poly/cotton blend fabric: OK performance after getting wet?

Which pants ?

What is your definition of "performance"?

Military BDUs were 50/50 cotton and nylon. They worked perfectly fine for me and every soldier I was stationed with from the jungles of Panama to 8' of snow in upstate NY.

I prefer nylon over polyester but I wouldn't be concerned about the cotton with that blend.

Edit to add: to say it another way, there isn't much of an improvement drying wise from my old BDUs to my current nylon TNF hiking pants. The blend you're proposing has even less cotton.

Thank you Ian, that's very helpful info.

When the stakes get higher and the route goes off-trail I am a proponent of keeping essential gear on my person and the 'tactical' type pants with good pocket configurations help with that. There are various brands and designs but almost all have cotton. 5.11 has some synthetic stretchy pants but they're heavy and the pockets are too small. None of the cargo pants from names like TNF, Marmot, etc have the kind of cargo pockets I want.

TAD Gear has some nylon pants that look very well designed, I might check those out but if a 65/35 poly cotton blend works, there are a lot more choices on the market.

I know that in Europe pants from Fjallraven with their G1000-fabric which is exactly blended according to your question, is popular and get good reviews.

Hard to beat 5.11's quality of construction. One of my classmates from SAR has a (if memory serves) pair of their generic tactical pants in nylon/cotton blend. I get them from work but mine are 100% cotton. They certainly last forever but they also look like cop pants which isn't always a good thing in the front country when you don't want to look like a cop. In the backcountry however the pockets are definitely useful. I especially like the rear pockets for throwing everything and anything into. I suspect these would be ideal for canyoneering and anything that requires sliding over, under, around boulders and rock all day.

The CO outdoor clothing company Kuhl used a Nylon/Cotton blend (they used to call it "KuhlDry") for several styles of outdoor pants. I found that fabric to be very comfortable and quick to dry (but I used it in dry environments, like AZ and S.CA).

>'What is your definition of "performance"?'

In the context of this thread, by "performance" I mean how quickly a light ripstop 65/35 poly/cotton blend will dry in field conditions, as compared to an all synthetic fabric.

I had an old pair of mtn dew shorts (yes mtn dew made clothes in the late 90s, and those clothes have seen very frequent abuse and still last longer than any top tier outdoor clothes made today…sigh) that were 65/35 nylon/cotton blend. I live in AZ and they dried fast here but so does a glass of water. That said, they dried significantly faster than full cotton shorts, and as fast as most swim trunks I've ever owned, sometimes faster. I believe cotton=death mantra usually but I apply that to pure untreated cotton only. I don't think blends are near as bad and there are even some outdoor products made solely of cotton (that weird long staple cotton used in europe for rain coats, but it's heavy).

You can always get a cheap but comparable weight 65/35 blend at a major store and do a dunk test to see if it's worth it for the pricier pants.

Can't speak for the pants, but I hike almost all the time in 65/35 polycotton shirts for three season use.

I rarely wear technical shirts as I find the button down shirts breathe better, are more comfortable and (again for three season use) dry fast enough.

YMMV.

Back in the 70s (pre Gore-Tex) 60/40 cloth was all the rage…60% nylon and 40% cotton. The idea was that the cotton threads would swell during a rain storm and make the jacket water resistant. This worked quite well for showers but not for prolonged rain. My REI Mountain Parka served me well and only occasionally wetted through. And as I recall, it dried pretty fast, too! Not only that, but it was darn breathable, unlike Gore-Tex.

I think a lot of it depends on how thick the material is because the thicker it is the longer it will take to dry. Just from dress shirts made out of this material there is a large difference in how long it takes to dry from something that is very thin and almost see through to the same composition in a material that is much more significant.

What Brett said.

Also, if you do the thrift store thing at all, keep your eyes out for poly-linen blends, (or also nylon-tencel blends, but less likely to find in thrift stores). Both in my experience are very nice particularly for warmer weather.

For colder weather, i prefer poly-wool or wool-poly blends which also can often be found cheaply at thrift stores (at least in pant form).

There are no circumstances when I would wear cotton, of any proportion, in cool/cold weather. Cotton doesn't dry easily and hold moisture.

Synthetic for me.

I think wool and synthetic clothing is great. I think cotton is fine if you wear it with the right blend.

Again. I can't speak for the ACUs but the summer weight BDUs are 50/50 nylon/cotton. In my experience which includes 8' of snow and sub zero temperatures at Ft. Drum, every grunt wore summer weight BDUs 12 months out of the year because it breathed better and dried quicker than the winter weight ones.

Standard issue t shirts then were 100% cotton. Socks were wool however.

Our winter camouflage was 100% cotton.

I've even worn cotton Carhart pants backpacking/hiking and I miraculously lived to see another day.

I wore 100% synthetic clothing during my Wonderland hike this year. It didn't rain on us once but my clothing was wet from sweat the entire time I was on the trail. There's no magic bullet.

Yes if you wear jeans and a cotton hoody in a rainstorm, you'll be a walking sponge. A cotton blend is perfectly fine.

"…A cotton blend is perfectly fine."

To add a bit, a lot of dri release stuff is made with 85% polyester and 15% cotton. You can get some of these shirts pretty cheaply. Ime, it dries really fast, wicks decently (though apparently differently than the traditional wicking all synthetic stuff) has a nice feel (because your skin is contacting mostly the cotton, which is on the outside of the yarn blend), and is decent at odor reduction.

I'm not sure i would like anything above 35% cotton for anything but hot and dry weather though. Here is the SE, even just doing yard work in the summer in a 50% cotton and 50% polyester t-shirt, not the most comfortable. Whereas a thin dri release shirt doesn't get so overwhelmed with sweat so quickly. A thin, 65% poly and 35% cotton dress shirt is OK, but not ideal when it's very humid and hot.

Btw, Ian, a heads up for yah. I know you like wicking nylon shirts. STP started to carry a Terramar mostly nylon t-shirt for pretty dang reasonable, especially with a coupon. I haven't tried it yet, but plan on getting one in the nearish future.

Don't know if this is useful but Larry Penberthy, founder of MSR, experimented with cotton/poly blends in the early 1970s.

He liked them because the cotton portion allowed him to impregnate the fabric with silicone and make it somewhat water proof. He couldn't get the silicone to stay on all nylon fabric.