A holster designed to mess with Liberal heads...

[JimMarch1]

I had to build a new holster anyways since I radically re-did my "Hacksite" - I finally found the perfect size steel tube and figured out a cosmetic improvement to the front base:

This new holster is locked into crossdraw once I realized I liked that better - and it's now fully lined with thin, soft yet tough leather. Making it was a bear, a bit of a "ship in a bottle" proposition trying to juggle all three layers of leather. None of the lacing connecting the top and middle layers go through the lining layer - the lining is only connected to everything else at the top, muzzle and the edge near the triggerguard. The liner layer is folded outwards at the upper edge, forming a "funnel" that the gun drops into. The top-most layer continues as a 1.5" or so wide strip across the back, stiffening the mouth of the holster.

The YinYang thing is actually a brooch - there's a beaded silver edge that's buried under the top layer of leather. The mounts on the back have been ripped off . The whole thing feels and looks "flat" across the top, and it's absolutely solid in there. When worn the oval is horizontally level as that's the angle it's set to in crossdraw.

Like my other three holsters of this general type, the cross-strap at the top goes through a double-ring buckle and tightens the holster down onto the belt. That level of "snug fit" is what allows such an extreme high-rise, which in turn lets it conceal under a light (and open) jacket.

Best holster I've made so far. By far .

 

[357phase]

Very nice holster.Seems to not go to far below the belt line.4 5/8" barrel?That would be good for strong side to and probably bring a good price if you were to sell it or one like it.I like

 

[Skalkaho Slim]

Jim, I always like seeing what new thing you've got goin'. That new tube looks nice. I'd like to see some detail as to what you've done with the front mount.

Holster looks slick! 8)

 

[JimMarch1]

Yeah, that's a 4.68" NewVaq357.

The first variant like it was set up switchable between crossdraw and strongside forward-tilt. Like so:

With that one, the two diamond conchos were actually functional: they were the two alternate mount points for something I called a "tilt strap" that could be switched between the two conchos. Use the higher concho, it's crossdraw, use the lower and it's strongside.

What I found was, once you go this high-ride, strong-side gets annoying. You can make it work by wearing it behind the hip, back over the strong-side kidney, but then you have something NOT at all safe to open-carry, way too easy to grab.

With crossdraw, defense against a grab is dead easy. In fact, you can just rest your weak side forearm across the butt and it's not threatening at all yet it completely defeats grab attempts. If somebody is dumb enough to try, my 4" pocketknife carried strongside back pocket can be brought to bear while my offside hand/arm continues to block the grab (and of course, I'm in MOTION!!!).

Here's what they look like set up crossdraw:

As you can see, the whole cylinder is above the beltline. I know of very few holsters able to achieve this kind of high-ride effect.

In this new "YinYang" version of the same basic holster, the "tilt strap" has evolved to where it's no longer able to tilt and is made of the same piece of leather as the extra layer at the mouth. Before building the "YinYang special" I did a setup for a friend's Ruger P85-Mk2 where you can see the evolution more clearly:

And you can see how high this gets:

In the YinYang, this remnant of the "tilt strap" has gotten fatter to accommodate the Yin-Yang (former) brooch.