Having a reliable pair of survival gloves is paramount for your survival and safety in any SHTF situation. You need your hands to perform virtually every single survival act. You can’t risk injuring them.
The pandemic has taught us a hard lesson about the lack of medical care when you most need it. Simple burns and skin abrasions can turn into big problems if they get infected. Without access to emergency rooms and medications, you have to prepare the proper gear to protect your most valuable asset.
Table of Contents
What Are Survival Gloves Good For?
From preparing firewood to getting your backup power up and running. A proper pair of survival gloves can protect your hands from lacerations and burns.
- Preventing cuts while carving wood.
- Protect palms from abrasions and splinters while batoning or chopping wood
- Prevent cuts while handling sharp edged materials for DIY projects
- Burn protection from moving logs and iron pots around in a campfire.
- Hand protection while fixing vehicles and machines.
- Prevent shocks while doing electrical work.
- Protection from the cold conditions (rain, snow, wind).
- Padded knuckles and palms protect against shocks and punctures during combat.
What are the Different Types of Survival Gloves?
People tend to picture tactical gloves as the combat gloves that military or law enforcement personnel use. Those usually have the hardened knuckles built in. While they can protect your fist if you ever did have to punch something really hard, the parts of your hands that need the most protection are the palms and fingers.
What you should always look for is a reinforced palm where the majority of abrasions occur when you’re gripping your tools. Sometimes the reinforcement also extends to the finger areas where the heaviest contact takes place. The gloves should feel snug without leftover material bunching up around the fingers. Your fingers should be able to pick up on enough sensory feedback in order to do detailed work.
While thinner gloves give you more agility to do work, they tend to be less protective against burns. If you want to grab for hot logs or take a pot off a campfire, the thinner gloves will transfer that heat onto your hands. This is one of those natural tradeoffs that’s dependent on use case. There are double layered gloves where you can get some extra thickness if you need it.
Tactical Gloves: Typically used by military or law enforcement. They have a thick material that provides excellent protection from abrasion. The palms are usually reinforced along with a hard protective layer on the back. They differ from the other types of protective utility gloves in that they added shock absorption (usually around the knuckles) to handle combat. They are a bit bulkier but they will protect your hands for most of the survival tasks you need to perform.
Bushcraft Gloves: Good bushcraft gloves should be thick enough to protect your hands from jagged splinters, abrasions, and accidental lacerations. They also need to give your hands enough dexterity to do finer carving work. Traditionally, woodsmen prefer leather gloves. Leather is a breathable material so hands don’t get sweaty while working.
Mechanic/Utility Gloves: Mechanic gloves are most useful against preventing physical and chemical injuries to hands, while also providing maximum dexterity and range of motion. This is probably why the original Mechanix glove first used by NASCAR has remained one of the most popular survival gloves today.
Electrical Gloves: Depending on the backup power setup at your house or bug out location, if you think you might be fumbling around with the electrical system at some point, you should get a pair of rubber insulating gloves. These gloves will protect you from shocks and electrical burn hazards.
Features to Consider in Survival Gloves
Abrasion Resistance – You always want your survival gloves to provide protection from cuts and scratches. Whether you need to grip an axe handle to process firewood or you break a fall by scraping the palms of your hands against a rough tree trunk, a good pair of gloves will literally save your skin.
Water Resistance – Understandably, you’d want to keep your hands dry from the elements when you have to work in rain and snow. Some synthetic materials like nitrile are waterproof. But they do make the hands sweaty. Alternatively, you can pretreat a pair of leather gloves so it becomes water resistant but can still ventilate.
Heat Resistance – This is a good feature to have since you can expect to deal with some unconventional cooking and heating during a power outage. Heat resistant gloves tend to be thicker so they will take away some dexterity. There are some double layered gloves where you can adjust the thickness depending on the task at hand.
Dexterity – Both glove fit and material type can affect manual dexterity. Ideally, you want to be able to protect your hands while carving a feather stick. The thinner materials generally offer more dexterity. You also want the fit to be snug to get the maximum sensory feedback from your fingers.
Grip – Most utility gloves are designed to optimize grip. The palm and inside finger areas are usually where additional grip reinforcements are built in. They also serve as extra protection against sharp cuts and abrasions.
Insulation – Cold temperatures will affect your dexterity. Similar to heat resistance, the thicker the material, the more insulation you will get. However, it also comes at the expense of control and agility. If cold temperatures are a concern, the double layered gloves with an inner wool glove can serve as a flexible option.
Durability – Some materials are going to wear out faster than others. Leather is a popular material for its comfort and breathability but it does wear out faster than synthetic materials.
Tactical Glove Materials
Leather. Most of the utility gloves are made out of leather. Leather is the time tested favorite for its comfort and abrasion resistance. Leather is water resistant while vents out heat and sweat. It provides decent protection against the cold.
Kevlar. Kevlar is a plastic based synthetic material that is stronger than steel but very lightweight and flexible when woven into fabric. Kevlar is mostly known for its cut and puncture resistance. It’s also resistant to high temperatures. Some tactical gloves have a leather shell and kevlar lining built in.
Synthetic leather. Synthetic leather has always been an inferior fabric, until microfiber leather came along. Similar to real leather, microfiber is breathable and water resistant. When it comes to grip and abrasion resistance, microfiber even outperforms real leather.
Nylon/Spandex. Nylon and spandex are usually added to specific areas of tactical gloves to give the user more flexibility. Although nylon does have good abrasion resistance, these softer fabrics are generally not as protective as a tough fabric to withstand the rougher elements from the outdoors.
Leather Tactical Glove Maintenance
Cleaning:
Leather is not machine washable. However you can gently hand wash them with cold water and soap. After they are clean, lay them out to air dry. Synthetic materials can be machine washed.
Treatment:
Some of the economical leather gloves are not pre treated for water and weather protection. What you get is often gloves that wear out or crack after a few uses. This can be easily prevented by applying Obenauf’s oil to the leather. The oils will soften dry cracked leather while the beeswax in the formula waterproofs.
If your leather gloves do get wet, always set them out to air dry. Do not apply heat or it will lead to cracking.
Best Premium Winter Outdoorsmen Gloves
Hestra Falt Guide Gloves
Designed by and named after Sweden’s leading survivalist, Lars Falt. If you are considering high quality outdoor gloves that will last you for years, take a closer look at the Falt Guide Gloves.
Pros:
Made with Hestra’s proprietary pre-treated cowhide and goatskin blend to withstand harsh, rough conditions. These gloves are sure to protect your hands from any camp task. They come with removable wool liner gloves for added versatility and protection against cold weather. The Swedes know a thing or two about keeping warm.
The stitchwork on this glove is even and secure. Where seams are a common problem area for leather work gloves, the workmanship of these gloves shine through its durability and longevity. Hestra is known for their attention to detail and quality craftsmanship.
The glove has excellent grip for carrying out tasks around camp. The thickness also provides good heat protection.
Cons:
Because this is a thicker glove made for durability and warmth, some dexterity is sacrificed. You can still feather a stick while wearing them but they are awkward for fine carving or mechanical work.
Most Affordable Cowhide Work Gloves
Wells Lamont Cowhide Leather Gloves
These are your jack of all trades, trusty work gloves that you can grab from the local hardware store. People use them for camping trips, landscaping, and construction projects.
Pros:
They are made from cowhide leather giving them excellent abrasion and puncture resistance. The material ventilates very well making sure your hands stay dry from sweat even in warm weather. The reinforced palm patch adds protection and helps with grip.
These gloves are thin enough to perform detailed work involving agile fingers. You can use them to cut down a tree and also carve a tent stake with a small knife. You won’t have trouble feeling the tools and materials that you handle while wearing these gloves.
They give decent protection against heat if you use them to manage a campfire.
Cons:
The cowhide leather is untreated out of the box. If you don’t mind the work, you can treat these for added water resistance and durability. With the price being so affordable, most people use these as semi disposable gloves.
Best Tactical Gloves for Dexterity
Mechanix Wear M-Pact Covert Tactical Work Gloves
These tactical gloves are made for the perfect balance between protection without sacrificing dexterity.
Pros:
These gloves are made with a proprietary mesh material that provides good ventilation to keep working hands comfortable and sweat free. The palm is reinforced with synthetic leather in two areas for extra protection against abrasions and bumps.
The backs of the hands are protected with thermoplastic rubber for shock absorption. The monochrome colors keep the militarized style fairly conspicuous and low profile. Which I personally appreciate.
With a snug fit, I find these gloves give me the best tactile feedback for using my fingers effectively. I can wear them for camping, hiking, or just general maintenance around the house.
These gloves also have the added benefit of being machine washable.
Cons:
Does not protect against cold. Synthetic materials do cause hands to smell after long hours of wear.
