barnbwt
member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2011
- Messages
- 7,340
A while back I cobbled together a Kydex holster for my R51 in pursuit of a small/minimalist arrangement that still held the weapon securely. I learned a lot about the best ways to 'grab' onto the weapon so it was solidly held yet easy/smooth to draw, but one area I felt I never found good solutions for was the attachment to the belt.
The overall arrangement of the holster is basically this;
Only in Kydex, so the material is a lot stiffer & rougher than leather (there's also a nifty retention latch on the trigger gaurd). Now, not wanting to tear up my nice belts pulling them through Kydex slots if I could help it, I knew that what I needed was some sort of strap (I don't like hooks) on the tabs at each side of the holster cavity. This way I could take the holster on/off the belt with it around my waist (this seems the most convenient setup if also using the belt as a belt
)
So I riveted on some leather straps with button-snaps that secured behind the belt (very clean look btw) but I didn't care for how bulky they were. I found that at about 1" wide, they were just stiff enough against shear that they wouldn't try to twist & turn against the belt (this with a snug fit on the belt, too), but any smaller would allow the holster to be twisted & shifted more than I liked. They also looked huge, of course. Further research of this type of attachment seems to suggest that others found the same shortcoming with the common 1/2" or so straps seen on some factory holsters.
Now, one solution is of course to make the strap stiffer, since that's essentially what making it wider is accomplishing. My problem here was that in doing so, the strap itself becomes too tough to bend on/off the belt in use, and again ends up being bulky. So my next thought is that perhaps the material itself could be made of something stiffer like steel, kydex, or horsehide, but I'd again be running into straps too stiff to bend and manipulate easily.
But what if I didn't need to bend the straps? This is the question/idea my tale has been leading to; could the 'straps' around the belt be in the form of rigid clasps on hinges that snap onto the belt for a rigid mount, but are easily released for attachment/removal? The hinges would control any twisting of the clasps on the belt while being highly flexible for removal, the strong material could be narrow & thin, and there would be no bulky bend radius as is seen from thicker materials like leather. The thin but stiff nature would also be ideal for a 'tuckable' loop arrangement with an attachment point further down on the holster (at a longer lever arm)
Maybe something like this 'holster utiliclip' thing only smaller & designed to clamp onto a belt, and much more secure since there'd be two of them several inches apart (and a more solid latch system than an over-center)?
Now, even though there's nothing new under the sun & I'm certain something similar is offered already, I still intend to make the thing myself. That said, if there is something in this vein on the market now, I'd love to examine it for inspiration. The end-goal here is a holster you slide inside your waistband, snap some clips onto your belt, then walk out the door for a setup that's as rigid as if the belt were threaded through loops (and potentially even tuckable)
TCB
The overall arrangement of the holster is basically this;
Only in Kydex, so the material is a lot stiffer & rougher than leather (there's also a nifty retention latch on the trigger gaurd). Now, not wanting to tear up my nice belts pulling them through Kydex slots if I could help it, I knew that what I needed was some sort of strap (I don't like hooks) on the tabs at each side of the holster cavity. This way I could take the holster on/off the belt with it around my waist (this seems the most convenient setup if also using the belt as a belt
)So I riveted on some leather straps with button-snaps that secured behind the belt (very clean look btw) but I didn't care for how bulky they were. I found that at about 1" wide, they were just stiff enough against shear that they wouldn't try to twist & turn against the belt (this with a snug fit on the belt, too), but any smaller would allow the holster to be twisted & shifted more than I liked. They also looked huge, of course. Further research of this type of attachment seems to suggest that others found the same shortcoming with the common 1/2" or so straps seen on some factory holsters.
Now, one solution is of course to make the strap stiffer, since that's essentially what making it wider is accomplishing. My problem here was that in doing so, the strap itself becomes too tough to bend on/off the belt in use, and again ends up being bulky. So my next thought is that perhaps the material itself could be made of something stiffer like steel, kydex, or horsehide, but I'd again be running into straps too stiff to bend and manipulate easily.
But what if I didn't need to bend the straps? This is the question/idea my tale has been leading to; could the 'straps' around the belt be in the form of rigid clasps on hinges that snap onto the belt for a rigid mount, but are easily released for attachment/removal? The hinges would control any twisting of the clasps on the belt while being highly flexible for removal, the strong material could be narrow & thin, and there would be no bulky bend radius as is seen from thicker materials like leather. The thin but stiff nature would also be ideal for a 'tuckable' loop arrangement with an attachment point further down on the holster (at a longer lever arm)
Maybe something like this 'holster utiliclip' thing only smaller & designed to clamp onto a belt, and much more secure since there'd be two of them several inches apart (and a more solid latch system than an over-center)?
Now, even though there's nothing new under the sun & I'm certain something similar is offered already, I still intend to make the thing myself. That said, if there is something in this vein on the market now, I'd love to examine it for inspiration. The end-goal here is a holster you slide inside your waistband, snap some clips onto your belt, then walk out the door for a setup that's as rigid as if the belt were threaded through loops (and potentially even tuckable)
TCB
