The Loadout Room
Professional Gear Reviews
Founded in 2002 by Bill Yao, MKII (Mark 2) was originally born by making small watch parts and customizing pieces for customers. But MKII is now far from just a tinker shop. Located in Pennsylvania, Mr. Yao is now producing an average of one thousand watches a year. Their firm belief in quality over quantity […]
The topic of Dead Drops is quickly expanding as we pursue the possibilities of “Legacy Caching” around the globe, so I thought it made sense to build a bit more of a foundation. How to earn $30K a month Former CIA counterintelligence officer Aldrich Ames made roughly $60K a year in his day job, but […]
I recently came across the above picture which is reputed to be a CIA Ground Branch contractor’s kit that he takes out on operations. On first glance, the picture is probably a few years old considering some of the kit, but it looks pretty legit. The desert tiger stripe uniform is one of the first giveaways which would […]
The Glock has long been a favorite pistol brand of mine. I carried the Glock 17 and 19 in the CIA. While I was in South America, the agency asked me to test fire the Glock 18 to determine its suitability for our operating environment. For those who don’t know, the Glock 18 and Glock 17 […]
General Donovan motivated the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) research and development branch to fabricate weapons in-house for officers in the field. These weapons ranged from the amazingly complex to the remarkably fundamental. OSS guns and blades were intended for simple but effective use. American servicemen going into harm’s way had a variety of ingenious places to hide small, even miniature, compasses for […]
Gerber Knives have been around since the early 90’s and have a proven track record. I personally carried a Gerber folding knife during my enlisted years in the Marine Corps. The knife was always there and never failed me. I used it for everything from opening up that favorite MRE to prying open ammunition crates. […]
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a CIA operative? I’ll walk you through the sexy gear today’s operatives are outfitted with and how it’s utilized in the field. This is part one of a series that will give you an exclusive look inside the spy agency’s departments of disguise, weaponry, vehicles, and communication. Buckle your […]
It’s been two days since Julian Assange promised Wikileaks would hand over more information on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hacker tools to tech giants. That pledge followed a leak of nearly 9,000 documents that Wikileaks claimed belonged to CIA hacking units. But while that altruistic move should help protect every one of their users from cyberattack, neither […]
My fist week in the CIA I had to sit through orientation with about one hundred other new employees. We were given a big blue nylon envelope to store all our handouts pertaining to benefits of the job. Weren’t allowed to take any of these documents out of the building and our envelopes had to be locked in our […]
We have all seen the intriguing spy movies that feature a good looking, well dressed covert agent of the United States or Great Britain dashing around the world doing more in a week than most real-life intelligence operatives do in a lifetime. What is most intriguing about the glamourized version of the life of a […]
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