You either have a box of holsters that didn’t work for you or are on the way to a box of holsters that didn’t work for you.
It’s hard to find that right holster. The one that you want to wear every day. The one that will hold your gun without falling out. The one that you can draw your gun really fast from. And the one that always conceals your firearm.
When we first start our journey in concealed carry we think these four things are not too much to ask for. I just want it to hold the gun, to be comfortable, allow fast access, and to conceal the gun. Seems simple enough.
These four things are at odds with each other. You must pick the one that is most important to you, and let the others balance themselves out.
The four aspects of a concealed holster are:
- Retention – How well it holds the gun and what you must do to get the holster to release the gun.
- Speed – How fast can you get to the gun and how fast can you get it out and onto target
- Comfort – How easy is it to carry for long periods of time
- Concealability – How well it hides the gun.
Retention
Retention use to be shown by manufactures as Level 0 through IV. Now those numbers are getting murky and one manufacturer’s level II is not the same as another. There are a limited number of retention devises on the market.
Most of the Retention designs are:
- Friction lock – This is simply when the holster is made tight enough all over or in certain places (like the trigger guard) to hold the pistol in the holster. This is the most common type for self-defense and is overcome by simple force applied upwards to pull the gun out. Works well for when a gun is actually concealed because the cover garment acts as a barrier to getting to the gun and is camouflage keeping people from knowing it is there.
- Thumb Break – A strap that goes over the gun with a snap that attaches to the side of the holster normally set in such a way to allow the firing hand thumb to push the snap apart and allow the gun to be drawn.
- Movement of the Gun – There is a hook inside the holster that requires the gun to be rocked forward or backward, or twisted in or out to get the gun around the hook. Pulling straight up will just get the gun caught on the hook and not let it out.
- Thumb Drive – Made famous by 5.11 requires the thumb on the shooting hand to drive down or pull a lever to release the gun. My favorite form of this is the Safariland ALS. I have a bunch of them.
- Trigger Finger Release – My least favorite and I think the most dangerous. You use your trigger finger to push in or down on a lever that releases the gun. I’ve found more then one documented case (including a friend of mine) where the shooter shot themselves in the leg when they didn’t draw the gun correctly out of this style holster. They are very popular and cheap. I suggest you buy something else.
- Middle Finger Release – These are released by a lever or snap that is pressed by the middle finger of the shooting hand when a firing grip is being established before the gun comes out. I am not dexterous enough to make these work for me. But lots of people make them work great.
Multiple levels of retention are achieved by using more then one of the above designs. The Safariland 070 was famous in the Los Angeles Police Department for many years because it required you to break the thumb break snap, use your middle finger to push off a snap and then rock the pistol backwards to get the holster to release the gun. It saved a bunch of officers’ lives including a friend of mine back in the day when bad guys couldn’t get the gun out of the holster. If you don’t know how it works, it will take you 10 minutes to half an hour to figure it out.
Other Holsters, like the Safariland 6360 have two thumb drive devises on them. First the hood must be pushed down and rotated out of the way and then the thumb has to pull back a lever to get the gun to release. Again it will take minutes to figure it out.
I personally can do the thumb dance but not the middle finger or twist to get guns out.
Speed
How fast can you get to the gun and then how fast can you deploy the gun. Every holster and method of carry suffers from this.
Carrying in a bag can be very slow to get to and slow to get out of. A pocket holster is slow to get to, but fast to deploy (at least for me).
Every holster system will have it’s good and bad with speed.
From pure competition holsters that allow a sub one-second draw to others that will take over five seconds to get out and make a shot, all of them will suffer some type of speed impediment.
If you want to be fast, be able to get to your gun quickly and deploy it quickly. I’m looking for things within reason. I’m always striving for the sub one-second draw time, but realistically a two-second draw wouldn’t be unreasonable.
The easiest way to be fast is to do what Clint Smith says: “The best place to have your gun is in your hand” before the fight starts. If you want to cut your draw time in half, be able to discretely put your hand on your gun and obtain a firing grip before you need the gun.
Speed is always relative. Some holsters are faster then others, but in a fight, you just have to be faster than the bad guy.
Comfort
Clint Smith also famously said, “a gun should be comforting not comfortable.” But in reality, there are very few people that will wear a gun all day when it is uncomfortable. We will only put up with so much pain before we take the gun off.
I think the holster has to be comfortable enough that you will wear it all day everyday during your normal life. If it is less then that, then you won’t wear it and the gun won’t do you any good.
My wife will put up with very little discomfort and we are having a hard time finding something that will work for her.
Use something that you will wear all day.
Concealability
Concealability, like speed, is relative. How well the gun hides depends on who is looking for it and what the ramifications of being “made” (someone seeing your gun) are.
For me it matters little during my normal life. But when I go someplace that guns aren’t supposed to be, it matters more.
If I’m going someplace with professional security the gun needs to be hidden more then normal. If I’m going to the store in the middle of the night, I worry about it less so.
To determine how well a holster conceals you can look in the mirror (but you will always see it) and ask different people if they can see it. Once you find something that works well enough for you, you’ll find that not even professionals will see it.
I talked to a cop at a gas station for about 15 minutes and when the topic of guns came up, we talked about different carry methods and sizes of guns for concealed carry. When I told him I always carry a full-sized Smith & Wesson his eyes got really big for a second when he realized he had been talking to me for so long and hadn’t seen my gun.
Normally more then the gun printing through your cover garment, it’s the way people act that gives them away. Like pulling on the gun, bumping into things, holding down their shirt when they move, or the like are the things that make it easy to see who is carrying a gun.
Inverse Relationships
The problem with wanting everything is that lots of the points above have an inverse relationship. Generally, the faster a holster is the less concealable it is. When I wear a holster for deep concealment it makes it harder to get to the gun and harder to get the gun out. The faster the holster is, the more it looks bigger and harder to hide. The gun is outside the waist band, off set from the body, maybe a little below the belt line and raked back with the muzzle pointed forward a little and worn directly on the hip or just forward of the hip. All this makes it really hard to hide. You need to look for a balance of speed and concealment.
Comfort also seems inverse to concealment. The more comfortable a holster is to wear all day the less it seems to conceal. The holster is a little bigger with a big plate that attaches to the belt and is offset a little to keep the gun from rubbing against your body. Going more concealed, the holster and gun go inside the waist and there are even hooks, claws, and wedges that push the gun against your body to make it more concealable (which also makes it slower).
Retention verses speed is also an inverse relationship. Generally, the more retention a holster has the slower it will be to draw from. Some competition holsters only hold the gun with a magnet and need a “walking around strap” to keep it form falling out with just normal activities at the range.
Conclusion
How can you choose a holster that will work for you?
Start with comfort. It must be comfortable enough that you will wear it all day every day.
Next it needs to have a level of concealment that is acceptable to you. You don’t want to walk around all day thinking everyone is staring at your gun. It’s a horrible feeling, trust me. It’s happened to me testing holsters. I wore something I should not have, and had to wait until I got home to fix it.
Then you can worry about retention. My level of retention for a concealment holster is that I need to be able to hold the gun in holster upside down and shake it. If the gun falls out, it needs more retention. If the gun stays in whether by friction or devise, then it’s good enough for conceal carry.
NOTE: If you are open carrying please use at least a level I retention. One extra retention level above friction! This is so someone doesn’t slip your gun from you.
Finally, in the holster selection is speed. Speed is relative and you can learn, with practice and training to be fast out of just about anything. Learn to access your gun discreetly and you can cut your draw time in half. Or as John Corria says, wait your turn. I say, use tactical patience! Translation; wait until the bad guy is distracted and then draw the gun.
Stay Safe,
Ben