I confess - I have a glove fetish.
Despite living in a cooler part of the MidWest and enjoying outdoor activities such as shooting, I actually rarely wear gloves. But that's the rub, because I literally have a pair (OK, more than one pair) of gloves for *EVERY* occasion.
Driving? Check.
Formal night out? Check.
Murder by strangulation? Check.
Hydrate my delicate palms as I nap? Check.
OK, maybe not the last two, but you get the idea.
In truth, I mostly only glove-up for long-gun classes. For whatever reason, I find that I ding-up my hands a lot more when I'm in long-gun classes, so I usually wear gloves to give myself a break. Other than that, it's only when it gets really cold that I'll slip on a pair.
From your first reference article (
https://thegunzone.com/best-shooting-gloves),
@Keystone19250 , I absolutely do -NOT- like the Hatch. I find that while it is nice when it's relatively nice out, it is very non-weather-resistant. Wet neoprene is just horrible for keeping warmth, and the entire glove gets soggy in a way that few other textiles can. It was because of these gloves that I started looking for others during my paintball days, which, being a poor undergrad, I settled on surplus Nomex flight-gloves as a reasonable compromise that, when supplemented with an outer mitt of surplus wool, really did the trick admirably. The Hatch "All Weather" gloves also didn't really take much bite out of gusting winds, either.
The Magpul Core Technical and Patrol gloves are both very nicely executed, and I would consider either of them a very good all-around pair, depending on which climate you find yourself in. On the hottest days, I feel like even the Technical can be a bit more of a chore to wear than the PIGs, but this leads to a bit more weather-capable trade-off when things start to cool.
I really, really love my PIG Deltas, but I will say that the Alpha (and the ladies' fit version of each) can be more comfortable if the end-user doesn't like a too-tight fit around the wrist. As a true "next-to-skin" sized gloves, the Deltas can get a bit tight around the wrist, and my daughter, for example, much prefer the wrist closures on her Echos (which are the female variants of the Alpha). The little "PIG" gripper stencils on the Deltas wear off pretty fast, but I've found the gloves to give more than sufficient traction without, and are otherwise sufficiently durable per their cost. I tend to go through them about on a seasonal basis, but they remain more than serviceable, with no edge fraying or other undue wear.
For "second skin"/"almost bareback" fit, I really, really, really love the PIG Alpha/Echo and Delta.
^ My buddy and partner for the
Practically Tactical Partners' Shoot House class, hosted at the fabulous Alliance Police Training Facility. Those were some pretty hot, pretty muggy late-Spring days here in NE-Ohio.
^ Basic Carbine at the APD Facility, again, later that summer. This time I was wearing my Alphas.
They are cool enough to wear in the summer without feeling like your hands are marinating, and provide some level of heat-resistance for modern slim-rail'ed ARs (even without any heat-mitigation measures like RailScales panels or the like) and exposed-barrel shotguns. For more aggressive work (such as with traditional AK setups or when shooting a shorter-barrel AR that might see accidental hand-placement onto the suppressor or gas-block), while I don't think that "FR" (Fire Resistant) gloves are absolutely necessary, these next-to-skin gloves can be a bit lacking, particularly for the heat-sensitive. An overall heavier glove like the Mechanix Fastfit or, of-course, something "FR" like the Outdoor Research 's Firemark or Suppressor will both handle the extra heat well as well as will offer a bit more cold-weather comfort, too.
That said, the FDT's will take the bite off, even though they are not wind-proof:
^ That day on Varg Freeborn's "OG Range" in Garrettsville, Ohio, saw snow and freezing rain. The wool fisherman's sweater over a UA baselayer kept me both warm and dry - and with that dry core, my hands and fingers were never cold, even though they got wet, and there was a stiff wind blowing.
When the weather gets much colder, I've been very happy with my Outdoor Research gloves for both shooting as well as winter-fun wear. Unfortunately, the two sets that I favor have both been discontinued, and I really don't know how their modern lineup compares. That said, I still use their Gripper glove (which is actually in their "Tactical" collection) for general range-work (nothing sucks heat from fingertips and hands like setting up steel targets in the winter, LOL!). Currently, both my daughter and I have been very happy with the PIG FDT Cold Weather gloves for winter, for shooting both handgun and carbine in an action/non-bullseye context, with sizing similar to their next-to-skin FDT series. My daughter and I tend to shoot when it's really cold out, when no-one else goes, and with the FDT CWs, we really haven't even made much use of our Zippo hand warmers since.
I've been looking forward to trying out a pair of the VIKTOS Coldshot for the coming season, and I'll check back to report.
For force-on-force, I've been very happy with the Magpul Core Breach, which replaced my old double-gloves setup (an old pair of TASO "Armored" Paintball Gloves slipped over a simple pair of cotton work gloves). The Breach's aren't quite as expensive as some others of its breed, but still offers great protection of the knuckles and fingers while still allowing for good dexterity for weapons-manipulations and reasonable trigger feel.
In terms of fit, I'm skin-tight in size 8.5 for surgical gloves. "Large" PIGs have been a consistent next-to-skin fit for me, be it for the Alpha, Delta, or CW variants. For me, OR, Mechanix, and Magpul seem to fit similarly, and there's a bit more inconsistency, but again, their "large" size tends to fit me reasonably well.
While I do have more gloves than the typical bear, I also admit to not having tried nearly all.
So, here's a few humble pieces of advice:
(1) Try locally, first - or failing that, work with an online vendor that has a good return policy. SKD Tactical, for example, allows no-questions returns of their PIG FDT gloves as long as they are in as-new condition, with the gloves still on the packaging "tree." This allows you to literally try-on the pair, without risk - if only the trouble of having to go to the Post Office to drop off a return package.
(2) Understand that sizing isn't everything. While "bulk" can be a problem, the specifics of the design of the glove can either help avoid or create problems. For example, some gloves are relieved at webbing and allow for better seating of the gun's grip, while others may have padding in this area to help mitigate recoil. Similarly, padding on the palmar surface may help with both grip and shock absorption, but could potentially cause interference problems with guns that have a grip safety: this one was something that I caught on one of my thickest pairs of gloves -the OR Stormcell- when I was vetting my gloves at a concealed-carry oriented class that was held in early-winter (because of the palm design, I could not reliably always properly actuate the grip safety on my carry gun, my XDm 3.8 Compact).
Vet your setup thoroughly.
(3) And towards that last, understand that what you may normally do without gloves, you may or may not be able to do with gloves (and vice-versa). Your first thought might be "well, those gloves should give me more traction and should help manipulations" but while that's true, it's also quite possible that they'll snag/catch where your skin won't. For example, Jack Leuba once wrote on M4C.net that he had to re-train a whole group of "tip of the spear" guys to use the slide-release on their sidearms because when they went over-the-top for an "overhand powerstroke" to cycle the slide, the setup of their handgun and the type of gloves they were wearing meant that they were routinely catching the gloves in the slide's ejection-port, inducing stoppages. On the other end of the spectrum, DefensiveCarry.com, Florida member
Adric22 went to the range one day in the heat of summer, only to find that with sweaty hands -without his shooting gloves- he could not successfully run the slide on his defensive/carry gun. Gloves can also catch in the trigger guard or even on the trigger face (modern, split-trigger safety mechanisms), either causing you to not be able to complete the trigger path or cause you to be unable to reset the trigger. Alternatively, depending on the stitching and how your finger interacts with the trigger and trigger well, that glove can also cause blisters or other discomfort (trimming back the glove material to the trigger finger's first knuckle is an age-old trick, but make sure you keep the glove in good repair, to avoid that area becoming a snag problem - some gloves even offer trimmable sections that are pre-sewn/hemmed).
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