Gunbelt

So I have been wanting to try my hand at a gun belt for a while. Since I bought a half-cow of leather recently, I decided to go ahead and try it. The leather is 12 Oz vegetable tan, with a decent grain. I cut two straps, and dyed them, laid out a template, measured about a zillion times, and cut out the pattern. I glued it together, and got to sewing....

Or tried to. The belt is 5/16ths of an inch thick. I'm beginning to see why serious belt makers use a leather sewing machine. I am 194 stitches in, and have about 3 hours tied up in stitching alone. I am punching every hole with an awl and a mallet, then having to press the awl through from the back, to widen the hole all the way through. After that is done for about 30-50 holes, I stitch up what I've punched, then start over.

Don't get me wrong, the belt is awesome, and will literally last forever, but there is no way I'm doing another stitched gun belt until I get a sewing machine.

Damn, this thing is a lot of work!

Tacky Holster

So that holster I made for my LC9 works amazingly. It worked so good, in fact, that I made one for my j-frame. It is also working great. I need to carry it for another week or so to make a determination, but I may start making these for sale.

They are relatively easy to make (not counting drying time, they take like 1.5 hours to make, which really ain't much. It would probably only take an hour to make if I had a pattern ready-to-go.

There is a relatively small material investment... without sitting down and doing the math, we're talking less than 10 bucks, likely.

I think I could produce them for 45ish dollars, shipped, and it would still be worth my labor  investment.

These work like the "Remora" brand or "Sticky" brand holsters, but would be custom molded to the gun, and made out of leather.

Downsides to this idea:

It ain't a beautiful holster. The Latex coating looks like snot, when dry. Carry it around in your pocket for a few days, and it looks like dirty snot. Obviously, these would be marketed to a form over function crowd.

I could only offer them for the j-frame, Ruger LC9, or Kahr CW9, currently. I have to work with what I got, and right now, those are the only "pocket" guns I got.

It has the potential to eat up a lot of free time ( but it could translate into a fun little cottage industry, so that's kind of a plus, too).

What say you, internet? Is there interest in something like this? Is there room for it in a market that is filled with a similar product (Remora, Sticky, DeSantis Nemesis ) that is mass produced and can be had for 20-30 dollars? Is there even a desire out there for a hand-made "Tacky" leather pocket holster? Is $45, shipped on target for something like this?

Feedback is appreciated.

Tacky

Well, the Pocket Rocket holster is certainly sticky. I developed a draw over the years that I use with my j-frame in a cheap Blackhawk! holster. I grab the gun in a firing grip, trigger finger running down the side of the gun's frame, outside the holster. I press the side of the gun into my leg inside the pocket, and draw the gun, maintaining pressure against my leg until the gun clears my pocket.

I have tried this hundreds of times, and it is the only way I have found to be able to consistently draw a gun from a pocket, and guarantee that the holster will strip off the gun.

I have been playing around with a few different draw strokes, and this is the only one consistent with this new gun and holster combo, as well.

Stick with what you know works, I guess!

Hiding the Heat

My brother gave me a SWEEEETTT deal on an LC9. I told him that I'd be happy to make him a holster, to kind of thank him for the good deal.

He sent me home with his Legacy M&P (it was our dad's duty gun), and asked for a concealment holster. I made him one, and I think it will work fine. It has a decent forward cant, to help hide the grip, and rides tight to the side. It rides in a medium-to-high position, making the barrel also pretty concealable.

It should work just fine!

Pocket Rocket

So, I've pretty much decided to make the LC9 a dedicated off-side pocket carry gun. It has a safety that can only be activated with a righ-hand firing grip. Being left handed, this works fine for a backup, especially when I'm working the streets.

I made a pocket holster for it today. It's rough side out, and once it is dry, I'm going to coat it with a leather glue made from latex. The rough-out leather should give the glue plenty of pores to work into, and because it's latex, it should still be plenty grippy after the glue dries. The grippiness should help the holster stay in my pocket if I draw the gun.

I like the way project Pocket Rocket is shaping up.

La Danse Des Mardi Gras

Eunice, La

New Ruger

Well, new to me, anyway. My brother tried a new striker-fired LC-9, and fell in love. He was saying he wanted one, but needed to sell his current one first.

I mentioned that Ruger has a trade-in program where you can trade a hammer fired LC-9 for a striker-fired LC-9.

He looked in to it, and said they only give you $150 toward the purchase, and he couldn't stomach giving a gun back to Ruger for $150.

I told him I'd give him $200 for it, joking with him. He told me he'd let me have it for $150, and be happy someone got a deal on it.

So I called my wife and crossed my fingers... she said it was cool!

So now I got a LC-9 for an unbeatable deal!

Thanks Bro!

Bridge

I don't have to walk through the mud anymore to get to my door!

In case you are wondering, it's 22 feet long.

Cops today

It's not often I talk about my profession. Even today, I'm discussing societal roles more than specifics of my job.

See, I saw a blog post from McThag talking about cops, and why he generally dislikes them. Go. Read.

http://mcthag.blogspot.com/2016/02/facebook-drove-me-insane.html?m=1

I don't blame him, for feeling the way he does. Hell, my best friend regularly posts things about cops and abuse of power on facebook, and will get into arguments about how all cops are crooked.

Which is funny because he's a great friend, who plays D&D with me. And my dad (also a cop) has had him at our dinner table regularly. I guess if you're a victim of profiling, though, it breeds distrust... which is what McThag says, basically. All the experiences he has with cops have been negative, so he associates cops with negativity. I understand why,  and it makes me happy that he somewhat admits that he understands this is prejudiced.

(As an aside, please understand that this is my interpretation of what he wrote, and in no way am I trying to put words in his mouth)

Anyway, I find it amusing that all my friends either love cops, or hate cops. No one I personally know is ambivalent to them.

Personally, I don't think cops deserve being hailed as heroes just because of the job we do. I don't think we deserve discounts at restaurants, and I don't think we are above the law in any way. In fact, I feel we have to be held to a higher standard than the communities we police.

One of my best friend's favorite sayings is "who polices the police?" The police do, of course. And he points to a local cop who shot a kid, because he was trying to harass the kids father(who was sleeping with the cop's ex)and the kid got in the way. I have to shake my head.

The cop is in jail, because other cops arrested his sorry ass. He was arrested by cops who knew him, because putting him in jail was the right thing to do.

Does the Thin Blue Line exist? Absolutely. For a week after that kid died, I kept telling everyone who asked me about it to wait. I wasn't ready to see the cop rot, because I didn't have all the facts. I have seen too many times good cops get their reputations smeared because they made a split second decision, and someone ended up hurt. Truth is, waaaayyy more often than not, a cop involved in a shooting or use for force encounter is doing the legal, ethical, and safe thing. But someone ends up shot, and the that cop is the bad guy.

Nevermind that the cop was getting his head pounded on by the suspect.

Nevermind that the suspect was known to the cop, and the cop knew he had a history of violence.

No, the cop shot some "unarmed" guy, and so is obviously out abusing his power as a law enforcement officer.

But sometimes a cop does a horrible thing. Like kill a kid, and tries to use his badge as a shield from justice.

I hope every one of those guys ends up in a federal-butt-rape prison for life. They have tarnished what it means to serve and protect.

I digress. Hell, I'm gonna do it again.

So there was this one time, I had a guy that I knew was selling weed. He was in his early 30's, and had been a street level dealer since he was 14.

He got picked up by local police for a distribution of cocaine charge, and bonded out before I could get him hemmed up.

And the next day, he showed up at my office, knowing I had a warrant for him. After he was in cuffs, I asked him why he came in, knowing I had a warrant.

He said "because I know you're fair. Read the arrest report"  I figured I didn't have anything to lose, so I sat him in an empty room, and called local. They faxed me over a copy of the report, and it was the damnedest thing I ever read. He was arrested for " distribution of cocaine", but cocaine was never mentioned in the report. All that was listed in evidence was a Marijuana roach.

So I let him go, and recalled my warrant. I knew that he was no angel, and was actively peddling Marijuana, but that isn't was the warrant was for. The warrant was for Cocaine. And based on the arrest, I couldn't prove that.

So he walked free.

I say that to get you thinking. We cops have to police our own, right?

And we are also tasked not to violate someone's rights on suspicion, right?

We should only make arrests based on provable facts with hard evidence, right?

I live by that. Most of the cops I know do too.

There are some that I suspect have a more lax interpretation of the law.

And if I ever see them commit a crime, you can be damned sure I'll arrest them.

I owe my community no less.

Cops are people,  just like you. They work and go home, and love their family, and fight with their spouse of who washes the dishes.

But contrary to popular belief, most of them are in the job for the right reasons, and just want to make their community a better place.

And sometimes, they're assholes.

But not all of us are.

Not even most of us are.

We're here to help. Call us if you need something.