A sniper suit provides camouflage for crawling and crouching.

If you need the best possible combination of camouflage and mobility, a ghillie suit is your best bet. You have instant camouflage wherever you go, no matter what type of terrain. Ghillie suits are popular for paintball, airsoft, hunting, wildlife photography, and other outdoor pursuits.

Buy or Make?

The first question to decide is whether you want to make your own ghillie suit or buy one that’s already made. Making your own suit from a kit takes a lot of time. The process is tedious, but it’s the best way to customize the suit for what you need.

Buying a ghillie suit is easier, and most ghillies come with extra threads so that you can modify the suit to better fit your terrain.

Synthetic or Natural?

Ghillie suits are made with synthetic or natural materials. Synthetic materials are lightweight—best for warm climates and running while wearing the suit. They are also naturally mildew resistant and fire resistant.

Jute ghillie suits are made with natural materials, which makes them easily blend in to the natural environment. Jute threads are straighter and coarser than synthetic threads, and they have a natural odor.

How Much Coverage?

Ghillie suits come in different styles, including ponchos, sniper suits, and 3-piece ghillies. Which style you need depends on how you plan to use the suit.

Ponchos provide full upper body coverage and come in one piece. If you need to run, however, the poncho can get in the way of your legs.

A sniper suit works best for low crawling positions. Since there are no threads on the front of the suit, you don’t have to worry about getting caught on bushes and twigs when moving at a crouch or when crawling.

A 3-piece ghillie provides full body, 360-degree coverage with pants, a jacket, and a hat. Some suits come with a gun wrap as well. This type of suit is best for standing and walking, as well as sitting under a tree or crouching in the grass.

Keep in mind that a full ghillie suit is heavier and hotter than a partial suit. If you need full camouflage but without the weight, consider an ultralight synthetic ghillie.

Wash your ghillie suit occasionally to make it last longer.

Even though the dirtier your ghillie suit gets, the better it performs, all the dirt, grit, snags, and mud can take a toll after awhile. Running through the woods and crawling on the ground can tear threads, snag the webbing, and wear down the suit material. Prolonged sun exposure will cause the colors to fade over time, to the point that it reduces the effectiveness of the camouflage.

Washing a Ghillie Suit

Although die-hard ghillie fans might tell you different, it doesn’t hurt to wash your ghillie suit once in awhile…and it might make your suit last longer. Most of the new lightweight synthetic ghillie suits are machine washable, and even traditional jute ghillies can be washed by hand. One of the best ways to wash your ghillie suit (synthetic or jute) is to lay it out on the ground (preferably on cement, asphalt, or other hard surface) and hose it down. Then allow the suit to air dry.

Storing a Ghillie Suit

Let your ghillie suit dry completely before storing! Don’t just ball up your suit and throw it in a corner. Listen to your mother’s voice telling you to hang up your clothes. Mold and mildew thrive in moist, dark places, such as your ghillie suit on the closet floor. If you want your ghillie suit to last, take the time to hang it up where it can air dry completely.

Repairing a Ghillie Suit

Occasionally you will find torn strings or leaves on your suit. To fix the suit, remove the torn string or leaf and tie a new one in its place. You can also replace strings with different colors to match new terrain or add more strings or leaves for thicker camouflage coverage. If your ghillie suit is beyond repair or if you’re ready to upgrade to a better suit, you can always buy a new ghillie suit.

A sniper suit is designed to let you crawl on the ground without getting caught on twigs and brush.

Remember the cartoons where the character sneaks around with a bush over his body for cover? Well, that’s sort of how a ghillie suit works, except it’s designed to be a lot easier than finding natural cover and a lot more mobile (and comfortable) than wearing a bush.

A ghillie suit breaks up your outline with three-dimensional camouflage that moves with you when you move. It’s mobile enough for walking, running, and crawling, and it’s available in a variety of styles that combine comfort and function, including synthetic materials and ultra lightweight suits.

Mobility

How much mobility you need will help you figure out which type of ghillie suit to buy. A full-length poncho provides good coverage but restricts your legs and makes it harder to run or crawl. A shorter poncho makes it easier to run but provides less lower body coverage. A sniper suit is designed for crawling, running, and walking, with camouflage strips only on the back of the suit.

Coverage

How much coverage you need also factors in to which ghillie suit you should buy. A three-piece ghillie or a full-length poncho provides the most coverage. A sniper suit provides three-dimensional camouflage only on the back side, and a shorter poncho leaves your calves and ankles exposed.

Ghillie Materials

The stickers and twigs picked up by natural material are good when you want to “naturalize” the suit to match the surrounding terrain but bad when you’re trying to get through thick brush. Synthetic materials are less likely to get caught on every bush and tree.

Natural materials such as jute require an extra layer next to the skin to avoid irritation. Synthetic materials with a mesh base can be worn comfortably with next to nothing underneath. Synthetic suits are lighter in weight than suits made with natural materials.

Budget

Cost and time are also factors in choosing a ghillie suit. Kits are available for those who want a custom-made suit, but it will require hours of tedious tying. You can find ready-made ghillie suits for almost as cheap, with extra jute strings or synthetic ties included for customizing the suit to your taste.

Adding native vegetation to your ghillie suit helps you blend in with your surroundings.

There’s more than one way to add natural foliage to your ghillie suit. Here are just a few methods we’ve come across that might work for you.

Weaving Method

Most ghillie suits include a mesh netting overlay with jute strings or camouflage strips tied to the netting. To add foliage to the netting, simply weave grass, twigs, weeds, leaves, or other vegetation in and out of the holes in the mesh.

Elastic Band Method

Attach thick rubber bands or bicycle inner tubing cut into rings to the ghillie suit by knotting them to the netting. Then slip bunches of grass, twigs, and other foliage through the elastic bands.

You can use string to attach the foliage instead of elastic, but it will be more time consuming. Elastic bands allow you to remove and add new foliage faster than tying the foliage in place. They also let you add thicker bunches of foliage than you can when using the weaving method.

Ghillie Gun Wrap

To add natural foliage to your gun, add rubber bands or inner tube rings down the length of the gun. Then attach natural foliage to the gun, securing it in place with the rubber bands.

Tips for Adding Natural Foliage

• Try to follow the pattern and density of the natural vegetation around you.
• Focus on adding foliage to the parts of the ghillie suit that will be exposed. For example, if you crouch or lie prone, you only need to add foliage to the head piece and the back of the suit.
• Replace vegetation when it starts to wilt or rot, or replace it if you move to an area with different foliage.

Hunting in a stubble field during late season is a challenge,
but a rewarding one if you can figure out what works.
Don’t hesitate to try new techniques.

Hunting geese in an open field has its challenges, even in the early season. Add in the gun-shy geese towards the latter part of the season, and it’s even more challenging. Here are a few tips on concealing yourself in an open field and outwitting late season birds.

Hunting Techniques in a Layout Blind

Instead of setting up your layout blind in the middle of a large field, try setting up near the fence line at the edges of the field. For one, the birds will be less wary of landing there, since most hunters set up in the middle of the field. Besides that, the stubble along the fence line gives you natural cover that can be difficult to find in the middle of the field.

Better concealment means that birds will be less likely to spot you, especially during the late season when birds are wary of anything that smacks of danger, including any hint of what may resemble a blind or pit.

Stalking Geese in an Open Field

Another trick for hunting late season geese is to stalk them. A ghillie suit—used by snipers in the military—lets you go to the birds when they won’t come to you. A sniper suit is free of strands on the front side to allow you to crawl low to the ground without catching on brush and stubble. With the camouflage strands on the back side of the suit and on the head covering, you can move around while staying completely concealed at all times.

If you’re hunting in a big group, split the group into two teams. One group hides in thick cover downwind of the geese. The other group stalks the geese until they are close enough to open fire. When the geese take off, they will head straight for the second group of hunters, who can pick off another round of geese.

This ghillie suit offers full coverage with jacket, pants, full cover hood, and gun wrap.

How do you know which ghillie suit is the right one for you? Here are a few basic questions you need to answer before deciding which ghillie suit to buy.

How much coverage do you need?

One of the first questions to ask is how much of your body the ghillie suit needs to cover. Some ponchos cover only the top half of your body, allowing for free movement but requiring tall vegetation to camouflage the lower half of the body. Other ponchos extend to your knees or even down to your feet, offering more coverage. A sniper suit includes camouflage strands on only the back side of the suit for coverage while lying down and crawling across open areas. A jacket, pants, hat (or hood), and gun wrap offer the most coverage possible.

How freely do you need to be able to move?

The next question to ask is what you will be doing while wearing the suit. Are you walking through dense brush? Crawling on your belly across an open field? Running from tree to tree? The style of the ghillie suit will determine how easily you can move while wearing it. A poncho suit that comes down to your feet will get in the way if you need to crawl or run. A jacket and pants set gives you more freedom of movement, letting you run and move faster than you could while wearing a poncho. A sniper suit has no strands on the front, which allows you to crawl without getting snagged on anything.

The sniper ghillie suit has no strands on the front, allowing you to crawl or lie on the ground.

Speaking of getting snagged, another thing to remember is that if you are moving through dense brush, jute strands will pick up leaves and stickers and catch on branches more easily than synthetic strands. If you will move through dense brush often while wearing the suit, look for a suit with synthetic strands.

How lightweight do you want the suit to be?

Depending on the type of strand material used, the type of suit material used, and the thickness of the strands. Natural strands, such as jute, are heavier than synthetic strands. If you wear your suit in hot, humid weather, consider choosing a ghillie suit with synthetic strands. If you prefer the natural strands for their lack of odor (such as for hunting) or you wear the suit in colder weather, you may want to consider a suit made with jute strands.

Note that the more strands (artifical or natural) that are tied to the suit, the heavier the suit will be. For a lighter suit and thinner camouflage, remove some of the strands from the suit.

What kind of camouflage do you need?

The color and pattern of the strands should match the area where you will most often be wearing the suit. There are ghillie suits designed to match woodland terrain, mossy areas, deserts, areas with heavy foliage, and more. Find a color and pattern that most closely matches your environment. Then customize the suit by adding or removing strands as needed to perfectly match the landscape.

A wide variety of ghillie suits, ponchos, and sniper suits are available from KillZone Hunting. The two charts below outline the features of each suit to help you decide which suit is the best one for your needs.

Poncho, Sniper, and Ghillie Suit Buying Guide

Ultra Light Ghillie Suit Buying Guide

*Free shipping applies to the lower 48 United States only.
**Note: All specifications are based on the manufacturer’s stated price and product description at time of posting. Prices and specifications are subject to change.

While making your own ghillie suit from scratch may seem like a great idea at first, few people who start this project realize just how much time and energy it takes to make a high quality suit. From cutting out strips of burlap to tying on each strip one piece at a time, the project can take weeks or months to complete.

Unless you have time to kill, purchasing an affordable, high quality ghillie suit might be a better route to take. Ready-made ghillie suits are just as effective and can be customized to fit your needs.

Ghillies come in 2 basic styles: ponchos and suits. They are made from several different materials. Netting, mesh, or a BDU suit is often used for the base, and burlap, jute twine, or synthetic material are used for the strands.

How Ponchos Are Made

Poncho Style

You can easily put on or remove the poncho as needed by slipping it over the top of your clothes. If you need to move through an area of dense brush, simply take off the poncho and roll it into a small bundle.

Most ponchos include a large hood with extra strands that hang over your face for concealment. Since the poncho only hangs down as far as your knees, you can walk through low brush and step over branches without getting caught on every little twig. The downside is that it’s difficult to crawl on the ground or move through dense brush while wearing a poncho.

Another advantage of the poncho is that it’s easily adaptable. You can drape the poncho over any object or stretch it overhead to provide cover and camouflage in a variety of situations.

How Ghillie Suits Are Made

Complete Ghillie Suit

The biggest advantage of a full suit is that it provides full coverage from head to toe. The BDU suit is designed for crawling on the ground, with strands located only on the back half of the suit. The BDU suit is lighter (with only half as many jute strands) and easier to run in. Depending on how you plan to use your suit, you will need to decide whether a ghillie suit (with strands on front and back) or a BDU sniper suit (strands only on back) will best meet your needs.

This type of suit is best for covering open ground. Walking through dense brush is difficult, since the strands tend to get caught on everything. Also, wearing a 3-piece ghillie suit can get fairly hot, so wear light clothing underneath to stay as cool as possible.

Ultra light ghillie suits are lighter, cooler, and more comfortable.

• “Pack the ghillie suit in. Don’t wear it because it gets caught on EVERYTHING!”
• “Wear a camo hat under the hood because it keeps the extra netting or string out of your way when aiming down the sights.”
• “Dress light because those suits can get hot.”
• “Don’t put the gun wrap on a pump action shotgun. Just bad news all around.”
• “The string ones go well in swampy areas, the netting ones go well in leafy areas.”
• “For spring – go mostly green. Fall – mostly brown.”

KillZone has a large number of ghillie suits to choose from, all at affordable prices and FREE shipping to the lower 48 states. For a limited time only, you can save an extra $15 on any KillZone ghillie suit, camo poncho, or sniper suit!

For a limited time only, KillZone is offering a discount coupon for all ghillie suits, sniper BDUs, and ponchos. You can get an extra $15 off any ghillie suit in our store! Simply add the item you want to your shopping cart and enter the code KZG153 in the Discount Codes section before proceeding to the checkout page.

Check out our ghillie suits to shop now!

To take advantage of this great deal, enter the above coupon code in the DISCOUNT CODES box on the shopping cart page.