I recently tested several pairs of work gloves that I am really enthusiastic about. They are tough, supple, comfortable, and have excellent dexterity relative to their thickness. They provide the best grip of any gloves that I have ever used. They are Bear Knuckles Gloves.
Bear Knuckles Gloves were originally designed by bareback rider Shawn Schild to give himself a better grip during rodeo competition. The gloves utilize a double wedge pattern along the sides of the fingers to conform to the natural curve of the fingers. This provides a better grip while producing less resistance and fatigue.
I tested one pair of HD361 Double Wedge Heavy Duty Cowhide Driver Gloves (Gen 2) in size large, one pair of the same model in size extra large, and one pair of D357 Double Wedge Water Resistant Cowhide Driver Gloves in size large. All three pairs provided outstanding performance. I liked the water-resistant gloves best.
The heavy-duty gloves were priced at $29.98 a pair at the time of this writing at buybearknuckles.com. The water-resistant gloves cost $29.72. I highly recommend these heavy-duty gloves for chainsaw work, and the water-resistant gloves for most other common chores that call for gloves.
The Backstory
Some people have callouses so thick that they seldom need gloves. I heard about one of these people recently when I went to donate blood. Prior to my donation, a technician pricked my finger to test my hemoglobin. While he was doing this, the technician told me about a dairy farmer he had recently tested. The farmer’s callouses were so thick that the technician had trouble penetrating them in order to get a blood sample. That dairy farmer probably does not need gloves very often.
I, on the other hand (no pun intended), need and value gloves. Thorns and thistles, heat and cold, abrasions and cuts, and scrapes and blisters all threaten my soft and tender fingers. Sitting at a desk pounding a keyboard all day just does not do much to toughen up my skin. So when I split wood, clear brush, move rocks, or attend to a host of other tasks around the property in the evening or on weekends, gloves help me to work with greater comfort and safety.
I am also hard on gloves. I wear out the index finger of the right-hand glove especially quickly. It is not unusual to have a hole in that finger after less than a month of regular use. So I usually wrap a layer of Gorilla Tape around the hole once it develops. I then keep patching and re-patching the right-hand glove until I develop a significant hole in the left-hand glove as well. When I finally have holes in both gloves, I throw them away and start on a new pair.
Since I go through gloves so quickly, I have opportunity to try out a large number of different gloves. This gives me strong, and fairly well-informed opinions about which gloves are good and which ones are not.
When I ran across Bear Knuckles Gloves online, I was immediately interested. They looked durable, and the double wedge pattern was an intriguing concept. I contacted Bear Knuckles and asked if they would be willing to provide me with a sample of their heavy-duty work gloves for testing and evaluation. They did me 2 better. They agreed to provide me with a total of 3 pairs of gloves. A few days later, a package arrived via UPS ground.
First Impressions
I usually take either large or extra-large in gloves, depending on how well the gloves are cut. Generally, if the gloves are well-cut, I take large. If the gloves are less well-cut, I take extra large. Bear Knuckles sent me gloves in both sizes. The gloves are well-cut. The large gloves “fit like a glove.” The extra-large gloves are just a little bit roomy.
The gloves are cut to follow the natural curves of the fingers, so that the gloves tend to bend (grip) slightly rather than to remain perfectly flat (open).
The heavy-duty gloves are made of water buffalo hide, which is 40% more durable than standard cowhide. The leather is also thicker, which makes the gloves more puncture resistant.
The special tanning of the water-resistant gloves makes the leather more soft and supple. The leather is still extremely tough, but it provides a higher degree of dexterity than is common for most leather gloves.
The gloves are made in Pakistan. They have a pleasant leather aroma that reminds me of the scent of the baseball glove display at the Five and Dime store when I was a kid.
Break-In
The label for each set of gloves includes directions for breaking them in. This involves putting the gloves on, spraying them lightly with water, and then keeping them on until they are completely dry.
I decided to begin this process with the water-resistant gloves. I thought about which period of time I would be most likely to wear them long enough to dry completely. I decided that wearing them to bed overnight would be the best option. So, at bedtime I borrowed a spray bottle from my wife, Kari; moistened the gloves according to the instructions; crawled into bed; and went to sleep. The next morning, the gloves were completely dry. I then treated them with mink oil in accord with the instructions for the water-resistant gloves. It is not necessary to treat the heavy-duty gloves with mink oil as a part of the break-in process.
The next night I went through the break-in process with the large, heavy-duty gloves. I did not bother to break in the extra-large, heavy-duty gloves, since they were already roomy enough without any breaking-in.
Testing
I wore the various gloves regularly for more than a month.
I used the water-resistant gloves primarily for wood splitting. I split more than 4 full cords of wood by hand while wearing them. They provided outstanding grip and dexterity. The double wedge pattern made it feel like the gloves were working with me rather than against me as I gripped the splitting axe. The water-resistant leather was well suited for handling wood that was covered with melting snow. It prevented icy melt-water from seeping through the gloves to my hands.
The water-resistant gloves also protected my hands well as I was cleaning ash out of the fire pit during a cold rain. The small amount of moisture that made it through the gloves to my hands had a chance to warm up during the very slow process of working its way through the gloves. My hands were warmer and less damp using the water-resistant gloves than with any other pair of leather gloves I have ever used under similar circumstances.
The excellent grip and dexterity of the water-resistant gloves also made them an outstanding choice for rope handling. I used them while working with a block and tackle to help control the path of a tree that I was felling near a power line. The gloves provided a secure and comfortable grip on the rope while allowing enough dexterity to tie and untie knots without removing the gloves. In fact, they are the most effective rope-handling gloves that I have ever used.
I wore the water-resistant gloves while case-hardening a dogging key for the locking bars on our church doors. The steel out of which the key was made was too soft, so that the key was wearing out too quickly. I cut the worn end off of the dogging key, smoothed the jagged edges from the cut with a file, heated the new key end red hot, quenched it in oil, reheated the new key end blue hot, and re-quenched it in oil. Case hardening like this has significantly increased the useful life of our dogging keys.
I also wore the water-resistant gloves while moving roughly 2 ½ cords of firewood from a wood stack to the woodshed, and while clearing landscaping rocks from an area that needed to be prepared for excavation. I wore them while sharpening my chainsaws because of the excellent dexterity they provide.
In all of these various tasks and more, the water-resistant gloves proved themselves to be an excellent, all-around set of work gloves.
I used the large, heavy-duty gloves primarily for chainsaw work. They provided excellent vibration and cut protection as well as an excellent grip on the saw. I also used the heavy-duty gloves while clearing brush in preparation for the utility company to bury the section of power line that runs from the last power pole to our house. That section of line kept getting taken down by tree branches during wind storms.
I put the pair of extra-large, heavy-duty gloves in the pocket of my everyday coat, and used them primarily as driving gloves. They provided an excellent grip on the steering wheel. They also did a great job of protecting my hands while I scraped ice and snow off of the windows of the car.
The uninsulated leather of all 3 pairs of gloves kept my hands warm while working. But they were not quite warm enough for extended, low-exertion exposure in windy conditions at 20 degrees Fahrenheit or below. A pair of Bear Knuckles’ fleece-lined gloves might be better suited for colder weather conditions.
Conclusions
Due to their unique, double-wedge-pattern design, Bear Knuckles Gloves provide superior grip and comfort over comparable leather work gloves. They are by far my favorite work gloves, and I highly recommend them. I hope to follow up on this review in a year or so with an update on the long-term durability of the gloves.
Disclaimer
Bear Knuckles Gloves was kind enough to provide me with three pairs of their work gloves for testing and evaluation. I tried not to allow their kindness to interfere with the objectivity of my review, and feel that I have succeeded. I did not receive any other financial or other inducement to mention any vendor, product, or service in this article.