocket designed to hold the Reactor G2 pad. The pocket comes with the vest but the pad does not. Pad is sold separately. When you browse the product here, Amazon recommends or tells you that other people buy the Beretta Gel Pad as well although the Gel Pad is not specifically made for the Trapper Creek Vest.. but does it work? Well, it actually does! (In a fashion, of course.) I won’t go too deep into the review of the vest itself because there already exist many reviews on the vest itself. So I won’t repeat the same. In a nutshell, it is a light weight, breezy, sturdy vest that goes on the outside of your normal shooting garments whether it be flannel shirt, jacket, or sweats, etc. The size seems to run true for Medium. It’s a loose-fitting garment so a bit for error is very much tolerable. Two large front pockets each can hold 25 shells (1 box). It won’t fit well if you keep the whole box, the square rigid shape of the box makes it awkward. Instead, dump the shells into the pocket (all 25 of them, loosely). They will fit better that way. The back side of the vest (that covers your butt) holds empty hulls. That’s for those of you collecting empty hulls to reload or to dump them into trash appropriately and not pollute the environment. The bottom of that hull pocket does NOT have a zipper. So, in order to empty out the empty hulls, you have to take off the vest and dump, instead of standing over a bucket or box and unzip the pocket and let the hulls out the bottom of it. Just so you know (this may be a deal breaker for some?? Not a big deal for others). ALSO, one review said the vest does NOT unzip fully in the front. This turned out not true. The vest fully unzips in the front and fully opens. You can put it on like a jacket instead of like a T-shirt. So that review needs to be corrected. However, the two-zipper design in the front does make it tricky to fully unzip. Nevertheless, it does zip and unzip fully without a doubt after you’ve master the trick to work the two tandem zippers. OK, so, as you can see from the photo, the Reactar G2 pad fits perfectly inside the pocket without error. The Beretta Gel Pad is too large to fit inside of it fully but as one other review said, if you turn it UPSIDE DOWN and put the narrow end in first, it will fit! BUT be advised that the Beretta Gel Pad is still too big but this may be good or bad. I came across several reviews stating that the Reactar G2 pocket is too low for field shooting such as Trap/Skeet. And I agree. After trying it out, the Reactar G2 is indeed too low. Often times the butt of the gun does not rest on the G2 but much higher on the shoulder, ergo defeating the purpose entirely. But if you upside-down the Beretta Gel pad, the bigger upper portion actually lays much higher and protects the shoulder AND that actually works very well for field shooting. Wow! Imagine that. I attached a photo showing the front view of the vest where the two pads would be when properly worn. You can see that the Beretta pad definitely covers at least 1 inch to 1.5 inch higher towards the shoulder which is the absolute benefit of that pad. The one down side is that because the Beretta pad is just too big for this vest, there is a bit of the pad sticking out too much and into the neck area. Depending on how you cradle your trap gun, that bit of gel pad may not be a bother, but for some (like me), the edge of the pad just sticks right into my neck which is a bit annoying. Because while the gel pad itself is soft, the edge is rather stiff and sharp. Ouch. But fear not. There are many reviews out there saying you can cut and trim the Beretta Gel Pad to fit. That’s definitely a possibility. Upon closer examination, the gel pad has individual gel cells as the pad is not one large continuous piece of gel material. Therefore, you can scissor cut in between the cells as you trim. As long as you don’t cut an actual cell containing the gel, there will be no issue. So just follow the zig-zag line and trim off the excess gel cells that you don’t need. More cells do not provide more shock absorption. Only the cells that’s directly in contact with the gun stock will be working to absorb the shock. So don’t be afraid to trim off the excess, that is, cells that don’t do anything that never come into contact with the gun buttstock. In terms of which pad is more shock absorbing?? I bet you’ve been dying to hear the answer to this question!! The verdict: the Reactar G2 is more absorbing than the Beretta Gel, in my honest opinion. The Reactar is thicker and bit more stiff. It does absorb more shock both in theory and in actual testing (2.75” shell, standard field load). Don’t ask me to put a number on it! It’s hard! Individual feel is different. For me, ok, if I have to put a number on it, I say the Reactar is about 20% more absorbent than the Beretta Gel. But don’t quote me on it!! Hehe. That’s my personal feel, that’s all. Another question is: CAN YOU USE BOTH?!! Answer is yes!! See my picture below. Both the Reactar G2 and the Beretta Gel can fit into the same pocket in this vest. Simultaneously! But note that if the buttstock is resting high on the shoulder and only on the Beretta Gel, then two is useless. But on the other hand, if the buttstock is resting lower in your natural shooting style, then you can get two pads to function simultaneously for your benefit. Yes, the absorption is amazing if you use both of them! But the two pads are rather thick and the length of pull is about 1/8” off. NOT a lot at all! For me, I felt nothing different really, 1/8” is detectable but not enough to change the game. But yes, I can feel the LOP is just a tad further out. Whereas using just one pad (doesn’t matter which one) I couldn’t reliably detect a difference in LOP. The difference is too skinny to make a significant detectable difference. Well. I sure hope this lengthy review was helpful to you. I hope the photo was good too. I tried to answer some of the unanswered, highly-debated questions out there in this one review and with photos to show the actual differences of the Reactar G2 vs. Beretta Gel, and how it looks and fits inside the Browning Trapper Vest. I hope you find the right fit for you! For me, in conclusion, I will likely only use the Browning Trapper Vest with the Beretta Gel. My gun rests very high up and it doesn’t touch the Reactar G2 at all where that pad is sitting. But I will keep both of them. For sitting down bench shooting, I can cradle the rifle buttstock lower and more into the chest where the Reactar G2 is at. Best of luck!