Kit review: Rage Pro Gloves

"Pro Gloves High Grade EVA (Pair). International standard poly-ethylene front, EVA foam padding interior for comfort. The most widely used molding shape."

You can find them here.

Firstly, I should outline what use I'm reviewing these gloves for. For me, I use these gloves as day-to-day instructing / training gloves and as a full intention sparring glove for a single-handed sword with a knuckle-bow. Primarily for use with synthetic weapons. I'm reviewing them on this basis. I wouldn't use them for full intention longsword sparring and I'm not reviewing them on that basis.

I've owned these for four months and have used them at most, if not all, training session.

Ordering

I ordered these directly from Rage Field Hockey website and at $35 USD plus postage this was a very reasonably priced glove. Ordering through the website was easy enough and they posted the next day. Nothing noteworthy or to complain about here.

Pros

Well at $35USD I'm certainly not going to complain about the price and, in fact, they are certainly a lot cheaper than most other glove options.

Good padding on the fingers, backs of the hands and thumb. There is also a line of padding along the side of the forefinger to prevent these wrap around strikes on your fingers. Finally there is a thumb cap in the thumb finger with a wad of padding inside it.

Considering the above these gloves are very compact, nothing like most hockey gloves you get.

The materials are well stitched and formed with nothing coming apart or any wear holes starting to appear. I've put this glove through the wash several times and this has removed all the sweat and stink without any impact on the glove.

The palm material seems to be some leather effect material but it is not unduly slipping on your sword grip. The velcro cuff is nice and keeps the glove in place under your AP jacket.

Cons

None really for the purpose I use them for. The lack of any wrist protection, without any collar or the like is a minor issue in the protection. However, I can put these into my modular gloves to add wrist protection.

Conclusion

They are cheap, well made and well protecting. While they are not bomb proof, certainly I'd regret using them for longsword sparring, they are protecting for most of the knocks I get in training and in synthetic single-handed sword sparring.