re-holstering after firing?

[indyblue]

It's a stock Beretta leather OWB. When new it was stiff enough to stay out of the way, but over time it now curls slightly inward and gets caught on the safety if not careful or use my other hand to move it away.

 

[Twangbanger]

I cannot think of a situation where a match RO will have a problem with someone using two hands to reholster and looking at it visually the whole time, as long as you don't get any portion of a finger in front of the muzzle even for a second.

Please keep in mind, however, that the RO is looking from a different angle than you, and his/her decision is final. If they think they saw you get a fingernail in front of the muzzle for a tenth of a second, you are gone. The "nice" ones will say something to you about it the first time if they're not sure, but still, food for thought.

Nothing messes up a match day for everyone involved like someone getting injured, so don't expect any tolerance on this. Practice it a hundred times before you go. All part of doing your homework.

 

[foszoe]

I shoot Berettas. My practice is two fold. It's why I like a safety over a decocker. I flip to safe when reholstering. Then I disengage the safety.

I also do what Creedmoor said above.

Finally if I am reloading I eject the half full magazine once gun is holstered with the safety on, I reload with full magazine then I disengage safety.

 

[Trapper Jim]

Are there any general rules/techniques to holstering my pistol after firing, i.e. doing a steel challenge or action shooting?

Everything I find online is related to the draw which I have no issues with.

For example, my Beretta OWB leather holster's retention strap snap likes to "get in the way" moving my safety during one handed re-holstering. Is it acceptable/permissible to use two hands? I find myself needing to hold the retention snap (body side of holster - lefty) with my right hand to make insertion reliable without moving it to safe mode.

If you need two hands to present or reholster you should rethink your equipment and training management.

 

[manifest destiny]

When I started shooting I was told I was wrong to consider one-handed reholstering. I'm not a leo, they said. I shouldn't need to. If two-handed holstering is what you feel safest with and the competition allows it, do it.

 

[mike4]

+1 Trapper Jim's comment as an intro to several critical comments... "If you need two hands to present or reholster you should rethink your equipment and training management." There are a few deep concealment options I use for special case situations where two handed reholstering is unavoidable, but there are a range of scenarios where that is such a negative I avoid the situation except in the few cases where it's better than going unarmed.

By critical I mean critical of your holster, not critical of you, because I think your questions are the result of your own properly calibrated internal senses issuing a warning to you over this holster's performance. I'm going to tell you outright what you already sense to be true, that holster is inferior and you need to invest in something that does not have the same liabilities and lack of functionality.

I defer to others on competition advice, I'm only really concerned with what is effective and does not impair you in actual defensive usage, and remains as safe as possible for both day-in day-out carry as well as in the middle of actual defensive use where it's a very good idea to not still have a handgun in your hand when police start showing up, if at all possible. If a holster satisfies those needs, it's probably going to serve you well enough for competition as well, within whatever handling steps you might need to comply with range safety rules.

Short of something like horseback or ATV riding or mountain climbing no proper defense handgun holster needs a retention strap. And since there are far better retention options for those applications, I will go further and say no proper defense handgun holster has a snap-release retention strap. They are an unwarranted and unwise danger because they are most often sized and located, and as you observed have or take on a curvature, that creates a possibility they will enter the trigger guard when reholstered. At that probability is increased under stress or when your attention is not unreasonably focused elsewhere if serious real-world stuff is happening. A holster should not introduce a new hazard that you need to manage.

I carried a 92F myself for 18 years whenever clothing permitted concealment, the majority of the time in a properly fitted leather holster with no retention strap (you could turn that holster upside down and shake it and it would not release the loaded 92F), less often outdoors with threat of rain or on the water in a Kydex holster with no retention, or a Kydex holster with SLS retention in the rare cases where outdoor activity warranted the mechanical retention and where I was comfortable with open carry of that bulkier holster design at the time. For some activities like boating, there are better more compact retention options today that would have been superior to my open top Kydex holster back in the day that had no positive retention.

It seems like INGO has sort of a truce in place over the open carry debate. I will only say if you analyze the entire range of probable scenarios you may face, except for a few outdoor situations well out into the boonies I reject open carry because of the subset of those scenarios were you can reasonably envision it to be a liability. In your case it's clear that open carry is adding additional demands, which your holster is also not adequate to satisfy.

So I will go head and jump onboard your open carry option in the interest of identifying appropriate options, which are the same retention solutions you want for more vigorous activities. No one in law enforcement has relied on a basic thumb strap for gun-grab retention in the last 20+ years unless they were uninformed and ill-equipped.

Safariland SLS retention was a decent system with an arched retention strap that pivoted out of the way during the draw and remained out of the way for reholstering, easy to execute release and relocking with one hand. As a continuous arch of material it did not have any loose end that could enter the trigger guard from either side. SLS became pretty widely known from military usage by the 2000s.

Safariland later came out with two other retention systems that were less cumbersome and simplified the necessary motions, ALS and GLS. I personally find the GLS release motion to be slower and require movement of my fingers away from where they would normally be during the draw versus ALS.

***I strongly recommend a Safariland ALS holster to optimally satisfy all your original concerns as expressed in the thread, as well as those that I think subconsciously were telling you there is a better solution out there, which is NOT your current holster.***

You can search up images and videos for a better explanation of ALS (and SLS and GLS) that I can provide in words. The release is extremely fast with a quick movement of the thumb as you grip the pistol and initiate draw. You reholster as you would with any open top holster and the ALS automatically relocks. It adds almost no bulk to the holster. And the Beretta 92 series is widely supported with multiple ALS holster options (although it can get more complicated, expensive or problematic if you have an attached light.)

Short version: 1) Thumb strap holsters belong in your old holster bin, not on your hip. 2) If you need retention for either gun-grab or loss/drop protection for outdoor activities, for open carry, or greater piece of mind for concealed carry, look at Safariland ALS.

 

[Brad69]

@indyblue

Your pistol is dirty!

 

[Creedmoor]

@indyblue

Your pistol is dirty!

Its ok Brad, it identifys as a Sig 226.

 

[Trapper Jim]

Training shortcuts regarding presentation, reholstering or bagging are not wise.

A

 

[indyblue]

@indyblue

Your pistol is dirty!

It really isn't that dirty. For some reason, the iphone camera highlights/exaggerates minute lint particles very well.
I do go over it once every week or two, but EDCing it, it just gets that way quickly.

Now I'm depressed after reading mike4's post and must re-evaluate. I hate kydex or anything hard plastic and all those als/sls options are all plastic as are 90% of Safariland offerings probably due to the nature of those retention features.

I've been doing it all wrong. How did anyone survive before kydex existed?

 

[Trapper Jim]

I shoot Berettas. My practice is two fold. It's why I like a safety over a decocker. I flip to safe when reholstering. Then I disengage the safety.

I also do what Creedmoor said above.

Finally if I am reloading I eject the half full magazine once gun is holstered with the safety on, I reload with full magazine then I disengage safety.

I see a lot of this today. Fumbling around with a loaded gun trying to manipulate magazines while it is in a position out of your sight and awkward physical moves is a shortcut that I don’t advise. Even if you are elastic man with an owl head and can do it effortlessly, some noob will try to copy the sloppy lazy move and not fair so well. Shirts, suspenders and trucker wallets with chains tend to sometimes get holstered with the gun by noobs. Anything you do with a gun deserves to be in your workspace with your full attention.

 

[ditcherman]

+1 Trapper Jim's comment as an intro to several critical comments... "If you need two hands to present or reholster you should rethink your equipment and training management." There are a few deep concealment options I use for special case situations where two handed reholstering is unavoidable, but there are a range of scenarios where that is such a negative I avoid the situation except in the few cases where it's better than going unarmed.

By critical I mean critical of your holster, not critical of you, because I think your questions are the result of your own properly calibrated internal senses issuing a warning to you over this holster's performance. I'm going to tell you outright what you already sense to be true, that holster is inferior and you need to invest in something that does not have the same liabilities and lack of functionality.

I defer to others on competition advice, I'm only really concerned with what is effective and does not impair you in actual defensive usage, and remains as safe as possible for both day-in day-out carry as well as in the middle of actual defensive use where it's a very good idea to not still have a handgun in your hand when police start showing up, if at all possible. If a holster satisfies those needs, it's probably going to serve you well enough for competition as well, within whatever handling steps you might need to comply with range safety rules.

Short of something like horseback or ATV riding or mountain climbing no proper defense handgun holster needs a retention strap. And since there are far better retention options for those applications, I will go further and say no proper defense handgun holster has a snap-release retention strap. They are an unwarranted and unwise danger because they are most often sized and located, and as you observed have or take on a curvature, that creates a possibility they will enter the trigger guard when reholstered. At that probability is increased under stress or when your attention is not unreasonably focused elsewhere if serious real-world stuff is happening. A holster should not introduce a new hazard that you need to manage.

I carried a 92F myself for 18 years whenever clothing permitted concealment, the majority of the time in a properly fitted leather holster with no retention strap (you could turn that holster upside down and shake it and it would not release the loaded 92F), less often outdoors with threat of rain or on the water in a Kydex holster with no retention, or a Kydex holster with SLS retention in the rare cases where outdoor activity warranted the mechanical retention and where I was comfortable with open carry of that bulkier holster design at the time. For some activities like boating, there are better more compact retention options today that would have been superior to my open top Kydex holster back in the day that had no positive retention.

It seems like INGO has sort of a truce in place over the open carry debate. I will only say if you analyze the entire range of probable scenarios you may face, except for a few outdoor situations well out into the boonies I reject open carry because of the subset of those scenarios were you can reasonably envision it to be a liability. In your case it's clear that open carry is adding additional demands, which your holster is also not adequate to satisfy.

So I will go head and jump onboard your open carry option in the interest of identifying appropriate options, which are the same retention solutions you want for more vigorous activities. No one in law enforcement has relied on a basic thumb strap for gun-grab retention in the last 20+ years unless they were uninformed and ill-equipped.

Safariland SLS retention was a decent system with an arched retention strap that pivoted out of the way during the draw and remained out of the way for reholstering, easy to execute release and relocking with one hand. As a continuous arch of material it did not have any loose end that could enter the trigger guard from either side. SLS became pretty widely known from military usage by the 2000s.

Safariland later came out with two other retention systems that were less cumbersome and simplified the necessary motions, ALS and GLS. I personally find the GLS release motion to be slower and require movement of my fingers away from where they would normally be during the draw versus ALS.

***I strongly recommend a Safariland ALS holster to optimally satisfy all your original concerns as expressed in the thread, as well as those that I think subconsciously were telling you there is a better solution out there, which is NOT your current holster.***

You can search up images and videos for a better explanation of ALS (and SLS and GLS) that I can provide in words. The release is extremely fast with a quick movement of the thumb as you grip the pistol and initiate draw. You reholster as you would with any open top holster and the ALS automatically relocks. It adds almost no bulk to the holster. And the Beretta 92 series is widely supported with multiple ALS holster options (although it can get more complicated, expensive or problematic if you have an attached light.)

Short version: 1) Thumb strap holsters belong in your old holster bin, not on your hip. 2) If you need retention for either gun-grab or loss/drop protection for outdoor activities, for open carry, or greater piece of mind for concealed carry, look at Safariland ALS.

While I generally agree with your write up above, I question TJ’s premise you start with.

You’re not for open carry, but concealed, so do you really draw without sweeping a garment out of the way? Do you sweep that garment and draw with the same hand?

Wouldn’t it follow that it’s ok to sweep that garment out of the way with the other hand when reholstering?

You and TJ have a lot of convincing to do to tell us all to conceal carry and use only one hand…

 

[Creedmoor]

 

[ditcherman]

It really isn't that dirty. For some reason, the iphone camera highlights/exaggerates minute lint particles very well.
I do go over it once every week or two, but EDCing it, it just gets that way quickly.

Now I'm depressed after reading mike4's post and must re-evaluate. I hate kydex or anything hard plastic and all those als/sls options are all plastic as are 90% of Safariland offerings probably due to the nature of those retention features.

I've been doing it all wrong. How did anyone survive before kydex existed?

Don’t be depressed, but don’t deny that it’s a journey and that along the journey we may find better ways to do something.

At work, at play, I find people all around me using their imagination to try to solve problems (it’s a good starting point, really the only one) and then too quickly get married to the first solution that comes along, refusing to update even with better data and a new more elegant solution.

Maybe the thumb strap holster is just fine, maybe not. I think you have the attitude of consideration, which is what counts.

But anyway, Safariland makes an awesome suede lined ALS holster, since you don’t have an optic. Maybe start with searching a 6378, or use their holster finder.

I’m not sure which is bulkier and harder to use, their holster finder or an ALS holster for a red dot…

Seriously though, look for an ALS suede lined, since you’re open carrying anyway.

 

[Trapper Jim]

While I generally agree with your write up above, I question TJ’s premise you start with.

You’re not for open carry, but concealed, so do you really draw without sweeping a garment out of the way? Do you sweep that garment and draw with the same hand?

Wouldn’t it follow that it’s ok to sweep that garment out of the way with the other hand when reholstering?

You and TJ have a lot of convincing to do to tell us all to conceal carry and use only one hand…

Exactly the need for training. If your concealment choice is a pullover shirt then of course your support hand needs to lift it to provide access. But done right it is no where close to the gun. Wardrobe choices are part of a well planned/fluid presentation.

 

[foszoe]

Don’t be depressed, but don’t deny that it’s a journey and that along the journey we may find better ways to do something.

At work, at play, I find people all around me using their imagination to try to solve problems (it’s a good starting point, really the only one) and then too quickly get married to the first solution that comes along, refusing to update even with better data and a new more elegant solution.

Maybe the thumb strap holster is just fine, maybe not. I think you have the attitude of consideration, which is what counts.

But anyway, Safariland makes an awesome suede lined ALS holster, since you don’t have an optic. Maybe start with searching a 6378, or use their holster finder.

I’m not sure which is bulkier and harder to use, their holster finder or an ALS holster for a red dot…

Seriously though, look for an ALS suede lined, since you’re open carrying anyway.

That's the holster I prefer

 

[ditcherman]

Exactly the need for training. If your concealment choice is a pullover shirt then of course your support hand needs to lift it to provide access. But done right it is no where close to the gun. Wardrobe choices are part of a well planned/fluid presentation.

Ok, thanks.
I’m translating the garment clearing whether t shirt or button up into “using two hands” and then carrying that into the reholstering process, still using two hands, and calling it all part of the draw/reholster.
Of course I don’t have two hands on the gun to draw it, so not sure what your original “if you need two hands…you need to rethink” refers to?

The bottom line that no one can go wrong with - there is no penalty for reholstering slowly.

 

[ditcherman]

View attachment 277913

Calm down, man. It’s just a conversation, man.
I think we’re even sharing the same bucket of popcorn by now.

 

[KG1]

I can't really add anything that hasn't already been said. Whatever you do don't do it like this.

 

[Trapper Jim]

Ok, thanks.
I’m translating the garment clearing whether t shirt or button up into “using two hands” and then carrying that into the reholstering process, still using two hands, and calling it all part of the draw/reholster.
Of course I don’t have two hands on the gun to draw it, so not sure what your original “if you need two hands…you need to rethink” refers to?

The bottom line that no one can go wrong with - there is no penalty for reholstering slowly.

My mistake. I was referring to actually using two hands on the reholstering. One on the gun and the other manipulating holster straps and such or just using the support hand to hold a sloppily secured holster to be able to get the gun in it..