Nancy Thomas
I've purchased about 10 of these 5 ring heavy duty nato straps from this vendor now all throughout a year and a half span, ranging from 18mm-22mm as well as an assortment of available colors. I have one variant I ordered with the PVD (Black) hardware, while the others were all the brushed option, and each one was delivered promptly as expected and the quality of each was exceptional to me.First off let's start with making sure you know what you're getting if you decide on this style of strap for your watch. This is a quality product that is basically a 5 ring Zulu. Traditional Nato straps have only 3 loops. They're usually lighter, thinner in quality. So with that in mind, know that this is a Zulu strap. It's going to be heavier, it's going to be bulkier on the wrist and it's going to be more secure overall if strapped on properly.At 1.5mm thicks, this strap is as advertised, it's beefy. Yet with this thickness, you're still getting a really soft nylon feel on the skin as opposed to something scratchier and stiffer. Out of the 10 I received over the 16 months or so, I only had one that was stiff out of the box, a red one, but within a few wears it started breaking in and the stiffness went away. My oldest one purchased about a year and a half ago was super soft out of the package, it had almost no support. For the most part each and everyone I purchased provided the same feel consistently after a few weeks. The straps have no fraying. The edges are smooth. The end of the strap has been heat sealed and so have the holes. I haven't had any issues with any of my straps. Something to note, sometimes if you feel the heat sealed areas are a bit stiff or your wrist is sensitive to it, you can try to sand or file the area a bit to smooth it out. You can also run a lighter a quarter of an inch away from the area to soften that seal. Just be careful.The hardware is as expected. The brushing is smooth and has a satin like gray finish to it. The PVD one has a matted black finish to the hardware. They've held up well. No issues, taken abuse, and they're still in tact. The buckle tang might be a little sharp for some, and might snag or catch on things if you're not careful, but one can quickly just file or sand it to make it smoother if you encounter that problem. Positioning wise, the hardware is seated very nicely and firmly. There isn't much play even on my oldest ones. They're also stitched but there appears to be heat sealed areas too, perhaps on the straps edges where it's sealed.Potential con might be the length for some. These fit me perfectly. For reference I have about a 6.5-6.6 inch wrist. Now if you strap this up the way these 5 rings are suppose to be strapped up the tail end with fit perfectly through the final ring without a need to tuck. Now if you have a larger wrist you and use the 5 ring this way you could run into a problem with the length. A workaround is to use this 5 ring as a you would with the standard 3 ring nato. Where you don't run it through the 2nd 6 o'clock ring and just bring it across your wrist as you normally would. Wearing it this way should fit everyone but you don't get the full 5 ring benefit (no pressure on the spring bars, balance fit, no gaps around the spring bar etc...). With the amount of holes available, and there are a lot, wearing it the "Nato way" will fit about anyone's wrist. Just keep in mind if you have a 7" or under wrist size and want to get these straps to use the Zulu way, it's going to run short. Forget about using it this way over a jacket or wetsuit, it's going to be too short for that.Final notes and just some tangent thoughts. With the seemingly endless options of straps out there from a wide variety of vendors and sellers I have to say my experiences with these specific straps, these 5 rings appear to be very similar and perhaps from the same source or sources. If you're set on getting this get it from a trusted vendor and at a price you're comfortable with because I have the $30+ ones and honestly they're not any different from the ones here. I know some claim to have full 'stainless steel' hardware and not brass with zinc, but it makes me question some of those claims. These straps give a real presence on the wrist with your watch choice since they're definitely bulky. I tend to wear them with my field and diver watches. I tried them on my dressier sports watches and they just look silly. Stick to the single pass straps or a traditional thin nato if you want to sport it on a dressier sports watch these don't look right with those types of watches.Oh, I also wondered how accurate the colors were, and having most of them (black, red, olive-green, khaki, gray, bond) except the navy, the colors are accurately represented in the vendors photos. The red I wondered if it was bright bright red or pink or whatever other shade, turns out its a very nice rich crimson red. There's slight sheen to all the straps. They're not going to be mistaken as matted, but they're not overly shiny if that concerns some. The olive green is probably my favorite non-black color. The olive green is just enough. Almost perfect olive green in my eyes. The gray is also very nice. It's a lighter shade of gray almost steel. The photo represents the color very well. The khaki is darker, I was hoping it would be more sand-tan but it's definitely what you would expect from a khaki color. Overall very pleased with Artstyle and their offerings here on Amazon. Now if you guys could get some more color and pattern options count me in again!
