Ghillie Suit £41.95

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munkiboi182

Full Member
Jan 28, 2012
583
2
36
taverham, thorpe marriott, norfolk
You can make great ghillie suits for next to nothing. I made one years ago using an old boiler suit and a couple of Hessian sacks. Just dye the Hessian in neutral colours (I went for dark green, brown,black and a few undyed pieces), cut it into strips, fold strips in two and sew them on at the fold. Worked beautifully.
 

Corso

Full Member
Aug 13, 2007
5,249
449
none
You can make great ghillie suits for next to nothing. I made one years ago using an old boiler suit and a couple of Hessian sacks. Just dye the Hessian in neutral colours (I went for dark green, brown,black and a few undyed pieces), cut it into strips, fold strips in two and sew them on at the fold. Worked beautifully.

used to make these and sell them on.

boiler or tank suits work really well - add some elastic to go under your foot so that the leg doesn't rid up as you crawl and camping mat for pads and some loops to attach natural foliage - makes all the difference
 
Apr 8, 2009
1,165
144
Ashdown Forest
To make a very good ghillie suit, be prepared to spend many many hours though - I think mine took around 20 hours in total, including making the base. If suits like that linked had been for sale at that price when I made mine, i'd have been tempted to use one as a base to modify. In its basic form though, most of these suits fall down on a couple of areas: They have trousers - try walking any distance/go through undergrowth in trousers like that - you will tie yourself in knots/snag . The smock has the ghillie material on the front as well - this would be a nightmare when crawling. Material on the arms is a little too long for ease in handling items.

Id probably cut up the trousers, and stitch additional panels onto the back of the smock to add extra length to it (so it hangs just below the back of the knees, but keep it waist high at the front), trim the length of the cam on the arms, and remove most of the cam on the front of the jacket, possibly stitching in a panel of more robust material that wont snag/tear when you are dragging yourself forward on your stomach.

Something also to watch with these commercial suits - the cam is usually synthetic, and the cheaper ones won't be flame retardant, so take care!
 

leon-1

Full Member
To make a very good ghillie suit, be prepared to spend many many hours though - I think mine took around 20 hours in total, including making the base. If suits like that linked had been for sale at that price when I made mine, i'd have been tempted to use one as a base to modify. In its basic form though, most of these suits fall down on a couple of areas: They have trousers - try walking any distance/go through undergrowth in trousers like that - you will tie yourself in knots/snag . The smock has the ghillie material on the front as well - this would be a nightmare when crawling. Material on the arms is a little too long for ease in handling items.

Id probably cut up the trousers, and stitch additional panels onto the back of the smock to add extra length to it (so it hangs just below the back of the knees, but keep it waist high at the front), trim the length of the cam on the arms, and remove most of the cam on the front of the jacket, possibly stitching in a panel of more robust material that wont snag/tear when you are dragging yourself forward on your stomach.

Something also to watch with these commercial suits - the cam is usually synthetic, and the cheaper ones won't be flame retardant, so take care!

Now that's a good appraisal. We tend not to have too much in the way of scrim / hessian on the front of ghillie suits as you'll be on your belly / belt buckle. We keep the hessian short on areas around the front of the arms so that it doesn't get caught in the action / bolt of the rifle.

The old sniper smocks had loops on the sleeves for attaching the rifle sling and had web bands attached for attaching hessian to. It also had shooting pads on the arms and shoulders along with padded elbows for when you are crawling. There weren't enough points to attach hessian to so invariably we used to make our own suits. We also used to incorporate elastic into the suit so that we could readily attach natural foliage.

On the trousers keep the scrim short especially below the knee and on the front of the trousers there is absolutely no point in having scrim above the knee (on the knee itself it could provide padding for when crawling).

Ghillie Suits were sprayed with paint and then a wire brush was taken to them to shred them and make the attached hessian like hair and this process was continued throughout the life of the suit. Ghillie suits were seasoned (dragged through puddles, crawled in through sheep poo and cow dung) and then hosed down, but never washed. When wet they were sometimes run through a drying machine, this causes the hessian to bunch and gather and adds to the misshapen appearance of the suit, you would never use the drying machines in your block for doing this as it would stink the your block out.

As to being flame retardent, we used to have a rule that you don't smoke anywhere near a ghillie suit or anyone in one as they are basically one big tinder bundle.

The camo looks a little light in colour for most places in the UK, but maybe that's just the photos?

No, it's not too dark. It could probably do with being a little lighter. Once wet it'll appear considerably darker and the major problem that you have is actually appearing too dark as it's harder too make yourself lighter. The old dpm used to make you look almost like a black blob at range and this ghillie suit would probably do the same.
 

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