EPIC Windshirts – Any in non Camo?

Beyond Tactical made a large batch of grey full zip epic wind shirts with a very good cut, but the epic used was not the best CFM or HH. Wild things did make Coyote Brown wind shirts and pants but reports are the CFM and HH was not as good as the multicam. I believe most of the early Patagonia military windshirts were grey, I’ve seen a few older wild things epic garments in bright alpine colors.

All of these are fairly hard to track down at this point, eBay is your best bet but that will require a lot of patience.

I have a dark brown one made by Patagonia. Bought on a trip to Salt Lake City nearly 20 years ago. Picked up a grey one for a buddy at the same time.

<p style=”padding-left: 40px;”>Either seem like higher CFM?</p>

I have a Gen II Patagonia Level 4 Windshirt in Alpha Green (actually gray, not green at all) that seems impermeable in the Darth Vader test. I think there are different batches, though, since I’ve heard some people claim they can somewhat breath through theirs.

I also have a XLT Gen II Patagonia Level 4 windshirt in the ‘grey’  mine is somewhat breathable.  Also for sale if anyone is interested.  There are also the Greg Norman Epic jackets in black but they are hoodless.

As part of a project I am working on, I measured performance of three Epic fabrics-two finished garments and one piece of fabric that I purchased.  These are Patagonia Level 4 and Patagonia Level 5 jackets and Nextec Epic Praetoria.   Permeability was .5, 1.2 and .43 cfm/ft2, respectively.  Breathability ranged from poor to moderate.  If anyone has an Epic garment that they think has high permeability and wishes to have it tested, contact me by PM and we will see what it does.

Which variation of the Patagonia Level 4?  I have some extra fabric from the Greg Norman Epic jacket I could send also.

The Level 4 label says Gen II.  How much fabric do you have?.  To do breathability I need 24″ x 24″.

Steve

I have a jacket in it so I could always try to send that.

A jacket works just fine.  I can measure HH, permeability and breathability.  I will also produce some pictures to show the encapsulation characteristics.

I will pm you with my address.

Steve

Does anyone know of the multicam EPIC jackets that supposedly clocked in a higher CFM had hoods? Or were they all hoodless?

I have measured two Epic jackets and one fabric sample. Permeability was 1.2, .5 and .43 CFM/Ft2.  I am not confident you can find a high permeability Epic jacket.  If someone has one and believes otherwise, and would like it tested, and can part with it for a few days, please PM me.

Could you please provide a little more detail on the Level 5 Epic you tested?

I have several of these jackets and pants. made by Patagonia and Propper, I believe. Although I don’t have any testing equipment, these fabrics have a soft hand and I can breathe through them with moderate difficulty. Comparing these to some windshirts I have like a newer Houdini and a EE 20d, I would say the Level 5 Epic is far, far more breathable than the windshirts.

It’s well proven by Nisley and other members that higher CFM epic jackets exist – they are just few and far between and limited to two camo pattern jackets made by Wild Things and Patagonia.

Eric could you compare what you have using the standard coffee filter test? Essentially you compare the effort of breathing or blowing air through the jackets with one, two, or more coffee filters layered together. It’s a general estimate but surprisingly accurate.

Eric:  Level 4 and Level 5 are  Patagonia PCU Gen II.  The fabric is Praetoria.

Christopher:  When I developed my first permeability tester, I could never get the results to agree with the Richard Nisely’s published value of 70 for a Bunn coffee filter.  When I built my second tester, the same was true.  On my 2nd tester (the 1st is retired), I measure 29.3 for a Bunn filter.  I had the filters tested by Touchstone Labs in West Virginia.  Their Frazier instrument measured 26.9.  I have been working on a permeability paper for quite some time that that will have more to say on this and other issues regarding our understanding of windshirt performance.   To this end, I keep asking for anyone with what they think is a high permeability windshirt or fabric to send it to me for testing.  At this point, the Airshed at 57.6 is the only one I have seen.  All others are well below the target value of 35 that people have adopted.

So I wear the airshed all the time in warm weather or dry cold. I would agree anecdotally on those specs.

I could send you a pre spring 2012 pata Houdini or the previous model called the “dragonfly” from my tests they seem about half the airflow of the airshed. Both are somewhat similar.

I also of course have used goretex or silnylon (0 airflow) and my favourite powershield pro skiing jacket (supposedly 3CFM). I could send you any of these assuming I get them back relatively unharmed.

Hi Chris:

I sent you a PM.  The two Patagonia windshirts would be perfect.  I don’t need any more old Goretex garments.  I have enough of those here taking up room in my closet.

Steve

Mind sharing the data you have now? I’m using the Houdini but could probly send the dragonfly asap – any HH tests as well? I know there’s informal methods

• I will hold off on the data until I complete the paper.  Data on HH and breathability and permeability for all.  Send whichever you can but the Houdini would be my first choice.

Sorry for the slow reply, but I finally got around to some ‘Darth Vader’ fabric testing, using some random coffee filters I snagged. I tested 9 articles of clothing as listed below. I was surprised that some of the Epic articles I have were less breathable than I had thought, and some were more breathable.

Without further ado, here are the breathability estimates, in rank order, as perceived by blowing through the fabric, and comparing to blowing through layered coffee filters, the number of layers is noted, with X indicating that so many layers of filter paper would be needed that the results were not considered accurate:

<1: Black Diamond Alpine Start. The most breathable layer I tested.

1: ECWCS Level 4 windshirt, labels removed but I believe it is Gen III, ACU digital camo, this fabric is less stretchy than the ECWCS Level 5 pieces I have, but about the same weight, perhaps 3 osy.

4: Patagonia PCU Level 5 Gen II (?)jacket, alpha green color, 100% nylon, this fabric is stretchier than the ECWCS Level 4 windshirt (above) but less stretchy than the other Level 5 pieces (below), fabric weight perhaps 3 osy.

10: Enlightened Equipment Copperfield windshirt in 20d MARPAT (EE calls this “digital camo”), all EE 20d fabrics are rated by them at 1 cfm but I have no idea how reliable this number is. My gut feel is that this fabric is more breathable than 1 cfm; I’ve worn it a fair bit and don’t feel clammy in it unless I’m really cranking.

From here to the end the filter paper test was unreliable as I needed very many layers and the thick stack was often short-circuited if I didn’t hold it just so. Hence the ‘X’. All these fabrics were considerably less permeable than the EE windshirt.

X: ECWCS Level 5 Gen III jacket, ADS Tactical, mfd. by Propper Intl., label says 99% Nylon 1% Lycra, ACU digital camo, fabric weight perhaps 3 osy.

X: ECWCS Level 5 Gen III pants, ADS Tactical, mfd. by Propper Intl., has “Epic by Nextec” label, another label says 99% Nylon 1% Lycra, ACU digital camo, fabric weight perhaps 3 osy.

X: Patagonia PCU Level 4 Gen II windshirt, alpha green color, 100% nylon taffetta, perhaps 2 osy with little or no stretch.

X: Patagonia Houdini windshirt, 2014.

X: Mountain Hardwear Ghost Lite windshirt.

Cheers,

Eric (somewhat blue in the face)

I converted a nano air light hoody into a windshirt, rated to 70 CFM. You can actually make two, one out of the inner and one out of the outer layer – the inner requires more alterations. The water resistance is low, I think around that of the airshed or maybe worse, but I like it better as both a wind and bug shirt than the airshed, with the hood and (I think) even softer hand, and the high permeability is great especially for stuff below or around treeline, where I often like to be. Haven’t had it out in serious wind yet, where I imagine it would require more layering and/or speed… The weight of the outer in large is something like 3.5oz, with the large chest pocket, half zip, and close-fitting hood.

Not sure if this thread is still active and you are still looking for a rain jacket in any plain colours.

You can take a look at this jacket here. It’s from UF PRO and made out of GORE-TEX materials, which are really high-end and 100% windproof and waterproof. It’s also easily packed up, when you need to carry it just in case with you in your backpack.

He was not looking for a rain jacket he was looking for a windshirt(and that is a very heavy rain jacket)