Hunting Apparel Fabric Guide — Membrane, Softshell, Ripstop & Fleece

Most fabric guides list materials. That is not the problem you actually have. The problem is that a hunting garment fails in a specific way — it wets out at the shoulders, it rustles at the wrong moment, it is warm standing still and soaked after the walk in — and each of those failures traces back to a fabric decision someone made without knowing what they were trading away.

So this guide is organised around the decisions, not the materials. We hold nine fabric families across roughly 65 distinct specifications in the current range, and almost every brief we receive comes down to four choices within them.

Decision 1 — Does the garment need a membrane, or only a finish?

This is the most expensive decision in the brief, and the one most often got wrong in both directions.

A DWR finish is a treatment on the surface of the fabric. It makes water bead and roll off. It is not waterproof, it wears off with abrasion and washing, and under sustained pressure — rain driving onto a shoulder for two hours, or a wet pack strap — water gets through.

A membrane is a separate laminated layer behind the face fabric. That is what actually stops water under pressure. Ours run from 5,000 mm to 20,000 mm hydrostatic head, and the garment needs taped seams to match, or the water comes through the stitch holes instead.

The honest guidance: if your customer is stationary in sustained rain, or on water, you need the membrane and the taped seams. If they are moving through dry cold and occasional drizzle, a softshell — a stretch woven face bonded to a microfleece backing — will serve them better, because it is quieter, more flexible, and does not carry a membrane's breathability ceiling.

Decision 2 — Where does the warmth come from?

Two routes, and they behave completely differently in the field.

Fleece and sherpa trap warm air in a brushed or high-pile knit. We run these from 280 gsm up to 300 gsm high-pile sherpa, anti-pill finished as standard. The critical property is not the warmth — it is that brushed fleece is the quietest face we work with. That is why it dominates stand-hunting programmes, where the hunt is lost to sound long before it is lost to movement.

Synthetic fill gives more warmth for its weight and packs down small. We specify synthetic rather than natural down on hunting programmes for two reasons: it keeps usable warmth when damp, and it survives being stuffed into a pack wet. Down does neither. Fill weights start around 150 gsm and rise with the season.

The trap here is specifying warmth for the coldest moment of the day. A hunter who walks in for forty minutes and then sits for four hours has two different thermal problems, and one heavy garment solves neither. That is a layering system question, and the layers have to be graded together or they will not fit over each other.

Decision 3 — What is the outer face made of?

Separate from waterproofing: what takes the abrasion.

Ripstop is woven with reinforcing threads cross-hatched at intervals, so a snag stops instead of running into a tear. Nylon gives maximum strength; polyester holds colour better and costs less — which matters more than it sounds, because camouflage and blaze are printed, and a faded pattern is a returned garment. Available at 300T and higher densities, usually with a DWR.

Canvas and twill — cotton, poly-cotton or 60/40 blends — are heavier than a synthetic of the same strength. You accept that weight for two things: it is quiet, and it looks traditional. It is the classic upland facing material, and it is often used as a facing panel over a lighter body rather than for a whole garment.

Where the wear actually happens is worth stating plainly, because it decides where reinforcement goes: upland cover destroys front panels and forearms; a pack destroys shoulders and hips; brush destroys the leading edge of the thigh. Reinforcing everywhere is just weight.

Decision 4 — What touches the skin, and where does the heat leave?

Performance knit — polyester or a poly blend with a wicking finish, 150 to 250 gsm — moves sweat off the skin instead of holding it against it. Pique holds its texture for polos; jersey takes print more cleanly.

Stretch blends, typically 92% polyester with 8% spandex, or nylon-spandex where more strength is needed, are specified where range of motion decides comfort: shoulders, knees and seat.

Mesh is not a garment, it is a panel. Placed correctly it dumps heat from where the body actually produces it — centre back, underarms, torso sides. Placed decoratively it does nothing. In hot-weather programmes that placement is set against a heat map at tech-pack stage, not chosen by eye.

Reading GSM without being misled by it

GSM is grams per square metre — how much the fabric weighs, nothing more. It is a useful shorthand and a poor specification on its own.

Two fabrics at the same 300 gsm can behave completely differently depending on construction: a dense tight weave at 300 gsm is wind-resistant and hard-wearing, while a lofted knit at 300 gsm is warm and porous. Heavier does not mean more waterproof, and it does not reliably mean more durable — abrasion resistance comes from yarn and weave, which is why it is tested separately under ISO 12947 rather than inferred from weight.

One distinction causes real confusion in briefs: on a fleece or a knit, the GSM figure is the fabric's own weight. On an insulated garment, the figure quoted is usually the fill weight — the insulation only. They are not comparable numbers, and reading one as the other is how a brief ends up with a jacket twice as heavy as intended.

Reading waterproof ratings

The millimetre figure is hydrostatic head, measured under ISO 811: the height of a water column the fabric holds before it leaks. Roughly, in practice:

• 5,000 mm — light rain, short exposure, a hunter who is moving and can get out of it
• 10,000 mm — the sensible general-purpose figure for most hunting outerwear
• 20,000 mm — sustained rain, sitting still, or pressure from a pack strap or a knee on wet ground

Higher is not automatically better. Every increase in waterproofing costs breathability, and a garment that traps sweat has soaked the hunter from the inside instead — which, in cold weather, is the more dangerous of the two failures.

What to actually put in the brief

You do not have to name a fabric. You do have to describe the problem precisely enough that we can. A brief we can quote from the same day contains:

• The hunt and the conditions — not "cold weather" but "sitting still, 0 to 5°C, wet, three to four hours"
• Moving or stationary, and for how long — this decides insulation and breathability more than temperature does
• Whether quietness matters — it rules out several otherwise-sensible fabrics on its own
• Waterproof requirement in mm, or the conditions and we will propose one
• Where the garment takes wear — pack, brush, ground, kneeling
• The market — it changes sizing, labelling and often the colour rules

If you cannot answer all of these yet, that is what sampling is for. Sampling is quoted before it starts, samples run 7 to 10 days, and the minimum order is 30 pieces per style — so testing a fabric decision on a real garment is a far smaller commitment than getting it wrong at bulk.

Five mistakes worth avoiding

• Specifying a membrane and skipping taped seams. You have paid for waterproofing and bought water resistance.
• Treating DWR as waterproofing. It is a finish, it wears off, and reproofing belongs in the care label.
• Buying the highest mm rating available. You are trading away breathability you may need more.
• Comparing fill weight to fabric weight. Different numbers measuring different things.
• Choosing camouflage before choosing fabric. Print behaviour, sheen and colour retention differ by base cloth — the pattern has to sit on something that will hold it.

To see the families side by side, with what each is genuinely good at and where it lets you down, the fabric library lays all nine out with a comparison matrix.