Viktos LEO Duty Gloves.

LINK

Price ~$35 usd

Rating Overview:

• Dexterity - FAIL
• Durability - PASS
• “Thenar Webspace” test - FAIL
• Comfort - FAIL
• Ergonomics – FAIL

Good

• Under-Wrist clasp
• Pull Tab is very hardy
• Durable

Bad

• Poor dexterity
• Sizing issues
• Does not pass the “Thenar Webspace” test
• Poor palm ergonomics
• Touch-Screen function, works but is poorly designed
• Seams on index, middle and ring fingers lie directly across the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joints.
• Poor breathability

The following review is for the Viktos LEO (Law Enforcement Officer) Duty Gloves.

Positives

I, personally, am a fan of the under-wrist clasp for this kind of glove. From a utility standpoint, in general, it prevents derbies and other obstructions from getting caught on the clasp and undoing it. This is a little ergonomics benefit, but still a benefit none the less.

The pull tabs on these gloves are very good. The cord has a good girth and material structure. The loop is also large and spacious enough to really benefit the ergonomics of putting the gloves on in a rapid manner.

Finally, the durability... while I am listing it in the positives section, I also have some severe criticisms of, which we will get to later, but, the material on these gloves is overall rigid, giving the gloves a lot of longevity with hard use. Further, the stitching is fairly robust and seems to be well done.

I wore these as my primary gloves for both outdoor hard use as well as around the house work gloves for ~6 months and there were no real signs of structural failure. I would assume that this would not change if worn for longer.

This is unfortunately where the positive of these gloves end.

Negatives

First and foremost, the general sizing seems off. I took measurements based on the official Viktos websites instructions and it gave me the size of XL (which is the normal size I wear in tactical/next-to-skin gloves). I admittedly have larger hands with longer and slightly more slender fingers then the average person my size, but I still think that the sizing that Viktos uses may need some adjusting.

In regards to issues the sizing causes, the most glaring are that my index, middle and ring fingers push uncomfortably tightly against the finger tips of the gloves, so much so, that they feel like they are going to burst through the seams, while the pinky and thumb of the gloves have too much excess material at the tips. This issue is compounded by the fact that the material (as mentioned above) is very rigid. The sizing also causes some problems in the palm, creating a weird excess of material, while also creating an unnecessary obstruction in the palm (more on this later).

Circling back to the rigid materials issue again, while this is good for durability, it causes a litany of other issues. Unfortunately, the rigidity of the materials results in the dexterity of these gloves being very low.

With tactical gloves, dexterity is a must and these struggle significantly in this area. Additionally, these materials really struggled to breath under heat and humidity. I'm not going to go too far into this issue, beyond saying that these trapped a lot of heat and moisture inside the glove which caused both performance issues as well as significant stink. Given that these are marketed as LEO (i.e., patrol) gloves, meant to be worn for an entire shift straight, this is one area that they should have really UX research on their end user and put more design thought into.

These gloves also have one of the most abysmal failure of the “Thenar Webspace” test I have ever seen. For those that do not know, the “Thenar Webspace” is the fleshy webbing between the thumb and index finger. This area is essential for proper combat shooting and in general, acquiring and maintaining a tight grip on anything.

There is a significant amount of of rigid space between the Thenar Webspace of your actual hand and the Thenar Webspace of the glove itself... again, compounded exponentially by the materials used. So much so, that it actually affects trigger control (for more on this, see the video review).

Another major design issue these suffer from is comfort. I know I've hammered the issue of materials, but, here too, the materials really do not do any favors the gloves any favors. In general, these just don't feel good or comfortable. However, the biggest comfort issue is in the stitching over the knuckles. Specifically, the combination of the rigid materials and the stitching that falls directly over the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joints. Literally every time I would bend my fingers, that stitching on my index, middle and ring fingers would dig into my skin. Wearing these for over an hour began to actually rub the skin off those three PIP joints. This is a MAJOR design flaw, especially for the marketed end user and alone makes these gloves pretty much useless.

The touch-screen materials that they use on the gloves, looks and feels kind of chincy... but the bigger issue is that the UX of this feature is VERY poorly designed. This essentially boils down to how users interact with touchscreen devices.

First, lets take a look at the design decisions that Viktos used, and we will go from there. Viktos decided to use plastic-like material cut into small strips and attached to the bottom of the index, middle, ring and pinky fingers.

Setting aside the material decision for a moment, you'll notice that I did not mention that there is material on the thumbs and that's because there is none. This is a major oversight on the part of Viktos as far as its intended usability is concerned. There has been a lot of research into touchscreen HMI (human machine interface) and that research shows that the overwhelming majority of users, use either their thumb or index fingers for interacting with touchscreens. There is, to my knowledge, no research to back the use of the pinky finger for interfacing with touchscreens. Bottom line on this aspect, if you want to use your your thumb, you'll have to take the glove off, which ultimately defeats the purpose of having touchscreen materials at all.

Final thoughts on the Viktos LEO Duty Gloves

All of the aforementioned issues (with the exception of the touchscreen stuff) combine, creates a pair of gloves that are absolutely not conducive to ANY of their intended use cases.

The 5 imperatives of combat shooting are; Stance, Grip, Sight Alignment, Sight Picture, Trigger Control. When shooting, the poor design aspects of these gloves directly negatively impact Grip & Trigger Control, which, in turn, indirectly affect Sight Alignment & Sight Picture.

Given that these gloves are marketed towards LEO's, I would say they should be a hard pass. Everything from handling subjects, shooting & intermediate weapon use, to things as simple as operating a steering wheel & phone use, is just a bad experience.

Now, maybe you are saying... well, they are only 35 bucks. I would still say pass. You can pick up gloves that are just as trashy but don't outright hurt your hands and massively obstruct your ability to shoot for as cheap or even cheaper, if cost is your only consideration.

It really seems like Viktos designed these to be much more tacticool than tactical/utilitarian. With ANY action gear, form should ALWAYS follow function. Period, stop all. These gloves fail in some of the most basic areas requisit of these types of gloves.

A note on the Vikots Short Shot gloves

I did purchase a pair of Vikots Short Shot gloves, but after trying them for ~5 minutes, I promptly sold them. The bottom line on the Short Shot gloves is that, despite making a few, minor improvements, most notably in the seams/proximal interphalangeal joint issue, they are really not better... and double the price. In fact, I would argue that despite the aforementioned fix to the seams, they introduced new issues with the fact that the knuckles (palmar digital) have a hard protector on each. This seemed to cause additional dexterity issues.