Hit-Air vest reset screw

Don’t overpay for a simple screw!

My daughter rides horses, and for safety while riding on the cross-country courses, she wears a Hit-Air vest. This is a cool “airbag you wear” device with a lanyard that attaches to the saddle. If you have an “unplanned departure” from the horse, the lanyard pulls out a restraining ball, allowing a spring-loaded plunger to pierce the seal on a CO2 cartridge and rapidly inflate some pillows to protect the neck, spine, and hips/ribs. Motorcyclists use similar technology for a while too, but with hard external surfaces to protect against road rash, destruction of the vest from sliding on the road, etc. The equestrian version is just a soft canvas-type material all around.

Anyway… at a show a few weeks ago, daughter had an unplanned departure, vest worked as it was supposed to. When I asked where the reset screw was… “I don’t know.”

Great. Check the Hit-Air accessories page – they want $9 plus almost $8 shipping. Other vendors want as much as $20 + shipping! For a single hex-head screw and an Allen wrench. And with shipping the way it is these days, it would likely take a week or two to receive them.

One trip to the local hardware store later… After test fitting several screws, I learned that it is a metric M6x30 1.0 pitch (36mm total overall length, threaded part is 30 mm). I bought 3 of them at about $2 each.

I could not find this information anyplace online, so here it is. Hopefully it helps out someone else in a pinch in the future. I will be telling all our other “barn families” with vest wearers about this too. And I’ve added it as a comment on several of the popular Youtube videos about how to replace the cartridge.

While I don’t begrudge Hit-Air making money off replacement parts, this seems a little exorbitant. Also, in a pinch, it is comforting to know that you could get the part to reset this important safety item from any local hardware store or “big box” vendor like Lowe’s, Home Depot, etc.

For now, we’ll be keeping one screw in the tack trunk with the replacement cartridges, one in the truck glovebox, and one at home in my toolbox. It’s too easy to drop something in the grass, etc., and we don’t want our rider to be without the protection of the Hit-Air vest!