Truck M3

The Truck M3 glove is a well thought-out and constructed snow sports glove sold at an extremely reasonable price point. It is a good all-around ski glove that, despite the lack of flashy features or proprietary technologies, holds its own against gloves twice as expensive.

Fit & Comfort

The Truck M3 fits, well, like a glove. I measured my hand and sized according to the chart on Truck's website, and the gloves fit perfectly. Truck's website says that the M3 is designed to fit "a little more snug", and I've found that to be true. Without any liners, the M3 squeezes my hand the perfect amount, but with liners it becomes slightly harder to move my fingers. If you're someone who typically skis/rides with liner gloves, I would recommend either measuring your hand with liners on or purchasing a size up from what the chart says your hand size should be. 

One thing the M3 has up on other inexpensive leather gloves is the speed at which the glove broke in. Truck says that "out of the packaging it will feel stiff and snug, but ski it for a day and it will break in." I found this to be true, as out of the box the M3s felt quite stiff, but after just a day of skiing the gloves were fully broken in. The only time I have encountered stiffness in the leather is after the gloves get wet and I dry them out, but within a run or two the leather becomes supple again. 

Warmth & Water

The M3 is a fairly warm glove. I wore them comfortably without liners in temps as cold as 0° F (-17° C). Below that, a pair of light liners brought my hands back into the comfort zone. Like I said before, if you are someone who rides with liners on a regular basis, you may want to keep the additional volume of liners in mind when purchasing the M3, or you could buy the less insulated, looser fitting M1, Truck's flagship glove.

The only issue with heat loss I encountered with the M3 was around the wrist. The wrist is not an elastic sleeve (similar to what is seen on the M1 and Kinco winter gloves) but rather a traditional velcro strap with insulation. This wasn't a huge deal, since I have a fairly long-armed jacket and was able to adjust my jacket wrists to form a barrier that worked most of the time. 

Water & Moisture

I found during testing that, like any other leather gloves, the M3 was not waterproof when left untreated. The M3 I received from Truck came with a small tin of Obenauf's Leather Conditioner, but I decided not to use that or any other leather treatment to see how well they stacked up to my previous pair of gloves, an untreated pair of Kincos. Untreated, the M3 performed significantly better than the Kincos, likely due to the inclusion of a waterproof Porelle membrane just under the leather. The membrane ended up either not being waterproof or wetted out easily, and on damper days I found my hands getting wet. Although I haven't done so, I bet that a thorough treatment with Sno-Seal, Obenauf's, or another waterproofing agent would greatly improve the water resistance of the M3.

As far as moisture wicking and breathability go, the M3 was lacking. The gloves are very obviously designed to be a heavy duty glove to be used on the way down. Any time the temperature got above 35° F or so, I found that I would need to remove my gloves on the chairlift and dry my gloves at the end of the day. This isn't really a huge deal for me, since the gloves dry easily and aren't anywhere near light enough to use on the skin track.

Durability

During my season of use with the M3 I experienced very little damage to the gloves. I skied 75+ days in all conditions with the M3. As with all ski equipment used on the East Coast for a season these gloves were put through the ringer; trees, rocks, branches, and ice did zero damage to the leather. I'm a fan of cheap gloves, and have previously used Kincos as my go to glove, but even those sustain scuff damage and some cuts. The only damage the M3 sustained all season was the development of two tears in the last week, one on the right pointer and the other on the left thumb, both on seam lines. [Update: with additional use, those small tears have started to to come apart pretty rapidly.]

A note about dye

Everything about the M3 was near perfect, with the one exception that for the first few weeks of use, they bled dye into my snowpants. This happened to a light tan pair of pants where the black dye was obvious. This occurred on the tops of my thighs where I rested my hands on the chairlift. The dye mostly (but not entirely) came out of the pants after one wash. 

Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with the M3. For a glove that comes in at just $78, the M3 looked and performed like a significantly more expensive glove. Apart from the issue with dye leakage and the minor tears on the seams everything was excellent.