Product Review: Carhartt Montana Puffer Coat

Longtime readers of the blog know that you could describe me as obsessive when it comes to finding great cold weather gear. I developed Reynauds in my early 20s, and if I let my fingers and toes go numb long enough, I can sometimes pass out when the blood comes back to them. 

After eight years of wearing the same outfit, my cold weather gear finally changed this year and man, some of these pieces are too great not to share with everyone. So here's the first in a three part series about what's new:

I've found the holy grail of winter weather barn coats.

I had to get a new one this year, and I landed on the Carhartt Montana Puffer Coat - Sherpa Lined. On Carhartt's warmth scale, it's a maxed out "4 - Extreme Warmth Rating". For comparison, the canvas coats you usually think of when you think Carhartt are a "3 - Warmest Rating".

 

 

Guys, I almost returned this coat. It's TOO WARM at temps above 15F. It's too warm to wear a scarf with, too warm to wear a vest with. Too warm for a single Smartwool base layer. Way too warm to wear my Underarmour 4.0 with. I sweat no matter what I wear under it even though my body doesn't handle cold well at all. You put your hands in the pockets and they are immediately WARM. It's remarkable, and I can't get over it. 

Just as a fun experiment for this post, I did an hour of feeding, turnout and stalls in just a t-shirt and this coat when it was 18F this morning, and I was sweating! I have never felt anything like it before, and I'm truly in awe of it. 

The weather this morning

 

How I dressed for it

Other upsides to this coat are:

• Extremely durable water-resistant and windproof outer layer. Yes, it's a puffer coat, but it's a puffer coat that takes the abuse of farm work no problem.
  
• Great pockets - big, warm pockets (with zippers) for jamming your gloved hands into, snap pockets to drop things into, a nice big cell phone pocket on the chest, and an easy-to-access massive mesh pocket on the inside.
• Internal wrist cuffs - you can't see or feel them, but you can feel that the cold isn't getting into the sleeve
• It's lightweight and doesn't restrict my movement in any noticeable way.
  

 

Giant mesh pocket

It does have some downsides:

• It's massive and not at all attractive. Imagine what the Michelin Man would look like if he had all the curves of a cereal box. That's what you'll look like wearing it.
  
• The zipper sucks. It's plastic and sometimes gets stuck. I can already tell I'm going to be making a trip to the seamstress this summer to get it replaced with a metal one.
• The hood is not removable. This really bothered me at first and I felt like it was constantly hitting me in the back of the head, but I don't notice that as much now - not sure if the hood relaxed as I wore it, or if I'm so grateful to be warm that I don't care. I did have to get a different winter hat to fit under the sherpa-lined hood - more on that in another gear review post.

 

Instead of returning it for a less warm coat, I ended up buying a different barn coat for 25-50F temps and kept both. That felt a little ridiculous at the time, but I've come to realize that the exact right gear for the exact right temperatures matters a lot when you're spending hours on the tractor and not just coming out to the barn to ride and go home.

 

Sexy, it is not

If you live south of Indiana, do not buy this coat, unless you're a trainer that spends all day sitting still while teaching lessons in the cold, in which case this coat (or the parka version, which goes midway down the thighs) would be a godsend. Outside of that, trust me, this coat is too warm for your climate.

 

Closeup of the sherpa lining in the hood and body of the coat

Bottom line: If you live at my latitude and north and feel okay dropping $149 on never feeling cold again below 25F, knowing you will only use this coat a few months out of the year and that you'll look like a shapeless box while wearing it, I really, really, REALLY can't recommend it enough.

 

What: Carhartt Montana Puffer Jacket - Sherpa Lined

 

Sizes: XS-3X, runs large

 

Colors: Black, Carhartt Tan (Tarmac) and Huckleberry (a dusty pink currently on clearance for $89.99)

 

Price: $149

 

Disclaimer: Bought this delightful heat factory ray of sunshine with my own hard-earned money and am not affiliated with nor compensated by Carhartt in any way.