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I think the confusion about Frontenac lies in the fact that ORIGINALLY (i.e., back when they WERE a licensed contractor) they were allowed to sell CADPAT clothing to the public on the basis of two provisoes:
1. the clothing could not be identical to issue combats
2. they were allowed to only use material from ROLLS that had been rejected by DND
Point 2 is the sticky one: people have interpreted this in many ways - but from my memory of an excellent sources info - the DND accepts or rejects entire rolls of the cloth as a "lump sum" item. These could be rejected for many reasons; such as there was a glitch in one portion of it or the colours were slightly off on that particular roll, etc. It wasn't always becuase the "quality was crap" (define what you mean by that anyways). So, Frontenac were allowed to use these "seconds" (as they're called in the industry) to manufacture stuff for the civilian market and thus avoid incurring big financial losses. That is why a lot of people have sets where the colours are slightly different between the shirt and the trousers for example.
Incidentally - just about ALL new, unissued "surplus" has been made from factory seconds in this way.
Bottom line is - the man summed it up brilliantly with his long post. If you want genuine, issue gear you gotta be willing to purchase stolen goods. If you want commerical gear, now you know who to get it from and what the quality will be like. If you want to get top-notch, genuine issue gear LEGALLY - then its simple.... ENLIST. :wink:
Just one final question - what about SEALS Action Gear? Are you saying their stuff is "shite" as well?
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