I’m looking for a M65 style jacket. There seem to be a few different companies selling budget options. I like the look of the Brandit M65 with the quilted liner. It’s less than £50 so seems like a bargain.
Does anyone have experience of the Brandit jacket or can you recommend another similar jacket?
Something about that ‘M65’ jacket above looks a bit off, for starters, those patches look more like shoulder patches, they wouldn’t normally be on the pockets, and it would be the person issued the jacket who would sew them on; unlikely he’d sew them in such a way that the pockets would be unusable.
Also, I’m not sure that it would have a hood zipped into the collar – usually hoods are buttoned on, or folded under the collar; I’ve got a Goretex USAF jacket, which has the hood inside the collar, and a Danish M84 field jacket based on the M65, which has press studs for attaching a hood, but a hood was never supplied!
Great jacket, picked up a jacket and two pairs of combats for £75 after the Danish military changed their camo from a Flectarn style to Multicam similar to the British Army, and dumped their entire inventory onto the open market; almost impossible to find for any reasonable price now, and the jackets were £100 before the dump, combats £75.
Edit – just looked at the Buzz Rickson M65 field jacket, which does have the zipped-in hood in the collar, so that part is correct, Buzz Rickson are obsessive about period detail.
Still not sure about those patches, but they can be cut off.
I have a Brandit M65 jacket I got from Military 1st for around £85.
It’s great, I love it.
It’s excellent quality, the fit is a bit ‘unusual’ but it’s fine. I would usually have a Medium but ended up with a Small as the Medium drowned me.
It’s very warm, and quite heavy which adds to the quality feel.
The front zip doesn’t go particularly low, and the two halves of the jacket at the front have a slight fishtail appearance which is slightly odd, but the buttons go lower and mean that it can be done up further down than with the zip alone.
The quilted/fleecy liner is removable and whereas you could happily wear the outer jacket on it’s own, you wouldn’t want to wear the liner on it’s own, which I think was the original idea in the military for tank crews etc etc, it looks ridiculous.