Hoo boy, been a day.
Got a lot of filming done today, thanks to my magnificent graphic artist/buddy/coworker – look for lots more video content real soon!
Anyway, take a look back up at that header image. Notice anything… funky?
How about here?
Check out the “TIME:” printing on the right hand tourniquet. Also eyeball the sheen on the windlass – notice how it’s shiny? Same applies to other plastic parts like the buckle, we’ll explore those more later.
Some other key details appear to be missing, like the manufacture date, and the teeth on the buckle…
Even the buckle’s shape is funky, and it has none of the CAT printing on the back side of the plastic molded piece. It does share many of the subtle curves of the CAT molding though, interestingly.
The red tip has a slightly poorer ultrasonic weld quality (shiny here too), and a bit of a sloppy cut to boot.
Even the windlass has more prominent mold marks, and the Velcro on the time band is white instead of black.
Not terribly different from the side, but you can clearly see the white Velcro of the time band here.
So, for those still unclear, what we’re looking at here is a counterfeit or knockoff CAT tourniquet. This one happens to have been sent to me by a seller on Facebook as a sample (hooray, freebies!), but they’re available on Amazon and plenty of other places too.
As Whiskey Delta Gulf mentions here back in 2013, there were plenty of counterfeit TQs on the market, and I can only imagine the increase in TCCC approved TQs has seen a corresponding increase in counterfeits.
I was inspired to make this post by the Facebook seller contacting me, but also by the fact that the PDF in the WDG post linked above is defunct; hopefully this page can serve as a comparison reference for folks – the genuine CAT is on the left in every photo, the counterfeit on the right.
I also got a knockoff SOF-T Wide that I’ll be comparing to the real deal soon, keep an eye out for that!
Be sure you’re buying your gear from reputable merchants like Dark Angel, ITS Tactical, or if you’re a business, give the folks from Lone Star Medics a call for some expert advice.
Until next time,
-T