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Comparison Review: Crye JPC vs. Mayflower APC


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CRYE PRECISION JUMPABLE PLATE CARRIER

 

To start with, I recently sold my Crye Precision JPC and just got a Mayflower APC to replace it. Here's why:

 

I liked the JPC, but really only because it's intensely cool. Getting it set up how I like was a bit of a headache and the build quality kind of worried me. Stitching was so-so and the placement of stitching to hold velcro on seemed very haphazard and unprofessional. Speaking of velcro, the velcro on the front flap that held the cummerbund on felt very weak and I constantly worried that it would release if under too much strain. Having magazines in the kangaroo pouch only exacerbated that worry because the mags "puffed" it out even more to where a lot of velcro was just hanging out not doing anything.

 

The medium plate pockets were almost too small for my medium plates, to the point where the stretch material was stretching so much that I worried it would blow out. Also, the plates stuck so far out the bottom that the bottom flap barely held them in. No room for plate backers whatsoever if I had eventually gotten around to using this at the range. After two airsoft events I started noticing (very) minor wear on the shoulder straps that I'm sure would get worse with time.

 

I only ran it with plates, 5 Mk.17 or 6 M4 mags, a radio, and water, but I'm sure with any more weight it would get kind of uncomfortable. The cummerbund doesn't support any weight, as you'd expect, so much of what kept the plates high on my chest was the plates themselves squeezing against my body.

 

In all, it's a very cool carrier, but felt kind of like a compromise or a gimmick and I almost got the idea that it was meant to be semi-disposable. Obviously that is not possible for a civilian like me. I'm switching to the APC in the hopes that, although it's less Gucci, it will be a tougher, more practical carrier that can do what I need it to without me having to get too creative.

 

A picture of my JPC as I was using it:

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-Tyr Hydro

-BFG Ten-Speed

-Tyr small radio

 

MAYFLOWER ASSAULT PLATE CARRIER

 

 

There are many objective reviews of the APC out there so I’m going to try and hit the basics but mostly talk about what works for me and what I do and don’t like compared to the Crye JPC that I ditched for this rig. To clarify my credentials, I am not military, active duty or retired. I am not an LEO or any kind of contractor. I am just a guy who has been airsofting and collecting gear for a little over 7 years now. I like to think very critically about what I use in the field and run my gear as hard as our little hobby requires. I am a firm believer in “buy cheap, buy twice” but I am not going to pretend that I use my plate carrier for anything other than airsoft, trips to the range, and the occasional training course. I also want to write this from the point of view of an airsofter, since that's what we are.

 

So I managed to offload my Crye Precision JPC for enough money to fund a new carrier. I sold it for many reasons, mentioned above, but here is a quick summary:

-felt cheap

-not that comfortable

-seems like too much of a compromise between a plate carrier and some kind of concealable setup

-had a hard time scaling up my gear for more time in the field

-constantly worried that some part of it was going to break. Unacceptable.

 

There were, however, a few things that I liked.

-breathes very well through the Airlite C-bund

-looks wicked cool (honestly this is what made it hard to let go)

-forces you to carry just the basics, for better or worse

 

That said, I do feel that I’ve found a nice middle ground in the Mayflower APC.

 

Here’s how it arrived from SKD. I ordered on a Sunday night, had all of my stuff Wednesday afternoon. Those guys and gals rock. I ordered the kangaroo inserts separately. They are not included. My APC is a S/M with a M cummerbund.

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Initial Impressions

 

First thing I noticed is that it smells awful. Like cat litter. That went away after a few days, though. It feels VERY well made and all stitching was solid and done in the right spots, so that as little material could be used as possible without compromising the rig. This differs from the Crye in that I constantly worried that there was not enough reinforcement in critical areas and they seemed to have sacrificed a lot of durability for weight. The APC proves that it isn’t necessary to do that, since it really doesn’t weigh that much more than the JPC.

 

The Shoulder Pads and Straps

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These are very comfortable. Much more so than the Hypalon stuff that the JPC uses and, though I haven’t used this much, I’m sure they’re much more durable. Adjusting the straps is a no-brainer and they hold the plates up at a good height. People have expressed concern about these wide pads chafing your neck. I can confirm that this does indeed happen a bit. Wearing a combat shirt with a collar, the pads don’t dig into my neck at rest, but when I shoulder my rifle the pad is pushed into the collar to the point where I can notice it, but it isn’t painful. My only other complaints are that getting the pads woven into the straps takes some time and Velcro frustration, and that if you try to route a hydration tube through the pad there isn’t quite enough Velcro to hold it closed reliably, which results in your shoulder pad popping open and the hydration tube flopping around. I am looking into replacing the pads with BFG or First Spear ones.

 

The Cummerbund.

 

Mayflower’s many sizes of cummerbund really provide a nice fit. Even without my soft armor inserts it fits me very well and carries a little bit of the load, which is something that definitely can’t be said of the JPC’s cummerbund. I’m not a very big guy (6’0”, 150 lbs) and the medium cummerbund is adjustable enough to fit me while adding 2 more columns of MOLLE over the small.

 

It attaches and is adjusted in the back. The back flap wraps around the bottom of the plate pouch and velcros to the inside of the carrier. Important to note is that this creates something like the “pass-through” rear cummerbund area on the LBT 6094 or the FS Strandhogg. This means that if you want to upgrade to the FS 61/2 Tubes cummerbund like I do, you shouldn’t have to fabricate some new attachment or weave the shock cord into the outside MOLLE.

 

To attach and adjust the cummerbund you overlap the Velcro one-wrap in the back then close the flap. Pretty simple. I can see this chewing up the elastic over time, but I doubt that will be a big deal.

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It attaches in the front in the same way as just about every other carrier. My only (minor) issue here is that the flap barely covers the cummerbund flaps, so if you don’t line it up just right you’ll have some cummerbund Velcro hanging out the bottom. This is kind of hard to do while wearing the carrier. The little tabs on the corners of the front flap are a really nice touch. One of the issues that I had with the JPC was that the front flap Velcro felt very weak and I worried that with too much weight on the cummerbund it would release the cummerbund flaps. This was exacerbated by the fact that the kangaroo pouch ballooned out whenever there were magazines inside of it, pulling more of the Velcro away from where it needed to be. The APC has an interesting solution to that problem in that the kangaroo pouch is behind the cummerbund. I have not used that feature yet, but I plan to try it out eventually.

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The inside of the cummerbund is set up to accept soft armor and 6x6 side plates or magazine inserts. The mag inserts are nice, but very floppy. This makes them difficult to get installed properly and can make it tough to reinsert magazines, especially without armor next to them to flatten the cummerbund out. These are things that I can deal with, though. I’m going to run a line of stitching an inch above the bottom of the pouches to put my magazines up a little bit higher.

P1020976.jpg

 

The Body

 

You’ve seen the outside, here’s the inside:

P1020973.jpg

 

Yep, no padding whatsoever. I haven’t worn this enough to decide if that’s a problem, but it feels comfortable enough. It obviously does not breathe as well as the Crye JPC with its Airlite cummerbund, neoprene stuff, and spacer mesh, but it’s certainly better than a bigger carrier and I am sure I can get used to it. Better coverage and load-bearing capabilities are a nice upside.

Inserting plates is pretty simple. You just open up the bottom flap, slide the plates in, adjust them with the height adjuster (pretty nifty), and close the pouch. I did not take pictures of this because I am away from home for the summer and as such have to use plates that I made out of old pizza boxes simply for the sake of rigidity. I assure you they are sized exactly the same as my medium plates and they fit perfectly. This is a huge improvement over my medium JPC, as my medium plates barely fit to the point of almost blowing out the stitching on the stretch material and only allowing half of the Velcro on the bottom of the pouch to hold. I was always worried that the Velcro would give and my plates would just drop out on the ground. Forget trying to stick plate backers in there.

 

The top of the carrier has a built in admin pouch like the JPC, but this one seems a little bit bigger and has convenient pull-tabs. The panel in front of it is also not sewn down, so there is a second pocket in front of the admin pouch.

P1020980.jpg

 

My Setup

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This carrier handles all of the stuff that was starting to crowd my JPC with some extra space to scale up if necessary. My primary goal is to have a plate carrier that will hold 5 magazines, water, a radio, and an IFAK with room to scale up to 7 or 8 magazines if I will be in the field longer. If I need more water or gear, I’ll remove the Tyr pouch and throw on a pack with a bladder in it. I feel that the size of this carrier is perfect for airsoft and range shooting. I don’t need room for a charge pouch. I don’t need a huge medical kit. I don’t need to be carrying 3L of water at all times. I need to carry ammo, water, comms, and maybe some band-aids and getting some protection from BB hits is a nice bonus. The fact that it looks great doesn’t hurt either.

 

I understand that a key feature of this rig is that you can use the Swift-Clip kit to attach MRC chest rigs. I do not plan to use this because I prefer to just swap out pouches to use my 7.62 weapons and I’d rather keep my chest rig and plate carrier as separate rigs. This is just personal preference. I’m sure the Swift Clip stuff all works great.

 

I like that I can carry more than 3 magazines without feeling like I need to stick them all on my chest. I plan to try out a kangaroo pouch in the front, since the BFG pouches with mags in them make it difficult to open the front flap, but for now I like the Ten-Speed on the front. Having a single row of magazines in front as opposed to two feels much better.

I tried putting some magazines on the cummerbund of my JPC, but they were uncomfortable sitting under my arms and difficult to extract. Putting them in the cummerbund of the APC makes them accessible and they feel like part of the rig, rather than an awkward accessory to it. Even with three magazines in the cummerbund I can still reach them all relatively easily and the rig does not feel any different. I plan to usually only carry one magazine on each side but having the pouches gives me the option of carrying 9 magazines on my PC or even 12 if I’m feeling crazy and get another kangaroo pouch for the front.

 

Here’s a size comparison to some of my old rigs:

APC:

P1020970.jpg

 

Crye Precision JPC, medium

Untitled-4.jpg

 

First PC I ever owned, that Condor thing

P1020706-1.jpg

 

Conclusions?

 

This rig is much better suited to my personal needs than the Crye JPC. What I wanted was something light and no-nonsense, but scalable for different levels of airsoft from a 30-minute MOUT skirmish to a 2-day MILSIM. The JPC may be great for a HSLD dude who needs a rig that will carry armor and a few magazines while fitting under his HALO gear or whatever, but I have very different criteria. I also cannot afford to replace a rig that was built light at the expense of durability. I am much happier now that I can head into the field and not have to worry about whether or not my $250 plate carrier is going to fall apart. In my opinion the Mayflower APC offers a solid compromise between weight savings and utility at a very attractive price.

Edited by validtumoralarm
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Good post. As predicted, I got my APC today as well (also quickly from SKD), and aside from a few pouches I'm waiting on from OPTactical and plates, it's all set up. I do like it a lot. Mine is a L with M cummerbund, but I do wonder if they accidentally sent me a L cummerbund because I've got about 60 pounds on you and I've still got that cummerbund tucked way in - absolutely no stretch material showing in the back and a whole column of MOLLE tucked away in the front on each side. I'm sure once I get plates in I'll have to loosen it out a bit, but it's still much broader than I expected.

 

I worry a bit about the little admin flap behind the patch velcro... it seems very loose on mine at least; I wouldn't put anything small in there that you want to keep. I like the main admin compartment and may be able to just use that and lose my dedicated admin pouch, which would be excellent.

 

I'm also ordering one of the Source ILPS 2L bladders to run in the side plate compartment... if I like it a lot I might go to two of them and ditch the back altogether.

 

Anyway, agreed: so far seems like an exceptional lightweight high-quality PC for a good price. Oh, and speaking of questionable Crye quality: my brand new G3 pants got a huge rip in them during the very first time I used them this weekend. Awesome. :angry:

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Great review. Right on.

 

There are two tiny negatives about the Mayflower. The thinness of the velcro strip which holds the top flap of the shoulder pad. I have my hydro tube coming through there, and had exactly the same experience.

 

Sigma, as for cummerbund, how much are you overlapped at the back? I was going to write that it's a good thing to have at least a little extra extension to play with. When I first set mine up, the elastic was just visible both sides at the back, and the stitched nylon fabric did indeed begin to start to chew on it a little. I quickly readjusted to no elastic showing. I think there should be some kind of sleeve over a couple of inches of it, because with some combinations of body size and cummerbund size, some people will likely have some elastic showing.

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I'm 6'3, 220lbs... it seems to be working nicely for me. That's actually the main reason I didn't pull the trigger on the JPC - I was set on getting one, but all of the photos I saw of tall dudes wearing them looking ridiculous. The APC comes in a couple different torso lengths. The L has an additional row of MOLLE over the M, for instance. Not sure if the XL adds on to that.

 

Sigma, as for cummerbund, how much are you overlapped at the back? I was going to write that it's a good thing to have at least a little extra extension to play with. When I first set mine up, the elastic was just visible both sides at the back, and the stitched nylon fabric did indeed begin to start to chew on it a little. I quickly readjusted to no elastic showing. I think there should be some kind of sleeve over a couple of inches of it, because with some combinations of body size and cummerbund size, some people will likely have some elastic showing.

 

I think I've got about two inches of overlap in the back... not sure, as I adjusted and re-adjusted it so many times and then concluded it was pointless to keep doing it without plates in.

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I'm 6'3, 220lbs... it seems to be working nicely for me. That's actually the main reason I didn't pull the trigger on the JPC - I was set on getting one, but all of the photos I saw of tall dudes wearing them looking ridiculous.

 

You got that right. It looks a bit small on anyone in my opinion. Tried one on at my last trip to the field; I'm 6'0", 158lbs and it even looked almost toylike on me, and there are definitely way bigger dudes than me out there.

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I am on the verge of purchasing a Mayflower APC myself but I am still thinking about some different layouts.

Is there a particular reason why you use the BFG Ten-Speed in front instead of the Mayflower mag inserts inside the big pouch?

 

Also, are the mags in the side pouches easy to reach? Would you recommend storing some small items like speedloaders etc in a side pouch?

 

 

Many thanks :)

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I am currently using the Ten-Speed on the front really just because I only had two kangaroo inserts and wanted them on the sides. I do like the speed that the BFG offers as my primary tactical reload pouch, though, and it puts the magazines far enough out where I can put things in the integrated admin or on the bib that would normally impede the draw from an internal pouch.

 

The magazines in the side pouches are easy enough to reach provided you're wearing the right size carrier for your body. Much better than trying to carry magazines in the 6094's internal radio pouch.

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As discussed elsewhere, Mayflower also makes a 4-mag shingle that fits perfectly on the front of the APC, even though there are only 6 columns of molle. I was initially going to use the pouch for mags, but it ended up being more comfortable just using it as a kind of admin pouch.

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What plates do you guys have in your APC? Looking towards the dummy plates by Toysoldier Workshop, they are made my glass fibre. I have had those plastic plates that were included in my JPC replica and they are anything but comfortable ...

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I had intended to run mags in the cummerbund as well. But, so far I like having all of my mags up front.

 

One thing to note about the front kangaroo pocket when using the mag insert is that the mags ride pretty deep. I used some foam blocks I had lying around from various motors I've bought that I set in the bottom of the mag insert and they ride a bit higher. This gives me a lot more purchase on the mags when I go to draw them from that pouch.

 

Those of your interested in the Tyr 1.5L hydro may look elsewhere. I can't seem to find a reservoir that fits well without some sort of manipulation. Most newer hydration carriers are designed around a reservoir, but it seems the Tyr isn't. I'm currently using the Source 1.5L reservoir and it fits pretty well, but still requires some manipulation to get the flap closed.

 

Here's my APC in its current configuration:

APCMK18a.jpg

 

-Ex

Edited by Extraordinaire
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