Aftermarket Panerai Review

Maddog Straps Review

Maddog Panerai Straps

Origin: Austria
Construction: Hand-Stitched
Materials: New, Vintage and Exotic Leathers
Buckles & Tubes: Buckles And Tubes Included
Price Range: $120+
Website: Click Here
Date of Review: October 17th, 2010

Maddog Straps are made by a fellow named Ingomar who is the only Panerai strapmaker in Austria that I am aware of. He focuses on Ammo straps as well as baseball-leather and exotic leather type straps. I came upon his stuff and was intrigued primarily by his vintage ammo leathers and other similar products, which seem to be his passion. I picked up two of his straps: One which is a 26mm olive-stitched ammon strap with a custom handmade 316 Stainless Steel buckle made by Ingomar himself, and the other is a 24mm minimal stitching ammo strap.

First lets take a look at the 26mm Ammo strap, which is a great vintage strap with tons of character. This one has a great patina ont he surface of the strap and even has micro-cracking on the surface which gives the strap even more character. The leather used on this strap feels like it's seen some serious action. The dark forrest green stitching looks great, and is very straight and close to the edge, which I like to see.

So far of all the Ammo Straps I've had, Maddog's straps are the softest, most pliable ammo straps I've seen. They have a unbelievable softness to them, possibly attributed to the soaking that Ingomar subjects them to. They also have this neat "memory foam"-like character in that when they are bent, they stay bent unless you move them in another direction, almost like Gumby. And this happens right out of the box, without any break-in.

Now a little bit about the buckles. From chatting with Ingomar from Maddog Straps, its very apparent that he is passionate about his buckles. This 26mm strap came with one of Ingomar's custom handmade 316 Stainless Steel buckles which he makes himself! Unfortunately the page is not in English.

The finish on this buckle is a bit on the rougher side, but some of the other pieces I've seen from him have a cleaner finish. This rougher finish suits this strap wonderfully though. Just adds more to the character, which there is plenty of here.

Now lets take a look at the 24mm strap. As you can see below, this guy also has tons of character as you can see.

The 24mm Ammo strap is stitched only across the lug hole areas, presumably to reinforce the glue since the strap has little other stitching. Ingomar does not fold over the ammo leather all the way on his straps but rather uses a different type of leather for the backing material which appears to be non-vintage. This results in a more comfortable strap.

The leather used in the 24mm strap is slightly less pliable than the 26m Ammo, but still has that Gumby-like pliability and maintains the shape after you bend it. This strap, when bent, exhibits less of the characteristic micro-surface cracking of the first strap, and generally has a bit less character. I prefer the heritage of the first strap over this one, but both are wonderful. The "X" Buckle modeled on this strap is not from Maddog, but rather a Decima buckle from Strap-Works.

Here's the Maddog strapped to my PAM320, and looking good. This is one of few stitchless (or close to stitchless) ammo straps that I have, and sometimes the clean simplicity of a stitchless strap really goes with my mood. Maddog makes excellent, character-driven ammo straps with tons of personality. I really liked these two ammo strap and look forward to owning some of his other straps one day.

http://www.paneraisource.com/aftermarket_straps_nubo.shtml