Review: Tactical Concealment's GhillieSkins Viperhood
Essential Related Pages
- Camouflage Theory - Fundamental principles of camouflage.
- Physical Caouflage - Introduction to camouflage garment selection and use.
Tactical Concealment's GhillieSkins ViperHood
A high speed/low drag ghillie suit? You becha....up for review on this page is the GhillieSkins ViperHood made by Tactical Concealment Manufacturing Company.
 Tactical Concealment Manufacturing Company's GhillieSkins ViperHood |
 The viperskin is a partial ghillie suit who's open back/open front design allows greater mobility in conjunction with the ability to carry both a pack and a load bearing vest. |
Traditional Ghillie Suits
When coupled with proficient movement skills and a comprehensive understanding of fundamental camouflage principles, a ghillie suit can be the icing on the cake when it comes to remaining unseen under direct observation, even at extremely close range. A traditional ghillie suit is typically hand made by tying hundreds and hundreds of strands of shredded burlap (called garnish) onto a webbing lattice sewn onto the exterior of some host garments. On a full fledged ghillie, the garments are typically a jacket and a pair of pants, and the garnish usually covers 100% of the backside of the suit, allowing the wearer to virtually disappear when laying down on his/her stomach.
 While the viperhood does not quite achieve the same level of camouflage as a regular ghillie when proned out behind the rifle as illustrated by the visible pack and pants; never-the-less the overall camouflage effect of the viperhood is still mightily impressive. |
But while a traditional ghillie is an extremely effective camouflage, it also has its drawbacks; mainly that the suit can be heavy, cumbersome to move in, and awkward to store if you have to pack your gear with you on extended field trips. Another significant liability is the tendency of a traditional ghillie's garnish to catch on natural foliage and as a result leave behind a wake of tell tale signs in the form of shedded burlap.
Consequently, we here at tacticalworks.ca feel that for the vast majority of professional operators and recreational users, a traditional ghillie suit is massive overkill. Certainly, a traditional ghillie is unparalleled in its capacity to hide an individual when they are immobile and proned out, however the realities of many professional and personal deployments favor enhanced mobility as well as the ability to carry more gear than is possible when burdened with a traditional ghillie suit.
The GhillieSkins ViperHood
Incorporating the camouflage principles of a traditional ghillie suit on a much more mobile and flexible platform is the GhillieSkins Viper Hood; an excellent product made by Tactical Concealment Manufacturing Company (www.tacticalconcealment.com). A "ghillie-suit-lite", the Viper Hood is a ghillie styled upper torso garment with no coverage on either the back or the front, affording many of the traditional ghillie's concealment properties without hindering either a load bearing vest or a backpack.
We purchased one for evaluation from Triad Tactical (a Tactical Concealment distributor: www.triadtactical.com) shortly before the 2005 SHOT show at the beginning of February. As both Steve from Triad Tactical and Mike from Tactical Concealment were gearing up for the show, they were unable to process our order until after the show. Due to some communication mix-ups intended to accelerate shipping (but unfortunately having the opposite effect), our order shipped March 8th.
 Back of the un-garnished hood. |
 Front of the un-garnished hood. |
Usually, shipping from the US to Canada is not that painful of an ordeal, however in this case the Canada Customs border boys took their time and our GhillieSkins Viper Hood did not arrive until April 6th. As Steve from Triad Tactical wrote: "World record for slow shipping, I have shipped to Indonesia faster than that"! Despite the world-record-setting slow shipping, Steve at Triad Tactical was always immediately available and more than cooperative in tracking down our MIA order; all in all a high level of customer service despite an extremely elongated shipping process.
The GhillieSkins ViperHood is available in both tan and green; as the terrain in southern/central Alberta tends to lean somewhat towards the arid side of things, we specified and received a tan colored kit. The hood comes un-garnished, and includes two large bundles of un-dyed jutte thread and a couple of small tins of brown dye. The base garment is made from Supplex fabric and has sewn to it a large number of nylon garnish attachment points. The hood features a myriad of attributes, to name a few: ample ventilation, 3 point chest adjustment, both underarm and elbow tension adjustment, hood drawstrings, and shoulder girth adjustment.
 Side of the un-garnished hood. Note the wild dog moving into position to strike. |
 Details of the hood. |
It took us approximately 3 evenings to tie the garnish onto the Viper Hood, and we chose to supplement significantly the jutte thread supplied with the kit with a thicker 3 ply jutte string. Purely a choice made based on where we tend to deploy, to our eyes the addition of the aged twine added some dimension and shadow to the suit and works better than pure, fine jutte in the dry brushy terrain of the foothills where we live, the coniferous mountainous terrain just west, as well as the boreal forests to the north. We didn't think it worked as well in the grasslands of the prairies though; however we hardly spend any time out there so the jutte rope has been incorporated into every ghillie garment we've made since. The twine in our viper hood has not aged much, but we're hoping to spend some time in the field this summer to change that!
After tying on all the garnish, we washed the hood in a muddy slurry to help blend up the garnish a bit and then headed off to the field for some testing.
 Garnished viperhood, hood down. |
 Garnished viperhood, hood down. |
 Closeup of the garnished suit from the front. |
It was early spring when we took the photographs accompanying most of this article, and they are representative of how the terrain is around here approximately 80% of the time. For our test deployment, we set out on foot to find some coyotes equipped with a Kifaru Zulu pack (next on our list of equipment to review!) stuffed with approximately 75 lbs of gear and an un-camouflaged Remington 700 VS. We moved through a large variety of terrain and vegetation, from grasslands, through willow groves, and intermixed conifer and deciduous forests. While we shed a small amount of garnish, it was significantly less that what we have lost running the same route with any of our full fledged ghillie suits, and our observers felt that the concealment properties of the hood were surprisingly close to those of the full fledged suits when sound route selection and movement discipline were observed. The enhanced mobility of the hood was certainly noticed and much appreciated.
The subjects of their own review, the pack and rifle deserve some slight mention here in that it would have certainly helped the overall concealment effectivess were we to have garnished them both slightly. We chose instead to leave them as is. Our reason for this is that it would make it easier to illustrate the viperhood's compatibility with other gear.
 Uncamouflaged pack and rifle stand out like sore thumbs! A bit of garnish on the pack and rifle would go along way.... |
All in all, would we recommend Tactical Concealment's Ghillie Skins Viper Hood in lieu of a traditional ghillie suit? Without even hesitating we'd sound off "yes". For more information please contact either Steve at www.triadtactical.com or Mike at www.tacticalconcealment.com.