Austrian Rifleman's Mittens, Surplus

When it comes to protecting your fingers from the cold, mittens are hard to beat because having all the fingers in one compartment is a more effective and lightweight solution. But mittens are also called No-Can-Doos because the most delicate tools you can use while wearing them are a PKM and a shovel. Here's the solution: a secret opening in the palm!

The idea of adding a slit to the palm of a mitten is not new and commonly seen e.g. in maritime use by fishermen or in winter use by hunters. These Austrian ones differ in that they were made for right-handed users. They are shell mittens you can use on their own or with a liner. Ordinary wool gloves or dedicated wool mittens with a trigger finger are good choices.

You can flick just the index finger out of the right mitten to keep your fingers as protected as possible, or fold the whole front of the glove back and secure it with a snap fastener. The left mitten is enclosed all the time. The wrists have adjustable straps with steel buckles and sometimes a hanging string is included as well.

Size info

The Austrian system has three sizes. Only the available sizes are shown.

Material

The mitten is made of a wool frieze and it works a lot like a softshell offering some protection from the weather with good breathability. The palm side has reinforcements.

Main material: 88% Wool, 12% Polyamide. Reinforcements: 100% Cotton.

Austrian surplus

These have been used by the Austrian Bundesheer. The condition is actually pretty good, maybe they skipped some combat exercises when it was cold outside? Then again, their standard service rifle has a huge trigger guard so they probably just used regular mittens. The manufacturing dates are mostly in the '80s.