Tactical Half Finger Gloves - Padded Knuckle, Grip Palm

Grip on the bar, fingertips still free.

Half the jobs in a day need bare fingertips. Threading a cable tie, sorting a split pin, picking a knot out of a ratchet strap, working a phone screen with cold hands. So the gloves come off. They go on the tray or into a back pocket, and that is where they stay for the rest of the afternoon.

That is how gloves actually fail you. Not by tearing — by not being on your hands when you reach for something rough, greasy or hot. Padding sitting in your pocket is doing nothing for anybody.

These are cut short at every finger, so the fiddly work never needs them off in the first place. The palm carries a quilted, textured pad that holds onto bars, handles and wheels. The back of the hand has a soft EVA foam pad under a suede facing. A hook-and-loop strap pulls the cuff in so they sit where you put them and stay there.

What they are not is certified protective equipment. There is no cut rating, no impact rating and no standard marked anywhere on the glove. Buy them for grip, a bit of padding and for staying on your hands — not as PPE.

What It Does

• Keeps the gloves on: every finger is cut short, so the small fiddly jobs that normally make you strip a glove off do not need you to.
• Holds a bar or a wheel: the padded, textured palm gives you something to grip with on handlebars, steering wheels, tool handles and shovel shafts.
• Takes the knocks off the back: a soft EVA foam pad sits across the knuckles under a suede facing, so a scrape along a door frame is less of an event.
• Stays put in and out of the ute: the hook-and-loop wrist strap closes the cuff down so the glove is not shrugged off every time you pull your hand back through a sleeve.
• Leaves your phone working: the fingertips are bare, so screens, keypads and touch panels behave exactly as they do with no gloves on at all.
• Breathes in the heat: the back of the hand is a stretch knit rather than a solid panel, which is the difference between wearing them all day in an Australian summer and not.

Key Features

• Half-finger cut: all five digits are cut. In the supplier photographs the covering stops just past the base knuckle, leaving roughly the top two joints of each finger bare.
• EVA knuckle pad: soft foam pad shaped across the knuckles, faced in suede. The supplier states the material as EVA on its own product artwork.
• Padded palm panel: quilted sections across the heel and centre of the palm, with a textured non-slip surface over the upper palm.
• Reinforced thumb crotch: the web between thumb and index finger carries an extra layer — the spot that wears through first on any glove.
• Hook-and-loop cuff: adjustable wrist strap on a wide cuff, with a pull tab to get them on quickly.
• Stretch knit back: ribbed, breathable fabric across the back of the hand instead of a solid panel.
• Thumb sweat panel: the supplier's artwork marks a wipe panel on the thumb for sweat off your face.
• Double-stitched edges: stated by the supplier as double-line edge sealing on the cut finger openings and panel seams.
• Three colourways: khaki, army green and black, in S through XXL.
• Supplied as a pair: left and right, as shown in the product photographs.

Limits

These are not certified protective gloves. No certificate has been sighted and no standard is printed, moulded or stitched anywhere on the glove or its packaging. Specifically: they are not tested or marked to EN 388 (abrasion, cut, tear and puncture), and they are not tested or marked to EN 13594 (motorcycle rider gloves). If your site or your insurer requires a rated glove, those are the markings to go looking for, and these do not carry them.

The knuckle pad is soft foam, not armour. It is EVA, the same family of foam used in shoe midsoles. The supplier's own artwork uses the phrase "anti-impact protective shell" for it, and that is marketing rather than a measurement — no impact test, level or standard is named anywhere. Treat it as padding against scrapes and knocks, not as impact protection.

The supplier publishes no size chart. There is no palm circumference, no hand length and no width figure for any of the five sizes, and no statement of which sizing standard the S to XXL labels follow. We are not going to make numbers up to fill that gap. See the sizing question below for what we would actually do.

Your fingertips are out in the open. That is the whole point of the design, and it is also the trade-off. There is nothing over the last two joints of any finger — no abrasion cover, no padding, no warmth. If you want your fingertips covered, a full-finger glove is the right buy, not this one.

They are not waterproof and not insulated. There is no membrane and no lining. They will wet through in rain and they will not keep your hands warm in the cold — these are a warm-weather and shoulder-season glove.

Not climbing or rope gloves. The old listing called them mountaineering gloves. Nothing about them is built or rated for rope work, belaying or abseiling, and we have taken that word off the page.

Q & A

Exactly which fingers are cut, and how much glove is left?

All five, thumb included. Reading it off the supplier's photographs, the covering finishes just past the base knuckle, so you keep the top two joints of every finger bare, plus the end of the thumb. That is a short cut — shorter than a lot of gloves sold as fingerless. It is the reason your feel and your fingernails still work for small parts, and the reason there is nothing protecting your fingertips.

What size should I order?

Measure around the widest part of your palm, just below the knuckles, with your thumb left out, and note it in millimetres. That figure is the one every glove chart is built on, so it is worth having. What we cannot do is match it to a size for you: the supplier gives us no measurements at all. These are sourced from a Chinese supplier, and gloves from that market are commonly cut to Asian sizing, which runs smaller than an Australian label of the same letter. We have not been able to confirm that for this particular glove, so treat it as a risk rather than a fact. If you are between sizes, or you are unsure, take the larger one.

Are they cut resistant?

No. Nothing on this glove is tested or marked to EN 388 or to any cut-level scale, and the supplier makes no cut claim. Assume a knife, a blade or a burr will go through them.

Can I use a phone or a touchscreen wearing them?

Yes, and there is no trick to it. Because the fingertips are cut away entirely, you are touching the screen with bare skin. No conductive thread, no coating to wear off, and nothing to stop working after a few months.

Will they do on a motorbike?

For grip on the bars and for keeping the wind off the back of your hands on a slow trail ride, they are comfortable and they work. For road riding, understand what you are giving up: no palm slider, no rated impact protection, no rated abrasion protection, bare fingertips, and no EN 13594 marking. A proper rider glove is a different product and worth the money if you are on tarmac at speed.

What is the palm actually made of?

The supplier does not state a fibre composition. Its artwork labels the palm as "non-slip leather" in one panel and calls the pad facing "suede" in another, while the close-up photographs show a perforated synthetic suede-type material with no visible hide grain. We are not prepared to call it leather on that evidence, so the spec table records it as a suede-look padded panel with the composition unspecified.

Specs