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Review: UF PRO Gen. 1 Striker XT Pants

How long in use?

Since 2015

What is it used for?

Milsims, seminars, polims, regular events, hikes, bivouacs, range work, etc....

Where to get it?

No longer available, but the new XT Gen 3. is available from Airsoftshop.be or UFPro itself.

Verdict

Oh boy, where to start? If my order history is to be believed, this is my first order for airsoft equipment that exceeded €100 (apart from my first replica, a G608 from JG with magazines and batteries). At the time, I was an independent journalist and such an amount was a serious chunk of my salary.

So why did I give my money to it anyway? Honestly, I have no clue anymore. I do know that I did my first course with Project Gecko that winter; the Winter Challenge. That experience shaped the rest of my airsoft ‘career’. If I am not mistaken, Eli from Project Gecko had just joined forces with UF Pro at the time. I suspect I discovered two things there: Eli's trousers and an absolute aversion to ‘loose’ kneepads.

Since then, I have used the trousers for just about every major event, bivouac and seminar I have done. A short anthology: Berget 2017, Berget 2019, DMN's Polsim in 2019, several seminars with Project Gecko including: CQB01, CQB02, NVG CQB and the live fire Carbine course, and of course numerous open skirmishes in Belgium. In short: I've put these trousers to pretty good use.

Quality/durability

After being dragged over asphalt during an exercise, the trousers were pretty torn and scuffed up at the bottom. However, UF Pro was happy to repair that for me, for a fee of course. That is also the only repair I have had to have done during the nine years I have been using them. I repaired a rip in the stretch fabric on the backside myself. One of my teammates had the crotch torn twice. That teammate then switched to another type of trousers from Claw Gear, if I am not mistaken. Also, the internal knee pads that you can buy with them do start to show some wear after about five years. Overall, though, the trousers are very durable.

Pros and cons

We'll start with the lesser points. Firstly, the trousers are quite heavy. Especially if you put in both the flexible soft knee pads and the harder ones. As a result, I haven't put the harder ones in for a few years myself. The softer ones in combination with the extra fabric on the knees offer more than enough comfort and protection.

Another downside is that you cannot adjust the height of the knee protection as you can with Crye cut trousers, for example. Not such a big problem in practice, but occasionally the knee protection doesn't sit 100% the way you want it to.

Finally, they can also get very hot. You can then unzip the knee protection, but that doesn't solve everything either. This is especially a problem in summer and in direct sunlight, a place you don't want to be anyway if you are trying to work camouflaged. For hikes, however, it is a potential problem, but then again that is something these trousers were not designed for. The Striker HT does solve this problem with the two extra zips at your crotch for ventilation.

The big pluses about the trousers all have to do with the design. The two zips on the thigh pockets, the internal compartments in those same pockets, the zip on your crotch that can open in both directions (ever had to pee with a 100L backpack you don't necessarily want to take off?), the double belt loops that allow you to wear a thin combat belt as well as a regular one to keep your trousers on, ... All elements that elevate this design to Crye level for me and for some things -the double belt loops for example- just a bit over it.

The trousers are also simply comfortable. For me, they are also perfectly usable for both CQB and greenside operations and in that respect more so than Crye cut trousers where knee protection does dare to be a problem in a bushy environment.

About the colour still: brown grey is a lovely colour that performs well in CQB, as well as forest, and at night. I remember weekend seminars where me and a teammate -both completely in brown grey- stood against a bush, casual, we just stood there and a third teammate just walked past us and was startled when we said his name. He was nota bene looking for us too.

Conclusion

The UF Pro Striker XT gen 1. are quality, durable, all-round trousers. Are Crye cut trousers slightly better for say, CQB? Yes, they are. Does this first generation occasionally get a bit hot? Yes, that too, but out of my entire wardrobe load of more than 20 sets of shirts and trousers in different styles and patterns, there is no pair of trousers that I have worn and used successfully as often and on as many different occasions as these trousers. For me, these are the standard against which all other trousers are viewed.