I used to be very into playing paintball. Most of what I played was woodsball. Quite some time ago I made a Vest and shared my story at an online forum. I am sharing it here.

I thought I might share a vest that I have almost completed. Using about $10 worth of materials I’ve made a vest with (so far) a tank pouch, two pod carriers and a radio pocket. I also made a Remote Coil cover, not pictured.

I have enough fabric left over to make large pocket for the front, opposite the radio pouch.

I got my digital camo fabric from a fabric store for around $5.95 a yard and only got one yard.

Back Side:

The main vest portion is double thickness for strength.

The tank pouch has a couple places of elastic to hold it tightly.

I generally speaking followed the directions at How to Make a Vest Pattern

Some notes:
If I were to do this again, and I might, I would make the arm holes larger. When I was making the pattern I was worried about making them too big so I erred on the small size knowing I could take out more if needed. I can still make that change and when I’m finished I probably will.

Next time I will NOT get Velcro with sticky backing. The glue is not strong enough to hold against opening and when I tried to stitch it the sewing machine (mine anyway) couldn’t handle all that glue so I had to do it all by hand.

I plan to add something like a weight belt to the inside to give a little more stability

If I were more comfortable with doing zippers I would have used that as the front clasp, especially if I have the weight belt installed. I’m not tied to the velcro front so I might still modify it.

So there you have it, my DIY paintball vest. For $10 I think it’s a job well done and I expect to have it in full use at Fulda Gap this year. Go NATO!

The final vest had four paint pods in the back and did include large pocket upfront in the lower left.