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Rating: 4 / 5
The Driducks rainwear is sized at least one, perhaps two sizes too large. I typically wear a size medium shirt, size large jacket, and the size small Driducks fits me like a large. I've tested the Driducks jacket and pants in a number of rain storms and so far they've proven to be both quite waterproof and breathable. For $15 a pop, don't expect the quality you'd get with a rain jacket by Arc'teryx, however; but perhaps some people will find them worth the money.
I really wanted to like these. They are insanely light, waterproof/breathable raingear. The major downsides are: no bill over the face (just wear a cap), and the zipper is non-waterproof, it just has a simple flap of material over it (something I can live with). My size small jacket (slightly modified, see below) weighs 4.9oz and the pants weigh just 3.6oz. The microporous material is the real deal. A bit delicate like all ultralight materials (don't even think about bushwacking in these), but fully waterproof and very breathable. The body seams are all glued, which conveniently renders them seam-sealed. The hems and the zipper are all stitched, which creates weak spots in the non-woven fabric, and points of entry for moisture, but except for the zipper, these are not crucial.
Trouble is, the actual construction of the jacket and pants is of average to poor quality. To start, the company that makes them doesn't double back their stitching. Add onto that the fact that the stock zipper sticks to itself, and the zipper was coming unstitched at both ends before I even tried the jacket on for the first time! I bought two pairs of rainsuits at the time I got these and both of them had this same problem.
Like I pointed out, the body seams are glued, not stitched, so they are conveniently waterproof. Unfortunately, the fabric edges in the body seams are not always lined up correctly before they are glued, resulting in weak spots where one piece of fabric was not fully included in the seam. At the bottom of the crotch in my pants is one such hole, a definite weak spot where I could expect to blow them out if I crouched down in them the wrong way. This explains many of the reports I've read from unsatisfied Driducks users saying that the crotches of their pants blew out unexpectedly after only a few weeks/days/hours of normal use.
I did a couple of things to fix these problems. Since I own a sewing machine, and since I also had a smooth #3 separating coil zipper from Thru-hiker.com laying around, I said to myself, no big deal I'll just replace the zipper. So I removed the faulty zipper (easily done as the stitching was so loose on the factory zipper) and sewed in my own. When I finished, the zipper operated like I felt it ought to. I also replaced the thick shoelace-sized drawcord and bulky cord locks on the hood with a short length of spectra 1 and some mini cord locks I also had laying around. For the faulty seam of the pants, I used a touch of super glue, which has shown good results so far, although I don't think it's as strong as it ought to be.
Even though I feel that the rain suit is now fully waterproof--or waterproof enough--given all the modifications I had to do, I simply don't trust it on long distance hikes in spring, fall or winter, or any hike where it is imperative to stay dry. The thin, non-woven material is delicate, but I'm more concerned about the seams. Thus, until I can prove to myself that the pants and jacket won't simply fall apart with minor use, they are relegated to short hikes, and summer raingear.
I have reservations about recommending this item. On the one hand, if you're willing to do a little work correcting the shoddy construction (if you get a lemon, and given my experience you probably will), they are very inexpensive, very light and they are fully waterproof (apart from the zipper). On the other hand, both the sets I bought had the same problems. I dunno, maybe if you buy two sets at once you might get a non-lemon. I didn't. Although, for someone with an eye for detail and a MYOG attitude, they are more or less fixable problems. After all, the rain jacket and rain pants costs about $15 for the set and weigh almost half as much as a full rain suit in Gore-tex Paclite. So I'd give them 5/5 for summer raingear or dry climate raingear, and 3/5 for long distance hiking raingear.
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