Recon Medical Tourniquet (Orange) GEN 3b - Mil-Spec Kevlar Metal Windlass Aluminum First Aid Tactical Swat Medic Pre-Hospital Life Saving Hemorrhage Control Registration Card 1 Pack

With five years of Critical Care EMS under my belt, I've seen most tourniquets on the market, I've had the opportunity to use more than a few, and I've developed some very harsh opinions and criticisms of some of them.First, lets be real here - This tourniquet is a knock-off, (or if you want to be polite, a clone) of the famous CAT. You probably got to this page because you were looking for a genuine CAT and this came up, or maybe you balked at the price that real CATs go for and wanted a cheaper alternative. That's perfectly fine, we all want to save a few bucks. It's important to know that there's many, many counterfeit CATs on the market, and sometimes they have been known to fail when used. More often than not, when somebody asks me how their first aid it or jump bag looks, I pull out their tourniquet, and either it's some chintzy, questionable thing like a SWAT or a RAT (I have very low opinions of both), or it's a counterfeit CAT - these are almost always bad news, and every time I see them, I sternly reprimand and show them how to make a reliable tourniquet out of a $1 triangular bandage and a pen.However, when the Recon tourniquet crossed my hands, I was pretty well impressed - so much that I ordered two for myself - one to test, and one to throw in my personal jump bag in my trunk.I find this tourniquet to be at least on-par with a genuine CAT. There's a few differences, and I'll explain them:The windlass on the Recon is metal, apparently aluminum. I didn't expect this, since even the image shown on Amazon shows a plastic windlass. Most instances I've heard of fake CATs failing, it was the windlass snapping in half. Genuine CATs have a plastic windlass as well, however they use a less brittle plastic that I've never seen fail -- regardless, I consider this an improvement over the CAT, especially since the windlass on the Recon is longer, applying pressure easier, and has an aggressive texture which will make it less slippery if wet or bloody.The end of the Recon has a finger hole which is absent on the CAT. I don't find this feature particularly useful, but I can't see it being a weakness either.The only thing I can point to as a gripe on the Recon is that it appears the individual parts of it are heat welded together, rather than sonic welded like on a genuine CAT. Sonic welding is generally stronger, and I have heard of heat-welded counterfeit CATs failing at the welds, however the Recon I received proudly advertised it was made with Kevlar thread, which I suspect may be to counter any weakness.Of the two I ordered, I tested one and did my best to break it, wrapping it around a 4x4 and cranking on it as hard as I could. The welds and windlass all held up to the abuse, and you would never need to use as much force to stop a bleed in the real world. One of the biggest indicators of quality I observed in the Recon, is that the windlass only took about one and a half turns to become tight, and I couldn't get it to go any further than two full turns - comparable to a genuine CAT. Counterfeits, you'll often find that the windlass takes four, five, even six turns before they become tight, which to me, indicates sloppy assembly and poor tolerances in manufacture.The other one? It's now in my personal jump bag in my trunk. I wouldn't hesitate to use it, and similarly, if somebody asks me for a recommendation on a good tourniquet, I'll throw the Recon in as a more budget-conscious option alongside the esteemed CAT and SOF-T.Before I finish, just let me add - if you want to test a tourniquet, do not put it to actual use. Tourniquets weaken when used, and are -not- reusable, even if not dirty or contaminated. Write "TRAINING ONLY" on it in big fat letters and use it strictly for practice, and put an unused one in your bag.

Spend the extra money and buy the real things for when you need them. This works great for training though!

Bought one black one to train with and 2 orange ones to put in the cars. We're not EMTs or anything, but have been through a trauma care course put on by EMT trainers. One thing the trainers stressed over and over is to avoid buying off-brand, cheap tourniquets because they have the following issues: 1. The windlass is often made from cheap plastic that will break or bend catastrophically when tightened down hard, like you need to. 2. The material of the strap is cheap, thin, and stretchy, requiring many turns of the windlass to get it tight, if that's even possible.So what did I do? I immediately started comparing what was available because I don't want to spend $30 if I can get something just as good for about half that. The materials and construction of this product seems about as good as the $30 tourniquets that EMTs use (what I'll call a "real" C-A-T) with the following exceptions:1. I believe that a real C-A-T comes with the strap already threaded through the "buckle", making a loop that you can easily pull over one arm. With this you have to take it out of the package and thread that through in advance of the emergency and then put it into the nice heavy-duty zip top bag that's provided.2. It comes with the white velcro strip already covering over the clip! Practicing one-handed deployment with this rig was very frustrating because you can't get the windlass into the clip with that strap in the way. Using one hand to hold the windlass from unwinding while removing the velcro at the same time was not feasible for me, so I would have died. Solution: When you take it out of the package for #1 above, stick that white tab over to one side so it's out of the way, like it would come if you got a real C-A-T. Then you have it "staged" and ready to go in an emergency.Neither of these is a big deal IF you take it out of the package in advance and get it ready to deploy, then put it into the bag the right way for storage. But why don't they do this from the factory?On the plus side: I placed this on my arm over a heavy coat and tried to turn the windlass enough to break it. Took the coat off and deployed it again, and it only took 1 full turn of the windlass to make it tight enough to choke off the pulse, not 4 or 5 turns like a junk ones that are made from cheap, stretchy material. Also tested it on a rolled up camping mattress so I could crank and crank to see if I could break it. I can't break it.There's no way you will break the aluminum windlass, and I doubt you could break the ribbon that fastens the windlass to the strap either.I'd give it 5 stars if it was properly staged in the package. Nevertheless, I'll be ordering more of them and staging them myself.

Bought a few of their CAT tourniquets and have, so far, been very happy with them. They shipped quick and had no issues. I've seen quite a few online for twice the price and they all look just like these at half the price. Heavy plastic, Single Loop, buckles. Welded, mulit-point seams, just like the others.I really like the metal windless on theirs, compared to others that seem to have the plastic. Granted, I doubt, actually hope, you'd never need to turn a tourniquet so tight that you'd break the plastic windless, but it's better to have than have not. The few times I've ever had used a Tourniquet on someone,it was before these high tech devices were a thing and all we had were Triangle Bandages. I keep these in all the first aid kits and have a couple that I keep and use to train others in their use. those have been applied and tightened many times over the past year and they are just as good now as the first time I used it. Granted, they are not kept tight for long periods of time but, collectively, they've held tight for close to 4 hours as a rough guestimate between the people who've applied it and held it on for a bit.