Places to buy kit

Does anyone know a decent place in Central london where I can buy kit from? I'm in a specialist unit and all my kit has to come from Grantham, so rather than take a day off work to go to Grantham, I'd rather buy my own kit and save a days annual leave.

We're meant to be one army, but that doesn't seem to apply to kit. I wonder why?

 

Not in London but ASMC.de is a good site and a lot cheaper than most of the UK shops

 

You can always go to Silvermans in Mile End (close to Mile End tube)

http://www.silvermans.co.uk/Silver/docs/topframe.htm

But surely you can claim a days pay from your unit and get the correct kit and save yourself a small fortune - there's nothing worse than looking like a complete Walt if you go over the top

 

Strange request? Don't you get issued kit like the rest of Grantham?
Don't uou draw bergans webbing etc at the start of the excercise like the rest of Grantham?
Why would you need to take a day off?
Walt!

 

If he's RE like i am we get a permanent kit issue, (bergen, webbing etc). Trouble is the stores are not that great and getting the full issue can be a bit of a struggle. 18 months in i'm still waiting for two pairs of boots for example.

 

I can kind of understand where you are coming from. If you are at the begining of you your training the last thing you want to worry about is all the bollox that come with trying to get stuff out of stores - "Stores are for storing" etc. A group of us ended up buying our own Noddy suits because we could not get any out of stores for our RT weekends.

Silvermans is expensive but has a lot in stock, the yellow pages has a lot of surplus retailers in it.

Also try www.ukkitmonster.com for mail order. Very fast delivery.

 

It does apply. Everything from field kit, c95 through to specialist equipment is issued if/when required. Everyone buys the odd bits and bats, if they can't really justify getting it from stores, but if your CQMS cannot hand you the items you are allocated from stores then there is something seriously wrong.

I agree with ugly, name and shame.

 

It isn't that the kit isn't there - it is. However, as a member of a specialist unit I rarely go to Grantham and so to go there just to collect a pair of boots takes up half a day etc. On the other hand the unit I am with, I stood in the stores of our regular counterpart, asked them to replace my boots and I was told to go to Grantham.

 

I had similar probs at PWOG, because I'm 6"6' and there were only average sizes in the stores I was told to either wait out for them to be ordered or buy my own.

As for webbing, bergans etc, we didn't get a personal issue, just picked some up when we got there.

 

I've heard lots of people with problems like this. When we turned up to Grantham, some of the recruits on my course had issues with their kit and ended up having to get members of the Grantham unit to do exchanges for them etc...

Luckily our Sqn has a really switched on set of storemen, so good that I returned a jacket one morning and they gave me a replacement by lunch time!!

 

To say Silverman's is expensive is an understatment. RIP OFF merchant's more like. Can't believe they still get buisness from the Forces.

 

There is Dragon Supplies in Colchester, they do a mail order service:

they post out to BFPO addresses

www.dragonsupplies.co.uk

Stilts

 

Dragons have been known too bump prices just when he gets wind of a pending deployment. Troopers is good, there is also a new surplus in Colchester, it is advertised in this months soldier mag.