Holster incompatibility issues: new guns come before new holsters sometimes causing unforeseen problems

Guns Magazine, Dec, 2007 by Massad Ayoob

One of our readers writes in essence, "What's the story on holsters keeping up with guns? All the cool autoloaders today have frame rails, but it's hard as heck to find a holster to fit a model of gun so equipped!"

I can only say, "I feel your pain, brother." Been there, experienced that.

It's not as tough as it was a couple of years ago to find holsters for pistols with light rails molded into the dust cover's of their frames, but there are still a lot of scabbards on the racks fitted for the older models. The holster is an accessory, and by definition, the main product has to be out there selling for a while before demand for accessories to fit it can arise and reach the ears of the accessory providers.

Rail Guns

Today, things aren't so bad. You still have to shop carefully, but there are lots of holsters for pistols equipped with light rails. When in doubt, get a "skeleton' style" of the type typified by the Yaqui Slide design the late, great Milt Sparks made famous. Since most everything in front of the triggerguard is exposed anyway, there's no "choke point" where the thicker, squarer dust cover of the "rail gun" can hang up in the holster's channel.

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The first rigs typically coming out for new duty-type guns are police uniform-type holsters. These guns are bought in volume by municipal, county, I state or federal governments, and won't be purchased if there aren't uniform scabbards available for them.

Other Incompatibilities

This is why the makers of those guns are sure to reach out early and get prototypes of their new designs to the primary manufacturers of police uniform gear in plenty of time. For concealed carry-type pistols, or for that matter concealment holsters for duty guns (since those tend to be bought one at a time by individual users), there tends to be a longer gap before the time when the holster makers realize there's a market for the new product.

We've all had a new holster so tight, we couldn't get the bloody gun out until the rig had broken in. This is why you should never carry a defense or duty gun in a new holster until you've made lots of practice draws with the unloaded gun, to confirm there won't be any slowdowns or hang-ups.

Other incompatibilities can surface. Back in the '70s, I came to appreciate the Dan Wesson .357 Magnum service revolver. My department authorized such optional guns for carry at the time, so I set about trying the DW in a (then) high-tech breakfront security holster. It was a good thing I took it for a test drive. The first time I pushed the gun out the front and came up on target, the cylinder swung itself out of the frame. The Dan Wesson, then and now, opened via a latch on the cylinder yoke pushed downward toward the bottom of the revolver. This meant in a muzzle-down orientation, a backward push on the latch would open the cylinder.

That backward push on the latch was exactly what happened when the gun was pushed through the two strong, vertical springs in the front of a breakfront holster designed for Colt, Ruger, and S&W service revolvers whose latches were safely out of the way at the back of the cylinder. I quickly realized the marriage of the Dan Wesson with the breakfront was like some marriages between human beings--each was great as an individual entity, but the two of them just couldn't get along together.

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In another example, the Illinois State Police had historically carried their revolvers in cross-draw holsters, and went to cross-draw flap style in 1967 when they adopted the Smith & Wesson Model 39 9mm auto. The time came circa the late 1970s when their command staff decided on a newer, longer type of patrol jacket, without bothering to discuss it with the folks in the Ordnance Section. When the new jackets came in, it was discovered they bunched up on the high-ride cross-draw rigs in an unsightly and uncomfortable way. After decades of troopers begging for strong-side holsters, they finally got them for the worst possible reason: the holsters they hated made a new uniform garment look bad and fit poorly, but a strong-side rig with a jacket cut would work just fine.

A couple of years later, the New Jersey State Police adopted the HKP7 9mm semiauto, which originally had a butt-heel magazine release catch. The troopers didn't like this, and wanted an American-style release behind the triggerguard. A push-button wouldn't work with the P7 design, but Heckler and Koch came up with an ambidextrous wing-type lever in the spot to quickly release the magazine when pressed downward toward the butt. NJSP adopted this new model, the P7M8, and issued it with four spare magazines and a Border Patrol style thumb-break duty holster.

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Unfortunately, the new rig apparently hadn't been beta-tested in prototype on patrol. As soon as troopers went to work in the new duty gear, they discovered that depending on the trooper's build, if he was right-handed the patrol car seat belt could press against the ambi mag release as soon as the trooper strapped himself behind the wheel. This had an unnerving tendency to release the magazine of the holstered pistol. Troopers soon learned a new drill each time their cruiser came to a stop. Put shift lever in Park, release seat belt, push magazine back into butt of pistol ...