Kydex wearing on your finish?

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gspn

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For those who carry in a kydex holster (and practice drawing from one as your routine), how much wear has there been on the finish of your gun?

I ask because I have a new gun that's got a small bit of finish missing from the slide. The manufacturer has offered to refinish it for me, but I just bought a kydex holster, and if that thing is going to put some wear and tear on the finish anyway, I'd rather not put myself and the manufacturer through the trouble of sending it back to have it refinished.

If you have a pic you could share that's representative of the amount of wear that one could expect from repeatedly drawing from, and re-holstering to a kydex holster, I it would be much appreciated.
 
I don't share pictures of my guns, but I can tell you that it's quite normal to have wear on the finish of a pistol carried in any holster, including kydex holsters. My carry gun looks like it's been through WW1. It's a tool, not a decoration. If a person has a gun they don't want finish wear on, they shouldn't carry it.
 
:rofl: Absolutely not looking for your opinion on what you think others should think about wear on a pistol.

That finish protects bare metal from rust...which is very important in my environment.
 
gspn said:
:rofl: Absolutely not looking for your opinion on what you think others should think about wear on a pistol.

That finish protects bare metal from rust...which is very important in my environment.
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Stating a fact, not my opinion. A gun that's carried in a holster is going to get finish wear. If people don't want finish wear, they shouldn't carry the gun in a holster. Simple as that. My carry gun doesn't have a speck of rust on it. Buy a good quality weapon and take care of it and it'll be fine, even when the finish is worn. My environment (and that of my pistol) consists of daily exposure to moisture, sawdust and dirt, FWIW.
 
Mines got plenty o wear on it. Not worried about it. If I do get to the point of being worried about rust, then I’ll duracoat/cerekote/hard chrome/etc it.

Don’t really think I’ll get to that point, I actually kind of like the wear, gives it character.
 
bearcreek said:
Stating a fact, not my opinion. A gun that's carried in a holster is going to get finish wear. If people don't want finish wear, they shouldn't carry the gun in a holster...
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Agree entirely. Holsters wear. You can minimize by cleaning but not by changing holsters. If anything, I am pretty strongly of the opinion Kydex wears less than leather.

Softer materials get bits of grit embedded in them, cannot be really clean out of them, so every time you holster you very very finely sand it down. I mean, unless you do that in a dust storm, then you sand it down real fast! There's grit everywhere, not just in the desert, so don't think you can escape from it. Some of the finish damage from saltwater environments is (reportedly, from people who know of this at the microscopic level) salt crystals embedded in holsters, etc.

So, I periodically wipe down the inside of the holster, blow out (shop air) the rest and often spray a little silicone oil on it. I have minimal finish wear and generally a ton less on my kydex holstered guns than my previous generation of leather holstered guns, at now similar round / presentation counts.

Also: wear is unavoidable and refinishing won't solve it. One that has notable wear is a plain stainless steel pistol. No finish to wear off or through, but still the contact points have become shiny instead of the bead blasted finish of the rest of it.
 
I do observe very slight wear on the typical contact points. Far less than what leather will do.
I similarly advocate giving kydex a rinse in nice warm water followed by a silicone rag wipedown.
Removing contaminants like dust, dirt, sand, and lint will substantially reduce the amount of visible wear.
 
Used a kydex holster for my ruger lc9. Wore the finish off pretty bad around the slide. Had some rust issues with it. Could have been who ever did the coating did it wrong not sure. Looking to have it cerakoted. Just don’t want to spend $100 on a $200 pistol.
 
I think the OP has a legit question here. The kydex holsters I've used the most are my issued Safariland duty holsters with the faux suede lining (some type of flocking?).

I personally don't want a carry pistol, duty or concealed-carry, that looks as though it's been through WWI. Yes, the handgun is only a tool, but mitigating finish wear is important as it prevents rust and pitting.

Keeping one's holsters cleaned, inside and out, is important. I use a dish/bottle brush to get the dust and particulate matter off the inside of my holsters, both leather and kydex.

I live in an area renowned for its humidity. Minimizing finish wear is important.

The TRP pictured below (which has been carried in either a Kramer horsehide Belt Scabbard or Milt Sparks Summer Special regularly) has minimal wear, all on the muzzle, because I've been careful to brush the holster interiors out and the one kydex rig it's occasionally carried in, a Safariland paddle holster, has that fake suede lining that's kept clean.
trp.jpg
 
You'll get wear if you put your gun in any kind of holster, but I think much will depend on the holster design, for how much and how fast that will happen.

For instance, I have Colt with a blued slide. It is blueing, not one of the new gun finishes like melonite or tenifer. It wears.

In a kydex pancake, like my Raven Concealment Phantom, where there is a lot of holster contact with the gun, and retention is at the trigger guard and at the ejection port, it took two or three presentations to take blueing off a 1/16 - 1/8 strip from the back of the ejection port to the muzzle on the left side of the top of the slide and a similar strip extending from the front of the ejection port on the right side extending about an inch forward. There is also a bit of blueing gone from muzzle end of the pistol.

On the other hand in my Dale Fricke Gideon Elite ( https://dalefrickeholsters.com/product/gideon-elite-holster/ ), most of the retention is at the trigger guard, and my frame is stainless, so there isn't much wear from that holster, though it probably does contribute to the wear at the muzzle end.

My leather and leather lined kydex holsters have mostly contributed to wear at the muzzle end of the gun.

With my Beretta PX4, that has a cerakoted slide, and a polymer frame, in a JMCK Range/Competition holster ( https://www.jmcustomkydex.com/p/Q-Range-Competition-OWB-Holster.html ) or from a PJ Holster OWB ( https://pjholster.com/products/owb ), there hasn't been any wear yet.
 
I’ve only got a small amount of wear on my ccw pistol (Gen 5 Glock 26). Small line where the side of the slide meets the top of the slide. Very, very small and seems to have stopped.

That’s it over 3 years of daily carry in a kydex holster.

My 1911 is carried in a milt sparks leather holster. Parkerized finish. It’s worn more than the Glock and over less time. But I’m personally ok with that. I think honest wear looks nice on it.
 
gspn said:
how much wear has there been on the finish of your gun?
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A good bit, I have found 3rd Gen glock finishes to be very durable, carry one for 10 years and draw it thousands of times and your finish will inevitably fade. I think between the friction generated from walking, sweat, drawing, shooting, cleaning, whether or not the gun gets set down on surfaces, etc every gun is bound to see some finish wear whether you carry in Kydex, Leather or Nylon. I have a pretty worn LCP that spent most of its life in an uncle mikes which is an incredibly soft material.

I am not really concerned with wear on my carry guns because they are all coated, I would bet a good deal of modern striker fired handguns have some sort of melonite coat on the slide. Glocks have it and so do many others and even if you see the finish wearing off your gun is still protected because the melonite is harder than steel and definitely isn't gonna wear off unless you put it to a grinding wheel.
 
I do, and have done, plenty of practice draws, with Kydex holsters, and consider the “holster wear” to be an indication, to anyone that sees the weapon, that I train, seriously. My longest-serving duty pistol looks like it has “been through the war,” but refinishing has never crossed my mind. (SIG P229R, 2004 to 2015.) There is a word for this type of wear: “Honest Wear.”

Any serious gun collector will know that refinishing does nothing to enhance the collectibility of most firearms.

I transitioned to a 9mm Glock G17, in 2015, when my then-chief authorized 9mm to be an alternative duty handgun cartridge. (.40 S&W had become the standard, in 1997.) I still carry that G17, some of the time, in retirement, and do not worry about the distinctive wear marks that the Safariland 6360 duty holster left on the top of the slide. (The snappy recoil characteristics, of .40 S&W, fired from a high-bore-axis, aluminum-frame P229, were becoming too much, as my right hand aged less gracefully than my left hand, so, therefore 9mm, lower-bore-axis Glock. Not saying that .40 S&W, alone, is what wrecked my right hand.)

I minimize excess wear, buy keeping gritty dust from accumulating inside the holster, whether that holster is leather or Kydex.
 
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Kydex holsters will wear. Usually not over large surfaces. But they will wear. Usually a line or a specific spot where it rubs. Leather seems to wear more gradually or or evenly.

If you're worried about rust or pitting because of finish wear, get a Glock. I've soaked Glocks in seawater multiple times without rust. And if it does rust, it wasn't a work of art- it was an ugly utilitarian tool to begin with, so who cares?

Then you can keep your pretty gun in the safe.
 
Rexster said:
I do, and have done, plenty of practice draws, with Kydex holsters, and consider the “holster wear” to be an indication, to anyone that sees the weapon, that I train, seriously. My longest-serving duty pistol looks like it has “been through the war,” but refinishing has never crossed my mind. (SIG P229R, 2004 to 2015.) There is a word for this type of wear: “Honest wear".
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I was doing some work at a sheriff's office, and spotted an old deputy with a two-toned 1911. If I remember correctly, it was a Wilson Combat. It had enough wear, I didn't have to ask if he was qualified to carry it.

I did anyway. I asked something like "They trust a deputy to carry a single action?"

I don't have time to type everything he said, but it was a spirited response.
 
20160421_194819.jpg
Bought in 2005 picture was taken in 2016. This handgun was my primary USPSA handgun from late 2005 - 2012. It has nearly 40,000 rds through it and who know how any cycles in and out a holster in competition and practice (live and dry-fire). It has only ever been carried in a plastic holster. The first few years it was the free XD holster that came with it and then later a BladeTech holster.

Nothing's better than a tool that is ugly from honest wear, it stands tribute to the success and trials its user(s) have overcome.
 
I think kydex and leather both wear differently, but equally. If you’re in a hot a humid environment, which it sounds like you are, I find leather can get wet from sweat easy and is a pain to dry.

I don’t worry about finish wear as most of my guns (and all my carry ones) have treated steel for rust prevention and the finish is just cosmetic.
 
wayneinFL said:
I was doing some work at a sheriff's office, and spotted an old deputy with a two-toned 1911. If I remember correctly, it was a Wilson Combat. It had enough wear, I didn't have to ask if he was qualified to carry it.

I did anyway. I asked something like "They trust a deputy to carry a single action?"

I don't have time to type everything he said, but it was a spirited response.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, perhaps not. I’ve bought a few LEO trade ins with significant holster wear but nearly pristine internals. Easy to see they were carried much and shot very little.
 
I have worn the finish off of some blued guns in leather and kydex holsters over the years. The slide on my 1991-vintage SIG P226 was toast after about a year of daily duty carry. It was so bad I had it coated with Np3. (I traded that gun away years ago.)

The tanning chemicals from a Bianchi shoulder holster took some bluing off the muzzle of my 2.5” Model 19 .357 because I left it in the holster for too long. :(

I bought a used Beretta 96 Centurion that had some serious holster wear on the frame and trigger guard. It looks like it rode in a locking device, probably in an armored car. The controls had some bluing wear, but not as bad as on the frame.

1A5F6AC9-3D71-4452-825C-488EE260E4CF.jpeg 66DE9E8E-57AD-4CD7-BBB0-18D859497F90.jpeg

Glock finishes seem to last forever in a kydex holster. I carried my Gen 4 Glock 34 for well North of a decade in a Safariland paddle, qualifying monthly and training put thousands of draws on it. I wore the finish off the slide release and wore out the first plastic paddle, and even a few mag pouch paddles, but other than a few spots on top the finish on the slide isn’t too bad.

08F3CADC-7C01-45B8-AE7F-E6168ABEC304.jpeg E56EF829-6BF4-46AD-8F43-FC9FFF6F32D4.jpeg 35D7B48F-1714-4BE6-897C-0CBAEDBFB765.jpeg

Any non-stainless ccw carried gun will get at least some high point fading on the slide over time. To me it’s a sign of good, honest use. :thumbup:

Stay safe.
 
My carry gun has a stainless slide with a nitride coated stainless frame (two tone). No noticeable wear but it's a bit shinier in spots.

P238 that gets carried as a supplement occasionally has a nitride finish and about 30% of it is gone now.
 
I've noticed that Kydex does wear on blued gun finishes more so than leather. But...if you're inclined to leave a handgun in its holster between carrying/shooting sessions, Kydex will not induce rust...leather will over time. Best regards, Rod
 
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