The point of no return

While I’m often given a ration of mockery in the blogosphere for my preference of pistol games to “defensive/tactical/seekrit squirrel” training, there had been one line I had not crossed…until now. In my mind, the real “now you’re a gamer” line isn’t crossed until you buy a holster that is completely impractical for concealed carry, such as a CR Speed rig.

I have crossed that line, and now there’s no going back. A while back I ordered a custom built holster from Blade-Tech: a dropped and offset adjustable cant rig for my 4 inch Smith & Wesson 625 revolver. Blade-Tech makes the best rigs for competition, as well as excellent concealed carry gear, however the dropped and offset style sits too far out from the body to be truly practical for concealed carry.

What the holster is great for however is speed, pure and simple. The drop and offset move the grip of the pistol further away from the body, and the adjustable cant allows you to position the gun for a “muzzle forward” draw. The holster should get here by the 21st, too late to use in the Indiana Steel Championship. For that match, I’ll be using my trusty Safariland holster. The reason I purchased the Blade-Tech is that after 6 months of use with the Safariland, I had finally hit the wall on my draw-to-first shot times, which were coming in around 1.7 seconds. In competition, I’d like those to be around 1.2-1.5 seconds to get an A-zone hit. Plus, lowering the gun a little bit will help my stubby T-Rex looking arms clear the gun from leather faster.

Looks like I’ve taken another step off “the path of the warrior” or whatever, and continued my quest in pursuit of Almighty Speed.

7 Comments

  1. IMHO, anything that gets you out shooting is good. Period. End of conversation.

    Anything that gets you out and shooting in non-traditional manners (i.e. other than shooting at paper targets while stationery) is better.

    Besides, now you’ve got a good holster for OC… 🙂

  2. Why there is such a difference in mentalities, I dunno… You don’t need to be a ninja, so do what you like.

    Nice holster, btw!

  3. A custom holster isn’t THAT bad, as custom rigs are quite common for everyday carry.

    Open class. That’s bad. If the desire to compete in Open Class lasts for more than 4 minutes, please see a doctor. 🙂

  4. Joe, it’s about 7-10 yards for those times. I’m hitting averages of about 1.7 from the Safariland in practice, although my current fastest is 1.2. I’d like to drop the average draw time to 1.2, since I’m not using a race holster. Of course, my splits are t&e happiest part, last week in practice I was shoot double a-zone hits at 7 yard with 0.25-0.30 splits with a wheelgun.

    It’s been weird switching to a revolver, because I’ve had to redefine my personal definitions of “fast”.

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