For our first time, we had a booth at Shot Show 2020. Myself (Shan) and Jamison were there talking holsters for pistols with lights, and getting your feedback.
We had lots of great feedback on our new M7 OWB holster. We also heard loud and clear that you are looking for it to be delivered for the Glock with the X300 — we are now working on that holster design.
We had good meetings with Grey Ghost and Polymer80 in an effort to deliver great holsters for those platforms as well.
Finally, I attended the Idaho reception Thursday evening. It’s amazing the amount of firearms industry folks there are in Idaho. I had the opportunity to meet both Governor Little and Idaho Department of Commerce Director Tom Kealey. It’s great to know that our state’s executive branch strongly supports our industry!
There was just so much to see at Shot Show 2020. We cannot write about them all, but I did notice something that looked like a Glock at the Rock Island Armory booth.
A RIA Glock?
They said there will be lots of different customization options. Different slide cuts, different colors. Oh yes, and the frame is all aluminum. Feels like a Glock in the hand, except… more solid. Same Glock slide feel, same Glock trigger feel. Just a more solid grip. They said something about April availability and a MSRP around $800.
So you just purchased your new pistol, and have to get a holster. But your light is on backorder. The question is can you use your pistol in the holster built for your pistol plus the light that you don’t yet have?
In short, the pistol will fit inside the holster, but it will not have any retention, and will not hold your pistol upside down like it should.
And now for a longer explanation on holster retention…
Holsters need to retain on an edge on the pistol. This edge needs to resist the draw of the pistol. Some possible edges include the rear of the front bar of the trigger guard, the front edge of the ejection port, the rear edge of the front sight, or the rear of a weapon mounted light or laser.
The ejection port is sometimes used for retention, but this is almost always with a level 2 type mechanism. By pressing a lever, the retention is swung completely out of the way, removing the retention and allowing the pistol to be drawn. Kydex holsters without such a mechanism typically do not retain in the ejection port; the potentially sharp nature of the port is likely to cause premature wear on the holster, additional holster wear on the pistol, and will often result in unpredictable retention.
The front sight is not a suitable option for many of the same reasons, plus that it is often modified with different sight blades. I’m aware of no holsters that attempt to retain on the sight blade.
So, this leaves the trigger guard or the light/laser for retention surface. The trigger guard is ideal. It is almost always located in the same place & has the same shape as the factory gave it. Undercut trigger guards do not change this retention. For these reasons the trigger guard is almost always used for retention on holsters for pistols without a light or laser.
Why is the trigger guard not used for retention on holsters for pistols with a rail mounted accessory? The problem is that the holster has to be clearanced to allow the light/laser to travel through with minimal resistance. The trigger guard is narrower than the accessory, which means that the holster will be too wide to retain on the trigger guard.
As a result, your holster will retain on the rear of the light or laser.
In almost all cases, the pistol will slip into the holster and not move around very much. However, retention will be lacking. A holster should retain the pistol when turned upside down. For your holster built for a weapon mounted light, your pistol without will slip right out when turned over. You are probably not planning on hanging from your feet, but you may end up in an altercation that puts you on the ground where your pistol could end up skittering across the pavement.
As a result, we recommend ordering your light or laser at the same time as you order your holster.
At Shot Show 2019 in February, Olight launched the PL-Mini Valkyrie 2. This light was different than the original PL-Mini Valkyrie in a number of ways, but one of the most important for holster fitment is that the light was redesigned to be shorter and fit better on subcompact pistols.
This change in form factor made the light both shorter, and slightly increased the height of the light.
Note that the original PL-Mini is longer than the PL-Mini 2
As a result, holsters built for a pistol with one of the PL-Mini versions will not work with the same pistol but the other PL-Mini version. You cannot expect a holster for a Glock 19 with the PL-Mini Valkyrie 2 to fit the same Glock 19 with a PL-Mini Valkyrie (and vice-versa).
Note that the PL-Mini 2 is taller (hangs lower on the rail)_ than the original PL-Mini
So… how do you determine which light you have? The Pl-Mini Valkrie 2 has a bit “2” on the right side of the light. That will help you ensure that the holster you order is fit for your light.
Your Kydex holster is perfect. The fit is great, the pistol snaps in, and it carries well. There is just one issue. The sweat shield is jabbing you in the side when you’re running and gunning. So you want to get rid of it. So you need to buy a new holster, right?
Wrong.
Kydex holsters can be modified easily. You can remove extra material with a saw or a sander, but we’re going to show a faster and easier method.
For this method, you need:
Your holster
A knife or a razor knife
Sandpaper
Optionally, a straight edge
2-5 minutes
Overview: Kydex can be scored, then snapped off, leaving a fairly clean cut. Take your straight edge, lay it across the sweat shield where you want it cut, and use the straight edge as a guide, and score the Kydex once. Bend the Kydex away from the score to snap it off. Finally, sand the edge to your liking.
https://youtu.be/kkIjCfobOdQ
Short Video on Removing the Sweat Shield
Step #1: Score the Kydex
Using the tip of a sharp knife (we recommend a razor knife or an X-acto blade with a new edge), and using medium pressure, you’ll score into the Kydex in a fairly straight line where you want to break it off. You can score on either the inside or outside of the Kydex; we recommend scoring in such a way that when you bend it away from the score you have room to do so. This is not a cut; you’ll only need to make a clear mark on the surface. You’ll want to use some pressure, but not so much that you don’t have control of your blade. You will want to score down into any depressions in the Kydex. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You can miss some areas and as long as the surrounding area is scored, it will still snap cleanly. We recommend only one pass with the knife. Multiple passes can result in each scored area separating, and where the scored areas meet & diverge there will be pointy parts you’ll separately have to cut off.
Step #2: Snap the Kydex
Bending away from the scored surface, hold your fingers at the edges and push with your thumbs behind the score. This will result in the Kydex bending and separating at the score. Bend all the way back and the Kydex will snap off if your score was deep and clean enough. If not, bend back and forth until the Kydex does come off.
Step #3: Sand or polish to your taste
Using sandpaper, knock off any sharp edges. 120 grit is fine. 360 is probably better as it will leave a cleaner finish. Sand along the edge of the Kydex, paying attention to the corners and edges. Round the Kydex to your liking. When done, make sure you remove any dust (which may include sanding grit) from inside the holster.
That’s it! You’ve now customized your holster to have the sweat shield lowered to the height you prefer, or removed altogether.
The plan is to run and hide, and failing that,throw a hockey puck.
The university holds active shooter trainings several times a year. Gordon said they focus on fleeing first and then hiding as a second option. throwing a hockey puck should be “an absolute last strategy,” he said. (CBS News)
and
“Part of the strategy for fighting is you need to create a distraction to give yourself time as a group in a classroom to rush the gunman so you can get your hands on the gun and take it away from the shooter,” Gordon said. (WXYZ)
That makes me wonder… if a student or faculty is actually able to take the gun away from the shooter, and retains that weapon, will that student then have potential liability for being in possession?
The irony is thick here. The school has a no weapons policy, but the police chief and the school acknowledge that the little signs prohibiting guns won’t stop a criminal. They acknowledge that they’re only disarming good students and creating powerless victims. And their empowerment is hockey pucks, staplers, and chairs. Why not empower good people to be dangerous and protect themselves and others? Are the sheep so afraid of dangerous people that they cannot stand the thought that a good person could be dangerous?
I submit that we need more dangerous people walking the streets. The good kind. The kind like myself or other concealed carry holders. Weapons exist, and from the time of Cain and Abel, those with rotten hearts have been killing those without. It’s time that we reversed the trend and started applauding the schools, cities, and communities that embrace those who concealed carry and help keep our families safer.
I’m asked multiple times a day whether a M2 or M6 holster design can be created for a particular pistol & light combination. Yes, I can, but it’s not so simple. Read on…
Let’s say you have your favorite pistol, and put the latest light on it. You now have it outfitted exactly the way you want, and you want to carry it. Your community and your family should be safer now that you are better equipped to defend them. But for whatever reason, you cannot find the holster you need for it. Instead of buying an ill-fitting nylon holster, you search the Internet for a suitable holster. You found the Werkz M6 holster, and thought that the features fit your needs. The M6 provides a great feeling holster with adjustable retention, supports optics & tall sights & threaded barrels standard, provides a concealment claw, and has modular accessories so you can carry it the way you want. Looking at the availability, you then saw that the holster wasn’t available for your particular combination. So how do you get the M6 for your pistol?
Normal Holster Manufacturing
First, let’s step back to how holsters are made. Many manufacturers use pistol replicas to build their holsters. Werkz does this too for their custom holsters. It provides good quality and features for a huge variety of pistols (Werkz is currently at 220+) and lights (Werkz currently has over 80 lights & lasers). However, this method involves a bunch of individual hand work, for everything from preparing the mold to shaping the holster. It results in variation and slightly looser tolerances. It’s a great option, but we are unable to build the same type of holsters this way as we can with the M6.
The M6 Holster is Different
The M6 (and predecessor M-series holsters) is built in an entirely different manner. First, we must have the pistol and light on hand, both for design and for testing of each holster. We have an expanding library of pistols & accessories, but this requires that we buy the latest and greatest. We 3d scan the pistol and light combination using precision equipment. This scan is then brought into CAD where we bring 7 years of holster design experience (and counting!) into a space where we can precisely control the retention points, hole spacing and location, holster cut & shape, as well as hundreds of design details that you’ll never notice. Once we complete the design, we turn it into machine code (“CAM”), then cut our molds on our CNC machine. 2 molds are required for each holster design. We then build a test holster to make sure our mold design was correct. We then test (again, with the actual pistol). Occasionally, we have to repeat the design and mold cutting part of the process when we do not have the retention correct or if the pistol hangs up on a part of the holster. This process takes days, and due to other activities in the shop, may take longer than that.
M6 holster is CAD designed for precision fit and an outstanding feature set.
The investment in time and materials required for M6 holsters is significant. Therefore, we must prioritize what we build. We maintain a list of our backlog / queue toward the bottom of the M6 page. This list changes from time to time, as we complete designs, add new designs to the queue, and as we rearrange based upon your feedback or our understanding of the market.
We need Your Feedback
The best way for us to know what you want is for you to tell us. We try to guess based upon our experience, but every time you tell us what you want, it helps us reassess our priorities. So here is what to do.
Whether or not your holster is listed on the M6 page, please do let us know what you want. Please include pistol, light/laser/accessory, and whether you want it built ambidextrous or in a left or right hand configuration. (Left & Right hand configurations do not have accessory holes facing the body and have a tall sweat shield covering part of the slide.)
We Will Respond
We will respond one of 3 ways.
The design is coming up soon. We may or may not be able to give an ETA for the design, but the best way to know is to either call, email, or check back to the M6 page to see if the design is complete & listed. WE DO NOT accept pre-orders for products.
The design is on the list, but further down. We cannot provide an ETA for it. Due to the multitude of responsibilities in the shop, some months allow us to get 1-2 designs a week completed, some months we get no designs completed. The best advice is to watch the page and see if your desired combination continues rising up. As always, you may choose to purchase a custom holster which likely has your combination listed.
We cannot add your design to the list at this time. Due to the demands listed above, plus the large design queue we have, we cannot justify adding your desired combination to the list at this time. As always, you may choose to purchase a custom holster which likely has your combination listed.
Group Buys / Department Orders
Orders of 15 or more designs will be considered for quicker production. Larger order sizes offset our initial costs significantly enough to warrant moving up the queue. Even “less popular” or “oddball” combinations can be considered. So if you’re part of a forum for a particular pistol (Steyr comes to mind) and you all want a holster for a particular pistol and light, contact us to see if we can move forward with a design for you. Werkz has a long history of providing carry options for less popular pistols or lights.
So Please Let Us Know!
We need your feedback, so please let us know what you would like to see the M6 holster built for.
Who would have figured that this Glock would turn out to be one of the top selling handguns? I didn’t… but I was 16 at the time. Turns out that the Glock 19 is one of the best “do it all” handguns, and frequently recommended for both beginners and experienced shooters. I admit that I resisted carrying the Glock for years. I didn’t like the trigger feel. It took me a while to grow to the point that I didn’t need a clean trigger to hit the target. At that point I reconsidered the Glock.
The Glock 19 is a great handling pistol. For me, it’s small enough to carry every day without problem (turns out I can carry a G34 every day without a problem too, so maybe this isn’t a tough criteria), it has a consistent trigger pull from shot to shot (no, not perfectly crisp, but definitely workable), has a proven safety record, is reliable, and looks cool in a brick-sort of way.
The Gen5 Glock 19 provides an updated slide profile (slightly narrower toward the muzzle), a new barrel, no finger grooves (my fingers don’t fit in the Gen3/4), and though many people may not notice this, it has a slightly different rail which can prohibit the Gen5 from fitting in holsters fit for the Gen3/4.
In all, I don’t think I can go wrong carrying the Glock 19 Gen5.
This particular pistol is paired with a Streamlight TLR-8. It has 500 lumens, a bright red laser, ambidextrous controls with constant on plus a momentary switch, and a reputation for being rugged. 500 lumens puts it toward the higher end of light output for a compact weapon mounted light. The activation switches can be used with either hand on either side. To use a momentary activation, just press on the switch for longer than a fraction of a second, and when you let off the light/laser will turn off. If you hit the button for less than a second, the light/laser will turn on and stay on until you hit the button again. It can be switched between “light”, “laser”, and “both” modes by pressing both switches at the same time.
One of the best things about the TLR-8 is that it fits quite well on a Glock. It fits flush with the G19 muzzle, and only hangs slightly lower than the trigger guard on the G19. This means that the operator can carry this light & laser quite easily on many pistols.
Werkz M6 Holster for Glock 19 with TLR-8
Our Werkz M6 holster is a great place to park this formidable combination. It has all the normal M6 features. Claw for better concealment (can be removed if you wish, but I’m leaving it on). A single clip that can be used in a number of positions. Modularity for other attachments. RMR and suppressor height sight support. Adjustable retention. This particular holster is ambidextrous, which means that you can switch the clip and claw (left handed claws are available separately) to the other side for left handed carry. Or you can just switch the clip to the other side and carry the holster OWB. This works well for those range days where you want to put the holster on the outside of your pants, but in the same overall position. I’m carrying this pistol straight drop, standard carry height, on my hip about 3:30. This carry position seems to work well for most. I typically prefer carrying in the appendix position, but I find this position both comfortable and concealable. The pistol just sits tight to my body. The full grip is exposed and it’s easy to get a proper grip before drawing. Retention is sufficient for an inside the waistband holster, and I didn’t need to adjust any tighter or looser for my tastes.
This is what I’m carrying today: The Gen5 G19, the Streamlight TLR-8, and the Werkz M6 holster. Allows me to do everything I would normally do during the day, carrying comfortably.
Wearing the Glock 19 and TLR-8 while working on the bulldozer
As I had stated earlier, I’ve been considering updating my phone to one more privacy focused. Read the earlier post for more information on why.
Well, I had never gotten around to purchasing a CopperheadOS phone, and now it appears I’ll never do so. The CopperheadOS project has imploded, with the developer and business partner parting ways under “less than ideal” circumstances.
Where does that leave me? I had purchased an unlocked Pixel2 via eBay a while back, and it’s still sitting here unused, with a valid SIM in it. I also have my daily driver Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. I would prefer to keep my daily driver using the regular Android version so that I don’t have to transfer things around. My ideal is to take the new phone and install a more private & secure OS on it, get it fully running and then consider upgrading either the whole S7, or the OS on it.
What options am I considering?
1. Upgrade one of the phones to LineageOS. While it doesn’t have the security and privacy of CopperheadOS, I can get it without Google Play services, which are prime in my privacy concerns. If I were to upgrade, I would have to determine whether to upgrade my S7 (less desirable since it requires more data migration), or try the currently unofficial support for the Pixel2.
2. Wait and see. I could either sell the Pixel2, or just hold on to it looking for a better solution. Yes, it means less privacy and security than I would prefer, but to be honest, I’ve not exactly been focused on this. Progress has been slow. In addition, there is some encouraging information being posted by the previous developer of CopperheadOS:
It may just come down to available time. I’ll probably activate the Pixel2, start running it normally, see if I can migrate my key apps and turn it into my daily driver. If I have time, I’ll upgrade the S7 to LineageOS without Play Services. And yes, until then, Google and many of the apps I install on my phone will know where I’m at, what I’m doing, be able to turn on the microphone & listen to me, and a myriad of other nitpicky details that I would prefer they don’t have access to.
While not everyone wants or needs a concealment claw, let’s take a look at how they work, and how much extra concealment they provide.
What is a concealment claw, anyway?
Here is a typical concealment claw, pictured on a Werkz M6 holster. It attaches to the adjustable retention points and extends under the trigger guard.
A concealment claw is a device that is attached to or integrated with a holster. It is typically oriented so that it pushes against the belt, helping rotate the pistol into the body slightly. The idea is that by rotating the butt of the pistol inward, print is reduced. Claws come in many varieties, some attached under the trigger guard, some over the trigger guard, and some (like the picture above) attaching below the trigger guard and coming up.
Are Claws Effective?
The left side shows no concealment claw, and the right side with a concealment claw. Note that you can see more of the side of the pistol with the concealment claw.
As is shown in the picture above, claws can achieve their intended goal. The claw does help rotate the pistol into the body. You can see in the picture on the right that the claw (barely visible above the pantline) is pushing against the belt. This results in the butt of the pistol sitting closer to the body. The pictures are taken from the same angle, and more of the side of the Glock on the right is visible. Note that both holsters are similar designs, but the one on the right has the claw.
Claws perform a similar function whether the pistol is carried on the hip, or whether the pistol is carried in the appendix position. In both cases, print may be reduced.
In addition to helping reduce print, many claws are “grippy” and help keep the holster in place when drawing.
For myself, while I am not very concerned about print, I do find that the increased stability that the claw provides helps make my concealed carry just a little bit more comfortable. And for that reason alone, I do prefer a claw on my holsters.
One final note: I do not consider a claw mandatory. There are a lot of people carrying on the hip or appendix positions without a claw with no concealability or comfort issues. However, it is an option to consider for your next concealed carry holster purchase.
Werkz Holsters with a Concealment Claw
At Werkz, we have been attaching claws to our holsters for years. It started with the Bisect 2.0, originally using machined piece of Kydex. Now, the Bisect 2.0 has evolved to use a more refined carbon-fiber reinforced 3d printed part. The Bisect 2.0 features an attached magazine carrier, and is available for over 200 pistols and over 70 different light/laser combinations.
We then introduced the M5 holster with a slightly different machined Kydex solution, and it too has evolved to use a carbon-fiber reinforced 3d printed part. The M5 is a quick ship holster, and available in fewer configurations.
Werkz M6 holster for a pistol with a light. In this case, the Glock 19 (gen3, gen4, gen5) with the Olight PL-Mini Valkyrie.
With the advent of strong carbon-fiber reinforced 3d printed parts, plus advanced manufacturing techniques, we have launched the M6 holster, pictured above. The M6 contains more modularity features, allowing you to switch out the single clip for dual tuckable hooks, or a single hook plus single strut strap for ultimate holster retention. Plus (of course), these feature a claw, even on the ambidextrous versions. These holsters feature adjustable retention, threaded barrel drop through capability, support for slide milled optics, and a precision fit. Order yours today!
We need your feedback!
The M6 is currently available in limited configurations. What pistol / light / laser combination do you want us to build for? Let us know at products@werkz.com. We cannot guarantee we will build for your combination, but we will absolutely consider and prioritize your feedback along with everyone else’s!
