The humble shotgun cartridge has been and still is carried in many variations of belts, bags, carriers, the use of cartridge pouches goes back to the 1800s for field use and even earlier for military use. During the last 25 years a popular surge in the belt pouch use has nowadays become quite the "norm" to see on the range or indeed at the peg.
The cartridge pouch comes in many forms and variations, with single compartment pouches, twins, front pockets and gaining popular use the pannier pouch with closing flap.
Here at Hornstone basecamp we design all our pouches ourselves with details and construction tecniques often seen on those early style pouches in fact the inspiration for the Sportman classic pouch came from a 1915 designed shooting rig that we spotted in a museum. You may recognise that our products are indeed very British in style and design, this in part is because the tecniques we use to create our products are traditional methods that have been used in the saddlery trade and even methods used in the trimming of early classic british cars.
All Hornstone pouches and designs are put through their paces and not just by us! we select customers at random and give them a new design or model free of charge and let them put it through the mill and from the feedback we gather we are able to adjust our products so we truly have products designed and made by real shooters, a great example of this was when we were asked about loading height from hip to hand and as a consequence we now have a belt loop design that sits the pouch ideally on your side with great reach to gun positioning, maybe a simple thing but look at anyone wearing a high fitting pouch with no drop its quite an awkward loading style and all the weight sits high on the body. The Sportmans classic has a wide belt loop which curves slightly around your hip which keeps the pouch flush to the body and once loaded with cartridges sits comfortably on you side.
We took the decision to maintain a small UK based workshop and not outsource production overseas which yes does affect the pricing slightly but the plus side is you can pick up a phone and change just about anything on your new shooting pouch to suit yourself in effect you can custom design your shooting goods to your own spec. Our qaulity is another area that we did not want to compromise on by producing overseas, we source everypart needed from here in The UK, and our no quible returns give peace of mind.
Over the years we have added pouches and carriers in a vast array of colours and materials, you can now have pouches in waterproof English Tweed, the famous Harris Tweed, full grain leathers, 20oz military grade canvas and during 2015 we introduced a range of Russia Hatch grain leathers often used in the high end shoe trade.
During early 2015 we introduced our range of belts in fine Sedgwick bridle leather this range will continue to grow throughout the year with new colours being added. Sedgwick tannery is well renowned for being one of the finest Bridle producers a truly British institution.
We use Bridle Butt leather from sedgwicks as the beautiful smooth finish topped with minimal stretch gives a raw product that makes a truly stunning belt, in fact i have a belt dating back to 1999 thats still going strong, if you look after the Bridle leather with a good saddle soap and or wax then it will last. We cut the belts to a 38mm width to give a good support to our pouches this optimum width is crucial to comfort when wearing any shooting pouch rig as a pouch of 50 can weigh over 2kgs and indeed 75 cartridges in excess of 3kgs now that kind of weight needs a good support for your backs sake.
Panniers style pouches with lidded closing are often used in pairs this spreads the weight and maximises the carrying capacity, a good pair of panniers and a strong sturdy belt laden with cartridges offer a great degree of freedom whilst shooting their is no restriction on the shoulders from straps, if you are ever in the position to borrow a set then try them out its a whole different shooting experience. Take a look at our Leather cartridge pouch https://www.hornstone.co.uk/collections/cartridge-pouches
