Never heard of Desert Deuce Surplus before, but I wanted to order a couple of pairs of Tru-Spec 24/7 shorts and Desert Deuce came up as a place with them in stock. Submitted an order.

Well, a week went by and I hadn’t received any sort of information about the handling of my order, other than it was received and the money was taken. I phoned, left a message, 24 hours and no callback. I phoned again, got someone on the phone. She looked up my order and was obviously puzzled as to why my order hadn’t been fulfilled. She took my phone number and said she’d call back in 10 minutes. I went about my business and about 30 minutes later she calls back saying my order was going out right now.

So I’m waiting for my order to arrive. It seems the lack of fulfillment was an oversight and I was happy to see it promptly dealt with. We’ll see how things go once the order gets here. But so far, well…. while I’m not thrilled at what went down, I’m willing to let it slide and I’d consider ordering from them again. If nothing else, they’ve got an interesting selection of products — including parts for M35 and 5 ton military trucks!

Updated: The package arrived. Contained 100′ of 550 paracord and the Tru-Spec shorts.

The rope is… well… paracord. Useful stuff.

As for the shorts, I’m pleased! They are pretty much the same as the Tru-Spec 24/7 pants that I like so much, except in shorts form. I haven’t had a chance to pull out the shorts and the pants to side-by-side compare, but I did notice one difference: the side leg pockets. On the pants, the rear bottom corner is pleated (is that the right term?) such that when you have a lot of cargo in the pocket the pocket expands. Thus, the pocket can be VERY roomy. Sometimes that’s good (e.g. picking up lots of range brass), but sometimes it’s annoying because of how the gear can flop on your leg. On the shorts, that corner of the pocket is sewn to the leg so there isn’t as much expansion in the pocket. I think for shorts that’s a good thing.

Anyway, I’m pleased with the shorts!

As for Desert Deuce, they did what they said they would. Again, I didn’t get the best first impression of them, but they made things right and did so promptly. I wouldn’t be against using them again.