Viper Gloves

Before detailing the Viper gloves individually, I’ll point out that while some have similar traits, they also have differing build characteristics that afford them to be of more use over another for various situations. For instance, the airgun hunter shooting at night in and around outbuildings can benefit from a glove with a build that helps them avoid nasty scrapes and scratches that are easily encountered while manoeuvring around farm machinery. So, with that established, the gloves on test are in my opinion ones I see of most use to the general shooter.

Patrol

First up, is the Patrol Glove, which is mainly manufactured from polyester/spandex with a microfibre palm. It’s very lightweight and unrestricting, while the inner pad area of the index finger is quite sensitive and tactile, giving a high level of trigger feel. The design also ensures that they follow and hug the contours of your hand, so that you maintain a confident hold on your rifle in all conditions. They also have a useful webbing puller found on the inner top edge of either cuff.

Recon

The Recon Glove is a very striking looking model, due to it having an almost futuristic looking design. The main body consists of a polyester/ spandex build, giving a closefitting feel, which doesn’t hinder wearer dexterity. The outer of the micro fibre palm features reinforcing, seen as two separate pads at the heel of the hand and a band of a textured material is added forward of this at the base of the fingers. These combine to give extra protection and the latter affords good grip. On the back, you can clearly see the ‘rubber impact protection’ for the fingers. The gloves can be adjusted to fit with Rubber/ Velcro wrist fastening and the pad of the trigger finger has a slight ribbed textured finish, to aid positive trigger contact.

Elite and Venom

Now we come to the Elite and Venom, which give much more protection, especially at the knuckles. Clearly seen on the Elite is the ‘Carbon Fibre Knuckle Casing’ but this isn’t the only ‘bullet point’ feature, because for added comfort they have a Neoprene and inner fleece lining. They also feature textured grip panels, vented palms and a Velcro wrist closure. The Venom Gloves are of a polyester/ spandex build, have micro fibre palm with reinforcing and rubber finger impact protection. These have ‘Hard-shell’ knuckle protection plus a rubber/Velcro wrist fastening plus glove puller.