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Holsters: a thread.
Holsters are a piece of safety equipment, to match a gun. They provide a place to keep your firearm when not in use, and ideally keeps it hidden or locked into place. One or the other.
Passive retention, where the gun is only held in with tension from the holster, is fine if nobody knows the gun is there.
Active retention, is in my opinion, a necessity when open carrying. Without concealment, anyone can walk up behind you and now they have your gun.
Active retention, is in my opinion, a necessity when open carrying. Without concealment, anyone can walk up behind you and now they have your gun.
While this can be safe, if you pay a lot of attention to your surroundings, it is impossible to have 100% situational awareness 100% of the time. Anyone who says differently is lying to you and themself.
What material does a holster need to be? Kydex or injection molded plastic. Leather for a wheelgun maybe, but carrying it every day will wear the retention out and cause it to become pliable.
A pliable holster can shoot your firearm when holstering, and doesn& #39;t keep fingers and other things out of the trigger area. Nylon and leather are a no go for me.
Kydex holsters are not all made the same. Cheap manufacture means cheap bolts, thin material, or bad molding. Sometimes all three. See We the People holsters, etc.
Hybrid holsters that utilize leather or nylon on half of the mold have the same issues as full nylon and leather holsters. As they heat and cool, and sit next to skin, they get moisture and heat causing them to be more flexible over time.
Your safety device should not be able to shoot you on reholstering. Again, can be helped with always observing your holster as you go in, but safety should be a multi layered system of checks. Kydex holsters are part of that.
"Muh finish, Libertas!" I hear you yelp. Forget your finish. It& #39;s a gun, not a show and tell toy. If it matters, get it refinished yearly. It isn& #39;t that expensive, and you should care more about your leg than your defensive weapon. Besides, a worn finish shows you use it.
Who makes good holsters? A number of people and manufacturers, but even then, some are lazy designs. Take the Safariland GLS or PHLster Floodlight: giant open areas around the trigger area, because they fit "most guns".
These "universal" designs mean they don& #39;t fit any gun well, but fit most guns to a degree. This means loose tolerances, and lower retention, and often leaves your trigger exposed. Get a holster for your gun and light combo, specifically.
I use Black Rhino Concealment holsters, but Red Balloon Industries, Safariland (mostly), PHLster, BladeTech, Orpaz, and many others have good designs, with research behind them.
Active retention can keep your gun locked in the holster until the user releases it. Safariland ALS and SLS systems are great, but GLS is not. I like the Spetzer release that Black Rhino uses for my OWB holster as an alternative.
If your gun isn& #39;t hidden, it should be hard for joe schmo to pull out and use on you. Active retention. Get some.
Lastly, a gun belt makes a world of difference in how the weight of a gun feels on your body, and how much it can hurt by the end of the day. Nexbelt, Blue Alpha, and others make dedicated gun belts. They don& #39;t have to look tacticool to work. Get one, and use it. I have both.
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