Kydex Holsters

Been thinking recently about holsters. I recently bought a railed Marui SIG 226 and an Army Detonics .45 Combat Master. The SIG is pretty easy to accomodate holster-wise until you get the M3 torch on it, then it becomes a pain in the arse. Unless you want to spend top dollar on a holster, which I don't really as I rarely use a handgun on the airsoft field. You also have to consider the difference in the width of the Marui SIG's slide compared to the real thing, especially when buying Kydex holsters, there is always the chance that they just won't fit.

The Detonics is similarly difficult to holster because of the placement of the nearsight. Lots of US manufacturers make holsters to suit the Detonics fans but again, you have to spend a lot of money to get a good one.

The alternative is to make your own holster. Kydex looks like a pretty easy material to work with and is relatively cheap. For a holster that costs around the $80-100 mark, which, by the time you've factored in shipping to the US and the inevitable customs charges, you are going to be paying around the same in £Sterling, which is too much cash for something that will be rarely used other than to just hold a sidearm that never gets pulled on the airsoft field.

In my search for the wisdom of the Kydex holster masters, I've found some pretty good info on the net. I started out looking at the high end Kydex holsters and found Raven Concealement. Raven's gear is used by Chris Costa and features quite heavily in the Magpul training videos. Their stuff looks top notch with a wide variety of choice of styles and supported weapons platforms. this site is my benchmark for determining whether it is actually worth investing in time, tools and materials to try and make the holster. Let's see how that works out. Sometimes the cost is not so important as the challenge and the learning of new skills (this is still the justification for the amount of time and money I've poured into my L119A1 when I could have just sent it to Fire Support and got them to do it).

As far as obtaining the materials, I found a couple of sites in the US. KnifeKits.com, as the name suggests, supplies kits, materials and tools for making knives and sheaths and the like, inlcuding Kydex sheets. ParacordSecrets.com don't actually supply kydex sheets, but have a bunch of kits for sale (knives and magazine carriers rather than holsters) and a load of interesting articles and bits of hardware for sale.

By and large, so far, the most informative article I've come across is this one on the 1911 Forum giving a step by step set of instructions on making a really professional looking kydex holster. Now the guy who wrote this tutorial has a fully equipped workshop with some awesome power tools, but nothing that could not be achieved with a normal drill and toolbox and a bit of care and attention.

Now I need to get some kydex sheets. Watch this space...