REVIEW // Tactical Universal Clip Gen2

Tactical Universal Clip

Well I am sure that this piece of kit needs no introduction by now and as per this reviewers prediction the Tactical Universal Clip system has taken the airsoft market in the UK, Europe and USA by storm! When I was writing the first review a few months ago I was aware of some small changes, updates if you will, that were being carried out by the team from TUC and the principle one was some minor changes to the ‘chest plate’ that the pin on either the M4 or Solid Stock marries too.

As you can see from this picture there are some noticeable changes in the physical appearance of the chest plate. On the left hand side is the Gen1 that I carried out my review on and on the right hand side is the Gen2 which is now the common one being sold by the retailer’s so let’s cover off some of the changes.

If you wanna read our review of the Gen1 first, click here!

1) The Gen2 now has the Tactical Universal Clip logo embossed onto the chest plate. Although this adds nothing to the functionality of the system it’s a nice touch and I do like my finishing touches. It will also help identify those with genuine systems.

2) You no longer have a separately attached ‘Y’ slot, which on the Gen1 was attached by x4 YFS Alan-screws. The new Gen2 chest plate is CNC’d machined out of one preformed mould making it very solid.

3) The ‘Y’ slot is also noticeably bigger on the Gen2 coming in at 55mm as opposed to 45mm on the Gen1 providing more security without a detrimental effect on the marrying transition.

All in all these small changes are welcome and go a long way to showing that the manufacture is constantly refining their product based on feedback received from the users. The ability to react this quickly is something I for one am pleased about as not many companies are in position to respond so quickly.

The one system I was not able to run at the time of doing my original review was the ‘solid stock’ version, this has now been rectified. I apologise if I am brief on this as having been fortunate enough to have and still actively run the TUC system on my rigs to utilise this version for either my SA58 OSW model or SIG 551 was pretty straight forward.

The Velcro material used is industrial strength and is easily applied to your desired position and will maintain that position without any slippage. Likewise it is just as easy to detach and place elsewhere only taking a minute or so to complete either of these actions. The pin is held in place by an ‘YFS Alan-screw’ allowing you to change the lengthy of pin to suit your needs.

Now some of the more observant of you may have noticed that I have two different pin lengths on the airsoft rifles pictured and you would be correct. The TUC system can be broken down into a number of individual parts allowing a user a degree of flexibility in their own setup. You have the ‘chest plate’ and then you have your rifle attachment system (Buffer tube or Solid Stock) and then you have three different pin lengths.

These pins can be bought separately and you should contact your local retailer about how to obtain them. The pins can be interchanged with either the M4 Buffer tube or with the Solid Stock Velcro system allowing you greater flexibility in your own set up.

I would like to cover off a few things while we are here and that is the nature of the TUC. This system was designed by a police officer in the USA, provisionally for other Police officers in the USA, not for the Airsoft community. The TUC is now part of the active duty kit for several police forces across the US a testament to the creator and designer of it.

Yes, this is a sling less solution but can it replace the sling for all users, no, it can’t, and even the man behind the system recognises that there are times and users out there that this is not an appropriate solution for, but this is some great blue sky thinking and has certainly awoken the market to other possibilities and allowed a choice or flexibility beyond ‘sling / no sling’ quandary. Is it expensive, no, it’s not at all especially compared with the only two other systems currently available with the more cost effective of those coming in at twice the retail price as the TUC.

I for one am looking forward to the future developments of this product and the variations that will be coming to market to increase its versatility for more platforms as well as users requirement including the ‘back’ mounted chest plate.

Please contact Tactical Universal Clip http://tacticaluniversalclip.com/ for a list of the current retailers.

We wanna say thank you to Tactical Universal Clip for providing us the product for the test and thanks to our reviewer Richard aka FireBase Alpha for the field test.