The Gatorz Wraptor – Brown Polarized, Green Mirror Sunglasses gets 4 out of 5 gears.
Where To Buy the Gatorz Wraptor Sunglasses
- You can buy the Gatorz Wraptor black sunglasses at Amazon or the Gatorz website.
First Impressions of the Gatorz Wraptor – Brown Polarize, Green Mirror Sunglasses
The sunglasses came in a rather plain black box. Once I removed them from the carton, the beauty of the box came to light. The silver inlay and the brand name are coupled with a delicate black-on-black American flag. This gives the box an elegant yet subtle look.
On the end of the box, you have your standard barcode and SKU to help you identify your glasses. With a little pressure from your thumbnail, you can get the lid open and pull out the sunglasses. Inside the box, you have instructions for proper fit and specifications on your glasses. included is a Gatorz eyewear sticker to apply to your favorite piece of equipment.
Inside the box the sunglasses live in a gray-on-black, dirty American flag style, soft bag. Pulling the glasses out you can tell the aluminum frames have less depth than your traditional plastic frame sunglass. The green mirror in the lens is well done and a small polarized sticker helps identify that you are using polarized lenses. The hinges are a bit stiff, as is typical on most new sunglasses.
Not being one to immediately dive into instructions, I put the sunglasses on. Off the bat, they fit extremely well. I'm shocked by the clarity of the lens, the field of view, and the snug, yet not tight fit of the sunglasses around my head. Even though the lenses have a bluish-green tint to them, on the inside they're brown which gives you an interesting color band when using the sunglasses. A slight brown or amber gives emphasis to help you identify things that normally wouldn't be apparent without the sunglasses. Going back to the instructions and investigating how to fit the sunglasses, I made the minor adjustments needed to provide a slightly snugger fit. These have now become the best-fitted sunglasses I have ever worn.
Adjusting the Gatorz
The adjustments are pretty minor in the sunglasses. Being an aluminum frame glass, they're easy to adjust and bend easily enough. The nose piece has a stainless steel center to allow easy adjustment with a little bit of pressure in any direction. The entire frame of the sunglasses are made of aluminum, a little bit of pressure on each lens allows you to bend the frames where the nose piece is mounted. Once they wrap properly around your face, the temples can easily be adjusted to allow a tight fit across the top of your ears.
Specs of the Gatorz Wraptor
First and foremost, the Wraptor sunglasses are 100% American made, which is shocking since almost every other brand of sunglasses out there are made elsewhere. They come with a lifetime frame warranty and they offer military, veteran, and first responder discounts on their website with free shipping to everybody. Hassle-free returns win the pot and helps you find the perfect sunglass. The thin temples are pointed out as being specifically made to fit under helmets and ear protection. This is critical in the hunting and shooting fields as the majority of the time you will be wearing ear protection. Most sunglasses have a thicker temple allowing sound to leak through the earmuffs and possibly damage your hearing.
The impact-resistant polycarbonate lenses are, of course, polarized, lightweight, and come inside a durable aerospace-grade aluminum frame that is fully adjustable including the nosepiece. It's a novel idea to have a sunglass that you can bend like corrective eyewear, into a position that fits your face perfectly.
The hinge to the frame or the frame width is 142 millimeters, the frame height is 38 millimeters, the nosepiece is only 18.3 millimeters, while the width of the nose piece is adjustable, goes up to 25.5 millimeters, and the temple to temple adjust is 129 millimeters. This leaves a pretty small footprint for wraparound sunglasses. You can get your lenses in smoke, clear, rose, brown OPZ optimized polarized, and infernal photochromatic.
You can get the frame cerakote black, brown, or gunmetal. There's a multitude of different lenses you can put inside the frame, including ANSIZ 87.1 mil-spec ballistic glass. Anybody who works in the shooting, outdoors, and even the OSHA work environment will know the importance of the ANSIZ 87.1 rating. Particularly those that work in the military field are familiar with a ballistic lens PFR 32432 a clause 4.8.4 ballistic fragmentation protection. Their impact was tested to withstand two hits from a .15 caliber projectile between 700 and 725 feet per second without cracking, shattering, or dislodging.
Field Test of the Sunglasses
You wouldn't think so, but even though these are green mirror lenses, on the other side you have a simple brown or amber polarized lens, this means that the eyeglass looks superb on the outside and they perform just as well looking through them. The brown polarized lense works particularly well in identifying warning signs that are yellow or orange and also helps to bring out the brighter earth tones when looking across landscapes. While deer hunting, you'll see that it's slightly easier to spot fur on elk and deer as well as color variations in grasses and trees.
The lenses themselves are quite dark for a sunglass, which is excellent for working in a bright environment. Also being brown polarized they work well in shady or cloudy weather conditions that I find common in the Pacific Northwest. Going from a bright environment to a dark environment is almost unnoticeable and they can be worn inside and outside most of the time. You will find that these sunglasses provide high contrast and high color enhancement, maximizing detail from light brown or yellow wavelengths, particularly when compared against blue and green backgrounds, such as the sky or foliage.
Pro's of the Gatorz Wraptor
The biggest benefits of these sunglasses I have found are the ease of use, adjustability, and the tight fit to the face. Since these sunglasses are so easy to adjust, you can get them very tight against your face. In fact, they are so snug that my eyelashes will brush against the lenses when they are fully set back.
The wrap-around feature and easy temple adjustments make them snug. I don't have to fear they will fall off during strenuous activities and I can battle bitter winds without irritation. The green mirror lens looks very sharp, especially when set against the black frames.
Con's of the Gatorz Wraptor
Since the bezel is very thin, there is an opportunity for sunlight to sneak behind the glass or to reflect off your cheeks. This can be distracting particularly when you're concentrating carefully or working in an environment where you always need to be on your toes.
Final Thoughts on the Gatorz Wraptor Sunglasses
I am extremely pleased with the Gatorz Wraptor sunglasses. They look great, perform well, and they fit nicely. Being an American company and having a full lifetime warranty, I know that I have a quality product and it will always be backed if I get into trouble. The clarity of the lens is superb and the subtle light adjustments make it an excellent sunglass to use while hunting. The wraparound feature and the snug fit to my face help prevent gases from sneaking behind the lens and irritating my eyes as I shoot my obnoxious SAGA or AK-47.
The thin temples fit well behind earmuffs and in a shooting environment, it will protect my hearing even though their primary goal is to protect my eyesight. If you're thinking about picking up a pair of Gatorz glasses, consider the Wraptors if you like having full wraparound sunglasses. It's one of the best pairs of sunglasses I own.
Read the original article in its entirety at gear-report.com.
