Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Whom the gods would destroy, they must first make ironic.

So, Patrick Sweeney apparently did a little video piece for Guns & Ammo TV intended to rebut those who dis ¡BLACKHAWK‼'s Serpa holster as potentially dangerous. Among the claims were that people were just not internalizing the proper practice of keeping the trigger finger indexed straight along the frame.

Someone, however, thought to do a slow-mo excerpt from the video...



Ouch.

Now, before anybody pipes up that he muzzled his hand, I don't think he did; that's an artifact of the angle and the lens focal length. He did, however, provide a splendid illustration of why we keep our off-side paw centered high on our sternum on the draw, though.

Let me quote from Karl Rehn's excellent breakdown of this video:
From 0:07 to 0:22 you’ll see the entire holster lift as he pulls up on the gun, because he’s using 2″ belt loops with a 1.5″ wide belt.  You can see the whole holster move up, the belt ride up in the belt loops, and even see the pants rise a little.  The belt is too loose, and the belt attachment on the holster needs spacers to close up the slots, or a different belt attachment entirely.  “One size fits all” means “fits none properly”.   You don’t want your holster to move at all when you draw.  That’s bad.
Karl's a smart dude. Y'all should listen to him.

...and here's the thing. I've met Pat Sweeney. Had a couple beers with him and Farmer Frank and Bryce Towsley after the first CTC Midnight 3 Gun match, as a matter of fact. He's a pretty squared-away dude and I wouldn't mind sharing a range with him any time. Now, if this happens to somebody who literally handles guns for a living, how much worse is it for Jasper T. Cletus who doesn't dry-practice, only gets to the indoor range once a month, and even then isn't allowed to run the gun from the holster?

Of course, the baying of the hounds has started on Facebook...

"The military issues the Serpa!"

If you have to make do with crap gear because your employer made you, I guess you just have to make do. But why drop your own coin on it? And dropping coin is what it really comes down to, I think. 

The lengths people will go to in defending a dumb $29 holster purchase decision is a great indicator of how much ego people tie up in their gear. It's no wonder that they'll go that much further to defend the $450 they dropped on, say, an idiotic pistol purchase decision... 
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